What Happens When A Child Gets A Poor Education: Real Consequences And Small Doable Tips
Last month, I was folding goldfish cracker bags and restocking pencil cups at the community after-school GED prep program I volunteer at, when 17-year-old Javi slouched into the folding chair across from me. He pushed a crumpled printout of the city bus route across the table, wouldn’t meet my eye, and mumbled that he had a landscaping interview at 9 a.m. the next day, and couldn’t figure out which stop got him within a mile of the nursery. I’d heard a dozen versions of this from the kids who come through the program, but something about the way he curled his hand around the edge of the paper made me pause.
Javi grew up in a rural part of the next county, where his K-5 elementary school was 20% over capacity and had three administration turnovers in as many years. His 2nd grade teacher tore her ACL in October, and the district couldn’t hire a permanent substitute until May. For seven months, a different sub came in every week; most just put on animated movies and sat at the desk scrolling their phones. Javi was already a little behind when the year started—he has ADHD, and his mom worked two jobs and couldn’t get him evaluated, since the school only had a part-time psychologist who came once every two weeks.
By the time a permanent teacher finally took over the class, Javi couldn’t read chapter books or do three-digit addition, and no one had time to pull him aside to catch him up. By 8th grade, he was acting out in class; it was easier to get sent to the office than admit he couldn’t do the work the rest of the class was moving on from. He dropped out halfway through 10th grade, and had been doing day labor for cash ever since. A couple weeks after the bus schedule incident, he told me he watches his 3-year-old sister Lila three nights a week when his mom works double shifts at the nursing home. Last week, Lila brought home a pre-k alphabet worksheet, and Javi couldn’t sound out the word “cat” next to the picture. He just told Lila mommy would do it when she got home, went out on the porch, and smoked a cigarette. “I don’t want her to know I’m stupid,” he said.
Most people hear “poor education” and think of big, distant statistics—lower lifetime earnings, higher rates of unemployment, worse long-term health outcomes. Those are all true, but they don’t tell you what the consequences look like on a Tuesday afternoon, when a 17-year-old can’t figure out a bus route to his first real job interview, or can’t help his little sister with her homework. The consequences aren’t just big and life-altering; they’re small and daily. They’re the shame that sticks with you when every institution that’s supposed to teach you lets you down, and you start to believe it’s your fault. They’re the basic skills no one ever bothered to teach you that turn every ordinary task into a high-stakes test. They also erode any trust that effort will pay off; by 5th grade, Javi had gone through four different teachers, none of whom remembered his name, so why would he bother putting in the work?
I get asked all the time by parents what you can do if your kid is stuck in a underfunded, overcrowded school, or has fallen through the cracks, and you can’t afford private school or $80 an hour tutoring. The answer isn’t some big, expensive fix. It’s small, 10 to 15 minute daily practices that build the functional skills poor education often leaves out, because schools are too focused on hitting test benchmarks to stop and fill gaps for kids who are behind. I tell parents to have their kid plan the weekly grocery run: have them read the list, check the store ad for sales, add the items they want, and add up the cost of everything before you leave home. If you’re heading to a park or a friend’s house, have them read the directions off Google Maps out loud to you. These are things you’re already doing, you just add the kid in, and it builds reading, math, and problem-solving skills that don’t require worksheets or textbooks. For teachers who work in underfunded schools, I keep a bin of old bus schedules, grocery flyers, and entry-level job applications in my corner of the program, and we spend 20 minutes a week working through real tasks instead of just generic test prep. Most of the kids who come here need those functional skills more than they need to pass an algebra exam right now.
That belief that you’re not smart, that you don’t belong in learning spaces, that’s the hardest consequence to undo. Javi still gets frustrated after 20 minutes of reading practice and wants to pack up and leave. He still calls himself “a dumb kid” even though he can take apart and rebuild a lawnmower engine in 20 minutes, which is more problem-solving than most college graduates I know can pull off.
Last week, Javi got the landscaping job. He showed up to after-school on Friday with a pack of mini candy bars for everyone, and taped his new weekly work schedule to the front of his notebook. He still hasn’t decided if he’s going to finish his GED. Some weeks he can’t come because he’s picking up extra shifts to save up for a used car. The consequences of that seven months of no consistent teacher in 2nd grade, and years of being pushed through the system without help, are still there. He still won’t read anything out loud in front of the group. He still hesitates to ask for help when he’s stuck. Poor education doesn’t just take opportunity away from you; it leaves a quiet mark on how you see yourself that doesn’t go away just because you get a good job. For now, we’re just meeting twice a week, working through bus schedules and grocery lists and job applications, one small thing at a time. It’s not a fix for a broken system. But it’s something. And for Javi, that’s enough for right now.
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