Poverty Affects Education: Article Analysis

In the article “Poverty Affects Education” the author states, “51 percent of our children across the country now live in poverty.” That is about 76 million people, which is way too high and that’s why people have to do something about it. If people are dealing with low income, that means they are not making enough money to exceed the government’s set amount for the poverty level. This can lead to them being able to support their family. Some effects of having low income that will be discussed are getting sick and poor nutrition. All these effects can lead to students doing poorly in school. However, there are some ways we could fix this problem. After researching the causes and solutions regarding low income students, it is clear that both
One issue I found was that students who have poor nutrition don't perform as well as they could. In the article “Poverty Affects Classroom Engagement”, it talks about how students need oxygen and glucose to function. They react with each other to produce energy for cell function. Students who don't receive proper nutrition will not have healthy cell function, which will often result in them not having enough energy to learn and poor performance in school. Another reason why students could be doing poorly in school because of illness. In the article “Effects of poverty” it states, “They are almost always lacking in nutritious foods, which decreases their bodies’ ability to fight off diseases.” This quote ties back to how not having proper nutrition can lead to disease. The article also states, “...people living in poverty cannot afford appropriate medicines to treat these illnesses.” This explains that even when they do get a disease or hurt they can’t afford medications or equipment to help recover. If students get severely injured or sick and can’t go to the doctor or get medication, they have to miss school. By missing school they are not obtaining information and because of that they are behind, which again, results in doing poorly in poor achievement in school. In the article “10 Facts About Poverty”, it says that children are affected before birth. For example, a child’s parents took drugs while the baby was in the womb, the child would have a higher chance of using or abusing drugs when they are older. This applies to school because if the parents aren’t well-educated, the child might not end up well-educated either. These two examples show how children in poverty/low income can be affected in school if they don’t have proper nutrition or poor