Social factors have always been a determinant element in the effectiveness of K-12 education. Various researches done on the effectiveness of K-12 education in public schools indicate that social factors such as poverty, crime, dugs and teenage pregnancies are a major influence on the effectiveness of education. In this respect, poverty can be claimed to be the leading factor that negatively impacts K-12 education.
Lacking financial ability to pay for a quality education or any other facilities affiliated with K-12 education has been limiting learners to achieve their academic goals. On the same note, education institutions lack basic necessities required to provide for adequate education due to poverty. There are numerous examples, where schools have been unable to access or procure the required teaching amenities like books, qualified teachers, desks, chairs and classrooms.
As indicated earlier, poverty has a very negative impact on learners as well as the society. In fact, education is a basic need that has a cause- effect relationship on other key issues in individuals or society’s growth and development. For example, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs requires that individuals must first attain psychological needs.
Education offers psychological needs for the purpose of human survival. The lack of good educations results to poverty. Consequently, this poverty results to growth of individuals who don’t have knowledge or skills to survive in a progressive community. Basically, poverty leads to lack of safety in the education system. For example, education institutions are unable to procure essential teaching amenities.
Poor learners who do not access education are vulnerable to lack of safety as far as the hierarchy of needs is concerned. An example of such is when a poor society is not able to access health, employment opportunities and resources. In many of the communities, the uneducated are always the most vulnerable individuals. Such individuals indulge in crime and lack a sense of belonging and self-esteem. It is evident that education offers people with self-actualization.
When the society does not educate its people, there is always a danger that such a society lacks individuals who can offer life-solving decisions. It is important to remember that education is critical to providing and teaching morality in a society. If such education lacks due to poverty, a society is also susceptible to prejudice and immorality.
The solution to poverty in the K-12 education can be found in the protection and accountability of the No Child Left behind Act that was established in the year 2001. This act acclaims that all children have the same right to undergo education as any other child. In this context, the federal government has no alternative but to supplement education in public schools.
In this accord, low-income families will educate their children without worries. In fact, the federal governments should harness the use of education funds, by ensuring that schools effectively allocate funds to supplement provision of education services to all learners. A good remedy for poverty and its impact on education is the use of the socio-economic school integration system.
The K-12 education requires learners from all races to be integrated in the same class. In this context, there requires an integration system that is consistent with economic integration within the community. This requires the society to be democratically driven in terms of education or school selection policies.
In this respect, learners from diverse racial and economic backgrounds will become better citizens in the community. Therefore, the integration offers learners with an exposure on socio-economic diversity among the learners themselves. Supplementing of education by the federal government is critical in ensuring that there is equity of resources among the population.
This is critical, since communities are able to sustain themselves, since educated individuals are obligated to provide the society with skills and experience required to develop the community. In the long-run, individuals will become morally upright individuals in a morally upholding society.
The federal government can ensure that there exists a district education agency that monitors school funds in specific regions. In this respect, school institutions are supposed to ensure that learners from low-income families are given priority in bursary funds. For example, bursary kitty for poor learners should be established in every public school. Moreover, schools can be instrumental in creating programs that integrate students from diverse socio-economic backgrounds. Such programs should be part of the curriculum.
In conclusion, the above proposal offers the K-12 education with the following long-term benefits. First, K-learners will access education regardless of their socio-economic status. Secondly, the government will invest in a generation that will benefit the community in terms of skills and knowledge provision in the future.
The community will also benefit from morally upright individuals. Thereby, the society will get rid of social ills such as crime, drugs and early teenage pregnancies. The proposal is a road map to ensure that education for all policy is achieved in the long-run. The cause- effect relationship of such a proposal ensures that the quality of education as well as education objectivity is aligned to individuals and communities needs.