I was really alarmed by reading this article.  I think many teachers and administrators attend her workshops without knowing all the facts, or in this case, without knowing that her “research” and “case studies” aren’t really research but anecdotes.  To place the blame of our unequal educational system  on the “culture of poverty” seems so far fetched.  True, I may not understand where they come from nor will I ever say to my students that I do but how dangerous to assume these “characteristics” of poverty are true.  We are always taught to differentiate our instruction and see each child as an individual with potential; so wouldn’t teachers be neglecting our students by excusing their inability to understand a concept on their “culture” rather than on our teaching?  Talk about taking steps backwards. 

Also, the “Could you survive?” quizzes are outrageous.  You mean I would have to pay to hear someone’s opinion on surviving in poverty?  Where’s her information coming from?  I want to see data!  What’s so troubling to me is that she’s spreading her “expertise” to the low income school districts, charging astronomical amounts per person to attend where they HAVE to purchase her book, and she’s profiting from this.  Imagine how much materials they can purchase with the funding that they set aside to send representatives to these workshops.  If what Payne says is credible, why isn’t it peer edited and why is her attorney always pressuring academia, who have research to back up their statements, to leave Ruby alone?  It’s not a “culture of poverty” but a culture of taking advantage of low income school systems and their limited resources, a culture of passing the blame elsewhere, a culture of apathy with the way things are, a “culture of denial that has become institutionalized in our society and has caused the study of poverty in the last 20 years to be more concerned with promoting a theory of individual culpability than with addressing institutionalized inequalities” (Bohn).