Chapter 10: Leadership for Social Justice and Morality: Collaborative Partnerships, School-Linked Services and the Plight of the Poor

Poverty among youth has been called the father of social failure, job insecurity, emotional imbalance, and social rejection, even though povertystricken parents have high expectations for their youngsters. In 2002, Williams-Boyd reported that there were more than 32 million Americans who had no health insurance. Further research indicates that there are approximately 53 million Americans who will face these hardships during 2007 (Jazzar & Algozzine, 2007). Lacking health-care benefits harms individuals and their families. According to Blanco (2003) out of the 48 million school children in the United States, more than 13 million were living in the below-poverty bracket.

The treatment of poor students in American schools remains an intractable problem of the school reform movement. Brown (2003) maintains that, along with minorities, students from low income families invariably crowd the lower-level academic tracks, which has led for communitybased leadership in schools to commit to improving this situation. According to Brown, “a society stratified by unequal positions of power, income, and social status can hardly alter social and economic mobility through its schools. It can merely reproduce the existing inequalities” (p. 75). Gordon (2004) argues that children who historically have been economically disadvantaged and undereducated should have access to the basic human resource development capital that supports development of academic abilities, including good health, intellectually stimulating life experiences, and a network of significant people who have the knowledge and experience to nurture, guide, and support them in their academic pursuits.