Poverty measures don’t reflect reality, educational needs
“In a recent discussion about concentrated poverty and our public schools, a colleague mentioned that, ‘poverty was going down anyway,’ in an attempt to de-emphasize the need for greater education funding. And he’s not wrong. Poverty in America has decreased some since the 2008 economic crash, dropping to 12.3 percent in 2017 from 13.2 percent a decade earlier. But there are still millions of Americans — and thousands right here in Maryland — struggling under the weight and strain of economic disparity, many of them children. And official definitions of poverty often don’t reflect the reality of day to day life.”