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Comment by WillPostForFood | Hacker News Reader

This article debunks the Washington Post claim about a majority of kids in public school being in poverty.

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/01/no-...

By failing at reading comprehension. There's a vast difference between public school students and school-aged children. In Chicago, only 10% of public school students are white[1], with a 45% white population[2] (for example.) Conflating the two things seems almost willfully deceptive.

edit:

[1] http://www.cps.edu/About_CPS/At-a-glance/Pages/Stats_and_fac...

[2] http://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/PST045215/1714000

What's wilfully deceptive is pointing to one city and claiming it is relevant to national statistics. The WP Article assets a majority of public school students IN THE US are in poverty, that is objectively false. So the reading comprehension problem isn't with the article I cited.

The WP article isn't really central to my point -- that outside factors have more to do with poor math performance than anything happening inside the schools. I worked in a public school as a tutor for kids slightly behind their grade level (not with the kids who were really struggling) and I have plenty of anecdata from that experience. Kids with drug-addicted parents, kids with parents in prison, kids not having enough food at night, medicated kids, obese kids, a kid who had to move mid school year because his house was shot up in a driveby, etc.

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