Posted on August 15, 2012 by GISELLE ROUTHIER New Department of Education data show that nearly 70 percent of all students in NYC come from poor households. Seventy percent! Moreover, 48 schools have a student poverty rate between 97 and 100 percent. There aren’t really appropriate words to describe this. Shocking, outrageous, unbelievable don’t seem to cut it. Nevertheless, this is the reality we are facing in NYC today. Mounds of research has been done showing that poverty has negative impacts on children’s abilities to succeed in school. And those impacts become even greater when students are homeless. This, sadly, fits in with other stories we’ve read this week: new shelters are being opened left and right; lines for the one remaining rental assistance program are blocks long; income inequality is at record levels. They all tell us one thing: it’s time our City’s most vulnerable become a higher priority.
