The economic situation for poor families in the Bronx is getting worse with the current financial crisis. Both parents and children are being hurt.
Gompers students on the first day of school. Many of their parents are unemployed and homeless, said Alice Soler. (Photo: Claudia Bracholdt)
Parents Coordinator Yvette Johnson from PS 146 in the Bronx, who is a part of the school’s administrative team and contact person for families, said jobs are a big concern for parents. Some have lost their jobs, and others are afraid they might lose their jobs. She said she hangs up notices about job training offers in the hallways of the school so parents can see them when they come to parent-teacher conferences.
Many parents try to get involved in their children’s education, said Alice Soler, a global history teacher at the Samuel J. Gompers Career and Technical Education High School in the South Bronx. But she said that parents have to struggle with their own problems – not only unemployment, but sometimes homelessness, too. “Students arrive at this school and have a fourth grade reading level, although they are in ninth grade,” said Soler, 52. Projects like T.I.G.E.R. (Together In Getting Everyone Reading) try to encourage children to read by organizing reading projects on different topics such as future jobs.
The lack of good education leaves poor families in a vicious circle, experts said. In an article for the Science Codex, Heather Hill, assistant professor in the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration, described the impacts the parents’ unemployment can have on their children.
“There is growing evidence that parental job loss has adverse consequences on children’s behavior, academic achievement and later employment outcomes, particularly in economically disadvantaged families,”
she said. Children grow up to be under-employed and sometimes homeless just like their parents.
According to the article, a child is 1.6 times more likely to repeat a grade if its father lost his job.
The question that arises is: What can be done to help children of poor families break the circle of unemployment?