What All Americans Need to Know About How Poverty Impacts Education

The real issue is not teachers, but concentrated poverty.

 

By Teacherken / Daily Kos

January 23, 2015

"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."

That is the opening paragraph of a Washington Post story on the new report released by the Southern Education Foundation, which found 51% of our nation's school children in 2013 were from low-income families. Allow me to offer three early paragraphs from that report:

In 40 of the 50 states, low income students comprised no less than 40 percent of all public schoolchildren. In 21 states, children eligible for free or reduced-price lunches were a majority of the students in 2013.
Most of the states with a majority of low income students are found in the South and the West. Thirteen of the 21 states with a majority of low income students in 2013 were located in the South, and six of the other 21 states were in the West.
Mississippi led the nation with the highest rate: ­71 percent, almost three out of every four public school children in Mississippi, were low-income. The nation’s second highest rate was found in New Mexico, where 68 percent of all public school students were low income in 2013.

This should have major implications for policies on education at both the national and state levels, because it highlights this truth: the real educational issue in the United States is not and never has been about poor quality among teachers. Rather, it's about the concentration of poverty.
Let me offer some data from recent international comparisons to underscore the point: Finland, the highest scoring nation in recent years, has less than 4% of its children in poverty. Even using somewhat out of date statistics from OECD, which sponsors the PISA tests used to bash US schools in comparison with international competitors, US schools with less than 25% of their children in poverty perform as well as any nation, and those with 10% or less of their children in poverty outperform Finland.
Despite the existence of social welfare programs in this country, we still have a problem of concentrated poverty. Yes, we now offer free lunch and in some (but not enough) cases free breakfasts to children from poverty. But that does not feed them on the weekend, or if school is closed because of weather.
Children in poverty are often food insecure. They may be homeless, or not that far from being homeless. Their families lack consistent sources of money. Even if they have access to health insurance through Medicaid or SCHIP, it often does not cover vision, hearing or dental. They live in neighborhoods where violence may make life itself insecure.
I am going to push fair use by quoting five consecutive paragraphs from the Poststory to provide a sense of this. I understand this may be anecdotal, and the plural of anecdote is not data. And yet, any teacher who has taught students in high poverty situations, as I did briefly before my wife was diagnosed with cancer, has experienced what you will encounter in these five paragraphs:

“When they first come in my door in the morning, the first thing I do is an inventory of immediate needs: Did you eat? Are you clean? A big part of my job is making them feel safe,” said Sonya Romero-Smith, a veteran teacher at Lew Wallace Elementary School in Albuquerque. Fourteen of her 18 kindergartners are eligible for free lunches.
She helps them clean up with bathroom wipes and toothbrushes, and she stocks a drawer with clean socks, underwear, pants and shoes.
Romero-Smith, 40, who has been a teacher for 19 years, became a foster mother in November to two girls, sisters who attend her school. They had been homeless, their father living on the streets and their mother in jail, she said. When she brought the girls home, she was shocked by the disarray of their young lives.
“Getting rid of bedbugs, that took us a while. Night terrors, that took a little while. Hoarding food, flushing a toilet and washing hands, it took us a little while,” she said. “You spend some time with little ones like this and it’s gut wrenching. . . . These kids aren’t thinking, ‘Am I going to take a test today?’ They’re thinking, ‘Am I going to be okay?’
"The job of teacher has expanded to “counselor, therapist, doctor, parent, attorney,” she said.

If you are in a community with high levels of poverty, you are likely in a community that lacks the tax base to provide decent public education, even were the students not already disadvantaged in their basic living situations.
The federal involvement in education beginning with the first Elementary and Secondary Education Act under Lyndon Johnson, who as a young man had taught children in schools populated by the disadvantaged, had as a major goal addressing the needs of such children. But somewhere along the way, too many in this nation seem to have lost their souls when it comes to addressing those in poverty.
When more than half of our school children are from low-income settings, and far too many from situations of severe poverty, how can they - the children - be held responsible for that?  Where is our societal responsibility not to condemn them to a lifetime of poverty? How is it that we have allowed a small percentage to get disgustingly, even obscenely wealthy, without acknowledging and addressing the increasing percentage of our population whose economic situations continue to worsen?
Those of us who teach do all we can to ameliorate the difficulties with which children arrive in our classrooms. But what happens outside school has a profound effect on what we can do in school. We know these children will score lower on the kinds of tests we are using to beat up on public education, but those of us who teach also know that does not mean they cannot learn. Yet it is often precisely these children, who need the enrichment of music and art and poetry and drama and access to the things taken for granted by kids of middle class settings and up, who lose the most when we cut out those "frills" in order to raise scores on tests that really do not indicate a higher level of learning.
51% of our school children are low income.That means we are not a middle class society any more. It 's an example of American "exceptionalism" that should be a matter of deep concern. No, that's not strong enough -- it's an example of a national shame.

Very important report by the Southern Education Foundation regarding "a nation in decline."  This should move us to action. -Angela

A New Majority Research Bulletin: Low Income Students Now a Majority in the Nation's Public Schools 

2015-Low income students are now a majority of the schoolchildren attending the nation’s public schools, according to this research bulletin. The latest data collected from the states by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), show that 51 percent of the students across the nation’s public schools were low income in 2013.

In 40 of the 50 states, low income students comprised no less than 40 percent of all public schoolchildren. In 21 states, children eligible for free or reduced-price lunches were a majority of the students in 2013.
Most of the states with a majority of low income students are found in the South and the West. Thirteen of the 21 states with a majority of low income students in 2013 were located in the South, and six of the other 21 states were in the West.
Mississippi led the nation with the highest rate: ­71 percent, almost three out of every four public school children in Mississippi, were low-income. The nation’s second highest rate was found in New Mexico, where 68 percent of all public school students were low income in 2013.
This defining moment in America’s public education has been developing over several decades, and SEF has documented the trends and implications in two prior reports. In its 2013 report, SEF Vice President Steve Suitts wrote:  “No longer can we consider the problems and needs of low income students simply a matter of fairness…  Their success or failure in the public schools will determine the entire body of human capital and educational potential that the nation will possess in the future. Without improving the educational support that the nation provides its low income students – students with the largest needs and usually with the least support -- the trends of the last decade will be prologue for a nation not at risk, but a nation in decline…"    
Download the research bulletin and map.

 

Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance in the United States in 2013

Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance in the United States in 2013

Posted by Jason Furman and Betsey Stevenson on September 16, 2014 at 11:03 AM EDT 

Today’s report from the Census Bureau shows that key indicators of poverty and family income improved in 2013. Moreover, there is reason to believe that this progress has continued into 2014, as the labor market has strengthened and millions have gained health insurance coverage. At the same time, the data also offer a clear illustration of the large amount of work that remains to strengthen the middle class in the wake of the worst recession since the Great Depression. To address this challenge, the President will continue to do everything in his power to ensure that hard work pays off with decent wages and financial security. And he will also continue to push Congress to take constructive steps that invest in job creation, boost wages, and ensure equal pay for equal work.

FIVE KEY POINTS IN TODAY’S REPORT FROM THE CENSUS BUREAU

1. The overall poverty rate declined to 14.5 percent in 2013 due to the largest one-year drop in child poverty since 1966. The poverty rate for people under age 18 fell by 1.9 percentage point from 2012 to 2013, equivalent to 1.4 million young people lifted out of poverty. Poverty rates for other age groups (18-64 and 65+) were little changed. The official poverty rate for 2013 remains above its pre-recession rate. This official poverty rate does not reflect the full effect of anti-poverty policies because it excludes the direct effect of key measures like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). Notably, the EITC was expanded in 2009, and those expansions were subsequently extended. Accounting for such policies would reduce the number of people counted as being in poverty by millions.



2. Real median income for family households rose by $603 in 2013 but remains below pre-crisis levels. Income gains in 2013 were driven by family households, as overall median household income (which also includes households with single people living alone or with unrelated individuals) also rose, but by a smaller $180. As discussed below, there is reason to believe that this progress has continued into 2014. Nevertheless, the typical family has still not seen its income recover from the deep recession which came on top of a decade in which incomes stagnated for the middle class, itself part of a longer-term trend of increasing income inequality.


3. While still too wide, the gender pay gap narrowed slightly in 2013, with the female-to-male earnings ratio climbing above 78 percent for the first time on record. Looking over the last thirty years, the gender pay gap narrowed in the 1980s and 1990s, but progress stalled in the 2000s. Indeed, the female-to-male earnings ratio had been unchanged, on balance, from 2002 to 2012. The progress made in 2013 reflected a $817 increase in average earnings for female full-time, year-round workers. At the same time, earnings for men and women are still far from parity. This issue remains a high priority for the President, which is why earlier this year he built on previous steps and signed an Executive Order that will empower workers at Federal contractors to negotiate for fair pay. The President will also continue to push Congress to take steps like passing the Paycheck Fairness Act.


4. Children and the elderly were much more likely than non-elderly adults to have health insurance coverage in 2013, reflecting the contributions of public programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Eligibility for public insurance coverage contracts sharply at age 19, the age at which the more generous Medicaid/CHIP eligibility rules that apply to children cease to apply, and expands sharply at age 65, the Medicare eligibility age. Among non-elderly adults, insurance coverage generally increased with age, except that young adults ages 19-25 were slightly more likely to have health insurance than slightly older adults ages 26-34. Insurance coverage among adults ages 19-25 has increased markedly in recent years due to the Affordable Care Act’s dependent coverage provision, which permits young adults to remain on their parents’ health insurance plans until they turn age 26.
These Census Bureau estimates are part of the first set of estimates produced using a revised suite of health insurance questions in the Current Population Survey. These revised questions are designed to address longstanding shortcomings in the older questions and will generate a more accurate picture of health insurance coverage going forward. The methodological change does mean that these data are not suitable for evaluating changes in insurance coverage from 2012 to 2013. Nevertheless, other data out today from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey showed that coverage expanded modestly from 2012 and 2013, and data released by the National Center for Health Statistics showed a sharp increase in coverage from 2013 through early 2014. For a detailed analysis of all of the health insurance coverage data released today, see this companion blog post.


5. The data released today by the Census Bureau cover the calendar year 2013, and so do not reflect the notable improvement in the labor market seen over the first eight months of 2014. In particular, job growth so far this year has averaged 215,000 per month, up from 194,000 per month last year. As of August, the unemployment rate was down 1.1 percentage point from a year earlier, with three-quarters of that decline due to falling long-term unemployment. Further, average hourly earnings for private production and nonsupervisory workers were up 2.5 percent from a year ago, the largest year-over-year increase since 2010. While data on poverty and family income in 2014 will not be available until this time next year, the recent labor market data suggest that those figures will likely show further improvement as families continue to recover from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
Next year’s report is also likely to show that health insurance coverage increased sharply in 2014, reflecting an improving economy and, much more importantly, the effects of coverage expansions under the Affordable Care Act. Notably, an analysis published last month in the New England Journal of Medicine estimated that the uninsurance rate among non-elderly adults dropped by 5.2 percentage points from late 2013 through the second quarter of 2014, corresponding to 10.3 million people gaining coverage.

Jason Furman is Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. Betsey Stevenson is a member of the Council of Economic Advisers.

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