Leadership Matters February 2014

Poverty in the public education classroom

The middle-class child comes to school with a language experience that is 10 times greater than the poor child,” Flynn said. “Then if you lay out a line of student achievement you can see the gap.” Using the Illinois Interactive Report Card, third- grade students from low-income families had achievement gaps of around 30 percent or more in

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about half in 2013, meaning more than 1 million students now live in households that struggle to meet their children’s basic nutritional, healthcare and housing needs,” State Superintendent of Education Christopher A. Koch said. “Research shows that children who live in areas of concentrated poverty often suffer higher stress levels and can demonstrate

reading, writing, math and science in 2003 – and those gaps had grown by the time they were tested as 11 th -graders last year. Flynn is not ready to surrender to poverty despite all of the barriers, and he cautioned against generalization. “Each child is different and as administrators and teachers we have to be aware of our own biases. We should have high expectations for all children,” he said. “All children have a gift. Some have a harder time showing their gifts, and some may not even know what their gifts are. It’s our jobs to uncover those gifts.” Flynn said there is no silver bullet solution, but the issue requires a comprehensive approach to each child. Jeanne Davis is superintendent in

more severe behavioral and emotional problems than their peers. These struggles can be huge road blocks on a child’s path to college and career readiness and lead to lower achievement scores and higher dropout rates.” Dr. Peter Flynn is a veteran of more than 50 years in public education and is a champion of providing a quality educational opportunity for all students, especially those facing the greatest challenges, including minority students and children from impoverished backgrounds. He was named the “Illinois

“The achievement gap between children from different income levels exists before children enter school… Families are children’s most

important educators. Our society must invest in parental education, prenatal care and preschool. Of course, schools must improve; everyone should have a stable, experienced staff, adequate resources and a balanced curriculum including the arts, foreign languages, history and science. If every child arrived in school well- nourished, healthy and ready to learn, from a family with a stable home and a steady income, many of our educational problems would be solved. And that would be a miracle.” --Author, speaker and research professor Diane Ravitch

Superintendent of the Year” by the Illinois Association of School Administrators (IASA) in 2012. He retired after 12 years as superintendent in Freeport, where the poverty rate has grown to 72 percent, and just finished a three-month stint as interim superintendent of the Galesburg district while the superintendent there recovered from a stroke. Flynn worked with underprivileged students as a teacher in New Bedford, Massachusetts, in the 1960s and for the past 13 years has co-chaired a poverty working group in Stephenson County. Flynn described the situation pretty succinctly: “Take two children, one from a middle class background and one from a background of poverty.

Lewistown, where the percentage of students who qualify as low-income is about 39 percent according to the latest Interactive Report Card. Before coming to Lewistown, Davis for five years was superintendent of the Creve Coeur district, which had a poverty rate of 72 percent. Davis has seen both ends of the opportunity spectrum, having taught in an upscale private school where a parent wrote a $1,000 check so students

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