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Unfortunately, the chances aren't improved by much. Even if you do put a poor kid from a dysfunctional family in a great school, in many cases they will still suffer from lack of parental involvement and outside stresses imposed by them from the dysfunctional, home environment. The wealthier kids don't have to deal with the the same kinds of stress.
Additionally, once you start introducing poor kids to wealthier, high-performing schools, word quickly gets out and the school develops a "bad" reputation, due to the often poor performance of the more disadvantaged students, which brings down the overall test scores.
Up here in Westchester County, NY where I live, people are obsessed with the concept of having the best schools possible. The choice of schools is one of the main reasons people buy a house in a certain town or village, and several very nice towns/schools have developed a so-called bad reputation due to factors like increased diversity and lower test scores (incorporation of students from broken homes).
It's a tough thing to beat, especially when you have rich families literally running the other direction to pull their kids (and funding) out of the integrated schools. There will always be an inherent advantage of having wealthier parents who are involved in the kids' lives who have the finances and ability to select the best education and ensure their kids are only exposed to other similarly privileged peers.
I am poor but stretched to buy a house in a wealthier area. Most people have no idea that my kids have a poor mother.
I disagree that my kids are at a disadvantage because they are poor. I can assure you that they have no idea how poor we really are.
Unfortunately, the chances aren't improved by much. Even if you do put a poor kid from a dysfunctional family in a great school, in many cases they will still suffer from lack of parental involvement and outside stresses imposed by them from the dysfunctional, home environment. The wealthier kids don't have to deal with the the same kinds of stress.
Additionally, once you start introducing poor kids to wealthier, high-performing schools, word quickly gets out and the school develops a "bad" reputation, due to the often poor performance of the more disadvantaged students, which brings down the overall test scores.
Up here in Westchester County, NY where I live, people are obsessed with the concept of having the best schools possible. The choice of schools is one of the main reasons people buy a house in a certain town or village, and several very nice towns/schools have developed a so-called bad reputation due to factors like increased diversity and lower test scores (incorporation of students from broken homes).
It's a tough thing to beat, especially when you have rich families literally running the other direction to pull their kids (and funding) out of the integrated schools. There will always be an inherent advantage of having wealthier parents who are involved in the kids' lives who have the finances and ability to select the best education and ensure their kids are only exposed to other similarly privileged peers.
But what about a poor kid from a non-dysfunctional family? What about a poor kid from a great family, with hard working parent(s) who were just low on luck? They have the same benefits of all the wealthy kids in my opinion, all the important benefits anyway.
This is where you are 100% wrong. Giving them unrestricted money doesn't help in the slightest.
Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach him how to fish, he eats for a lifetime.
Say you have an 25 year old child living in your basement, who you've been supporting since high school, and your kid hasn't gone out and done anything with themselves yet because you've been giving them food, money, clothes, and a roof over their head. They just live in your basement and play video games. How do you help them? Give them more money? And that will get them out of your basement and self sufficient? No. I don't think so.
Kick them out, cut them off completely, tell them the only thing you will pay for is school, if they go and make good grades. Everything else they have to get their own job and pay for themselves. That's how you help, right? Exactly.
I don't think your example works. I think students who have to work enough to pay for their room and board have demonstrably poorer results. After all, while their peers are spending their evenings studying for exams or drafting resumes for unpaid internships in their careers, the working students are (obviously) working.
Plus you're comparing a poor person to a kid being coddled, which in the first place is so incorrect as to be offensive. A more apt comparison would be the 25 year old child who lives in the closet under your stairs and is fed a thin, tasteless gruel, with no access to the family car or money for school.
To the extent that restrictions work, I think they only work if the restrictions are helpful. For example, providing free schooling and attaching cash payments to attendance should boost education results. On the other hand, tying welfare to work requirements when relevant jobs are in short supply is essentially punitive, and likely ineffective at anything other than avoiding welfare payments (which I expect is "working as intended").
Unfortunately, the chances aren't improved by much. Even if you do put a poor kid from a dysfunctional family in a great school, in many cases they will still suffer from lack of parental involvement and outside stresses imposed by them from the dysfunctional, home environment. The wealthier kids don't have to deal with the the same kinds of stress.
Additionally, once you start introducing poor kids to wealthier, high-performing schools, word quickly gets out and the school develops a "bad" reputation, due to the often poor performance of the more disadvantaged students, which brings down the overall test scores.
Up here in Westchester County, NY where I live, people are obsessed with the concept of having the best schools possible. The choice of schools is one of the main reasons people buy a house in a certain town or village, and several very nice towns/schools have developed a so-called bad reputation due to factors like increased diversity and lower test scores (incorporation of students from broken homes).
It's a tough thing to beat, especially when you have rich families literally running the other direction to pull their kids (and funding) out of the integrated schools. There will always be an inherent advantage of having wealthier parents who are involved in the kids' lives who have the finances and ability to select the best education and ensure their kids are only exposed to other similarly privileged peers.
Of course, parental involvement is a factor but the "falling school" for lower test scores are a nebulous concept at best. I went to an OK Long Island school and work at a modest school performance wise (it is newer and in one of the worst states for K-12 test scores.) It is mostly what you make of your education. As a more wealthy, you have more resources at your disposal than they do with middle class and working class students. That said I was a good student despite working/middle class parents and could have been better if I applied myself with homework.
I think food stamps is fine as is. The abuse is because they don't see The importance of food over alcohol and cigarettes. The only change I'd make is produce should be bought over junk food.
Food stamps can' be used for either cigarettes or alcohol. I agree about veggies but they need to increase the amount given in order to do this as fruits and veggies cost more than other items and it's barely enough food to live on as it is.
Parental income is positively associated with all outcomes covered in the review. When family background variables are controlled, however, the estimated size of the effect of parental income reduces, and the residual effects are generally small to modest on most outcomes.
Quote:
Welfare income is found to be negatively associated with a range of children's outcomes; however, this seems to be due not to welfare receipt per se but to parental characteristics that make some parents more prone to be on welfare than others.
Regardless of income, ethnicity or background, students with involved parents are more likely to earn higher grades and test scores, have better attitudes, behavior an dattendance, and graduate and go onto additional education. Higher parental involvement is associated with higher educational expectations... (Henderson, 1988)
Quote:
While parent involvement positively affects a student's academic achievement, low Socioeconomic families are least likely to be involved in their students' education (Turney & Kao, 2009...)
These two studies both say that when a family in poverty experiences an increase in annual income due to a work-incentivized program (Earned Income Tax Credit, welfare-to-work programs), that there is a significant increase in educational outcome for the children. Specifically, for every extra $1,000 received due to work incentives, the children's math and reading scores improved by 6%.
So according to the scientific literature, straight up welfare (cash with no strings) has a negative effect on children's educational outcomes, but work-incentivized GA programs (supplemental cash for working) has a positive effect on educational outcome for the children.
I think this gives a very clear answer as to how best to continue to restructure our GA programs to be most effective.
To the extent that restrictions work, I think they only work if the restrictions are helpful. For example, providing free schooling and attaching cash payments to attendance should boost education results. On the other hand, tying welfare to work requirements when relevant jobs are in short supply is essentially punitive, and likely ineffective at anything other than avoiding welfare payments (which I expect is "working as intended").
The studies I just read said the exact opposite of this. Tying welfare to work requirements has a positive effect on children's educational outcomes, and not doing so has a negative effect on children's educational outcomes. In the US.
I believe that was probably the argument back in the 1930s when the food stamp program was created. Health care costs have only gone up in the intervening 85 years. The logic sounds good, but it isn't working.
Isn't working because we don't do it...we don't give good preventative care, health and nutrition info nor make sure kids and others on food stamps are able to eat nutritious foods. What I am saying is we have only done it halfway, and IMO increasing the programs, not decreasing, is the way to over the long haul, save money. For instance, I think any patient who gets a diagnosis of Diabetes should be covered for a consult with a dietician. In the short term it would cost more, but in the long run an educated populace is a healthier populace. Again, I'd rather pay $150 for someone to get a dietician consult and $20 a month for extra veggies than thousands a month for her care after her toes get amputated in July, then her leg up to the knee in November, then the rest of the knee to the thigh 6 months later, then the resultant bedsores that come from the immobility, then before you know it she's in the nursing home and you are paying $8000 a month for her care for the next 10 or 20 years..
The studies I just read said the exact opposite of this. Tying welfare to work requirements has a positive effect on children's educational outcomes, and not doing so has a negative effect on children's educational outcomes. In the US.
Welfare to work only works if there are actual jobs in the community. The things I have read about states that tried it, were people ended up being shipped off on busses for 3 hour rides to jobs, and the kids then NEVER saw their mom or got supervision because their mom was now gone 16 hours a day. And for min wage which is not helping the person get off welfare.
This one DOES have strings attached. Cash is not given, HOUSING is given. In other words, it's GA that can only be used on housing, because it's just the housing that's given. The recipient can't use their housing to go buy cigarettes.
Again, this is in Malawi. You're talking about giving cash infusions to legitimately starving people in third world countries who have nothing. Not giving cash infusions to welfare recipients in the US who also have food stamps, Medicaid, and public schooling. Very different story.
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They have the same benefits of all the wealthy kids in my opinion, all the important benefits anyway.
