Poverty and Children’s Trajectories

President's Corner

The issue of poverty is the single most important issue facing educators today. Poverty exists in rural, suburban and urban districts.

When you look at student achievement levels by zip code, you can almost perfectly overlay a map of economic disparity. That is not OK. We must find ways to partner schools and community-based organizations to collectively ensure adequate and equitable access to education for every child who walks through our schoolhouse doors.

It is also incumbent upon us to address the impact of poverty on teaching and learning. We must ensure we have educators in our schools who reflect the students at classroom desks. That is becoming more challenging as the number of young adults entering the education field dwindles and the number of minority high school graduates entering education shrinks even more dramatically. Still, we are obligated to put teachers and administrators in front of our students who look like them and who can serve as role models for them.

When my school district in suburban Chicago hired Lazaro Lopez as a principal almost nine years ago, I remember walking the halls and overhearing a conversation between two freshmen boys. The first said, “‘Man, that new principal looks like us and talks like us. Do you think we could be teachers or a principal someday?” The other student replied, “I don’t know. I never thought about that before, but if he can do it, why can’t we?”

What a powerful hallway interaction that was.

Students cannot dream what they cannot see. We must provide an opportunity for our students to see beyond their school and the block on which they live to change their dreams.

Once we acknowledge that the issues of race, poverty and access to economic opportunities matter — truly matter in the trajectory of children’s dreams and futures — we can take steps to provide even greater access to opportunities for every child.

In my district, students identify a career pathway by the end of their sophomore year. We then guarantee them an external experience during their junior or senior year to ensure graduation is not an end point but a critical step in the cradle to career pipeline.

Additionally, we are working with our local community college and area universities to provide access to early college credit and tear down the barriers of affordability and accessibility to higher education. For example, through a scholarship program with William Rainey Harper College, students who meet five criteria related to attendance, community service, persistence, rigor and quality have the opportunity to earn up to two full years of free tuition.

Every student, regardless of economic background, should have equal access to higher education without the barrier of affordability. That is truly changing lives and communities one public school child at a time.

I am proud that at this year’s National Conference on Education in Phoenix, AASA had a strand of programming devoted specifically to poverty and academic achievement. I’m confident that program strands like this will continue at future AASA conferences.

I firmly believe we must all work together and learn from each other in order to combat the epidemic of poverty that exists in so many corners of our great nation.

If you have not read about AASA’s Redefining Ready! initiative, please check it out at www.RedefiningReady.org. It’s a multimetric, research-based approach to defining college and career readiness.

On the website, you also can endorse the campaign and download a sample board of education resolution. Let us know when your board signs on to this initiative by sending an e-mail to RedefiningReady@aasa.org or using the hashtag #RedefiningReady on Twitter.