Justice
Watch Poverty in School Districts Escalate Before Your Very Eyes
Since the recession, more children than ever are living in impoverished school districts.
For parents with multiple kids under one roof, being poor has a compounding effect. That’s why in America, children make up 23 percent of the population but 33 percent of all people in poverty.
If that isn’t staggering enough, those children are concentrated together at school. 25 percent of the nation’s school districts contain 82 percent of children living in poverty. And the communities defined by those districts have swollen since the Great Recession. In 2006, there were 15.9 million students living within school districts where the overall child poverty rate was 20 percent or higher. In 2013, there were 26.3 million—a stunning 60 percent increase over just seven years.