LOW-INCOME AND ACADEMICS

Low-Income and Academics

Abstract

This paper discusses the effects of low-income students and families on the academic achievements of the students. There are several factors that result in an e effect on a child's academics. Rising income inequality is one of the factors among many. Parents find it difficult to meet the expenses of their children's education. Eventually, the child fails to get education or if somehow he manages to get it, he could not study properly. Similarly, poverty refrains a school-passed student to have an access to the college. The student's academic record stops their and then he is supposed to work to earn a living for his family. All these factors have a severe effect on a student's academic achievements. This problem can be reduced by adopting certain strategies. The government may draft and impose such policies that help a deserving family to have his child continue his education. The teacher and the students in a classroom can support a deserving and needy child in continuing his education. If poverty is eliminated using several strategies, every student can study and progress efficiently.

Low-Income and Academics

Introduction

In the United States (US), the gaps in achievement among poor and advantaged students are substantial (Rowan et al., 2004). Through multiple studies, The U.S. Department of Education (2001: 8) has indicated results that “clearly demonstrated that student and school poverty adversely affected student achievement”. The U.S. Department of Education (2001) found the following key findings regarding the effects of poverty on student achievement in a study conducted on third through fifth grade students from 71 high-poverty schools: The students scored below norms in all years and grades tested; students who lived in poverty scored significantly worse than other students; schools with the highest percentages of poor students scored significantly worse initially, but closed the gap slightly as time progressed. Numerous individual studies have found similar results. In his fiscal 2010 budget proposal, President Barack Obama called for neighborhoods modeled after the Harlem Children's Zone to improve the lives of children living in poverty (Aarons, 2009).

Literature Review

The socioeconomic status of a child's parents has always been one of the strongest predictors of the child's academic achievement and educational attainment. As Greg Duncan and Katherine Magnuson point out in their chapter in this volume, students in the bottom quintile of family socioeconomic status score well below (more than a standard deviation below) those in the top quintile on standardized tests of math and reading when they enter kindergarten (Duncan and Magnuson, this volume). Moreover, they note, these differences do not appear to narrow as children progress through school.

Duncan and Magnuson are not, of course, the first to point out this strong association. The 1966 Coleman Report famously highlighted the relationship between family socioeconomic status and student achievement almost fifty years ago (Coleman, et al., 1966). The federal Head Start program was started in the 1960s as part of the War on Poverty to reduce the relationship between family poverty and children's cognitive and social ...