Poverty in Early Childhood Education

Early Childhood Education (ECE) is the solid foundation in a child’s life. It is how a child is able to gain learning, developmental, and thinking skills, and also be able to see different aspects of the world through different lens. However, poverty makes an impact on the children if their family is in poverty. “Social scientists have posited that education can make a significant and long-lasting difference on the lives of children who experience poverty” (Anna D. Johnson, n.d.). Children who are in poverty do not have access to quality ECE, which leads to lower scores in math and reading than children who are not in poverty. They also have a disadvantage and have a harder time catching up in class. Therefore, they are behind on their math and reading subjects and are struggling with them.

Shows the poverty gap between children with no ECE versus children with ECE. Picture taken from: http://www.slideshare.net/akudasov/fifiko-box-innovative-approach-to-early-childhood-education

Poverty affects children negatively. According to Laura Bornfreund, a deputy director of New America's Early Education Initiative, and Conor Williams, a senior researcher at New America's Early Education Initiative, stated, "But there's now growing research showing that growing up in poverty even affects children's development...This has real consequences for academics outcomes: the Department of Education's Early Childhood Longitudinal Study found that children from families below the federal poverty line scored over 10 percentage points lower (on average) on kindergarten math and readying entry assessments than their peers from families at or above 200 percent of the poverty line" (Early Childhood Education: Lots of Talk, but Not Much Action (Yet), 2014). This is crucial because grades preschool-third are the main foundation for early education. "The extensive body of developmental research suggests that school readiness is a key foundational element and indicator of later life success" (Johnson, n.d.). With poverty involved, these children will be having a difficult time adjusting and getting ready to move on to higher education due to the fact that they are behind in their learning skills, which will affect them later on in their future.

Even though there has been various talks on early childhood education, not much action have been taken place. Therefore, more and more children are falling into poverty and not having the access to quality ECE. "We've long known that students from low-income backgrounds face extraordinary--and unfair--educational challenges" (Bornfreund and Williams, 2014). As a result, "researchers have posited that the proportion of kindergartners who enter school without  basic literacy and numeracy skills could be substantially higher in poor and minority communities than that of children from middle-class backgrounds" (Johnson, n.d.). Children and parents who are in poverty struggle in school and end up having to face dropping out because they don't have the financial support to keep these children in school, causing the poverty gap to expand more than usual. "Moreover, because of unequal educational opportunities, failing public schools and the inability of many poor families to pay for a higher quality private education, children of poor and minority parents are more likely to struggle in school" (Johnson, n.d.). Having the lack of access to quality ECE, parents struggle with keeping their children and helping them with developing learning and developmental skills in school, which affects both the parents and children in an overwhelmingly negative way.

References:

Bornfreund, L. & Williams, C. (2014, January 30). Early Childhood Education: Lots of Talk, but Not Much Action (Yet). Retrieved from: http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/01/early-childhood-education-lots-of-talk-but-not-much-action-yet/283448/

Johnson, D. A. (n.d.). The Effects of Early Education on Children in Poverty. Retrieved from: http://www.tc.columbia.edu/sie/journal/Volume_4/Johnson_Website%20Final.pdf