According to the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the child poverty rate rose from 19% to 23% from 2005 to 2011. In this NPR story, Kristin Seefeldt and colleagues look at some of the reasons that 1 in 4 American children now live in poverty. Seefeldt links recent declines in funding for public education and other programs aimed at the poor. “Public school funding has been cut back, and that disproportionately affects kids who are low-income and who may already be in schools that are not doing all that well,”she says.

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