Ignoring Social Problems
Simplistic View of Ending Poverty
By Daniel Muniz

One issue that many poverty warriors like to fight about is obtaining more funding for higher education. They insist that it makes economic sense that poor people, especially minorities, have the opportunity to go to college because of the enormous financial benefits that a college degree can offer. Educating the impoverished by turning them into trained professionals can lift them out of poverty.

There is no dispute in that assertion. Having a high school diploma greatly increases earning capacity but a college degree has the ability to tremendously multiply future earnings particularly if it is in a high demand industry. So the activists propose that the poorest areas of the country need more institutions of higher learning or at the very least; the existing ones need more money.

However, the biggest problem I have with poverty warriors is that they refuse to examine all facets of a problem.

I do not disagree that a college degree can be a ticket out of poverty. I grew up in the barrio and I have seen firsthand that a lack of an education greatly limits future opportunities. And not being able to properly read and write and speak the English language is also an insurmountable obstacle (which is another story altogether).

But more money is not the entire answer.

Poverty warriors loathe the notion of examining social and cultural issues. And many activists seem to pretend that they don’t exist which makes it a lot easier for them to blame the government and the white man. But these social problems do exist and sticking your head in the sand does not make them go away.

At the top of the list is that a family has to make education the top priority of their children. That means that parents have to take a very active interest in their children’s education and get involved in it. It also means that for all twelve grades, homework has to get done, projects need to be turned in, and tests have to be studied for. And it also means that children cannot skip out of class or be a discipline problem for their teachers.

The bottom line is that a kid has to stay in school and actually learn something while staying out of trouble.

But that is the Achilles’ heel of too many Liberals. If someone is a minority, then poverty warriors almost feel that they are exempt from any kind of personal responsibility for exercising bad judgment and making poor decisions. It is as if bad behavior is acceptable because it is not their fault even though such actions can ruin their future. Additionally, certain activists claim that many poor parents are incapable of being so involved in their child’s education because they are uneducated themselves; therefore they are unable to provide the right kind of guidance.

I am glad that my mother never subscribed to that lousy excuse because her schooling only went up to the second grade but she made the education of her children her top priority. Homework had to be turned in and tests had to be studied for and there was no exception to that because my parents knew from the onset that lousy grades would not get any of us into college. And even though Spanish was the language spoken at home, that was never an excuse that my mother and father would accept for us not mastering English.

Although there were plenty of kids in the barrio who had almost no parental supervision and no boundaries, my parents were strict with us about what we could do and could not do in our free time which is what helped keep us out of trouble. The result is that all three children of my parents no longer live in the barrio and all three of us have college degrees and we all have professional careers.

Unfortunately, poverty warriors are afraid of taking cultural problems seriously and they are even terrified of talking about them.

So what about broken families, absentee fathers, teenage mothers, drug use, and crime? And what about skipping classes from school, not turning in homework, not studying for tests, and being a huge discipline problem in school?

Any one of those elements is a personal decision that can almost guarantee a lifetime of poverty in which all the additional funding for higher education will be useless. Unfortunately, activists ignore how severe the impact of irresponsibility and bad choices can be. It is just easier to blame the government and the white man.

My ticket out of the barrio was a strong intact family unit, a high priority on doing well in school, and nosy parents who kept all their kids out of trouble.

Before the problem of poverty can truly be tackled, all these social issues have to be taken into account.

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