CENSUS ESTIMATES SCHOOL-AGE POVERTY

Some 1,840 school-age children in Cape Girardeau County and Scott City live in poverty, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates.

The census bureau produced the estimates to help the Department of Education determine how to distribute funding in the Title I program, a federal early-intervention program that provides funding to individual school districts to assist children from poor households. The funding can be used for specific remedial classes or in other ways such as to underwrite a school breakfast program.

Gerald Richards, principal at Cape Girardeau Central Junior High School, said the Title I program and other programs that target economically disadvantaged students are beneficial because poverty issues affect students in many ways.

"Being economically disadvantaged can also mean problems with attendance, food if the children are not being fed adequately at home, attention, behavior in the classroom and any number of things," said Richards. "There are just all kinds of a domino effect that can begin with that one criteria."

Census bureau statistician Paul Siegel said the poverty estimates, which are calculated every two years, were created by combining 1990 census data and 1997 county poverty and population estimates for every county in the nation.

This is the second time the combination method has been used to determine federal funding to school districts.

"We're quite pleased with it, but we're also kind of proud, because it puts us in the position of being able to make it possible to use more recent data to get the money closer to being in the right place," said Siegel, who helped develop the estimates. He said formerly allocations were based upon census data only, which meant districts could have large changes in their enrollment demographics but didn't see corresponding fluctuations in federal funding.

Despite the increased accuracy, Siegel said the estimates are problematic because they don't take into account variances in growth that might occur in a school district.

For example, Jackson School District has averaged 3 percent growth in enrollment annually the past decade, while Cape Gir-ardeau School District has seen a decline the past several years.

But when the census bureau considered the total growth in poverty rate for the county, both districts received estimate increases proportionate to the poverty rates they had in 1990, despite the disproportionate growth Jackson schools have experienced.

"That's one of the things that is not adequately represented in these estimates," Siegel said. "It assumes all districts grow at the same rate. We know that's not true, but we don't know how to fix it."

To try and balance the inequities, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education uses an alternative method of allocating Title I funding for school districts that have a total population less than 20,000 people. In smaller school districts, the funding is determined based upon each school district's participation in the federal Free and Reduced Lunch Program, which often is used as a measure of a school district's low-income and at-risk populations.

Poverty and population estimates

Cape Girardeau

Estimated population: 38,196

Estimated number of school-age children: 6,054

Estimated number of school-age children of poor families: 1,140

Delta

Estimated total population: 2,275

Estimated number of school-age children: 454

Estimated number of school-age children of poor families: 79

Jackson

Estimated total population: 21,599

Estimated number of school-age children: 4,259

Estimated number of school-age children of poor families: 405

Nell Holcomb

Estimated total population: 2,746

Estimated number of school-age children: 571

Estimated number of school-age children of poor families: 24

Oak Ridge

Estimated total population: 1,879

Estimated number of school-age children: 397

Estimated number of school-age children of poor families: 47

Scott City

Estimated total population: 5,195

Estimated number of school-age children: 1,024

Estimated number of school-age children of poor families: 145

Source: U.S. Census Bureau