<p>“The problem with our schools are the problems with our families.”</p>
<p>Oh, I don’t disagree. But well-off parents in exclusive suburbs clearly think that funding the schools well benefits their kids, because they tax the living daylights out of themselves to pay for their schools. Rich people would not voluntarily choose to pay astronomical property taxes if they could get the same results from schools that limp along on $4000 per kid.</p>
<p>What people think and what is true are not always the same.</p>
<p>"The problem with our schools are the problems with our families. I’m not so nieve as to think that money can never solve problems but it is not going to solve this one. Until we have healthier families we are not going to have healthier schools. Being the child of a single parent all but guarantees poverty. Being the child of divorced or separated parents all but guarantees emotional instability.</p>
<p>If you want to look and see what is diferent in those competitive schools what you are going to find is a disproportionately high percentage of intact families." </p>
<p>I certainly hope you are not a teacher. Attitudes like this really hurt kids, just like attitudes towards minorities hurt kids. There are LOTS of children of divorce who do very, very well in school. They even know how to spell naive, for example. </p>
<p>I live in NYC. I know many kids who have attended or are attending competitive schools. Many are children of divorce. In one case, mom was so concerned about the attitudes of teachers that she always listed her ex-husband in the school family directory, so that teachers and other parents didn’t know she was divorced. (Dad hadn’t been seen since he checked out when the child was eight months old.) Off the top opf my head, the children from single parent homes who live in my neighborhood or are friends have attended/are attending 4 MIT ( including 2 from one family); 3 Yale,3 UPenn (I arts and sciences; 2 Wharton); 2 Houghton (an Evangelical Protestant college), 1 Case Western, 2 Williams, 1 UChicago,1 Georgetown, 1 Trinity College (Ct.), 1 Cornell, 1 Carleton, 1 Mt. Holyoke, 2 Smith. At least two were elected to Phi Beta Kappa. And that’s just families I personally happened to know. </p>
<p>I am an admirer of a local “charity” which helps less affluent single parents. Most are working class single parents–though some are in worse financial circumstances. Every year, they honor a parent who has done a great job. I met this year’s winner–and her daughter, who will be a senior at Georgetown this fall. Younger brother will be entering a SUNY this fall. Another year, the winner was a single dad who raised his daughter on his own because mom was a drug addict. Daughter graduated with honors from Tufts. A recent thread on this site reported the success of a child from a poor single -parent household at Amherst. </p>
<p>Ever heard of Barack Obama? Dr. Ben Carson? Tipper Gore? Matt Damon? Ben Affleck? Gee, what horrible failures these children of divorce are!
I am sure you and your children have given way more to society than Dr. Ben
Carson!</p>
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<p>This is not necessarily the case. On the same same Algebra tests students in Arkansas schools went from being 10% proficient or above in 2001 to 65% proficient in 2006. Money, instruction, and leadership can make a difference. Even if one argues with the test and what it assesses, the change is real and very positive. </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.arkansased.org/communications/pdf/test_scores_071106.pdf[/url]”>http://www.arkansased.org/communications/pdf/test_scores_071106.pdf</a></p>
<p>Much can be done to improve education. In one inner city learning center in a southern state, students who enter with ACT scores of about 21 often exit after a school year of after school help win ACT scores of about 29. There will be a full report on this center issued soon and how they do it.</p>
<p>The poverty rate for children living in single parent homes is 35%. The overty rate for children living in two parent households is 8%. I don’t have to convince anybody on this board (I don’t think) that poverty and low performance in school and on standardized tests are closely related just as high economic status is closely tied to high academic performance.</p>
<p>If you want better schools then make better families. Suport and encourage them. Bad marriages and unwed mothers are not good for kids. The statistics don’t lie no matter how many outliers you know jonri.</p>
<p>There is another fiscal issue with education. When Utah can educate its kids on $5,008 and get much much better results than the District of Columbia which spends 250% more ($12,801 per student) you have to ask how much more would DC have to spend to get Utah’s results? DC spends way more than any of the surrounding wealthy suburbs on a per student basis.</p>
<p>If money COULD fix the DC schools then you still have to answer the question would doubling the DC school budget benefit society more or less than doubling the Utah school budget? Or put another way is fair to dump huge resources on children of a failed society when the same resources spent elsewhere could produce excellence out of mediocrity?</p>
<p>Again the problems of our schools are the problems of our fanilies and money spent on schools cannot fix those families. In many cases it is simply throwing good money after bad because it is not addrssing the underlying problem.</p>
<p>This is what you wrote:
“Being the child of a single parent all but guarantees poverty. Being the child of divorced or separated parents all but guarantees emotional instability.”</p>
<p>You now say that 35% of children from single-parent homes live in poverty. Yet you have claimed that being the child of a single parent “all but guarantees poverty.” Using your own numbers, you’ve made a wholly false statement. If your numbers are correct, two thirds of the children from single parent homes do NOT live in poverty. So, your statement is assinine.</p>
<p>You also say that “Being the child of divorced or separated parents all but guarantees emotional instability.” You have given NO proof of that statement. Are you claiming that being poor “all but guarantees emotional instability?” Frankly, I think that’s idiotic too. But if that is what you mean, say so. </p>
<p>You also claimed that a disproportionate percentage of kids in NYC’s competitive high schools come from 2 parent families. What basis do you have for that statement?</p>
<p>I certainly hope you have nothing whatsoever to do with young people.</p>
<p>jonri - that is 35% below the poverty line which for a single mother and one child would be an income of less than $13,200 a year. Folks are damn poor long before they get to the absolute poverty line. Try feeding, clothing, and sheltering two people on $13,200 a year. Most of the poor in this country are under the age of 18 and most of them live in single parent homes.</p>
<p>Kids need two parents. Sometimes it is not possible to furnish two but they still need them. When one is missing it is hard financially and hard emotionally. I have obviously touched a sore point for you. I am sorry if I have offended you but the numbers are the numbers.</p>
<p>what are the other numbers associated with washington dc and utah and why are these chosen to illustrate your examples?</p>
<p>What are percentage of minority students in DC vs Utah?
Parental education level?
Urban schools?
Rural schools?
length of residence?
Native speaker?</p>
<p>Well, for some input from a student who comes from a single-parent home. My parents have been divorced since I was 1.5 yrs old, so, for about 18 years now. My father has paid a grand total of roughly $800 in child support out of the $225,000+ that he owes my mother and I in back child-support, and yet, the sadly bureaucratic and poorly run child and family services across the country fails to garnish his wages or even find him. My mother has always given everything she has for me, done everything she could, and always told me to do what I wanted in my heart. She moved to an area that was likely too expensive with my grandparents so I could attend a good public school in a state without many (Florida, shockingly to most, is constantly ranked in the bottom 10 of public education, as it focuses on tourism). She always encouraged me and was there for me. When it came time to apply for college, she told me not to worry about the money, because she knew I worried about those things, she made a point of the fact that I should apply to the schools that I truly wanted to go to and that it would all work out in the end. And, in the end, it did, I applied ED I to Tufts after serious contemplation and talking to a myriad of people about financial aid and ED contracts and what position I would be in, and I not only got into Tufts, but have received 100% financial aid, without $1 in loans. Am I emotionally scarred? I suppose it’s always possible, but I think I am fine. I was a national-level debater in high school, won states and was ranked as the #1 speaker in public forum debate in the nation for a few months, and have done many other things of which I am proud, and hope to do more at Tufts as I start my sophomore year this fall. I’m not saying anyone is necessarily “better” with just one parent, but I know it has helped me grow in a way a lot of my friends have not.</p>
<p>I am happy for you Duffman28 but for every kid like you in Tufts I can find 2 in the state penitentiary.</p>
<p>Duffman,
I hope you share your post with your mother; it would make her so proud.</p>
<p>Higherlead,
There is just too much info to show that children can be better off is a single-parent home than an unhappy married one. Giving a child support and attention matters far more than material things.</p>
<p>“Giving a child support and attention matters far more than material things.”</p>
<p>Only if the basics are present and someone is actually parenting the child.</p>
<p>I don’t understand how Brighten can implement their program logistically. How do they get the kids to their schools? Does everyone get bussed? It has to be a logistically nightmare.</p>
<p>Yes, I am offended by your post higherlead; I find bigotry and prejudice offensive. And, once again, you pull “facts” out of thin air. Do you know that for every young person between 18 and 24 who comes from a single parent household and is now in college there are 2 in the state pen? Prove it. </p>
<p>Kids are not numbers. They are people. Having divorced parents doesn’t doom you to poverty and emotional instability. Having two parents doesn’t guarantee economic stability and emotional stability. Being poor isn’t great and I admit that, but there are lots of poor kids who succeed. I could spend days listing “outlliers” as you call them. MANY children of single parents succeed. </p>
<p>Send the message that the schools can’t do anything to help kids who live in less that ideal circumstances and the schools won’t. Tell the children of divorce that the failure of their parents’ marriage dooms them to be failures, and too many of them will get the message.</p>
<p>And even if you are very happily married and financially secure, it doesn’t guarantee that your children will be successful and emotionally stable.It doesn’t guarantee that they will be academically successful either.</p>
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</p>
<p>I’m a socialist, and I don’t support this plan at all. That’s not socialist. That’s beyond socialist.</p>
<p>Ok, I’m a moderate socialist…</p>
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<p>Wow. It’s true that poor single-parent households are generally academically inferior, but don’t you think that made-up statistic is just a little exaggerated?</p>
<p>How many poor kids from broken homes do you think are in Americas top 50 universities? How many do you think are in state, county, and federal correctional institutions? Which place do you think you are more likely to end up if you and mom are living on $13,200 a year?</p>
<p>I am not going to go waste my time digging up more statistics and citing reports when all I will get from jonri is she knows x number of kids who went to Georgetown or Harvard. She pretty obviously had a problem in her own life. I am not here to judge her or her family. All I am saying is you are way more likely to end up poor and on the wrong side of a fence than at Yale without two parents around. If you want to consider that bigoted take it up with Adam Smith and Sigmund Freud.</p>
<p>It’s hard to hit a moving target --and an exchange like this isn’t going to change the deep rooted bias exhibited anyway. At least HL is no longer arguing that having divorced or separated parents is “vitually guaranteed” to make you “emotionally unstable.” The original comments HL made had nothing to do with poor kids and/or students in the top 50 universities. The claim was that the public competitive high schools in NYC had a disproportionate percentage of children from 2 parent homes. There is not an iota of proof anywhere in this thread that HL has any basis whatsoever for that claim . </p>
<p>HL also argued that having divorced parents made it all but certain you would live in poverty. When questioned about that one, HL says well 35% of children of divorce live in poverty vs 8% of children with 2 parents married to each other. When I say that by citing that statistic HL hasn’t proven the statement that being the child of divorce all but guarantees living in poverty, well, then HL says that the threshold for poverty is too low. HL just magically knows that nearly every child of a single parent in the US who isn’t living below the poverty line is living right above it. </p>
<p>As often happens when someone can’t back up silly statements, higherlead has now shifted to a personal atack on me. HL is not judging me–yeah right. Just read what HL wrote–it’s judgmental.</p>
<p>But all of this grew out of HL’s insistence that we can’t do anything as a society for kids who live in less than perfect circumstances. Spending money on school for them is a waste of money,according to HL. Lets assume for the moment that HL could prove that children of poverty are more likely to end up in state prison. I have no trouble believing that–one reason is that when the poor commit crimes they are less likely to get good legal representation and more likely to get longer sentences for the same crime–especially as juveniles. But even leaving that aside, isn’t it possible that one reason they do is because they go to worse schools, have fewer opportunities to do things that keep kids busy and out of trouble like sports and music and other activities? </p>
<p>And what if we as a society made more of an effort to insure that non-custodial parents actually paid child support? Wouldn’t that reduce the likelihood that the children of divorce would live in poverty? </p>
<p>As for top 50 universities, the % of kids with divorced parents who attend them jumped dramatically when the rules for financial aid were revised a few years ago. (Before the change, if both parents had remarried, PROFILE took all 4 parents and step-parents’ income into account in determing aid.) But many kids with divorced parents go to public universities in states where those are not in the top 50 because using only the FAFSA results in much better financial aid than the PROFILE form used by most private colleges. </p>
<p>I do know many kids with divorced parents who attend top colleges–but I didn’t mention Harvard, which shows how carefully HL considered my arguments.</p>
<p>Again, I’m not going to continue because I’m not going to change a closed mind. But the shift in HL’s arguments in this thread is positively comical.</p>
<p>“Wow. It’s true that poor single-parent households are generally academically inferior, but don’t you think that made-up statistic is just a little exaggerated?”</p>
<p>Since the pool of kids from single parent homes in Tufts is so small, I’d bet the statistic is literally true.</p>