You Feed Them

By Dr. Vernard Gant, Director of ACSI Urban Services

“The outcome of this case...may well determine the educational destiny of millions of American children.” This is a statement made by U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige in reference to the Zelman v. Simmons-Harris school voucher case, which was argued before the Supreme Court on February 20. This case will decide the constitutionality of government-funded aid to families for religiousbased education of their children. And who are these millions of children Secretary Paige refers to in his press release? They are children throughout the United States represented by the 4,000 Cleveland children who are the subject of the Supreme Court case. They are, for the most part, economically disadvantaged and academically at-risk urban minority children.

They are children from low-income families.  According to the latest statistics from the National Center for Children in Poverty:

• 37 percent of American children (27 million) live in low-income families.
• 40 percent of U.S. children under age six (9 million) live in families with incomes below 200 percent of the poverty line.
• 16 percent of children (over 11 million) live in poverty.
• 17 percent of children under age six (4 million) live in poverty.
• 6 percent of America’s children (5 million) live in extreme poverty (under age six—8 percent, or 2 million children).
• The United States’ child poverty rate is substantially higher—often two to three times higher than that of most other major industrialized Western nations.

They are also minority children of whom nearly one out of three lives in poverty:

• 30 percent of African-American children live in poverty (33 percent for African-American children under age six).
• 28 percent of Latino children live in poverty (29 percent for Latino children under age six).

They are children who live in America’s urban centers. 53 percent of African Americans and 46 percent of Latinos live in a central city within a metropolitan area as compared to 21 percent of Whites.

They are children who are at risk. Children living inside urban centers have a greater probability of experiencing a family risk factor as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau. In concert with the Census Bureau, the Annie E. Casey Foundation has identified six social and economic factors that put children at risk. A child possessing four or more of these family risk factors is considered a “high-risk child.” Of the family risk factors:

They are children who are academically at risk. According to the 2000 National Assessment for Educational Progress:

• 63 percent of African-American children in the 4th grade read below the basic level.
• 58 percent of Latino children in the 4th grade read below the basic level.
• 47 percent of all 4th-grade children living in the central city of a metropolitan area read below the basic level.

To better understand the plight of the children the secretary of education was referencing—the children outlined above—it is important to understand the nature and extent of poverty and what it means to be impoverished. While the term usually refers to financial status and income level, finances represent only one type of resource needed for productivity. A broader definition of poverty is “the extent to which an individual has a deficiency of the capital needed to be productive.” In this definition, capital refers to the “assets available for use in the production of other assets.” Consequently, the more capital one has, the more capital one is able to produce. Many urban children grow up to be unproductive citizens because they never amass the capital necessary for productivity. The ability to amass capital is largely determined by societal factors that work either for or against an individual. In many central-city urban communities, children start out with a deficiency of these growth-determining factors. They start out behind and often remain behind their more capital-rich peers.

Just as the Census Bureau has identified six family factors that put children at risk, there are also six types of capital that determine the presence of, nature of, and ability to escape poverty:

1. Financial Capital: Those material goods developed by acquisition that can be used productively.
2. Cultural Capital: Knowledge of the beliefs, customs, practices, and rules of a social group that can be used productively.
3. Intellectual Capital: Those mental capacities developed by education (whether formal or informal) that can be used productively.
4. Social Capital: Those relationships and contact developed naturally and acquired that can be used productively.
5. Emotional Capital: Those feelings of sufficiency and determination that can be used productively.
6. Spiritual Capital: Those belief structures that provide the bases for purpose, morals, values, discipline, and self-worth that can be used productively.

The formula is very simple. The more capital available to the child, the more assets the child has for productivity. Urban children, as portrayed above, possess very few of the capital assets for being productive. Furthermore, a quality education that has historically represented the way out of poverty has all but eluded them. An education that should offer the hope of attainment has become instead an instrument of containment. They are locked in “at the bottom” with little to no hope of acquiring the assets necessary to become productive, resourceful individuals. It is their destiny that Secretary Paige referred to in his statement.

For the most part, these are the children Education Week reported on a few years ago in a special report entitled “The Urban Challenge.” According to this report:

• There are 575 urban school districts in this nation. (An urban district is defined as “one in which 75 percent or more of the households served are in the central city of a metropolitan area.”)
• Over 11 million children attend schools in urban school districts.
• Some 43 percent of minority children attend urban schools. (Most of the urban schools are predominantly, and often completely, minority.)
• In most of the urban schools, more than half the students are poor, qualifying for free or reduced lunches.
• Two-thirds or more of urban school children fail to reach even the “basic” level on national tests. (“Urban students perform far worse, on average, than children who live outside central cities on virtually every measure of academic performance. The longer they stay in school, the wider that gap grows.”)

When I consider these numbers and the children they represent, particularly in light of Secretary Paige’s comment, I am overwhelmed. I compare this to the daunting problem Christ’s disciples faced when they considered the physical plight of the more than 5,000 people before them who were hungry and without food. The disciples’ response was to urge Jesus to send the people into the surrounding villages and towns to find food. They realized that they did not have the capacity to address the needs of so many. The people needed help, but they needed to go somewhere else to find it. The Lord, however, had a different solution. What was His response to the disciples? “You give them something to eat.” In other words, don’t send them somewhere else to be fed. You feed them.

What the fish and bread meant for the thousands of hungry people standing before Christ and His disciples, a Christ-centered education means for the millions of American children who are educationally starving. A natural response is to sympathetically look around for someone else to do something about it. Perhaps we could even become experts on the problem. We could blame their parents for not valuing education enough. Or we could blame the public school system for not caring enough or doing enough. Maybe we could go so far as to say that urban children are plagued with socio-environmental circumstances that render them less educable than other children. Ultimately, it’s someone else’s fault and someone else’s responsibility.

If we listen carefully, however, I believe we will hear the voice of our Great Teacher saying, “Don’t send them somewhere else to be educated. You educate them.” There is no education such as one that centers on the person of Jesus Christ. Just as He did with the ordinary fish and bread, Jesus can take an education based on the ordinary facts of God’s world, infuse it with the extraordinary truth of God’s Word, and miraculously transform the lives of children we teach.

Resources

Annie E. Casey Foundation. April 25, 2000. The right start: Conditions of babies and their families in America’s largest cities—a Kids Count special report. From Casey Foundation analysis of Census Bureau’s March 1998 current population survey: Inside central cities, outside central cities. Retrieved April 10, 2002.

Education Week on the Web. 1998. Quality Counts ’98: The urban challenge. Retrieved April 10, 2002.

Song, Younghwan, and Hsien-Hen Lu. March 4, 2002. Low-income children in the United States: A brief demographic profile, a Child Poverty Fact Sheet from the National Center for Children in Poverty. Retrieved April 10, 2002.

U.S. Census Bureau. 2000. Current Population Survey, Racial Statistics Branch, Population Division. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, March.

U.S. Department of Education. February 20, 2002. Paige issues statement on today’s Supreme Court case. Retrieved April 10, 2002. Press Release.

U.S. Department of Education. April 4, 2002. National Assessment for Educational Progress: The nation’s report card, from the National Center for Education Statistics. Retrieved April 15, 2002.

The Meantime Volume 1 Number 3