How to Overcome Child Poverty with Education Essay

The Toronto Star published an article reporting that Toronto currently has the highest rate of children living in households that are considered low income in Canada (Monsebraaten, 2015). The article reports that in Toronto the child poverty rate is higher than the poverty rate of any other age group. This paper will discuss child poverty, how this is a challenge to public health practices and policies, and finally, discuss potential solutions for public policy that address this issue.

Poverty has a great impact on children school lives because they usually face with the overwhelming challenge in their families that is a factor impact on children’s school behaviors and performance. Girls will tend to abuse, while boys may damage in other aspects such as curiosity, learning, and memory. When I read the chapter two of the book, Teaching with Poverty in Mind written by Eric Jensen, I completely agree with him that “A child who comes from a stressful home environment tends to channel that stress into disruptive behavior at school and be less able to develop a healthy social and academic life” (Jensen, 2009, n.p.). In this book, he reported, low-income children “are linked to over 50 percent of all

Some problems associated with living in a neighborhood with a high percentage of the population living in poverty include increased crime rates, poor education, health problems and psychological distress. The concentration of people in high poverty neighborhoods magnifies the problems faced by the poor. This is because it leads to the concentration of the ills associated with poverty. Children in these neighborhood do not only lack basic needs but are also exposed to an hostile environment that holds numerous temptations and does not provide positive motivation (McConville & Ong, 2003). In addition, because schools are distributed geographically, children from high poverty neighborhoods attend the same schools and this result in low performance. This concentration also intensify the shift of the middle and higher income families away from these neighborhoods thus creating a gap between social needs and the financial base necessary to address these issues. The concentration of poverty is important because it has an impact on the distribution of income which might undermines the social fabric and may restrict opportunities for others (Jargowsky, 2003).

The second study I used focused more on the significance of the timing a duration of poverty for a child from birth until third grade and the effect held on the child’s development and was titled “Duration and Developmental Timing of Poverty and Children's Cognitive and Social Development from Birth Through Third Grade”. Allhusen et al. examined the effects of different amounts of poverty by comparing children from families that were never poor, poor during the child’s infancy, poor after infancy, and always poor. In this study, poverty is defined as living 200% below the federal poverty threshold (Allhusen et al, 2005). Children in poverty scored lower on cognitive and pre- academic tests, lower competence, and exhibited a higher level of behavior problems (Allhusen et al, 2005).

Socioeconomic Status is where a particular person or group of people stand in regards to social class. The main measurement that determines one's socioeconomic status is level of education, occupation and income. Although it may not be considered a factor in child development, socioeconomic status can actually play a huge role in determining what kind of adolescent a child develops into. It can influence a child’s morals, self-esteem, grades and many more aspects of a child's life. Socioeconomic status can play a role in determining where a person resides, the occupation they end up getting, their education and their income as well. So, although one’s socioeconomic status is technically made up of these aspects, one can be born into a low socioeconomic status which could result in them continuing to have one throughout their life. It is a cycle that one must break in order to change the outcome. Low socioeconomic status can result in child poverty. Child poverty over the years has risen and fallen but has remained consistently apparent in America. Child poverty can have detrimental effects on developing children and adolescents. It may influence the way they are raised, taught, cared for and many more aspects of the child's life which are important for successful development. Low socioeconomic status can determine how well children and adolescents develop and the type of person they develop into, including

Fifty years after the declaration of war on poverty, an increasing number of children still grow up in poverty in this country. Poverty is now more determinative than race as a predictor of student educational success (Reardon, 2013). The achievement gap between the poor and the more economically advantaged child has actually widened over the last three decades (Reardon, 2013). If we are to provide all children with equal and excellent educational opportunities, it is imperative that we utilize the most effective strategies and enhancements to overcome the educational disadvantages that poor children experience.

Moreover, longitudinal designs allow for an assessment of how the timing (early vs. late) and duration (transient vs. persistent) of poverty may differentially affect children's outcomes. When possible, this discussion presents finding from studies that used standardized tests of school readiness, achievement, and cognitive ability, and controlled for key family and child characteristics, in its review of the impact of poverty on children's educational outcomes.

In conclusion, not all children raised in low income homes or poor neighborhoods will experience some sort of brain or even behavior change, nor will they drop out of school. One thing is certain, poverty gets in deeper to our children’s body, brain and soul a known issue tied to behavior problems due to low

It is widely known that poverty has many negative effects on the development of children who grow up in impoverished homes. One of the most influential outcomes of a person’s life is their intellectual development, which takes place primarily within the first years of life. Not only can childhood poverty result in less enjoyable childhoods, but adversely affects the cognitive and behavioral development; yet more specifically, children’s intellectual development (Duncan 406). In fact, the economic conditions that a child is subjected to during early and middle childhood is very crucial for forming ability, achievement, and intellectual development (Duncan 408). Poverty has

The lack of effort and performance children from low income families demonstrate is an incontrovertible issue. The effects that environment can have on adolescents can be devastating if the environment is inadequate to promote positive child development and success. Children experiencing poverty and neglect are more susceptible to lower performance in school and delayed development, resulting from “...many aspects of a child’s environment that can adversely affect maximum brain functioning. Two significant and negative environmental factors are poverty and neglect. Research substantiates the negative effects poverty can have on a child’s brain including development, learning and academic performance ”(Loughan,Perna). Loughan and Perna

“High rates of child poverty are a cause for concern, as low family income has been associated with a range of negative health, education, justice, labour market and social outcomes. Negative health outcomes include low birth weight, infant mortality, poorer mental health and cognitive development, and hospital admissions from a variety of causes” (Craig, Reddington, Wicken, Oben & Simpson, 2013, pg. 24).

In today’s world people need to compete globally for jobs and one of the most important factors in getting a good paying job is education. However, even the best schools cannot overcome some of the obstacles placed in front of the students that walk through their doors. Poverty, chaotic home environments, discrepancies in exposure to technology, and lack of funding for schools all negatively impact the effort to educate children.

Socioeconomic status (SES) is one of the most widely studied constructs in the social sciences. Several ways of measuring SES have been proposed, but most include some quantification of family income, parental education, and occupational status. Research shows that SES is associated with a wide variety of health, cognitive, and socioemotional outcomes in children, with effects beginning prior to birth and continuing into adulthood. A variety of mechanisms linking SES to child well-being have been proposed, with most involving differences in access to material and social resources. For children, SES impacts well-being at multiple levels.

Poverty is a major issue in America, and those affected appear to be predominantly children. Jarjoura, Triplett, and Brinker (2002) noted that 21% of the children in America are born into families that are living in poverty, which is higher than in many other countries. Some important characteristics of impoverished neighborhoods are high levels of delinquent and criminal behaviors, lack of parental supervision, low levels of

Teaching children of poverty can be very challenging. These children are more likely than their peers to experience poor nutrition, parents with low educational attainment and underemployment, broken families, child abuse and neglect, drug abuse, teen-age pregnancies and high rates of dropping out (Holt & Garcia, 2016). It has been my experience that these students are a little rough around the edges which may cause an educator the inability to see beyond the exterior of the child thus treating them more harshly than their peers. Being employed in a Title 1 school, I have had the pleasure of working with students and families whose major source of income is welfare. They often came from a single-parent household and arrived at school improperly dressed and usually hungry. I found that meeting the child’s basic needs helped them focus on school and took some of the stress off of their parents as they knew their child was in a safe, caring place. One thing that was vital in our classroom was firmness and consistency. Unfortunately, many teachers and schools do not possess the knowledge and experience required for success in these more challenging schools. Impoverished students often do not care about their education nor did their parents seem to care how their children perform in school (Holt & Garcia, 2016). I feel this can be attributed to distraction from just trying to survive. In order to have greater success in the classroom of impoverished students, teachers need to