After retiring from a nearly 40 year career in engineering and discovering how boring retirement can be, I decided to become a substitute teacher. From the very beginning I worked in an inner city school whose population is roughly 80% non-white. The kids were great and, even with a large number being declared “English Language Learners,” they were bright, conscientious and basically good kids.

From that school I went to an upper middle class town’s middle school, an education in contrasts for me. But earlier this year I returned to the school district where I started.

My wife is the bursar at one of Boston’s colleges and so we each have a lot of experience in education. This morning, a Sunday, while reading the newspapers, the Boston Globe and New York Times, the plight of the poor was brought to light in both newspapers. Simply put, too many of our schools are profiling schools to weed out the “undesirables,” or are pricing themselves out of a family’s ability to pay for education.

In the public sector of Massachusetts education there are three forces at work: 1) general public education, 2) charter schools and 3) vocational-technical high schools. The charter schools, according to the Massachusetts Department of Education, offer an alternative education for high performing student. The most notable problem with this system is that its funding comes from the same pool of money the city or town gets for its educational programs. Such schools can syphon off a disproportionate amount of money. That is, the per student cost of the charter school can be higher than then rest of the schools in the system.

Finally there are the vocational-technical high schools. At one time these schools were a haven for student who did not excel under the general educational model but who could do well in an atmosphere where they received training for a well-paying vocation. But because of their excellence the demand for seats in these schools has risen greatly allowing the schools to cherry pick who they would admit. In one case, highlighted in the March 8 Boston Globe, a girl was denied admission because of a single incident of fighting years before. Today she has a GED and no real hopes.

I have learned over many years that an entirely unique situation is rare. That said, it is reasonable to assume that most, if not all, Massachusetts Vocational Technical schools are cherry picking their students. That needs to change. The obvious answer, though an expensive one, is to increase the number of seats available. But there is another way which costs nothing: needs based. That is, children who come from the poorest families are admitted first.

Next is the higher educational schools. Recent trends from the Federal Government combined with rising costs of education, have priced out highly qualified candidates for college because they come from very poor families. It is rare that all college expenses are covered by scholarships. The only remaining “free” money is from the Pell Grant which amounts to about $6,000 based on needs. When you consider the average four year college education can cost $250 thousand or more, that a person carries more than $100 thousand in debt upon graduation is not unusual. That amount of debt can cost a person $800 a month in payments, which for those occupying entry level positions, can be overwhelming.

The United States trails many countries in its approach to financing education. One solution is to increase the Pell Grant maximum to the average cost of tuition and board on a prorated needs based metric.

We are the richest nation in the world so why do we trail so much of the world in our educational approach? We must re-evaluate our priority and come to terms with the long known fact that the solution to poverty is education.