[j_walter]

If parents value education they don't need to pay for tutors or summer school. I grew up in district with shitty schools, but I saw some kids succeed only because they learned stuff on their own.

Those schools aren't necessarily shittier...they are filled with kids that don't want to learn (and their parents increasingly blame the teachers for their failure).

[pope_meat]

So, it's just a statistical reality that kids in poor areas don't want to learn, and that's why the results show poorer people doing worse in education that rich people?

Interesting hill to die on, but you do you.

[fatbird]

Any teacher in a school considered "inner city" (i.e., poor, relatively high crime) will tell you that there is often an anti-achievement culture present (and it's not correlated with race or ethnic background). My wife teaches in such a school. Many kids consciously try to avoid appearing smart or like they don't hold school in contempt because if they don't, their peers or their parents will shame them or abuse them. It's considered a very serious problem in the field of education.

At the same school, several of her students have received large scholarships, including full four year rides to university. This is rare, of course, but does correlate very clearly with parents being involved in their children's education, encouraging them, and not having an anti-achievement peer group.

[pc86]

It's a statistical reality that if your parents don't value education, and don't impress upon their children its importance, that those children are incredibly unlikely to decide completely on their own that education is the way out of their impoverished lives.

But that's a little too nuanced for your straw man.

[j_walter]

Yes it is. Kids in poor areas don't see education as they way out of being poor...how could they. They see drugs and gangs as a way to do that though. I went to a shitty school and did well and went to college (thanks to my parents pushing me to do so)...so many people couldn't fathom why I was doing that and why I wasn't going to just go get a job right away. Many of those people are still living in that same area and are just as poor as their parents were.

[pope_meat]

I was going to debate you further, but then I realized I don't care about poor people either, just want to appear like I do.

[orestarod]

You don't need to "feel" something towards poor people to advocate in favour of them. It is practically impossible to really feel anything for people who are not in your very inner personal circle. But trying to help society progress and reduce inequalities is a net benefit for everyone.

[imtringued]

I don't care about poor people either. All I care about is a system that sets everyone up for success. I know it's possible and I know it would help poor people, but we aren't there yet.

[imtringued]

I would have phrased it like this:

Middle class kids (and above) get good education handed to them on a silver platter while poor kids will have to fight tooth and nail to scrape their own education together.

It's not impossible but if you were that determined you could learn even better in a good school so the relative downside for poverty still persists. What you are setting yourself up for is not becoming poor. That's good but it is clearly not fair.