Poverty and Student Achievement Lecture Notes

Vocabulary flashcards covering the definitions of poverty types, neurological impacts, environmental barriers, educational disparities by social class, and specific school intervention programs.

Situational Poverty

A temporary form of poverty caused by a specific crisis or job loss.

Generational Poverty

A state of poverty where at least two generations are born into the same situation.

Absolute Poverty

A scarcity of basic needs including shelter, water, and food.

Urban Poverty

Poverty occurring in metropolitan areas involving overcrowding and community violence.

Rural Poverty

Poverty occurring in non-urban areas, often featuring less access to support services and quality education.

Prefrontal Cortex

The region of the brain that governs complex cognitive tasks, social behavior, and decision-making; stress from poverty can lead to a loss of grey matter here.

Amygdala

A brain structure that can become hypersensitive due to poverty, leading students to misread social cues as threats.

Hippocampus

A structure critical for consolidating memories that frequently correlates with smaller volume in individuals of low socioeconomic status (SES).

Achievement Gap

The disparity in testing performance between poor and affluent students, with structural brain differences possibly explaining up to $20\%$ of this gap.

Cortisol

A stress hormone often found in high levels in low-income infants that can interfere with empathy and infant-mother attachment.

Housing Instability

An environmental barrier where children who experienced eviction in the year prior to testing performed worse by the equivalent of one full year of schooling.

Iron-deficiency anemia

A condition tied to food insecurity that impairs motor and social skills in children.

The Keyboard Gap

Also known as digital poverty, it refers to the lack of access to a laptop or desktop computer which harms future prospects.

Working-Class Schools

Schools where work is primarily mechanical and rote, involving following unexplained procedures with little student choice.

Middle-Class Schools

Schools where work focuses on getting the right answer via textbooks and storing facts for later use.

Affluent Professional Schools

Schools where work is creative and independent, emphasizing individual thought and the application of concepts to reality.

Executive Elite Schools

Schools focusing on analytical intellectual powers, reasoning through problems, deriving formulas, and mastering language as a complex system.

READ 180

A blended learning program designed for students reading $2$ or more years below grade level.

Success for All

A K-5 reform program focusing on phonemic awareness and cooperative learning.

AVID

A student-centered approach designed to close the opportunity gap and prepare students for college and careers.