The complicated correlation between poverty and lower test scores
The many factors that contribute to a student being successful in the classroom interweave into a complicated tapestry, and one that has grown even more intricate in the last decade.
Pull a single thread and the tapestry falls apart.
For students who grow up in an impoverished household, stresses and other distractions make success all the more challenging. Transience, lack of resources at home, lack of parent engagement — all diminish a student’s chances for success, and in many cases are a direct impact of poverty on a household.
According to the National Center for Children in Poverty, in Virginia over 975,000 families with 1.8 million children live in poverty.
Over the last 10 years, the percentage of area students qualifying for free and reduced lunch has increased, and in some areas, significantly. The program serves households meeting federal poverty guidelines.
While a causation between high free and reduced lunch populations and lower scores on standardized tests can not definitively be drawn, there is an evident correlation.
Poverty numbers tell the story
It’s hard to say definitively that schools with higher rates of poverty will have lower test scores as well, but there is correlation for many area schools, particularly in the cities.
In both Staunton and Waynesboro the school with the highest free and reduced lunch populations had the lowest Standards of Learning pass rates in 2013-2014, the year with the most recent SOL data released by the state.
In Staunton, Bessie Weller Elementary had 69.5 percent of students qualify for free and reduced lunch, and had the lowest English and math pass rates at 64 percent and 48 percent respectively during the 2013-2014 school year.
In Waynesboro, Wenonah Elementary had 88.2 percent qualifying for free and reduced lunch, and had English and math pass scores of 48 percent and 57 percent, the lowest in the school division for 2013-2014.
Staunton and Waynesboro have higher rates of students qualifying for free and reduced The complicated correlation between poverty and lower test scores:
