New headlines are screaming across our papers. More than ½ of our public school students are in low-income families. The Southern Education Foundation has published their report A New Majority Update- Low Income Students in the South and Nation with those findings.

This census of students covers those in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade in the 2012-2013 school year. And, these facts mean that these low income students are eligible for free or reduced price lunches. Obviously, this has tremendous ramifications on the budget- which is what I will first address.

First, the situation is generally worse in the South- and the Northeastern inner cities. That fact is not surprising to me- but it still is devastating. Amazingly, the Commonwealth of Virginia is a big exception- not just different from the rest of the South, but that it’s actually among the few (along with Minnesota, the Dakotas, Colorado, Connecticut, New Jersey Vermont, and New Hampshire) that only registers such students in the 30s. (Not surprisingly, Mississippi is the state with the worst record- with its “poor” status students in the 70s.)

Secondly, we know that the poorer children have a very poor chance of ever achieving the American Dream. But, more than that, they are far more likely to drop out of school and most likely to never attend college.  That does not bode well for the US as a nation, since the lack of such credentials and skills means these folks will probably need financial assistance for the rest of their lives..

Thirdly, it explains the atrocious results students across the US manifest on the achievement tests. Since poorer children are the primary groups that fail to demonstrate educational excellence.

Those were the easy conclusions. Now, let’s get to the less politically correct developments this study provides.

The fact that more than ½ our public school denizens are poor also means that more children of richer parents are attending private school. Whether it’s for religious instruction, better education, or segregational reasons- it means that class divisions occur early in our children’s lives (us vs. them) and are ingrained in the next generation(s) of leaders. The sentiments Romney expounded (about the ‘47%’) will be more the norm than the exception if this trend continues.

The next item is more a question than a conclusion. Nowhere in this report was I able to find a census of all the students. And, given that the data is propounded for pre-K to 12th grade, that could be a critical factor. Because those children who attend public pre-K are primarily in Head Start or similar programs. And, given that these are exclusively for those in low income strata (by admission criteria), the overall results can be skewed. Because with 1.3 million children in these pre-K programs, that’s more than 2% of the entire school population examined. That means that the K to 12 population for the entire US has only 48% below the poverty line.

Still atrocious, but not quite those banner headlines.

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