Low Income Student Households

This link explores St. Louis, Missouri Superintendent Tiffany Anderson's three lessons on how high-poverty communities can improve academic achievement by focusing on meeting students' needs inside and outside of the classroom.  According to U.S. Census data, nearly 44% of the community's households earn less than $24,999 annually and more than 90% of her district's students are eligible to receive free and reduced-priced meals.  Superintendent Anderson teamed up with an area St. Louis food bank to open a school-based food panty who, with the help of eight volunteer students, distribute fresh vegetables, canned goods, multigrain bread and pasta to 200 Jennings' stuggling families every two weeks.  Additional changes that have aided in increasing student performance include installing washers and dryers in schools, a free clothing store and home visits when a student misses more than two days of school consectively.

The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2014 restores much of the cuts to early learning programs as a result of sequestration, and provided new funding for Early Head Start programs to partner with local child care providers to serve more low-income infants and toddlers in high-quality programs. Funding was provided through the Department of Education's Race to the Top program for Preschool Development Grants to develop, enhance, or expand access to high-quality preschool programs for children from low- and moderate-income families.

The U.S. Department of Education weblink  announces the $4.7 million awarded to nine partnerships to help improve the quality of elementary and secondary education and bolster community-wide, comprehensive services for students, families and their communities. The Full-Service Community Schools (FSCS) program supports partnerships between schools, school districts, and community-based and nonprofit organizations.

“President Obama’s cradle-to-career education agenda begins at birth, and we know that investing in high-quality early learning is one of the best choices we can make,” remarked Education Secretary Arne Duncan.  ED knows that parents play an integral role in early learning, including in programs such as Head Start and in programs funded through Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. We all share in the responsibility of ensuring that children and families have the help that they need, and that young learners are put on the right path to becoming college and career ready.

Teacher educators are being challenged to prepare teacher candidates for work with diverse students. For teacher candidates to work effectively with students from diverse cultures in all grade levels, they need to become familiar with some of the major issues that students confront in today's society. The study of children's literature from multiple perspectives can be a vehicle for developing an understanding of complex concepts related to multicultural issues. This article suggests books for building teacher candidates' background knowledge so that they can reflect on their life experience related to multicultural issues. Four categories of multicultural literature are presented: racism, poverty, gender equity, and religious beliefs. For each category, selections of children's multicultural literature are summarized, followed by a series of questions. The questions are designed to inspire teacher candidates to reflect on their personal diversity beliefs.

This U.S. Department of Education website invites program applications for colleges and universities to reach low-income and first-generation students. 'First in the World' program will have two tiers: a “development” tier for innovative projects that are supported by “strong theory” (defined in the grant announcement) and larger grants in the “validation” tier will be awarded to applications for interventions supported by significant evidence. Since a key goal of the FITW program is building an evidence base, all funded grants will include rigorous evaluation.

The Equity and Excellence Committee’s report, ‘For Each and Every Child’ details a strategy for Equity and Excellence in education.  This report explores the educational competitive achievement gaps between U.S. students, the future labor force, and students across the world.  In 2009, the United States was 27th in math (not counting states or provinces that were ranked separately from their country). In terms of “advanced” performance on math, 16 countries produced twice as many high-achievers per capita as the United States.

This 2009 NEA Today article announced, "In a groundbreaking alliance, the National Education Association (NEA), the nation’s largest professional organization representing 3.2 million educators and Boys & Girls Clubs of America (BGCA), one of the nation’s leading youth organizations with more than 4,300 Clubs that serve 4.5 million young people announced plans to join together to advance dropout prevention efforts, promote high school graduation, and increase public engagement.   According to estimates, approximately one million students or 30 percent of the high school population drops out before graduation each year. Only five in 10 Black and Hispanic students graduate on time with a standard diploma and less than one-half of American Indian and Alaska Native youth complete high school."

The Preschool Development Grants competition supports States to (1) build or enhance a preschool program infrastructure that would enable the delivery of high-quality preschool services to children, and (2) expand high-quality preschool programs in targeted communities that would serve as models for expanding preschool to all 4-year-olds from low- and moderate-income families.

This HUD website gives an overview of Promise Zones,  a federal initative announced by President Obama in 2013, whereas  nationwide: urban, rural, and tribal communities where the Administration would partner with local leaders to create jobs, increase economic activity, improve educational opportunities, and reduce violent crime.  The first urban, rural, and tribal Promise Zones were announced in a ceremony at the White House on January 9, 2014. They are located in: San Antonio, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Southeastern Kentucky, and the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. Each designated Promise Zone will be asked to identify a set of outcomes they will pursue to revitalize their communities, develop a strategy supporting those outcomes, and realign resources accordingly.

According to this May 2014 Education Weekly article, “Districts that substantially increased their spending as the result of court-ordered changes in school finance, low-income children were significantly more likely to graduate from high school, earn livable wages, and avoid poverty in adulthood.“  The article also states, “Between 1971 and 2010, supreme courts in 28 states responded to large gaps between richer and poorer school districts by reforming school finance systems.”

This Department of Education website provides useful information concerning programs administered by Student Achievement and School Accountability (SASA) programs and issues that are important to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Within this website, there are links to Title I, Part A  , Title III , School Improvement Grants, Homeless, Title I, Part D and Enhanced Assessment Grants. Information may be searched on a state-by-state basis.