As the school year starts, it’s a sad story for the growing numbers of poor kids in America.

School starts today for millions of American kids.

Millions more will come to school next Monday or following Labor Day.

Thousands of teachers will be look at the children in front of them and those children will be poor and hungry. They will be homeless and sick.

There is no in-service that will solve this. There will be no new instructional program. No new unfunded federal or state mandate. No self-serving press release from the US Department of Education. No crazy rhetoric about cutting the federal deficit.

Teachers having unions didn’t create this. It’s not the result of tenure or seniority rules. Our pensions don’t make kids hungry.

No matter. We will start teaching our students today and over the next few weeks.

In July the Children’s Defense Fund issued their report on the State of America’s Children. These kids are our kids.

Every 42 seconds a baby is born without health insurance; every minute a baby is born at low birth weight.

More than 24 percent of children under age five are poor; 41.9 percent of Black and 35.0 percent of Hispanic children under age of five are poor.

Almost 70 percent of mothers with children under six are in the workforce.

Fewer than 40 percent of Black children live with two parents.

Almost one in two Black children and more than one in four Hispanic children live with their mother only, compared with fewer than one in five White children.

Black children are more than seven times as likely and Hispanic children more than two and a half times as likely as White children to have a parent in prison.

In 43 states and the District of Columbia, more than one in 10 households has limited access to adequate food.

During 2009, an average of 15.6 million children received food stamps each month, an increase of 65 percent in just 10 years.

Following a pattern of recent years, about 40 percent of children who were abused or neglected in 2009 received no services following the investigation of their maltreatment.

In the majority of states, at least one-third of the children in foster care between one and two years experience three or more placements.

An estimated 114,000 children are in foster care waiting to be adopted.

The number of children in poverty increased 28 percent between 2000 and 2009 after dropping 27 percent between 1992 and 2000.

Child poverty increased by almost 10 percent between 2008 and 2009, the largest single-year increase since 1960.

A total of 15.5 million children, or one in every five children in America, lived in poverty in 2009, an increase of nearly four million children since 2000.

Almost half-6.9 million-of all poor children lived in extreme poverty, defined as an annual income of less than half of the poverty level ($11,025 for a family of four).

More than one in three Black, one in three Hispanic and one in 10 White children live in poverty.

More than one in six Black and one in seven Hispanic children live in extreme poverty-at half the poverty level or below. One in 20 White children lives in extreme poverty.

The United States ranks 24th among 30 developed countries on overall educational achievement for 15-year-olds.

In a study of education systems in 60 countries, the United States ranked 31st in math achievement and 23rd in science achievement for 15-year-old students.

American schools are resegregating: 78 percent of Hispanic students and 73 percent of Black students are in predominantly minority schools.

The U.S. spends almost two and a half times as much per prisoner as per public school pupil.

Almost one in five high school students admitted carrying a weapon in 2007; one-third of those students brought the weapon to school.

One in 18 high school students reported staying home from school because they felt unsafe at school or going to or from school.

The average graduation rate for Black and Hispanic students is just over 60 percent, in contrast with 81 percent for White and 91 percent for Asian/Pacific Islander students.

A child is abused or neglected every 42 seconds; almost 80 percent of them are victims of neglect.

1,161 children enter foster care each day and remain there on average more than two years. Every two minutes a child enters foster care.

Nearly half of all abused and neglected children are White; more than one-fifth are African American; and one-fifth are Hispanic.

Forty percent of child victims receive no services after the investigation.

Approximately one in five child victims in 2009 was maltreated by someone other than his/her parents.

In 2010, four out of 10 Black and three out of 10 Hispanic teens ages 16 to 19 were unemployed.

The youth jobless rate for teens 16 to 19 in July 2010 was higher than at any time in the past five decades.

Minority youth make up approximately two-thirds of the youth in the juvenile justice system.

The number of girls arrested has grown by 50 percent since 1980; American Indian girls are four times and Black girls three times more likely to be incarcerated than White girls.

Black juveniles are over three times more likely than all other groups to be arrested for a violent offense.

Black youth represent only 17 percent of the overall youth population; however, they make up 62 percent of youth prosecuted in adult court.

In 2011, the Campaign For Youth Justice reported that about 10,000 children are held in adult jails and prisons on any given night.

Two-thirds of children who are sent to adult court reside in adult facilities while they are awaiting trial.

The National Prison Rape Elimination Commission found that “more than any other group of incarcerated persons, youth incarcerated with adults are probably at the highest risk for sexual abuse.”

African-American youth are also nine times more likely than White youth to receive an adult prison sentence.

Florida is the state with the highest number of children in adult prisons (393).

In 2007, 3,042 children and teens died from gunfire in the United States-eight every day-as a result of homicide, suicide or accidental shootings.

Almost six times as many children and teens – 17,523 – suffered non-fatal gun injuries, which have serious physical and emotional consequences.

Although there are fewer Black children in America more Black than White children and teens were killed by firearms in 2007.

Black males ages 15-19 are more than five times as likely as White males and more than twice as likely as Hispanic males to be killed by a firearm.

The annual number of firearm deaths of White children and teens decreased by about 54 percent between 1979 and 2007, while the deaths of Black children and teens increased by 61 percent.

Since 1979 gun violence has ended the lives of 110,645 children and teens in America.

There are more than 280 million privately owned firearms in the U.S., which is the equivalent of nine firearms for every 10 men, women and children in this country.

Every 8 seconds a high school student drops out.

Every 18 seconds a baby is born to an unmarried mother.

Every minute a baby is born to a teen mother.

Every 21 seconds a child is arrested.

Every 42 seconds a child is confirmed as abused or neglected.

Every 4 minutes a child is arrested for a drug offense.

Every 8 minutes a child is arrested for a violent offense.

Every 18 minutes a baby dies before his or her first birthday.

Every 3 hours a child or teen is killed by a firearm.

Every 5 hours a child or teen commits suicide.

Every 5 hours a child is killed by abuse or neglect.

Each day in America, 2 mothers die in childbirth.

Each day in America, 18,493 public school students are suspended.

Source.

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