Oklahoma Watch: Low-income students likely to be retained at highest rate, By Chase Cook, March 30, 2013, The Oklahoman: “Among thousands of Oklahoma students who could be held back in third grade for failing a state reading test next year, a disproportionate share likely will be low-income children, an Oklahoma Watch analysis of state data found. An analysis of state test data from spring 2012 found that elementary schools with higher rates of low-income students had greater shares of third-graders who scored poorly on the Oklahoma Core Curriculum Test for reading. Starting in spring 2014, under the Reading Sufficiency Act, third-graders who score at the lowest level on the test, unsatisfactory, will have to repeat third grade unless they get an exemption or improve to grade level by the fall. The possibility that many of the students held back will come from low-income families raises fears among some educators that these children in particular will suffer negative effects from retention. Research over decades has found that retention can cause harmful lasting effects, including lagging achievement, higher dropout rates and social and emotional problems. Poor students are less likely to have support resources at home to recover, some experts say…”
Day: April 2, 2013
Poverty Programs and Spending Cuts
US poverty spikes but help from Washington shrinks as government struggles with debt, Associated Press, April 1, 2013, Washington Post: “Antonio Hammond is the $18,000 man. He’s a success story for Catholic Charities of Baltimore, one of a multitude of organizations trying to haul people out of poverty in this Maryland port city where one of four residents is considered poor by U.S. government standards. Hammond says he ended up in Baltimore three years ago, addicted to crack cocaine and snorting heroin, living in abandoned buildings where ‘the rats were fierce,’ and financing his addiction by breaking into cars and stealing copper pipes out of crumbing structures. Eighteen months after finding his way to Catholic Charities via a rehabilitation center, the 49-year-old Philadelphia native is back in the work force, clean of drugs, earning $13 an hour cleaning laboratories for the Biotech Institute of Maryland and paying taxes. Catholic Charities, which runs a number of federally funded programs, spent $18,000 from privately donated funds to turn around Hammond’s life through the organization’s Christopher’s Place program which provides housing and support services to recovering addicts and former prisoners…”