Education and Poverty News
“In the Philadelphia area, teachers see themselves as first responders in the ongoing emergency of poverty. Many say that if they falter, they fail the children.”
“Senate Appropriations Chairman Luke Kenley said he and other GOP legislative leaders have 'lost confidence' in the accuracy of the federal school lunch program as an indicator of poverty. ‘There’s no accountability in the federal program,’ Kenley said.”
"Those recommendations tie in well with another recent report, by Caroline Hoxby and Sarah Turner, that suggested ways to get high-achieving, low-income students to attend elite schools that might serve them better; research by Alan Krueger and Stacy Berg Dale found that the economic benefit of selective schools is greatest for poor students. The work follows up on research Hoxby and Christopher Avery did showing that elite colleges frequently miss on high-achieving, low-income students."
“Higher education today, the report says, is stratified between four-year colleges with high graduation rates that serve largely affluent students and community colleges with often dismal graduation rates that serve mostly low-income students.”
“For the last 10 years, the College Success Foundation–Tacoma – a public-private organization – has assisted promising low-income students by providing them with the mentoring and counseling they need to negotiate the college application process. It also helps them locate scholarships, and then continues mentoring and counseling them until they’ve completed their college degree. Careful research has documented its success in getting disadvantaged students into and out of college.”
“The Louisiana voucher law gives up most accountability for school finances or student achievement when it hands over the taxpayers’ check. The schools that take fewer than 40 voucher students are not even be required to show any data for their students’ learning. These schools are not required to hire certified teachers or teach the skills students need for higher education and the workplace in the 21st century.”
“In L.A. Unified, schools with as few as 40% low-income students had been receiving dollars, although at a lower funding level. Last year, with relatively little notice, L.A. Unified raised the minimum to 50%, which added to shortfalls at schools already enduring recession-related cuts. LACES was one such campus, with 46% low-income students last year.”
“The report by the New America Foundation, a research group based in Washington, D.C., analyzed U.S. Education Department data showing the ‘net price’ — the amount students pay after grants and scholarships have been exhausted — for low-income students at thousands of colleges nationwide for the 2010-11 school year.”
“Many low-income families look to their children to assist with the family business or otherwise contribute to the family's income. They see the short-term need for money to support the family and not the long-term benefits of education. This is a crisis that has a solution. At Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Atlanta, our 2020 goal is to have 90 percent of the children in our clubs graduate on time by providing valuable out-of-school programs.”
“Examples of housing instability include a student in the foster-care system or in a joint-custody situation, or families that face homelessness or are in temporary shelters due to an inability to pay rent or a mortgage. Lauren Greene, a representative of the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), said homelessness looks different in the Berkshires than it does in urban areas, leading to a lower student mobility rate in the county when the two are compared.”
“Because there is a relationship between economic advantage and student performance, students of disadvantaged households are more likely to develop feelings of apathy. This is a major problem facing our institution, especially as 20% of American children are living in poverty. The level of achievement required of all students - including those in poverty - places a lot of pressure on schools.”
“The Brattleboro School Board at its meeting this week approved a plan by Early Education Services to cut 25 Head Start classroom slots, and another 12 Early Head Start home-based visiting slots due to the federal cuts that will go into place on July 1. Early Education Services Executive Director Debra Gass said the cuts had to be made after Congress failed to address the sequester earlier this year and the EES budget, which starts on July 1, had to be put in place.”
“All the while, low-income students' parents cannot pay for books or games. They cannot afford tutors or extra curricular and enrichment activities. They generally have to work more and consequently cannot spend a lot of individual time with their kids. For that same reason, they cannot volunteer in classrooms. Sometimes they do not have sufficient education to help their kids with schoolwork. And they often do not bestow the value of education upon their children.”
“As Richard Weissbourd continues to find teachers and schools focusing on the life-diminishing troubles of the increasing number of low-income children across the nation, I'll be reporting them here along with those I discover elsewhere.”
“This spreadsheet lists each grade at each school from this past fall’s Iowa Assessments. The first four columns represent school-wide percentile rankings in main subject areas.”
“The reasons low-income children sometimes perform worse on exams aren't totally clear, even to administrators and researchers who study the issue, said Pam Ehly, the Iowa City Community School District's instruction director. ‘It's difficult to pinpoint what the reason is - you can look at correlates like if they didn't engage in preschool, that's a factor. If you don't have funds as a family for additional opportunities like going to a museum or having books at home, those factors become compounded and it has an effect,’ she said.”
“The latest barrier being put in the way of children's interests is the decision by the Louisiana Supreme Court that the funding method for the Louisiana Scholarship Program is unconstitutional. Fortunately there is a fix. Gov. Bobby Jindal and the Legislature must find a different method to fund the program, which allows some low-income families to send their children to private and parochial schools.”
“The 11-district cooperative in the Omaha area originally lacked explicit authority for programs targeting children under age 5. State law called for programs aimed at elementary-age children. Nebraska lawmakers this month gave the education cooperative new spending authority and authorized expansion into early childhood education for children in poverty.”
“Far from wanting to enroll more low-income students, colleges recruit more affluent ones who will pay full price to attend. A follow-up survey of college business officers found that the most common strategy to deal with financial challenges in the next few years was to ‘raise net tuition revenue.’”
“Poverty has a massive impact on our students, and it is without question an enormous challenge in the work of educators in Memphis. It is critical that states and cities, churches and nonprofit organizations, businesses and civic groups work together with schools and continue to address the underlying causes of poverty.”
“The debate over a private learning option for poor schoolchildren in North Carolina has a familiar ring to it because Florida faced similar fears a dozen years ago. But a targeted and accountable scholarship can strengthen our commitment to equal educational opportunity by giving more tools to the students who face the greatest odds.”
“Currently, 15 of the district's highest-poverty schools offer full-day kindergarten. This decision expands the opportunity to 19 more schools and would mean hiring the equivalent of at least 25 full-time teaching positions and possibly 27 other faculty, such as counselors.”
“More than half of Springfield students straddle the poverty line, and it's higher - three out of every five - at the elementary level. Teachers like Tate know that home-life worries, left unchecked, can disrupt the students' ability to learn.”
“While universities prefer race-based programs that assemble generally well-off students of all colors, the end of such programs will likely usher in a more aggressive set of policies that will, at long last, address America’s growing economic divide.”
“Despite the clear benefits of increasing the state's higher education attainment rate, the two major pathways for adult education in California — the K-12 school districts and the California community colleges — do not have a strategy to increase the rates of the adult enrollment and completion of some higher education.”
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