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You've used the expression "throwing money" several times. Can you please clarify what you mean by that? Can you sort out what is a useful purpose for money as opposed to what is useless? I can tell that you are giving the topic a lot of thought, which clearly separates you from the rightwing nutjobs who just mindlessly parrot the same catchphrases.
Because that's exactly what it is. Poverty is not caused by the lack of money. How do I know this? I have seen over and over poor people getting a big wad of cash and wasted it all away in a relatively short time and ended up poor again. For example, there was a girl I know who was actually doing fine by being a nurse's assistant. She inherited about $100k from her father. She quit her job. Her boyfriend quit his job. They lived like king and queen for a few months. They ended up losing their cars and got evicted. Homeless. Should have given her more than $100k huh?
In the same way, poor school performance is not caused by the lack of money for those schools. It's caused by poor parenting and abysmal attitude to authority and education. We got absent parents who care nothing but breed out kid after kid and not care at all what their future will hold. These kids are never taught to value education or to respect authority figures. How on earth can a teacher teach these kids anything if these kids don't care what's being taught and what the teachers are?
So, when you guys insist that we should pump more money into these schools and be more charitable to the poor, that's exactly what you're suggesting, that we throw money at these problems. Again, throwing money at these problems won't solve anything. It's like painting over rust. Sure makes people like you feel good, but it's just covering up the problem.
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One of my favorite targets in the school funding fiasco is the surplus of top-level administrators, consultants, and hangers-on who seem to want to slake their thirst for public school dollars at the well of the taxpayers' pockets. Another are the profit-motivated privatizers who want to divert "their students' share" of the well to their private fountains, diminishing the infrastructure from which they want to drink. I would love to cut out all the money going to these drains and repair the buildings and infrastructure for the students enrolled in the public schools.
I'm not a big fan of private schools, either. My kids will definitely go to public schools. No doubt about it.
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It would also be nice to be able to offer salaries that would attract as teachers people who want a solidly middle class lifestyle rather than the lower middle class salary that is less than the taxes a better-paid person pays. There are many people who would love to teach, but who want to earn enough money to be comfortable in their career and their retirement. Many states have dismantled retirement plans for teachers, so that is another factor keeping good people out of the classroom.
What are the targets that you see as having money uselessly thrown at them?
We can throw as much money as possible at these people and improve their schools. Heck, we can even buy them the latest equipment and cover the hallways with gold. They are not interested in learning. They are not interested in respecting authority. This attitude stems from the complete absent of the parents. Unless you want the state to take over the parenting part, which I think is a nightmare scenario, you can start by coming up with ways to get these absent parents to start teaching their kids to show some respect toward authority.
All foreclosed on houses should be given to homeless free of charge.
I see a couple of problems here.
Imo, the foreclosure are mostly the fault of people loaning money to borrowers they knew could not pay it back.
DH worked for a company that built houses for people who got low interest loans from some government. One of the conditions was that they attend a weekly class for a year learning about owning a house.
The company stopped that line of work. The buyers had too many call backs. One guy couldn't see the painter did not remove all of the tape covering the washer connection. He just knocked a hole in the wall and stuck the drain hose in the hole. When the flood came, the company had to repair. They all used the garage as an tv room and complained about the HVAC not being adequate.
Giving the houses to the homeless is a good idea, but one would need an onsite handy man.
You haven't been there when I'm telling the students the best way they can ensure that they and their children will not live in poverty is to 1)finish high school, 2) get a good job, and 3) get married BEFORE having their first child. I get mostly blank looks, but a few listen, and then they hear that message all year long, along with "you are responsible for yourself and any children you bring into this world". So I'm not the one who is neglecting to tell the the truth.
I for one don't think you're crazy for trying to help the guys out at your place. Just be careful, because it is easy to get burned. (I know you don't need me to say this, but I'm a teacher and I can't help myself.) It is admirable that you are trying, just as it is admirable for me to spend my life trying to create taxpayers. That was the mission of the principal who brought me to the inner city, the one who told me about the different gardens that a teacher may find himself tending over his career. He told me kindly that I had what it takes to tend the garden where there were too many stones and not enough resources for strong and healthy growth. I thought of him earlier when you were talking about the gardens upthread. I also thought of him when Informed Consent confirmed that he thought that culling people was the way to go. In a civilized society, we may be able to get by with some sterilization by sleight of hand, but culling actual people is even out of fashion in China these days.
Unfortunately, the courts have apparently ruled against offering incentives for sterilization or forced contraception, and some states (like mine) make it illegal to discuss contraception in schools. That is a ridiculous policy that makes me question the motives of those who would essentially ensure that there is another generation of babies born into welfare families.
Oh, I know. Every time I run into a liberal idealistic young person who wants "to help", I always tell them the following. If you're going to put yourself out there to try to help a stray dog, be prepared to get bitten. Helping people is the same way.
Generally speaking, the person who is being helped will go through 5 stages: (1) suspicious, (2) hate, (3) really try, (4) rebound back to the old bad habits, and (5) a: either succeed in turning life around or b: completely revert back to old self.
Despite popular belief among idealistic liberals, the people they try to help will end up hating them. And when I say hate, I really mean HATE. This is why we hear of horror stories regarding Syrian refugees. They're not grateful. They will hate you for helping them.
So, to those idealistic idiots out there who think all it takes is a little help to bring someone around, LOL you're in for a surprise. I've been helping homeless people for years. I know what I'm talking about LOL. Why do they almost always end up hating you for trying to help them? Because you're forcing them out of their comfort zone, that's why. They have been used to failing, doing drugs, etc. You're showing them another way of living, and it scares them. They will take it out on you.
The 2 guys that I took in. 1 of them is finally coming around to developing a good work ethic. The other one is still in the hate stage LOL. How dare I tell him to stop using drugs? How dare I try to find him a job?
Anyway, enough of my ramblings.
I'm sorry, I've been helping people for years. In my experience, throwing money at them will not do anything at all. And yes, pumping more money into these schools is the same thing as throwing money at them. I went to a really rough school with gangs all over the place and pregnant teens up and down the hallways. My parents taught me education was our ticket out of poverty, and so I focused on studying instead of "scoring" if you know what I mean. I now make 6 figures as an engineer while my former school bullies work minimum wage jobs. So, clearly the lack of fundings in these schools is not the problem.
And that's why i am a big advocate for early childhood education. Three year old people can learn lots. Especially self control, problem solving, sharing and how to act at school. Small classrooms with committed competent teachers can reap huge benefits.
But the teachers have to be really good. Throwing kids in with a bunch of people teaching for a paycheck or no more training than Head Start is a waste of money.
I would like to challenge the "equal opportunity" motif. Liberals believe it's not "socially just" for wealthy areas to have better funded and overall better quality schools than poorer areas. But, don't wealthy areas pay more in taxes? Why is unfair to get what you pay for? Heck, if I am able to afford to live in whatever neighborhood Obama lives in, you bet I'm going to demand good schools! Do liberals really believe that Bill Gates should be forced to send his kids to crappy schools just so things can be "more equal"? Or if we try to make every school the same, what will be the incentive for any school to be decent? Won't rich people just flock to private schools or homeschooling? Would the next step be to make homeschooling illegal so no one has an "unfair aadvantag"? Just wondering how far we should take this equality stuff. It seems like the book Animal Farm.
You might get me to agree that, yes, the rich should have better school districts - IF we reach the point where all schools are competent and successful. No, Bill Gates should not be forced to send his kids to "crappy" schools. Neither should anyone else.
You've used the expression "throwing money" several times. Can you please clarify what you mean by that? Can you sort out what is a useful purpose for money as opposed to what is useless? I can tell that you are giving the topic a lot of thought, which clearly separates you from the rightwing nutjobs who just mindlessly parrot the same catchphrases.
One of my favorite targets in the school funding fiasco is the surplus of top-level administrators, consultants, and hangers-on who seem to want to slake their thirst for public school dollars at the well of the taxpayers' pockets. Another are the profit-motivated privatizers who want to divert "their students' share" of the well to their private fountains, diminishing the infrastructure from which they want to drink. I would love to cut out all the money going to these drains and repair the buildings and infrastructure for the students enrolled in the public schools.
Agreed on the waste with respect to administrators. Disagreed on privatization: if (and only if) they can get better results for a total cost equivalent to the local publicly administered alternative how they use those resources is up to them.
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It would also be nice to be able to offer salaries that would attract as teachers people who want a solidly middle class lifestyle rather than the lower middle class salary that is less than the taxes a better-paid person pays. There are many people who would love to teach, but who want to earn enough money to be comfortable in their career and their retirement. Many states have dismantled retirement plans for teachers, so that is another factor keeping good people out of the classroom.
What are the targets that you see as having money uselessly thrown at them?
I would agree if we had a shortage of teachers but we don't for the most part. High school level math & science either needs to pay more or better yet loosen the credential requirements (lots of potentially very good semi-retired industry hands who would happily teach for half their old income as a transition between industry and full retirement and know the academic material better than normal teachers and can link it to real world use who are banned by licensure rules). No point spending public money to solve a non-problem.
The only real difference between the good and bad schools is parenting!
You are naive at best. Have you read Jonathan Kozol's book, Savage Inequalities? It was written in the 80s but still applies to many areas today.
For instance, just in the past year or so, there was an article in our local newspaper about the Ladue school district (extremely wealthy) getting gold-plated drinking fountains while poorer schools in St. Louis City, just minutes away, don't even have any operating drinking fountains that are safe to use. Water fountains of course, are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the inequalities.
It sounds like a sick joke, but it goes to show that there is a far greater difference in rich schools and poor schools than just parenting.
You are naive at best. Have you read Jonathan Kozol's book, Savage Inequalities? It was written in the 80s but still applies to many areas today.
For instance, just in the past year or so, there was an article in our local newspaper about the Ladue school district (extremely wealthy) getting gold-plated drinking fountains while poorer schools in St. Louis City, just minutes away, don't even have any operating drinking fountains that are safe to use. Water fountains of course, are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the inequalities.
It sounds like a sick joke, but it goes to show that there is a far greater difference in rich schools and poor schools than just parenting.
How does drinking fountain affect people’s learning?
The worst school facilities in US are heaven to many of my previous countrymen. They have mud huts, chalks and blackboards. Students literally go to school on empty stomach. Hey, they can still beat most Americans on math and science!
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