Equity and Excellence

I must begin by saying that I have truly enjoyed connecting with educators from other parts of the world and sharing their teaching experiences.  Recently, I had asked one of my contacts that teaches special education in Dubai about how poverty and inequality affects children in her school.  Her response was quite interesting as well as difficult to embrace as I thought of students here in the United States.  Her response was as follows:

Unfortunately, for this question I have very little experience in this area and can't really tell you much. I have only ever worked in international schools where parents pay (sometimes large) fees to educate their children. For that reason, poverty isn't an issue for these families. However, I know that there are a lot of added expenses at some schools -such as fees for transport, lunch/snack, materials, PE kits, house colours shirts, trips/excursions etc. 

At the last school that I worked at in Thailand, I know that some parents had to work several jobs to pay for their child's education and that extra fees for trips/materials etc. was quite a burden for them. I'm not sure what the situation is like in other schools, but in many private or international schools, there seems to be a lot of added expenses. However, this does not tend to effect the education of the child, unless they were to miss out on an educational field trip perhaps. I know that some children in my school in Thailand were aware that their parents were paying a lot for their education, which may have made the child feel under pressure to achieve (but I'm only speculating). 

This response made me think about how different cultures value education and will do whatever it takes to ensure that their children have a chance.  It seems to me that parents that place education as a priority must have a higher level of education themselves and therefore can appreciate passing on knowledge rather than entitlement to their children.