The Impact of Poverty

In his report Poverty and Potential: Out of School Factors and School Success, David C. Berliner argues that out-of-school factors have a significant impact on a student's chances of school success.  In part the report observes...

"The U.S. has set as a national goal the narrowing of the achievement gap between lower-income and middle-class students, and that between racial and ethnic groups.... However, out-of-school factors (OSFs) play a powerful role in generating existing achievement gaps, and if these factors are not attended to with equal vigor, our national aspirations will be thwarted.

"... six OSFs common among the poor ... significantly affect the health and learning opportunities of children, and accordingly limit what schools can accomplish on their own:

1. low birth-weight and non-genetic prenatal influences on children;
2. inadequate medical, dental, and vision care, often a result of inadequate or no medical insurance;
3. food insecurity;
4. environmental pollutants;
5. family relations and family stress; and
6. neighborhood characteristics.
   

"These OSFs are related to a host of poverty-induced physical, sociological, and psychological problems that children often bring to school, ranging from neurological damage and attention disorders to excessive absenteeism, linguistic underdevelopment, and oppositional behavior."

Also discussed in the report is a seventh factor: "extended learning opportunities, such as pre-school, after school, and summer school programs that can help to mitigate some of the harm caused by the first six factors."

Jim Greenman's classic, Places for Childhoods brings together some of his insights of the challenges facing early childhood programs seeking to provide quality programs for children, as well as reflections by a variety of authors: Lella Gandini, Karen Miller, Diane Trister Dodge, Elizabeth Prescott, Janet Gonzalez-Mena, Anne Stonehouse, and Paula Jorde Bloom.  Examples of Greenman's entries...

• Reconsidering Our Part in the Lives of Children
• How Institutional Are YOU?
• Children Need to Live in the Real World
• What Are Friends For? Reflections of a New-Age Parent
• Places for Babies: Infants and Toddlers in Groups
• Reality Bites — Biting at the Center
• Just Wondering:  Building Wonder Into the Environment
• Where Has All the Science Gone?
• Can't Find It, Can't Get to It, Can't Use It
• "So You Want to Build a Building?" — Dancing with Architects and Other Developmental Experiences
• Thinking About the Aesthetics of Children's Environments
• Pillars of Security:  Making Child Care Centers Secure Places — Part 2
• Diversity and Conflict:  The Whole World Will Never Sing in Perfect Harmony
• Do You Have a Credibility Gap?
• It Seemed to Make Sense at the Time:  Stupid Child Care Tricks
• Places for Childhoods Includes Parents, Too
• Some Things to Keep in Mind While Trying to Change the World, General Motors, or Your Child Care Program

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