Discussion essay

Ayan Syzdykov
ID: 20121747
ARW I, Section 4
The 29
th
of March



2013
Question of essay: Is poverty the major factor of low students achievement?
Final draft
Education is a foundation of contemporary society and the topic of boundless debates
about how can we make it better. It helps people work better and gives opportunities for
individual growth now and into the future. Education is the most important thing in life, like
our basic needs of food, clothes and shelter. Some people say that the reason why people are
poor is dishonesty but actually the source of poverty is a bad education. Even though some
people say that poverty has the most important impact on students achievement, other assert
that there are other considerable factors in this issue such as parental education,
socioeconomic status of family, welfare income and parents misunderstanding of educations
importance.
After multiple studies, some researchers consider that the major contributing factor of
poor students achievement is poverty. The USA Department of Education (2001) discovered
results which clearly reflected that poverty negatively impacted on students achievement and
this department also discovered the same detections on students achievement from 3
rd
to 5
th

grade in 71 schools with a big percentage of poverty. In the study which is called Improving
the educational outcomes of students in poverty through multidisciplinary research and
development, author reports that students from poor families learnt considerably worse than
other students. Andrew Sum is professor of Economics, director of the Center for Labor
Market studies at Northeastern University in Boston and Neeta Fogg is a research professor of
Center Labor Markets and Policy who study the adolescent poor and the transition to early
adulthood. According to the study (1991) of these professors, poor students are evaluated in
the 19
th
percentile whereas students from mid-upper families are evaluated in the 66
th

percentile on assignments. As a result, there is such a big difference between students from
two different types of families. This difference caused by shortage of resources and because
of it, poor students can not do assessments properly. In addition, the Early Childhood
Longitudinal Study (ECLS) specifying kindergarten children progress on the ECLS reading
achievement assessment, students from low-income families scored at approximately 30
th

percentile, middle- income students scored at 45
th
percentile and upper-income students
scored at 70
th
percentile (M. Lacour, L.D. Tissington, The effects of poverty on academic
achievement, 2011, p. 1). These studies show that poverty has a huge influence on students
achievement; however, there are other more significant factors in this issue.
Although poverty has a considerable impact on academic progress, there are other
elements which have a greater influence on students achievement such as parental education
and socioeconomic status of family in society. The educational degree of parents is ranked as
one of the most stabilized reasons of Socio Economic Status (SES) because it is actually
installed at an initial ages and tends to stay the same in childrens mind. Family takes an
important place in childs achievement and evaluation. The investigation which is called
NAEP 1999 trends in academic progress of Campbell, Hombo and Mazzeo (1999) using
NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) evidence suggests that students who
have parents with a bad education rate tend to have lower average grades. Through the study
entitled The role of family income and sources of income in adolescents achievement of
Peters and Mullis (1997), it is clear that the level of mothers education is a forecaster of
school competition for all average teenagers who were participating in the studies. The reason
why the mothers education is a predictor of students achievement is that level of mothers
schooling has a 20% bigger influence on students achievement that fathers education. As a
consequence, childrens extra ways of speaking, acting, reading and collaborating with
children depend on consequences of mothers formation (M. Lacour, L.D. Tissington, The
effects of poverty on academic achievement, 2011, p. 2). A study conducted by Martini and
Walker, reports that students from families which have only one parent and a small income
have a slight success in school than students from complete families with upper
socioeconomic status. It can be justified by the fact that parents do not require a good
education from their children and less control their school work in comparison with parents of
children from intact households (K.M. Jabor, K. Kungu, K. Machtmes, Y. Buntat, M.N.
Safarin Does parent educational status matter on the students achievement in science,
2011, p. 2). Excluding the effect of the parental education and socioeconomic status, there are
other powerful factors that change academic achievement.
Beyond poverty, parental education and socioeconomic status of households, there are
other influential aspects such as welfare income and parents value of education. Information
shows that receiving welfare income has a negative impact on students achievement. Several
studies illustrate that students from family receiving charity are twice as likely to fail in
school. Moreover, such children often have problems with discipline in school. Financial aid
has a negative influence on students because they become to lose their passion to study hard.
Above all, children from families who are long-term beneficiates have lower academic
achievement than children from families who are short-term receivers (M. Lacour, L.D.
Tissington, The effects of poverty on academic achievement, 2011, p. 3). As we have seen,
children who are recent recipients of fiscal aid have motivation to study hard. However,
apathy starts to occur in their minds and as a result, students keep their apathetic attitude to
education because they know that they get money which helps their families to pay for
education. Yet another a forceful action of poor students achievement is parental
misunderstanding of educations importance in our time. Students usually suffer from parents
who do not comprehend the value of education. Most of these students do not have a good
education and do not worry about it. People do not grasp that education is important in areas
with a high percentage of poverty (M. Lacour, L.D. Tissington, 2011). Parents do not try to
participate in students academic life and can not give their children any help with their
assignments. Currently, we know that there are a lot of factors which have a big impact on
students achievement and we can not judge which of them has bigger influence.
Although, one portion of scientists says that poverty has the biggest influence on
academic achievement, while a opposite portion approves that there are other substantial
elements which have bigger influence on academic achievement than poverty, such as
education of parents, socioeconomic status of family in society, welfare income and parental
incomprehension of eruditions price. However, these factors are related to each other. For
example, if parents dont have a good educational degree their families will be on the bottom
of society and will be suffer from poverty. If parents are uneducated, they wont consider
education is an important thing in life, like of food, clothes and shelter. Eventually, if their
families will be suffer from poverty, they will receive welfare money. Accordingly, these
factors are connected and originate from one to another. Poverty, parental education, welfare
income and other factors have equal impact on students achievement, and they are in a close
relationships with one another.







References
Hill, G. (2013, March 9). Living with less. A lot of less. The New York Times, p. A4.
Jabor, K. M., Kungu, K., Machtmes, K., Buntat, Y., & Nordin, M. S. (2011). Does parent
educational status matter on student's achievement in science? IACSIT, 5, Retrieved
from http://www.ipedr.com
Lacour, M., & Tissington, L. D. (2011, May 12). The effects of poverty on academic
achievement. Educational Research and Reviews, 6, 522-527. Retrieved from
http://www.academicjournals.org/ERR
Moradeke, A. G., Oludare, O. J., & Funke, F. A. (2012, January). Roles of parent on the
academic perfomance of pupils in elementary schools. International Journal of
Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 2, Retrieved from
www.hrmars.com/journals