Connecting the dots
Your statement:
If they don’t like their employment situation, then change. Hell, I went from a low paid teacher to a programmer.
You changed your employment situation, if I read you correctly, because teaching doesn't pay enough. Not because you were not good at it. Not because you found it useless, boring or unrewarding. Because of the money.
I understand. You have to look out for your own.
Now, balance that against the article Lindy linked to at the top of this thread:
One of the study’s researchers, Jonathan Bradshaw, said children fared worse in the U.S. and Britain — despite high overall levels of national wealth — because of greater economic inequality and poor levels of public support for families.
“What they have in common are very high levels of inequality, very high levels of child poverty, which is also associated with inequality, and in rather different ways poorly developed services to families with children,†said Bradshaw, a professor of social policy at the University of York in Britain.
To provide the promise of an open and upwardly mobile society, poor families need infrastructure. Parents may not be able to expect to improve their own circumstances, but they do look forward to seeing their children advance beyond them.
So do I. So do you. You did it by quitting being part of the infrastructure supporting children and their families, because you couldn't afford to stay there.
What do the families at the bottom of the pyramid do? Wait for No Child Left Behind, which the better teachers I know roundly detest as tying their hands, to kick in? Or do we pay people who are good at their jobs what they're worth to provide a shot at equal opportunities to children living in poverty? Teaching is only part of the picture. They need overall support so they grow strong enough to grab the rope for the upward climb, should any come their way.
They say that people who have good luck have it because they're ready when opportunity knocks. Being ready starts at birth. We can start career counselling for newborns. Maybe they can pick parents who are better off.
Or maybe we can treat their asthma, give them secure and wholesome places to stay while Mom and Dad are at work, teach them manners, and make sure they can touch a computer occasionally, so they can use the programs you write.
I understand that conservatives don't hate poor children. I wonder how much conservatives think about them, really. Poor children, and their parents, don't show up at their candidates' fundraising events. Out of sight, out of mind.