Step One: Call It Out

Education has been labeled the “civil rights issue of our time.” Dropout factories––high schools where no more than 60% of the students that start as freshmen make it to their senior year––has become a common-day term. These low-performing public schools tend to be in the poorest zip codes across our country. The negative impacts of poverty on the health and education of students is well documented, mostly affecting kids of color who tend to live in lower-income communities.

As President Obama enters his second-term, over 46 million Americans are living in poverty. With a campaign dedicated to rejuvenating the economy and his administration’s recent focus on the “fiscal cliff”, some are worried that the president is overlooking poverty. Here is what experts are saying about the issue of poverty in 2013:

For several months, we have been bracing for an attack on immigrant families who earn the Child Tax Credit. Over the past few days, Republican lawmakers have made clear that no matter is too urgent or too serious for them to resist going back to the anti-immigrant playbook to score political points.

There are many ways of looking at the global water crisis: conflict over waterways that cross state or international boundaries, drought or flood creating extremes, conservation and biodiversity, even the choice of whether to use water to grow crops or wash cars. But by far the most common manifestation of the water crisis is the one that affects nearly a billion people worldwide: the total absence of water that is safe to drink.

Let me say up front, I am no expert on poverty. By that I mean that I am not a statistician or a sociologist, nor do I belong to any related group considered fluent in the language of poverty. I am, however, a business owner in Harlem, which led me to my Gandhi moment of discovery and enlightenment.

Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond of Stanford University speaks about improving teachers and reforming U.S. public schools at the Fairness in Education Conference in Washington, D.C.

Dr. John Jackson, President and CEO of the Schott Foundation for Public Education, speaks about U.S. education policy and the education achievement gap facing American students and teachers today at the Fairness in Education Conference in Washington, D.C.

Congressman Chaka Fattah discusses the role of the federal government and Congressional leaders in promoting education reform, teachers and closing the achievement gap in the United States at the Fairness in Education Conference in Washington, D.C.

Kati Haycook, President of the Education Trust, discusses how strengthening the teaching profession can improve student learning and U.S. public schools at the Forum for Education.

Renee Moore, 2001 Mississippi Teacher of the Year, discusses the issues facing high-need U.S. public schools, supporting effective teachers, and other education policy reforms.