Teacher turnover across the country presents a persistent and growing challenge for schools and districts, with the highest rates of turnover geographically concentrated in the American South. Research on teacher staffing and turnover problems consistently highlight two subsets of schools as struggling to attract and retain well-credentialed,…

Studies of children growing up in poverty describe increasingly devastating effects on many areas of development (e.g., cognitive, linguistic, socio-emotional, affective, psychomotor). Teachers need to be aware of these findings; they also need to develop empathy for their students living in poverty. One way to do this is to experience a poverty…

By providing early access to education, early childhood and community-based programs are helping to close the achievement gap prevalent among children from impoverished homes.

This hearing serves as a first in a set of hearings focusing on early learning. In his opening statement, Senator Tom Harkin, Chairman of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, strongly encouraged members of this committee on both sides of the aisle to hold roundtables and have discussions on early learning in their local…

In this report, the Annenberg Institute for School Reform and the Southern Education Foundation (SEF) highlight instructional and community-based strategies for strong public schools in Georgia. The authors offer eight essential, evidence-based strategies for success: (1) Access to high quality early childhood and pre-K education; (2)…

Secondary preservice teachers at Georgia Southern University have little knowledge of poverty or the lives of students who live in poverty. Preservice teachers rarely interact with others who live outside their self-reported middle-class status. In this article, the author examines the effects a study of poverty has on the philosophy and practice…

Studied the effects a high stakes test designed to end social promotion would have on poor black students in the 39 Georgia counties characterized as "declining rural counties." Findings suggest such tests would have a disparate impact on African American children, limiting their educational attainment. Illustrates the argument with the…

This report summarizes a series of studies on school size, poverty, and student achievement. These studies analyzed 29 sets of test scores from various grades in Georgia, Ohio, Montana, and Texas to examine the relationship between school-level performance on tests, school size, and community poverty level. The studies found that as schools become…

In her first year as superintendent of the Atlanta Public Schools, Beverly Hall encountered what she describes as the nearly universal disbelief that poor children of color can achieve high levels of learning. This chapter recounts how she confronted this and other obstacles and challenges as the new leader of the Atlanta Public Schools. Hall is…