I'm in no way trying to give schools a pass for the results nationally, but the below read gives a glimpse into what schools and teachers have been left with trying to educate the kids that show up at their door.


http://www.cincinnati.com/longform/news/.../25949437/

I'm in no way trying to give schools a pass for the results

"In 0 degree weather Arthur came to school with no socks on! Sorry, I didn't send a note, but this is who I was asking socks for this morning."

"What Barb Demasi, the nurse at Ethel M. Taylor Academy in Millvale, saw that February morning was so much more than bare ankles.

Arthur's light blue, long-sleeved polo shirt was too big, covered in food, the sleeves black from several wears. His gray pants were too small for the 8-year-old, meant for a child half his age. His toes peeked out of worn tennis shoes, also meant for a much smaller child.

He smelled of urine.

Demasi riffled through a plastic bin of donated clothes she keeps for just such occasions. She then sent Arthur into the bathroom with a clean and better fitting uniform, new socks and new underwear"

"In reading and math – typical indicators of success – Taylor students fared worse than their district and state counterparts in third, fourth, fifth and sixth grades.

In the category ranking sixth-grade math, Taylor Academy's score of 50 percent proficient is so far behind the district's score, 64.1 percent, and the state average, 76.4 percent, that it doesn't even show up on a state graph of statistics."

Not just inner cities, but yes.,.. it is concentrated there. It's not always about merely being poor. Sure, it far more often than not is, but it is often about addicted parents more concerned about their next fix than their children... or merely overwhelmed parents who can't cope.

There are hundreds of resources for things like sox and basic clothes in any city. The schools, churches, Goodwill, Salvation Army etc etc. I can't think of a single church I've ever been to that didn't have a stash of 'basic' clothes fr anyone who needed it.

If the parents don't care enough (or have enough time/energy to deal) about the kid's sox, you KNOW they don't care about the kid's homework.

You know how much pot you can buy for a single pair of socks, shoes, pants, and a shirt? You might as well be asking the parents to give up their steak and lobster.

(04-20-2015 11:15 AM)Hambone10 Wrote:  Not just inner cities, but yes.,.. it is concentrated there. It's not always about merely being poor. Sure, it far more often than not is, but it is often about addicted parents more concerned about their next fix than their children... or merely overwhelmed parents who can't cope.

There are hundreds of resources for things like sox and basic clothes in any city. The schools, churches, Goodwill, Salvation Army etc etc. I can't think of a single church I've ever been to that didn't have a stash of 'basic' clothes fr anyone who needed it.

If the parents don't care enough (or have enough time/energy to deal) about the kid's sox, you KNOW they don't care about the kid's homework.

The question at what point do you take the kids?

(04-20-2015 11:54 AM)vandiver49 Wrote:  

(04-20-2015 11:15 AM)Hambone10 Wrote:  Not just inner cities, but yes.,.. it is concentrated there. It's not always about merely being poor. Sure, it far more often than not is, but it is often about addicted parents more concerned about their next fix than their children... or merely overwhelmed parents who can't cope.

There are hundreds of resources for things like sox and basic clothes in any city. The schools, churches, Goodwill, Salvation Army etc etc. I can't think of a single church I've ever been to that didn't have a stash of 'basic' clothes fr anyone who needed it.

If the parents don't care enough (or have enough time/energy to deal) about the kid's sox, you KNOW they don't care about the kid's homework.

The question at what point do you take the kids?

I don't disagree at all.

I know that there's often a lot of school/teacher bashing that goes on here - sometimes it is deserved - but the truth is that those that frequent this site (almost all college graduates) I'm not sure realize the mountain that schools, particularly inner city try and climb to get kids educated.

For those here that have kids, think about how much time, effort and energy we have devoted to make sure our kids are prepared for school and do their school work, etc. Now imagine kids where none of that happens - hell, they don't even feed, clothe or wash them, let alone do schoolwork, etc.

It's far too easy to blanket say that teachers and schools just suck. In a general sense, I would say that far more often it's parents that suck as opposed to teachers.

I don't know that I have an answer. I would be in favor of those on assistance being required to be temporarily made infertile as a condition of free stuff though. That might lessen the numbers of kids like this.

This is why I'm on board of getting all kids in inner cities dress uniform and slash the welfare checks.

In Paterson NJ, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paterson,_New_Jersey
the students already receive free breakfast, lunch, and take home dinners because their **** parents use the EBT card on drugs and their own food. Cut the money on the EBT card and spend that funds on education, updated building structure, and teachers.

Some parents should never have multiple kids after they struggle with first child. The parents know that the more children they have then they receive more funding from the state. I wonder who advocates for increase funding of these unfit mothers?

(04-20-2015 01:00 PM)Crebman Wrote:  

(04-20-2015 11:54 AM)vandiver49 Wrote:  

(04-20-2015 11:15 AM)Hambone10 Wrote:  Not just inner cities, but yes.,.. it is concentrated there. It's not always about merely being poor. Sure, it far more often than not is, but it is often about addicted parents more concerned about their next fix than their children... or merely overwhelmed parents who can't cope.

There are hundreds of resources for things like sox and basic clothes in any city. The schools, churches, Goodwill, Salvation Army etc etc. I can't think of a single church I've ever been to that didn't have a stash of 'basic' clothes fr anyone who needed it.

If the parents don't care enough (or have enough time/energy to deal) about the kid's sox, you KNOW they don't care about the kid's homework.

The question at what point do you take the kids?

I don't disagree at all.

I know that there's often a lot of school/teacher bashing that goes on here - sometimes it is deserved - but the truth is that those that frequent this site (almost all college graduates) I'm not sure realize the mountain that schools, particularly inner city try and climb to get kids educated.

For those here that have kids, think about how much time, effort and energy we have devoted to make sure our kids are prepared for school and do their school work, etc. Now imagine kids where none of that happens - hell, they don't even feed, clothe or wash them, let alone do schoolwork, etc.

It's far too easy to blanket say that teachers and schools just suck. In a general sense, I would say that far more often it's parents that suck as opposed to teachers.

I don't know that I have an answer. I would be in favor of those on assistance being required to be temporarily made infertile as a condition of free stuff though. That might lessen the numbers of kids like this.

I think the teacher bashing comes from the fact that teachers (most of the time because of the union) refuse to voice that the majority of the educational problem are with either students, parents or a combination of both. Money to the school system won't resolve that issue, but teachers still come out and say that if they had more money the schools would improve.

But I think that removal is really the elephant in the room. Because if you have kids on free breakfast and lunch and you still have to send home bags of food so the student can eat over the weekend, then that is a situation where we are dealing with child neglect. But we choose not to talk about this issue because we believe that kids are always better off with their families than in an orphanage.

Sterilization is of course going to be a non-starter just based on the association that program had with eliminating undesirables back in the 1930's. You might have some success in convincing guys to undergo a voluntary vasectomy when the procedure becomes easily reversible. The problem with such an effort is that the ones you'd like to reach an unlikely to participate.

It's an incredibly hard issue... driven not by rules and regulations but by thousands of individual situations. All of the labeling in the arguments (not here yet) doesn't help and hurts a lot.

As 'unfair' as it is that some people have good parents and others don't, you don't fix it by decreasing or devaluing the opportunities for those with good parents... but by elevating those without them. We do both, but in most other societies around the world, they don't. They 'track' their children based on their capabilities... and PART of those capabilities is the support system they have. It's not 'fair' in one sense, but unless you're willing to aggressively take children away from not only unworthy parents, but also merely unfortunate ones... you can't fix the problem by focusing on fairness.

Each situation is unique and I can't give a good analogy for that reason, but I think if we put more emphasis on valuable skills like repairing all the the things that engineers develop, we'd vastly improve not only the lives of those unfortunate children, but their children's lives. Instead we seem to focus on bypassing these valuable skills and going straight to college... which is fine for some, but only serves to create unnecessary debt and frustration for others... often perpetuating the problem. The idea that 'everyone needs to go to college' is the wrong solution to the wrong problem. The better solution is to focus on each child having more opportunity than their parents alone gave them.... and not on giving everyone the identical opportunity.

(04-20-2015 01:47 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  It's an incredibly hard issue... driven not by rules and regulations but by thousands of individual situations. All of the labeling in the arguments (not here yet) doesn't help and hurts a lot.

As 'unfair' as it is that some people have good parents and others don't, you don't fix it by decreasing or devaluing the opportunities for those with good parents... but by elevating those without them. We do both, but in most other societies around the world, they don't. They 'track' their children based on their capabilities... and PART of those capabilities is the support system they have. It's not 'fair' in one sense, but unless you're willing to aggressively take children away from not only unworthy parents, but also merely unfortunate ones... you can't fix the problem by focusing on fairness.

Each situation is unique and I can't give a good analogy for that reason, but I think if we put more emphasis on valuable skills like repairing all the the things that engineers develop, we'd vastly improve not only the lives of those unfortunate children, but their children's lives. Instead we seem to focus on bypassing these valuable skills and going straight to college... which is fine for some, but only serves to create unnecessary debt and frustration for others... often perpetuating the problem. The idea that 'everyone needs to go to college' is the wrong solution to the wrong problem. The better solution is to focus on each child having more opportunity than their parents alone gave them.... and not on giving everyone the identical opportunity.

The problem with that is we have created several generations where the government has taken care of them from cradle to grave while they make no effort whatsoever to improve their situation. It's almost to the point where we are creating kids who have government dependence in their DNA. How are you going to get a person who knows the government is going to take care of them no matter what to put forth the effort and discipline to not only complete a technical training program but to follow it up with actually working for a living? Especially when in many cases they can collect their government benefits while earning money by illicit means and live better than they could working honestly?

(04-20-2015 01:47 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  It's an incredibly hard issue... driven not by rules and regulations but by thousands of individual situations. All of the labeling in the arguments (not here yet) doesn't help and hurts a lot.

As 'unfair' as it is that some people have good parents and others don't, you don't fix it by decreasing or devaluing the opportunities for those with good parents... but by elevating those without them. We do both, but in most other societies around the world, they don't. They 'track' their children based on their capabilities... and PART of those capabilities is the support system they have. It's not 'fair' in one sense, but unless you're willing to aggressively take children away from not only unworthy parents, but also merely unfortunate ones... you can't fix the problem by focusing on fairness.

Each situation is unique and I can't give a good analogy for that reason, but I think if we put more emphasis on valuable skills like repairing all the the things that engineers develop, we'd vastly improve not only the lives of those unfortunate children, but their children's lives. Instead we seem to focus on bypassing these valuable skills and going straight to college... which is fine for some, but only serves to create unnecessary debt and frustration for others... often perpetuating the problem. The idea that 'everyone needs to go to college' is the wrong solution to the wrong problem. The better solution is to focus on each child having more opportunity than their parents alone gave them.... and not on giving everyone the identical opportunity.

I'm with you on being against tracking. I think trying to compare US to European stats and trying to approach their metrics for success is foolish and undermines the social mobility which America tries to afford everyone. I've asked my Mom about this topic on several occasions and even she at 62 years old still has a hard time acknowledging that life as a ward of the state might have been better than staying with her alcoholic single mom living in the projects. If we aren't going to take the kids then we should do like NJ GATA said; provides clothes, food and after-school recreation and tutoring, hell even year round school for students in these situations to minimize the amount of time they have to spend with their parents.

(04-20-2015 02:01 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  The problem with that is we have created several generations where the government has taken care of them from cradle to grave while they make no effort whatsoever to improve their situation. It's almost to the point where we are creating kids who have government dependence in their DNA. How are you going to get a person who knows the government is going to take care of them no matter what to put forth the effort and discipline to not only complete a technical training program but to follow it up with actually working for a living? Especially when in many cases they can collect their government benefits while earning money by illicit means and live better than they could working honestly?

I think you have to show the kids that there is a world outside of the frame of reference they are currently in the is within reach. For kids in the inner city, a simple trip to the park where they can play can be an eye opening experience. You have to free them of the burdens that might have been placed upon them by their family situation (taking care of siblings and sometimes parents) and give them a brief respite for where they can care about themselves.