How does poverty affect education in america

Children born or raised in poverty face a number of disadvantages, most evidently in education. One of the most severe effects of poverty in the United States is that poor children enter school with this readiness gap, and it grows as they get older. Children from lower-income families are more likely than students from wealthier backgrounds to have lower test scores, and they are at higher risk of dropping out of school.

Those who complete high school are less likely to attend college than students from higher-income families. For some children, the effects of poverty on education present unique challenges in breaking the cycle of generational poverty and reduce their chances of leading rewarding, productive lives.

Since , Childund has worked to combat child poverty in the United States. The Childfund Just Read! Now, with the growth in Medicare and Social Security, the elderly are doing much better and the young much worse.

The experience of the elderly, however, is instructive. Policy changed the outcomes for them dramatically. There is no reason why that should not be equally true for the young. It is their comments on the policy options for dealing with the problem of child poverty in the U. The simplest solution is cash transfers. Conservatives often oppose cash transfers to poor people on the grounds that they stifle initiative.

But we could probably all agree that transfers for young children will not destroy their initiative. Many first-world countries in Asia, North America and Europe award means-tested and non-means-tested allotments to families with young children, especially countries where the domestic fertility rate is falling below the birth rate.

The Economist quotes Jane Waldfogel, a Columbia economist, saying that a relatively small universal child credit could cut the U. But, says The Economist , the problem cannot be dealt with solely with a transfer program, because poverty in the U. Researchers have shown that young children who are doing very poorly in schools serving students in concentrated poverty do much better if they can go to schools serving families in wealthier communities.

While this strategy is not fully scalable, it could certainly be ramped up. In this vein, we note that Howard County, Maryland, recently redistricted its schools to allow many more children whose schools were made up of large numbers of students in concentrated poverty to go to schools with wealthier children and spread the number of children in poverty more equitably across that district.

They did this because their own research showed that earlier efforts to do this same thing worked to lift performance in students who come from impoverished backgrounds. Many of the schools that are economically segregated are also racially segregated. The Economist points to data showing that moving students from racially segregated schools to unsegregated schools can, over five years, improve student incomes by 30 percent and greatly reduce the likelihood of incarceration.

But, just as poverty is rising among school children, our schools are becoming more, not less, segregated. In the early days of desegregation, inner-city predominantly African-American school districts were merged with predominantly white ones into a single district.

But, in recent years, white, relatively well-to-do areas within large urban districts have been applying to their state legislatures for the right to form their own school districts, or, failing that, their own cities or towns which would enable them to get their own school district , thereby contributing to the isolation and concentration of low-income, often minority, families in communities where hope for a better future is dying.

Around a quarter of African Americans then were born out of wedlock. That proportion is now 70 percent for African Americans, 50 percent for Hispanic children and 30 percent for whites. Frequent moves almost always have a negative academic and social impact on students. Much is known about the far-reaching influences of poverty on a student's learning. An understanding of these factors provides invaluable knowledge to educators in their efforts to support and teach students who live in poverty.

In high-poverty, high-performing schools, this knowledge does not result in lowered expectations for students living in poverty. To the contrary, it leads to empathy and an understanding of the differentiation, scaffolding, and support that students may need to meet high expectations.

Like high-poverty, high-performing schools, any school that enrolls students who live in poverty should seek to acquire as much understanding as possible about the life circumstances of their students. When children and adolescents know that their teachers care about them and are trying their best to relate to the realities of their lives, they become far more inclined to trust and actively engage in learning. Health and Well-Being These factors are interrelated, and one factor can compound another.

Language and Literacy Development Children who live in poverty often come to school behind their more affluent peers in terms of literacy and language development. Material Resources Poverty often places constraints on the family's ability to provide other material resources for their children as well. Mobility Poverty often places another kind of constraint on families -- the ability to provide stable housing.

Notes Allington, R. Beegle, D.