A New Majority: LOW INCOME STUDENTS FROM THE SOUTH (AND THE WEST)

from Fritzwire by email

18 October 2013  ::  A report update released today by the Southern Education Foundation (SEF) finds that low income children are a majority of students in the public schools of 17 states across the nation - and 13 of those states are in the South.

The report warns that this continued trend in both the South and the nation raises the prospect of "entrenched, inadequately funded educational systems that enlarge the division in America between haves and have-nots."

In addition, the SEF report finds:

• Half or more of the public school children in two regions --the South and West-- are low income, and a near majority of all students across the nation are low income (48 percent);
• Over the last ten years, the number of low income students have grown 3-4 times greater than the growth of per pupil expenditures in three of the four regions of the country;
• During the last decade, while achievement scores have increased for most student groups, huge gaps still remain between low income and higher income students-- particularly in regions where less is spent on students; and
• The achievement gap between low income and higher income students is as large or larger in private schools as in public schools.

These findings update a 2007 report released by SEF, A New Majority: Low Income Students in the South's Public Schools. It documented how low income students had become a majority in the South's public schools for the first time inmore than four decades.

The update warns, "Without fundamental improvements in how the South and the nation educate low income students, the trends that this report documents will ricochet across all aspects of American society for generations to come."

For more information and the report go to: www.southerneducation.org