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Cops or nurses?
Submitted by R. Neal on Mon, 2007/08/20 - 9:23am.
According to the Knoxville News Sentinel, the Knox County school system is considering the possibility of establishing its own police force.
Meanwhile, advocates for school nurses keep hitting obstacles.
What does that tell you about how society views our children? And what kind of message does it send kids regarding respect for "authority"? If you keep treating kids like criminals, they'll start acting like criminals.
That said, I understand there's a security problem in modern schools that did not seem to exist when I was growing up. Perhaps full time officers are needed. And you can make an argument that they need different training and skills than a patrol officer.
Creating yet another law enforcement agency, though, does not seem like the best approach, especially one run by a school board that doesn't know much about law enforcement. We should be consolidating government and streamlining functions, not creating new bureaucracies and duplicating effort.
Submitted by michael kaplan on Mon, 2007/08/20 - 9:45am.
"Creating yet another law enforcement agency, though, does not seem like the best approach, especially one run by a school board that doesn't know much about law enforcement."
What about bringing in the National Guard, once we've brought them home?
Submitted by Tamara Shepherd on Mon, 2007/08/20 - 9:53am.
Your point about a need to consolidate, not duplicate, government services makes sense to me, Randy.
In this question, though, I'm more concerned that a proposal to create a separate police force for schools is yet another thought to treat the symptom, not the disease.
I think we DO need to ask why the increased violence in today's schools, not just accept that circumstance as a given and fund some intended remedy. I also think we need to be looking harder at parents to be more accountable in lowering the incidence of school violence.
I can't offer a suggestion for the correct remedy to this problem, but I'll share this: I was present at a family gathering recently when the subject was raised of a student having brought a bomb to school. In that instance, the student had fabricated his weapon at home, in his garage. My husband's 80-something year-old aunt seemed puzzled. "When I was raising my son," she offered, "I don't think he could have built a bomb in my garage without my knowledge of it."
Indeed. Let's examine THAT problem a little more closely, before we seek to fund some remedy that ignores it.
In this question, though, I'm more concerned that a proposal to create a separate police force for schools is yet another thought to treat the symptom, not the disease.
Today's News Sentinel article is the first I'd heard of having a police force operated by the school system. I want safe and secure schools, as do all parents, but worry that a school police department would send the wrong message. Kids may be treated more like criminals than students. It often seems we are too quick to put a child into the juvenile justice system for issues that used to be resolved at the school level.
What problem are we trying to solve? KPD and KCSO already provide officers at all our middle and high schools, and we have resource officers (KCS employees) at many schools too. I hear very good reports about the work these security officers do. Will more police officers cut back on bullying and fighting? The best way to promote safety and security is to facilitate communication and positive interactions between the students and adults in the school building.
Submitted by kcarson on Mon, 2007/08/20 - 10:33am.
K.Carson
The article in the News Sentinel did not state that Knox County is considering the possibility of establishing its own police force. The question of establishing a police force for schools was brought to the state legislators by Memphis City Schools. According to the News Sentinel reporter, this will be studied by the state this fall. All quotes related to Knox County schools were in response to a direct question from the reporter asking what we thought of the idea. While no one wanted to dismiss the idea without any investigation, I think everyone in KCS was quick to point out that
1. We have a good working relationship right now
2. Funding would be a major issue (maybe because we realize the need to address other needs, comprehensive health care, hard to staff schools and subject areas)
3. Security is important in our schools
It is just not fair to make the jump that we are choosing cops over nurses.
Submitted by Johnny Ringo on Mon, 2007/08/20 - 12:10pm.
All quotes related to Knox County schools were in response to a direct question from the reporter asking what we thought of the idea. While no one wanted to dismiss the idea without any investigation...
Submitted by bizgrrl on Mon, 2007/08/20 - 10:37am.
a functioning guidance office would be money better spent
Agreed. My guidance counselors in high school were, IMO, very helpful and nice.
I suspect guidance counselors may play favorites a little. Not that I was very special but I did listen, heed their advice and my parents were quite involved. It probably also helped that I had an older brother that was a star basketball player at the same school, an English teacher worked with my Mom during the war in Oak Ridge, and one of the counselors was Mildred Doyle's sister (I believe) with whom my Dad did some work. Thus, they knew who I was. Gee, it all adds up. I was destined to be nagged and pretty much couldn't get away with anything. Community building is a beautiful thing.
The idea of a school police force “is loaded with possibilities and opportunities,” said Steve Griffin, Knox County Schools security chief.
The district’s security officers already carry guns and perform many of the duties of law enforcement officials, he said.
Having a police force “basically raises the standards,” and officers will be able to make arrests and receive extensive training, he said.
He envisions the department would be year-round, 24 hours a day.
Additionally, “this would allow the police department and sheriff’s department to concentrate their manpower in other places where they may feel they need it,” Griffin said.
Submitted by Carole Borges on Mon, 2007/08/20 - 10:53am.
The kids who are most likely to have a problem that could become dangerous tend not to have a very close relationship with any authority, let alone the police
The solution that has helped many other communites is rather simple and not all that costly either: anger management classes for ALL students, trained peer groups specifically designed to stop bullying before things get painful, and a school that doesn't look down on those kids who feel exiled from their peers (and everything else). And yes, more emphasis on counseling.
Most of the massacres seem to have occured because kids felt totally alienated from everything, felt the other kids had hurt them, or had mental problems left undiagonosed and without good management by a trained therapist.
Submitted by R. Neal on Mon, 2007/08/20 - 10:57am.
Another benefit mentioned in the KNS article is to have more kids exposed at a younger age to the police so they learn they are not to be feared but rather trusted and to keep lines of communications open.
I think this is a great idea. But is it something that can be accomoplished by regular visits and outreach by the PD, like in civics classes (oh, wait, do they still have civics classes?) school assemblies, presence at sporting and other events, etc. etc. etc.
Submitted by Tamara Shepherd on Mon, 2007/08/20 - 11:38am.
"The kids who are most likely to have a problem that could become dangerous tend not to have a very close relationship with any authority, let alone the police."
Bingo, Carole. I've been on a 24 hour rant on this general subject over at the School Matters blog recently. Maybe I sound like some puckered-up old Church Lady, but a decade of school volunteerism has left me a little jaded recently WRT just how much time and money is spent in public education in an attempt to fulfill the role that used to be parents'.
Tutoring, anger management, birth control, STDs, gun safety, bike safety, interviewing skills and etiquette...do today's parents think they have no responsibilies beyond feeding their children and occaisionally hosing them down? And is it any wonder educators are having trouble squeezing in some time for the three Rs?
From plummeting student achievement to increased violence and promiscuity among youth, this left-leanin' momma is really starting to get chapped at our apparent contentedness as a society to just slough off ALL these problems on our public education system.
With the head of steam I've worked up in recent years, if I sat on that dais today, my very first question concerning the proposal of a program or policy like this one would be to ask "Is this a task we can and should impose on parents, rather than on schools?" And if so, "How can we adopt a policy to assure that parents will suffer the consequence of their failure to parent in this regard?"
I don't think I'd take this topic too far off course to suggest that public education has a huge cultural problem to address in creating those policies that better separate their responsibilities from those that must be returned to parents.
Submitted by Carole Borges on Mon, 2007/08/20 - 4:25pm.
One of the best things about public school used to be the way it attempted to help children learn things their parents were unable to teach them. The romantic idea that parents of the past were so perfect is really not very accurate. Children were often beaten like cattle back then. Uneducated parents could not help children with homework. They were not taught about health or hygiene by their parents. They were often encouraged to work rather than go to school, and the scope they had of the world was often limited to life in their immediate family or their small community of like-minded people.
It would seem some of the parents of today exhibit the same problems, the only difference is now the schools don't usually care because there has a been a trend away from believing in our school system and a resistence to funding it properly. Affluent parents and families who are privileged enough to have one parent stay home to be the teacher has the option now of sending their kids to school or not. They can decide to send their offspring to private school. These good parents have opted out of the public school system because they want what is best for their children, but many of these people really don't care that much what happens in the public schools. They see public school as a place where inferior children are taught by inferior teachers. They see public schools as crime-infested drug-ridden hovels, and the truth is some of them have become exactly like that.
Too many good people expect all parents to somehow be as great and devoted as they are. You have to have an incredibly naive mind to even entertain that wish. The real world is simply much too complex. Our society does not create all perfect, capable people. Maybe someday when we perfect cloning that will be seen as fantastic, but right now some people are imperfect. Additionally we have a media that promotes violence, decadence and guns, and what can you expect?
Public schools used to be a haven for kids from terrible homes(SOME STILL Are). They used to offer these kids love, learning, and a picture of a life where you could be anything you want to be. Now it's all about the numbers (tests, tests, and more tests) and teacher survival (42 kids in a classroom with 1940s texbooks and no real training on what to do about behavior problems).
When did we as a society stop believing ALL the children of next generation were "our" children?
Throughout history the most successful Americans did not all go to private school. They were not homeschooled. They came out of places that were tough by any standards, places like Hell's Kitchen or Chicago's Little Italy, but they rose high and became educators and scientists and writers and artists because they had great, useful educational tools handed to them. The kind of tools that could help off-set all their domestic disadvantages.
More police are not the answer. Pushing responsibilities off on inept and sometimes downright cruel and uneducated parents who can't handle them is not the answer either. The answer is to fund and care. To honor the teachers who are in the trenches helping kids with low skills and no behavior training. To create more indiviualized instruction by providing more teachers who really know how to teach and lots of aides to help them.
So many people seem to think of public school kids are only dangerous animals. Like the school is the cage and the only way to control the kids is to have a gun in one hand and a whip in the other.
Having worked with and taught kids who could only attend our school after they were thrown out of every private or public school in our area, I can assure you these kids are not animals. They are sad human beings hungry for love and hope. They often have no clue what it means to be loved and many are not poor even, no matter how high their parents' income might be, they lack what they need to be successful learners. Some are born with learning problems, others are so medicated with prescription drugs they have little control of their own thinking. Most of them hate themselves too because they know they are seen as failures.
In my experience though most of these children will respond with enthusiasm, loyalty, and intelligence when given half a chance.
I truly believe it is not the children of today that can be blamed for the failures they sometimes present, nor is it fair to place all the blame on the parents. The shame of this failure is a collective one. Our society cares less, pays proportionately less, and provides less than most schools in other countries.
In the good old days people lynched other people. In the good old days wives were commonly beaten. In the good old days many people had to quit school to go to work at the age of twelve. Murders still happened. Rape still happened. Some would even argue people were generally crueler back then.
If our public schools were funded and supported with as many funds as we enjoy pouring into wars, the idea of needing more police in them wouldn't even cross our minds.
Submitted by Pam Strickland on Mon, 2007/08/20 - 11:06am.
(oh, wait, do they still have civics classes?)
About four years ago, I was involved in a history project funded by the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation. The project was in part to preserve artifacts from the Japanese-American concentration camps (that's what the J-A's call them) in Southeast Arkansas. The other part was to develop education curriruclum and materials. The elementary teachers said that they couldn't teach it because No Child Left Behind concentrated on reading and math. What happened was we snuck it in as a book.
The kids have basically no social studies until high school. Yeah, there's some stuff earlier, but it's not cohesive and it's just a smattering here or there.
On the other hand, I can remember my junior high civis class when the state representative came to talk. That was cool.
Pam Strickland
"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." ~Kurt Vonnegut
Submitted by SammySkull on Mon, 2007/08/20 - 11:07am.
Another benefit mentioned in the KNS article is to have more kids exposed at a younger age to the police so they learn they are not to be feared but rather trusted and to keep lines of communications open.
Exposure to cops may help ease some people's fear of them, but if we have people that are scared of cops, wouldn't this be one more way of treating the symptom?
Though it isn't necessarily a reason we homeschool, this is a benefit. I can't imagine why I would ever want to send my kids to schools that actually needs cops. If our schools are so far gone that we are even tentatively discussing them having their own police force, then we are willing to accept just about anything rather than admit that our schools are failing.
Maybe Redflex has some sort of school camera program.
Submitted by WhitesCreek on Mon, 2007/08/20 - 11:40am.
If our schools are so far gone that we are even tentatively discussing them having their own police force, then we are willing to accept just about anything rather than admit that our schools are failing.
I think this is more of a case of us failing our schools.
When I was a kid, I thought of the police as a safe haven.
After being around the "resource officer" at their school, my kids formed a very low opinion of the police. That is a sad and unfortunate thing. I don't think more contact with the police will change that.
For now, the kids see the police when the drug dog shows up to make them all feel like criminals.
Submitted by CathyMcCaughan on Mon, 2007/08/20 - 1:38pm.
The last time I tried to express my opinions, someone called me "part of the problem" and accused me of being a clueless moron because only someone whose mother was a teacher knows anything about schools, education or parenting. I will try again anyway. I will even go so far as to point out that my grandmother was an inner city schools teacher in California, I minored in education, I did my student teaching at a middle school and I have worked with teens and families at Haslam, Florence Crittendon and all over East TN. Knox County Schools Police Department is a terrible idea. Knox County doesn't need Redflex, the schools are already completely wired. There is probably not enough money or manpower to save some of the teens in our schools, but we have to try.
Punishing their parents will not help the children. By that logic, we should go ahead and throw away all the children whose parents are in jail. Then throw away the children whose parents can't beat their drug and alcohol problems. Be sure to throw away all the children living in shelters or on the streets, too. It goes without saying that the children of parents with physical and emotional health issues are not worthy enough either.
We can't make our grandparents see the ignorance in their racism, sexism and homophobia. We can teach our children. Our ancestors didn't succeed as parents because they did EVERYTHING. They succeeded because they had extended families, churches and communities working together to help those in need and those who couldn't or wouldn't help themselves.
We must recognize that some parents simply can't or won't be involved with their child's education, no matter what. The child shouldn't have to suffer because of a parent's lack of skill or ambition.
Submitted by Tamara Shepherd on Mon, 2007/08/20 - 5:19pm.
I also support greater funding for public education, but what is naive is to assume that any amount of funding spent in a manner that circumvents the need to involve parents in their children's raising is anything but money ill spent and is anything but unlikely to compensate the child for his loss.
Would anyone care to speculate why children didn't carry bombs to school a generation ago? We had gunpowder...
Submitted by djuggler on Tue, 2007/08/21 - 7:58am.
Would anyone care to speculate why children didn't carry bombs to school a generation ago?
They did! The world was not so small back then. We were more concerned with our home town issues and less with the nation and the world. Once upon a time, local news took precedent over other news. Remember national news being just a half-hour before the hour of local news?
Cable, CNN, and the Internet have brought other people's problems into our living rooms. The world has grown smaller but more dense. We consume more information about things that do not directly affect us while becoming more disconnected with the things that do directly affect us. Used to be "it took a community" and neighbors would step up instead of shy away. As a child, I was out past dusk with a girl. I don't know why we did it but we were behind the church breaking bottles on the concrete basketball court. A neighbor came out with a broom, informed us that our parents were already notified of our wrong doings, and that after we had finished cleaning our mess that we were to go directly home where we would be sent to bed without dinner. It was a mortifying experience with a strong lesson. Today I am sure the police would simply have been called.
"Back then" we treated issues more realistically. We have grown reactionary. I blame the sensationalist news reporting. In the 8th grade, I wired a friend's locker with an alarm and shoved a bunch of Playboy pictures in it so that when he opened the locker a piercing noise filled the hallway and wads of pictures of naked women poured from the locker. Every student and teacher knew of the prank except for victim. Today the school would have been shutdown, the bomb squad brought in to diffuse the device, I would have been expelled and placed on Homeland Security's watchlist, and my folks sent to jail.
The Dangerous Book for Boys has such popularity because our generation remembers a more rationale time when we accepted that kids will be kids and we allowed them to be kids so that they could learn and grow into adults. Yes, cherry bombs in the toilets made an expensive mess of the plumbing but we didn't ruin a person's life over it.
Anyone remember when high schoolers would drive their pickups to school with their rifles hanging on the gun racks in the window because after school they planned on going hunting?
Submitted by CathyMcCaughan on Mon, 2007/08/20 - 6:33pm.
Students in the 90s are married with children of their own now. At my high school, there were rifles in the windows of all the pickups parked in the parking lot. Elaborate pranks that would get students arrested today were expected from the seniors. We had no police officer or school security.
Submitted by Tamara Shepherd on Mon, 2007/08/20 - 7:34pm.
Maybe you are younger than I by more years than I realized!
What I meant by "a generation ago" was in MY generation (which maybe wasn't your's), when I was a student, not a parent.
In MY generation, we did not know anything of school security officers, metal detectors, or bombs and guns and knives brought to school. And yes, schools were decidedly safer.
My question, then, is why are schools so much less safe today than they were then? What has changed?
Determining what has changed will tell us how (and to whom) to address the problem, I think.
In MY generation, we did not know anything of school security officers, metal detectors, or bombs and guns and knives brought to school. And yes, schools were decidedly safer.
I graduated high school in 1975. I remember several times during my junior & senior years that bomb threats were called into the school. The threats were usually called in by someone wanting to get out of a class period. When the threats became an almost weekly occurrence, the police were called in to investigate. A few students were caught and suspended and the bomb threats stopped. We did have a "security officer" of sorts. In my junior year it was one of the popular substitute teachers and then in my senior year the school hired an honest-to-goodness security guard. The main "security" issues were smoking in the bathrooms (even though we had a designated smoking area), skipping class and hidden stashes of pot or pills in lockers.
Few kids back then were medicated in order to control them. We acted out by dressing the way we wanted or wearing our hair the way we wanted. I could wear shorts & halter tops. We were allowed more freedom to be individuals. Sure, the schools still tried to fit us into "boxes" but those boxes were bigger than they are today.
I also went to a neighborhood school. The kids and many teachers in my classes lived near me. There was a sense of community. I think that is the main thing lacking in today's schools.
Families with two working parents to make ends meet
Deadbeat/MIA dads
Idiocracy
Etc...
(P.S. When I was growing up, nobody brought guns or bombs to school, but knives were cool among some factions. I blame West Side Story and Nat Hentoff books.)
Submitted by Carole Borges on Mon, 2007/08/20 - 8:10pm.
Unfortunately too often the only connection they have with the school is when something goes wrong. When it does, the whole situation too often dissolves into a blame game. The parents blame the schools, and the schools blame the parents. Usually both try to blame the kid with the problem.
The truth seems to be that parents are not doing a good job and our schools aren't either.
Early admission into the education system helps. Pre-school programs like Head Start have been extremely successful. Working parents have a heck of a time affording even half-a-day of daycare, so they'd probably be very grateful if public pre-school programs were from 9-5 with extended hours for those who didn't get off work until 5:30 or 6:00. That would earn a lot of parental involvement. Often when they schools give parents what they need, they become much more willing to feel part of a team.
Learning disabilities that are not diagnosed and treated early account for a large percentage of disenchanted students and frustrated parents. Too many students get moved along without learning anything & it's very embarassing for them. Instead of cooperating, they end up acting out in class or bullying the other students who can learn faster. When they get older the embarassment can turn into hostility.
When I taught college, I blamed the high school teachers. They blamed the elementary school system and the governmental mandates that made no sense like the underfunded "No Child Left Behind". Elementary teachers seemed to think they were doing as good a job as they could with so many kids in a classroom. Trying to blame any of the multiple people, or multiple problems the kids are having, on one group just isn't helpful. We need a comprehensive and open-minded look at the whole educational system here, and it wouldn't hurt at all if we looked at France's system which puts tremendous amounts of money into their schools, and starts kids very early.
The whole situation is so frustrating once you look at it, that you just want to scream, but the days go on and some bright or very determined kids somehow do succeed with or without good parental involvement, and they contribute much to our society. So many devoted teachers even in shabby schools stay on and love their jobs and look forward to each day.
Many children who have it all--involved parents. high-tech learning tools from kindergarten on up, and the comfort of a social network designed by their parents to be healthy and good--fail in spite of all their advantages.
In my humble experience, the most important thing a kid can have is someone who knows them as an individual, understands the obstacles that stand in the way of their being a successful learner, respects them and encourages them lavishly, and is honest as sin when it comes to telling them gently what their good points and their weaknesses are--not because they want to "straighten them out", but because they really truly care about the kid.
Submitted by Tamara Shepherd on Mon, 2007/08/20 - 10:27pm.
What I keep mulling is how so many of the priorities set in today's families must alienate children, and must surely invite greater violence on their part. Cathy had this observation:
"Our ancestors didn't succeed as parents because they did EVERYTHING. They succeeded because they had extended families, churches and communities working together to help those in need and those who couldn't or wouldn't help themselves."
But families still have all those supports, if we choose to avail ourselves of them. If we don't live near extended family, that's a CHOICE. If we don't have a church familiy, that's a CHOICE. If we don't know our neighbors, that's a CHOICE. And all of these CHOICES must leave families, and especially their kids, lonlier and maybe angrier than in previous generations.
It's a phenomenon that transcends family income or marital status, too:
At one end of my community's income spectrum, I see too many parents who CHOOSE to spend on tanning beds and fake fingernails and satellite TV, but opt out of picking good summer camps for their kids or subscribing to the daily newspaper (and discussing it over the dinnertable).
Their kids aren't "latchkeys" because the parents can't afford daycare, they're "latchkeys" so the family can take cruises or live in $300,000 (empty) homes. That's their CHOICE.
At the other end of my community's income spectrum, I see too many parents who CHOOSE to live in trailers and even Section 8 apartments so that they can shower their kids with go-carts and ATVs, X Box 360's, $100 sneakers, and cell phones by the age of nine.
I provide their children's Scout uniforms and handbooks (and get them to and from meetings, too), school supplies, field trip money, and books purchased at the school Book Fair. The schools feed their children two hot meals daily. And the parents remain on the public dole only because one spouse is working for cash-under-the-table, or because they're single moms masking the hefty incomes of their live-in boyfriends--resulting in household incomes likely equal to my own. That's their CHOICE.
In my experience, families like these aren't exceptions--they're the norm.
Oh, I experienced some measure of affirmation for my CHOICES on a school-related outing last spring. After the Scholar's Bowl team filmed over at WKOP, we parents and kids gathered at Ruby Tuesday for a late lunch.
I glanced over the menu and ventured the comment that our family didn't eat out very often, as we lived on just one income. Every one of my parental peers chimed in that they were also single-income families and rarely ate out.
Over the appetizers or salads we all called lunch, we discovered that none of us had cable TV, none of us carried cell phones, and none of us had purchased or planned to purchase a car for our child at age sixteen. One of us reported that he had insured his son on his (the parent's) car, and had found it not too expensive, since his car was fifteen years old. The others among us weren't sure we would be able to do that, either. All of us, it turned out, took our family vacations in tents.
We took turns lavishing praise on one another's very smart, funny, kind-hearted, good-lookin' younguns, and we didn't pass up the chance to point out to those younguns that we'd all made similar CHOICES as to what would be important in our families. Our younguns rolled their eyes at us, but they grinned, too.
We talked at length about how good it was to get to know other parents who had made the same CHOICES we had, and we stayed on at the table even after the Bowl's teacher-sponsors had left. Finally, we all took one another in bear-hugs, and climbed into our rattle-trap old cars to go home.
I didn't ask them specifically if they thought their children would ever, in a million years, bring a bomb to school, but I think I know how they'd answer. Same as me.
Submitted by Carole Borges on Tue, 2007/08/21 - 7:40am.
"And the parents remain on the public dole only because one spouse is working for cash-under-the-table, or because they're single moms masking the hefty incomes of their live-in boyfriends-"
Tamara, Tamara, Tamara---how could you possibly believe this urban myth?
It's nice that you and your friends are great moms and that you live some sort of minimalistic existence in order to be sure not to be buying anything frivolous for yourself, but your view of other parents is sadly distorted.
The statement which was originally was based on racism and class ignorance has been handed down and around from one resentful ignorant person to another for too long. It really ought to be banned.
Submitted by Tamara Shepherd on Tue, 2007/08/21 - 9:33am.
"Tamara, Tamara, Tamara---how could you possibly believe this urban myth?"
Before I answer your comment, Carole, I want to point out where I think the dissonance is arising in this conversation.
The clearest example is in a comment SHarris made earlier, in which s/he referenced parents who "can't or won't" act responsibly in their roles. What we need to understand is that these are two very different categories of parents, and that society has no obligation whatsoever to support the latter.
No, this need not be interpreted as my suggestion to "abandon" the children of these. Hang on...
Now, Cathy cites a group of parents to include those with drug addiction problems, who are incarcerated, and so forth, urging the social services they need to resume and maintain their parental responsibilities (I say "resume" because they likely don't have custody of their children anyway, or else won't retain custody for long). I don't think any of us would argue that need.
I think you'll note, though, that the other parents I cite are of a very different ilk, and I assure you that their existence is not an "urban myth." As I say, their prevalence is the source of my recent frustration, and it is their prevalence, too, that has caused my thoughts to turn to how our public school policies should change to charge them with greater accountability.
I've likely mentioned my thirteen years as a Girl Scout and Boy Scout leader? It is a setting in which we families get to know one another very well, through trips and sleepovers and an association that lasts for years (provided I continue picking up and dropping off the children of some).
Apparently this will surprise you, but among the maybe 15 or 20 children for whom I've purchased uniforms, insignia, books, (and for whom the school system also supplies two hot meals daily), only two ever actually qualified for such assistance. In EVERY other family, this situation of masking a live-in's income or hiding cash-under-the-table income existed.
On the basis of what these parents have *personally revealed* to me, one married mom, whose husband works full-time, earns $30,000 annually in cash as a senior home comanion. Another married mom draws Social Security Disablility, yet operates a full-time housecleaning service employing five other women (several of whom also draw SSD). A third masks rental income from property. A single mom I know is not compelled to list, for the purposes of obtaining social services, the ORNL income of her long-term live-in boyfriend (and common-law husband), or her child support, either. In fact, EVERY single mom whose costs I've absorbed over the years also had household income she masked from a live-in boyfriend, often long-term.
The most common scam I see involves Social Security Disability, which is apparently available for all manner of afflictions, real or imagined, with bipolar disorder being the affliction of choice. Recipients speak freely of their benefits, and cite their need to work for cash so that the benefits won't be withdrawn. I don't know about you, but I have never met ANY such recipient who does not also work for cash, including two who live on my street (one operates a pretty well-equipped lawn service).
I think you'll agree with me that parents like these are unlikely to produce children with much of a code of ethics. Pesonally, I suspect they'll produce children likely to subscribe to the same code as theirs, especially given that their children are consistently in need of remedial educational services, increasing the liklihood that they will be unable to support themselves later.
So, what can we do? I do have some concrete suggestions.
First, if we're to make the best use of our budgets for children's education, we need to require that applications for financial aid from schools (or Scouting costs, for that matter) reveal 1099 income (yes, we need the cooperation of these employers), rental income, child support, and at least common-law spouses, if not more transient live-in adults in the household.
Second, we will weed out fraudulent applications by also requiring that assets be listed (I mentioned some applicants' rental property, but maybe not the speedboats and RVs in driveways). The approval process for such applications should then reject applicants whose assets surpass some predetermined cap. (These two practices are common in other aid application processes, outside schools.)
Then, for those applicants truly qualifying for aid, I think that parenting instruction should be a condition for receiving it, to include an overview of other aid conditions, like attending parent conferences, signing syllabi and test scores coming home, assuring homework completion, etc. (Some here may maintain that this measure "singles out" aid recipients, but what I suggest is no different than the pledge parents of Project Grad students sign.)
Taking these measures would better define the contract between parents and schools, and funding recognized from tighter controls of the aid process might be directed into increased counseling and support for these students, as well.
Submitted by Carole Borges on Tue, 2007/08/21 - 8:39am.
Mostly because of the media that was pointed out in a previous post here. This can amount to paranoia, to a belief that they are all dangerous and bad.
Can you imagine how it must feel to grow up that way?
I hate shows that highlight crime and perversion, that try to give the impression that they are somehow helping solve crimes--that pornographic series on MSNBC about Internet creeps seducing under age kids is a good example. Who watches that crap? It feeds you the impression everyone is out to do harm and tintillates those are able to lap up the sexy dialogue under the guise of caring about kids--and these shows are everywhere.
I don't know when this trend to see ourselves and our neighbors as mostly evil gained momentumn, but it's really gotten out of hand.
Sometimes I suspect it is a global corporate conspiracy to kept the masses busy so the people with money and power can steal the world blind and make serfs out of all of us.
Why can't we start to celebrate who we are, who are neighnbors are, and all the good kind people and the concerned parents and the young innovators we are producing in this society?
Fear, hopelessness, despair and ignorance are also CHOICES.
Submitted by CathyMcCaughan on Tue, 2007/08/21 - 10:23am.
Then, for those applicants truly qualifying for aid, I think that parenting instruction should be a condition for receiving it, to include an overview of other aid conditions, like attending parent conferences, signing syllabi and test scores coming home, assuring homework completion, etc.
Why are you determined to make children suffer for their parents' sins?
The most common scam I see involves Social Security Disability, which is apparently available for all manner of afflictions, real or imagined, with bipolar disorder being the affliction of choice.
You think Bipolar is imaginary? Attend a support group and listen to the stories of people desperately trying to get SSI.
There will always be bad people doing bad things. When I worked in a CPA's office a lifetime ago, upper middle class people would pay the CPA's to fill out the financial sections of their children's college scholarship applications. No amount of laws, rules or locks can stop people who are determined to lie, cheat and steal. All that additional bureaucracies accomplish is keeping the truly needy from getting help. People on government assistance do extra things for cash because they can't survive on benefits. Most of them barely make it with benefits and the cash jobs. Our current system punishes people who are married or in committed relationships. Talk to the women in the "Pines" or the shelters downtown about how they can't be with their partners because they would lose the medications they need to live or the roof over their heads.
You either care about all children or you don't. If they have to be "worthy" of your time and money or you think you have a right to tell them how to live, you don't really care.
Submitted by Tamara Shepherd on Tue, 2007/08/21 - 11:08am.
"You are determined to make children suffer for their parents' sins aren't you?"
I'm not sure I follow how requiring that parents attend conferences, sign syllabi and test scores coming home, and assure that homework is completed constitutes "suffering" on the part of either parent or child?
"You think Bipolar is imaginary?"
For this particular mom, it is. She has worked daily (for cash) with her sister's housekeeping service, while drawing SSD, for the full eight years I have known her. She tells me that her effective pay rate works out to about $10 per hour.
Her son is recently attending the Richard Yoakley alternative school, BTW.
"There will always be bad people doing bad things."
You seem to suggest that we shouldn't work to minimize the problem, then?
"No amount of laws, rules or locks can stop people who are determined to lie, cheat and steal."
Please refer to previous response, above.
"All that additional bureaucracies accomplish is keeping the truly needy from getting help."
I suggest a tighter application process, not a new bureaucracy. I do not see why a tighter application process would keep the truly needy from getting help.
"People on government assistance do extra things for cash because they can't survive on benefits."
This is illegal, and not to be defended, whether we're talking about SSD, unemployment compensation, or any number of other assistance programs.
"Our current system punishes people who are married or in committed relationships. Talk to the women in the "Pines" or the shelters downtown about how they can't be with their partners because they would lose the medications they need to live or the roof over their heads."
If these women to which you refer would lose prescription benefits on returning to a spouse or companion, then presumably that is because their combined incomes should enable them to cover this cost themselves. How is that a penalty?
"You either care about all children or you don't. If they have to be "worthy" of your time and money or you think you have a right to tell them how to live, you don't really care."
Honestly, Cathy. I could probably produce $6,500 in receipts, about $500 annually, to document just my out-of-pocket costs in working with Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts over the last 13 years, not to mention the many other efforts I'm involved in. I don't mind telling you, either, that, all told, it's a pretty sizable chunk of my family's modest income.
In my relations with these children, I have not distinguished between those whose parents need the leg up and those whose parents do not, as all are, as you say, "worthy." Still, I would expect reasonable people to understand that repeatedly helping families in which the adults "cheat" is frustrating.
Nor do I propose "telling people how to live" when I maintain that adults receiving financial assistance from government, or from schools, or from Scouts, have an obligation to apply for those services in good faith and to fulfill the contractual agreements they enter into to obtain that assistance. Your repeated suggestion that they have no such obligation is getting to be a bit offensive, not to mention irrational.
Your last clause on the subject of my caring is completely indefensible and unprovoked.
I don't think I have any more time this morning to argue with people who think our schools have always been threatened with bombs and guns, or who think cash and services, from either my pocket or the government's, are inalienable rights over which no conditions may be imposed.
Submitted by SHarris on Tue, 2007/08/21 - 10:24am.
to those children if you, or someone had not stepped up and provided Scout uniforms and/or equipment? Do you believe those parents would have provided them? Probably not!
By limiting assistance to only those whom YOU deem worthy and insisting even they pass your litmus test (parenting classes) you are sentencing their children to forever remaining in a hopeless situation.
We must find a way to ensure that EVERY child, regardless of what kind of parents they have, receive an EQUAL opporunity to gain the skills to better themselves.
If these kids don't get parenting at home and they don't get it at school then what kind of adults will they become?
Submitted by Carole Borges on Tue, 2007/08/21 - 12:51pm.
Unless you live in some kind of community full of mentally ill welfare recipients who for some peculiar reason are willing to expose themselves to you (an upstanding member of your community) as criminals, I have to say your stories about those parents bragging about their crimes to you sounds pretty darn far-fetched.
But okay, let's say they are true. A few totally bizarre people seem to have crossed your path then.
I have been a mother on welfare for a brief time(after divorcing my first husband who didn't want to provide child support) and I have also been a social worker for the Dept. of Welfare. During the time I was in school I worked for many organizations doing advocacy work for the poor. Not once during my decades of experience have I ever hear anyone on welfare bragging about their "gravy train".
The only place people get this idea is in newspapers citing the few highly notorious cases that do occur and by word of mouth by people like yourself who have no idea what most welfare mothers are really like. Instead I listened to complaints about how cruel it is for a society that refuses to provide affordable daycare and affordable medical insurance to condemn welfare mothers for not working for minimum wage. I learned how shoddy many people treated welfare recipients, and I fielded almost daily complaints about the lack of childcare slots.
I have also had the personal experience of having to hide the fact that I was attending college while I was on welfare. Was this cheating? You bet your boots. The system apparently would have preferred to train me to do housekeeping or become some low level secretary. They took this stance because they thought most welfare mothers weren't smart enough to go to college, so they should go directly to work. Ha! What a burn that is!
It is so clear from your comments that you're one of those fortunate people who hasn't yet realized just how close YOU are from being a welfare or Social Security recipient. It can happen to anyone. You could find yourself stricken with a metal illness tomorrow. You could because of some fluke you never thought could have happened loose everything you haveright now. It happens every day, Tamara.
Being a Scout leader, no matter how noble that is, simply doesn't qualify you to know anything about welfare women or parents who are struggling to go a good job without any help other than a paltry welfare check & enough food stamps to last 2 weeks.
You may never become indigent, and your children may because of your "superior" parenting skills turn out to be happy, successful well-educated adults, but I wouldn't count on it, and if they do it will be more pure luck than all that credit you seem to be bestowing upon yourself.
All you would have to do is visit any welfare office and listen to the women's stories for a few months. It would be a huge eye opener for you.
No disrespect intended, but you are waaaay off here, and to carry on this discussion seems futile to me.
Submitted by SHarris on Tue, 2007/08/21 - 12:50pm.
I'm all for making adults accountable...but not at the expense of the kids and I just don't see any way to punish the adults without hurting the kids too. I think we really are all pretty much on the same side...we just come at the solution from different angles. There's a real, workable solution in there somewhere and it probably is some combination of our views/ideas.
One of the reasons I appreciate this blog so much is that we are allowed to passionately, yet respectfully, express our thoughts. I truly value the ideas of people who disagree with me; I've learned more from them than I'll ever learn from folks who think just like I do.
Submitted by Lisa Starbuck on Tue, 2007/08/21 - 12:52pm.
Tamara,
I think what Cathy (and others) were saying is that parents who cheat probably won't follow your proposed rules or reporting requirements either.
And whether they do or they don't is sort of irrelevant because the child suffers either way. You can't force parents to do the right thing if they are determined not to unless you are planning to remove the child if they don't comply - a whole 'nuther mess - the child will just do without. Hence the comment about either caring that the child gets the benefits or not caring if a child whose parents won't follow the rules falls through the cracks.
Submitted by Lisa Starbuck on Tue, 2007/08/21 - 1:07pm.
I think your idea is interesting, and wonder if anyone else has tried it? It would be kind of like getting a needs-based scholarship to learn about how to take care of your child for those who don't have the ability or the motivation to do the right things for their children. Probably turn out to be less expensive than paying the societal costs of poor parenting that we are paying now.
Short of requiring parents to obtain a license before they can have a child, sounds like an idea worth exploring. Otherwise, we will always have some children who will grow up perpetuating the cycle.
Submitted by SammySkull on Tue, 2007/08/21 - 3:32pm.
Pay people to take an interest in their children's education? Then what? Do we pay people to feed their children healthy food? Do we pay them for insisting on seat belt use? You can't force people to do right, and I don't think they should be paid to do right.
For me it all gets back to cops in schools. When we first started putting actual cops into schools, why didn't we stop then and ask if maybe we shouldn't fix the problem instead of calling the cops.
We can assume parents are worse or that kids are worse. Or we can assume that the teachers aren't doing their jobs. Or we can complain that we still aren't giving schools enough money.
Maybe school sucks. Maybe the very concept we use as a model for schools is antiquated and needs to be put to sleep. Maybe it's just a really bad idea to warehouse kids by the thousands.
Submitted by Up Goose Creek on Wed, 2007/08/22 - 11:05am.
If these women to which you refer would lose prescription benefits on returning to a spouse or companion, then presumably that is because their combined incomes should enable them to cover this cost themselves.
This is one of the best arguments for national health care. You have people sitting at home because they can't afford to work and lose their benefits.
I had heard that one could earn a certain amount legally and still obtain SSD benefits. Is this so or do I have it confused with another program.
____________________________________
Less is the new More - Karrie Jacobs
Submitted by talidapali on Fri, 2007/08/24 - 3:01pm.
short answer is yes. You lose your benefits if you work and earn above a certain amount, however. Even if the job you take is not one for which you invested money (student loans) and time (A.A.S.,2 years to earn in night school) to learn to do (like manufacturing computer chips), that you can no longer do because of health problems...in other words, the government would be happy to cut off your SSD if you take a job stuffing envelopes at home, regardless of whether the job is only temporary or pays less than minimum wage (most pay by the piece) because the hours you can actually work at it are limited by pain and disabilities. And even if you earn less than the cut-off wage, they can reduce your benefits (despite the fact that most SSD payments don't even equal minimum wage income per month). Once you lose your benefits you have to go through the application process all over again, which usually takes a good lawyer and 18 months to two years to complete.
_________________________________________________ "You can't fix stupid..." ~ Ron White" "I never said I wasn't a brat..." ~ Talidapali
Submitted by Carole Borges on Wed, 2007/08/22 - 12:41pm.
Most of these women can't just "go back to" anyone. Companions and spouses included. Abuse is a big factor and so is addiction. Very often these women have no one to help them in any way. Part of my job was to try to reconcile family with homeless women with dependent children. It really shocked me to know that many parents and grandparents would let their relatives go homeless just because of something the person did years before.
The majority of people I case managed would have loved to go to work if only their earnings could pay for transportation, daycare, rent, food, utilities and health insurance. They were hungry for the pride this would bring.
I think most progressive states do allow recipients to make a certain amount of money now without losing all their benefits. If I understand it right, this only lasts a short time though.
Some people are simply not trainable. They have extremely low IQs. Some kind of assistance will always be needed to keep them and their kids from being homeless.
Personally as long as I can earn enough money to provide a nice living, I've never worried a whole lot about what my neighbors were doing.
As for the cost of supporting the indigent, in a world simply awash with stuff and more stuff, in a society that allows corporations to get filthy rich because of the sweat of their workers, and that spends trillions of dollars on bombs and war machines, I've never felt a whole lot of concern for the cost.
Rather than bump some poor wench off of welfare why don't people focus on those crooks who are dressed in beautiful suits and designer dresses, but are robbing and wasting our tax dollars in huge amounts every day?
Attacking the poor has always been a very satisfactory pastime for those who are not, and who can blame them? To really do something that means something would take a lot more time and energy than gossiping on the way to a soccer game or huddled by the water cooler in the office.
I sure don't think all poor people are saints & I know there are some people who "use" the system, but the cliche that welfare women are lazy, that they just refuse to work because they have it so good really irks me because it so far from the truth.
It was fabricated by those who seek to maintain a divided country with a distracted populace.
"Creating yet another law enforcement agency, though, does not seem like the best approach, especially one run by a school board that doesn't know much about law enforcement."
What about bringing in the National Guard, once we've brought them home?
Your point about a need to consolidate, not duplicate, government services makes sense to me, Randy.
In this question, though, I'm more concerned that a proposal to create a separate police force for schools is yet another thought to treat the symptom, not the disease.
I think we DO need to ask why the increased violence in today's schools, not just accept that circumstance as a given and fund some intended remedy. I also think we need to be looking harder at parents to be more accountable in lowering the incidence of school violence.
I can't offer a suggestion for the correct remedy to this problem, but I'll share this: I was present at a family gathering recently when the subject was raised of a student having brought a bomb to school. In that instance, the student had fabricated his weapon at home, in his garage. My husband's 80-something year-old aunt seemed puzzled. "When I was raising my son," she offered, "I don't think he could have built a bomb in my garage without my knowledge of it."
Indeed. Let's examine THAT problem a little more closely, before we seek to fund some remedy that ignores it.
In this question, though, I'm more concerned that a proposal to create a separate police force for schools is yet another thought to treat the symptom, not the disease.
Another excellent point.
Today's News Sentinel article is the first I'd heard of having a police force operated by the school system. I want safe and secure schools, as do all parents, but worry that a school police department would send the wrong message. Kids may be treated more like criminals than students. It often seems we are too quick to put a child into the juvenile justice system for issues that used to be resolved at the school level.
What problem are we trying to solve? KPD and KCSO already provide officers at all our middle and high schools, and we have resource officers (KCS employees) at many schools too. I hear very good reports about the work these security officers do. Will more police officers cut back on bullying and fighting? The best way to promote safety and security is to facilitate communication and positive interactions between the students and adults in the school building.
Indya Kincannon
Will more police officers cut back on bullying?
But the police officers can show the kids how it is supposed to be done.
I frankly think that putting the resources into a functioning guidance office would be money better spent.
K.Carson
The article in the News Sentinel did not state that Knox County is considering the possibility of establishing its own police force. The question of establishing a police force for schools was brought to the state legislators by Memphis City Schools. According to the News Sentinel reporter, this will be studied by the state this fall. All quotes related to Knox County schools were in response to a direct question from the reporter asking what we thought of the idea. While no one wanted to dismiss the idea without any investigation, I think everyone in KCS was quick to point out that
1. We have a good working relationship right now
2. Funding would be a major issue (maybe because we realize the need to address other needs, comprehensive health care, hard to staff schools and subject areas)
3. Security is important in our schools
It is just not fair to make the jump that we are choosing cops over nurses.
All quotes related to Knox County schools were in response to a direct question from the reporter asking what we thought of the idea. While no one wanted to dismiss the idea without any investigation...
Interesting.
a functioning guidance office would be money better spent
Agreed. My guidance counselors in high school were, IMO, very helpful and nice.
I suspect guidance counselors may play favorites a little. Not that I was very special but I did listen, heed their advice and my parents were quite involved. It probably also helped that I had an older brother that was a star basketball player at the same school, an English teacher worked with my Mom during the war in Oak Ridge, and one of the counselors was Mildred Doyle's sister (I believe) with whom my Dad did some work. Thus, they knew who I was. Gee, it all adds up. I was destined to be nagged and pretty much couldn't get away with anything. Community building is a beautiful thing.
Link...
The idea of a school police force “is loaded with possibilities and opportunities,” said Steve Griffin, Knox County Schools security chief.
The district’s security officers already carry guns and perform many of the duties of law enforcement officials, he said.
Having a police force “basically raises the standards,” and officers will be able to make arrests and receive extensive training, he said.
He envisions the department would be year-round, 24 hours a day.
Additionally, “this would allow the police department and sheriff’s department to concentrate their manpower in other places where they may feel they need it,” Griffin said.
The kids who are most likely to have a problem that could become dangerous tend not to have a very close relationship with any authority, let alone the police
The solution that has helped many other communites is rather simple and not all that costly either: anger management classes for ALL students, trained peer groups specifically designed to stop bullying before things get painful, and a school that doesn't look down on those kids who feel exiled from their peers (and everything else). And yes, more emphasis on counseling.
Most of the massacres seem to have occured because kids felt totally alienated from everything, felt the other kids had hurt them, or had mental problems left undiagonosed and without good management by a trained therapist.
Another benefit mentioned in the KNS article is to have more kids exposed at a younger age to the police so they learn they are not to be feared but rather trusted and to keep lines of communications open.
I think this is a great idea. But is it something that can be accomoplished by regular visits and outreach by the PD, like in civics classes (oh, wait, do they still have civics classes?) school assemblies, presence at sporting and other events, etc. etc. etc.
"The kids who are most likely to have a problem that could become dangerous tend not to have a very close relationship with any authority, let alone the police."
Bingo, Carole. I've been on a 24 hour rant on this general subject over at the School Matters blog recently. Maybe I sound like some puckered-up old Church Lady, but a decade of school volunteerism has left me a little jaded recently WRT just how much time and money is spent in public education in an attempt to fulfill the role that used to be parents'.
Tutoring, anger management, birth control, STDs, gun safety, bike safety, interviewing skills and etiquette...do today's parents think they have no responsibilies beyond feeding their children and occaisionally hosing them down? And is it any wonder educators are having trouble squeezing in some time for the three Rs?
From plummeting student achievement to increased violence and promiscuity among youth, this left-leanin' momma is really starting to get chapped at our apparent contentedness as a society to just slough off ALL these problems on our public education system.
With the head of steam I've worked up in recent years, if I sat on that dais today, my very first question concerning the proposal of a program or policy like this one would be to ask "Is this a task we can and should impose on parents, rather than on schools?" And if so, "How can we adopt a policy to assure that parents will suffer the consequence of their failure to parent in this regard?"
I don't think I'd take this topic too far off course to suggest that public education has a huge cultural problem to address in creating those policies that better separate their responsibilities from those that must be returned to parents.
One of the best things about public school used to be the way it attempted to help children learn things their parents were unable to teach them. The romantic idea that parents of the past were so perfect is really not very accurate. Children were often beaten like cattle back then. Uneducated parents could not help children with homework. They were not taught about health or hygiene by their parents. They were often encouraged to work rather than go to school, and the scope they had of the world was often limited to life in their immediate family or their small community of like-minded people.
It would seem some of the parents of today exhibit the same problems, the only difference is now the schools don't usually care because there has a been a trend away from believing in our school system and a resistence to funding it properly. Affluent parents and families who are privileged enough to have one parent stay home to be the teacher has the option now of sending their kids to school or not. They can decide to send their offspring to private school. These good parents have opted out of the public school system because they want what is best for their children, but many of these people really don't care that much what happens in the public schools. They see public school as a place where inferior children are taught by inferior teachers. They see public schools as crime-infested drug-ridden hovels, and the truth is some of them have become exactly like that.
Too many good people expect all parents to somehow be as great and devoted as they are. You have to have an incredibly naive mind to even entertain that wish. The real world is simply much too complex. Our society does not create all perfect, capable people. Maybe someday when we perfect cloning that will be seen as fantastic, but right now some people are imperfect. Additionally we have a media that promotes violence, decadence and guns, and what can you expect?
Public schools used to be a haven for kids from terrible homes(SOME STILL Are). They used to offer these kids love, learning, and a picture of a life where you could be anything you want to be. Now it's all about the numbers (tests, tests, and more tests) and teacher survival (42 kids in a classroom with 1940s texbooks and no real training on what to do about behavior problems).
When did we as a society stop believing ALL the children of next generation were "our" children?
Throughout history the most successful Americans did not all go to private school. They were not homeschooled. They came out of places that were tough by any standards, places like Hell's Kitchen or Chicago's Little Italy, but they rose high and became educators and scientists and writers and artists because they had great, useful educational tools handed to them. The kind of tools that could help off-set all their domestic disadvantages.
More police are not the answer. Pushing responsibilities off on inept and sometimes downright cruel and uneducated parents who can't handle them is not the answer either. The answer is to fund and care. To honor the teachers who are in the trenches helping kids with low skills and no behavior training. To create more indiviualized instruction by providing more teachers who really know how to teach and lots of aides to help them.
So many people seem to think of public school kids are only dangerous animals. Like the school is the cage and the only way to control the kids is to have a gun in one hand and a whip in the other.
Having worked with and taught kids who could only attend our school after they were thrown out of every private or public school in our area, I can assure you these kids are not animals. They are sad human beings hungry for love and hope. They often have no clue what it means to be loved and many are not poor even, no matter how high their parents' income might be, they lack what they need to be successful learners. Some are born with learning problems, others are so medicated with prescription drugs they have little control of their own thinking. Most of them hate themselves too because they know they are seen as failures.
In my experience though most of these children will respond with enthusiasm, loyalty, and intelligence when given half a chance.
I truly believe it is not the children of today that can be blamed for the failures they sometimes present, nor is it fair to place all the blame on the parents. The shame of this failure is a collective one. Our society cares less, pays proportionately less, and provides less than most schools in other countries.
In the good old days people lynched other people. In the good old days wives were commonly beaten. In the good old days many people had to quit school to go to work at the age of twelve. Murders still happened. Rape still happened. Some would even argue people were generally crueler back then.
If our public schools were funded and supported with as many funds as we enjoy pouring into wars, the idea of needing more police in them wouldn't even cross our minds.
(oh, wait, do they still have civics classes?)
About four years ago, I was involved in a history project funded by the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation. The project was in part to preserve artifacts from the Japanese-American concentration camps (that's what the J-A's call them) in Southeast Arkansas. The other part was to develop education curriruclum and materials. The elementary teachers said that they couldn't teach it because No Child Left Behind concentrated on reading and math. What happened was we snuck it in as a book.
The kids have basically no social studies until high school. Yeah, there's some stuff earlier, but it's not cohesive and it's just a smattering here or there.
On the other hand, I can remember my junior high civis class when the state representative came to talk. That was cool.
Pam Strickland
"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." ~Kurt Vonnegut
Another benefit mentioned in the KNS article is to have more kids exposed at a younger age to the police so they learn they are not to be feared but rather trusted and to keep lines of communications open.
Exposure to cops may help ease some people's fear of them, but if we have people that are scared of cops, wouldn't this be one more way of treating the symptom?
Though it isn't necessarily a reason we homeschool, this is a benefit. I can't imagine why I would ever want to send my kids to schools that actually needs cops. If our schools are so far gone that we are even tentatively discussing them having their own police force, then we are willing to accept just about anything rather than admit that our schools are failing.
Maybe Redflex has some sort of school camera program.
If our schools are so far gone that we are even tentatively discussing them having their own police force, then we are willing to accept just about anything rather than admit that our schools are failing.
I think this is more of a case of us failing our schools.
When I was a kid, I thought of the police as a safe haven.
After being around the "resource officer" at their school, my kids formed a very low opinion of the police. That is a sad and unfortunate thing. I don't think more contact with the police will change that.
For now, the kids see the police when the drug dog shows up to make them all feel like criminals.
The last time I tried to express my opinions, someone called me "part of the problem" and accused me of being a clueless moron because only someone whose mother was a teacher knows anything about schools, education or parenting. I will try again anyway. I will even go so far as to point out that my grandmother was an inner city schools teacher in California, I minored in education, I did my student teaching at a middle school and I have worked with teens and families at Haslam, Florence Crittendon and all over East TN. Knox County Schools Police Department is a terrible idea. Knox County doesn't need Redflex, the schools are already completely wired. There is probably not enough money or manpower to save some of the teens in our schools, but we have to try.
Punishing their parents will not help the children. By that logic, we should go ahead and throw away all the children whose parents are in jail. Then throw away the children whose parents can't beat their drug and alcohol problems. Be sure to throw away all the children living in shelters or on the streets, too. It goes without saying that the children of parents with physical and emotional health issues are not worthy enough either.
We can't make our grandparents see the ignorance in their racism, sexism and homophobia. We can teach our children. Our ancestors didn't succeed as parents because they did EVERYTHING. They succeeded because they had extended families, churches and communities working together to help those in need and those who couldn't or wouldn't help themselves.
We must recognize that some parents simply can't or won't be involved with their child's education, no matter what. The child shouldn't have to suffer because of a parent's lack of skill or ambition.
I also support greater funding for public education, but what is naive is to assume that any amount of funding spent in a manner that circumvents the need to involve parents in their children's raising is anything but money ill spent and is anything but unlikely to compensate the child for his loss.
Would anyone care to speculate why children didn't carry bombs to school a generation ago? We had gunpowder...
They did! The world was not so small back then. We were more concerned with our home town issues and less with the nation and the world. Once upon a time, local news took precedent over other news. Remember national news being just a half-hour before the hour of local news?
Cable, CNN, and the Internet have brought other people's problems into our living rooms. The world has grown smaller but more dense. We consume more information about things that do not directly affect us while becoming more disconnected with the things that do directly affect us. Used to be "it took a community" and neighbors would step up instead of shy away. As a child, I was out past dusk with a girl. I don't know why we did it but we were behind the church breaking bottles on the concrete basketball court. A neighbor came out with a broom, informed us that our parents were already notified of our wrong doings, and that after we had finished cleaning our mess that we were to go directly home where we would be sent to bed without dinner. It was a mortifying experience with a strong lesson. Today I am sure the police would simply have been called.
"Back then" we treated issues more realistically. We have grown reactionary. I blame the sensationalist news reporting. In the 8th grade, I wired a friend's locker with an alarm and shoved a bunch of Playboy pictures in it so that when he opened the locker a piercing noise filled the hallway and wads of pictures of naked women poured from the locker. Every student and teacher knew of the prank except for victim. Today the school would have been shutdown, the bomb squad brought in to diffuse the device, I would have been expelled and placed on Homeland Security's watchlist, and my folks sent to jail.
The Dangerous Book for Boys has such popularity because our generation remembers a more rationale time when we accepted that kids will be kids and we allowed them to be kids so that they could learn and grow into adults. Yes, cherry bombs in the toilets made an expensive mess of the plumbing but we didn't ruin a person's life over it.
Anyone remember when high schoolers would drive their pickups to school with their rifles hanging on the gun racks in the window because after school they planned on going hunting?
Doug McCaughan
Link...
I know someone who blew up a locker at Farragut High in the early 90s. The school treated it like a prank.
The early nineties was not a generation ago, unless we're ready to accept fifteen year-old mothers as the norm, too.
Students in the 90s are married with children of their own now. At my high school, there were rifles in the windows of all the pickups parked in the parking lot. Elaborate pranks that would get students arrested today were expected from the seniors. We had no police officer or school security.
Maybe you are younger than I by more years than I realized!
What I meant by "a generation ago" was in MY generation (which maybe wasn't your's), when I was a student, not a parent.
In MY generation, we did not know anything of school security officers, metal detectors, or bombs and guns and knives brought to school. And yes, schools were decidedly safer.
My question, then, is why are schools so much less safe today than they were then? What has changed?
Determining what has changed will tell us how (and to whom) to address the problem, I think.
In MY generation, we did not know anything of school security officers, metal detectors, or bombs and guns and knives brought to school. And yes, schools were decidedly safer.
I graduated high school in 1975. I remember several times during my junior & senior years that bomb threats were called into the school. The threats were usually called in by someone wanting to get out of a class period. When the threats became an almost weekly occurrence, the police were called in to investigate. A few students were caught and suspended and the bomb threats stopped. We did have a "security officer" of sorts. In my junior year it was one of the popular substitute teachers and then in my senior year the school hired an honest-to-goodness security guard. The main "security" issues were smoking in the bathrooms (even though we had a designated smoking area), skipping class and hidden stashes of pot or pills in lockers.
Few kids back then were medicated in order to control them. We acted out by dressing the way we wanted or wearing our hair the way we wanted. I could wear shorts & halter tops. We were allowed more freedom to be individuals. Sure, the schools still tried to fit us into "boxes" but those boxes were bigger than they are today.
I also went to a neighborhood school. The kids and many teachers in my classes lived near me. There was a sense of community. I think that is the main thing lacking in today's schools.
In some cases it is CHOICES made by a parent that results in poor parenting skills. In other cases, it is CIRCUMSTANCES that lead to the same results.
But, why punish the kids for the parent's poor CHOICES or CIRCUMSTANCES?
What has changed?
Video games
Violence in "entertainment"
Families with two working parents to make ends meet
Deadbeat/MIA dads
Idiocracy
Etc...
(P.S. When I was growing up, nobody brought guns or bombs to school, but knives were cool among some factions. I blame West Side Story and Nat Hentoff books.)
my soph year in HS there was a riot
the next day national guard troops surrounded the school
police patroled the halls & guarded the bathrooms
Unfortunately too often the only connection they have with the school is when something goes wrong. When it does, the whole situation too often dissolves into a blame game. The parents blame the schools, and the schools blame the parents. Usually both try to blame the kid with the problem.
The truth seems to be that parents are not doing a good job and our schools aren't either.
Early admission into the education system helps. Pre-school programs like Head Start have been extremely successful. Working parents have a heck of a time affording even half-a-day of daycare, so they'd probably be very grateful if public pre-school programs were from 9-5 with extended hours for those who didn't get off work until 5:30 or 6:00. That would earn a lot of parental involvement. Often when they schools give parents what they need, they become much more willing to feel part of a team.
Learning disabilities that are not diagnosed and treated early account for a large percentage of disenchanted students and frustrated parents. Too many students get moved along without learning anything & it's very embarassing for them. Instead of cooperating, they end up acting out in class or bullying the other students who can learn faster. When they get older the embarassment can turn into hostility.
When I taught college, I blamed the high school teachers. They blamed the elementary school system and the governmental mandates that made no sense like the underfunded "No Child Left Behind". Elementary teachers seemed to think they were doing as good a job as they could with so many kids in a classroom. Trying to blame any of the multiple people, or multiple problems the kids are having, on one group just isn't helpful. We need a comprehensive and open-minded look at the whole educational system here, and it wouldn't hurt at all if we looked at France's system which puts tremendous amounts of money into their schools, and starts kids very early.
The whole situation is so frustrating once you look at it, that you just want to scream, but the days go on and some bright or very determined kids somehow do succeed with or without good parental involvement, and they contribute much to our society. So many devoted teachers even in shabby schools stay on and love their jobs and look forward to each day.
Many children who have it all--involved parents. high-tech learning tools from kindergarten on up, and the comfort of a social network designed by their parents to be healthy and good--fail in spite of all their advantages.
In my humble experience, the most important thing a kid can have is someone who knows them as an individual, understands the obstacles that stand in the way of their being a successful learner, respects them and encourages them lavishly, and is honest as sin when it comes to telling them gently what their good points and their weaknesses are--not because they want to "straighten them out", but because they really truly care about the kid.
What I keep mulling is how so many of the priorities set in today's families must alienate children, and must surely invite greater violence on their part. Cathy had this observation:
"Our ancestors didn't succeed as parents because they did EVERYTHING. They succeeded because they had extended families, churches and communities working together to help those in need and those who couldn't or wouldn't help themselves."
But families still have all those supports, if we choose to avail ourselves of them. If we don't live near extended family, that's a CHOICE. If we don't have a church familiy, that's a CHOICE. If we don't know our neighbors, that's a CHOICE. And all of these CHOICES must leave families, and especially their kids, lonlier and maybe angrier than in previous generations.
It's a phenomenon that transcends family income or marital status, too:
At one end of my community's income spectrum, I see too many parents who CHOOSE to spend on tanning beds and fake fingernails and satellite TV, but opt out of picking good summer camps for their kids or subscribing to the daily newspaper (and discussing it over the dinnertable).
Their kids aren't "latchkeys" because the parents can't afford daycare, they're "latchkeys" so the family can take cruises or live in $300,000 (empty) homes. That's their CHOICE.
At the other end of my community's income spectrum, I see too many parents who CHOOSE to live in trailers and even Section 8 apartments so that they can shower their kids with go-carts and ATVs, X Box 360's, $100 sneakers, and cell phones by the age of nine.
I provide their children's Scout uniforms and handbooks (and get them to and from meetings, too), school supplies, field trip money, and books purchased at the school Book Fair. The schools feed their children two hot meals daily. And the parents remain on the public dole only because one spouse is working for cash-under-the-table, or because they're single moms masking the hefty incomes of their live-in boyfriends--resulting in household incomes likely equal to my own. That's their CHOICE.
In my experience, families like these aren't exceptions--they're the norm.
Oh, I experienced some measure of affirmation for my CHOICES on a school-related outing last spring. After the Scholar's Bowl team filmed over at WKOP, we parents and kids gathered at Ruby Tuesday for a late lunch.
I glanced over the menu and ventured the comment that our family didn't eat out very often, as we lived on just one income. Every one of my parental peers chimed in that they were also single-income families and rarely ate out.
Over the appetizers or salads we all called lunch, we discovered that none of us had cable TV, none of us carried cell phones, and none of us had purchased or planned to purchase a car for our child at age sixteen. One of us reported that he had insured his son on his (the parent's) car, and had found it not too expensive, since his car was fifteen years old. The others among us weren't sure we would be able to do that, either. All of us, it turned out, took our family vacations in tents.
We took turns lavishing praise on one another's very smart, funny, kind-hearted, good-lookin' younguns, and we didn't pass up the chance to point out to those younguns that we'd all made similar CHOICES as to what would be important in our families. Our younguns rolled their eyes at us, but they grinned, too.
We talked at length about how good it was to get to know other parents who had made the same CHOICES we had, and we stayed on at the table even after the Bowl's teacher-sponsors had left. Finally, we all took one another in bear-hugs, and climbed into our rattle-trap old cars to go home.
I didn't ask them specifically if they thought their children would ever, in a million years, bring a bomb to school, but I think I know how they'd answer. Same as me.
"And the parents remain on the public dole only because one spouse is working for cash-under-the-table, or because they're single moms masking the hefty incomes of their live-in boyfriends-"
Tamara, Tamara, Tamara---how could you possibly believe this urban myth?
It's nice that you and your friends are great moms and that you live some sort of minimalistic existence in order to be sure not to be buying anything frivolous for yourself, but your view of other parents is sadly distorted.
The statement which was originally was based on racism and class ignorance has been handed down and around from one resentful ignorant person to another for too long. It really ought to be banned.
"Tamara, Tamara, Tamara---how could you possibly believe this urban myth?"
Before I answer your comment, Carole, I want to point out where I think the dissonance is arising in this conversation.
The clearest example is in a comment SHarris made earlier, in which s/he referenced parents who "can't or won't" act responsibly in their roles. What we need to understand is that these are two very different categories of parents, and that society has no obligation whatsoever to support the latter.
No, this need not be interpreted as my suggestion to "abandon" the children of these. Hang on...
Now, Cathy cites a group of parents to include those with drug addiction problems, who are incarcerated, and so forth, urging the social services they need to resume and maintain their parental responsibilities (I say "resume" because they likely don't have custody of their children anyway, or else won't retain custody for long). I don't think any of us would argue that need.
I think you'll note, though, that the other parents I cite are of a very different ilk, and I assure you that their existence is not an "urban myth." As I say, their prevalence is the source of my recent frustration, and it is their prevalence, too, that has caused my thoughts to turn to how our public school policies should change to charge them with greater accountability.
I've likely mentioned my thirteen years as a Girl Scout and Boy Scout leader? It is a setting in which we families get to know one another very well, through trips and sleepovers and an association that lasts for years (provided I continue picking up and dropping off the children of some).
Apparently this will surprise you, but among the maybe 15 or 20 children for whom I've purchased uniforms, insignia, books, (and for whom the school system also supplies two hot meals daily), only two ever actually qualified for such assistance. In EVERY other family, this situation of masking a live-in's income or hiding cash-under-the-table income existed.
On the basis of what these parents have *personally revealed* to me, one married mom, whose husband works full-time, earns $30,000 annually in cash as a senior home comanion. Another married mom draws Social Security Disablility, yet operates a full-time housecleaning service employing five other women (several of whom also draw SSD). A third masks rental income from property. A single mom I know is not compelled to list, for the purposes of obtaining social services, the ORNL income of her long-term live-in boyfriend (and common-law husband), or her child support, either. In fact, EVERY single mom whose costs I've absorbed over the years also had household income she masked from a live-in boyfriend, often long-term.
The most common scam I see involves Social Security Disability, which is apparently available for all manner of afflictions, real or imagined, with bipolar disorder being the affliction of choice. Recipients speak freely of their benefits, and cite their need to work for cash so that the benefits won't be withdrawn. I don't know about you, but I have never met ANY such recipient who does not also work for cash, including two who live on my street (one operates a pretty well-equipped lawn service).
I think you'll agree with me that parents like these are unlikely to produce children with much of a code of ethics. Pesonally, I suspect they'll produce children likely to subscribe to the same code as theirs, especially given that their children are consistently in need of remedial educational services, increasing the liklihood that they will be unable to support themselves later.
So, what can we do? I do have some concrete suggestions.
First, if we're to make the best use of our budgets for children's education, we need to require that applications for financial aid from schools (or Scouting costs, for that matter) reveal 1099 income (yes, we need the cooperation of these employers), rental income, child support, and at least common-law spouses, if not more transient live-in adults in the household.
Second, we will weed out fraudulent applications by also requiring that assets be listed (I mentioned some applicants' rental property, but maybe not the speedboats and RVs in driveways). The approval process for such applications should then reject applicants whose assets surpass some predetermined cap. (These two practices are common in other aid application processes, outside schools.)
Then, for those applicants truly qualifying for aid, I think that parenting instruction should be a condition for receiving it, to include an overview of other aid conditions, like attending parent conferences, signing syllabi and test scores coming home, assuring homework completion, etc. (Some here may maintain that this measure "singles out" aid recipients, but what I suggest is no different than the pledge parents of Project Grad students sign.)
Taking these measures would better define the contract between parents and schools, and funding recognized from tighter controls of the aid process might be directed into increased counseling and support for these students, as well.
Recipients speak freely of their benefits, and cite their need to work for cash so that the benefits won't be withdrawn.
And if they vote, they're probably staunch Republicans.
Mostly because of the media that was pointed out in a previous post here. This can amount to paranoia, to a belief that they are all dangerous and bad.
Can you imagine how it must feel to grow up that way?
I hate shows that highlight crime and perversion, that try to give the impression that they are somehow helping solve crimes--that pornographic series on MSNBC about Internet creeps seducing under age kids is a good example. Who watches that crap? It feeds you the impression everyone is out to do harm and tintillates those are able to lap up the sexy dialogue under the guise of caring about kids--and these shows are everywhere.
I don't know when this trend to see ourselves and our neighbors as mostly evil gained momentumn, but it's really gotten out of hand.
Sometimes I suspect it is a global corporate conspiracy to kept the masses busy so the people with money and power can steal the world blind and make serfs out of all of us.
Why can't we start to celebrate who we are, who are neighnbors are, and all the good kind people and the concerned parents and the young innovators we are producing in this society?
Fear, hopelessness, despair and ignorance are also CHOICES.
Why are you determined to make children suffer for their parents' sins?
You think Bipolar is imaginary? Attend a support group and listen to the stories of people desperately trying to get SSI.
There will always be bad people doing bad things. When I worked in a CPA's office a lifetime ago, upper middle class people would pay the CPA's to fill out the financial sections of their children's college scholarship applications. No amount of laws, rules or locks can stop people who are determined to lie, cheat and steal. All that additional bureaucracies accomplish is keeping the truly needy from getting help. People on government assistance do extra things for cash because they can't survive on benefits. Most of them barely make it with benefits and the cash jobs. Our current system punishes people who are married or in committed relationships. Talk to the women in the "Pines" or the shelters downtown about how they can't be with their partners because they would lose the medications they need to live or the roof over their heads.
You either care about all children or you don't. If they have to be "worthy" of your time and money or you think you have a right to tell them how to live, you don't really care.
"You are determined to make children suffer for their parents' sins aren't you?"
I'm not sure I follow how requiring that parents attend conferences, sign syllabi and test scores coming home, and assure that homework is completed constitutes "suffering" on the part of either parent or child?
"You think Bipolar is imaginary?"
For this particular mom, it is. She has worked daily (for cash) with her sister's housekeeping service, while drawing SSD, for the full eight years I have known her. She tells me that her effective pay rate works out to about $10 per hour.
Her son is recently attending the Richard Yoakley alternative school, BTW.
"There will always be bad people doing bad things."
You seem to suggest that we shouldn't work to minimize the problem, then?
"No amount of laws, rules or locks can stop people who are determined to lie, cheat and steal."
Please refer to previous response, above.
"All that additional bureaucracies accomplish is keeping the truly needy from getting help."
I suggest a tighter application process, not a new bureaucracy. I do not see why a tighter application process would keep the truly needy from getting help.
"People on government assistance do extra things for cash because they can't survive on benefits."
This is illegal, and not to be defended, whether we're talking about SSD, unemployment compensation, or any number of other assistance programs.
"Our current system punishes people who are married or in committed relationships. Talk to the women in the "Pines" or the shelters downtown about how they can't be with their partners because they would lose the medications they need to live or the roof over their heads."
If these women to which you refer would lose prescription benefits on returning to a spouse or companion, then presumably that is because their combined incomes should enable them to cover this cost themselves. How is that a penalty?
"You either care about all children or you don't. If they have to be "worthy" of your time and money or you think you have a right to tell them how to live, you don't really care."
Honestly, Cathy. I could probably produce $6,500 in receipts, about $500 annually, to document just my out-of-pocket costs in working with Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts over the last 13 years, not to mention the many other efforts I'm involved in. I don't mind telling you, either, that, all told, it's a pretty sizable chunk of my family's modest income.
In my relations with these children, I have not distinguished between those whose parents need the leg up and those whose parents do not, as all are, as you say, "worthy." Still, I would expect reasonable people to understand that repeatedly helping families in which the adults "cheat" is frustrating.
Nor do I propose "telling people how to live" when I maintain that adults receiving financial assistance from government, or from schools, or from Scouts, have an obligation to apply for those services in good faith and to fulfill the contractual agreements they enter into to obtain that assistance. Your repeated suggestion that they have no such obligation is getting to be a bit offensive, not to mention irrational.
Your last clause on the subject of my caring is completely indefensible and unprovoked.
I don't think I have any more time this morning to argue with people who think our schools have always been threatened with bombs and guns, or who think cash and services, from either my pocket or the government's, are inalienable rights over which no conditions may be imposed.
Later, then.
to those children if you, or someone had not stepped up and provided Scout uniforms and/or equipment? Do you believe those parents would have provided them? Probably not!
By limiting assistance to only those whom YOU deem worthy and insisting even they pass your litmus test (parenting classes) you are sentencing their children to forever remaining in a hopeless situation.
We must find a way to ensure that EVERY child, regardless of what kind of parents they have, receive an EQUAL opporunity to gain the skills to better themselves.
If these kids don't get parenting at home and they don't get it at school then what kind of adults will they become?
Unless you live in some kind of community full of mentally ill welfare recipients who for some peculiar reason are willing to expose themselves to you (an upstanding member of your community) as criminals, I have to say your stories about those parents bragging about their crimes to you sounds pretty darn far-fetched.
But okay, let's say they are true. A few totally bizarre people seem to have crossed your path then.
I have been a mother on welfare for a brief time(after divorcing my first husband who didn't want to provide child support) and I have also been a social worker for the Dept. of Welfare. During the time I was in school I worked for many organizations doing advocacy work for the poor. Not once during my decades of experience have I ever hear anyone on welfare bragging about their "gravy train".
The only place people get this idea is in newspapers citing the few highly notorious cases that do occur and by word of mouth by people like yourself who have no idea what most welfare mothers are really like. Instead I listened to complaints about how cruel it is for a society that refuses to provide affordable daycare and affordable medical insurance to condemn welfare mothers for not working for minimum wage. I learned how shoddy many people treated welfare recipients, and I fielded almost daily complaints about the lack of childcare slots.
I have also had the personal experience of having to hide the fact that I was attending college while I was on welfare. Was this cheating? You bet your boots. The system apparently would have preferred to train me to do housekeeping or become some low level secretary. They took this stance because they thought most welfare mothers weren't smart enough to go to college, so they should go directly to work. Ha! What a burn that is!
It is so clear from your comments that you're one of those fortunate people who hasn't yet realized just how close YOU are from being a welfare or Social Security recipient. It can happen to anyone. You could find yourself stricken with a metal illness tomorrow. You could because of some fluke you never thought could have happened loose everything you haveright now. It happens every day, Tamara.
Being a Scout leader, no matter how noble that is, simply doesn't qualify you to know anything about welfare women or parents who are struggling to go a good job without any help other than a paltry welfare check & enough food stamps to last 2 weeks.
You may never become indigent, and your children may because of your "superior" parenting skills turn out to be happy, successful well-educated adults, but I wouldn't count on it, and if they do it will be more pure luck than all that credit you seem to be bestowing upon yourself.
All you would have to do is visit any welfare office and listen to the women's stories for a few months. It would be a huge eye opener for you.
No disrespect intended, but you are waaaay off here, and to carry on this discussion seems futile to me.
I'm all for making adults accountable...but not at the expense of the kids and I just don't see any way to punish the adults without hurting the kids too. I think we really are all pretty much on the same side...we just come at the solution from different angles. There's a real, workable solution in there somewhere and it probably is some combination of our views/ideas.
One of the reasons I appreciate this blog so much is that we are allowed to passionately, yet respectfully, express our thoughts. I truly value the ideas of people who disagree with me; I've learned more from them than I'll ever learn from folks who think just like I do.
Tamara,
I think what Cathy (and others) were saying is that parents who cheat probably won't follow your proposed rules or reporting requirements either.
And whether they do or they don't is sort of irrelevant because the child suffers either way. You can't force parents to do the right thing if they are determined not to unless you are planning to remove the child if they don't comply - a whole 'nuther mess - the child will just do without. Hence the comment about either caring that the child gets the benefits or not caring if a child whose parents won't follow the rules falls through the cracks.
I threw this idea out here once before, and I'll throw it out here again:
Pay low-income parents to attend PTA meetings, teacher/parent conferences, school workshops, and the like.
This might help some needy parents who can't afford baby sitters, time off from work, transportation, etc. get more involved in their kids' education.
I think your idea is interesting, and wonder if anyone else has tried it? It would be kind of like getting a needs-based scholarship to learn about how to take care of your child for those who don't have the ability or the motivation to do the right things for their children. Probably turn out to be less expensive than paying the societal costs of poor parenting that we are paying now.
Short of requiring parents to obtain a license before they can have a child, sounds like an idea worth exploring. Otherwise, we will always have some children who will grow up perpetuating the cycle.
Pay people to take an interest in their children's education? Then what? Do we pay people to feed their children healthy food? Do we pay them for insisting on seat belt use? You can't force people to do right, and I don't think they should be paid to do right.
For me it all gets back to cops in schools. When we first started putting actual cops into schools, why didn't we stop then and ask if maybe we shouldn't fix the problem instead of calling the cops.
We can assume parents are worse or that kids are worse. Or we can assume that the teachers aren't doing their jobs. Or we can complain that we still aren't giving schools enough money.
Maybe school sucks. Maybe the very concept we use as a model for schools is antiquated and needs to be put to sleep. Maybe it's just a really bad idea to warehouse kids by the thousands.
If these women to which you refer would lose prescription benefits on returning to a spouse or companion, then presumably that is because their combined incomes should enable them to cover this cost themselves.
This is one of the best arguments for national health care. You have people sitting at home because they can't afford to work and lose their benefits.
I had heard that one could earn a certain amount legally and still obtain SSD benefits. Is this so or do I have it confused with another program.
____________________________________
Less is the new More - Karrie Jacobs
short answer is yes. You lose your benefits if you work and earn above a certain amount, however. Even if the job you take is not one for which you invested money (student loans) and time (A.A.S.,2 years to earn in night school) to learn to do (like manufacturing computer chips), that you can no longer do because of health problems...in other words, the government would be happy to cut off your SSD if you take a job stuffing envelopes at home, regardless of whether the job is only temporary or pays less than minimum wage (most pay by the piece) because the hours you can actually work at it are limited by pain and disabilities. And even if you earn less than the cut-off wage, they can reduce your benefits (despite the fact that most SSD payments don't even equal minimum wage income per month). Once you lose your benefits you have to go through the application process all over again, which usually takes a good lawyer and 18 months to two years to complete.
_________________________________________________
"You can't fix stupid..." ~ Ron White"
"I never said I wasn't a brat..." ~ Talidapali
Most of these women can't just "go back to" anyone. Companions and spouses included. Abuse is a big factor and so is addiction. Very often these women have no one to help them in any way. Part of my job was to try to reconcile family with homeless women with dependent children. It really shocked me to know that many parents and grandparents would let their relatives go homeless just because of something the person did years before.
The majority of people I case managed would have loved to go to work if only their earnings could pay for transportation, daycare, rent, food, utilities and health insurance. They were hungry for the pride this would bring.
I think most progressive states do allow recipients to make a certain amount of money now without losing all their benefits. If I understand it right, this only lasts a short time though.
Some people are simply not trainable. They have extremely low IQs. Some kind of assistance will always be needed to keep them and their kids from being homeless.
Personally as long as I can earn enough money to provide a nice living, I've never worried a whole lot about what my neighbors were doing.
As for the cost of supporting the indigent, in a world simply awash with stuff and more stuff, in a society that allows corporations to get filthy rich because of the sweat of their workers, and that spends trillions of dollars on bombs and war machines, I've never felt a whole lot of concern for the cost.
Rather than bump some poor wench off of welfare why don't people focus on those crooks who are dressed in beautiful suits and designer dresses, but are robbing and wasting our tax dollars in huge amounts every day?
Attacking the poor has always been a very satisfactory pastime for those who are not, and who can blame them? To really do something that means something would take a lot more time and energy than gossiping on the way to a soccer game or huddled by the water cooler in the office.
I sure don't think all poor people are saints & I know there are some people who "use" the system, but the cliche that welfare women are lazy, that they just refuse to work because they have it so good really irks me because it so far from the truth.
It was fabricated by those who seek to maintain a divided country with a distracted populace.
I won't mention any names.
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