When a student or school is failing, who is to blame? Generally it is not the teachers or the school administration. When trying to solve this problem, one might not think to look behind the curtain and into the home lives of the struggling students. However this is exactly what needs to be addressed, because it is no coincidence that kids from low income families tend to do worse in school than higher income children. Income, how much their parents value education and a student’s race have significant impacts on how well they will do in school.

Because lower income parents have less time and money to invest in their children, they have much less exposure to books, reading and writing when they are young. This economic separation only gets bigger as a student’s education progresses, as lower income students are ten times less likely to earn a bachelor’s degree by age 24, according to the Public Policy Analysis of Opportunity for Postsecondary Education in 2009. Also, lack of good health care and other issues that come from having low income affect students. Speaking from personal experience, it is incredibly difficult to succeed in school when there are more important problems at home. Also, the level of education that parents have is often a prediction of how far their children will go in school. Because more education means more income and higher education is so costly, it is very unlikely that a student from a low income household will go beyond a high school diploma, if that.

Race also affects a person’s level of education. Sadly, race and economic status go hand in hand in the United States. According to the New York Times, 79 percent of African American families are in the bottom 50 percent financially, while 73 percent of white families are in the top 50. Immigrant families, Hispanic Americans, and other racial groups are similarly separated from whites. A topic not often discussed is Native American students, who have by a landslide the highest high school dropout rate of all racial groups, at 11.5 percent. In my opinion, bridging this huge economic gap between races in the United States should be the biggest priority.

In the recent past, when America was at its economic peak, less educated workers were able to have jobs in areas like mining, logging, or working in factories. Jobs that provided incomes that could support a family, and often well enough for them to be considered middle-class. In most parts of the country, these job opportunities are now gone or much harder to find, which makes it that much more important to educate our work force. However, the teachers and schools should not be the only ones relied upon to fix this problem.

It will take much more than standardized tests to achieve the improvements Americans want in the education system. Public policies will need to change to reflect the global economy and how American workers can compete. Public policies should also favor American employees rather than outsourcing jobs to other countries. When families find that they have better incomes, then parents can be more involved and supportive of their children’s educations. When the home life of students improves, then we will see the desired improvements in educational achievement.