Southern Public School Students Are Predominantly Poor And Minorities

Southern public schools are the first in the country to have both a poor and minority student majority, The New York Times reported Thursday.

A report by the Southern Education Foundation is concerned that these new numbers will contribute to a cycle of academic under-performance of schools and students in the region. Poor and minority students have generally lower test scores and higher drop out rates than whites, The New York Times described. But educators are still experimenting with how to cater to increased educational needs on such a large scale.

"We've got to figure out how to break the cycle of poverty, and the way we're doing it now isn't working," said Hank M. Bounds, the Mississippi commissioner of higher education and, until recently, the state superintendent of schools. "An affluent 5-year-old has about the same vocabulary as an adult living in poverty."

Read the full story at The New York Times.

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Comments

[compagnero]

02:34 PM on 01/09/2010

As an English person living in Derby (England) none of what has been found in the news article and in the positive and negative comments is unfamiliar to me. They apply equally here and I expect world wide.

All schools, private and public, have performance targets against which they are judged. Those targets can be social and academic /vocational. In the absence of the means of economic and social progress - as clearly exist in the segregated societies in virtually all countries of the world - who will get the blame for squalor and deprivation?

In many cases it will be the school since it is the only easily accessible institution for the worst off people. Schools are never given the power to directly affect the main cause of under achievement.

The cause is economic deprivation and second comes engagement of parents and that in most cases comes from the parents' deprivation.

In other words school education can not put everything right and we must accept that other means, such as adult education, training for jobs, equal rights to employment and health care etc etc are of equal and at the moment possibly greater importance.

How do we get all that if "choice by ability to pay" is given priority?

[Tulka2]

03:23 PM on 01/08/2010

Hope you all read Nicholas Kristoff's editorial in the "New York Times" this last week on the subject of micronutrients. Folic acid before a women get pregnant would make the whole world a better place and people more able to care for themselves.

[klbrz]

09:56 AM on 01/08/2010

The South has very high poor and minority populations: There are 340 non metro counties with persistent poverty in this country; "[a]mong nonmetro persistent poverty counties, 280 are in the South {82%}, and 60 are in the West and Midwest. None are in the Northeast. The nonmetro South, with over 40 percent of the U.S. nonmetro population, has the greatest prevalence of both poverty and persistent poverty. More than one in six persons in the region are poor and more than one in four live in persistent poverty counties." (from http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/rdrr100/rdrr100.pdf)

This region also has almost 36% of the entire country's Hispanic population - http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/hispanic/ASEC2004/2004CPS_tab18.1.html; and over half the country's black population - http://www.blackdemographics.com/. Yes, there are other minorities besides Hispanic and and African-American, but their numbers are generally very small - 1% or so. Since minorities in this country are more likely to be poor than non-minorities, it is of exceptional significance that their numbers are tracked along with poverty rates in general.

Given the way so many school districts get much of their revenue - property taxes - it is only obvious that poor areas will never have the school resources to educate and compete with wealthier areas. The vicious cycle will continue until another way of financing is adopted.

[anticapitalist1983]

03:27 AM on 01/08/2010

here in new orleans, for decades, all the black kids go to public schools and the white kids go to private catholic schools.

it is a de-facto apartheid system!

[wdw505]

02:42 PM on 01/08/2010

i send my kids to private school.........mainly to give them a jump into life.........and yet you have a problem with that......you could do the same thing

[anticapitalist1983]

03:36 PM on 01/09/2010

that's the whole point, many people CAN'T "do the same thing" because they don't the money to.

It is a system of economic apartheid, which in New Orleans has an outcome that is 95% racialized.

[Elizabeth44]

12:23 AM on 01/08/2010

One of the "answers" is early childhood education available to all who want it. A study of brain development in the young child will show the absolute necessity of a rich early environment. Many poor parents are too busy trying to obtain the physical necessities of life to spend a lot of time interacting with their children. Unfortunately, by the time children start Kindergarten, the prime learning years have past and the child has a long uphill climb to catch up. Of course, this isn't the only factor, but it is a very important one.

[1Woman4Obama]

06:48 PM on 01/12/2010

I agree and would give this solution more credit. Babies and toddlers in these communities need to be put into nursery schools by the time they are 1. A child born into such extreme poverty and ignorance has little to no chance of being ready for school or catching up if they start in kindergarten or even 4 year old preschool -- by that time, it is just too late. And children that are ready for school cannot perform in the same classrooms -- it just isn't realistic.

[Acolyte]

11:44 PM on 01/07/2010

So how do you explain Paris Hilton's 2 yr old lexicon?

[ShamusNYC]

12:30 AM on 01/08/2010

Well, education can only do so much... but then again, from what I've seen of her folks it doesn't look like they really placed a high value on books.

[85Percent]

11:27 PM on 01/07/2010

This all started with integration back in the sixties, in the much more rural southern areas, especially. Whites with any money at all pulled their kids out of public schools and started private schools, of which there previously were none. This left only a very few of the poorest whites going to school with the blacks. This situation continues until this day. Many of those poorest whites are not into education much, but some still do care. However, since the majority of whites, and now even better off blacks, are sending their kids to private schools, less and less taxes are voted to support the public schools. Many of you are not familiar with the the situation down here and the history of prejudice that produced it. So, yes, the overwhelming majority in public southern rural schools is black. Other minorities are rarely represented. The few left are the poor whites. The poor of both races are likely to end up less educated.

[1Woman4Obama]

06:53 PM on 01/12/2010

This isn't just true of the South -- the same situation is playing out in schools all over this country. As you suggest, the issue that should be focused on is not race but poverty (which in many situations looks the same).

As the above poster mentioned, something has to be done before these children reach school age. My daughter would sing the letters of the alphabet by the time she was 18 months old. She knew all of her shapes and colors by 20 months. It is ridiculous to expect her to be in the same classroom with children who can't do those things at age 5.

[IBEESBARRIEO]

10:56 PM on 01/07/2010

Poor people are an invaluable commodity, why would we want to advance them. Who would serve the public ? We are thankful they did not pay attention in school.

[Lairs]

10:28 PM on 01/07/2010

I am from NC. I went down to the little country store the other day just below my house and saw a black guy in the store. Never seen that before.

[HekmabaJuzimakz]

10:41 PM on 01/07/2010

Ah, those yuppies are everywhere nowadays.

[Scarabus]

08:24 PM on 01/07/2010

Say what!?!

"Poor and minority students have generally lower test scores and higher drop out rates than whites…"

Not sure how "minority" is defined here. But "poor" and "white" are presented as mutually exclusive?

Poor people can't be white? White people can't be poor?

[ferguskhan]

10:20 PM on 01/07/2010

Hmmm, you read that more carefully than I did. Thanks for pointing that out.

[GrownupStewie]

10:32 PM on 01/07/2010

they are called minorities when set against the entire US...but in this specific area, namely southern public schools, they are a majority. So its not incorrect to say "Minority students are the majority in southern public schools"...

[Haditup2here]

11:23 PM on 01/07/2010

"but in this specific area, namely southern public schools, they are a majority. So its not incorrect to say "Minority students are the majority in southern public schools"..."

Yes it is. Whites still make up the majority of the population of states in the South. Even in South Carolina which has one of the highest population of Blacks next to Washington D.C., the population is about 30% at max. Although one could easily find such information online, common sense would indicate that there would be more minority senators in the senate if either Blacks or Hispanics actually trumped the population of Whites in any one state. The only state where Blacks along with other minorities trump White People is Washington D.C. which perhaps "not by coincidence" does not have a representative in the House or Senate.

[Soliel]

08:24 PM on 01/07/2010

I just realized another very irritating aspect of this article.

Where do other non-whites fit into this model? Those who are not black and Latino? Where do the indians and asians fit in? Are they included in the "minority" map or gathered with "whites"?

The whole thing is stupid. First of all...whites are minority in these states. Second of all, why is it always "whites" vs "minorities" as IF all minorities stick together. As if they are all the same.

They don't. Asians aren't particularly aligned with blacks or Latinos. Neither are indians. By the way, these two groups do well in school. In fact there have been many studies showing Asians doing well despite poverty so to blame it on poverty is BS. Asians and Indians seem to be on the same class level as middle class and above whites.

And what about poor whites? There are many of those. Why isn't there attention on them? Because they do well despite their circumstances? Why aren't they deserving to have attention on their plight? Or is it only the poor who do poorly in school deserving of attention.

So stupid.

[Haditup2here]

09:21 PM on 01/07/2010

I see where you are going with your statement. However, unless you have been from the South, you don't know all of what you are talking about. First of all, in many of the states in the south, Whites do make up the majority. The only difference between the North and the South in terms of the population is the fact that Blacks and other minorities make up a larger percentage of the population. Secondly, although poorly articulated there is relevance to the argument of the article. As a case in point, NC was sued by the poorer school systems within the state for allocating a significant amount of more money to wealthier public school systems. Such action was not only blatant but could only exasperate the situation with student performance when you consider the fact schools are artificially segregated due to monetary status. Wealthier districts collect from a higher revenue while those with better paid jobs seek out neighborhoods with better performing schools therefore increasing that locality value while pricing out those with less economic means. Of course, a student's success comes down to the parent and the student. However, there are still elements of maintaining economic status along racial lines in the education policy of a number of states in the South particularly when it comes to allocating resources. The problem with the article is that it is generalizing a fairly complex issue and it is not thorough in its analysis.

[DAVID POSTER]

10:07 AM on 01/09/2010

Finally! Someone recognises the role of the parent! My mother taught for 30 years, and my daughter is a teacher now.
Parents, as a group, too often expect the schools do teach EVERYTHING that students need to know,..and that is defined as what they were taught(or not...) and too often contrubite to the problem by perputating their own ignorance thru their children.

tea baggers???

[peaceplumber]

08:19 PM on 01/07/2010

Calvinism is working just vine!!!!!!!!

[mulegino]

07:27 PM on 01/07/2010

American pop culture-broadened to include the veneration of the unvenerable and even the detestable-has a lot to do with this as well.
It is the equivalent of a cultural/moral/spiritual lobotomy- a dumbing down of aesthetic taste, an avenue to intellectual laziness and moral turpitude, and a surefire method of getting people to forget the past as well as to disregard the future.
The poor do not, as a rule, have access to the Ivy League, but they do have access to the great art, architecture, music and literature of the past and of the present, which are now universally available,should they wish to look.
Public education has, in many areas of the nation (and poor school districts are no exception) abandoned "education", i.e., the imparting of knowledge, the cultivation of good taste and an appreciation for the truly great artistic, cultural, social and historical achievements of humanity through the ages, to a garbage dump of moral relativism, Frankfurt school style multi-cultural subversion, a kind of rats in a maze conditioning to achieve the lowest common social and cultural denominator-the imparting of a mass neurosis of rewards, punishments, fear and loathing.

[denier denier]

07:51 PM on 01/07/2010

nice

[Soliel]

07:23 PM on 01/07/2010

Is it not obvious that this is caused by our unbridled immigration policies and looking the other way with illegal immigration?

Certain demographic groups are just not all that into education. This is what you get, no matter how much money you throw at schools, or teacher pay...if the customer doesn't try, isn't motivated or interested nothing will happen.

We are fast becoming a third world nation. There will be a percentage who are educated, curious and then there will be the majority who don't read, don't care, little or no curiousity. I wonder what kind of country that will make.

[paganmist]

07:31 PM on 01/07/2010

It's hard to be "into" education when you're so poor that your choices are 1) go to school, or 2) work to feed your family.

You might not intend to, but you sound like a bigot.

[Soliel]

07:57 PM on 01/07/2010

UGH! Oh, yeah, sure I am a bigot. PLEASE.

Let me tell you. One of my BEST friends is a Latino immigrant. He is very poor. He works hard at menial jobs BUT he is very smart! By the way, nothing would be better than to see him succeed and I am trying to help him. He has a lot of knowledge about all sorts of things, reads books, is curious, etc. He makes an effort to keep his kids in good schools.

You know what he says about others in his group? Many don't care. Most do not read. They show little to zero interest in the arts and they send their kids to whatever school.
They don't care. They don't read to their kids or value education. So it is a surprise that the kids follow suit? No, not really.

It's about VALUES...period. It's obvious.

Please stuff it about being bigoted. I am NOT. It's just so very obvious...that people are different in the world and while you libs are hand wringing over a "gap"...a gap that no matter what you do will solve...the answer is right in front of you. The problem is family values, parents and the kids themselves mostly. Sometimes it's the teachers (there ARE crappy teachers out there) but you cannot force education on anyone if they do not cherish it.

Stop being so naive...it's getting embarrassing.

[denier denier]

07:59 PM on 01/07/2010

please, what percentage has to drop out of school to help feed their family? 1 percent? 2 percent? Fails to explain very much except some statistical outliers. In those cases, where kids show the drive, desire and intelligence to succeed but have to quit schooling to help support their families, the state should provide opportunities though.

[inc3000]

08:07 PM on 01/07/2010

Totally wrong assumptions. I have studied psychology and have read many, many studies related to education. There are reasons why these so called minorities are less educated than whites. Professors usually assign them work that is easy to achieve. An A grade in these schools could be considered a C grade in a private school. Teachers do not give these students enough challenging work.
Second, where do you come up with the assumption that these kids are "not into education"? These kids come from parents that value education no matter where they come from. Also, it has been proved time and time again that minorities in this country are almost always given less opportunities than white people. It is not that they are not "into" education, it's just that from an early age, these kids don't get the same benefits that white kids get.

In oder to change this, minorities need to be given the same opportunities than white kids get. Teachers need to give challenging work so they can be competitive with other white kids. The list goes on and on. Please stop spreading rumors that minorities are some how less motivated than the white kids. It's not fair and it is ignorant.

[DAVID POSTER]

10:15 AM on 01/09/2010

"Teachers need to give challenging work so they can be competitive with other white kids."

...and their parents show en mass complaining that their child's home work is "too hard"

[Soliel]

07:12 PM on 01/07/2010

The article totally left out personal choice, drive, interest and familial help.

The reason most rich kids do well is because their parents had intelligence, drive, an interest in learning and discipline. It's not about money (as there are plenty of people with money but have little intellectual interest) but about the attributes that got the parents financially comfortable in the first place. And those attributes were personal characteristics.

If you don't have these things, you can be put in the best school system in the world but it won't matter until a kid learns to apply themselves, focus and learn discipline. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink, no? This is so obvious.

Conversely, my father grew up very poor. Had to share a one room school house with several grades but he made it to college early because he was *smart* and *despite* the poor upbringing. It was his intelligence, drive, interest, focus and discipline that made the difference, not a fancy school.

The whole focus of this article is annoying. You cannot lift someone out of poverty if they don't have the drive to do so. Period. You can only do so much. That is the truth of life.

And I actually know what I speak. I used to substitute inner city schools that had "extra" funding and they still failed and I know why. It was the values/behaviors/attitudes of the children and parents. Nothing else.

[erinaceus]

07:28 PM on 01/07/2010

"You cannot lift someone out of poverty if they don't have the drive to do so."

True, but you sure as heck can keep many of them in poverty by systematically depriving them of opportunities.

"I used to substitute [teach in?] inner city schools that had "extra" funding and they still failed and I know why. It was the values/behaviors/attitudes of the children and parents. Nothing else."

Actually, since teacher expectations are the single biggest determinant of a child's academic performance, and you appear to have had some spectacularly strong preconceived expectations, I really have to wonder about that "nothing else" part of your sentence.

You are correct in that personal responsibility, drive, and determination, are critically important for anyone's success. But if you believe that societal factors are irrelevant, then you are blind. Here's an analogy: a tobacco manufacturer increases the nicotine and and menthol in its cigarettes and dramatically lowers the cost while aggressively marketing to a younger demographic. With actuarial certainty, smoking will increase in the target demographic. You can blame every single individual smoker all you like for making poor choices or failing to exercise proper judgment, but pretending that the only determinant of tobacco use in the population is personal responsibility is both an intellectual and a moral failing.

[Soliel]

08:01 PM on 01/07/2010

Oh brother.

When I started teaching I had no preconceived notions. my experiences taught me! OF COURSE, there are some great kids in these groups who EXCEL and WILL EXCEL no matter what! And they come from poor backgrounds, too. You know why?

Because of their values. Their attitudes, their behavior, their interests and the focus the parents put into discipline, respect, work ethic, focus, etc.

And I respect them a lot and they are examples of how you can be poor, but smart and do very well. That poverty is not the problem but attitude is.

That is the difference whether you are poor or not. This is the truth of life. Money cannot buy your way to success...it always comes from within.

The reasons a school becomes a hell or heaven has to do with the culture in the school. Not the fancy buildings or new books...but the culture.

[kevski]

07:56 PM on 01/07/2010

I grew up in the inner city and attended public schools, and just wanted to say that I agree with you.