Lindsay Schwob
PVS 101
May 4, 2009
Parents and the Education of Children in Poverty
A child does not show up for school for the third day in a row and the teacher notices that
a pattern of absences has appeared. Is it the child’s fault? The parents’ fault? Can the school do
something to stop this trend? There is a definite association between the parents of a child in
poverty and the education that child does (or does not) receive, and there are many factors that
play into this connection: intimidation the parents feel, expectations put on the child, parent
employment, location and condition of the school, and health issues. Unfortunately, all of these
issues mean that children in poverty are on an unequal plane when it comes to education,
compared to children in higher classes of socio-economic status. Lord Acton wrote of the United
States over 140 years ago, “In a country where there is no distinction of class, a child is not born
to the station of its parents, but with an indefinite claim to all the prizes that can be won by
thought and labor. It is in conformity with the theory of equality . . . to give as near as possible to
every youth an equal state in life. Americans are unwilling that any should be deprived in
childhood of the means of competition.”1 It is sad and ironic how this statement is not true in the
United States today.
Parents may not want to get involved in their child’s school life because schools have a
negative connotation in their minds. Many adults in poverty grew up in poor families and have
Jonathan Kozol, Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools (New York: Crown
Publishers, Inc., 1991), pg. 83.
1
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bad memories of school from their childhoods. They may have been bullied or did not make
good grades. There may be an association for them between school and feeling stupid. Also,
some parents of students in poverty have a lower level of education than the people working at
schools. When talking to principals or teachers, a parent does not want to feel inferior in the
conversation. The more diverse vocabulary used by the faculty and staff at schools can be
intimidating. This is one reason why parents are reluctant to get involved in reading programs,
the Parent Teacher Association, and other extra-curricular activities. In order to distance
themselves from the feeling of inferiority, parents distance themselves from their children’s
schools.
In addition to being physically distant from the place their children receive their
education, parents of children in poverty may not breach the topic verbally. Parental
encouragement may not be present in a child’s life because his or her parents have minimal
expectations of him or her. If the parents have not achieved much based on their own standards,
and/or the standards of others, then they may expect their children to follow on similar paths and
are not anticipating great successes from them. The parents see their children as not having the
ability to perform great accomplishments. This idea applies to teachers as well. Teachers do not
always expect equal performances from every student. They might believe that a student that
comes from a family with a higher income will learn more and be more successful in school, and
this might show. Kids can tell from tone of voice and body language2 whether or not a teacher or
parent expects great things from them, and the students usually live up to whatever expectations
are put on them. “It has long been understood that expectations influence achievement. When
2
David K. Shipler, The Working Poor: Invisible in America (New York: Random House, Inc.,
2004), pg. 247.
Schwob 3
teachers and parents believe that a child will do well, the child usually does better than when he
is thought to be incapable.”3
People need to look at what can be done in order to stop the lack of achievement due to
living up to low expectations. The first thing a teacher can do is to not stereotype the poor
children and label them as being less capable than the other students in the class. Teachers
should also observe the strengths of the students and focus on those. It has been argued that
teachers should use “culturally responsive teaching,” which includes: acknowledging the
legitimacy of the cultural heritages of different ethnic groups as content to be taught in the
formal curriculum; bridging home and school experiences; finding meaningful connections
between academic abstractions and lived sociocultural realities; using a variety of instructional
strategies aligned with student learning styles; and incorporating multicultural information,
resources, and materials in all the subjects and skills routinely taught in schools.4 To
acknowledge cultural heritages and incorporate multicultural information, the teachers would
benefit from getting to know more about their students’ personal lives and backgrounds. Also, in
order to bridge home and school experiences, the teachers would need to work on getting the
parents more involved and help them overcome the feeling of intimidation mentioned above.
Education in this aspect needs to be a team effort because parents would also have to assist
teachers by helping them figure out the students’ learning styles.
Besides not encouraging their children in their schoolwork because of the want of
distance from education, parents may not have the time to give such encouragement. Some poor
3
Shipler, 241.
Mistlina Sato, et al. “Poverty and Payne: Supporting Teachers to Work with Children of
Poverty.” Phi Delta Kappan Vol. 90, No. 5 (January 2009), http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com
(accessed April 6, 2009).
4
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children come from single-parent families with a mother or father who works multiple jobs.
There simply is no time for the parent to sit down with their children and help with homework or
show them that they are proud of the work they are doing. Dr. Robert Needlman, a behavioral
pediatrician, says, “When you’re poor you have to prioritize. You can’t do everything. You can’t
pick your kid up from school and go shopping and get the check cashed [and] also go to
therapy.”5 Even if one or both of a student’s parents are home, giving encouragement and
helping with homework may not be a top priority. Parents have other things to worry about when
in poverty, such as paying bills and getting food on the table each night. In one particular case, a
student was unable to do her work because her mother and she had left the house, but her mother
was scared to go back because her boyfriend was hitting her. The student says, “I kept bugging
my mother to go back and get my work, but Mom was afraid to back ‘cause she was afraid he
would hit her.”6
As mentioned above, parents are not always home to support or spend time with their
children. Employment is one major reason for this. Parents may not be available when their
children need them because of job hours, multiple jobs, interview times, appointments, etc. This
becomes a major problem when work overlaps with the times of the start and dismissal of
school; transportation becomes an issue. Young children are not allowed to ride public
transportation unaccompanied by an adult, and the buses, subways, and other transportation
systems may not go near the desired school. Moreover, buses provided by the public school
system may not be an option for children if they do not have a permanent address. If an
impoverished family moves from shelter to shelter or changes locations frequently, it becomes an
inconvenience and the schools may not know where to send the buses. In addition, walking to
5
6
Shipler, 248.
Shipler, 239.
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school may be too dangerous, depending on the neighborhood the children live in, or the walk
may be too far of a distance. Plus, the children may not own bicycles, which would make a long
trek easier.
Another disadvantage to parents not being home is that they cannot make sure their
children actually go to school. Without parents home, the children have the freedom to choose
whether or not to attend school each day. There are many reasons why a student would decide
not to go to school. First, a child may be the target of a bully and is afraid of that classmate. For
instance, if a child needs glasses to read and see the chalkboard, his or her parents may only be
able to afford a large unfashionable pair. The glasses may not fit right on the child’s face, which
could result in ridicule. Sometimes lack of material goods is the reason behind a terrible
attendance record at school. In his research about poor at-risk children, Richard Weissbourg
found that “two brothers were coming to school on alternate days because they had only one pair
of shoes between them.”7 Only the brother whose turn it was to wear the shoes was able to go to
school to learn something that day. Also, a child in poverty may have a family that moves around
a lot and does not have a permanent residence. “Residential instability also leads to high rates of
school mobility, which in turn is associated with loss of educational services, diminished rates of
attendance, and academic failure.”8 The moves could result in a student attending multiple
schools in the same year. With constant moving, there might not be enough time for a child to
build any real friendships with classmates at school. Teachers have influence in this type of
situation as well. Polakow tells of one case where a child, Tim, constantly moved due to his
Richard Weissbourg. “The ‘Quiet’ Troubles of Low-Income Children.” The Education Digest
Vol. 74, No. 5 (January 2009), http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com (accessed April 6, 2009).
8
Valerie Polakow. “In the Shadows of the Ownership Society: Homeless Children and Their
Families” in Invisible Children in the Society and Its Schools, ed. Sue Books, 53 (Mahwah, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2007).
7
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homelessness. At one school, his teacher had had frequent movers like Tim in the past and felt
that she did not have time to get Tim caught up with the rest of the class. “His teacher saw him as
a burden with no place in her classroom, and his classmates followed her example by isolating
and taunting Tim.”9 If there are no friends to look forward to seeing at school, a child may have
no motivation to attend every day. Constant moving can also be harmful to a child’s education
because of the different levels of learning in separate schools. A child may be at the top of his or
her class at one school, only to move and find him- or herself at one of the lowest intellectual
levels at the new school. This can lead to frustration and a dislike for the new school, because the
child is not used to schoolwork being difficult. How can schools be more responsive to children
in these situations? Michael S. Knapp sees that teachers and administrators in high-poverty
schools are faced with many factors that complicate school life. He believes people should view
teaching as a two-way street, with teachers learning from the students as well as vice versa.
Instead of focusing the curriculum on fixed sequences with different skill levels and standardized
tests, teachers should teach for student understanding and with the attempt to relate classrooms to
the students’ world and experiences. “The ultimate goal is for students to be able to make sense
of school experiences, viewing things as parts of a whole rather than as disconnects, and, finally,
connecting new learning experiences to already existing knowledge.”10
In a different scenario, a child may not be able to attend school because he or she has a
parent that is home. Staying at home to take care of a sick, disabled, or depressed parent, or other
family member, ranks as a higher priority than going to school for the day. Weissbourg says,
“One study of high school students in three cities found that 20% of the children had missed
9
Polakow, 54.
Maike Ingrid Philipsen. “The Problem of Poverty: Shifting Attention to the Non-Poor” in Late
to Class: Social Class and Schooling in the New Economy, ed. George Noblit and Jane A. Van
Galen, 281 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007).
10
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school to take care of a ‘family member or close friend.’ Another study indicated that 12% of
high school drop-outs nationwide left school to take care of a family member.”11
Parents are also associated with the education of their children because they determine
which school the students attend. Many parents in poverty do not have the luxury of choosing a
private school for their kids because they cannot afford the tuition. Some parents cannot even
choose which public school their children attend because they can only manage to pay for a place
to live in low-income neighborhoods, which are not zoned for the top-notch schools. Schools in
low-income neighborhoods are often in worse conditions, physically and materially, than those
in wealthy neighborhoods. In New York City, for example, there is a major difference between
the schools in the inner city and the schools in the suburbs. One inner city public school is in an
old skating rink with no sign to mark that the building is a school. Multiple teachers and their
classes are packed into single classrooms for lack of space. Jonathan Kozol visited the school
and wrote this in his notes: “An uncomfortable feeling—being in a building with no windows.
There are metal ducts across the room. Do they give air? I feel asphyxiated. . . .”12 In another
elementary school in the same district, Kozol sits and talks with the principal in the nurse’s
room. “The window is broken. There are two holes in the ceiling. About a quarter of the ceiling
has been patched and covered with a plastic garbage bag.”13 His description is only about the
nurse’s room; it is scary to imagine what the conditions of the classrooms are.
Students must have difficulty learning in conditions such as the ones described above.
There is a great number of schools around the country that suffer from terrible conditions like
these, and more. Some suffer from mold, sewage backup, broken windows, and water fountains
11
Weissbourg
Kozol, 87.
13
Kozol, 89.
12
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that do not work. This type of environment hinders the education of the students, which can be
looked at with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in mind. Abraham Maslow outlined “a motivational
hierarchy” that consists of five categories of human needs: physiological, security, social,
esteem, and self-actualization.14 The first basic level of needs is satisfied by things like food and
sleep; this category consists of needs such as hunger, thirst, comfortable body temperature, etc.
With a broken air conditioning unit during the warm months of the year, students may not be
able to focus on learning because they are distracted by physical discomfort in the hot
temperature of the classroom. If the water fountains in the school are out of order, students
cannot move past the basic need of thirst, and have more difficulty learning.
In addition to having less than ideal building conditions, schools in low-income areas
lack adequate resources for their students to truly have a rich learning experience. Kozol found
that District 10 in New York City decided to give an equal number of computers to each
elementary school. This was not a fair rationing because the inner city schools had larger classes
and more students; the ratio of students to computers differed dramatically than that of the
suburban schools.15 Without enough computers, the students have a much more difficult time
keeping up to date with the technology of today, and more and more schoolwork is being done
on computers. There are similar situations with other resources. Without sufficient science
equipment, students are unable to do hands-on learning the way students at other schools can
with microscopes, Bunsen burners, etc. Without enough textbooks, or ones at the proper level,
students cannot keep up with students of the same grade elsewhere in the country. Sharing books
Seymour Adler. “Maslow’s Need Hierarchy and the Adjustment of Immigrants.” International
Migration Review, Vol. 11, No. 4 (Winter 1997), http://www.jstor.org (accessed May 3, 2009).
15
Kozol, 84.
14
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makes lessons in the classroom take longer, and there can be no homework activities if students
cannot individually take books home with them.
Material resources are not the only things lacking in these schools attended by children in
poverty; quality teachers are hard to come by. Many of the better teachers are offered more
money and benefits if they teach at a higher-end school. It is also advantageous for teachers to go
to schools that upper-class children attend because those students are easier to teach, with less
behavioral problems and cognitive disabilities. This reality is expressed in Kozol’s book when he
talks about a school in New York City: “At Public School 79, serving poorer children to the
south, the principal says that he is forced to take the ‘tenth-best’ teacher. ‘I thank God they’re
still breathing,’ he remarks of those from whom he must select his teachers.”16
Changes can and should be made. When looking at the budgets of schools, people should
not be concerned about giving out the same number of items to each school, but instead evaluate
the needs of each school individually. Money should go to the dilapidated buildings before
buying more books for a suburban school that already has a library full of them, for example. In
today’s society, “the system of school funding in the United States rewards the wealthy and
middle class with well-funded schools while depriving schools with a high concentration of lowincome students.”17 Schools in poor districts have gone to court over funding and have been
legally victorious, but things stayed the same because people who gain from the existing system
would not let change happen. “It seems taboo to seriously consider a redistribution of resources
for it would run counter to both the notion of meritocracy and the related idea that freedom
16
17
Kozol, 84.
Philipsen, 272
Schwob 10
means the ability to reap all of the benefits of one’s own labor, no matter how obscene those
benefits might be.”18
And what can the school system do about retaining teachers at the schools that most
desperately need teachers of high quality? The overcrowded classrooms in schools full of
impoverished kids are the ones that need the best teachers in order to help the students learn
more, while at the same time the teacher manages the large class. Back to the idea of the budget,
the higher salaries should go to teachers at schools that are under the worst conditions and have
the largest numbers of students to teach. Or should the higher salaries go to the teachers who are
educating the children of the elite, who expect the highest level of education possible (and are
willing and able to pay for it)? It is questions like these that make addressing the issue of poverty
within education so difficult to solve; there are counter arguments for every concern.
Parents are further associated with the education of their children regarding the topic of
health. In order for children to get food with all the proper nutrients, the parents need to be
knowledgeable about which foods are healthy. A parent in poverty, however, may not have the
proper education in this field. They may not have learned from their own parents, or have not
had classroom experience with this topic. The one left with the task of making known
information about health is ambiguous. The media does an insufficient job when it comes to
instructing viewers on the health content of products being sold. There are numerous
commercials about fast food restaurants on television that advertise the quickness of service and
low price of meals, but rarely is information given out about the nutritional value of the food.
When buying from restaurants or grocery stores, parents are more likely to choose an item they
recognize from advertisements, or one that is the cheapest and easiest to prepare. Many times
18
Philipsen, 274.
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snack foods such as chips are chosen over fresh vegetables or fruit, and the buyers are unaware
what the differences in those purchases are, in regards to health. This is also where the
affordability and availability of healthy foods come into the picture. If a parent cannot afford
fresh fruit, but is able to by Cheetos, then his or her children are not going to receive a very wellbalanced diet. Most malnourished children come from families who suffer from many
disadvantages, including few household possessions and low income.19 Shipler can add to this
when he says, “As anyone who has been without adequate food for more than a couple of days
can attest, it narrows the focus of attention. Lethargic, light-headed, then intensely obsessive, the
hungry person filters out the irrelevant.”20 While hungry during school, the lesson being taught is
considered irrelevant to the student, compared to his or her growling stomach. A possible way to
help curb this problem is to find a way to make the healthier foods the least expensive.
Advertisers can play a part in this situation by making people more aware of their options, and
telling the public which foods are the healthiest. In addition, society can lend a hand to families
in poverty by providing free classes in areas of low income so that more people can become
educated about healthy habits and learn how to stay healthy and provide healthy choices for their
family members.
Why does health matter so much? Mental and physical development during childhood is
extremely important so that one can reach his or her full potential, and being healthy facilitates
this. It is also important for pregnant women to be aware of the choices they make concerning
food, as well as other health-related decisions. “The cerebral cortex, the brain region most
closely linked to cognitive and intellectual functioning, exhibits a reduction in volume and width
Ernesto Pollitt. “The Relationship between Undernutrition and Behavioral Development in
Children.” The Journal of Nutrition, Vol. 125, No. 8S (August 1995), http://www.unu.edu/
(accessed on April 6, 2009).
20
Shipler, 215.
19
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after neonatal malnutrition.”21 Without proper brain growth, a child may develop learning
disabilities, which include mental retardation, speech or hearing problems, and dyslexia.
Children with learning disabilities in school may get looked down upon by their peers, because
they could be considered stupid. A child who is teased most likely does not enjoy going to
school, and a child with a learning disability who finds schoolwork to be difficult would feel the
same way. Those feelings will hinder a child’s learning. A study by Michael Murphy and Ronald
Kleinman gives evidence that food does affect schoolwork. They began a universal free breakfast
program in sixteen schools in Boston. At the beginning of the program, one fourth of the students
were classified as hungry and one third as lacking nutrients in their diets. These students had
poorer grades and more symptoms of emotional and behavioral problems. “Six months after the
program started, participating students were shown to have increased their math grades,
decreased their school absence and tardiness rates, and decreased emotional or behavioral
problems.”22 Moreover, data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey show
that “5- to 11-year-old children classified as ‘food insufficient’ had significantly lower arithmetic
scores, were more likely to have repeated a grade and seen a psychologist, and had difficulty
getting along with other children.”23
Other health factors can be barriers to a child’s literacy development in addition to the
issues mentioned above. Asthma is a serious chronic illness among children in the United States,
and results in numerous hospital visits. “Asthma accounts for 10 million lost school days
21
Pollitt
Joy G. Dryfoos. “The Effects of Health and Social Welfare Factors on Literacy Development
in Urban Schools” in Literacy Development of Students in Urban Schools, ed. Patricia L. Anders
and James Flood, 39 (Newark, DE: International Reading Association, 2005).
23
Anders and Flood, 39.
22
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annually and is the leading cause of school absenteeism attributed to chronic conditions.”24
Being overweight in school can make a child experience social discrimination, which leads to
poor self-esteem and depression. These feelings make it difficult for a student to concentrate on
schoolwork. Dental problems can bring about low quality of schoolwork as well, because
children can be distracted by the pain of a toothache.
Overall, one can see that parents play an important role in children’s education,
especially those in poverty. The connection can be seen in parent involvement in school
activities and the time, or lack of time, taken to encourage their children. Parent employment also
influences the quality of education a poor child receives, due to reasons such as transportation
issues. The school that a child attends is based on where his or her parents find residence, and
what they can afford; schools in low-income areas will not provide the best education possible
for their students. Additionally, the health of a child is a reflection of the knowledge parents have
about nutrition, and the money available to afford healthy foods. Looking at all the
aforementioned factors that can influence a child’s education is important because it can raise
awareness of possible changes that can be made. Poverty is a multi-faceted problem in the
United States, and it would be difficult to have the total elimination of it. But parents, schools,
and society as a whole can take steps toward a solution, such as providing health education
classes and adjusting school funding to fix rundown school buildings. The solution to poverty
may not come any time soon, but in the present time we can work to make the quality of life
better, especially for children in poverty.
24
Anders and Flood, 38.
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Works Cited
Adler, Seymour. “Maslow’s Need Hierarchy and the Adjustment of Immigrants.” International
Migration Review, Vol. 11, No. 4 (Winter 1997): 444-451. http://www.jstor.org (accessed
May 3, 2009).
Dryfoos, Joy G. “The Effects of Health and Social Welfare Factors on Literacy Development in
Urban Schools.” In Literacy Development of Students in Urban Schools, edited by
Patricia L. Anders and James Flood, 35-57. Newark, DE: International Reading
Association, 2005.
Kozol, Jonathan. Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools. New York: Crown
Publishers, Inc., 1991.
Philipsen, Maike Ingrid. “The Problem of Poverty: Shifting Attention to the Non-Poor.” In Late
to Class: Social Class and Schooling in the New Economy, edited by George Noblit and
Jane A. Van Galen, 269-285. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007.
Polakow, Valerie. “In the Shadows of the Ownership Society: Homeless Children and Their
Families.” In Invisible Children in the Society and Its Schools, edited by Sue Books, 3962. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2007.
Pollitt, Ernesto. “The Relationship between Undernutrition and Behavioral Development in
Children.” The Journal of Nutrition Vol. 125, No. 8S (August 1995).
http://www.unu.edu/ (accessed on April 6, 2009).
Schwob 15
Sato, Mistlina, et al. “Poverty and Payne: Supporting Teachers to Work with Children of
Poverty.” Phi Delta Kappan Vol. 90, No. 5 (January 2009): 365-370.
http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com (accessed April 6, 2009).
Shipler, David K. The Working Poor: Invisible in America. New York: Random House, Inc.,
2004.
Weissbourg, Richard. “The ‘Quiet’ Troubles of Low-Income Children.” The Education Digest
Vol. 74, No. 5 (January 2009): 4-8. http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com (accessed April 6,
2009).