Linda Lyman, Illinois State University, and Christine Villani, Southern Connecticut State University, explored whether educational leadership preparation programs develop in future school leaders understanding of the complexity of poverty and its effects on children, their families, and learning. Their national survey results indicate that understanding the complexity of poverty and its effects is not a major social justice component of education leadership programs throughout the nation.
The widespread achievement gap demonstrates a need for administrative preparation programs to include an understanding of poverty, the effects of poverty on children and learning, and typical attitudes of Americans towards the causes of poverty. One out of six children living in poverty in America may score lower on standardized tests as a result of the effects of malnutrition on brain development, psychological difficulties such as poor self-esteem and isolation form a lack of quality early childhood interactions with adults, and physical disabilities caused by a greater exposure to environmental toxins. Compounding the complex factor that affect the performance of a child living in poverty is the lowering of expectations and pedagogy of poverty created by educators who may share the common uninformed American perception of poverty as a self-inflicted state. Educational leaders need the knowledge base, skills, and attitudes that will enable them to lead teachers in the development of empathy and the determination of appropriate curriculum and instructional methods.
Department chairpersons and administrators responded to a nine-question survey (N=408: final response rate of 68/4 percent). Responses established that programs only minimally address poverty. Respondents perceived that only 37.3 percent of their faculty would rate understanding poverty to be greatly or extremely important to school leadership. Only 19.9 percent of respondents include an understanding of poverty in performance expectations for graduates: from 10.5 to 13.8 percent reported a program emphasis on issues of poverty in an array of class activities. Even in internships, only 23.6 percent of respondents reported an emphasis on issues of poverty. A majority (54.8 percent) of those responding to the survey were department chairpersons who may or may not have adequately expressed the perceptions of all faculty members in that program.
The authors raise another issue in the debate about how to improve preparation programs for school leaders. They argue that leaders cannot facilitate effective schooling that promotes the success of all students without understanding their own attitudes toward poor families and the impact of poverty on learning and school programs. Leaders successful in bringing about school improvement in high poverty schools are those who understand the whole range of issues involved in education children living in poverty. This study demonstrates that education leadership preparation programs need to focus on the social justice issue of poverty.
Lyman, L. L. and Villani, C. J. (May 2002). The complexity of poverty: A missing component of educational leadership programs. Journal of School Leadership, 12(3), 246-280. (Publisher, Scarecrow Education.)
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