US Cen­sus Bureau data released yes­ter­day shows the per­cent­ages of poor chil­dren in the nation’s school dis­tricts. For most parts of the US the per­cent­ages of poor chil­dren increased from 2007 to 2008.

From the Press of Atlantic City, we find this story that exam­ines the school dis­tricts in the New Jer­sey area. Writer Diane D’Amico begins her story by intro­duc­ing us to an area school principal.

Gladys Lau­riello didn’t real­ize her fam­ily was poor when she went to school in Wild­wood. But now, as Lau­riello works as prin­ci­pal in the same build­ing where she attended class, she rec­og­nizes the signs of poverty that char­ac­ter­ized her youth.

She wasn’t sur­prised to learn that U.S. Cen­sus Bureau data released Wednes­day show that 36 per­cent of school-age chil­dren in Wild­wood live in poverty. That’s the high­est per­cent­age among school dis­tricts in New Jersey.

“It’s prob­a­bly a low esti­mate, frankly,” said Lau­riello, the Wild­wood High School principal.

New Jer­sey annu­ally ranks at or near the top among the states in house­hold income. But it has some of the poor­est school dis­tricts in the coun­try, accord­ing to The Press of Atlantic City analy­sis of the cen­sus poverty data. And area school dis­tricts, includ­ing Atlantic City, Pleas­antville, Vineland and Bridgeton, num­ber among the nation’s worst in terms of per­cent or num­ber of chil­dren age 5 to 17 liv­ing in poverty.

The per­cent­age of impov­er­ished chil­dren increased in 70 per­cent of area school dis­tricts from 2007 to 2008. The num­ber of chil­dren in poverty grew by 9 per­cent in Atlantic and Cape May coun­ties and by 16 per­cent in Ocean County. The num­ber in poverty increased by 5 per­cent statewide. The per­cent­age of impov­er­ished school­child­ren increased in two-thirds of dis­tricts statewide last year, although a num­ber of them grew by less than a per­cent­age point.

In terms of the per­cent­age of chil­dren in poverty, Atlantic City and Bridgeton rank among the worst 10 per­cent of dis­tricts in the nation and Wild­wood is in the worst 3 per­cent. Thirty-two New Jer­sey dis­tricts rank among the 10 per­cent nation­wide with the high­est num­ber of impov­er­ished chil­dren. Those include Bridgeton, Mil­lville and Pleas­antville from this area. Atlantic City and Vineland rank in the worst 5 percent.

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