Majority of U.S. public school students are in poverty

[Fumesucker]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/majority-of-us-public-school-students-are-in-poverty/2015/01/15/df7171d0-9ce9-11e4-a7ee-526210d665b4_story.html

For the first time in at least 50 years, a majority of U.S. public school students come from low-income families, according to a new analysis of 2013 federal data, a statistic that has profound implications for the nation.

The Southern Education Foundation reports that 51 percent of students in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade in the 2012-2013 school year were eligible for the federal program that provides free and reduced-price lunches. The lunch program is a rough proxy for poverty, but the explosion in the number of needy children in the nation’s public classrooms is a recent phenomenon that has been gaining attention among educators, public officials and researchers.

“We’ve all known this was the trend, that we would get to a majority, but it’s here sooner rather than later,” said Michael A. Rebell of the Campaign for Educational Equity at Teachers College at Columbia University, noting that the poverty rate has been increasing even as the economy has improved. “A lot of people at the top are doing much better, but the people at the bottom are not doing better at all. Those are the people who have the most children and send their children to public school.”

The shift to a majority-poor student population means that in public schools, a growing number of children start kindergarten already trailing their more privileged peers and rarely, if ever, catch up. They are less likely to have support at home, are less frequently exposed to enriching activities outside of school, and are more likely to drop out and never attend college.

[dembotoz]

1. and i do not see that getting better

[Doctor_J]

2. TPP, more for profit health insurance, and a $9 min wage should fix that

- Signed, The New Democrats

[Igel]

3. No.

The stat has a few reasons.

More single parents. At $9/hr, a single adult with a child is in poverty. Add two kids, and still in poverty. Need to get to $20k/year to be out of poverty. That's from a list of just the threshold numbers, and they're unrealistic.

More low-ed/low-income people marrying each other. So for two-parents families you get two minimum-wage or low-wage earners whereas 50 years ago you had a fair number of high-wage husbands and low-wage wives.

Low-income and low-education families have more children. The median family income is $50k. That's out of poverty for a 10-person family. So far more than 1/2 of families or "economic units" are over the poverty limit. But again, higher income --> fewer kids. We talk about how increased education leads to lower fertility in other countries. It holds here, too, with those least able to afford large families on their own having large families. No problem: Those who think they can't adequately afford a second or third child help families with 3 and 4 and 5 children.

Family income and parent education are largely predictive of child academic achievement. Two parent families, even in poverty, have kids who do better than one-parent families. The best we can do as a society is try and not make the kids suffer from some bad parent choices--having kids too young, having too many kids, not sticking to a marriage or forming one in the first place, opting for low education in order to start making money and be a "grown up" as early as possible. But too often the kids from those families see that it worked "okay" for their mother and/or father, so it'll work for them.

[Arazi]

5. They can always get out of poverty by enlisting to fight for BigCorp empire

Go Halliburton!

[valerief]

4. The GOP is clearly winning. nt

[Doctor_J]

7. Correction- conservatives are winning

[valerief]

10. Correct! Thanks. nt

[enough]

6. K&R. (nt)

[Quantess]

8. K & R

[countingbluecars]

9. And segregation is increasing

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/05/17/gao-study-segregation-worsening-us-schools/84508438/