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John Maldonado
Professor Martinez
Writing 101-10
25, April 2016
Poverty And Education
Education has been a challenging area for students who are having financial
issues area for students who are having financial issues. A lot of the issues being similar
with each student; It can actually be very difficult for a student to learn when these issues
are occurring in everyday life. Some of these problems include anxiety, hunger, lack of
clothing, and behavior. Students also have no support from parents due to a parents
absence from working. Teachers face problems as well when trying to help these
students.
Many teachers are aware of the problems these students are facing. In fact the
NASUWT union reported that a growing population of these teachers have actually
volunteered to help these students. They helped them by donating food and other
valuables to help these students. Teachers and employees of certain school systems can
blind to the fact that they have poverty students in their class. Therefore, these students
are faced with disadvantages from the rest of the class. This creates problems for these
students like scoring lower on tests and behavior issues. There are certain schools in the
United States that feel teachers and schools can not be expected to solve these problems
on their own. Teachers are also faced with their own problems as well as students.
Teachers told teachers magazine that a school can receive budget from educational

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services (White, Teachers Magazine). Having budget cuts means less aid towards helping
students. This makes it difficult to teach these vulnerable students.

Since the 1950s, a large portion of the United States students that are attending
public schools come from low-income families says Lyndesy Layton from the
Washington post. Students coming from these low-income families are facing hidden
problems that have no boundaries. Child poverty means not being able to concentrate due
to hunger and lack of sleep (White, teachers magazine). Other issues include lack of
warm clothing when the weather gets cold. This can cause severe sickness to the student
and distract them from learning. Students face a build up of anxiety. Sometimes other
students can tease these poverty students that can cause low confidence and damage self
esteem. Therefore, anxiety can build up making it even harder for students to concentrate.
Sometime these students arent able to go on field trips due to their financial issues. This
can cause a student to feel self -conscious when other students are talking about the fun
trip their planning to have. Some students just dont have the money to go on these field
trips and it makes them feel very anxious when they cant go on the trip. This can cause
anxiety to build up at a young age as field trips are usually in grammar school.
Children in poverty are more likely to quit school. Jeff Jordan, a journalist, says
studies have found that students in low-income homes were three times more likely to
drop out of school than those from average- income home and nine times more likely
then students from high-income homes (Jordan, Covering poverty and education). In
2004, approximately 600,000 18 years old did not graduate high school. if the graduate
rate could increase just by 1 percent the government could save about a billion dollars a

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years just from crime costs. Poverty can also lead to incarceration because they need
money and jobs are sometimes not available. Education is the key that can break poverty
for a person, but sometimes can be hard to stay on track with school when these issues
are occurring. Incarcerated parents have a major impact on their children lives as they
look up to their parents. Having a students parents incarcerated can cause the child to
miss their parent when going to school .
Students are receiving no support from parents because parents are working
multiple jobs trying to make ends meet. These families are less involved in their children
school activities. Therefore, making it more difficult for these poverty students to keep up
with the other students when they are already behind. Most of these children trail behind
starting kindergarten, as they are not fully prepared. These students face many irrelevant
challenges making it harder for them to learn. Most of these teachers have to act as a
counselor, parent, therapist, and even a doctor to there students. Sonya Romero Smith, a
veteran teacher at Lew Wallace elementary school in Albuquerque, keeps a drawer full of
clean socks, underwear, pants, and shoes for her students. She makes sure that the
students are clean, well fed, and safe. She makes this a priority over teaching.
Poverty affects children behavior in school. Children coming from poor
households are not taught to respond in a proper manner. Teachers can look at these
deficits as a disrespectful manner when dealing with these students. Not knowing that
these students are just responding the way they they taught themselves or what was
taught in their household. Students with these deficits get so easilt frustrated that they can
give up on an assignment very quickly. Students coming from poor households are most
likely to display acting out behaviors. Other behaviors include inappropriate emotional

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responses, lack of politeness, and social challenges. Children coming from these homes
tend to have serious anger issues that lead to violent physical force on other students
called fist fighting. These children tend to lash out on people when they are being
remanded because they dont know how to respond to a situation. This can cause temper
tantrums to occur making it really difficult to communicate with them.
These children in poverty come to school hungry and mal nourished. The
NASUWT reported that over three thousand teachers had seen students coming to school
hungry. Most of these teachers had to give food to these students. Fifth-teen percent of
these teachers had given students clothing and fifty-nine percent said the school had to
provide clothing for students. Coming to school hungry means a student isnt able to
concentrate on their schoolwork making them trail behind the other students in the class.
In conclusion, children in poverty are faced with many challenges. These
challenges are irrelevant to a students schoolwork making it difficult for them to learn.
Students not being able to learn at school can increase the dropout rate dramatically.
Hunger, behavior and lack of clothing have tremendous affect on student. This make it
harder for them to focus. Teachers are also face with their own issues when helping these
students. Budget cuts on public schools causes major problems when trying to help these
students, as these children dont even have the aid for school. Helping students is a
community problem that some teachers believe in. public schools with low-income
students grows at a steady pace as the years go by.

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Work cited
Work cited
1. "The Effects of Poverty on Education in the United States."
Childfund.org. The Effects of Poverty on Education in the United States, 1
Mar. 2014. Web. 25 Apr. 2016.
2. Jordan, Jeff. "Covering Poverty and Education." Covering Poverty: A
Tool Kit for Journalists. Covering Poverty and Education, n.d. Web. 25
Apr. 2016.
3. White, Margaret. "Teacher Newsmagazine." Teacher Newsmagazine.
Poverty: How It Affects Students in the School Community, n.d. Web. 25
Apr. 2016.
4. "Pupils 'come to School Hungry', Says Teacher Union." BBC News.
Pupils 'come to School Hungry', Says Teacher Union, 27 Mar. 2016. Web.
25 Apr. 2016.
5. Layton, Lyndsey. "Majority of U.S. Public School Students Are in
Poverty." Washington Post. Majority of U.S. Public School Students Are
in Poverty, 16 Jan. 2015. Web. 25 Apr. 2016.