“Homeless on Campus” by Eleanor J. Bader, featured in The Progressive, a liberal political magazine (2004) and “Fremont High School” by Johnathan Kozol featured in the book The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America (2005), both talk about the lack of support for students within the education system. In both the reads students struggle to make it to graduation due to their circumstances surrounding their education. Homeless college students and students in poor over populated schools will continue to struggle until the education system provides more support.
In the article “Homeless on Campus” the author talks about how many circumstances can cause a student to be homeless while trying to attend college. Some students lose their jobs or government assistance while others are trying to escape abuse or cost of living is just too high. To get by, some students sleep in their cars and shower in the school gym, other students couch surf or even camp out in the woods. Colleges are set up to serve more privileged students, less diverse students, due to this homeless students are not being tracked and so because of that there is inadequate support services.
In reading about Fremont High School, the author talks to several students about their experiences within the high school. The author Johnathan Kozol speaks with a student named Mireya who talks about how there isn’t enough time in between classes to be able to use the bathroom or how the lines are very long due to there being only two working restrooms for the girls and also very unsanitary conditions which leaves students to not use the restroom all day.
Not only are the bathrooms an issue but most of the classrooms are without air, leaving students very hot and unable to concentrate. Mireya also goes on to explain how they are making her take classes she has already took or has no relevance to her education towards college. Fremont high school is not only over populated and not up to health code but there is also not enough resources and support for students.
In reviewing these two articles, I found one main similarity between the two, both articles describe lack of support for students. Students both high school and college level are not spending enough time on their education due to the lack of support with in the education system. For example, the Fremont high school students are spending too much time in line for the bathroom due to lack of facilities while homeless college students are spending too much time trying to find a place to sleep at night due to lack of community resources. Some differences that I found between the two articles were the conditions of the schools, Fremont high school was run down while the colleges were up to code. Another difference I found was that the college professors were more accommodating then the high school teachers. For example, a professor allowed a student to sleep in her office while a high school teacher refused a student to use the restroom.
Until there is more support within the education system students who are homeless or in run down, over populated schools, will continue to struggle. Students will continue to spend unnecessary times in the lunch lines or waiting for the bathrooms instead of focusing on their studies. Students will continue looking for a place to lay their heads at night or a place to clean themselves up instead of focusing on their studies. I feel that in both articles the authors were trying to get across that our students are going to fall through the cracks due to lack of resources and support. With a little recognition of what is going on we can help our students be successful and succeed in high school and then college.
