Essy Lamb
Intro to Sociology
Dr. Castro
“Gang Leader for a Day”
Course Paper
Education and poverty are inversely correlated. If a person has more education they are less likely to be in below the poverty line. This also goes the other way, meaning that a person with little to no education has a very high risk of being bellow the poverty line. Venkatesh has several conversations with different people about education verses poverty. In one conversation, he is talking to Mrs. Bailey. Venkatesh says “If kids can get through high school, they have twenty-five percent greater likelihood of escaping poverty”. After which Mrs. Bailey reminds him that lack of education is not the only problem. Many families need to be able to get food on the table. …show more content…
And just like a legal business if customers found out that the product they were being sold was not up to par, the business looses customers. Gang Leader for a Day talks about how people in poverty, like the people in the Robert Taylor Homes, have little connection to the job market or if they have a job it is a low wage one. This means that a lot of the families survive on welfare and food stamps. While education can be just as important, many of these people from the book as well as in everyday life manage to survive even though they did not complete high school. In Gang Leader for a Day there are even people who didn 't complete elementary school. This can happen in families bellow the poverty line because they are needed at the house to take care of siblings while their parents work or they did not have a way to get to school. One thing that is almost heartbreaking to know is that the children who are born into poverty are more likely to continue living in poverty as adults. This is why we end up seeing many people who were born in the projects, like the Robert Taylor Homes, end up staying and living in the place …show more content…
This way children would be able to get an education even if their parents had to work. This would also help adults who wish to get their GED or even graduate high school so that they could get a better job and be able to support their families better. These classes could be held in apartments or even in the park. One way for the classes to be free would be for the parents of the children to take turns watching kids in the day care or helping out in the class rooms when they could. While, yes it would cost to run this and there would be a need to hire teachers to teach and get supplies, this is a small cost compared to what the communities will get out of it. The way this would work is that the “school day” would last three hours, two days a week. However, instead of holding classes during the working week, classes would be held on Saturday and Sunday so that parents would be able to help out. If three teachers are hired at the public school rate it would cost sixty dollars an hour for all three of them. Meaning one day would cost one hundred and twenty. So it would only cost two hundred and forty dollars each week. The monthly cost would be only be nine hundred and sixty for the teachers. Textbooks for older students could be bought at second hand stores and only used in the class room, meaning that the cost of these would be relatively low. The younger students
Intro to Sociology
Dr. Castro
“Gang Leader for a Day”
Course Paper
Education and poverty are inversely correlated. If a person has more education they are less likely to be in below the poverty line. This also goes the other way, meaning that a person with little to no education has a very high risk of being bellow the poverty line. Venkatesh has several conversations with different people about education verses poverty. In one conversation, he is talking to Mrs. Bailey. Venkatesh says “If kids can get through high school, they have twenty-five percent greater likelihood of escaping poverty”. After which Mrs. Bailey reminds him that lack of education is not the only problem. Many families need to be able to get food on the table. …show more content…
And just like a legal business if customers found out that the product they were being sold was not up to par, the business looses customers. Gang Leader for a Day talks about how people in poverty, like the people in the Robert Taylor Homes, have little connection to the job market or if they have a job it is a low wage one. This means that a lot of the families survive on welfare and food stamps. While education can be just as important, many of these people from the book as well as in everyday life manage to survive even though they did not complete high school. In Gang Leader for a Day there are even people who didn 't complete elementary school. This can happen in families bellow the poverty line because they are needed at the house to take care of siblings while their parents work or they did not have a way to get to school. One thing that is almost heartbreaking to know is that the children who are born into poverty are more likely to continue living in poverty as adults. This is why we end up seeing many people who were born in the projects, like the Robert Taylor Homes, end up staying and living in the place …show more content…
This way children would be able to get an education even if their parents had to work. This would also help adults who wish to get their GED or even graduate high school so that they could get a better job and be able to support their families better. These classes could be held in apartments or even in the park. One way for the classes to be free would be for the parents of the children to take turns watching kids in the day care or helping out in the class rooms when they could. While, yes it would cost to run this and there would be a need to hire teachers to teach and get supplies, this is a small cost compared to what the communities will get out of it. The way this would work is that the “school day” would last three hours, two days a week. However, instead of holding classes during the working week, classes would be held on Saturday and Sunday so that parents would be able to help out. If three teachers are hired at the public school rate it would cost sixty dollars an hour for all three of them. Meaning one day would cost one hundred and twenty. So it would only cost two hundred and forty dollars each week. The monthly cost would be only be nine hundred and sixty for the teachers. Textbooks for older students could be bought at second hand stores and only used in the class room, meaning that the cost of these would be relatively low. The younger students