'A Nation in Decline': Majority of US Public School Students Live in Poverty

As it turns out, there’s no high-stakes test that can account for this.

A new study released on Friday shows that more than half of students enrolled in U.S. public schools live in poverty, a measurement that the report’s authors say places the U.S. on the road to overall social decline.

Released by the Southern Education Foundation, the new analysis (pdf) used the most recent national census figures available to confirm that 51 percent of the students across the nation’s public schools were low income in 2013.

According to the report:

In addition to documenting the number of students who receive some form of government assistance during their school day, including key programs that offer free or reduced-price lunches, the report makes plain that the pervasive poverty among the nation’s young people is having a direct and negative impact on student learning and the public education system’s ability to meet its goal of providing adequate education for all.

“A lot of people at the top are doing much better, but the people at the bottom are not doing better at all. Those are the people who have the most children and send their children to public school.” —Michael Rebell, Campaign for Educational Equity

“No longer can we consider the problems and needs of low income students simply a matter of fairness,” the report states. “Their success or failure in the public schools will determine the entire body of human capital and educational potential that the nation will possess in the future. Without improving the educational support that the nation provides its low income students – students with the largest needs and usually with the least support — the trends of the last decade will be prologue for a nation not at risk, but a nation in decline.”

Speaking with the Washington Post, Michael A. Rebell of the Campaign for Educational Equity at Teachers College at Columbia University noted how the poverty rate has been increasing even as some economic indicators have improved. “We’ve all known this was the trend, that we would get to a majority, but it’s here sooner rather than later,” Rebell said. “A lot of people at the top are doing much better, but the people at the bottom are not doing better at all. Those are the people who have the most children and send their children to public school.”