Condition of Education 2010 Special Section on High-Poverty Schools
The 2010 edition of the annual publication Condition of Education
produced by the National Center for Education Statistics
contained a special section devoted to high-poverty
schools. This section presents a descriptive profile of
these schools and their students to compare them to low-poverty
schools and their students.
High-poverty schools are those where 76%-100% of students are
eligible for free or reuced price lunch through the National
School Lunch Program. This places them at or below 180%
of the poverty guidelines.
Frequency and Timespan: one-time report with data for the 2007-08
school year
In 2010, 15% of people lived in poverty. Poverty is not
evenly distributed across neighborhoods and every state has
neighborhoods with higher than average poverty rates.
These Census Bureau report analyzes demographic and socioeconomic
characteristics of census tracts by categorizing the tracts based
on their poverty levels. Tracts with poverty rates of 20% or more
are considered “poverty areas”. Recent reports draw data
from the America Community Survey and older data come the the
Census long form.
Some may be surprised to know that even in California, “poor,
dense communities on unincorporated land – which uniformly lack
some combination of sewer systems, clean drinking water,
sidewalks, streetlights and storm drains – have been the victim
of years of neglect. Statewide, PolicyLink, an
Oakland-based public policy research and advocacy institute,
estimates that 1.8 million low-income and often Spanish-speaking
Californians live in such communities, many without the
infrastructure that would curb gastrointestinal illnesses,
respiratory disease symptoms, and other public health and safety
risks. In Parklawn and similar unincorporated communities,
language barriers, legal status and a lack of political know-how
have made it difficult for residents to navigate the governmental
process.”
