We, as children, were raised on the belief that this was the land of opportunity and that if you just work hard and be honest and say your prayers, you could be anyone you wanted (I want to be Winston Churchill--anyone see that happening?) and more important we could all be successful.
Successful. That is pretty vague.
A bank robber is successful if he gets away with the loot and doesn't get caught.
A pretty girl is successful if she becomes a supermodel.....or if she falls in love with a prince....or becomes singer in a great band, or the president of a bank, or.....
But.
Hardwork, alone, does not guarantee talent.
Hardwork, alone, does not guarantee opportunity.
Hardwork, alone, does not guarantee recognition of abilities or desires or talent.
We have improved a bit since 1860
We have improved a bit since 1920.
We have improved a bit since 1968.
We now let all our women and brown people go to public school. We have not embraced education aimed at helping all individuals become their own best selves for we are still convinced that feeding the businesses and industries worker-bees is for the good of all. We are searching for future professional althletes (big money) but do not work to identify those with great imagination or natural ability to make people laugh or even those mechanical geniuses that can make anything, but can't do math--thus no engineer here.
But there are still people that are not successful---that have worked hard, that have always worked hard, and that continue to work hard.
Struggling to survive is hard work.
Successful people are not struggling to survive.
That is our myth in this country.
Struggling people are in this country. People that have, for whatever reason, and their are many reasons and those reasons were often placed on them by the time they were born, but could have happened later, when they were orphaned at 8 by a home invasion, when they were hit by a bus while walking to school, when they were molested by an "uncle" at 10, or slammed with a chronic illness or victimized for homeliness at 12 or, and this one is pretty common, about 20% of the population knows this one personally, born into poverty which didn't cause stigma until they had to go to school with or work with people that weren't living in poverty but that probably impacted their developing brain and body in negative ways.
Poverty is a crippler. It is a stealer of opportunity. To get out you have to be a superhero. An amazing athlete every college wants to admit, a musical savant sought by prestigious universities and record companies, an artistic genius so outstanding that everyone wants to get you in their gallery. Or, you can be a Scholar and find yourself welcomed in and paid to go Ivy league all the way.
Public schools don't actually have athletics departments before high school, so the training to get to high school with amazing ability requires a parent with the time and money for sports participation. Or a great and free neighborhood place that encourages sports and homework. We have places that do that around my small town, but none of them are free.
Music classes before Middle school are also rare. Their musical education is usually singing songs for a couple of programs a year--the teachers favorite student will get the solos, and doesn't listen to the individual students voices to see if others can sing. The instruments are things like plastic recorders, maracas, triangles and tambourines. At Middle School level, those students that want to be in a band can do so if they can rent or buy an instrument. Vocal may not be available until high school and since they usually end up singing songs that my grandmother would love, it is not very highly sought except by that truly love to sing. That doesn't mean the instructor does any formal voice training.
Art is mostly going away. Instructors for that in my fair state are frequently not certified in art, people with some drawing ability but no imagination that are prone to telling their students they don't want them drawing cartoons or manga or tattoos, grade them by whether their drawing or painting or pot looks like the one the teacher (or video) demonstrated, and heavy on the art history. Their is little recognition of those with talent in this class, corporations are not hiring a lot of artists, there is clipart and computer programs that give them what they want cheaply and easily.
There might be drama (classes), their might not. Amazingly, entertainment is a big industry.
Scholars, well: the first step is getting to take the college entrance exam.
The fee for the ACT is hard to find, but if you keep searching the site, you might find that you qualify for a free test or your state might provide assistance. I hunted for the cost and how to get assistance with costs on the website for over an hour and never found answers.
The SAT cost was easier to find, and had links to the fee waivers. You can take it with and without the Essay.
When I was young, private universities required the SAT, and public required the ACT.
I don't know if that is still true. The SAT was more reasonable than I expected.
https://www.fastweb.com/financial-aid/articles/top-ten-myths-about-scholarships
Straight A students do not go to college free. The IQ 160 kid in public school that lives in poverty is as likely to go to jail as college. We don't do IQ tests in public school. We do achievement tests. And Gifted education is seen as elitist, so all we have are AP classes--for those hardworking A students, but nothing for those that have been bored with their public education since they were 7.
There are many bright and hardworking students living in poverty that may never figure out a way to go to college. They will hunt a minimum wage job, help the family at home, meet someone, have some kids, maybe self-medicate themselves with street drugs or alcohol due to the hopelessness of their life, and the cycle will continue.
Poverty is not the American dream.
https://www.census.gov/topics/income-poverty/poverty.html
We are down to 12.3% of the population living under the poverty line. Child poverty rates went up 5% in 2015-2016. There are more children in poverty than families.
Poverty Thresholds for 2017 by Size of Family and Number of Related Children Under 18 Years
One person (unrelated individual): 12,488
Under age 65.......................……… 12,752 12,752
Aged 65 and older.................……… 11,756 11,756
Two people: 15,877
Householder under age 65…........... 16,493 16,414 16,895
Householder aged 65 and older...…. 14,828 14,816 16,831
Three people.......................……………………… 19,515 19,173 19,730 19,749
Four people........................………………………. 25,094 25,283 25,696 24,858 24,944
Five people........................……………………… 29,714 30,490 30,933 29,986 29,253 28,805
Six people.........................……………………….. 33,618 35,069 35,208 34,482 33,787 32,753 32,140
Seven people.......................…………………….. 38,173 40,351 40,603 39,734 39,129 38,001 36,685 35,242
Eight people.......................……………………… 42,684 45,129 45,528 44,708 43,990 42,971 41,678 40,332 39,990
Nine people or more................…………………… 50,681 54,287 54,550 53,825 53,216 52,216 50,840 49,595 49,287 47,389
Source: U.S. Census Bureau.
(excel doesn't copy well here, but its readable.)
People do not make more money because they have more people they are responsible for. So a great job for a single 18 year old that lives at home is a terrible job for a 40 man with 3 kids and a stay-at-home wife.
Minimum wage for one job is 15,080 if they are full time. Two people at minimum is 30,060 so they would survive with up to 2 kids, but a single person with 2 kids or a spouse working 1 full-time and one part-time minimum wage job with a stay-at home taking care of the 2 kids would not be able to rise above poverty level.
The belief that everyone living in poverty deserves to be in poverty has no basis in reality. It is just us wanting to feel superior to someone, denial, excuse-making, being judge-y.
Would I like to think that my having bought my own home (a milestone for sure) makes me a harder worker than someone whose credit is still in the crapper and will never be able to buy a home, (reality is, I've worked with people that worked as hard or harder than I do that have too much student loan debt to every buy a home)
Would I like to think that somehow my parents were better than the people who raised their kids in the projects?
Sure, but reality is, they would never have ended up in the projects, bankruptcy wouldn't put them there, unemployment wouldn't put them there, even jailtime wouldn't have put them there, because we had family with enough money to keep us afloat no matter what. If we had been 10th generation in poverty, all of those things would have bottomed us out.
Sure, but reality is, they would never have ended up in the projects, bankruptcy wouldn't put them there, unemployment wouldn't put them there, even jailtime wouldn't have put them there, because we had family with enough money to keep us afloat no matter what. If we had been 10th generation in poverty, all of those things would have bottomed us out.
- Almost 40% of American kids spend at least 1 year in poverty before they turn 18. — and by the numbers, my childhood had more than 1 of those years, but my parents lived through the depression and knew a thing or two about surviving want.
- Poor kids are more likely to experience hunger. And food insecurity has a lifelong effect: lower reading and math scores, more physical and mental health problems, more emotional and behavioral problems and a greater chance of obesity. — Feeding America
Students from 16 to 24 years old from low income families are 7x more likely to drop out than more well-off peers.— U.S. Department of Education
- 24 states and the District of Columbia have poverty rates higher than the national average. The majority of the nation’s poor live in the South. — Center for American Progress
- 86% of kids whose parents have less than a high school diploma live in low-income families. 67% of kids whose parents have a high school degree but no college education live in poverty. Less than a third of kids in poverty have at least one parent with some college or additional education. — National Center for Children in Poverty
In 2015, with 14.3 percent living in poverty, that was 43.1 million individuals. The recent tax cut increased the tax percent on those living under the poverty level from 10% to 12%. The federal deficit went up trillions due to the cuts being made for those that already make enough to buy there own country.
Forty-three million individuals under poverty level. That tax cut for 2017, would have taken in enough money to pay every individual living in poverty $34,000(man, woman, child, not just per family). We have always had the ability to pull everyone out of poverty.
It's just not really a part of the American Dream.
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