Education Can't Solve Poverty - So Why Do We Keep Insisting That It Can
Harvey Kantor, Education, Culture & Society Emeritus professor, discusses this subject
with Jennifer Berkshire of AlterNet.
Unions are weak. Wage growth is non-existent. Plutocrats have all the power. And yet the myth that education is all we need to finally "fix" poverty persists. AlterNet education editor Jennifer Berkshire talks with historian Harvey Kantor about how the US gave up on the idea of responding to poverty directly, instead making public schools the answer to poverty. Hint: it all starts in the 1960s with the advent of the Great Society programs. Fast-forward to the present and our belief that education can reduce poverty and narrow the nation’s yawning inequality chasm is stronger than ever. And yet our education arms race, argues Kantor, is actually making income inequality worse.