Poverty, Achievement and English Language

Poverty, Achievement and English Language Learners (ELLs) (and your name, date, etc.)

Introduction about the significance of looking at poverty rates among different groups of students.

Oftentimes, people are apt to rate intelligence as a core component of a person not realizing that so many more factors are attributable to the child's apparent intelligence. Poverty is simply one of these determining factors. When a child has little to eat at home, or is forced to live in a poor ghetto-type environment where pressure is on him to engage in activities such as stealing or taking drugs, or if he is forced to work other jobs in order to help support his family -- the child's education is likely to suffer. Generalizations, therefore, can never be made that children of a certain school, race, or region are smarter than those of another. Indeed, at one time, books such as "The Bell Curve" posited that Whites were genetically smarter than Blacks. These are stereotypes that may be easily disputed were researchers only to evaluate the standards of living that the children who attend the various schools experience. Consulting graphs such as the one below (retrieved from National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). Distribution of Children in High and Low Poverty Schools)

can perhaps tell us whether levels of intelligence of the students are innate or whether they may falter due to extraneous reasons.

4. In 3-5 sentences, explain the significance of the numbers

The numbers of the graphs above show us the percentage of public school students in high-poverty schools and low-poverty schools during the years 2009-10. They are classified by race/ethnicity and school level. We see, for instance, that far more Whites attend secondary system in low-poverty schools than high-poverty schools during those years, whilst more Whites preferred high-poverty schools than low-poverty schools during their elementary years. Asian / Pacific Islanders preferred low-poverty schools throughout, whilst Hispanics seemed to gravitate towards high-poverty schools. Showcasing these numbers in graph form makes researchers wonder the reasons for these patterns and may lead to improvements in education.

5. Write a paragraph about the significance of the changing poverty levels and their potential impact on schools and teachers.

Van Hook (2003) tells us that the economic gap between children of immigrants and children of natives is growing at an exponential rate all the time since the 1970s and that at the present moment children of immigrants are 50% poorer than those of natives. There are various reasons for these factors including changes in the economy and changes in the immigrants themselves. A workable strategy would be to identify barriers to education and employment amongst immigrants and their children and work towards resolving these gaps.

Batalova (2006) observes that the number of Limited English proficient (LEP) students enrolled in American public schools increased by 65% between 1994 and 2004, and that these children are twice as likely to live in poor families compared to children who speak only English or English very well.

Taking these two pieces of data into consideration, we may conclude that poverty amongst immigrants is rising and having a correspondent challenging impact on their children. These children who, frequently, know little English then bring their problems into the schools that they attend not only impacting their peers but also frustrating and challenging their teachers and principals. The challenges of the poor home environment as well as the deprived atmosphere that these children live in infiltrate into the school. A further problem that the schools have is communicating with parents who not only have poor English but may have little time or patient to communicate with the teachers. Cultural misunderstandings, too, can exacerbate the problems.

7. Write a paragraph explaining performance of ELLs compared to native English speakers.

The Table (NCES) demonstrates the average reading scale scores of 4th- and 8th-graders in public schools and the percentage scoring at or above selected reading achievement levels, by English language learner (ELL) status and state (2011).