Stuck in the Middle

The mortgage crisis and its impact on educating America’s youth

When I arrived back at work at Lee Mathson Middle School in San Jose, CA after holiday break, some of the faces I had gotten so used to seeing on a daily basis were no longer there. Some of the desks were empty while others were filled with students who had not been there only two weeks before.

One of the tragedies of the economic recession and more specifically, the mortgage crisis, is the lessening of the quality and consistency of education we are providing for our youth.

And this isn’t a small problem. Two million students have or are going to be forced to move due to foreclosure. And the state that is having the biggest problem is none other than California which had more foreclosures than any other state with 57,000 homes that went into foreclosure between 2007 and 2009.

According to a report by First Focus, a non partisan organization in Washington, foreclosures are directly affecting the proficiency of math and literacy of our youth.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress has reported that students who have attended two or more schools in a year are half as likely as those who do not move to be proficient in literacy. Other U.S. researchers have found that students who frequently move will have a reduced graduation rate of more than 50 percent.

These numbers are shocking, and it is a real problem that we are facing. We could have a generation of young people who not only have inconsistent lives and no sense of “home,” but will also be uneducated, putting us further behind in this ever-growing global economy.

Young people crave structure and consistency and this simply isn’t possible if they are constantly forced to move from school to school with each having a different culture and educational structure.

If the mortgage crisis isn’t brought under control, it will emerge a much larger problem further down the road. And this simply isn’t fair to the innocent children of this country who have no other option but to continue to be funneled through a system that is doing nothing but failing them.