Children in poverty struggle with academics, experts says

“The single best predictor of whether a high school student will go on to college is the family’s social class background — it’s not IQ, it’s not high school GPA, it’s not extracurricular activities; it’s how rich and educated your parents are,” said Mary Ruthi, professor of sociology and chair of the division of history, social sciences and education at Huntington University. “If you come from a low-income family you can be academically gifted and there’s probably a pretty good chance you won’t go on because of the costs and the other demands that are made on you.”

According to information from the Indiana College Readiness Reports issued by the Indiana Commission for Higher Education 44 percent of Huntington North High School students on free and reduced lunches attended college for the 2012 school year, compared to 66 percent who were not on free or reduced lunches. Statewide, those numbers were 53 and 71 percent, respectively.

Students qualify for free and reduced lunches when their family is at 185 percent or less of the federal poverty level, according to information from the Federal Register.

Susie Boyer, assistant professor of education for early childhood, elementary language arts and elementary science methods courses at Huntington University, believes children living in poverty are less likely to succeed academically because they are less likely to have basic needs met, such as food, shelter and security.

She also said parents living in poverty are more likely to spend so many resources trying to fulfill those basic needs that they don’t have as much time to help children academically.

“Families that don’t have the money, that may translate to having less time to contribute” Boyer said.

Huntington County Boys and Girls Club Executive Director Mandy Reber said lack of parent involvement is a big issue she faces at the club. Reber said 80 percent of the students who attend the Boys and Girls Club are on free and reduced lunches.

“Parental involvement is probably the biggest thing. … It’s not that the parents don’t want to be involved but they might not have the transportation (for example),” she said.

In addition, poverty is sometimes a generational cycle, Boyer said, and parents who grew up in poverty may simply not know how to model certain beneficial behaviors.

“A child living in poverty is less likely to have books at home, is less likely to have that broad life experience of going on vacation and seeing different things. They’re less likely to go to the library for story hour because those may not be things that were modeled in the parents’ generation. Those resources may not have been accessible,” Boyer said.

Other resources that may not be available include a quiet place to study, access to technology or educational toys or the resources to pay for extra help if a child needs it, Ruthi said.

She also said youth who grow up in poverty may not have access to afterschool activities or volunteering because they may be busy working to support their family.

Reber said this can also be a factor in a child’s ability to succeed.

“Kids don’t do well in school because they’re dumb or smart, they do well because they have a reason to achieve and when you’re involved in other things that makes you want to do better at everything you’re doing in life,” she said.

Finally, many families in poverty may not be aware of the variety of resources available, from programs to give children books to free preschool to knowing how to fill out college applications.

Solutions

Despite all the problems, there are many things families and members of the community can do to help children in poverty.

Both Ruthi and Boyer agree that helping starts at an early age.

“You can identify at-risk kids from an early age,” Ruthi said. “The more you can intervene and provide a helping the hand the more likely they are to succeed.”

Boyer said one of the most important things parents, or anyone in the community, can do is read to children.

“Children who are read to at home statistically are far more successful academically than children who are not read to. There’s research to back that up,” she said. “The more volunteers there are in the school just to sit and listen to a child read or read to a child can benefit kids.”

A program at Lincoln Elementary School known as Study Buddy was instituted in order to give first-graders at Lincoln a chance both to learn, and to connect with a member of the Huntington community.

The program pairs a volunteer with a first-grader, and for 30 to 45 minutes every other week they spend time either reading, doing math flash cards (or similar math-based exercises) or doing anything generally associated with learning, first-grade teacher Sally Morrison said.

Apart from the educational aspect, Morrison explained the more social dimension of the program.

“The kids look forward to it. You can see their eyes light up,” she said. “They know; there’s a schedule hanging by the door and they know, ‘Mr. Jones is coming on Wednesday. It’s Study Buddies.’”

The program is focused around first-graders. As Morrison described it, that grade is the “big learn-to-read year.” She also spoke with candor about why such a program is useful for children in rough economic situations.

“The students really count on this,” Morrison said. “It’s their one piece of stability in their lives. … These kids just haven’t had the experiences that others have had. This is a way we can give them some of that.”

Apart from Study Buddy, the Literacy Coalition of Huntington County has also conducted programs in order to give youth access to the learning tools they need to thrive.

One of the coalition’s annual drives is a cooperation between themselves and Mission Huntington, a “local mission” by Evangelical United Methodist Church. Evangelical collected books for the coalition, who then distributes them to the second graders of the county in order to promote reading.

Roanoke Library Director and board member of the Literacy Coalition Celia Bandelier explained why the coalition cares about giving kids books.

“Obviously as a librarian I think books in the hands of kids is wonderful,” Bandelier stated. “It gives them their ability to read, which really is what you have to do to function in this world as an adult. You have to be able to read and to understand what you are reading.”

“The more you are read to the more the brain develops that function,” she continued. “The younger you start the better that ability is.”

In addition to reading, the Boys and Girls Club offers additional homework help in all subjects through its 21^st Century Program, Reber said. This program gives students an extra two hours a day of homework help as well as extra development in reading and math that are aligned with what the children are learning in school.

These programs have been proven to be successful, she said.

“When I started at the club and we first started looking into their scores…we had such a large percentage of kids failing at least one class if not many, many classes,” Reber said. “Now, we’re serving more kids than ever, we’re definitely still serving a needed population, and it’s just so rare for us to have kids failing classes. … It’s crazy to think that five years ago where I would say maybe half of not more were failing at least one class.”

Reber said the club also offers a variety of programs, from art to its robotics program, to keep kids involved in something they’re interested in.

“If they learn they’re good at something it helps them be good at other things they’re doing,” she said.