Is There Systematic Meaningful Evidence of School Poverty Thresholds?

Over the last five decades, a large body of research has demonstrated that concentrated school poverty undermines the educational progress of all students, especially pupils who are poor themselves. A handful of studies suggest there may be school-level poverty thresholds that influence achievement for some students in some subjects and grade levels.

After a comprehensive review of the extant social, behavioral, and social science research, this study found no reliable and valid body of evidence that points to specific thresholds of poverty concentration that can be used as the empirical basis for school assignment policies.

More research  is needed on this question using longitudinal, nationally representative datasets, employing state of the art statistical techniques to test for possible thresholds in different subjects, for demographic groups, and at various grade levels.

Given the current state of our knowledge on the relationship of school-level poverty to achievement, educational decision makers should focus on reducing concentrations of school-level poverty to as low a level as is feasible given the available demographic mix, and avoid policies based on the unsupported notion that there are poverty thresholds above and below which student achievement levels can be predicted.