I'm not sure what they mean "bring Civics back"...it has never left in most of

the Northern States I know. Government/Civics is usually made into an AP

Course here, too. Are there no parents who are concerned about this? "Perhaps the best-looking candidate will be their choice"? Or, maybe the best one to lie.

The good news is that in her junior year, she will have to take US History - it's a required course in just about every state in the US. She will learn something.

Unfortunately, she is an excellent example of what it means to be a "straight - A student" in most school districts today. It means she showed up and actually turned in homework on a regular basis, and little more.

There are good public schools out there - usually magnet schools - but parents must search for them and most parents just won't bother. As one parent said to me, "I don't like filling out forms". Really?

Such students as this young lady also appear to have parents who never talk to them about "the country, economics, politics" etc.. The schools should NOT have to bear the total burden of education our children. Parents - even grandparents - can engage children in conversation about more serious subjects and should discuss them in the home regularly. Where I live, such discussions are more likely to be which college a top basketball recruit should sign with and how the coach is doing that season.

It's very easy to see which children are engaged at home. I sit near where the umbrella boys have their stand at our beach club (can't walk any further in the sand). I've spent the past 3+ weeks getting to know these young men - all either rising HS seniors or going to be starting college in a few weeks. What delightful young men they are and how knowledgeable and articulate! One boy lives in London and was telling me about the ramifications of Bexit and what might happen in his affluent neighborhood if Jeffrey Corbyn becomes PM. I doubt he learned any of this at his school - his parents actually have conversations at home.

I skipped history and took Humanities. :0) Also in high school if you have enough credit hours to graduate, but are not allowed, that was me, my school allowed students to hike & camp and get credit. My DH hiked and camped and when he graduated he didn't understand fractions. 8/2=4 Simple fractions! He also couldn't balance a check book. Wanted to take out loans because the interest was a tax write off.

Forget politics....how are they supposed to manage on their own?

Schools are schools, their job is not to fill parenting voids left by less than stellar parenting. Exposing kids to different things and developing their interests and knowledge of what's around them in the world, whether it's astronomy, politics, plumbing or car mechanics and everything in-between, is the job of mom and dad. Dinnertime and car ride times are perfect for conversations about the world and current evernts, even busy parents have this time to use.

Sorry wanda, but I say in this case blame this girl's parents, not the schools.

Wanda, I love that idea loads. I think every world citizen should understand they are a part of the processes that affects their lives in very direct ways.

_________________________________

I respectfully disagree elmer. I remember a saying I once heard:.

it takes a village to raise a child.

.

It can't all be foisted on the parents. Teachers and administrators get to spend more time with my son than I do some days. There have been some really awful experiences that can't be undone. There have been great influences that taught him things that I never could. I am an involved parent, but absent from his days. Those teachers better be good parents in my stead.

But it is sad that a parent has to make up for the shortcomings of the school. I can't be there to undo what rotten things they do

P.S. I was referring to the oft referred to quote (often attributed to African folk lore).

Seriously, whether I want the village to influence my child or not, positive or negative, they're "raising" my child right along with me. Children see bad behavior and imitate it or avoid it. Good behavior and emulate it or disregard it. They watch and interact with teachers, peers, YOU, and others in their community. Like it or not.

Education starts at home. My husband's mother is shallow person whose biggest interest in life is obtaining the latest status symbol- this woman has no intellectual curiosity whatsoever- truly none- its staggering.

She sent her children off to the best boarding schools (her Volvo proudly bearing the various logos) and yet her children knew nothing of the world outside of high end consumer goods and sought after vacation spots.

To illustrate, one day I was visiting my husband, who was my boyfriend at the time, in Pittsburgh. His sister called when we were on our way to visit Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater. DH tells sister he can't talk for long because we are on our way to see this marvel of modern architecture. His sister says she doesn't know Fallingwater. He assumes she just forgot the name of the house and says, says you know, the famous FLW house ... nope, she doesn't know FLW either. At this point, btw, sister has graduated from a first rate liberal arts college.

Children reflect their parents' interests. There are exceptions. I am married to one. But even with the finest eduction money can buy, ignorant parents will beget ignorant children. And while it's nice to imagine schools being able to change that equation, it is not realistic.

Mind you, I still remember some great lessons my teachers taught about politics or art or any number of off topic things in the classroom. But I came into those discussions already clued in to the world around me, so the when my teacher digressed and started explaining Deng Xiao Ping's economic reforms in 1980 to my 7th grade class, I was alive to the concepts, so there was a foundation to build upon. Were I not aware of China being a communist country with a large population, would I have followed Mrs. Hoffmann's discussion? And if I could not come home and continue the discussion, would the knowledge have taken any root? I don't know.

Oh, and this sister went on to become a school teacher. I don't think she will be helping her students appreciate the world around them much.

Schools do not replace parents. Schools are an extension of parenting.

ETA I apologize for the rambling rant.

Rob333, I was just re-reading what you said, and I agree with you on the importance of teachers and schools in the sense that they have our children for a great many hours and then they extend their tentacles into our home lives with endless hours of somewhat useless homework. There is no coordination between teachers at my local public school with each teacher trying to outdo the other for whose class is the most rigorous (my children do not attend our local schools- their schools do pile on the homework as well- but at least its somewhat coordinated with an average of four hours per night in the upper school.)

So I hear you loud and clear about teachers having a responsibility - especially to do not harm.

I agree parents should be a part of a childs education....but there are so many stooooopid people raising children. The education has to start somewhere. I think "logic" should be a required class. If-then-else statements should be a part of a persons thought process....:0) Flow charting should be a required skill.

I haven't seen a mention of parents interacting with the State Department of Education, or your local School Board. Have you ever looked into the

reason for the educational classes that are there, and why? That is a bigger

part for Parents than sitting at the dining room table helping with homework.

Do you know what classes are required by the State, National?

If you are a tax payer those schools belong to you, and those teachers, etc.,

are in your employ. Now...I know California and probably some other States

have a different setup on Education..so not including them in this, because

I don't know how it works. For the schools that I know...most of the Northern

Tier, anyway....get involved...find out how things are done better., etc. And,

then when you go to the polls, for God's sake don't vote down any good

improvements to the system because "you don't want your taxes raised". If

you don't want your taxes raised...you get what you pay for. And your children

get what you supply for them. If you encounter a bad teacher...be vocal!!!!!

I could not come home and continue the discussion, would the knowledge have taken any root?

I think this is paramount in the cycle. We talk to the children, they listen in school, and come home thinking about it critically, and we can discuss it on a higher plane. That's good parenting, and village raising. You perfectly expound what I mean.

One point I can make--too many families don't have meals together. That's where discussions can take place. Admittedly my experiences are old, but I can recall my father and his sisters and brothers having spirited dinner conversations about politics and about books they had read. This was in the 1930's. We were country people, though my grandfather was a probate judge.

In my own home my husband and I and our four children had lively conversations, All of us had studied Civics in school. And, as in my parent's home, there was always a daily newspaper. Even in the depths of the depression we had managed to get that paper. This was pre-television and a time when radio was just becoming common, so the paper was a main source of news.

During my years as a teacher, Civics was taught even in Grade school.

We are raising a generation that can text and use a cell phone, but-----can they really think?

In my schools, Civics/Government ...by whatever name is STILL taught in elementary, Middle, and High School. Still hard for me to grasp that it isn't

everywhere. Yes,,, a lot of homework...but it is taught and learned.

It's a multi-faceted problem. The state of education in our country is sad, and graduating high school with a good gpa does not necessarily mean being well-educated.

I have my doubts that taking a civics class would really help. A lot of information is only retained long enough to pass a test and then quickly forgotten.

Intellectual curiosity needs to be fostered at an early age and I think classes should be more project based than test based. I think that would help keep the information more relatable and memorable.

I think it's only going to get worse with the current administration.

Intellectual curiosity does not need to be fostered. Children are born with intellectual curiosity- otherwise they would never bother to learn to interact with the world. Intellectual curiosity is not something teachers give their students. Intellectual curiosity is something parents and teachers together can support and nourish. Teachers, however, are in an excellent position to kill off intellectual curiosity- see Stanford education professor Denise Clark Pope's Doing School book for a discussion of divorcing academics from any meaning. The Berkeley developmental psychologist, Alison Gopnik studies how children are innately driven to explore and learn extensively. Her book, the Scientist in the Crib from 1999, is an excellent primer on the subject.

ETA Maybe it's just a word choice. For me fostering means I am creating the conditions for this thing to happen. I foster good habits in my children, otherwise they would never tidy their rooms and clean up after themselves in the kitchen. I support my children's intellectual curiosity because its already clearly there and its my job to nourish and grow that curiosity so that it becomes the engine of their personal growth.

By fostering intellectual curiosity, I meant supporting and encouraging the curiosity that children are born with. It's not creating it. It's providing an environment where they can pursue their own interests, ask questions, and explore. It's the opposite of the majority of the educational system where kids start with worksheets in kindergarten and follow strict curriculum and testing schedules. I believe that stifles their natural curiosity.

Young ones need to ease into the school thing and preschoolers should be allowed to "explore their interest" and do their own thing as part of that process. Once the real thing starts (K or 1st grade, your choice), I believe all kids need to be given a core curriculum along with the right stimulation and motivation to help them get through it and do their best. Inflexible curricula and strict practices, and testing, wouldn't be necessary to the extent they are today if our schools had more capable teachers.

The best teachers in my school career were the toughest ones.

My wife, who works occasionally as a sub, experienced two starkly different teacher communications to parents (at the same school in a not particularly affluent area) in the week before year end testing. One teacher's parent letter said that they had been reviewing the material and that she felt the kids were ready. She asked parents to talk with their kids about the test being important and that they should try their best without feeling pressure about it. Oh, and to be please be sure they get enough sleep the night before the test and the day before that. Please be sure they have an early dinner that night before and a balanced breakfast the day of. The second teacher's letter home told parents that she had told the class that they were all special little snowflakes, that how they did on the test didn't matter, and that no special attention should be drawn to it at home.

Which teacher would you want your kid to have? Which is preparing the kids for life as successful and functioning adults in whatever directions they choose to pursue for their lives?

I agree with you completely Chi. I think the testing programs we see today are a poor substitute for real learning.

Elmer, I am not sure what the point of the letter to the parents was in your example. I share your belief that children should be taught well and with rigor, no doubt (though I am adamantly opposed to the way we have turned K into 1st over the years). But the preparation for those tests takes place day in and day out in and out of the classroom. Parents who send their children to school tired and not properly fed are not going to do an about face one or two nights of the year. And even if they did, to what ends?

Chi, I am all for project based learning or what is also called constructivist learning throughout a student's career. Are you familiar with the Nueva School in Northern California? That is their model and it works beautifully. Their graduates get into all the "best" schools and have stellar careers. The school was founded around '67, so they have quite a long track record. The school just added an upper school four years ago (it was preK through 8 until then.)

I generally agree with you, Rita.

If you mean the first letter, Rita, of course the preparation took place over the entire school year but to me it was indicative of a conscientious teacher who "got it" and who had prepared the kids to be "successful". In the sense that success for children can be measured by attitude and habits, not by the score. Of course, with her approach the scores follow without being emphasized or stressed. The second teacher was clueless, as far too many are.

There was a popular but trite phrase that crept into corporate speak 15 years or so ago - the phrase was overused but I think the sentiment is of value - "what gets measured gets done".

And we have Betsy DeVos as education secretary. God help us all.

The Common Core Standards are stripping away intellectual curiosity and the ability to think independently.

I worked for 19 years at a K-8 elementary school and there is another factor in play here as well. When children come from dysfunctional homes (parents who abuse alcohol and/or drugs, live in sub-standard housing including campgrounds and cars, get their only nutritious meals through the school breakfast and lunch program, are dirty and wearing rags to school, miss several consecutive days throughout the year due to things like head lice and have parents who are barely literate themselves) they aren't in a position to learn, be curious about the world or become creative thinkers. Those kids are trying their best to survive.

Many are physically and emotionally abused. Some are sexually abused. Their parents don't care about what sort of education their children are receiving - they don't value education. They aren't involved in the classroom, school board meetings or much of anything else.

I remember students saving part of their school lunch for dinner later because they knew there would be no dinner at home. It's a sad thing to see a young child stuffing an apple and a yogurt in their pockets so they can eat later. No child should have to worry about those things. And, yet, we now have an administration that wants to cut the budget for school meals.

I won't even get into the behavioral issues kids growing up in these kinds of situations have. But, those behavioral issues take a teacher's time away from teaching at the expense of the education of other students because they (the teachers) are either counseling or disciplining those kids with behavioral problems.

In my opinion, based on what I personally observed with my own eyes for 19 years, these core issues need to be addressed first before students are going to be able to thrive in school and later in life as adults. For many of them, school is simply a respite for a few hours from the chaos at home. These kids will very likely never go to college and a lot of them will end up repeating the cycle when they are adults with their own children.

I would venture to guess that many of us posting on this board live fairly sheltered lives and have no idea what life is like for the kids and families I've described above. They live in our cities, suburbs and in rural areas as well. Nor would a lot of you realize just how many there are; it's not an isolated problem. There is something very wrong when we live in one of the richest countries in the world yet there are so many children going without the basic necessities of food, shelter and clothing.

Dawn--thoughtful reply and very true.

Yes, as we see to some extent here on this thread dissing teachers is a long practiced American tradition. Teachers are just the front rank in the educational system, part of an interaction that includes administrators and parents. Even at the college level they are expected to be miracle workers. For instance once while sitting and waiting for a presentation to begin I overhead a local horticultural business owner complaining to one of my former community college instructors that he wasn't being sent students from the college that were already fully trained in exactly what he wanted for his own particular operation. When the instructor suggested that the employer participate in the educational process in order to ensure that students had the specific training he thought desirable he responded with a blank stare. He himself doing anything at all to insure that new hires would perform just as desired - either before or after being hired - was completely off his radar.

Dawn...I have a sister who taught for over 30 years at almost every grade level, both public and private, who would give a resounding cheer as well as a strong "second" to your post if she were sitting here at my keyboard.

She's retired now but throughout her career I was astounded at the tales of woe she brought home with her on an almost continual basis from the first year she taught right through to her retirement year. Not to mention the amount of personal time and money she donated to both the children and back into the system to assist and encourage those children to continue coming to school each and every day. Was it appreciated? Yes...more times than not. Did her graduates succeed? Yes...some did. And others, unfortunately, could never break the mold but they did stay in school and they did graduate. I, personally, consider that to be success. The alternative would have been incarceration or death before their mid teens.

I've tried to keep up with all the posts in this thread...both for and against parents and teachers. IMO...we all need to look deeper. There's room for improvement at every level. We all have a responsibility beyond paying our taxes towards to the success of a child. I've yet to meet a little child who, with a little encouragement, won't talk my ear off when asked about their day. They naturally want to share. All we need to do is ask and listen...before they're lost to us entirely. So little is needed to encourage such rewards.

Thank you, Annie and Andi.

Andi, I'm sure your sister and I could swap stories for hours.

There was a little girl about 7 or 8 and her mother was in jail in the next county over for a drug offense. The little girl was taken to visit her mother and the next morning ran up to me and said, "Dawn, Dawn, have you ever been to the **** jail?" Me (thinking to myself that I've never been to any jail), "No, I can't say that I have." Little girl, "It's the nicest jail I've ever been in! You should go there some time." What do you say to that?

Or, the young boy whose shoes were falling apart. We had a small budget for clothing and shoes for just this type of situation. His teacher brought him to me and asked if I had a pair of shoes we could give to him, so we went into the clothes closet and found a brand new pair of shoes that fit perfectly. I started to cut off the tags and he wouldn't let me because he had never had a new pair of shoes before. He wore them with the tags until the tags fell off. One day he told me that with his new shoes he could run faster and jump higher than he ever had before.

As Chi said above, it's a multi-faceted problem and one that I doubt can ever be truly solved. There are too many people living like this and they live in my town, your town and in every county in every state in the United States.

I think that returning shop and vocational classes to the schools would help. Not every student is college bound and at least classes like this would give them a marketable skill.

Instructional intervention needs to take place by the age of eight, I believe it is. For kids who have fallen behind, it is almost impossible for them to catch up by the time they reach third grade without more help than their teacher can provide.

I've always thought that every politician on the local, state and federal level should be required to spend a couple of weeks volunteering in a public school in a working class neighborhood to give a face and a name to the people whose lives they touch. If they understood what life is really like, perhaps they'd come up with some ideas and solutions that would really help people.

It's easy to blame the schools and teachers, but they are there in the trenches every day trying to implement the curriculum, policies and legislation that comes down the pike year after year. They are there being substitute parents to children who have parents who can't or won't be parents. They are there taking abuse from parents who see no value in sending their children to school and who send them because the law says they have to.

It's a trite saying, but children are the future. What kind of future do we want them to have?

I think some of you are combining two different problems and talking about them as if they were one.

There's a socio-economic underclass in the US, the children from which Dawn describes in her first few paragraphs. The very sad situations that result for children of people with the problems she describes are heart breaking. Who needs to be dealing with the circumstances of these abused and improperly treated kids and the parents whose conduct I think is often criminal are child welfare officers, social workers, psychologists and police departments. And the relatives of such families if they're in a position to offer the kids better home environments.

School teachers and administrators aren't equipped to handle these cases and shouldn't be expected to. Yes, they have to deal with what walks in the door every morning but their efforts are less than small band-aids that do nothing for otherwise very big problems that society has and doesn't do enough about.

Curricula choices and implementation, school adherence to mission for educational outcomes, recruitment, management, and dismissal (for performance reasons) of teachers and administrators, etc - are all unrelated to the first problem. Yes, schools that have large or predominant populations of kids from underprivileged circumstances need to be ready to deal with such special circumstances and do their best to educate those children too. But as I said above, schools are schools and can't be expected to resolve problems their students have that they don't have the training, manpower, or capability to handle.

To all those who have worked with children in terrible need, like Dawn, I am in awe of you. I do want to point out that this thread started out about children from stable, middle class families not being conversant in civics, and whether or not schools or families bore the brunt of the blame for that situation.

With respect to children from troubled families, I think it is incumbent upon all of us to reach out and do what we can to help, whether that is by making sure our local food pantry is well stocked or using our professional resources to be of service.

I would like to think Dawn's suggestion for having elected officials work in needy schools from time to time would help. But I have serious doubts about that.

I will offer up an opinion that is sure to be unpopular. While I believe teachers should be held accountable for their work and I think our testing system is an attempt at making that happen, families are our first teachers and the most important institution in our youngsters' lives.

If we cannot find a way to make families strong again, we will not ever see the end of this heart break, no matter how rich a society we are. I agree that poor people labor under difficult and unjust conditions, and I do what I can to not be a part of that problem and moreover to help redress it. But so long as we give the impression to people that family life is optional for raising children, that you can use drugs recreationally and that your worth is measured by your bank account and possessions, I think we will be in for trouble regardless of social supports put in place by the government (of course we need things like nutritional and health support for those in need- especially children.)

I would never want to go back to the time when people were ostracized for being outside of certain norms, like having a baby out of marriage, or being gay or having the wrong religion or being black for that matter. But I think that unless we can get people to recognize they have inherent value which should not be squandered on drugs and that they have the power to improve their circumstances and most importantly that their children are precious and deserve a loving and stable home, then we are doomed to continue repeating this ever worsening cycle of needless destruction.

Agree, agree, agree. And agree.

Drug problems are a symptom and not a cause. You want to cut back on the drug epidemic, a good area to start is not letting a tiny percentile of the population continue to hog all the financial assets. And exclude millions from meaningful employment.

I beg to differ, Embothrium. While I agree that poor people have to cope with very difficult circumstances and I believe it is our duty to redress wrongs, using drugs is not a valid coping method. People must understand unequivically that escapism through drugs (or alcohol) is strictly off-limits because using drugs leads to addiction and addiction does not render a person more capable of meeting life's challenges. It is as simple as that. Once you are addicted, though, there is no simplicity, only gut wrenching devastation for all parties involved.

So I applaud your compassion, but it does no one any favors to pretend that lifestyle choices are divorced from life outcomes. This fashion of laying the blame for all of society's problems at the hands of income inequality is an exercise in fatalism. You are condemning poor people to horrible lives because you believe they have no options other than the opium den, not in 21st.C. America.

As a society we have given people some extraordinarily bad messages. When enlightened liberalism turns into debauched permissiveness lives are shattered and those with the least lose the most.

If you want to lay the blame for all of this destruction at the hands of income inequality, you are free, if that makes you feel better. But to do so condemns poor people to a total loss of control over their own lives. You suggest that because a person is poor she cannot make intelligent decisions about how to manage her life. I reject that premise.

Of course Civics should be a required course. When I was in school we had all inclusive "social studies" in earlier grades of elementary. In the 8th grade we were required to pass a Civics exam to move on to high school. High school graduation requirements included Geography, History and Civics. That was for general education, not college prep nor AP. We didn't have AP classes. You either took a general curriculum or college prep.

We have always had children who were underprivileged. The difference is that we didn't have a liberal mindset that they were doomed to failure. Education was not dumbed down. Educationalists saw the importance of teaching them to lift them up, not hold them down.

If anyone should be taught Civics and American History it is children from disadvantaged homes who will certainly not learn it elsewhere.
Well maybe behind bars if they don't get the same opportunity to learn just because they are treated as special cases too poor or ignorant to learn.

This was California before Johnson's "Great Society" brought on the age of entitlements that the left is so fond of today. California grabbed on to the idea that equality among people whatever there roots was passe and never let go.

Embothrium, I'm not sure where you're coming from. No matter how income is distributed in a society, there's always a top 1%. That's arithmetic. If you don't like what corporate leaders make, speak out about it and be active. But don't invent problems that don't exist. While I agree that some seem to be paid unwarranted amounts, it's wrong-headed to suggest that money takes away jobs from the rank and file. I don't think that's true or even close to being true.

Drug problems (including alcohol, the most widely abused drug) are both a symptom and a cause of dysfunctional and desperate low rung home situations that contribute to awful environments for kids.

I can't get behind Rita's notion of "debauched permissiveness" unless I'm misunderstanding what she means. I do agree with many of her other comments. I'm not sure what breaks the cycle of poverty and (for some) lawless and pointless existences that too many have fallen into. It's for sure that doing nothing hasn't helped.

Watchme's critical indictment of Johnson has me shaking my head. Let's see - the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, Medicare, Medicaid, Public Broadcasting, the Clean Air act, federal funding of education. Which of these do you find offensive?

Elmer, by debauched permissiveness I mean our attitudes about drugs/alcohol and having children outside of the confines of marriage.

Debauchery according to Google: excessive indulgence in sensual pleasures.

I understand what the words mean standalone but I don't know who and what you're specifically referring to. I also don't understand your cite of "enlightened liberalism" as a starting point for something or other.

Are you speaking about women (usually in poverty, but not exclusively, and not exclusively African American as may be the stereotype for some) who accumulate have large numbers of children (that they don't have the means to provide for) from different informal relationships? I'm not sure that's tolerated by society, per se, but what do you suggest as a solution?

Drugs and alcohol abuse are age-old problems and again, not exclusively those of the inner city or impoverished individuals. Look at the meth and opioid epidemics throughout rural and small town America. The supply of drugs can't be stopped. Alcohol is legal and that won't change. What are your thoughts, what should be done?

By enlightened liberalism I mean our decision as a society to accept differences among people. Acceptance of homosexuality, giving minorities and women equal rights, not ostracizing people for having a child out of wed lock. To me those were all good things and we have certainly not finished the work that was started on all of those issues and many more I am not thinking of immediately.

What to do about substance abuse? I have no idea once the genie is out of the bottle and a person is hooked. But before the genie is loosed, I say, just as we tell our children not to play with fire because it is dangerous, we must go back to telling them that drugs are dangerous and pose a mortal danger to them. This message must be inculcated in our children from a young age. Our society glamorizes drug use. As parents we must show the reality.

I do not believe in the war on drugs. That has been a total failure wasting money and lives.

Here is what I told my children- the abridged version. Getting high must feel very good, or people would not do it. Don't get high. It's too dangerous. You could very easily find yourself addicted to drugs and there is no easy way out of that addiction- and in fact the way out often involves death. I know lots of people around us thinking smoking pot is alright. First smoking is not alright and second taking a substance for the purposes of getting high is not ok. If you need to feel better about your life for any reason, we can work on that together and make it better- relatively easily. If you get addicted to drugs nothing is easy. Your education will suffer and you will find yourself very unhappy because meaningful work is hard to find if you are not well educated and meaningful relationships are hopeless if you are addicted to drugs.

That was the message I gave my children. It seems to have worked- perhaps too well with my eldest. This conversation began when they were very, very young. I was once told by a wise friend that it is best to address subjects like this long before these issues actually manifest themselves in real life. I augmented the argument with showing examples of people whose lives suffered because of substance abuse.

And with respect to the people who are already hooked. Stop the imprisoning them for one thing and start the hard work of helping straighten their lives out. This prison nonsense makes these people harder to employ and exacerbates a bad situation. I realize treatment for drug addiction has become a huge scam, so its hard to find help. There are people out there who do the hard work of helping people get out from under this terrible burden. Find those people and copy them on a large scale.

On the children outside of a stable and loving home- again- I don't think that is an African-American problem- it think it's an education and poverty problem. Some people have gotten the message that having children at a young age and without the proper support structure is an option and may in fact make your life better. Maybe starting sex education at an age appropriate level earlier would help? Once children ask where babies come from, we should probably explain what having a baby means in practical terms along with the mechanics.

I am well aware that none of what I have said, aside from ending the so-called war on drugs, has any policy implications. My thinking is about practical, everyday actions. Of course there needs to be a whole lot more thought given to policies that can help deliver a healthier society.

Ever since this discussion began, I started playing with the idea of children needing more instruction in how daily living from schools. Perhaps half an hour per day from K onward could be dedicated to emotional intelligence work, learning how to manage yourself and practical living skills along with discussions about drugs and sex and budgeting and such. I know that is historically the work of parents, but since these problems show up in the classroom, what if we made time for addressing them positively?

"Yes, they have to deal with what walks in the door every morning but
their efforts are less than small band-aids that do nothing for
otherwise very big problems that society has and doesn't do enough
about."

What would you have "society" do? What do you do? You are "society", are you not? I think it does take a village=society, so don't lay it all at either the teachers' or parents' feet. I think you're on to something, but other than talking about it, what's supposed to happen here?

I don't mean to give the impression that my saying what I did with my family is not the same thing that many people do and yet they have an unwanted outcome. I am fortunate to live in an area that basically supports my message- so actually- a society effect right there.

Yes, I did go off on a tangent from the original topic. It was Elmer's post about the letter that teachers sent home before year end testing that started my thought processes in that direction.

Our school sent a very similar letter home before spring testing, but the result was predictable. The kids who came from stable homes came to school prepared, well rested and well fed. The kids from the dysfunctional homes did not. It didn't matter how conscientious the teacher was; it was always the same end result.

The thing is that the students who are struggling at home are the same kids who struggle at school either academically, emotionally, behaviorally or all three. This distracts teachers from doing what they are paid to do which is teach and that affects the quality of education all of the students are receiving regardless of their home life and backgrounds. It's all intertwined like pieces of a puzzle.

Anyway, one last story to illustrate another related point. I do hope these stories aren't a source of annoyance to anyone reading, but I find they make this a lot more real than statistics from various agencies because they are about real live people.

There was a boy from one of these dysfunctional homes. He'd only been at our school a couple of months as his family moved around a lot. We knew he was intelligent, but had no idea just how intelligent until his spring test scores came back and he scored nearly perfect scores in all subjects. His scores were in the top five percentile for the state.

Sadly, this boy didn't have any support at home. He didn't know or believe that he was smart. His father was in prison and when asked what he planned to do with his life he would answer that he thought he'd be a tattoo artist and probably spend time in prison himself someday. He was very matter of fact about it.

What a waste of potential. Think what he could have done with his life and what he could have contributed to society if he'd been able to attend college and beyond. And, he's just one of these many children who are falling through the cracks at an alarming rate. This potential is one of our greatest resources and we all lose when it's squandered.

As far as politicians spending a week in our schools, I know that will never happen. It's just something I think about in my head because it's my feeling that it might wake a few of them up when they are thinking about things like cutting funding for school meal programs.

I have nothing further to add to this thread, so I am going to bow out and leave it to the rest of you continue.

One last thought about the original subject which was about children from middle class families not being knowledgeable in
civics and who is to blame for that situation. I think most high school kids aren't very interested in those subjects at that stage in their lives. As they grow up and go off to college and out into the world, watch the news and start to learn how things work, many of them will begin to develop an interest. It will be casual for some and intense for others.

Those who came from stable upper class and middle class homes will go on to become the leaders of tomorrow as they develop their critical thinking skills. And, those who came from the lower socio-economic groups will grow up to be those who don't contribute much and who are a drain on society. There are exceptions, of course. Some of those upper middle class kids won't amount to much and throw away their opportunities and some of those lower socio-economic kids will claw their way out and make a better life for themselves.

Rita, I'm glad I asked you for clarification, because what you explained is almost the opposite of what I thought you'd said earlier (the problem was my reading comprehension, perhaps I read too quickly, not your writing). I agree with everything you said.

Dawn, I enjoyed your thoughtful observations/comments and also agree with almost everything.

rob, I have no answers. Many European countries seem to deal with these issues better than we do by having more programs, more focused efforts to give underprivileged kids opportunities, and more vocational education for those who have interests and abilities that don't include academic subjects. Taxes pay for these programs and the political party temporarily in power on a federal and state level (it will be changing dramatically in a few years) doesn't seem to understand the very important contributions to our society that governmental programs can provide.

But keep in mind, there is no village. Teachers and schools are untrained and lacking resources to fill parenting gaps that kids suffer from. The efforts in the schools are stop-gaps only. Parents need to be fully responsible for raising their own kids to be functioning adults leading happy lives. Those unwilling or unable to do so shouldn't have any.

Rob333 I used to work in a policy making position- long ago in the '90s. And I started out answering you listing all the things I think we could do better from a government point of view. My response got very long and terribly wonky, and given the realities of the day, pretty unlikely, so I erased it. Then Dawn posted and somethings became more clear. We have to end the mass incarceration of Americans. That is something we could do at a policy level- mind you it would have to be a coordinated effort between many branches and across states and municipalities- but that would be step one. No more for profit prisons. No more jailing people for failing to pay a fine, no more jailing people for minor drug offenses. No more jailing children for misbehaving in school- this actually happens in places where police officers are adjuncts to teachers in the school hallways. No more forcing pleas from innocent people.

If anyone would like to learn more about how we are criminalizing poverty in America, read about the Southern Poverty Law Center's work on criminal justice reform here : https://www.splcenter.org/issues/mass-incarceration

Dawn, you really know how to tell a story- be it about a trip to Thailand or a young child's life. Thank you..

I posted while Elmer posted. Great point about European style programs where social mobility's now higher than in America- imagine that for an Ellis Island minute!

And I agree with Elmer 100 percent about parents are where the buck stops. While we should strive for a more just country, individuals must take responsibility for the lives they create. It's not hard to manage fertility in this day and age. Margaret Thatcher once said, There is no society, only individuals and families. I did not care for those words when she said them. I thought surely we could do better if we all held hands and tried harder. And that is true. But at the heart of the problem are two people choosing to bring a child they are unable to care for into the world.

For me I have a duty to bring up my children well. And because I have a surplus of time and money, I have a duty to help those around me, which I do through direct financial support and volunteer work.

I just saw this and since it dove tails with our discussion, I just had to share an Op-Ed from today's NYT on bail reform from Senators Harris and Paul https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/20/opinion/kamala-harris-and-rand-paul-lets-reform-bail.html.

My usual pitch:

Curtail Child Welfare to parents of dependent children. Offer publicly supported, voluntary-enrollment Boarding Schools. Put welfare money toward a public/private venture to both educate and *raise* children.

These are not orphanages. Parental contact is encouraged -- during school breaks. Disruptive children will be dismissed. (Sounds like most prep schools, right?)

Most parents love their children. Poor parents are no exception. They want their children fed, protected, educated -- with a horizon beyond poverty and drugs, where generations subsist and the rare child escapes to a good life.

The taxpayer could get some productive, (future taxpaying) citizens instead of funding law enforcement, courts, jails, social workers, public schools that feed and baby-sit, and welfare lifestyle incentives to adolescents to produce the next generation of meal-ticket children.

We could say to parents, "Here's a lifeline. Do you want it for your children?"

We could say to taxpayers, "Wouldn't this be a better *investment*?"

I also want publicly funded college educations for anyone, of any age, who can test in and meet requirements to stay in for a reasonable length of time to earn a degree. Education only to age 18 is not realistic in today's world, especailly because attempts to make the HS diploma worth having appear doomed.

I love the public boarding school idea. It would have to start very young, but I could imagine training childcare workers from impoverished communities to be dorm parents and then bring their knowledge of child development and education back into their communities.

Of course we all know that regular boarding school have had their share of trouble with exploiting/abusing children, so that would be a major wrinkle to work out, but I am sure we could manage a solution (nothing is fool proof and for sure there will be abuse, just like there already is in every community.)

Also, I've been thinking about immunizations. Children are now inoculated against a sexually transmitted virus, HPV. If we think we should vaccinate children against an unwanted outcome of sexual intercourse, then why don't we routinely offer long term birth control to all sexually mature girls? It seems like the same principle to me. We accept that young people will be sexually active and we affirmatively offer up simple, inexpensive birth control to guard against the unwanted consequences.