Measuring child poverty: new league tables of child poverty in the world's rich countries
Report Card 10 considers two views of child poverty in the world’s advanced economies: a measure of absolute deprivation, and a measure of relative poverty. The first measure is a 14-item Child Deprivation Index that represents a significant new development in international monitoring, drawing on data from the European Union’s Statistics on Incomes and Living Conditions survey of 125,000 households in 31 European countries, which has included a section on children for the first time. Children were considered 'deprived' if they lacked two or more of the items, which ranged from three meals a day, to an Internet connection. The second measure covers the EU and an additional six OECD countries (Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Switzerland and the United States) and examines the percentage of children living below their national 'poverty line' - defined as 50 per cent of median disposable household income.
Child Poverty in the United States: A Tale of Devastation and the Promise of Hope.
The child poverty rate in the United States is higher than in most similarly developed countries, making child poverty one of America's most pressing social problems. This article provides an introduction of child poverty in the US, beginning with a short description of how poverty is measured and how child poverty is patterned across social groups and geographic space. I then examine the consequences of child poverty with a focus educational outcomes and child health, and three pathways through which poverty exerts its influence: resources, culture, and stress. After a brief review of the anti-poverty policy and programmatic landscape, I argue that moving forward we must enrich the communities in which poor families live in addition to boosting incomes and directly supporting children's skill development. I conclude with emerging research questions.
Measuring up : what educational testing really tells us
Scores on high-stakes tests—tests that have serious consequences for students or teachers—often become severely inflated. That is, gains in scores on these tests are often far larger than true gains in students’ learning. Worse, this inflation is highly variable and unpredictable, so one cannot tell which school’s scores are inflated and which are legitimate. (p. 131) Thus, Koretz, a long-time associate of the federally funded Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, & Student Testing (CRESST), provides the many educators predisposed to dislike high-stakes tests anyway a seemingly scientific (and seemingly not self-serving or ideological) argument for opposing them. Meanwhile, he provides policymakers a conundrum: if scores on high-stakes tests improve, likely they are meaningless—leaving them no external measure for school improvement. So they might just as well do nothing as bother doing anything. Measuring Up supports this theory by ridiculing straw men— declaring a pittance of flawed supporting evidence sufficient (pp. 11, 59, 63, 132, and chapter 10) and a superabundance of contrary evidence nonexistent—and mostly by repeatedly insisting that he is right. (See, for example, chapter 1, pp. 131–133, and pp. 231–236.) He also shows 2