Income Disparity and Children's Education

The latest news item on educational information comes to us from Georgia in an article about how income disparity shows up in children’s health. Andy Miller of the The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (10/8/2008) wrote about a new report that sadly ranks Georgia near the bottom on two key measures of children’s health focusing on family income and education.

Georgia has a higher-than-average rate of infant mortality. That is when a child dies before their first birthday. According to a national report that was released by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Georgia infants born to the most-educated mothers have a much greater chance of living past their first birthday than infants with mothers who have fewer years of schooling.

Georgia comes in as 46th among states on the size of that gap in infant mortality based on a mother’s education; and the state also shows a big disparity in children’s health status based on household wealth. Here are some of the main points:

• Nearly 15 percent of Georgia children age 17 or younger are in less-than-optimal health, as reported by their parents. But as income rises, children’s health improves. The report said 26 percent of Georgia children in poor families have health problems, compared to 5.7 percent of kids in high-income households.


• Georgia ranked 41st on that health gap between higher-income households and poor families. Even children in middle-class families appear to be less healthy than those in higher-income households in Georgia, the report found.


• The study, by researchers at the University of California at San Francisco, shows that across the country, shortfalls in health are greatest among children in the poorest or least-educated households.

Other statistics in the report state:

• More than 40 percent of Georgia children live in poor or near-poor households, while 26 percent live in high-income families.


• More than one-third of Georgia children live in households where no one has education beyond high school.


• Infant mortality rate among Georgia babies born to African-American mothers is more than twice the rates among babies of white or Hispanic mothers.

As this study clearly proves, there are significant inequalities in children’s health based on income, education and race, we know that there are ways that communities can come together to help find solutions to overcome such issues. As I continue my work with charities such as Children of the City, which can be viewed on my website at http://www.roccobasile.org/, we see examples every day of successes.

For example, the charity's Create Success Summer Program ended with outstanding results. It is the only summer program in the community of Brooklyn New York that has a strong academic focus. It is no surprise that with a drop out rate of 48 percent, children doing poorly was especially evident in the areas of reading and math. They simply lack of crucial foundational skills.

Children of the City tailors programs to the specific needs of each child as well as the general needs of each age group. There are students suffering from the effects of poverty like trauma, challenges at home, language barriers, poor self-esteem and lack of confidence, all of which affect their ability to learn. But because of the program's familiarity with their needs, and a holistic approach, there is much success.

No child is incapable of literary success. Children in this program have left Special Ed classes to join main stream classrooms, and kids that were about to be placed in Special Ed were able to comfortably read after being in this program for less then two months. Based on academic assessments, children in the Children of the City Summer Program showed a marked increase in their developmental reading assessments. Several even increased one whole grade level.