Education is NOT the answer. Not at a macro/societal level. Taking an individual example and extrapolating it to everyone who is poor is very misleading. There are a lot of people here who came from very little and now are doing very well. While that is great, it does not mean that every person in the country can achieve the same thing.

Just so we're clear, we're talking about many millions of Americans. By the CBO's standards, 36 million Americans live below the poverty line (About $20k for a family of 4), another 13 million within 25% of the poverty line. You could say these 50 million Americans are the 'working poor'. There are about 5 million Americans on some form of welfare (I can't find 2006/7 numbers, so this may be off a bit).

For an individual who is not satisfied with his standing, education can be the answer, as can hard work, sacrifice, taking opportunities that are already there, or some combination of these. But none of those things solve the issue of large numbers of people in poverty, generational poverty, or welfare reliance/abuse.

Think of it this way: if the 5 million welfare recipients, or worse yet the 50 million working poor, all decided to get some formal education (college degree, technical/trade skill, etc), the value of that education drops rapidly. The market of people who will wash your dishes, mow your lawn, pick up your trash - all gone. Your college degree that gets you $75k/yr would become a requirement to work at Wal-Mart. As much as we hate to admit it, society needs poor people to work jobs that the Bourgeoisie (that'd be us ) finds unacceptable. Of course, many Americans steadfastly refuse those jobs, so we have shifted much of that burden to immigrant workers, which is an entirely different subject. But because society is reliant on a proletariat class, it is the Bourgeoisie's responsibility to ensure the working poor and under/unemployed can get by.

 

Well-put and well thought out

 

I think education can be the answer, but it needs to be implemented in the elementary and secondary levels. NOT only a college/ post high school trade education.

There is so much wrong with our education system, but yet I think there can be a lot of good to come out of it.

Also, where I work there are about 200 out of 2000 students that have some sort of problem, whether it be emotional, psychological and impairment of some sort. That's just about the same ratio of people who are on welfare to the general population.
This doesn't prove anything, I just thought it was interesting.


But for the most part I agree with what you say. The economics gets too complicated after that. We should have good jobs for those out of high school; attainable and ones that could transfer into long lasting careers. Also we should have the economy to support them; limited outsourcing, decent wages with attainable housing and a growing upper and middle class to be able to "lift" the wages of the "poor" even higher. Not with welfare, but with help finding jobs, welfare should go to those who truly need it.

In a growing economy where our jobs are going overseas, and illegal immigrants are kept in their own countries, the ones who milk the system are only going to do it more and more unless we get at the root of the problem and that's our children's education.

 

Educational performance has a lot of correlation to wealth/income of the parents, not surprisingly. The culture that breeds generational welfare families also breeds generational dis-education, dropouts, and apathy. If mom and dad (if he's around) are sitting at home saying "why should we work when we can get welfare and do nothing?" the kids are going to mirror that attitude.

I don't really have an answer to address the disinterest. The majority of our schools have available the tools for a kid to get a good education if he or she wants it. How many kids really want it? Even in my mostly suburban mostly white high school, 25-50% of the students had no interest in getting an decent education.

 

I see that at the High School I work at every day. Kinda.

But instead of welfare recipients we have mostly immigrants. These parents are too afraid or unwilling to make education a priority for their children.

They'd rather have their son or daughter get a job and help put food on the table.

So, somewhat ironically, the immigrants I see are very hard working and doing the jobs we'd rather not do.

So what I see is, "why should I get an education, when I can get a job to buy things, get fed, etc." Secondly, either they're illegal or it's just to expensive for them to attend....or they haven't been exposed (hand fed) the programs available to them. (Which I don't have a problem with)


I disagree that a majority of our schools have the tools. We are grossly underfunding our students, over spending on the wrong things (gross teacher salaries with 40+ kids per class) and ridding our schools with "interesting" programs. Art, music, drafting and design, the trades. It's all about test scores and bureaucracy. Learning and the fun of it has been sucked dry. At least here in So. Cal.

We are also competing with ipods and texting. We cater to the AP students and special need students while the gen. pop. gets the boot. What they want is stuff.
Kids, especially under the influence of family and society have had their experience of school marred. Of course they don't want to learn, because that hasn't been cultivated properly within them.

In order to change that, stated in my first post, we need to change our values.

Just like we can't expect the ones on welfare to get a job, we can't expect our children to want to learn. We have to guide them.

I honesty think if things were done differently, especially in education, you'd see a change.

 

Great post.

I don't think that's limited to So Cal.

I don't want to turn this any more political than it already is, but your post is what pisses me off about NCLB (which is really ECLB). NCLB has canned art, music, drafting, trade skills, in many cases gym class. Math, science, reading, math science reading, mathsciencereading! While I appreciate the need for those things (especially as I moderate forums with a lot of 16-20 year olds who can't read or compose a coherent thought, can't do basic math, and have no grasp of how things work), turning school into a math/science/reading program will fail us in the long run. We don't need our schools to pump out drones. India and China make better drones for less money; we can't compete with that and never will be able to. What we do need are people who are creative and passionate about what they do, regardless of what they do (within reason ). Every modern innovation that has led to quality job creation was done by creative, passionate people (who for the most part are also good at math and/or science). Gates, Jobs, Allen, Brin, Page, etc.

Tangentially, I read a good op-ed piece by a NYC English lit teacher. He complained because the bureaucrats had established a list of books the kids had to read - the "classics". None of the kids wanted to read any of these, and I don't blame them - they're boring as snot and many of the themes are over the heads of 16 year olds. But when the teacher used newer, unapproved books that were interesting to a typical 16 year old - all the kids read it and many even *gasp* enjoyed it, and might be inclined to read other books on their own. But of course the school boards and federal bureaucrats know best. This applies to math and science as well, where teachers have curriculums they are forced to teach to so the kids pass the stupid standardized test. Never mind that the kids are all disengaged from the learning process.

Okay, off my soap box for now.

 

I usually donate to organizations that help the Children in Africa or Asia or USA. I prefer organizations that provide medical relief or education. It isn't the kid's fault that their parents are complete F&*K ups.

I never donate to the major US organizations - United Way, Salvation Army, etc etc.