Katrina and NCLB: mandates but no provisions.

Abstract

Hurricane Katrina uncovered a side of America that is often forgotten. This destructive force of nature highlighted the side of America where people live in poverty. Without the needed resources and support, thousands of the storm's victims were left behind. This incident unfortunately parallels another crisis in our nation. Many of America's children living in poverty are being left behind educationally because sufficient planning to ensure their well-being and development during early childhood has not taken place. The purpose of this article is to highlight the relationships among poverty, children's well-being, and academic achievement by examining indicators of those variables for the states devastated by Hurricane Katrina: Mississippi and Louisiana.

Introduction

Tragedies often uncover circumstances that would have otherwise been forgotten or ignored. Hurricane Katrina did just that. For weeks after the disaster, countries all over the world witnessed not only the effects of the hurricane but also the face of poverty in the richest nation in the world: America. While much of the early news coverage criticized the victims for not heeding the evacuation warnings, the commentators soon realized that many of the victims lacked the resources to evacuate (Elliott & Pais, 2006). Although there was an order for mandatory evacuations, according to Elliott and Pais, income accurately predicted who was able to comply with that order. Residents with the means to evacuate were able to make personal decisions as to when they would evacuate. However, many of the poorer residents were left behind and were forced to wait for assistance not only in their evacuation efforts but also in their efforts to acquire the basic necessities such as food and water. In the aftermath of the storm, it was evident that planning for a disaster of this magnitude had been neglected and that circumstances associated with living in poverty had not been considered. Simply mandating residents to evacuate without considering the circumstances of their lives and making provisions for their evacuation proved disastrous.

The devastation wrought, especially on those living in poverty, by Hurricane Katrina unfortunately parallels another crisis in our nation. Despite the mandate issued by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) Act of 2001 (United States Department of Education [USDOE], 2004), to close the achievement gap, many of America's children are being left behind educationally and will continue to be left behind educationally because the circumstances associated with living in poverty have not been considered.

Research has documented the importance of a child's development during his early years to his well-being and lifelong development (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [NICHD] Early Child Care Research Network, 2003). Poverty is one factor that can hamper a child's development. According to the Annie E. Casey Foundation ([AECF] 2005), poverty status is one of the strongest predictors of child well-being. Studies have found that children from low-income families are "more likely to suffer from preventable illnesses, fail in school, become teenaged parents, and become involved with the justice system" (p. 5). Research has also shown that children from low-income families are more likely to have inadequate diets (Fox & Cole, 2004; Nord, Andrews, & Carlson, 2005) and higher rates of physical inactivity (Abernathy, Webster, & Vermeulen, 2002). Not surprisingly, children from low-income families are the same children that continue to struggle in classrooms throughout the nation (Berliner, 2006). In 2001, the federal government issued a mandate to close the achievement gap so that no child is left behind through its historic No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 (USDOE, 2004). Apparently, the architects of the NCLB Act surmised that the achievement gap in the public schools across the nation was the result of a lack of accountability within school systems and unqualified teachers in the classroom (Berliner, 2006). While those problems do exist, the primary culprit of why so many children are left behind was dramatically exposed by Hurricane Katrina. The why has more to do with what exists outside of school systems than what exists within the school systems. The majority of children being left behind are those affected by the consequences of living in poverty (Berliner, 2006). While the NCLB Act claims to rely on scientific research to ensure that no child is left behind, the act actually ignores much of the research that supports what early childhood educators have known for centuries: the experiences of early childhood are crucial to that child's later academic achievement (Ramey & Ramey, 1999).

The relationships among poverty, child-well being, and academic achievement cannot be denied (Berliner, 2006). When indicators of those three variables are examined for the states hit hardest by Hurricane Katrina, Mississippi and Louisiana, the relationships become quite evident. Consequently, the purpose of this article is to highlight the relationships among poverty, children's well-being, and academic achievement by examining indicators of those variables for the states of Mississippi and Louisiana. Acknowledging the relationships among these three variables is essential to our ability to develop an effective plan to leave no child behind educationally.

Poverty

Poverty, as commonly defined by researchers, is the state of living with an income below the federally defined poverty line. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2006), the federal poverty level in 2006 is $16,600 for a family of three and $20,000 for a family of four. However, poverty encompasses much more than a lack of sufficient income. According to the International Council of Nurses (ICN), poverty is "a condition that extends beyond lack of income and goes hand in hand with lack of power, humiliation, and a sense of exclusion" (Raphael, 2005, p. 36).

According to the U.S. Census Bureau (2005), in 2004, 12.4% (37 million) of the American population lived in poverty. When specifically examining children living in poverty in the nation, that percentage escalates to over 18.4% (13 million). In Mississippi and Louisiana, the dismal picture of poverty is amplified for the states' overall population in general and the child population in particular. In Mississippi 19.9% (548,079 individuals) of the population lives in poverty and in Louisiana 19.6% (851,113 individuals) of the population lives in poverty. Moreover, Mississippi and Louisiana have the highest rates of child poverty in the nation with 26.7% (203,101 children) and 26.3% (313,922 children), respectively, of their child population living in poverty. The stark reality of these high percentages of child poverty in Mississippi and Louisiana is highlighted when compared to states such as Connecticut and New Hampshire with the nation's lowest child poverty rates of 10% and 7.3%, (U. S. Census Bureau, 2005). Consequently, for the purpose of this article, the states of Connecticut and New Hampshire will serve as a point of reference to illustrate how states with lower rates of child poverty have more favorable outcomes in child well-being and achievement.

Children's Well-Being

The well-being of young children has been examined over the years by multiple entities such as the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Foundation for Child Development, and the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family statistics. However, there is little consensus on an operational definition of child well-being (Pollard & Lee, 2003). Rather, researchers conceptually agree that the well-being of children is their overall quality of life which can be measured with indicators from four broad domains (O'Hare & Lamb, 2004). The four domains are economic security, health, safety and behavioral concerns, and education.

One of the most frequently cited comprehensive sources describing the well-being of children is the Annie E. Casey Foundation (AECF). Each year, the AECF compiles data on a set of 10 indicators of child well-being in their Kids Count Data Book (AECF, 2005). According to the AECF, the 10 most significant indicators of the quality of life for children in the United States are the percentage of low-birthweight babies; infant mortality rates; child death rates; teen birth and death rates; high school dropout rates; percentage of teens who do not attend school or work; percentage of children living in families where no parent has full-time, year round employment; percentage of children in poverty; and the percentage of children in single-parent households. Although the AECF includes a measure of child poverty as one of the indicators, poverty status could have been used as the only indicator because of the strong positive relationship between poverty and the other nine indicators (AECF, 2005).

In the 2005 Kids Count Data Book (AECF) Mississippi and Louisiana, the states with the highest rates of child poverty, ranked 50th and 49th, respectively, with regard to the well-being of the states' children. In contrast, Connecticut and New Hampshire, states with the lowest rates of child poverty ranked 11th and 1st in measures of child well-being. Although more data would be needed to demonstrate a statistically significant relationship between child poverty and child well-being, the previous findings make a strong implication of a negative relationship.

In addition to the negative relationship between poverty and child well-being highlighted in the previous section, there is also a negative relationship between poverty and academic achievement (Berliner, 2006; Burchinal, et al. 2002). The following section discusses measures of academic achievement of students in the states of Mississippi, Louisiana, Connecticut, and New Hampshire to highlight the relationship between poverty and academic achievement. Examination of this information will demonstrate differences in achievement between states with high child poverty rates and states with low child poverty rates.

Student Academic Achievement

For centuries, education has been viewed as the great equalizer. A widely-held belief in the nation is that with a proper education, anybody can be anything. However; Americans have not been satisfied with the education that American children are receiving (Guisbond & Neill, 2004). As a means of wide-scale school reform, the Educate America Act in 1989 (National Education Goals Panel, 1997) and NCLB in 2001 evolved to address student academic achievement. Three commonly used measures of student academic achievement are the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores, ACT scores, and high school completion status.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics ([NCES], 2006), the NAEP is a national assessment of what American students know and are able to do in specific content areas. The assessment results are reported in scale scores which correspond to one of four achievement levels: below basic, basic, proficient, and advanced. Scores in the proficient and advanced range indicate that students understand the concepts and procedures of the subject matter and are able to apply that understanding to complex, real-life situations. Scores in the basic and below basic range indicate that students may or may not understand the concepts and procedures of the subject matter but are unable to apply that understanding to complex, real-life situations.

The most recent round of assessments, conducted in 2005, assessed fourth and eighth grade students in the subject areas of reading and mathematics. Nationwide, 65% to 71% of the nation's school children had a basic or below basic understanding in the subjects of reading and mathematics. As bleak as the situation may seem for the entire nation, the achievement levels for Mississippi and Louisiana were even worse. According to NCES (2006), reading and mathematics scores in the states of Mississippi and Louisiana were lower than the national average at both grade levels and in both subjects. The results indicate that at least 80% of the students in Mississippi and Louisiana have a basic or below basic understanding of reading and mathematics at the fourth and eighth grade levels. Students in Connecticut and New Hampshire had scores higher than the national average. Only 47% to 58% of the students in Connecticut and New Hampshire were considered to have basic or below basic understanding in the subjects of reading and mathematics.

The ACT, the most widely used college entrance exam, yields subject area scores in English, math, reading and science as well as an overall composite score ranging from 1 to 36 (ACT, 1997). According to the ACT organization, students with composite scores of less than 19 are unlikely to be successful in college without taking developmental courses first. In 2005, the average composite score for the nation was 20.9. Similar to the NAEP results, the average composite score for students in the states of Mississippi and Louisiana was lower than the national average (ACT, 2006). The average ACT composite score for Mississippi's students (18.7) was the lowest in the nation and Mississippi was the only state in the nation with ACT composite scores that indicated the average student in the state was not prepared to be successful in college without remedial or developmental assistance. The average composite score in Louisiana (19.8) was lower than all other states except Mississippi and South Carolina (19.4). Students in Connecticut and New Hampshire scored higher than the national average with average composite scores of 22.8 and 22.3, respectively.

The final measure of student achievement examined was high school graduation rates. While the majority of students in the nation do graduate from high school, far too many of them do not. According to Seastrom et al. (2005), writing for the National Center for Education Statistics, the graduation rate for public school students in the United States in 2003-04 was 75%. Mississippi and Louisiana did not compare favorably with the rest of the nation with graduation rates of 62.7% and 69.4%. In Connecticut and New Hampshire the rates of high school graduation were 80.4 and 78.7. As with each measure of student academic achievement examined, when high school graduation rates were examined, students in Mississippi and Louisiana performed below the national average while students in Connecticut and New Hampshire performed above the national average.

Conclusion

Despite the danger warnings and the orders to evacuate, thousands of residents in the path of Hurricane Katrina were stranded and left behind. In the aftermath of the storm, it was apparent that officials had not considered the plight as well as the limitations of individuals living in poverty in executing their evacuation plans. Katrina's horrific devastation exposed their lack of knowledge, understanding, and preparation. Also apparent is the fact that simply issuing a mandate is insufficient to ensure an intended outcome. Similarly, simply mandating educational systems to close the achievement gap is insufficient to ensure that no child is left behind educationally. As a nation, we cannot continue to ignore the obvious relationships among poverty, child well-being, and academic achievement. It is imperative that our nation consider these relationships and develop a comprehensive plan that addresses these relationships so that no more children will be left behind.

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Debra Lindsey Prince, Mississippi State University 

Kimberly Triplett, Mississippi State University

Gail Lindsey, Mississippi State University

Prince, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor of Educational Research Triplett, Ed. S. is a Research Associate of Early Childhood Initiatives Lindsey, Ed.D. is Associate Director of the Early Childhood Institute