Education is key to combat poverty

Kitty Lam, Las Vegas

Thursday, June 28, 2012 | 2 a.m.

Regarding the story “Financial education pilot program in Clark County high schools shows promise”:

Almost one-fifth of America’s school-age children suffer from poverty. Living in poverty can affect learning. As evident by their performance on standardize testing, a learning gap exists between rich and poor children. Studies have shown that student achievement can be explained mostly by socioeconomic backgrounds. It is well known that poverty, inadequate education, and crime feed into each other in an unforgiving cycle, and their combined impact extends beyond the individual into the community. By educating children at a young age and instilling in them the principles of financial literacy, Nevadans can grow up to lead lives of greater financial responsibility and opportunities.

Albeit personal preferences and special circumstances, education in financial literacy can break the vicious cycle for some students through empowerment and lift them out of a sentence to poverty.

People living in poverty lack opportunities, role models to show them what is possible to achieve and contacts as a helping hand that can guide them to reach their dreams. Thus, schools must provide students with access to social services to combat such disadvantages, including academic expectations for college, college application preparation and career counseling, on top of financial literacy. The foundation of the American dream is that, through hard work and a bit of luck, anything is possible. Let’s help keep this dream alive for the generation to come through education and removing as many road blocks as we can for people of every socioeconomic background.