While the short-term effects of the economic crisis are plain to see, it is the long-term consequences of the Great Recession that will have the biggest impact on the nation’s future. And one of the most overlooked aspects of the economic crisis is its effect on the nation’s already fragile education system.

According to Economic Policy Institute research associate Richard Rothstein, the high unemployment rate caused by the recession has only exacerbated the nation’s education crisis to the point where the Obama administration‘s education reform efforts may be futile.

“Unemployment at the levels we are now experiencing is not only an inconvenience,” he writes. “It is a tragedy. Its academic effects will likely overwhelm any school reform efforts.”

The current unemployment rate has likely pushed the child poverty rate well past 20 percent, Rothstein says. And for black children, the poverty rate could easily be over 50 percent at this point. Children living in poverty are much more likely to go through the school day hungry, and children that are not properly fed tend to do poorly in school.

“Poverty directly depresses student achievement, as more children come to school hungry, homeless, and from households under severe stress,” he writes.

Beyond increased child poverty, the Great Recession is taking its toll on education at all levels in a myriad of other ways.

Many states have slashed their primary and secondary education budget. Those cuts have resulted in thousands of teacher layoffs, shorter school days and years, less funding for after-school and extracurricular programs and fewer new supplies such as books and computers.

Many states, such as Ohio, rely largely on property taxes to fund primary and secondary education. With the housing meltdown, home values have plummeted, lessening state revenue streams of property taxes and further straining school budgets.

And even post-secondary students have experienced hardship due to the economic crisis. Many states have witnessed a spike in tuition at state universities. At the same time, many students are finding it difficult to finance their education because of the credit crisis.

Rothstein believes that the Obama administration, while well intentioned, whiffed in its attempt to improve education through its $787 billion stimulus package.

“No matter how meritorious it may be to expand charter schools, link teacher evaluation to student achievement, turn around low-performing schools, improve teacher quality and distribution, advance standards and assessments, and raise the bar on data collection, these do not create significant numbers of jobs, and do not belong in an economic stimulus program,” he writes. “They should properly be taken up and debated in the re-authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, not now.”

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