ANNUAL DAMAGE TO KIDS? TWENTY CITIES AND COUNTING

Fort Wayne–Pop: 250,000

According to a 2015 Child Trends report (“Parents Behind Bars: What Happens to Their Children”), 1 in 14 American children (about 7%) has experienced the absence of at least one parent because of a prison sentence. That’s up from the last estimate in 2007, which put the percentage at 2%. The 2007 percentage comes to about 1.7 million children. According to Child Trends, that percentage might now approach 5 million. That’s nearly three times larger than what experts recorded just eight years ago.

To help get a practical of idea of what this figure means, take a mid-sized Indiana city, such as Fort Wayne. Currently, that city has a population of about a quarter million people. Now do some math. The 5 million children who currently have lost a parent to prison would fill 20 cities the size of Fort Wayne. No adults, mind you, just children. To peg the rate of growth from just eight years ago, the 2007 estimate would fill between six to seven cities. By the end of 2015, the number of children who had seen a parent behind prison bars added the equivalent of thirteen more mid-sized cities—an annual total of twenty municipalities.

As things stand, that number will continue to grow. That’s twenty cities and counting. No one can favor that kind of “urban growth” or call it healthy for families. Research has already documented the lasting damage to children caused by the loss of a parent to prison.  In an article published by Education Week (“Children of Inmates Seen at Risk”: 2/25/15), reporter Sarah Sparks summarizes the research findings on the negative effects.  These include:

·      Behavioral problems,

·      Language and speech delays,

·      Physical and psychological illness,

·      Lower academic achievement,

·      Lower high school graduation rates,

·     Lower college entrance and graduation rates, and

·      Greater likelihood of incarceration in later life.

Damaging American children in this way is both unacceptable and unsustainable.  It might even be called child abuse.  Justifiably, the courts often send adults guilty of that crime to prison.  What happens to a society that treats children as collateral damage in its efforts to control of crime?  Ironically, that remains uncertain.  But without a solution, America will eventually find out–as the collateral damage matures to adulthood.

SOURCES:

http://www.childtrends.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/2015-42ParentsBehindBars.pdf

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/02/25/parents-incarceration-takes-toll-on-children-studies.html

Are “Vouchers” and “Parental Choice” the Real Issues in Education?

Senator Elizabeth Warren has apparently changed her mind on vouchers. In a book she co-authored in 2003, The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Parents Are (Still) Going Broke, she supported them. In her challenge to Betsy DeVoss’ nomination as Secretary of the Department of Education, she has changed her mind.

Her views on Trump’s nominees don’t concern me. I would expect her to be critical. She is, after all, a Democratic senator. That’s her job, so to speak. Moreover, I don’t mind a politician, or any thinking person, changing a position on an important issue. That should be the result, however, of a logical process that says, “I was mistaken in my assessment, and here are the reasons that have forced me to change my mind.” But we don’t see anything approaching an explanation here. Instead, we see pure partisan outrage. It’s comic and irrelevant.

Switching views for partisan reasons or to gain a supposed political advantage suggests a thought process motivated by short-term considerations, not long-term solutions. Though a professor who presumably cares about education, Senator Warren insists on missing the point totally. Her shrill irrelevancy should entertain her detractors and disappoint her constituency. The issue of education deserves better, for it affects the future workforce, crime statistics, the census in state and federal prison systems, international business competitiveness, and a host of other topics. Senator Warren may not like DeVoss, but I have another question for her–and for other senators on either side of the aisle.

The real issue with school vouchers is not public versus private education. Even parental choice doesn’t quite capture the problem. The real issue is education that prepares students for their futures or education that condemns young people to restricted opportunities in a world economy where they will be unable to compete with better educated young people–nationally or globally. Those on the Left and the Right had better decide where the future is going to take place–with their political base or with young people now entering school.

America’s educational system is not working–especially for minorities and the poor. That is not a matter for debate. It is the truth and constitutes a real and present danger to the republic. We entrust elected officials to address threats such as this. When they fail to do so, whether they come from the Left or the Right, they betray the nation’s trust. Citizens should not reward that betrayal in future elections with their votes.

Despite emergency legislation (e.g., “No Child Left Behind), America’s educational decline has been going on for decades. U.S. business now spends billions of dollars annually on the remedial training of its workers. As foreign nations make impressive gains, American children fall behind in both literacy and math. America is now failing to prepare a new generation of young Americans. Many of the unprepared from the last generation we now house in the nation’s prisons. Mass incarceration is a scandal. Now experts tell us that this next generation will be less educated and less skilled than their parents. That’s also a scandal–and a tragedy. Is the solution building more prisons? That’s no way to maintain a world-class economy.

So here is my question, Senator Warren. Please share it with other senators–Republicans and Democrats. Compared to the rest of the world, U.S. education is expensive and mediocre. What are you and your colleagues going to do about it?

SOURCES:

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/12/american-schools-vs-the-world-expensive-unequal-bad-at-math/281983/#main-content

https://rankingamerica.wordpress.com/category/education/

The U.S. ranks 1st in prisoners

http://whotv.com/2013/12/03/lagging-behind-us-education-ranks-36th-worldwide/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/06/illiteracy-rate_n_3880355.html

http://www.statisticbrain.com/number-of-american-adults-who-cant-read/

http://www.greatschools.org/gk/articles/u-s-students-compare/

https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=1

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/02/02/u-s-students-improving-slowly-in-math-and-science-but-still-lagging-internationally/