Over Half of Public School Students are Poor
In the United States.
From the NY Times:
From the NY Times:
In a report released Friday by the Southern Education Foundation,
researchers found that 51 percent of children in public schools
qualified for the lunches in 2013, which means that most of them come
from low-income families. By comparison, 38 percent of public school
students were eligible for free or reduced-price lunches in 2000.
According to the report, which analyzed data from the National Center for Education Statistics,
a majority of students in 21 states are poor. Close to two-thirds of
those states are in the South, which has long had a high concentration
of poor students. In Mississippi, for example, close to three-fourths of
all public school students come from low-income families.
But
the West also has a large and growing proportion of low-income
students. Arizona, California, Hawaii and Nevada have high rates of
students eligible for free or reduced-price lunches.
What say you to that, ed reformers? Charters and vouchers and TFA going to solve this equation?
What say you to that, ed reformers? Charters and vouchers and TFA going to solve this equation?
Comments
"Children who are eligible for such lunches do not necessarily live in poverty. Subsidized lunches are available to children from families that earn up to $43,568, for a family of four, which is about 185 percent of the federal poverty level."
I'll also note that many kids in middle/high school who qualify DON'T access the food available to them because of the stigma.
I guess that balances things out.
http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cce.asp
My kids didn't access the FRL because of the TASTE.
http://www.nber.org/papers/w20847
There was another caveat in the article "The number of children eligible for subsidized lunches has probably increased in part because the federal Agriculture Department now allows schools with a majority of low-income students to offer free lunches to all students, regardless of whether they qualify on an individual basis or not." Which makes it harder to tease apart how large the true growth was. Although I've seen other figures citing the poverty rate for children in the US being around 34% based family income. That's still one of the highest rates among wealthier nations.
If you're referencing undocumented immigrants, that influx pretty much came to a halt during the Great Recession - for at least a couple years, the net for Mexico was in the other direction. Only recently has it picked up a bit.
Things that poor people face that makes life complicated. Like Obamacare/ACA and those states like Mississippi and Texas which refused to expand Medicaid coverage to support the working poor's ability to buy into ACA, it means a huge financial hit to meet the federal requirement to have healthcare insurance. In fact these 2 states along with many southern states, for family with dependent children, to qualify for Medicaid you have to make < 50% federal poverty line! That leaves working poor family deciding over things like fixing a car to get to work, medicine, clothing, shoes, rent, food, and buying health insurance to comply with the law.
As to immigration responsible for the increase, that might be true for Nevada, but the majority of states and DC with high poverty number, especially the deep and central South and Texas have historically high poverty rate. BTW, New York draws the 2nd most immigrants and they are middling in the poverty race.
So perhaps it's not a simple cause like immigration, but other facts like stagnated wages which failed to keep up with inflation and in Seattle's case, increasing cost of living like rent, child care, food, insurance, taxes, etc. I'm afraid no amount of tent city living, bouncing around various charity food lines, 4 year and 2,000 students preK initiative, and toys for tots are the sustainable answers.
reader
BTW, top 5 states in 2012 which draw the most immigrants are CA, NY, TX, FL, and NJ in that order. FRL percentage for these states: TX (60%)), FL (59%), CA(55%), NY (48%) and NJ (37%)). WA is at 45% for FRL.
reader
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/02/07/second-generation-americans/
I'm not Catholic, ( or religious) but I like this pope.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/19/us-pope-airplane-idUSKBN0KS1WY20150119
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