Week 5: Poverty and Urban Divisions

In today's society, the most frequent terms that dived the urban population is the economy and its income. One huge element that effects other elements which create the divisions of an city such as education, housing, employment, income, health, and crime, is poverty. As time has passed, statistical facts associated with neighborhoods of poverty have made it difficult to analyze the problem in structural terms because of non-marital and teenage births, students dropping out of school, violence in the street and in the home, and substance and drug abuse. Poverty is probably the biggest issue today in all urban areas and cities and studies prove that it is one of the greatest negative impact towards society. It reduces the development rate of the society as well as the economy rate. 

In this New York Times newspaper article, the author stresses how much poverty can affect education on students who are less fortunate. No Child Left Behind, administered by President George W. Bush, is based on the premise that setting high standards and establishing measurable goals can improve individual outcomes in education. The Act requires states to develop assessments in basic skills to be given to all students in certain grades, if those states are to receive federal funding for schools. But this Act only set unrealistically high expectations for all schools. However, President Obama decided that making schools more "efficient" through means like judging teachers by students' test scores instead of setting standards for every school in America. The article states that data from the National assessment of Educational Progress proves that more than 40 percent of the variation in average reading scores and 46 percent of the variation in average math scores. Among the fifteen year old students in America, students with lower economic statuses had far lower test scores that more advantaged counterparts within the United States and the rest of the world. Did you know that the mediocre overall performance of American students on international test is unrelated to the face that one fifth of American Children live in poverty?


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/12/opinion/the-unaddressed-link-between-poverty-and-education.html?pagewanted=all

Simple Cycle of Poverty