Reader Christine Langhoff says it is amazing that teachers and students have persevered. One big event that is missing from her catalogue of catastrophes is Sandy Hook and other inexplicable school shootings, where educators laid down their lives for their students:
“The test scores are always supposed to rise, n’est-ce pas? And it’s assumed that the students are somehow static, unchanging from year to year. But teachers know it’s not true: one year you have all lovely children whom you want to adopt and the next it’s the class from hell.
“So, what has changed since 2000? Well, we went to war in two countries, sending parents away from their children. We had a nearly total destruction of our financial system. Unemployment reached record numbers and we have had a jobless recovery. Tens of thousands of families went through foreclosures, many became homeless. Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans and its public schools. TFA became a hurricane of its own. The rate of poverty among school children rose above 50%. Public school budgets have been slashed and not restored. Class sizes have grown. Teachers have lost job protections as well as hard-earned pension benefits, making teaching a tenuous profession. An unproven, developmentally inappropriate curriculum has been forced on children and teachers by a few billionaires. Money has been sucked away to charters and to paying for Ipads and Chromebooks.
“Since test “results” reflect the circumstances of those who take them, it must be only the hard work of classroom teachers everywhere, who have remained focused on delivering the best education they can muster to the kids in their care, which has prevented the tests scores from plummeting to the very bottom of the reformsters’ charts.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Christine Langhoff says “The rate of poverty among school children rose above 50%.” This is false. See link below for accurate info.
http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cce.asp
“In 2012, approximately 21 percent of school-age children in the United States were in families living in poverty. The percentage of school-age children living in poverty ranged across the United States from 11 percent in North Dakota to 32 percent in Mississippi.”
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I believe this is what she’s referring to: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/majority-of-us-public-school-students-are-in-poverty/2015/01/15/df7171d0-9ce9-11e4-a7ee-526210d665b4_story.html
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Thanks, Dienne. This is indeed what I was referring to. I should have added the word “public” before school children in that sentence.
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Raj, you are both right–almost. According to UNICEF, 23% of US children live in poverty. According to US data, 51% live in low-income family. It is the difference in criteria for “free-lunch” (poverty) and “reduced-price lunch” (low-income). The only “advanced” country in the world with more child poverty than the U.S., according to UNICEF figures, is Romania. If you have ever been in Romania (I have), you would not think that is a fair comparison. Romania is a very poor country, impoverished by decades of Communist misrule. We are one of the most powerful and wealthiest nations in the world; it is shameful that nearly a quarter of our children live in poverty, and half live in low-income families. Don’t you think?
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I have no problem with the two different definitions as long as they are used correctly and in proper context.
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Also, there is a huge difference between the % of ALL school-age children living in poverty, and the % of school-age children attending public schools who live in poverty. If a higher % of non-poverty students do NOT attend public schools (and I suspect they do), that will raise the % of students in poverty in public schools. I am probably not explaining this clearly, but it is a basic logic problem (like you find on the SHSAT)
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My apologies, I was wrong, since the statement did seem to refer to ALL schoolchildren, not just the ones in public school. I have seen other folks using that number to refer only to public school students, but I see that wasn’t the case here.
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Raj ~
Hunger is only one indicator of poverty.
More school systems are providing breakfast, lunch and DINNER to students for 180 school days – 5 days a week.
There are number crunchers and data diggers whose lack of empathy & inability to know what it may feel like to live in severe to even mild poverty, one parent fighting senseless wars, crime in American neighborhoods & schools, children forced to take endless toxic tests to protect their teachers – their stability & protector, parents working several low paying jobs and still not able to provide internet access for class assignments or attend school meetings….we have too many children facing these scenarios daily.
Children in poverty are in every one of our schools.
Yes, in the richest country!?
Poverty is something we can actually fix. However, our economists, public policy & legislators looked at the ‘most vulnerable access-table’ and concluded to blame it ALL on teachers and their poor students.
The World is watching and many countries are shaking their heads at how many people are not part of the mainstream in US society: from children, homeless people, homeless vets, to warehousing the elderly in nursing homes.
We cannot hide our shame.
Decent people are watching and millions need to raise their voices.
We can do something about this, but choose to have the same old social-engineers tighten the screws, yet again.
Shame on us!
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Thank you for a powerful summation of this shameful condition of child poverty in a nation with more people worth $50million or more than the next 5 richest nations combined.
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And we wonder why young adults don’t want to go into teaching these days…….
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Thank you for the compliment on teacher effort. I needed that today.
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we have so many rich because we have so many poor. reduce the rich, you reduce the poor.
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