Poverty greatest threat to children

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 25/09/2021 (1702 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

ON Sept. 12, 1977, the Carnegie Council on Children concluded that “The single greatest harm to children is poverty.” I believe this to be an apt description of the greatest threat to the education of a large number of children in Manitoba.

It remains worrisome that, even with the demise of Bill 64 (the Education Modernization Act), the most serious matters facing education are still off the table, and particularly so when it comes to the issue of child poverty, which presents probably the biggest challenge to any government wanting to achieve meaningful and lasting school change.

It’s the end of September. Children and young people are back at school for another year. This includes the children of the poor. The schools know who they are by now. They know they’ll have to pay special attention to these young people because they face challenges most of their other students do not.

Teachers will lie awake at night trying to think of new ways to mitigate the educational consequences for these children. They need help with this formidable task.

Pillar 3 of BEST (Better Education Starts Today), the Bill 64 implementation strategy, under the heading “Future Ready Students, Priority Actions,” proposes to “Establish a taskforce, in connection with the Poverty Reduction Strategy, to examine the linkages between poverty and education and support the implementation of strategies to improve engagement and outcomes for all students.”

Unfortunately, this has been the type of response adopted by successive governments of all stripes, and it’s hard to imagine a better recipe for continued neglect and avoidance of an enduring social scourge with massive long-term ethical and political ramifications. Further examination is not what is needed.

For decades, our own Manitoba Centre for Health Policy has clearly laid out “the linkages” between poverty and lack of success in school. We do not need a taskforce to confirm what we already know. We also know that children from poor families start with the same health assets — birth weight, brain size, responsiveness to stimuli — as children from better-off families. Nevertheless, many almost immediately lose equal prospects owing to nutritional deficiencies, less access to educational experiences in the early years and irregular health checks.

Children of the poor are no less sophisticated thinkers than their better-off peers. They know they don’t have the same lunches, same clothes and the same opportunities for socializing, recreation and entertainment. They know that only children like them have to assume adult responsibilities at an early age by providing care for younger siblings, including acquiring and preparing their food, getting them dressed for daycare or school and supervising their play.

It’s not hard to imagine why they’re less engaged as students and more likely to be absent.

Instead of trying to ensure all children are fed, live in safe healthy homes with secure caregivers and come to school ready to engage, without poverty’s effects, the government wants “to implement strategies to improve… outcomes,” translated as greater engagement and less absenteeism.

This is a misguided, sure-to-fail strategy which amounts to blaming the victims and their caregivers. Poor children need inputs, not to be judged on outputs.

The Social Planning Council reported in 2018 that 88,000 children lived in poverty, an increase of 2,500 from 2017. Winnipeg Harvest, now Harvest Manitoba, reported that of the 85,000 who regularly accessed their services and resources, 43 per cent were children. In Manitoba, 16.3 per cent of two-adult households lived in poverty, as compared to the national average of 9.8 per cent.

For one-adult households, that number was a shocking 63.4 per cent. These numbers are familiar to this and previous governments.

In 2015 the Social Planning Council released a report on equity in education which implied child poverty is probably best addressed locally by local school boards and educators who know the children and their circumstances, and who together with their families can come up with more helpful responses.

Provincial resources to local school boards to provide the kinds of supports suggested by MCHP would be a great start, especially if the poor themselves were engaged where they live to propose and participate in any solutions.

Communities that help themselves and their children in poor circumstances, with unique, creative local solutions supported by adequately funded local schools and public-health systems would be a bold and promising Manitoba poverty reduction experiment, even if applied only to the neediest areas in the province as a trial.

I predict the rewards would be phenomenal, in terms of long-term savings, human and societal well-being… and educational success.

John R. Wiens is dean emeritus at the faculty of education, University of Manitoba. A lifelong educator, he has served as a teacher, counsellor, work education co-ordinator, principal, school superintendent and university professor.