Turning Around a School District By Fighting Poverty (npr.org)

New submitter gomezedward40 writes: Through her unconventional focus on addressing poverty, Superintendent Tiffany Anderson has been credited with rapidly improving the school district of Jennings, Mo. NPR reports: "The school district of 3,000 students has taken unprecedented steps, like opening a food pantry to give away food, a shelter for homeless students and a health clinic, among other efforts. 'My purpose is to remove the challenges that poverty creates,' she says. 'You can not expect children to learn at a high level if they come in hungry and tired.' That unconventional approach has had big results. When Anderson took over in 2012, the school district was close to losing accreditation. Jennings had a score of 57 percent on state educational standards. A district loses accreditation if that score goes below 50 percent. Two years later, that score was up to 78 percent, and in the past year rose again to 81 percent, Anderson says. She points to a 92 percent 4-year graduation rate, and a 100 percent college and career placement rate."

Comments

Re:Really?

[sociocapitalist]

But a child (anyone under 18 now) coming in with even unwashed clothes, or hunger? That's an issue that gets referred to social services pretty damn quick. I'm not saying they can act immediately, but we have a range of neglect laws and getting taken into care can happen pretty damn quick if the parents obviously aren't around, can't cope or don't give a shit.

The home for children that I grew up in was closed out of funding a few years ago having been blocked by the state for the home not having employed a full time on-site doctor and all the costs that go with it.

I spent eight years living in that home and with a full-time nurse and two hospitals about ten minutes away by car there was never a need for a full time doctor so I can only assume this was a thinly veiled trick to cut the state budget.

With a poverty level of 24.4% in 2013 (about the same as Jennings, MO), New Haven CT certainly has no fewer kids in need than it did in my time so I don't see the need for such homes decreasing - and if anything the opposite.
http://www.city-data.com/pover...

With antisocial policies being espoused by those who feel that their hard earned money shouldn't be used for 'socialist' programs like getting the dirt poor out of the cycle that they are stuck in I am not surprised that the number of homeless children in the US is increasing.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/...

So yes, you're right that this is not a problem for schools. The failure is in the people of the US who want to cut social services, and in those social services themselves who are incapable, for whatever reasons, of fixing what is an endemic problem in the US.

So hats off to the woman who has found a way to make it work in her part of this mess.