More Than Half Of American Schoolchildren Now Live In Poverty.

[pbrower2a]

This proves that West Virgina, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Florida are the natural base of the progressive left, not the places Democrats have been jerking off to recently (Colorado, Virginia, etc.)

This, if only we could go back to having the parties divided based on class more so then culture.

Obviously that would require Sanders or Warren instead of another Clinton.

I think that might actually hurt the cause considering the South has such a warped view of socialism, and Warren isn't exactly Ms. Southern Charm. You need a modern day Huey Long (but less fascist), but unfortunately, there are no Democrats left in the South.

Blacks. Of course that requires poor southern whites to recognize that they have good cause to align themselves with poor blacks, let alone middle-class blacks, on any issues.  

[pbrower2a]

As for the 'educational expert' shown in the video --

Motivation matters. Raw intelligence matters. Trust in well-meaning people matters. The means in which to apply what one learns matter.

Much of the rap that poor Hispanic kids and poor black kids could not learn well in school but the kids of Vietnamese refugees could do well ignores some basic reality: that the nearly-penniless children of Vietnamese refugees were heavily 'recruited' from families that had been middle-class or upper-class in Vietnam: government employees and business owners. Middle-class families usually have a non-prole culture that puts learning above entertainment, and being dispossessed and uprooted does not change that. See also Holocaust survivors.

So if parents want their kids to succeed in school they can insist upon quiet time without electronic entertainments even if those entertainments are benign in themselves. Parents themselves need to break away from the night clubs.     

[pbrower2a]

Misleading, clickbaity headline as usual from Huffpo. First of all, this is just public schoolchildren. Second, the metric isn't perfect in determining poverty. From NYT:

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This isn't to say that the trend here isn't alarming, but it'd be nice to see some accuracy. Though I suppose the definition of poverty could be debated...

$44k for a family of four?  You'd need something to go wrong once and it would put the dent in even the most disciplined saver, not that you'd be in a good position to begin with.

$44K doesn't go so far in New York, Boston, San Francisco, Washington DC, or Honolulu as it does where families might rarely get $44K a year.

 

[pbrower2a]

This affirms my belief that the secular increase in K-12 education costs is as much about the increasing share of children who are more expensive to educate (in terms of requiring free/subsdized meals, having various fees waived, needing more attention from specialists) as it is about more expensive input costs like healthcare and benefits for school employees.

Having been a substitute teacher and having seen about every aspect of education except for janitorial work, doing food service, or working in the school office... I can assure you that the free or subsidized meals pay for themselves in educational quality. It is far easier to teach kids who don't feel hunger pangs. Just about anything that gets better educational results has served me as a teacher -- even if 'only' a substitute. There's no techno-fix for hunger (also inadequate sleep, parents who show inadequate concern for their kids' learning, child abuse and neglect, or an anti-intellectual mass culture). There are manifestly good reasons for very rich parents sending their kids to expensive boarding schools whose dormitories are technologically advanced only to the age of electric lights. 

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Education has comparatively few administrators for the number of teachers. As a sub I have been basically an actor... and when you think about it, teaching is basically acting. I am not an effective social worker.