Homelessness And Poverty Affects Student Academic Achievement.

There is little dispute that deep poverty is associated with poor student academic achievement.  In fact the New York Times published an article that found that one out of seven public school students are homeless.  Its a safe bet that the homeless students all suffer from deep poverty and severely affects student academic achievement.  A report by ICPH showed that 140,000 public school student have experienced homelessness in the last six years.  Moreover, the report contains a chart that finds more students who experienced homelessness are more likely to be placed in  Special Education classes and have a lower graduation rate.  More importantly, the ICPH report has a map that shows that the highest concentrations of homeless students are associated with neighborhood schools that have the lowest academic achievement. By contrast, the lowest percentage of homeless students are in schools that have the highest academic achievement.

The New York Times article, which is based upon the ICPH report, brought out some interesting statistics and I tried to summarize them as best I could.

• There were 100,000 homeless students in the New York City Public Schools in 2015-16 .
•  If current trends continue 1 out of every 7 elementary school children will experience homelessness
• Rising homelessness is due to the housing crisis caused by higher rents, dwindling State and Federal aid, and the elimination of the State rental assistance program. .
• The typical homeless elementary school student missed 88 days of the school year.
• Homeless students are more likely to drop out or get suspended.
• Bayside Queens had the lowest amount of homeless students, while Belmont and Fordham  sections of the Bronx had the largest amount.

Finally, students who experience homelessness are more likely to transfer schools more frequently, are delayed in getting needed supports, and are subject to a host of negative factors that make academic achievement more difficult.