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DoD hiring freeze
- Thread starter MaxGar
- Start date
I dunno man. My father geo-bach'd several states away for all of my high school years. Do I get rolled up into the group of fatherless households you've highlighted here? Not all families are the Cleavers, nor should they be.
WRT making quality public education available to all who choose to use it, yes, we can and should be doing better. How to go about that has unfortunately turned into yet another partisan shit show between adults, with kids paying the price. See PM for some specific insight I have relevant to public school administration and oversight.
Interesting discussion. I live in a deep red state that just passed a school voucher program. A lot of rural GOP districts were not happy. There was big money that came in to support the effort.
A lot of people are pissed that a lot of this money will go to subsidize upper middle-class suburban families already sending their kids to private schools...to the detriment of kids in the sticks.
It all sounds good on paper, but the implementation might be rough. Plus, there aren't really great metrics to back it up AFAIK.
I hear you on the social media front - and agree 100%. I stand by my comments and belief that a mom and dad are crucial to child development and upbringing. Yes, I know there are many examples of what a modern day “mom and dad” look like, and I understand dad, or mom can be away for extended periods of time doing what is right for the family. I’m talking about kids that grow up with one, or NO mom and dad, kids in and out of welfare/public assistance programs. We have too many kids that go to school hungry, are not provided with the guidance and support of good role models. How to fix it? Tough question. We can start by paying teachers more - a lot more and cutting the administrative burden and overhead that has grown way too big, way too fast.
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Spekkio
He bowls overhand.
"Single parent homes" refers to families where one of the parents, usually the father, does not provide any financial or child care support at all. Typically happens when a couple gets pregnant out of wedlock and the father decides to take off. A family where dad (or mom) works on the other side of the world to put a roof over everyone's head does not count.
It disproportionately affects black and hispanic Americans.
www.aecf.org
The federal government isn't going to fix this social construct, no matter how much money you throw at it. Confounding the problem, anyone in academia who even tries to even dig into the root cause of the subject beyond the current canned explanations (which don't stand up to scrutiny) will quickly get tarred and feathered as racist.
It disproportionately affects black and hispanic Americans.
Child Well-Being in Single-Parent Families
Review the latest statistics and demographic trends involving kids in single-parent families. Get the data now.
The federal government isn't going to fix this social construct, no matter how much money you throw at it. Confounding the problem, anyone in academia who even tries to even dig into the root cause of the subject beyond the current canned explanations (which don't stand up to scrutiny) will quickly get tarred and feathered as racist.
This . . . . 👆 👆 👆"Single parent homes" refers to families where one of the parents, usually the father, does not provide any financial or child care support at all. Typically happens when a couple gets pregnant out of wedlock and the father decides to take off. A family where dad (or mom) works on the other side of the world to put a roof over everyone's head does not count.
It disproportionately affects black and hispanic Americans.
Child Well-Being in Single-Parent Families
Review the latest statistics and demographic trends involving kids in single-parent families. Get the data now.
The federal government isn't going to fix this social construct, no matter how much money you throw at it. Confounding the problem, anyone in academia who even tries to even dig into the root cause of the subject beyond the current canned explanations (which don't stand up to scrutiny) will quickly get tarred and feathered as racist.
Spekkio
He bowls overhand.
To add on... there is a cultural aspect to the phenomenon:
en.wikipedia.org
The U.S. is #150 of 236.
List of countries by mean age at childbearing - Wikipedia
The U.S. is #150 of 236.
You grew up with a mom, and a dad, even though you had to endure the absence of you dad while he was taking care of your family. That's not what i'm talking about here.
WRT to DoE and pushing money directly to the states, I understand that "some" oversight and guardrails are needed to ensure states comply with federal standards and provide the best possible learning environment for our kids. But we really, really need to trim the fat on programs and people who are not helping the process . . . .
Spekkio
He bowls overhand.
Our education system is fucked. No Child Left Behind wasn't perfect, but it was a huge step in the right direction to set a baseline standard across the nation.
The Every Child Succeeds Act gutted it by placing an emphasis on graduation rates vice academic achievement for funding, then Trump in his first term completely eliminated all federal accountability guidelines.
Just look at SAT scores... why the jump in 2018? Because colleges started to institute "SAT optional" policies, so only the kids who think they will do well on it take it. Many elite schools have rolled back that policy because it turns out that the SAT actually predicts success in higher education.
The Every Child Succeeds Act gutted it by placing an emphasis on graduation rates vice academic achievement for funding, then Trump in his first term completely eliminated all federal accountability guidelines.
Just look at SAT scores... why the jump in 2018? Because colleges started to institute "SAT optional" policies, so only the kids who think they will do well on it take it. Many elite schools have rolled back that policy because it turns out that the SAT actually predicts success in higher education.
Attachments
Federal money for most public school districts comprises a relatively small portion of their overall budgets, but it goes to some really important uses: special education (IEPs and 504s), and....wait for it... food and meal assistance for kids whose family's cant feed them.
We can stand on our soap boxes all day long and argue over whether mom and dad, or just mom, or just dad should do more to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, get off the public teat, and just "do better," but at the end of the day, a kid's gotta eat something. DoE does a lot of dumb shit, and I'm not here to defend it as an institution, but the belief that federal funding to local school districts doesn't serve a specific and worthy purpose is just incorrect.
And if you really think sending the money to the states for disbursement is gonna work, well, put a fork in this conversation because that's just naive.
To hell with those hungry special ed kids, ammirite...
This is true. I used to think the tests were kind of unnecessary (not unfair or unjust) because they couldn’t accurately predict academic success. Well, as you note, I was mistaken and the tests are back. It is a good thing, however, that we tried the experiment to learn the differences.
Is it really something that needs 'fixing' though? The be frank the 'cures' are often worse than the issue itself, no matter who comes up with them.
Bullshit, there has been plenty of ink spilled on every side of why this issue exists.
Spekkio
He bowls overhand.
Sorry, but I'm waiving the bullshit flag on this one.
One of the largest problems facing low-income families is obesity.
Childhood Obesity: Is the Built Environment More Important Than the Food Environment? - PMC
Obesity continues to be a health burden to society and new efforts may be needed to combat this epidemic. This study aims to investigate the contribution of parents education and level of income, food environment (grocery stores and fast food ...
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
In the vast majority of cases, the parents can afford to send the children to school with lunch - they just choose not to. Note that I have no inherent issue with universal school lunch if for no other reason than convenience, but the Puss 'n Boots' wide-eyed alligator tear approach is just a cash grab.
As for special education... principals often have their hands full with every Tom and Jane who wants their child classified as special ed the moment they have a modicum of academic or behavioral challenges. So much so that it created military recruiting shortfalls until we changed the rules regarding past mental disorder diagnoses.
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Spekkio
He bowls overhand.
President Obama thought so.
Yeah, like I said... everyone has converged on canned answers that don't hold up to scrutiny now that immigration patterns have caused a demographic shift in the U.S.
How do you explain that, when you control for household income and parental educational attainment, that a black family living in America for generations will statistically have worse educational and economic outcomes than a latino, let alone Asian, immigrant family whose parents speak English as a second language (or not at all)? How do you explain that Asian families do better than white Americans?
Let me rephrase - can you point me to peer reviewed academic studies that answer those questions?
The federal government's action certainly do influence (not control) outcomes. We have a hand on the tiller.
With access to abortions decreasing, these problems should be increasing. More single parent kids in poverty.
Both of my parents came out of very broken homes, single mothers, poverty. My dad joined the Navy at 17. Four squares and rack were mighty appealing.