Rural New York schools
grapple with declining population, increasing poverty
By
Jason Melanovski
20 September 2017
A recent report has highlighted the dire development of increasing
poverty and declining enrollment many rural school districts are facing across
New York state, forcing these districts to choose between making onerous cuts,
combining with other districts, or closing schools within the district, thus
forcing students to travel longer distances.
According to a report titled “Demographic Challenges Facing Rural
Schools: Declining Enrollment and Growing Poverty” by the New York State
Association of School Business Officials, the dual phenomena of increased
poverty and lower enrollment are wreaking havoc on local school budgets, which
are primarily funded by local property taxes.
Calling enrollment declines “omnipresent,” the report states that
“96.7 percent of rural school districts had declining enrollment and 84.9
percent had drops of at least ten percent.”
While the rate and overall population in poverty is still higher
in New York’s suburban and urban school districts, the poverty rate in rural
areas is increasing at a noticeably faster pace.
From 2003 to 2015, the poverty rate for school-age children
increased from 14 percent to 18 percent for children in rural school districts
and from 19 percent to 21 percent for children in non-rural school districts.
For both rural and non-rural school districts the greatest jump in poverty
rates occurred between 2009 and 2011 following the 2008 financial crisis.
Another measure of the economic plight of school children is the
percentage of children receiving free or reduced priced lunches. In rural
school districts 48.3 percent of students receive free or reduced priced
lunches, and that number rises to 53.2 percent of students in non-rural
districts. A student is eligible for free or reduced priced lunch when his or
her family makes less than 185 percent of the poverty level.
Although the report was released to shed light on the challenges
facing rural school districts, it made clear that poverty among the state’s
school children has no geographic limits. According the report, “The
combination of poverty and Free- and Reduced-Price Lunch (FRPL) data show that
a little more than one in every five schoolchildren in New York lives in
poverty, while a little more than half of all school children face significant
economic constraints at home.”
The report compiled data from the 340 rural school districts,
which make up about half of those in New York State, but serve only a little
more than 11 percent of the students.
The report noted that the population losses and increases in poverty
cannot be separated from the financial crisis of 2008, stating “for a few years
prior to the onset of the Great Recession, growth rates in urban and rural
counties were closely related. Beginning in 2008, rural populations entered a
period of sustained decline, while urban populations continued to grow, though
their pace of growth slowed after 2011.”
According to United States Census data, the emptying of much of
rural America can be directly connected to the shrinking number of jobs in
non-metro areas, as the rural job market is now 4.26 percent smaller than it
was in 2008.
Speaking to the Daily
Star of Oneonta, NY, the rural Delaware Academy School
District’s Superintendent Jason Thomson stated that the current 47 percent of
students who qualify for free or reduced price meals is the “highest we’ve ever
seen.”
In addition, many of the rural counties mentioned in the report
have also been hit hard by the opioid epidemic, claiming the lives of young
workers and reducing an already declining population. Tioga County, for
instance, lost up to 10 percent of its population between 2002 and 2016 and
averaged 16.7 opioid deaths from 2013 to 2015 according to New York state.
With rapidly declining enrollment, rural schools are forced to
count on smaller and smaller budgets with each succeeding school year,
resulting in cuts to classes, teachers, programs and extracurricular activities
and an overall sense of living in a world with scant opportunities for future
life.
As the report states, rural “schools may have to cut back on
valuable academic and enrichment opportunities, from Advanced Placement courses
to music and sports programs, when they no longer have the student numbers
needed for viability. Any potential reductions in college readiness preparation
are incredibly serious. Decreasing enrollment can also increase students’ sense
of isolation as there are literally fewer peers for them to interact with.”
To add to an already dire state of morale in rural schools,
despite the fact that poor rural schools often have significantly higher
graduation rates than poor urban schools, diplomas from rural schools are often
seen as “worthless” according to David Little, executive director of the New
York State Rural Schools Association. Poor rural schools in New York are simply
unable to afford the cost of offering advanced placement (AP) and college-level
coursework that is seen as necessary by college admissions officers.
For its part, the New York state government and the Andrew Cuomo
administration have failed to respond to the demographic and social declines in
rural school districts and increase state aid. The state continues to use a
formula created in 2008, prior to the financial crisis, which categorizes the
majority of rural schools as “average need.” If current demographic and poverty
data were used, the majority of rural schools would now be considered
“high-need,” requiring increased state aid.
Increasing rural poverty is not unique to New York. It has been
rising across the country after falling sharply over many decades to a record
low rate in 2000 of 13.4 percent. 16.7 percent of rural Americans lived in
poverty in 2015, compared to 13 percent in poverty within metropolitan areas,
according to the United States Census Bureau.
Laura Ingraham: ‘Maybe We’re Going to Have to Primary This President in 2020’
Friday on her nationally syndicated radio show, conservative talker Laura Ingraham shared some of the reactions she had gotten from her listeners about President Donald Trump’s reported deal with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) over the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) immigration policy.
According to Ingraham, respondents were dissatisfied with Trump’s decision for the most part and added that some had even called for primarying him in 2020, which Ingraham indicated she was open to that suggestion.
“Your voices are being heard,” Ingraham said. “Your comments are being heard – everything from the word ‘outrage’ to ‘betrayal’ to ‘disappointment’ to ‘sadness’ to ‘primary him.’ That’s the other phrase we heard yesterday repeatedly. Look, we have to primary senators. Maybe we’re going to have to primary this president in 2020. We thought he was a conservative populist. We thought he was a nationalist on issues of immigration. If he is not, then we’re going to have to find someone who is.”
“This is the opportunity Donald Trump has to establish himself as a champion of the everyman,” she continued. “And he campaigned on that. Now he can actually be that. If he just does what he says he’s going to do in the campaign, he’ll be wildly popular. But he’s never going to please the DREAMers. He’s never going to please the Democrats. Even if he does a deal with the Democrats on the DREAMers, they’re not going to like him. They’re just going to use him.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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