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Charter Schools: What Would Dr. King Say?
It is unfortunate that the charter school industry now finds itself on the wrong side of educational progress and civil rights history, even as industry spokesmen like Nelson Smith engage in a public relations campaign aimed to minimize awareness of the segregated conditions that exist in the majority of American charter schools today. Whether located in the poorest, brownest neighborhoods of the Twin Cities or in the leafiest, whitest suburbs of North Carolina, charter schools often engage in a form of intensely-segregated schooling that either contains and isolates minorities in urban centers, while offering middle class parents escape routes from traditional schools that are increasingly tainted by the burgeoning poor, which now comprise 20 percent of American children.
The segregative effects of charter schools, when compared to public schools, remains an empirical fact, notwithstanding Mr. Smith's rhetorical squirming and recycled arguments against one of two research studies from 2010 that echo other studies like the ones linked above that document the same tendency toward apartheid. Borrowing from an earlier critique that was subsequently and effectively vaporized by Civil Rights Project researchers, Mr. Smith doggedly claims that researchers missed the mark by comparing charter school demographics to all schools within the charter's surrounding district, rather than to the geographically closest public schools. In the response in April, 2010 to the charter industry's attack on the study, Choices Without Equity: Charter School Segregation and the Need for Civil Rights Standards, researchers then noted that their study, in fact, included comparisons of charter schools populations to system-wide demographics and comparisons of charters to public schools that were geographical neighbors.
In system-wide comparisons, the charters were 20 percent more segregated than the public schools, and in the more localized comparisons, the charters were 18 percent more segregated than neighboring publics. In the words of the Report's authors, the "data show that we are in the process of subsidizing an expansion of a substantially separate-by race, class, disability and possibly language-sector of schools, with little to no evidence that it provides a systematically better option for parents or that access to these schools of choice is fairly available to all."
If charter schools had some pedagogical advantage to recommend them, then perhaps the social costs of re-segregation, anti-cultural curricula, and total compliance instructional methods would be easier to accept. Perhaps. But in study after study after study over the past ten years, corporate charter schools, either the for-profit or non-profit varieties, are more likely to be academically weaker or no better than the public schools they seek to replace. The largest of the studies conducted by Stanford's CREDO group included a longitudinal and peer-reviewed examination of 70 percent of the nation's charter schools in 15 states and Washington, DC. Significantly, it was funded by supporters of the charter movement, who, no doubt, got results they had not anticipated.
The study found that only 17 percent of charters do better than matched public schools, 46 percent show no significant difference in performance, and 37 percent do worse than matched public peers. Unfortunately, a very recent Fordham Institute study now finds that, despite the charter industry's mantra that "bad schools don't last-either they improve or they close," 72 percent of bad charters remain open five years after they were identified as bad.
It may be hard to imagine the FDA recommending approval for a new drug that gets better results than available medicines in only 17 percent of the cases, and yet the U. S. Department of Education has based the $4 billion Race to the Top point system largely on whether states remove restrictions on the growth of these marginally effective corporate-run schools that collect public funds to operate. On top of that indignity, the Secretary of Education and his corporate foundation advisors chose to award no RTTT points to states or municipalities to effect or even incentivize school integration efforts or inclusion models, in charters or regular schools. While it was the original Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 that provided the carrot that effectively served to end apartheid schooling in the South, could it be that ESEA's next version will provide the most effective and perverse incentive to re-segregate America's schools 45 years later?
Why should we bother to fight segregation, other than the fact remains that Brown v. Board of Education declared 9-0 that separate schools are inherently unequal? From an economic point of view, class, racial, and ability integration offer a great bang for the buck in terms of raising achievement. In school systems that have been integrated based on keeping the percentage of poor children under 40 percent and the percentage of low performers under 25 percent, gains have been significant without increasing funding for additional resources.
In fact, a recent study in Montgomery County, Maryland found that poor children in majority-middle class schools outperform poor children in majority-poor schools, even though the poor schools received $2,000 more per student yearly over a seven-year period. Other studies in La Crosse, Wisconsin, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Wake County, North Carolina have shown similar results. Today approximately 70 school systems with over 3.5 million students enjoy the social and academic benefits of some form of diversity schooling based on socioeconomic integration and/or "controlled choice." These programs could be spread to other cities if federal priorities were focused once more on educational justice, instead of the advancement of corporate-friendly policies like choice-without-voice charter schools that undermine our social aspirations, moral convictions, and ethical obligations.
When then-AFT President, Albert Shanker, embraced charter schools back in 1988, it was for their freedom to seed and nourish curricular and instructional options that could be expanded or modified to make all schools better. By 1994, Shanker could see that the fledgling charter movement had been infiltrated and co-opted by the school choice advocates, with an anti-union and anti-public ideology that would henceforth steer the charter bus, to the detriment of school desegregation efforts that were already on the defensive due to Court decisions such as Milliken v. Bradley
Now sixteen years after Shanker saw the writing on the wall, what was once charter school freedom to innovate has been reduced to little more than a corporate welfare license to operate privately-run schools by over-paid CEOs at public expense without the benefit of public oversight, professional standards, or civil rights guarantees. Meanwhile, those of us still holding to the goals of integrated living and desegregated schooling are accused by people like Mr. Smith of "racial gerrymandering."
For readers unfamiliar with this incendiary term, it has been reserved in the past for attempts to create voting districts that nullify or minimize the potential power of minority-based or class-based voting blocs. To use the term "racial gerrymandering" to describe efforts at socioeconomic and racial integration is not only an affront to common sense, but it offers a sad, defensive caricature of civil rights goals, a twisted advocacy for a kind of social justice in blackface, where righteous indignation cannot disguise the underlying self-parody.
As we approach another day of commemoration for the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we may wonder what Dr. King would make of our current state of educational affairs, wherein education is declared by reformers, with no apparent irony, as the civil rights issue for a generation of children whose schools are more racially segregated by race and class than those of thirty years ago. We can only guess how he might respond to business and political leaders who offer segregated total compliance schools run by corporations as the only other choice for parents who desperately want something more than the malignantly-neglected public schools that have recently had the remaining trust and human caring squeezed out of them under the weight of test and punish reforms. Indeed, we may wonder what Dr. King would say to those federal officials and corporate foundation heads who view children principally for the future capital they will generate to maintain a corrupted anti-worker political economy and corporate welfare system that threaten to undermine democracy, equal opportunity, and free enterprise, itself.
For the charter industry to accuse those who advocate for economic and racial diversity in schools of "racial gerrymandering" is a prime example of the iron pot calling the copper kettle black. The conscious creation of cheap, segregated containment charters for minorities in the northern cities and privileged white flight charter academies in the South and West is not the work of socioeconomic integrationists or the Civil Rights Project. It is the work of self-labeled bold reformers and disruptors of the "status quo," whose engrossment in "market solutions" and bringing "efficiency to scale" has left them no less blind to the effects of their amoral enthusiasms than the well-meaning eugenicists who came onto the stage a hundred years ago during another Gilded Age.
Aside from the offensiveness of Mr. Smith's labeling, the weakest part of his defense of the charter industry is the failure to acknowledge that the success of any education reform will be directly proportionate to our success in mitigating poverty in neighborhoods continuing to struggle against malignant neglect, isolation, and racism. As long as poverty remains the too-big-to-fix (or even see) issue, education reformers' efforts in this new decade will suffer the same fate as the ones in the last and the ones before that. In the meantime, our society will have become further polarized by race and class, public education funds will be siphoned off by corporate welfare schemes, and the gains of the Civil Rights Movement will become a fainter echo from a bygone era.
Fortunately, it doesn't have to be this way. In the coming years, if corporate foundations like Gates, Broad, Fisher, and Walton, along with the political establishment whose favor they curry, would put as much economic and ideological weight behind rebuilding a stronger and more equitable public system of schools, rather than tearing down a system that took almost 200 years to create, then the ideals of American democracy would have a much better chance to survive these difficult times and, perhaps, one day flourish in ways we have yet to witness. I believe Dr. King would agree.
This commentary was previously published by Miller-McCune.
45 Comments so far
Show AllLike Arne Duncan cares about what MLK thought ?
All the other countries to which we are negatively compared do NOT have charter schools, school vouchers or even home schooling. Finland, which always scores in the top ranks of world schools, has a national school system and certainly is not about to sabotage their excellent school system with charter schools, vouchers or home schooling. Home schooling is illegal in Germany. Of course only about 2% or 3% of Finnish kids live in poverty. Finnish teachers all belong to a union, in fact, Finland has an overall unionization rate above 80%.
The local tax payers don't even get a chance to vote on charter school funding and school boards. One of the big motivations for charter schools is to destroy the unions and turn teachers back into powerless peons and to get rid of veteran teachers who are more expensive. Most charter schools have a heavy turn over in teachers who drop out after a few years of being used and abused.
How about math and science?
Singapore a small city states with population less than 5 millions rank No. 1 in the world in math and science. Almost all schools are either State or State subsidies. The education system is primarily base on the British system include bilingual English/Chinese or English/Malay. From pre kindergarten they are taught English/Chinese. In primary 4 (grade 4) they are streams to either accelerate or normal, base on fluency on Chinese/English languages. At primary 6 (grade 6) further streaming, either for university or technical streams. It is a complex continues assessment till each child complete their education.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trends_in_International_
Mathematics_and_Science_Study
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Education_in_Singapore
double posting
Charter schools were originally brought into the discussion in the late '70's - early '80s. At that time, their purpose was overtly three-fold:
1. Re-segregate public schools,
2. Provide religious education (i.e fundamentalist Christian) with public funding,
3. Weaken the standard public school system by drawing off students, parental support and money.
The whole notion of charter schools, at that time, was considered so repugnant and extreme right-wing, that the media ran stories disparaging the notion and editorialised heavily against them.
Proponents of charter schools were overtly clear that the purpose was to segregate schools. Racist comments such as "They prefer to be with their own kind..." were front and center in the usual press stories; and at one time the charter school movement found an African-American minster (from Los Angeles, if I remember correctly) who liked the idea of re-segregation. He was often pointed to as "proof" that blacks really "preferred to be with their own kind".
Somehow, somewhere, the Charter school movement morphed into a "fix" for an allegedly broken public schools system.
But don't be fooled. The motivation remains the same. And now we can see that the actual results are exactly what the earlier, more honest proponents intended all along.
It was one of the great ideas of 19th Century Anglo-American liberal democracy that a free, secular public school education be offered to everyone, without exception. It is the foundation of a participatory democracy.
Destroy the education system = destroy the foundations of Western liberal democracy.
Poorly educated people, without the faculty of intellectual discrimination, are far more more likely to support policies and leaders that actually work against their own self-interest.
Where there is no education, the people become enslaved.
Charter schools in the British experence have been a disaster and we should expect the same here and else where. The plain old public school for all is the real deal, and it needs our support.
AD
SPEAKS LIKE: Great post. I think you nailed all the critical points. Thank you.
"... the weakest part of his defense of the charter industry is the failure to acknowledge that the success of any education reform will be directly proportionate to our success in mitigating poverty in neighborhoods continuing to struggle against malignant neglect, isolation, and racism. As long as poverty remains the too-big-to-fix (or even see) issue, education reformers' efforts in this new decade will suffer the same fate as the ones in the last and the ones before that."
Oh come on. You can't blame charter schools for poverty.
"The study found that only 17 percent of charters do better than matched public schools, 46 percent show no significant difference in performance, and 37 percent do worse than matched public peers. "
So you're complaining that minorities are being discriminated against by not being fully represented in underperforming schools? Or that minority students are being herded into charter schools that exclude them from better performing public schools?
Last I heard parents had to request that their students attend charter schools.
The finest school in our area is a non-profit charter school. The school has great teachers, a superb administrator and LOTS of volunteers - including the board. It is progressive and multi-cultural. It is one of the few schools in the area with a mandatory 2nd language program. It has been consistently rated as outstanding on state-wide school evaluations.
For the majority of its students it gets 80% of the funding that traditional schools receive.
The school CANNOT discriminate in enrollment. With the exception of siblings of current students, selection of applicants is solely based on chance (by lottery).
In our area the local charter school is the best opportunity for students to get an outstanding education.
Congratulations on making it into the 17%!!! That's the funny thing about statistics, someone is always one of them. Just because YOUR school is the best opportunity in YOUR area, doesn't make charter schools the solution to the problem....
Well, I would love to know where your very rare charter school is, because most of the charter schools have a screening admission process that is NOT administered by a lottery. I guess it depends on who writes and how they write the charter. In the meantime, I love the commenter above commenting that the way to improve test schools is to mitigate the effects of childhood poverty. Our district is occasionally focused on understanding and mitigating the effects of childhood poverty and I find it necessary to point out the most efficient reform to education would be to ELIMINATE childhood poverty, thus no mitigation is necessary. The commenter citing Finland's statistics is spot on about educational achievement/outcomes being linked to high economic well-being and stability. Children can not learn when their basic needs are not met first.
I find it interesting that the author invokes Dr. King as the representation of one that would have been concerned about the re-segression of schools based on race.For the last 2+ years of his life mission, he was primarily concerned about reaching beyond the distractions of race division, to educate US ALL on the division of class that the oligarchs use to pit us one against the other, to keep the focus off their thefts. I would like to think that were he alive today, one)this crap wouldn't be going down and two) if it were, he'd implore us to see more than the racial divides but after pointing those out, continue to redirect our attention to the class divides that keep us from acting together for our enlightened self-interests.
Thanks to both BProgress and netminnow for at least partial exposure of the shallow defense of Charter Schools as offered by ctrl-z.
That one particular school happens to be successful, if indeed it is, fails the smell test when compared to the mounting statistical evidence that these for-profit and slanted educationally directed schools are failing our youth. That ctrl-z puts words in the authors mouth unintended by that author,I.E. blaming poverty on charter schools...how weak is that? Or ignores the closing or amalgamating of public schools due to attendance issues caused by said Charter Schools.
Our system of education has been under attack for decades, in part due to mismanagement of course, in part due to expense issues as well. But the main reasons for the attack upon our school system which, despite the ills it carries, is still the best way to both educate the majority of American children and continue to be a melting pot that brings us all together, is ideological in nature. As a government run institution our school system is a target, as are all such govt run institutions and programs regardless of the successes or the need for them.
one doubledee: I'm sorry you find my defense of Charter Schools "shallow". I usually find myself in agreement with your postings.
For years I held the opinion that Charter Schools were bad because they were an attack on Teacher's Unions and took resources from public schools. Then I started looking for schools with 2nd language programs in my area. I found that most of the schools were dropping or cutting back on their language programs (if they had one) and music/arts programs. They were cutting back on the number of days in the school year. They were (and are) cutting back on teacher's salaries and benefits. All due to a reduction in the tax base. The state simply didn't have the funding (or will) to maintain the quality of education at previous levels. Locally, the highest ranking for any school in the grade range I was looking for was average and many were below that.
Then I found a non-profit charter school in a nearby district. It had a 2nd language as an integral part of its bi-cultural curriculum and had been rated as outstanding. There was also one public school that was highly rated and had an integral 2nd language program. I submitted requests for out-of-district/area student transfer to the local school board and applied to both schools. Fortunatly, my child was accepted into one - the Charter School.
Now it may be that this school is the exception that proves the rule. The Board is all volunteer and parents of students put a lot of "sweat equity" into the school. A former teacher from the public school system in the Director. She is incredibly devoted to the school. She selected the present teaching staff and she has a good eye for talent. The teachers are great. People who are in programs where they interact with students from different schools often comment that students at our school are much better behaved and attentive. Students consistently outperform most other schools in statewide testing. My child LOVES the school.
So when I see generalized attacks on Charter Schools, I respond.
I'd be interested to see to see a comparison of non-profit vs. for profit charter schools. I suspect there are more "gems" to be found among the non-profits.
I apologize for an ill placed word.....however,
Your statistical evidence is not proof, ctrl-z, as you know well. One school does not a treatise make. The failure of so many charter schools is a fact, the emphasis on for-profit status makes for out of date texts and other corner cutting economies, and the all too common ideological nature of so many of these schools begs the question.
But the real problem with these alternatives is that they seek to fulfill the desire of a small but powerful group of ideologues who seek to end the public school system entirely. Students who go to Charter Schools sap funding from the public system. Parents who are unhappy with the curriculum of their local public schools are responsible for getting involved in those schools. Rather than a choice that benefits one child, parents should really seek choices that benefit their community as well.
Charter Schools do not do that. Much of the impetus for those schools can be found among parents who do not want their children exposed to "those people".....Most of the force behind Charter Schools come from those who want control over the education process, they want only their own belief system taught. I respectfully suggest that you give your position much more thought.
"...he was primarily concerned about reaching beyond the distractions of race division, to educate US ALL on the division of class that the oligarchs use to pit us one against the other, to keep the focus off their thefts..continue to redirect our attention to the class divides that keep us from acting together for our enlightened self-interests."
This can't be said often enough.
At least one of the goals of schooling is to make better citizens. That is hard to do when most students are of the same race and the same economic class--stereotypes are reinforced as they see only those like themselves. This kind of learning is just as important as that termed "student achievement," a code word that refers to performance on reading and mathematics tests. You want to have a diverse nation? Then educate everybody together.
Amen. I am so thankful I was educated literally with people that had just stepped "off the boat" to ambassadorial level children, just outside DC. I know this is why I have adjusted to so many of the changes I've had; exposure to poverty-coping skills as well as how "successful" people connect and operate.
Mr. Horn makes a number of excellent points, though I suspect his willingness to believe that the Billionaire Boys Club and their retainers (to use Diane Ravitch's formulation) might really, really want to improve public education, that they have just been somehow misguided up to now, is wishful thinking.
Here in Los Angeles, the School Board, with the support of the mayor, is hell-bent on giving away public schools to charter school operators through a program named "public school choice." New campuses originally built to relieve overcrowding, as well as existing schools labeled as failures under No Child Left Behind, are put up for bids by interested parties. Groups of teachers are allowed to write proposals too, and if selected, those schools would stay as District public schools.
In the first round last year, the great majority of teacher-led proposals won Board approval, to the consternation and dismay of pro-charter groups. So far it doesn't sound so terrible, does it?
Problem #1: Schools are yet to get resources promised to them to implement their innovative proposals.
Problem #2: All schools in LA, and in California, are undergoing massive and continuing budget cuts, with no end in sight.
Problem #3: Even with the best of intentions, the more that schools are focused on "saving" themselves, the more they act like actual charter schools, and any sense of shared purpose with other District schools is lost. At some point down the road, if this trend is not stopped, the District will cease to exist. At my high school, teachers are considering writing our own charter proposal as a "lfeboat."
Now, those of us in LA Unified are of two minds on District existence. On the one hand, we can all see way too many instances where the present structure fails to accomplish its stated goals, and where the bureaucracy subverts real efforts at reform. On the other hand, if the District falls apart, we're left with what exactly? The tender mercies of the "free market?" Charters for all?
We are reaping the whirlwind of an ideology that exalts the business model and entrepreneurship, and downgrades the public sector and the very idea of public provision of needed services. One can understand the desperation of parents who see things from the point of view of their own child's options and life chances. But as a society, if we are unable to find common ground and commit to making sure that all children are educated to think, not just bubble in test answers, our democracy will be in peril. I just hope it's not too late.
BRAD: Great post. If you never read a scathing expose done in Harper's about 4 years ago on this very thing (how privatizing public schools would end up essentially giving away their land, assets, and resources to private firms), I suggest you check it out. (I don't have the title on hand.) This is another planned heist.
From the articles published on Commondreams, it seems like the right wing has had a wish list of things to do; and now that they have both parties eating out of their hand, a willing accomplice as president, and a totally pro-business Supreme Court, there are no holes barred. Their agenda is being pushed on steroids!
They also have all sorts of ready targets being set up as projection screens for the abundant public feels of anger, betrayal, and pain! Nothing like control of the media if you need to manufacture convenient scapegoats!
Teachers
Public workers
Acorn
"Illegal Immigrants"
Muslims
Feminists
Who did I leave out?
Why is the enrollment for that school so low? I find it difficult to believe there would be any efficiency of scale in the LA area for a school that enrolls merely one hundred students. What would be the teacher to pupil ratio? It sickens me that there would be something this inefficient going on in a district in urban California, given the population numbers.
BINGO! You hit it right on the head, "maciek." At some point in the future, everyone may be in a tiered education system. Some will be on an accelerated track to high powered, high paying careers, competing with their corporate counterparts across the world, while others will get the basics or little at all. It's like we're moving towards a kind of caste system.
Oh, and as one may know, there is nothing fun or democratic about a caste system.
..but he is remembered for his pubic accomplishments and not so much for his private life. Have you an agenda here?
Yes, this looms as a persistent vexing conundrum that proves quite a sticking point for simple-minded, shallow thinkers.
I'm reminded on some poor wretch who comments daily at a JFK assassination research site I visit. His only concern is that JFK was a "sex freak", as he finally settled on expressing it.
Neither gentle persuasion nor harsh scolding can budge him from his mission to keep that issue front-and-center to the exclusion of all else.
Any rebuttal or explanation that this deplorable characteristic, even if true, is not the crucial and defining point he makes it out to be only provokes more strident and lurid responses. He'll see himself as a misunderstood and unjustly condemned Apostle of Truth until his dying day.
A cautionary tale, perhaps.
Sorry, I am going to be very blunt but dave_m sounds like a racist troll or a frequenter of the neo-Nazi KKK-friendly stormfront web site.
No, that is not what you do. You focus on a personal failing instead of a lifetime of achievement, as if that one failing ( if indeed that is what it was) makes useless all the good.
You are only exposing yourself here you might understand.
I can very much understand the hate that might be directed at anyone daring to say anything negative on another's idol.
Oh certainly you must understand that it is you who are the hater here. Perhaps this obvious fact escapes you, but I would bet that it escapes no one else here. Dr. King was a human being, he had his flaws certainly, but they pale to insignificance next to his great accomplishments. You, on the other hand, are nothing more than a tedious little drone with no clue whatsoever.
King had a dream, you have nothing.
Wrong again, oh consistent one. Hate is not what I express, only contempt.
Keep in mind our public school system is far more , shall I say lenient then those of other nations . In California its not too uncommon to find one school servicing 3 or even 4 languages. Plus Charter schools only pop up( most of the time) where normal schools are failing . So to do a direct comparison isn't fair .
The core problem is we have this strange way of trying to force all students into the same model . "Screw the vocational classes, everyones going to college ", those are the only students who get any real effort from school districts . As for all the students disinterested in school, rather then trying to find an alternative program( you can get a G.E.D. with 9th grade English and math skills ), school districts like to work with local law enforcement to stop them from playing hooky .
I doubt anyone will read this entire post, but heres my story ;. When I was in 9th grade my dad had the excellent idea of enrolling me in honor classes while simultaneously declaring me some kind of "special needs " student ( for all that don't know any parent who thinks there kid should be getting a A instead of a B can complain and get there kid labeled special needs, giving the kid extra time on test and other benefits ). Of course this screwed with my self confidence, as it would of been far easer to just let me be a normal student in normal classes . The summer after my 9th grade year my dad threatens to have me repeat the 9th grade if I didn't get at least a C in a Geometry class I had to take in summer , since I got a D in a honors Geometry class I was enrolled in the previous spring( keep in mind, generally students don't take Geometry until 10th grade) .
So sometime in the Fall of my 10th grade year my dad has me out of school for 2 weeks for some OPTIONAL SURGERY-(as in it wasn't something needed to save my life, and I didn't even know I needed it until some doctor who I'm sure gets paid by the number of expensive surgeries he gets to preform, suggested it ). Even when I got back to school my friends asked me why in gods name would my father take me out of school for 2 weeks and then expect me to succeed . My answer , he's a douche who lives vicariously though his children . To keep this brief my dad ends up kicking me out because I couldn't keep up in my various honor classes after being out of school for 2 weeks . Till this day I do not have a meaningful relationship with my father.
While that was more or less a personal rant, it does have some relevance . People like my father push there kids , and the schools they attend to be as college prepy as possible . The result is we have many schools in which the Honor/AP students are given the best teachers , while the "normal " kids are there just to keep the enrollment numbers up . My biggest tip to any parent is too seriously consider what there child wants , rather then trying to force them into the college mold . I still have vivid memories of my peers, many who did well in autoshop , fail miserably in irrelevant college prep course.
Yes I blame the parents . How many of these parents who whine about the conditions of inner city schools read with their children when they were younger. Not nearly as many as who complain , " my kid can't read" when at 15 the child has a hard time reading a small novel . In a country like China the parents are rightfully blamed for bad parenting, in America a low paid teacher is supposed to save children who have been failed by mom and dad .
All the more reason to encourage stable 2 parent households. A government that provides
rent/housing assistance, utility assistance, food stamps, child care assistance etc. for
single mothers is, in part, responsible for our sorry situation.
Right. Starving the children of single parents would go a long way toward improving the education system.
Just out of curiosity, would you "encourage" stable same sex two parent households?
I'm guessing you wouldn't
You would be guessing wrong.
When you fund something, you get more of it. These programs enable singles
to become a parent. If the goal is to reduce children in poverty, cut out
the programs.
So, funding anti poverty programs brings more poverty? Funding school lunch programs brings more hunger? Funding assistance for single parents brings more pregnancies....errrr huh?
You remind me of someone who still believes the Reagen welfare queen lie.
If you cut the programs that enable the poor to become single parents there would be fewer pregnancies (or more abortions/adoptions). Wouldn't fewer children born into poverty reduce the number of people in poverty?
"So, funding anti poverty programs brings more poverty?"
Yep:
Persons Below Poverty Level in the U.S., 1975–2007
1975 12.3%
2007 12.7%
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0104525.html
Your post is nothing more than what is found in a typical cow pasture. You ignore cause and effect in repeating an absurd libertarian mantra. There are certainly reasons, multiple reasons in fact, for the rise in those living below the poverty line. I think most of us can think of several, you can only focus on a bullshite line of illogical nonsense.. Heres a couple so you do not tax your feverish brain:
CEO's in 1975 made about 50X what the typical worker made, today they make 500X or more.
The wealth , 35% of it, is concentrated today in the hands of 1% of the population. Not even close in 1975.
I confess to being more than a little contemptuous of those who profess to ascribe to Ayn Rand's fairy tale constructs, and especially to those like you who have so obviously drunk the kool aid. By your lack of reason we should take away money from the poor, that will fix their problems, you betcha!
It is you who is ignoring cause and effect. The result of programs that enable the poor to become single parents is more people in poverty. Economics 101- when add funding something you get more of it. Just like increased military spending, you get more of it.
I thought progressives were all about population control?
Are you able to you respond to this without the ad hominems and resorting to "kitchen sink" argument?
Your cause and effect is not logical, nor is it good science. It is what I find among you lily white libertarians, subtle ( not really) racism. The War on Poverty, under the Johnson administration, was a very successful series of programs that benefited many ,many of us . The recent demise of Sargent Shriver brought with it a rather decent description of all that was accomplished to alleviate poverty and ignorance in this nation. Despite your repetitive and wildly incorrect mantra too.
Sorry it missed you.
Objectivism is the opiate of the outsider.
We have been so brain washed so propagandized to believe that our schools are rotten, no good and failing. We hear the phrase "our failing schools" repeated over and over in the media, that it has become accepted "wisdom." Actually it's like one big word, ourfailingschools; that right wing demagogue, Lou Dobbs, would repeat that phrase almost nightly as if it were fact. Our schools, our school system is not failing. But some schools, usually in the very poor and crime ridden areas, are indeed suffering. It's our society that's failing the kids, not the schools. A society that stands mutely by as more and more Americans dip into poverty, have no health insurance and have no economic security. The schools in wealthy districts and the schools in solidly middle class districts perform just as well if not better than the foreign schools.
Here's a revealing data set from the daily howler web site:
Here are the newly-released scores from last year’s Program for International Student Assessment (the PISA), a program which tests 15-year-old students. Last year’s testing focused on reading literacy. Just to establish the lay of the land, these are the average scores attained by the 34 member nations of the sponsoring agency, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (the OECD):
Average score, reading literacy, PISA, 2009:
Korea 539
Finland 536
Canada 524
New Zealand 521
Japan 520
Australia 515
Netherlands 508
Belgium 506
Norway 503
Estonia 501
Switzerland 501
Poland 500
Iceland 500
United States 500
Sweden 497
Germany 497
Ireland 496
France 496
Denmark 495
United Kingdom 494
Hungary 494
OECD average 493
Portugal 489
Italy 486
Slovenia 483
Greece 483
Spain 481
Czech Republic 478
Slovak Republic 477
Israel 474
Luxembourg 472
Austria 470
Turkey 464
Chile 449
Mexico 425
As you can see, the U.S. finished tied for 12th, “with Iceland and Poland,” among the 34 member nations. The U.S. outperformed such well-known nations as Germany, France, the U.K.
Here are the scores from that same reading test, broken down into demographics:
Average score, reading literacy, PISA, 2009:
[United States, Asian students 541]
Korea 539
Finland 536
[United States, white students 525]
Canada 524
New Zealand 521
Japan 520
Australia 515
Netherlands 508
Belgium 506
Norway 503
Estonia 501
Switzerland 501
Poland 500
Iceland 500
United States (overall) 500
Sweden 497
Germany 497
Ireland 496
France 496
Denmark 495
United Kingdom 494
Hungary 494
OECD average 493
Portugal 489
Italy 486
Slovenia 483
Greece 483
Spain 481
Czech Republic 478
Slovak Republic 477
Israel 474
Luxembourg 472
Austria 470
[United States, Hispanic students 466]
Turkey 464
Chile 449
[United States, black students 441]
Mexico 425
If Asian-Americans students were viewed as a separate nation, they would outscore every OECD nation. (Somehow, those supposedly infernal unions haven’t screwed them up—yet! But never fear, Chris Christie & the GOP will continue to bash unions). White students trail only two nations—Korea and Finland, whose educational output suddenly doesn’t seem quite so miraculous. For the record, Korea and Finland didn’t spend centuries aggressively trying to stamp out literacy within the African American population. Neither nation has a significant immigrant population—a population of decent, deserving kids who don’t even speak the language.
I thank you for your research and state firmly that truth combats lies. We need more who believe in truth and stand up to right wing lies.