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Of (mean, median, mode, standard deviation) which of these numbers is most representative of the data?

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Of (mean, median, mode, standard deviation) which of these numbers is most representative of the data?

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Of these three numbers, we believe that the mean most represents the data the best because it shows the average response to this question. It is the most representative because 35 out of our 62 responses thought that there were less than 15 million children living in poverty in the United States. That is over half of the responses. It an important number because so many responses were less than the actual 15 million.

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We shared our survey with family and friends through email, Snapchat, and text messages. 62 people responded to our survey.

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Mean: 11.56
Median: 12
Mode: 15
St. Dev: 5.46

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We are defining child poverty as "living in a family with an income below the federal poverty threshold" which is an annual income of $26,200 for a 4 person family.

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To your best knowledge, approximately how many million(s) of children are currently living in poverty in the United States? (Provide a number 1-20)

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I believe that the United States has adequate laws and policies in place to assist impoverished children and their families.

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Poverty Rates Soar Among NYC School Kids

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Poverty Rates Soar Among NYC School Kids

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This article was written by Selim Algar from the New York Post (2018). He writes about the number of kids in poverty has increased by a huge amount over the last couple of years. The department of Education states that this was the highest rate of poverty in the last five years. The city schools currently enroll 39,000 more poor students than last year, the numbers show. About 75% of the students receive reduced or free lunches as well. Because of this high increase of kids in poverty, this has also increased the rate of children becoming homeless. Also, because of all the high rates of poverty, this has increased the rate of school dropouts.

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The overall number of poverty-stricken kids in city public schools, including charters, is the highest in five years, according to Department of Education data.

After dropping for four consecutive years, city schools currently enroll 39,000 more poor students than last year, the numbers show.

A staggering 839,705 city students - or 74 percent of the total student population - qualify for free or reduced-priced lunches, a common poverty marker.

That's the highest overall percentage in at least five years, the data shows.

A Department of Education spokeswoman said Monday that the sudden reversal is due to new state classification practices that have improved the ability to identify low-income kids.

A separate measure for poverty, the economic-need index, popped this year by a full 10 percent, going from 60.6 percent last year to 70.7 percent.

That metric takes several factors into account to determine economic hardship, including eligibility for public assistance and if students live in temporary housing.

There were 811,627 city students classified as poor during the 2013-2014 academic year, the figures show. That number fell annually until last year when it dipped down to 800,985, or 70.2 percent of the overall student population, according to DOE data.

The vast number of students grappling with low-income home environments mirrors an explosion in the number of homeless kids across the city.

A recent study revealed that there were more than 100,000 city students without permanent homes - or a sobering 1 in 10 of all kids enrolled in public schools.

Current DOE figures also revealed that all racial groups have seen steadily increasing populations in the public school system - expect for black children.

Their population in city schools - including charters - has ebbed overall each year since 2013-2014.

There were 312,434 black enrollees that year and 294,678 currently, according to the DOE data.

After seeing gains over the prior four years, overall city student enrollment dropped slightly to 1,135,334 from 1,141,234 last year.

Hispanic students comprised the highest percentage of city public school students this year at 40.5 percent, followed by black students at 26 percent, Asian students at 16.1 percent, and white students at 15 percent.

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The overall number of poverty-stricken kids in city public schools, including charters, is the highest in five years, according to Department of Education data. After dropping for four consecutive years, city schools currently enroll 39,000 more poor students than last year, the numbers show.

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Education Gap Between Rich and Poor is Growing Wider 

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Education Gap Between Rich and Poor is Growing Wider 

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This article was written by Eduardo Porter from The New York Times (2015). He talks about how the racial gap between students had gotten better yet the educational achievement gaps have gotten wider, and continue to do so. One of the main points he establishes is that children that experience poverty have many set backs than kids who don't have to worry about their money situation at all. For example, they are more likely to suffer higher obesity rates, have more social and emotional problems and are more likely to report poor or fair health. Because their parents do not have the money they are more likely to not have the opportunities to afford private education or even extra curricular activities that many other students do. The sons and daughters of college-educated parents are more than twice as likely to go to college as the children of high school graduates and seven times as likely as those of high school dropouts. They are at a disadvantage in many different ways than their classmates and this can really hurt those student.

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Economic Scene

Liz Niehaus, a kindergarten teacher, talks with her students at KIPP Thrive Academy in Newark. KIPP schools are among the most successful in improving educational outcomes among the poor. Credit... Mel Evans/Associated Press

The wounds of segregation were still raw in the 1970s. With only rare exceptions, African-American children had nowhere near the same educational opportunities as whites.

The civil rights movement, school desegregation and the War on Poverty helped bring a measure of equity to the playing field. Today, despite some setbacks along the way, racial disparities in education have narrowed significantly. By 2012, the test-score deficit of black 9-, 13- and 17-year-olds in reading and math had been reduced as much as 50 percent compared with what it was 30 to 40 years before.

Achievements like these breathe hope into our belief in the Land of Opportunity. They build trust in education as a leveling force powering economic mobility. "We do have a track record of reducing these inequalities," said Jane Waldfogel, a professor of social work at Columbia University.

But the question remains: Why did we stop there?

For all the progress in improving educational outcomes among African-American children, the achievement gaps between more affluent and less privileged children is wider than ever, notes Sean Reardon of the Center for Education Policy Analysis at Stanford. Racial disparities are still a stain on American society, but they are no longer the main divider. Today the biggest threat to the American dream is class.

Education is today more critical than ever. College has become virtually a precondition for upward mobility. Men with only a high school diploma earn about a fifth less than they did 35 years ago. The gap between the earnings of students with a college degree and those without one is bigger than ever.

And yet American higher education is increasingly the preserve of the elite. The sons and daughters of college-educated parents are more than twice as likely to go to college as the children of high school graduates and seven times as likely as those of high school dropouts.

Only 5 percent of Americans ages 25 to 34 whose parents didn't finish high school have a college degree. By comparison, the average across 20 rich countries in an analysis by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is almost 20 percent.

The problem, of course, doesn't start in college.

Earlier this week, Professor Waldfogel and colleagues from Australia, Canada and Britain published a new book titled "Too Many Children Left Behind" (Russell Sage). It traces the story of America's educational disparities across the life cycle of its children, from the day they enter kindergarten to eighth grade.

Their story goes sour very early, and it gets worse as it goes along. On the day they start kindergarten, children from families of low socioeconomic status are already more than a year behind the children of college graduates in their grasp of both reading and math.

And despite the efforts deployed by the American public education system, nine years later the achievement gap, on average, will have widened by somewhere from one-half to two-thirds.

Even the best performers from disadvantaged backgrounds, who enter kindergarten reading as well as the smartest rich kids, fall behind over the course of their schooling.

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At Johnsonville Elementary School in Cameron, N.C., students participate in a unit of study based on college awareness. Credit... Travis Dove for The New York Times

The challenges such children face compared to their more fortunate peers are enormous. Children from low socioeconomic backgrounds are seven times more likely to have been born to a teenage mother. Only half live with both parents, compared with 83 percent of the children of college graduates.

The children of less educated parents suffer higher obesity rates, have more social and emotional problems and are more likely to report poor or fair health. And because they are much poorer, they are less likely to afford private preschool or the many enrichment opportunities - extra lessons, tutors, music and art, elite sports teams - that richer, better-educated parents lavish on their children.

When they enter the public education system, they are shortchanged again. Eleven-year-olds from the wrong side of the tracks are about one-third more likely to have a novice teacher, according to Professor Waldfogel and her colleagues. They are much more likely to be held back a grade, a surefire way to stunt their development, the researchers say.

Financed mainly by real estate taxes that are more plentiful in neighborhoods with expensive homes, public education is becoming increasingly compartmentalized. Well-funded schools where the children of the affluent can play and learn with each other are cordoned off from the shabbier schools teaching the poor, who are still disproportionally from black or Hispanic backgrounds.

Even efforts to lean against inequality backfire. Research by Rachel Valentino, who received her Ph.D. in education policy at Stanford University this year, found that public prekindergarten programs offered minorities and the poor a lower-quality education.

Perhaps pre-K programs serving poor and minority children have trouble attracting good teachers. Perhaps classrooms with more disadvantaged children are more difficult to manage. Perhaps teachers offer more basic instruction because disadvantaged children need to catch up. In any event, Ms. Valentino told me, "the gaps are huge."

This is arguably education's biggest problem. Narrowing proficiency gaps that emerge way before college would probably do more to increase the nation's college graduation rate than offering universal community college, easier terms on student loans or more financial aid.

"If we could equalize achievement from age zero to 14," Professor Waldfogel told me, "that would go a long way toward closing the college enrollment and completion gaps."

It can be done. Australia, Canada - even the historically class-ridden Britain - show much more equitable outcomes.

The policy prescriptions go beyond improving teachers and curriculums, or investing in bringing struggling students up to speed. They include helping parents, too: teaching them best practices in parenting, raising their pay and helping them with the overlapping demands of work and family.

And yet the strains from our world of increasing income inequality raise doubts about our ability to narrow the educational divide. Poorer, less educated parents simply can't keep up with the rich, who are spending hand over fist to ensure that their children end at the front of the rat race. Our public school system has proved no match to the forces reproducing inequality across the generations.

Fifty years ago, the black-white proficiency gap was one and a half to two times as large as the gap between a child from a family at the top 90th percentile of the income distribution and a child from a family at the 10th percentile, according to Professor Reardon at Stanford. Today, the proficiency gap between the poor and the rich is nearly twice as large as that between black and white children.

In other words, even as one achievement gap narrowed, another opened wide. That kind of progress could dash one's hope in the leveling power of education.

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Education Gap Between Rich and Poor Is Growing Wider (Published 2015)

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Economic Scene The wounds of segregation were still raw in the 1970s. With only rare exceptions, African-American children had nowhere near the same educational opportunities as whites. The civil rights movement, school desegregation and the War on Poverty helped bring a measure of equity to the playing field.

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National Center for Children in Poverty 

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National Center for Children in Poverty 

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The NCCP is an organization that also targets lawmakers and encourages them to make laws that focus on the impoverished youth in our nation. They do research and provide feedback on things the U.S. can do differently to help fix the crisis we are seeing within our country. They want to make changes for the families living under the poverty line by contacting lawmakers and making sure their research is known. The NCCP provides information regarding the child poverty crisis in the U.S., runs a plethora of projects designed to help low-income families pull out of poverty - such as Making Work Supports Work - which is a policy reform movement to help ensure adequate pay for full-time parents for child care and necessities. The NCCP stems from within the Bank Street Graduate School of Education, where they work together to gradually improve the lives of families across the country. (words 150)

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On April 9, the National Center for Children in Poverty, which is part of the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, will be in its new home on the university campus at 722 W. 168th Street. All of our phone numbers will also be new.

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End Child Poverty is an organization run by the U.S Child Poverty Action Group. This organization has a goal of lowering national child poverty levels by 50% within 10 years, as placing priority on the health and well-being on our children is extremely important for our future. End Child Poverty's main initiative is to have laws targeting the end of child poverty put into place in the U.S., as none currently exist. They work towards holding the government accountable for the reduction of child poverty within our nation. End Child Poverty U.S. works alongside many national organizations, with some of the most recognizable being National WIC Association, National Center for Children in Poverty, No Kid Hungry, and Children's Health Fund. (120 words)

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Child poverty remains stubbornly high in the U.S., with 13 million children living in poverty in 2017. Children are 62 percent more likely to experience poverty than adults.

While there are some dedicated lawmakers, media outlets, and advocates fighting for children, there is no long-term national strategy, or even a national dialogue, to address child poverty in the U.S. and the negative outcomes associated with it.

We know it does not have to be this way. When countries prioritize their children, it results in lower child poverty rates and improved economic outcomes.

End Child Poverty U.S. is a national campaign led by the U.S. Child Poverty Action Group, a partnership of over 20 of the leading anti-poverty organizations.

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Child poverty remains stubbornly high in the U.S., with 13 million children living in poverty in 2017. Children are 62 percent more likely to experience poverty than adults. While there are some dedicated lawmakers, media outlets, and advocates fighting for children, there is no long-term national strategy, or even a national dialogue, to address child poverty in the U.S.

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What is Poverty? | World Vision Australia

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Mia Hams, Tarah Malotky, Jack Odness, and Ellie Rohman