“Poverty isn’t destiny” is trite and meaningless and pretends to honor poor kids for their wide-open potential while actually disrespecting their experiences and neglecting to patch their holes; it posits that there is no such phenomenon as generational need and that neither public policy nor wealth distribution warrants consideration as a contributing factor in the formation of American kids. Poverty is water in the gas tank of education, but its apologists facilely condemn a pit crew of teachers who—not allowed to say the water won’t combust—are pushing sputtering lives, but not fast enough, around a track where youthful suburban rockets whiz by in their mall rat garb.
John Kuhn is superintendent of the Perrin-Whitt school district in Texas. Read more--please. The whole piece is worth reading. My first reaction to hearing about John Kuhn was "How did this guy ever get hired as a superintendent?" It's encouraging to hear from time to time that there are oases of sanity and humanity in Texas.