ABSTRACT
Poor children’s experience in school too often mirrors their experience in the broader society. In disproportionate numbers, poor children not only are exposed to social and environmental toxins, and consequently suffer health problems, but also are assigned to the nation’s worst public schools-schools in the worst state of disrepair (U.S. General Accounting Office, 1996) and with some of the lowest levels of per-pupil funding (see chap. 6). Children in poor communities too often end up in schools without adequate heating, cooling, or sanitation, and their teachers on the whole are less qualified than those in middle-and upperclass communities (Olson, 2003c; Prince, 2002; Wayne, 2002). Even lunch for poor children is not as good. Many school buildings in poor neighborhoods have no kitchen or, in some cases, even a lunchroom. Although children whose families are poor enough qualify for federally subsidized school meals, “the free lunch program offers students a prepackaged lunch that barely measures up to federal guide-lines,” said researcher Karen Evans Stout. “In affluent areas, the lunch is nutritionally rich” (quoted in “Lunch,” 2002, p. 15).
