Thread: Report: Poor the majority in South's public schools

Report: Poor the majority in South's public schools

By S.A. REID
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Published on: 10/31/07

The number of low-income students in the South's public schools grew to 54 percent in the past school year, creating a "crisis of the first order of magnitude," an Atlanta-based education foundation says.

The percentage in the 15-state Southern region rose slightly from previous years and is the nation's highest, ahead of the West at 47 percent and the Midwest and Northeast at 36 percent each, according to the Southern Education Foundation's report issued Tuesday.

The report defines low-income students as those who qualify for free or reduced-cost public school meals and looks at the percentage they represent of total enrollment.

The findings highlight a steady increase in low-income student enrollment in Southern public schools since 1989, when the figure was 34 percent.

It reached 50 percent in 2004 and has continued to rise, a phenomenon researchers contribute to demographic changes, the economy and the South's history as a region with higher poverty rates.

Georgia, the report says, is among four Southern states where an increase in Latino children and a high birth rate among African-Americans has played a role.

Steve Suitts, SEF program coordinator, said the study is intended to identify for policy-makers, educators and the public the challenges facing the region in developing an education system that "supports the kind of lifestyle that we want."

"We understood from our general monitoring of trends there had been an increase," he said. "But we had not expected as rapid an increase as there had been in the last two decades."

In Georgia, 52 percent of public school students were low income for the 2006-07 academic year, the report says. Dana Tofig, a state Department of Education spokesman, put the statewide figure at 50 percent.

Baker, Clay, Quitman and Warren counties lead the list with 94 percent each, according to the SEF report, and most of the state's 159 counties have at least 50 percent.

Fayette County is at the bottom with 19 percent, according to the report. The state's figures put the Fayette number at 14 percent, Tofig said. Among metro Atlanta counties, Clayton County had the highest figure at 74 percent. DeKalb, Fulton, Hall and Newton counties also had low-income enrollments of more than 50 percent, according to the report.

Suitts called the figures "quite astonishing."

"There's been talk of two Georgias," he said. "Our data ... is that there is one Georgia of low-income students."

The report suggests schooling the new majority is "the most important challenge the region and perhaps the nation will face in the 21st century."

Tofig said the state hasn't reviewed the report but agrees the numbers are high, especially in rural Georgia. The state's growth, he added, depends on finding ways to educate all students.

"We realize that creates a challenge for our schools," Tofig said. "The good news is our school systems are doing everything in their power to help those students."

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This is a moral problem nothing more ,nothing less !

Has nothing to do with class previlege or poverty . We have always had the poor and they had a good chance of success .

Now that the sexual revolution and perversion rules the society we no longer have strong families .

Young people shack up and have kids ou of wedlock. Divorce is rampant for the few who do marry . Most fahters leave their children and go to the next woman and have more children .

Women have lost their self respect . Men have lost their honor .

In third world nations the evidence of this has proven that multi-marriages and immoality are deadly to a people and it's country .

I just read a story about a man in Africa who was complaining about not being able to live without charity , ' he has 5 WIVES AND 54 CHILDREN !!!

We use to have laws against perversion in this nation, now we have laws against morals .

11 year olds can no get birth control from schools without parental consent . Elementary children are shown how to have oral and anal sex in school and if the parents say it's wrong it could be a hate crime . All this with 85% [ christians and jews ] of Americans claiming a belief in God .