Poverty and Education

This morning The Middletown Eye (http://middletowneyenews.blogspot.com/) posted a story on teen groups from ten Middlesex County churches who spent Saturday night outdoors in frigid temperatures to help them understand and empathize with the plight of the homeless. In Middletown, CT, youth groups set up tents on the corner of Main and Union streets to spend the night in solidarity with those community members who are forced to spend harsh nights without a home. Sue LaTourette, a church director from First Church, explained that the effort is an attempt to keep the plight of the homeless in the public eye after the generosity of the holidays has passed. This event has already motivated donors to drop off food & clothing for distributions to St. Vincent de Paul soup kitchen & the Eddy Shelter in Middletown.

According to the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness (www.cceh.org), 4,154 people were homeless in Connecticut on the night of January 28, 2009. Of these 430 were families and 801 were children in families. It is estimated that in our state over 33,000 people, including 13,000 children, experience homelessness over the course of the year. That equates to a lot of children, families, and schools that must continually cope with this tragic situation.

In the SERC Library we have over 150 resources that address poverty and education. A small sampling includes:

Invisible Children in the Society and its Schools - (2003) edited by Sue Books, this 258-page book offers a series of reports by some of the most passionate and insightful scholars writing in the field of education today on groups of children whose complexity, strengths, and vulnerabilities are largely unseen in society and its schools. Topics include homelessness, domestic violence, gay youth, children with social disabilities, teenage mothers, poverty, and much more.

Increasing Language Skills with Students from Low Income Backgrounds - (2008) by Celeste Roseberry-McKibbin.

Educating the Other America: Top Experts Tackle Poverty, Literacy, and Achievement in Our Schools - (2008) edited by Susan B. Neuman.

America Beyond the Color Line, DVD - (2003) with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. In this 225-minute DVD, Henry Louis Gates travels to 4 very different parts of America to illustrate the splitting of African-American society into 2 distinct communities - the privileged and the disenfranchised. He examines the opportunities and obstacles still being faced and speaks to how a fifth of all black Americans are living below the poverty line and how many feel excluded from mainstream American life.

Keys to Success for Urban School Principals - (2007) by Gwendolyn J. Cooke.

A Framework for Understanding Poverty - (2005) by Ruby K. Payne.

The Kids Left Behind: Catching Up the Underachieving Children of Poverty - (2007) by Robert D. Barr.

Armando & The Blue Tarp School - (2007) by Edith Hope Fine. In this 32-page children's book for ages 4-8, Armando and his father are trash-pickers in Tijuana, Mexico. When Senor David brings his "school" - a blue tarp set down near the garbage dump - to their neighborhood, Armando's father decides that he must attend classes and learn. Based on a true story.

Closing the Poverty and Culture Gap: Strategies to Reach Every Student - (2009) by Donna Walker Tielston & Sandra K. Darling.

Please visit the SERC Library either online or in person to explore more resources on this subject. Stay warm and be safe.

(With thanks to Pablo Picasso for Poverty, 1903.)