International Journal of Education and Social Science (IJESS)

At the apex of the 1966 War on Poverty, the poverty rate was under 15%. In 2010 the same demographic was 15.1% with a significantly higher child poverty rate of 22%. Yet the national discourse is nearly absent any substantive discussion of poverty or of cities in which 87 million Americans are living. Following a dwindling national investment in children and an ‘unraveling of the safety net’ for low-income families, the Great Recession augmented social and economic distress already endemic to the urban poor. This article will examine the effects the recession has on schools and the ways schools and communities have responded.