Introduction
Low-income students in the Indianapolis area do not have the same educational resources as compared to students in the middle and upper classes of the city. In particular, low-income elementary students. Adding educational resources, such as tutoring, could help these students succeed during their academic journey and give them an equal opportunity for success. Tutoring young children in our local community is important to us because we can see the results of our impact on the community. Completing a direct service shows you care about your community by spending your personal time and effort involved in making the community better. Our direct service involves partnering with local schools and centers to give these young children additional tutoring resources as an opportunity for success.
Body
Students from low-income families often face many additional barriers that prevent them from graduating or simply becoming successful compared to their peers from higher-income families. Being from a low-income family brings the difficulties of having insufficient support academically, financially, and emotionally. According to data collected in Indiana, “15.8% of Indianapolis, IN residents had an income below the poverty level in 2019, which was 24.8 greater than the poverty level of 11.9% across the entire state of Indiana.” This high level of families below the poverty level affects the childrens education in Indianapolis.
For example, many impoverished or low-income families cannot afford to have access to computers or the internet at home. According to public data at the Polis Center at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, out of the 1.7 million children that were surveyed, “10 percent of all Indiana children are without a computer or broadband access,” not having internet access at home influences children’s ability to not be able to complete tasks and practices outside of the classroom. Compared to the 10 percent of students whose families are unable to have access to the internet at home, the minority population recorded an even higher percentage for black and Latino children scoring 21 percent and 15 percent.
Children who are affected by coming from low-income families are mostly minority students. Data shows that “only 7 percent of schools in predominantly non-White neighborhoods are performing above the state average on state exams. But 47 percent of schools in primarily white neighborhoods are performing above the state testing average.” Low-income families are unable to help hire tutors for their children for standardized tests like SAT and ACT compared to higher-income families leading these students to possibly score lower on exams.
Oftentimes, even the highest achieving low-income students fare worse in school than their wealthier peers, and that begins in early elementary schools,” according to the Indiana Department of Education. Learning disparities start early on in children’s education and contribute to the learning gap in higher education. All these disadvantages that come with being from low-income families contribute to children not being able to graduate and the inability to continue higher education.
Conclusion
The initial step to instigating change would be to establish a dialog between school administration executives and government officials responsible for reviewing the insights and improving the existing state of affairs. The first crucial task would be to start perceiving schools with low-income elementary students as an important contributors to the regional educational ecosystem. After addressing the most evident trends (e.g., low-income students coming from minority populations), the government would have to visualize these patterns for school administrations and have all educational facilities across Indianapolis with low-income elementary education students review their demographics and staff performance.
Through the lens of socioeconomic variables, the local government is going to impact the community and establish a curriculum that is relevant for low-income families and their children. Individual experiences of elementary students and their families cannot be ignored. Collaboration with parents and education stakeholders is going to increase the grade of responsiveness across Indianapolis and have the administration come up with equitable conditions for every student. This approach to low-income elementary school students would reduce the occurrence of stigmatization and help all stakeholders involved challenge their prejudices in the areas of classism and poverty.