Blog #9

Poverty is a growing problem in this world even on Long Island where we live. Living in Long Island is one of the toughest places to live because everything is more expensive and the taxes that we are required to pay are much higher. People struggle to get by and where we live that's understandable. It is not always obvious that people around us are struggling to pay the bills and put food on the table for their family because,especially in our school, we are very privileged. Newsday released an article and statistics about children poverty on Long Island in the years 2007 and 2010. It reflects on each school district and the number of kids in poverty. Also it shows the increase in poverty from 2007-2010.

http://longisland.newsday.com/templates/simpleDB/?pid=377&currentRecord=83

This article shows how different schools on Long Island might be different in many ways but every school has children that fall below the poverty line. 

Another point that can be made by this article is how poverty is directly related to poor education. Schools in low income areas don't always have the same opportunities as schools with higher income areas. They don't have honors programs or sports teams for kids to take part in and this can effect their futures. In the article you can see that schools with higher percentage of kids in poverty, like Wyandanch, are areas that are known for having low income and the schools with lower  percentage of kids in poverty, like Shoreham-Wading river, are known for having higher income.  

Seeing these statistics especially for the school that we attend is eye opening. Personally, I never realized how many people were in poverty let alone on Long Island. Even though our school is one of the lower districts in poverty I never thought there was that many children struggling to begin with.  Something needs to be done to change the problem of poverty and help the people who are in need.