Poverty. It’s a political issue. It’s a social justice issue. And it’s an education issue. In fact, it’s the elephant in the room whenever we talk about education in America. And a mighty elephant it is, because poverty plays into every aspect of a child’s health, well-being and academic success.
I think we can all agree: No child should have to worry where their next meal will come from or whether they will have a place to sleep each night, especially not in the wealthiest nation on earth.
In New York State, one in five children live in poverty. In New York City, it’s one in four. In Rochester, it’s nearly one in two. This is morally unacceptable. And the costs to society are painful. As a state, we need the passion, political will, and policies to break the cycle of child poverty.
Kids living in poverty often lack adequate housing, medical care, and nutrition. These factors can affect their rate of childhood disease, as well as their physical and cognitive development.
Kids living in poverty start kindergarten significantly behind their more affluent peers in language and literacy skills. They are exposed to significantly fewer words between birth and age 5, often millions fewer. That deficit affects both reading and speaking skills, which makes them less ready to learn than kids from wealthier families.
Kids living in poverty typically lack access to books, interactive games, and other learning materials that support cognitive development. Likewise, children from poor households are less likely to have access to a library in their neighborhood. And they are less likely to have access to high-quality, affordable daycare, where they would be exposed to other learning opportunities.
Kids living in poverty lack housing stability. That has gotten worse in recent years as the cost of homes and the cost of rent have increased dramatically. Poor kids often move more frequently than their wealthier peers, which means constantly adjusting to new schools, new teachers, and new social groups. All of these factors combine to disrupt authentic learning.
Research over many decades shows a strong correlation between poverty and student outcomes.
Low-income students enter high school with average literacy skills five years behind their high-income classmates. They have the highest dropout rates, lowest success in STEM fields, and graduate college at a rate eight times lower than their peers.
These disparities show up clearly in the test scores at schools that serve low-income communities, but expecting teachers to single-handedly reduce this achievement gap without societal help is unrealistic.
So what do we do?
First, we say out loud that poverty is not inevitable. It is a choice we make in our budgets and our policies. We have evidence from the pandemic that appropriate funding can reduce the number of kids living in poverty. We have evidence that policies designed to help poor families are effective at doing just that. Since that funding and those policies have ended, childhood poverty rates have soared. Now is the time to muster our political courage, take what we learned from past efforts, and enact changes that permanently break the cycle of childhood poverty.
-We must enact tax credits for working families.
-We must expand Medicaid and increase access to health care through school-based health centers.
-We must fund public libraries in our poorest neighborhoods, both brick and mortar buildings AND mobile libraries that can bring books to kids whose families lack transportation.
-We must address the shortage of affordable housing.
-We must provide school meals to all children who need them.
-We must increase the number of community schools to emphasize family engagement and provide wrap-around services and support to students and families.
-We must come up with incentives for teachers and health-care workers to take jobs that serve our most vulnerable citizens.
In unions, we refer to our fellow members as “sisters and brothers or union siblings,” because we understand that we are part of one human family. And in a family, we make sure that our most vulnerable members have the same opportunities as everyone else.
As New Yorkers, we must apply that union philosophy to children living in poverty. They are our most vulnerable citizens. And they deserve the same opportunities as everyone else.
We know what to do. And in a state with as many millionaires and billionaires as ours, we have the resources. Child poverty is not inevitable. It is an urgent and preventable crisis. We must find the passion, political will, and policies to break the cycle of child poverty so that our children can thrive.
Melinda Person is president of the nearly 700,000-member New York State United Teachers.
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.
