Archived: The Educational System in the United States: Case Study Findings

Poverty. 
Many urban schools feel the strain of dealing with children of poverty.
The former principal of the high school in West City talked of being a ‘‘full-service
institution’’ where 40 percent of the students were in families receiving some
form of federal financial assistance provided to low-income families, and many oth-
ers were financially eligible but were ‘‘undocumented.’’ The school provides
health services and inoculations, mental health services, social worker services,
counseling in cultural adjustment, and alcohol and substance abuse counseling.
The former principal also pointed out that the school is
. . . . peopled by teachers who would go the extra mile, so in informal fash-
ion you had teachers bringing in food, bringing clothes, taking kids home, I

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mean there were stories and stories. I myself had a kid living with us for a
year and a half because he was sleeping in a car.
National statistics suggest nearly one in six high school students are living in pov-
erty. For example, 16.3 percent of 12- to 17-year-olds lived in poverty in 1990
(USDE 1995). In another indicator of poverty among middle and high school stu-
dents, 9 percent of urban, 5 percent of suburban, and 8 percent of rural public
secondary school students were eligible for free or reduced priced lunches (USDE
1993b). These numbers are likely an underrepresentation of the total number of
eligible students, because many eligible students fail to identify themselves to
avoid the stigma attached.
Family problems. 
With the rise in divorce rates, at any one time a school may
have a significant number of students whose family life is in flux. Even where the
situation is amicable between parents, there may be an emotional toll on the
child. As parents remarry, many students are adjusting to new families and to new
routines. In some cases, the problems at home are much more severe, and it may
be difficult for students to focus on schoolwork. The problems of other students
can also be preoccupying. During observation of a Monday morning honors biol-
ogy class at Uptown, what appeared to be group work proved to be a heated dis-
cussion of the news that a friend had run away over the weekend and reports
about the difficulty of his family situation.
In some cases, the situation is much more extreme. Teachers spoke of their hor-
ror in dealing with children who had been beaten, raped, or abused in other
ways. A student at the vocational school, when asked about adolescent problems,
said:
It’s the abuse too, physical and sexual, fathers having sex with their kids, that’s
what I think it is mostly too. I know kids like that. People dealing with a lot,
plus dealing with school . . . . Females have to move sometime because their
mother moved her boyfriend in the house with them, and he want all the
attention or is trying to abuse them or sexually harass them, and stuff like that.
A teacher at Springdale who had been teaching for 21 years looked back over the
changes he had seen in students.
The kids come to school with far more problems than they used to. Everything
ranging from a very poor home life where they are not being nurtured to
sometimes very extreme cases of drug abuse, physical abuse, and psycho-
logical problems. It used to be that deans would concern themselves with kids
being tardy and just ditching class. Now . . . . kids have very serious prob-
lems. Kids who may be suicidal, they are very unhappy. They are very angry

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because of a rotten home life. And with all this I am supposed to be teaching
them all the same things I was teaching kids 20 years ago.
The growing number of adolescent social problems, including violence, drug use,
teenage pregnancy, and a range of family problems have all had an influence on
schools. Students may be preoccupied with these issues and unable to give full
attention to school. Teachers and administrators have found that schools are ex-
pected to attend to complex needs, which they may feel ill equipped to address,
and they worry about what may be sacrificed in order for schools to take on a
broader mission.