Monday, February 20th, 2012
Urban Divide
This week, we discussed the many factors that can create an urban divide. Each group drew a poverty trap map, showing how each factor affects each other. Every map included employment, education, income, health, housing, crime, and poverty, and one more factor that we could make up. Our group chose to include natural disasters because they can drastically affect the other factors. On most maps, income was a major factor to urban divide as it had a lot of activity around it. Employment and education can affect the amount of income a person makes, while income can affect every piece of the poverty trap map.
The article above shows the effect that income has on child development and education:
A $1,000 increase in income raises math test scores by 2.1 percent and reading test scores by 3.6 percent of a standard deviation. The results are even stronger when looking at children from disadvantaged families who are affected most by the large changes in the EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit). Children growing up in poor families are likely to have adverse home environments or face other challenges which would continue to affect their development even if family income were to increase substantially.
5 comments:
For income to have such an impact on children's education is something that amazes me. Just an increase of $1000 can raise test scores of children by some. This is why education needs to be focused on in the united states so that we can have good and positive teachers in areas where they are in need and not just richer communities. Having a positive influence in a child's life from a good teacher can help break this "poverty trap." It will increase their willingness to want to learn and succeed. But income will still come into effect because even when you have a solid education it is hard to want to stick with it when you are in an environment where education is not the focus and it is making enough money to put dinner on the table. Income will always effect education directly and indirectly I believe, which is a sad truth.
Finn Dahl
Provide more than one resource per week/post.
The idea of including natural disasters in the poverty trap map seems like a really interesting concept. I suppose natural disasters would most directly affect income, as people lose their houses etc, and thus affecting education levels and so on. I would enjoy to hear more of your group's reasoning on the matter.
-Tara Riccio
The poverty trap is an interesting topic. A lot of children growing up in the projects does not have equal educational and economical opportunities as a middle class child. This can lead to gang membership or lack of high school education at all.
~Brian Bixby
Education among the social classes is a huge difference. This post sheds light on the topic, and provides some interesting statistics about the actually effect of income vs education. Being good friends with a professor at a Baltimore middle school, I have heard about how much different schooling is there from a middle class where I was educated. The children have different struggles than the middle class and face a different world of problems.
Logan Ahrens
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