UC Berkeley News: Students From Low-Income Families Are Increasingly Isolated In The Nation's Schools

Berkeley CA

02 February, 2022

5:03 AM

Description

Press release from UC Berkeley News: January 26, 2022 Elementary students from low-income families increasingly attend different schools than middle-class peers—a nationwide trend that holds negative consequences for learning among kids who are living in poverty, a new study finds.(link is external) This worsening segregation of children by economic class stems from climbing Latino enrollments, uneven levels of "white flight" from many school districts, and parents with financial resources moving farther from people living in poverty, say researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and University of Maryland. "The growing segregation of the haves and have-nots over the past two decades makes it more difficult to narrow widening racial gaps in student learning seen during the COVID era," said Bruce Fuller, Berkeley professor and director of the new study. "As educators and policy makers help families recover from the pandemic, they must recognize this deep-seated shift in American society—the isolation of children who start-out way behind." This press release was produced by UC Berkeley News. The views expressed here are the author's own.