Concentrated poverty is the elephant in the room for many Georgia schools

Most people know that, on average, low-income students perform worse in school for several reasons: they’re much more likely to have unstable housing, lack consistent and healthy meals, deal with gaps in healthcare, experience community violence, environmental pollution and much more. All these factors play into how a student learns. That disadvantage, however, is greater in Georgia.

According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, Georgia fourth and eighth grade low-income students are reading worse than their classmates (some call this an “achievement gap”), and the gap is greater than that in Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida. In a new report released Thursday, I argue that we can drastically improve the performance of low-income readers if lawmakers finally address the unique harm of concentrated poverty.

In my work for Brown’s Promise — a project of the Southern Education Foundation — I focus on the state and district policies that have proven to improve outcomes for students in poverty. To better understand the problem in Georgia, I analyzed the performance of schools with 80% or more low-income students. To put it bluntly: the results are terrible. Over the last three years, 82% of the elementary school students in these schools failed to reach proficiency on the English/Language Arts state test. Failure on this exam is particularly troubling. In a recent report, the Governor’s Office of Education and Workforce Strategy found that students who failed the 3rd grade ELA assessment had, years later, much lower high school grade-point averages, Advanced Placement scores and graduation rates. Less than half the students even enrolled in a postsecondary institution after high school.

Those outcomes are shocking to the conscience and lead many people to believe that low-income students are predestined to failure. To test this assumption, I also analyzed the performance of students in schools with a good mix of students across economic lines. What I found is that low-income students drastically improve their chance of success if taught in a school where fewer of their classmates are in poverty.

If you look at lower-poverty schools in Georgia — those with the statewide average poverty rate or below — roughly 30% of their student body is in poverty. Those low-income students share many of the challenges outside of school that low-income students in high poverty schools have. However, those in lower poverty schools are more than twice as likely to pass the ELA exam: 41% are proficient, compared to only 18% in high poverty schools. This trend is found in mathematics performance as well.

This research joins the evidence nationwide that concentrated poverty is a unique educational hurdle. I found that high poverty schools in Georgia have significantly higher rates of teachers on provisional certificates, fewer experienced teachers, higher rates of absenteeism, and higher reported rates of bullying. They also have fewer opportunities like Advanced Placement courses once they get to high school. Concentrated poverty — how to undo it and/or how to address the consequences of it — should be a top priority for anyone who cares about education in Georgia.

If we commit to addressing the elephant in the room, then the path to improvement starts with money: Georgia remains one of only six states without specific education funding for students in poverty. The state must provide transformational investments in the areas that impact low-income students most — like educator quality, remediation and wraparound services.

Money is the start, but can’t be the end. The state must ensure that dollars are used well by local leaders on evidence-based, community-informed practices. Additional support will look different in different parts of the state. School district leaders with some high-poverty schools and other medium- and low-poverty ones have wide latitude to distribute students and resources fairly: from pairing schools to redrawing enrollment zones to paying effective teachers more to work in higher-poverty schools. Districts where all the schools have above-average poverty, however, require a regional approach.

Several high-poverty districts share a border with another school district that holds a much smaller share of low-income students. Georgia has existing policy options that allow people to imagine enrollment zones across district lines, like regional magnet schools. With proper guardrails and supports like transportation, a magnet school strategy could attract students from multiple school districts and “unpack” poverty.

Georgia is falling behind our neighbors by maintaining a system that condemns poor students to illiteracy. It is time for our leaders to take action to break the cycle. For many kids, opportunity might be right around the corner.