Across the nation, 51% of public school children are low income students. In some parts of the South, that number exceeds 60%. The figures, based on location, appear like other signs of the effects of poverty.
According to a new study from Southern Education Foundation:
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.
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Almost all the states in the Old South suffer from the problem. Along with the 71% rate in Mississippi, the low income rate is 65% in Louisiana, 61% in Arkansas and 60% in Georgia and Texas. Government data show that most of these states, other than Texas, are pockets of low education attainment, high poverty and, in some cases, high unemployment.
At the other end of the list are primarily states in the Northeast. The low income rate in New Hampshire is 27%, in Vermont it is 36%, and in Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Jersey it is 37%.
The report’s conclusion:
Within the next few years, it is likely that low income students will become a majority of all public school children in the United States. With huge, stubbornly unchanging gaps in learning, schools in the South and across the nation face the real danger of becoming entrenched, inadequately funded educational systems that enlarge the division in America between haves and have-nots and endanger the entire nation’s prospects.
That means the issue is a microcosm of poverty, low education attainment and low median income in America — none of which is likely to change.
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