I agree. Children who came from a financially poor home are more likely to be poor themselves when they're adults, so I think it's an excellent idea to try to break that trend and ensure that a cycle does not continue.
I think we pretty well agree on almost everything in this thread, except whether or not it will work.
My largest concern with the idea of withholding welfare money from families if their children are performing poorly is that the parents will not respond well to this.
And certainly that's understandable. And while it'd be easy for me to say "well, if it doesn't work, we'll scrap it and try something else", but that doesn't help those who lost financial assistance during that time.
At the same time, I can see cases in which a child performs poorly at school because they have parents who don't care about their child's work, they don't care about their child's future, and they're not very compassionate parents. I worry for that child, who does poorly at school because he/she has terrible, ignorant parents. I don't trust those parents to be able to motivate their child in any positive way. There are already cases of child abuse from parents, I suspect that in some cases this behaviour would be worse if the parents blame the child for their lack of income.
I cannot state this to any degree of fact, but I would imagine a parent who is willing to abuse their children will do it regardless of scores.
I feel a lot of empathy for children in those situations, and maybe I overestimate the amount of cases like that, but even one bothers me - as I'm sure it would you.
Of course. And I've thought of this as well. But we then get into whose really to blame for the abuse of the child, and while we should always protect children, at the end of the day, we cannot be everywhere. And I don't think it's too illogical to think a child who is beaten will be beaten regardless of test scores.
I can't support a piece of legislation like this with the latter in mind, but if this was recognized and there were provisions in place to try to curb this, then I would be more open to support efforts - we agree in theory about something being done to help these families/children break out of a cycle of inability.
I like your thinking, but how do you legislate against a possible increase in child abuse?
You're a teacher, correct?
Yes.
Hold animosity toward the teacher, you mean?
Because they're the ones administering the tests, are they not?
Yes and no. First of all, those who administer tests vary between state and school. But even when the teacher is the one handing out the test, students know it's a state test and not a teacher/school test.
From what I've seen, it's a blame game. Parents blame their kids, who in turn blame their teacher.
But when that money starts affecting the child's family financially and the blame game starts, where do you think their anger is going to be directed?
Well, it's already being directed towards the schools and teachers, as you've noted. Perhaps it'll go towards the state or, better yet, those who were responsible for the low scores.
The person who failed to give them a "proficient" score, their teacher.
The teacher does not grade the standardized state test, at least not in Missouri. I would assume it'd be the same everywhere, since much of this use of testing came from NCLB.
Perhaps we're reading it two different ways, and in that case, I again trust your first-hand experience. But it seemed like an "either or" to me, in that the child had to maintain a certain GPA, or pass certain tests. With GPA being the weight of all classes, it would only make sense in the passing-of-blame society for the student to blame the teacher whose class dragged their GPA below requirements to pass to the next grade.
It is an "or", not a "both". First, they have to attend school (which, by the way, should provide a bump in scores in the first place, as they have at my school who has instituted strict attendance policies within the last couple of years). After meeting the attendance requirement, students then have to meet only one of the three other factors.
I've seen it, or else parents who are darn good at faking it. And in rarer cases, both the parent, school, and teacher are all working together, with the child simply not invested whatsoever, regardless of motivation.
This bill could possibly affect an entire family, as I understand it, as it would be 20-30% from their entire check, would it not?
As I've said, I'm not agreeing with the percentage, rather the concept.
It varies state to state, and where I live, in Western Pennsylvania, cash benefits have been completely done away with. Food stamps and medical benefits are still given, and the former is based on the size of the family, correct. But it's my understanding the money would be subtracted from the entire family's welfare if one child fails.
Using that logic, had I come from a low income family, and I had failed, losing a % of my family's benefits, how would it not affect my sister?
Because, theoretically, your sister is still making her portion of the money.
Using small numbers, if the state gives $5 for every child, then this theoretically is the amount necessary to support that child, in addition to whatever else you earn. So if I earn $5 and you earn $5, when my money is taken away, yours is still there.
Now you could argue the parent would redistribute your $5 to help cover my costs, and it's a reasonable argument, but that would then depend upon how the parent wished to use the money they still had.
I'm aware. Which is why, if I were to support the bill whatsoever, I would make it contingent on both the performance of both student and parent, not just student.
I have no problem with making the parent earn the money also.
Anything else to me is singling out a class, regardless of how accurate or slanted the figures are. Even if it's 99% low-income that fail, that 1% should receive some punishment equal to their low-income counterparts.
I agree completely and I've been arguing this for years. My argument has always been it's ridiculous to hold teacher's accountable for children's scores, when you're not holding the student or parent accountable as well. To combat this, I've proposed a fine of X amount of dollars to force these parents into working with their child to get the best education.
So, in essence, welfare should be a debt to be repaid in some fashion?
I GUESS you could say it like that. I prefer to call it an honest day's pay for an honest day's work. There are so many things in this world that need to be done. It seems silly to simply give money to people, with the only promise made in return that they'll try to find a job.
I don't care if work to earn welfare is done over the weekends or overnight. I don't care if it's done by the male or the female. I don't know what happens to the children, haven't put that thought into it. But the fact of the matter is if we're helping people to survive, they should be willing to repay our kindness with something which benefits others.
Plus, if you require work for the money, I bet you'd also see fewer people abusing the welfare system.
But motivation is often an inner drive to act in a certain manner. If a child hasn't been conditioned towards motivation for years, and suddenly their parent takes a more active role, there's no guarantee what's been engrained in a child for years will suddenly change that conditioning.
But we KNOW that if the parent never takes a more active role, then the motivation will likely never change.
What's more, it's fundamentally wrong to make a child responsible for financial matters.
The child is not responsible for financial matters. The child is responsible for getting a good education.
For every child this would help, it'd leave 3 far worse off financially and emotionally. This "Win at all costs" attitude disturbs me, where does it end if we start putting $ signs on kids? What happened to letting kids be kids and protecting them from all the shit that comes in later life?
I find this part of your post perplexing.
First of all, the families affected by this DON'T have a win at all costs attitude. They have a "I don't appreciate the opportunity I've been given" attitude. As far as protecting them from what happens later in life, what better protection is there than a good education?
Speaking personally and as a prospective parent, I'd rather have my kids outside playing with their friends and take the potential financial hit, than have them come home after 7 hours in school and have to spend more time sat at a desk doing extra work.
So you don't advocate the use of homework ever? Will your kids never do schoolwork at home?
Hang on a second, why the hell are parents getting the blame put on them anyway? Isn't educating our children the responsibility of the teachers? They're the ones who are trained, they're the ones who spend 35 hours a week with the kids, why isn't this their failure?
Because we don't spend 35 hours a week with the kids. A regular math teacher will spend FIVE hours a week with the kids. There are 24 hours in a day, subtract 8 hours for schooling, and a parent is responsible for a child 16 hours a day. Even if we allow 8 hours for sleep, a parent is responsible for their child 8 hours a day, for a total of 40 hours a week, compared to the 5 hours a teacher has with the kid.
Furthermore, a teacher can't MAKE a child learn. A teacher's job is to present the information, to give a child the tools necessary to learn. It's the responsibility of the student to learn and the responsibility of the parent to motivate the child to learn.
Education requires not just a teacher, but students and parents being involved as well. The best teacher in the world still cannot educate a child who does not want to learn.