Poverty in Schools It is a major challenge to educate students in our school system and although, poverty among our kids is one of the biggest factors which makes teaching and learning difficult, achievement success is possible, Jensen (2009). Equal access to a good education has become especially crucial over the past twenty-five years, as a rapidly changing economy has made skills and education ever more important determinants of labor market outcomes, Murnane (2007). Those students who are poverty stricken face a far greater challenge for learning and will need additional support from teachers and schools, Thomas (2003). According to (Ferguson, Bovaird, & Mueller, 2007) in the article The Impact of Poverty on Educational Outcomes for Children, six poverty-related factors are known to impact child development in general school readiness, 1) the incident of poverty, 2) the depth of poverty, 3) the duration of poverty, 4) the timing of the poverty, 5) community characteristics, 6) the impact poverty has on the child’s social network. Due to these factors, we do have a responsibility to build a system of public schools that address poverty needs as soon as the students walk through the door, (McNeely, 2012). Gorski (2008) reported in The Myth of Culture of Poverty that there is no such thing as a culture of poverty. Consequently, educators strive to provide the best, most safe and enriched environment for our students each day of the year. As we prepare ourselves to provide enriched learning environments, Gorski (2008) states that we as educators must
• educate ourselves about class and poverty;
• reject deficit theory and help students and colleagues unlearn misperceptions about poverty;
• make school involvement accessible to all families;
• continue reaching out to low-income families even when they appear unresponsive (and without assuming, if they are unresponsive, that we know why);
• never assume that all students have equitable access to such learning resources as computers and the Internet, and never assign work requiring this access without providing in-school time to complete it;
• ensure that learning materials do not stereotype poor people;
• fight to keep low-income students from being assigned unjustly to special education or low academic tracks and,
• make curriculum relevant to poor students, drawing on and validating their experiences and intelligences (pages 32 -36). Finding ways to meet the needs of students in poverty, implementing the curriculum, and meeting standards is problematic. According to Meadowcreek Elementary School Accountability Report, (90/90/90) schools such as Meadowcreek Elementary School (MES) are schools which are defined as having more than 90 percent of the students who are eligible for free and reduced lunch, a commonly used surrogate for