120. Don't send them if you are poor.

120. Don’t send them if you are poor
The mere existence of schools discourages and disables the poor from taking control or their own learning. Ivan Illich
Schools are more damaging to the poor. We are schooled to know our place. Where that place is the bottom of the pile it acts to keep us there. Don’t be fooled by the statement that school lifts people out of poverty. As John Holt pointed out, the comfortable and powerful positions in society are taken and those people are not going to move aside, or step down and let other groups in. (Holt??ref)

Schools are a tool to ‘civilise’ the poor and train them for their subordinate position and to defer to their ‘superiors‘. (Dore) Dore claims that upper-classes either dread the education of the poor, or see it as a way of confirming their subordination. (Dore DD p17)

The education of the poor that is dreaded is a political education to enable them to question the unjust distribution of resources, to question any society, especially a rich one like ours, that allows millions to live in poverty, alongside ill-gotten wealth. Schooling the poor occurs to stop them getting any such education. It occurs to elevate one sort of culture, (white, middle or upper class), above others and to destroy other cultures.

Occasionally, through hard work and self-denial (i.e., denial of heritage, rejection of ‘poor’ culture) someone from a poor background ‘makes it’ (makes money, usually). This is then held up as evidence that anyone can do it. Just like the token woman on the board, the token Black person in a predominantly white management structure, that is not evidence of an egalitarian society, or one based on merit. The line that ‘if you work hard, you will make it’ is particularly insulting to those who work damned hard trying to hold together difficult lives in difficult circumstances.

The poor get poorer schools. ‘Good’ schools mostly occur in middle-class areas; the better the local school is perceived to be the more impact it has on local property prices. But those who can’t afford to buy a house get much less choice. A BBC news item from 2002 stated that “for every additional 10% of children doing well at a primary school in London and the south-east the price of nearby houses jumped by £15,000. In northern England it jumped by £6,100. This excludes children from low income families from the ‘best’ schools. (Maybe this is the true purpose of age 11 SATs and league tables.) The article showed that parents are willing to pay £20,000 more to buy in the areas with the best schools. That is those who have a spare £20,000. (“Primary schools boost house prices” 26/3/02 news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1890455.stm)
Children come to school with different linguistic codes. Those who already operate in the codes of school, i.e., white middle-class, will be favoured by teachers. (Bernstein in GBR) Once in school coursework favours the better off who can build a better portfolio of evidence.

Schools let down the poor most, and when poorer families decide to remove their children to home educate they face greater prejudice from local authorities. This is in spite of the fact that poor kids who are home educated do considerably better in life than their schooled peers. (Paula Rothermel’s research and “State schools shunned for home education“ Polly Curtis Guardian Feb 8th 2008). The hostility towards poor families who home educate is due to their challenging their position in society and the fear that they may give their children a political education that challenges the status quo.

By judging working-class backgrounds as inferior and incompatible with school, the remedy has been seen as more school, from younger ages to break the bonds to home culture at earlier and earlier ages as this culture is seen as deviant.

120. poor p2

(See also sections 56 status quo and 57 inequality)
(Maybe find a reference for the Dame schools that provided education before state schools)