Schools with Highest Rates of Extreme Poverty Get the Least Educational Resources

July 23, 2010

A report released by the Southern Education Foundation (SEF) finds that a growing number of the South's students who live in extreme poverty—surviving on less than seven or eight dollars per day– attend public schools that spend the least on educational resources.

More than 5.7 million children lived in extreme poverty in the United States in 2008 in a household with an income below 50 percent of the federal poverty line—2.4 million or 42 percent of those children lived in the South, according to The Worst of Times: Children in Extreme Poverty in the South and Nation. The Worst of Times: Children in Extreme Poverty in the South and Nation summarizes and analyzes the latest census data and patterns on children in extreme poverty in the South and the nation.

The report also finds that the nation's median school districts with 10 percent or more of extremely poor children had $6,152 less per pupil to spend than schools where children in extreme poverty are below 5 percent, school districts with high concentrations of extremely poor children have a disproportionately large enrollment of students of color—primarily African Americans and Hispanics, and the recent recession has expanded the number of children in extreme poverty in both the South and the nation.

For more information, view the full article at Southern Education Foundation