Education and Class

Mantsios's article about class in America in terms of race and gender was very insightful. One of the first things that came to mind was the film Precious, based off the novel "Push" by Sapphire. The book deals with Precious's life and her struggle for freedom and education. The book emphasizes heavily on her struggle to get her GED while still dealing with all her other trouble. I was reminded of this film when I saw the chart on page 192 (old version) of the "Average Combined Scores by Income (400 to 1600 scale) for the SATs.

This was something I never really thought about. I never noticed a correlation between income and SAT scores, because I had never realized that many Americans cannot afford to pay for a tutor or preparation class, or the practice books sold at many bookstores. And since American colleges place such a heavy emphasis now on SAT scores, a poor high school student may have little or no chance of ever getting to college. The SATs thrive on giving "everyone a fair chance", but is it really fair? Sure everyone takes the same test and has potential to do really well, but without access prep classes or even books, is it really fair?

Another part that stuck out to me were the statistics of "Chances of Being Poor in America" on page 194. This was evident in Push, as Precious lives with her single mother, and they are very poor and live off welfare. According to Mantsios, the chances of a Single black female being poor is 1 in 3, which is a pretty hefty number. And like Mantisos mentioned above, being poor puts you at a disadvantage for education.

--Cameron