ABSTRACT

Three sets of conversations are searching for each other in a dark wood. The forest is inhabited by the children of poverty who, for the most part, find themselves concentrated in particular schools and districts across the land in which they encounter an impoverished education. The first conversation concerns what it takes to teach such children well. They present teachers with many challenges for they generally come to school with little idea how to “do school,” often struggle with the language, and may even lack basic health and social supports that most would assert are prerequisite to learning. The second conversation concerns what policymakers and program designers can do to promote and sustain capable teaching for these children and, indeed, all children. The third concerns the linkages between these children's schooling and the pluralistic, capitalistic society in which they live. Viewed from this vantage point, the enterprise of education demonstrates logical, if unfortunate, consequences of large social forces that tend to limit the opportunities of the children who grow up in poverty. The persistence of these consequences raises important questions about the possibilities and limits of both policy and teaching in improving the learning experiences or lives of children from low-income families.