Chapter 10: How Poverty Affects Achievement (10/34) It’s easy for affluent folks to say the poverty doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter TO THEM. But for those who live in a violent neighborhood, in dingy surroundings, it is a way of life, NOT an inconvenience. The burdens imposed on children by poverty are physical, emotional, cognitive, and psychological. The achievement gap begins before the first day of kindergarten. ************************** Poverty matters before children are born. Poverty is one of the key predictor of insufficient prenatal care – increased risks of premature births, and greater chance of learning disabilities. Poverty affects children’s motivation and their ability to concentrate on anything other than day-to-day survival. Most children are dragged down by the circumstances into which they were born, through no fault of their own. ************************** The UNICEF report says that the only “economically advanced nation with a higher child poverty rate than the United States is Romania.” The gaps are smallest in Finland and the Netherlands that do the most to support the health and well-being of their children. ************************** Belief that fixing schools will fix poverty has no basis in reality, experience, or evidence. Belief that fixing schools will fix poverty places unrealistic responsibilities on teachers who did not cause nor create these conditions. ************************** barnesandnoble/w/reign-of-error-diane-ravitch/1114975619?ean=9780385350884
Posted on: Thu, 08 Jan 2015 18:02:14 +0000
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