The Trustees of Columbia University. NCCP. 2010. Web. 3 Feb. 2011
Supporting children and families that live in poverty is the main focus of Head Start. Believe it or not poverty is on the rise here in Idaho. It is now at 14.6 percent vs. the national average of 14.3 percent. Because of this I decided it would be good to look at how poverty affects children in a community. On the NCCP (National Center for Children in Poverty) website I found an article that had the basic facts about low income children. I found a lot of good information here.
Although children only make up 25 percent of the population they make of 36 percent of all people in poverty. The majority of these children are under six years old, 6.1 million in the United States to be exact. Another 11.7 million live in low income families. According to this article families need twice the amount of money earned at poverty level to simply make their basic needs. Many factors lead to poverty but the statistics show that 63 percent of the children that live in low income families are immigrants vs. the 43 percent that are native born. As for education 30 percent of children under six who live in low income families have at least one parent who had a college education. 30 percent also have at least one parent that works full time year round.
These are all statistics but they speak for themselves. You can see that education and work don’t always make a difference between poverty and prosperity. Any one of us could be in a situation in which we are struggling to meet basic needs. I think coming from the middle class that we think poverty can be avoided by hard work and determination, but I am beginning to think that is not always so. Sometimes it is unavoidable. On top of that the fact the most of the children living in poverty are under six is heartbreaking. Many of these children’s parents struggle day in and day out just to get food on the table. I want to know how many of those living in poverty take advantage of the Head Start program. I also want to know what would happen if poverty kept rising and Head Start facilities were no longer large enough to support this rise in poverty. Has there ever been a similar situation? Is there a maximum limit of children and families that can be taken on by each facility?
Here is a link from the same website to some statistics on poverty here in Idaho:
http://www.nccp.org/profiles/ID_profile_9.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_bLw4c-4YM
Hi Riley:
ReplyDeleteI'll be responding to both your extended bibliography posts, and your in-class freewrite, here.
First, I think you found two excellent sources as you develop background information about your project. At the same time, I'm really impressed by your ability to generate questions out of these sources and your desire to know as much as you can about your topic. Keep up the hard work!
If anything, I'm concerned that as you continue with your research that-- because you are good at asking questions-- that the project could spiral out of your control. At some point in the future, you'll need focus in on a somewhat narrowly focused researchable question or topic-area of concern. I'm nonetheless excited to see where you go from here!
Hey Riley,
ReplyDeleteI liked your blogs a lot. Once again, I might not be the best person to comment on english blogs. I was wondering, I didn't see any citations, were there anyone that you should have cited or did you only use the one site for the bibliography? I like the questions you are asking, they really do promote thought. Your blogs have given me some new material to think about and look up. It was well put together and flows great!!