Eclectic Technology

Today the U.S. is polarized, yet this post by John Merrow states "I have found something that unites Republicans and Democrats: neither party talks about poverty, despite our current epidemic of child poverty and its consequences for the life chances of millions of children."

Merrow continues to discuss poverty, and what he describes as its "evil twin, greed" stating that "we cannot solve on in isolation."

He provides a number of statistics from the National Center for Children in Poverty, including:

* 31% of white children - 12.1 million - live in low-income families.

* 64% of black children - 6.5 million - live in low-income families.

* 31% of Asian children - 1.0 million - live in low-income families.

* 63% of Hispanic children - 10.7 million - live in low-income families.

When you add in American Indian and children of other races, 30 million children live in poverty.

For more information on this and to learn more about "deep poverty" and "normal poverty" as well as a look at salary differentials between the typical CEO and the typical worker click through to the article. Merrow suggest that "if we backed away from greed, we would be more open to recognize the scourge of poverty and the long term threat it poses to our nation."

The widening achievement gap between affluent and low-income students has received less attention than the divide between white and black students, which has narrowed significantly.

"Polarization has come to public education, big time. If it persists, at the end of the day we all are going to lose."

John Merrow looks at how polarized education has become in this post. He provides statistics such as (all quoted):

* Half of our kids get no early education;

* 22% of our children live in poverty, and;

* 25% have chronic health conditions like asthma or obesity.

He follows this discussion with seven ways that "we have become polarized about education." A few of the ways include:

* We are polarized about accountability.

* We are polarized about the role of technology.

He then asks that we think about four words (which you will find in his article) and asks that we look at the need to move beyond polarization. This article has made me look more deeply at many issues confronting education.