Research maps prevalence of poverty


  • November 29, 2015
  • /   Randy Hammer
  • /   studer-community-institute

The Pensacola News Journal published some new research by the Studer Community Institute on Sunday that shows how prevalent poverty is in Escambia County.

Earlier this year when the Institute updated the Pensacola Metro Dashboard, two stats from Escambia County jumped out at us: Only 66 percent of children in the Escambia district show up to their first day of school kindergarten ready. And only 66 percent of students in the district graduate from high school on time.


The link above takes you to a neat video starring BlabTV’s Melia Allen’s daughter, Sydney, and Shannon Nickinson’s daughter, Isabella.

But a third stat also jumped out: 66 percent of students in the district are on a free- or price-reduced school meal plan.

The last stat sent Shannon on a search to better understand the role of poverty in all this. She worked with the Institute’s Ron Stallcup and Phyllis Pooley at the University of West Florida to create a map of wealth and poverty in the metro.

More than 8,000 children in Escambia County live in Census tracts where more than 10 percent of the households live on an annual income of $23,000 or less. Shannon and Phyllis also found that at 11 Escambia County elementary schools where the free- and reduced-price lunch rate was above 85 percent, only one school earned a C on state standardized test metrics in 2014; the rest were D or F schools.

But in the 15 Census tracts where poverty among households with children was 5 percent or less, the elementary schools that serve those neighborhoods were A or B schools on state standardized tests.

Sunday’s report in the PNJ also features a commentary by UWF’s Rick Harper about how people how people make economic decisions “with their feet,” and how those economic decisions are hurting Escambia and helping Santa Rosa.

It’s a strong report that will be on page one of Sunday’s newspaper.

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