The hard bigotry of poverty: Why ignoring it will doom school reform
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/the-hard-bigotry-of-poverty-why-ignoring-it-will-doom-school-reform/2012/07/17/gJQAnPORrW_blog.html<snip>
Students showed up to my class intoxicated, perpetually ill, or without basic school supplies. Campus security and police removed kids from my class to execute wand-searches; some kids were subsequently taken into custody. One constantly sleep-deprived student divulged to me that he’d been kicked out of his apartment following a squabble with his stepmother, which meant he was now living in his car. Hunkered down each night in a nearby Target parking lot, he was too afraid to fall asleep. (I later confirmed this information with the school’s dean.) At one point, my classroom felt more like a revolving door, as students paraded in and out due to expulsion or relocation.
Despite, in many cases, being less than a school year away from graduation, many of my students were not doing – or even attempting to do – even the simplest assignments. And yet some of my most apathetic kids routinely offered to straighten up my cluttered desktop or sweep my classroom. What I was gradually seeing was that many of them wanted to take pride in doing something well; maybe they’d just surmised that academic success was too far beyond their grasp. I started to wonder if at least some of their apathy was actually a white flag being waved in the face of repeated failure.
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What I learned was that a good number of these families were barely scraping by. Many parents were cobbling together livelihoods by working multiple low-wage jobs that often took them away from home for the critical late-afternoon and evening hours during which kids rely heavily on caregivers for guidance and discipline. Others were dealing with their own personal demons wrought by drugs, alcohol, or destructive relationships. Some were simply M.I.A., and I never found out why. Because many of my students were saddled with learning disabilities — a frequent characteristic among high-poverty populations of children — I attended scores of I.E.P. meetings in which my special needs students were left to discuss their challenges, progress, and goals without a caregiver in the room. In these instances, I attempted to play the role of surrogate parent, knowing full well that I was a sad excuse for the real thing.
What had grown increasingly clear to me was that my students’ academic struggles did not simply stem from inaction, ineffective parenting, drug use, or neglect. While these elements were usually present in various forms, or to greater or lesser degrees, they weren’t the root causes of their failure; they were the effects of poverty. What I’d learned in less than a semester of teaching was that poverty wasn’t merely a temporary, though unpleasant, condition — like a hangover or the sniffles. It was a debilitating, often generational, epidemic.
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= new reply since forum marked as read
Also on several Facebook groups with Chicago teachers.
They have food drives, clothing drives, many outreach activities to help meet the needs of the kids in Chicago.
I've sent them donations myself.
Last night I attended a webinar featuring Karen Lewis. The topic was community outreach. The CTU has a model program being copied by teachers unions across the country.
So I couldn't disagree with you more. But you are there in Chicago and I'm not. 
...WONDERFUL! 
fewer students, more physical space, room to move around the room, comfortable chairs, reasonable climate, more frequent breaks, more physical activity. We have no temperature controls in the classroom. It's plenty warm in the winter, but overheats quickly spring and fall. Picture 8th graders, the last block of the day, flushed, sweating, fanning themselves, and trying to focus on academic tasks. I do provide my own fan; it tosses papers off of desks, but doesn't really get the temperature down.
In the past, my school HAD refrigerators and microwaves in the classrooms, if teachers wanted to provide them out of their own pocket. Those were removed when the economy and budget crashed, because they impact the electric bill.
My students are encouraged to bring water bottles and drink copiously; they are allowed liberal bathroom passes. They are allowed to bring snacks and eat them at any time, provided that they are healthy, not junk-food or sugary, and provided that they clean up after themselves. They generally do pretty well with that. A couple of years ago, I had to ban sunflower seeds from one class, but that's the only real issue we've ever had.
When my students bring me an apple or an orange, it's actually to eat. We share. When one of my 90 students says, "Can I have some food? I'm STARVING!!" I pull out what I've got, and other students do the same. Adolescents are hungry all the time. 
My FAN coordinator keeps me supplied with granola bars for kids who either can't afford to bring their own snacks, or whose parents simply won't provide them. While intended for the more needy students, they are available to ALL without question.
I also spend 3 years with my students before sending them all to high school.
All in a regular public school. We have our systemic problems, to be sure; those tend to be top-down politically driven policies surrounding "data," testing, scores, etc..
Generally, though, I can't think of a teacher in my building that would object to available hydration and snacks for students. Most of us already provide that, even without the refrigerator.
