Approximately 88 percent of teachers polled in a new national survey cite poverty as a major educational barrier.
The poll of 700 public elementary and secondary teachers was released on Tuesday by Communities In Schools. The polling firm Public Opinion Strategies conducted the poll for the 501(c)(3) group from May 8 to 12.
In addition to poverty, the teachers surveyed also cited insufficient involvement by parents, apathy on the part of students and too much standardized testing as huge educational problems.
Vast majorities of teachers cited disruptive behavior (92 percent), chronic absenteeism (89 percent) and students’ ill health (85 percent) as barriers to education as well.
It’s not clear if the possibility of ineffective teaching or inferior curricula were poll options for teachers to select.
“As we have found with most polls of teachers, they expressed concern about too much testing, student apathy and lack of parental engagement as general problems in schools today,” said Robert Blizzard of Public Opinion Strategies said in a press release sent to The Daily Caller. “But what was striking is that when asked to identify and rank serious problems in their local schools, poverty became a major theme.”
The 700-teacher poll also found that 91 percent of teachers spend part of their own income on school supplies.
Teachers say they frequently and generously spend their own money and their free time to help needy students in other ways as well.
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