History of IDEA
Jeannie Oakes, Founder and Former Director
Youth Voice in School Finance
NEW REPORT: Los Angeles' road to A-G for all
Without Dollars and Sense Powerpoint
Past Educational Opportunity Reports
As millions more children are affected by poverty, now is the time for our nation to act
- 09-28-2010
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Blog by Marian Wright Edelman/Huffington Post
Recently released U.S. Census Bureau data confirmed our worst fears about the impact of this deep recession. Nearly four million more Americans fell into poverty in 2009: 44 million or one in seven of us are unable to meet our basic needs. Worst of all, children, our most vulnerable group, experienced the steepest rise in poverty and the largest single-year increase since the 1960s. After dropping twenty-four percent between 1992 and 2000, the number of children in poverty increased more than one-third between 2000 and 2009. An additional 1.4 million children swelled the ranks of poor children to 15.5 million children -- more than one in five children. This almost ten percent increase in child poverty over 2008 is shameful, disturbing, and threatening news for millions of our nation’s children -- unless our nation addresses their human emergency needs. Our youngest children are most at risk of being poor, at the very same time that their brains are rapidly developing and attention to their developmental needs is so important. More than five million children under age five are poor, and 2.4 million live in extreme poverty. Children of color continue to suffer disproportionately from poverty. Black and Hispanic children are about three times as likely to be poor as White non-Hispanic children. (more…)
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