The numbers of poor and low income students in the public schools of the South and nation have substantially increased during the last decade. Today a majority of the South's public school students are low income, and nationwide more than 45 percent of the public school children are also eligible for free or reduced lunches due to low family income. A large, growing number of children live in destitute, often desperate conditions across the country--girls and boys under the age of 18 whose families and households have incomes below 50 percent of the national poverty threshold. These children include the homeless and a much larger number of children in transitory or fragile households where each person survives on less than seven or eight dollars a day. These children live in extreme poverty in the United States. This report examines the latest census data on children in extreme poverty in the South and the nation. It summarizes and analyzes patterns of extreme child poverty in the states and in most US counties. It also estimates how the recent recession has expanded the number of children in extreme poverty in both the South and the nation. The report uses data for all children--not just school-age children. It examines patterns and conditions in more than 2,700 public school districts with almost 32 million students enrolled across the United States. Finally, the report addresses some of the implications of these findings for local, state, and federal policies in education, and it offers specific conclusions and recommendations. Appended are: (1) Percentage of Children in Extreme Poverty by State; (2) Nation's 100 School Districts with Highest Reported Rates of Extreme Child Poverty; (3) Nation's School Districts Reporting No Extreme Child Poverty; (4) Estimated Increase of Children in Extreme Poverty by State; (5) State Indicators of Recent Economic Hardship; and (6) Notes on Data, Estimates, and Methods. A bibliography is included. (Contains 11 footnotes.) [For "The Worst of Times: Children in Extreme Poverty in the South and Nation. Special Summary," see ED524095.]