Skip to main content
University of Wisconsin–Madison
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty

Category: Education

Dayton Daily News Series on the Achievement Gap

The Path Forward: Urgent turnaround needed as state takeover looms, By Josh Sweigart, August 26, 2018, Dayton Daily News: “The threat of a state takeover of Dayton Public Schools creates urgency to address long-unchecked problems in a district where race, poverty and a culture of failure have dragged like an anchor, erecting barriers children struggle to overcome. A Dayton Daily News investigation found a wide achievement gap between black and white students, racial disparities in discipline, chronic absenteeism, a large number of classes taught by substitutes and students who face staggering obstacles at home…”

School Funding

Why school spending is so unequal, By Mike Maciag, August 2018, Governing: “The Hopatcong School District, serving a solidly middle-class borough of Sussex County, N.J., has a lot of money to work with. It spent approximately $40,000 per student in fiscal 2016 — more than any other school district in the country with at least 1,000 students. A few other New Jersey districts of similar size were spending less than a third of that. Such vast differences in education spending are common across districts, and come as debates over teacher pay and demands for more overall state support have garnered a lot of attention this year…”

Employment of Less-Educated Workers

Workers hardest hit by recession are joining in recovery, By Nelson D. Schwartz and Ben Casselman, August 3, 2018, New York Times: “The least educated American workers, who took the hardest hit in the Great Recession, were also among the slowest to harvest the gains of the recovery. Now they are a striking symbol of a strong economy…”