This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. The original article was written by Ivory A. Toldson, Professor of Counseling Psychology, Howard University. 

Of all the terms used to describe students who don’t perform well in traditional educational settings, few are used as frequently– or as casually – as the term “at-risk.”

The term is regularly used in federal and state education policy discussions, as well as popular news articles and specialty trade journals. It is often applied to large groups of students with little regard for the stigmatizing effect that it can have on students.

As education researcher Gloria Ladson-Billings once said of the term “at-risk,” “We cannot saddle these babies at kindergarten with this label and expect them to proudly wear it for the next 13 years, and think, ‘Well, gee, I don’t know why they aren’t doing good.’”

My most recent encounter with the term “at-risk” came when I was tapped to review and critique a draft report for the Maryland Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education, also known as the “Kirwan Commission.”

The Kirwan Commission, chaired by William E. Kirwan, a longtime higher education leader, was created in 2016 to make recommendations for improving education in Maryland. The initial draft of the Kirwan Commission report included a working group report called, “More Resources for At-risk Students.”

Fortunately, in this instance, commission members were aware of some common objections to using “at-risk” to categorize students and publicly discussed the limitations of using the term. Some of those objections included risk of social stigma to students and lack of a uniform definition of “at-risk.”

However, when it came to finding a better way to describe students who show lower levels of academic success because of nonacademic factors, such as poverty, trauma and lack of English proficiency, commission members were not sure what term to use.

As an outside consultant for the commission, I was asked to come up with an acceptable alternative word or phrase. As I argue in my forthcoming book, “No BS (Bad Stats): Black People Need People Who Believe in Black People Enough Not to Believe Every Bad Thing They Hear about Black People,” three things are essential to good decision making in education: good data, thoughtful analysis and compassionate understanding. What I have to say about the term “at-risk” will be based on those three things.

Practical uses exist

First, let’s acknowledge that, paired with good data, “at-risk” is practically useful and generally accepted in professional and academic settings. Used effectively, identifying risk and protective factors can help mitigate harm to students.

For example, dating back to the 1960s, research about how exposure to lead placed children at risk for cognitive impairments helped educators create safer learning environments for students by removing lead from paint, toys and drinking water.

Today, in educational research and practice, educators routinely use “at-risk” to classify students who do not perform well in traditional educational settings. However, the factors that determine “at-risk” are often either unknown or beyond the control of the student, caregiver or educational provider.

As a scholar of counseling psychology – and as one who specializes in counseling persons of black African ancestry – I believe that to designate a child “at-risk” for factors such as growing up in a single-parent household, having a history of abuse or neglect, or how much money their families make or their race or ethnicity – adds more chaos and confusion to the situation. Instead, compassion and care are what are needed.

Never use ‘at-risk’ as an adjective

Using “at-risk” as an adjective for students is problematic. It makes “at-risk” a category like honors student, student athlete or college-bound student. “Risk” should describe a condition or situation, not a person. Therefore, “More Resources for At-risk Students” might more appropriately be “More Resources to Reduce Risk Factors for Students.”

Be specific

Assessments of risk should be based on good data and thoughtful analysis – not a catch-all phrase to describe a cluster of ill-defined conditions or characteristics. If the phrase “at-risk” must be used, it should be in a sentence such as: “‘This’ places students at risk for ‘that.’” If the “this” and “that” are not clearly defined, the “at-risk” characterization is useless at best, and harmful at worst. But when these variables are clearly defined, it better enables educators and others to come up with the solutions needed to reduce specific risk factors and improve outcomes.

Skip the alternatives

Common alternatives to “at-risk” include “historically underserved,” “disenfranchised” and “placed at-risk.” These indicators acknowledge that outside forces have either not served the individual student or population well, or have assigned the at-risk label to unwitting subjects.

These phrases move the conversation in the right direction. However, using these phrases still comes up short because they obscure the problem. For example, research suggests that child abuse, poverty and racism can place students at risk. However, different strategies can lessen each risk. When the risk factors are more clearly identified, it puts educators and others in a better position to strategically confront the issues that impede student learning. It also better enables educators and others to view the individual student separately and apart from the particular risk.

Some have suggested replacing the term “at-risk” with “at-promise.” While well-intended, the problem I see with that is it could easily be seen as a condescending euphemism for the term it was meant to replace.

The best alternative for ‘at-risk’

In my book, I describe an in-service training for staff members of a public high school, in which I asked the participants to describe the neighborhoods of their students. I heard phrases like “crime-ridden,” “broken homes” and “drug-infested.” I then asked if anyone grew up in neighborhoods that had similar characteristics. After several raised their hands, I asked, “How did you grow up in such a neighborhood and still become successful?” This question spurred a more meaningful discussion about the neighborhoods where students are from. It was a discussion that considered community assets – such as hope and resilience – against a more thoughtful examination of community challenges.

Every student has a combination of risk and protective factors among their friends, in their homes, schools and neighborhoods. These factors can help or hurt their academic potential. Students who live in poverty, or have been assigned to special education, or have a history of trauma, or who are English learners, may or may not be “at risk” depending on their respective protective factors. But when students are labeled “at-risk,” it serves to treat them as a problem because of their risk factors. Instead, students’ unique experiences and perspectives should be normalized, not marginalized. This reduces a problem known as “stereotype threat,” a phenomenon in which students perform worse academically when they are worried about living up to a negative stereotype about their group.

For all these reasons and more, I believe the best alternative to describe “at-risk students” is simply “students.” For what it’s worth, the Kirwan Commission agrees. The commission recently revised its call for “More Resources for At-risk Students” to “More Resources to Ensure All Students are Successful.”

This article is republished from ProPublica under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. The original article was written by Abraham Lustgarten. 

The signals are blaring: Dramatic changes to our climate are well upon us. These changes — we know thanks to a steady drumbeat of alarming official reports over the past 12 months — could cripple the U.S. economy, threaten to make vast stretches of our coastlines uninhabitable, make basic food supplies scarce and push millions of the planet’s poorest people into cities and across borders as they flee environmental perils.

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This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. The original article was written by Suzanna Martinez, Academic Researcher, University of California, San Francisco. 

A new federal report does a good job of explaining what many researchers have been saying for a decade – food insecurity among college students is a serious national problem.

As one University of California, Berkeley student revealed in an interview for a 2018 research article I helped write: “Food is always on my mind: ‘Do I have enough money? Maybe I should skip a meal today so I can have enough food for dinner.‘”

However, when it comes to offering up solutions, the new report from the Government Accountability Office comes up short.

My experience as one who has researched campus hunger goes back to 2014, when colleagues and I conducted the first public university system wide survey of campus hunger. We found that over 40 percent of University of California students – about half of all undergraduates and one out of every four graduate students – faced food insecurity. That is more than three times the national household rate of 12 percent. Food security is generally defined as access at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life.

Our findings on campus hunger have been replicated in the University of California system, the California State University system and in colleges throughout the nation.

Effects of an empty stomach

For those who are food secure, it might be easy to scoff at the notion that somehow college students can’t find enough to eat. The reality is hunger among college students has psychological impacts that affect student performance. For instance, in a 2018 study, colleagues and I found students experiencing food insecurity had a lower grade point average than students not facing food insecurity.

Researchers and I also found that not having access to enough food at all times increased a student’s risk for poor mental health. This, in turn, increases their risk for lower grades.

So what does the latest federal report – released 10 years after the first study documenting hunger on campus – say about the problem and what should be done about it?

The new federal report states that from nine to over 50 percent of America’s college students face food insecurity. The report also reveals that of the two to three million students at-risk for food insecurity who were potentially eligible for participating in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – more commonly known as SNAP – only 43 percent were receiving those benefits.

More solutions needed

The report recommends that government administrators do more to make students aware of their potential eligibility for SNAP benefits. The low participation rate in SNAP may stem from lack of awareness of exemptions for eligibility. Or it could have to do with the stigma of receiving food assistance. Some organizations recommend campus-based initiatives to combat food insecurity in order to lessen the stigma associated with receiving food assistance for students.

Will better SNAP guidance end student hunger? In my view as one who has been looking at this issue for some time, not entirely.

For example, college students cannot get SNAP benefits unless they meet certain criteria, such as working at least 20 hours a week and attending school full-time. This rule should perhaps be rethought in light of how difficult it is to go to school full-time, keep up one’s grades and work more than 20 hours a week.

What else can we do to fix student hunger? Updating college student financial aid is one solution. For instance, the purchasing power of the Pell grant – a federal grant for low- to middle-income students – is at a 40-year low.

Another solution is to extend the Federal School Lunch Program, which could help pick up the slack for the lost purchasing power of the Pell grant.

In my view, more assistance should also be given to graduate students, who also face campus hunger but who were not mentioned in the new federal report.

Lastly, students must be better educated on things such as financial aid, personal budgeting and self-advocacy. At a time when the cost of going to college is becoming more difficult to cover, it’s more important than ever to help students succeed and be healthy so that they can lead future generations.