The efforts of the powerful are when the social elite uses their existing control to protect and enhance their power. Karl Marx argues that they are able to do so with an influence over means of production, with economic power, and an impact on institutions such as government, media, law, schools, and courts (Charon 79). For example, while the community of East St. Louis suffers financially, the private schools of Rye receive "private charitable funds ($400,000) raised by parents" (Kozol 90). This demonstrates the efforts of the powerful and wealthy to improve their schools and spends these funds for elite purposes only. Other examples include parents spending "thousands of dollars for outside help, on top of tuition" in order to maintain a higher status among competing students (Anderson), or parents who pay to send their children on specialized vacations simply to enhance a college application essay (NY Times). The wealthy, as demonstrated, put forth a powerful effort to keep the social structure the same to benefit a small amount of the population, and influence social institutions and culture to justify these standards, as discussed in Ten Questions by Charon.
Social institutions, culture, and socialization are all a part of an invisible set of society's rules that make inequality acceptable. Institutions promote the interests of powerful groups, like the students in Rye, while subverting the interests of relatively powerless groups, even though the latter has a bigger population. Also, achievement and equal opportunity are viewed as a dominant ideology that operates to preserve existing systems of inequality (Adler & Adler 32). The school environment, parents, teachers, and culture of the society all influence the behaviors and ideologies of the students of Rye, New York. Another reason the students argued against integration is that "poor children 'would still lack the motivation' and 'would probably fail in any case because of other problems'" (Kozol 91).
