The Facts: Poverty Does Matter
Shortly after I wrote a blog post in late April about the data showing the effect of poverty on student academic achievement, I received an article from OnlineUniversities.com listing and describing the ten poorest high schools in the United States. The data sadly correlates the level of poverty and student achievement in a manner that is in line with the data Stanford University has gathered through years of research around contributing factors in student achievement. The surprise is that not all the ten poorest high schools are traditional public schools: one is a charter and one is a virtual high school. And they too have trouble helping students succeed, once again illustrating that school structure – charter, traditional or virtual – is not the determining factor in educating children to their highest potential. A sampling of the schools on the list—read more