Are Americans Really Starving?

[LordBrownTrout]

I know many kids that escaped poverty by that exact path, inspired to escape, they worked hard, took advantage of all the opportunity there is in this country, and blazed their own paths out of poverty.

For every one that you know that did what (escape from poverty) you say, there are 5 more that didn't. Not because they didn't try. What do you want them to do? Or what do you want to do to or for them? If anything.

Without a good education along with a desire to succeed and examples of others who have escaped poverty it is very hard for a poor person to imaging themselves successful. And what you can't see yourself doing will not be done.

Sometimes you Republicans have a strange idea of what human nature is like in poor people. Just telling them to go out and be successful is no more successful with them than to tell that to your kid and then not prepare them.
You have to prepare to succeed.

Hard to be successful with out preparing to succeed and have opportunities to succeed in.

They have opportunities to succeed, many paths to a good life even without a college education. They just need to hear from people other than you to tell them they are the captain of their own vessel and nobody can give them success but themselves. There are too many people who stopped listening to Leftists and applied themselves to a path to success for your bullshit to be true. They serve as examples to the rest that nobody has to be a "victim" of the Left.

Lets make it easy on you cause I see that the complexity of the problem is to much for you and your buddies to comprehend.

How do you propose to fix the illiterate and the math challenged? Just curious.


According to a study conducted in late April by the U.S. Department of Education and the National Institute of Literacy, 32 million adults in the U.S. can't read. That's 14 percent of the population. 21 percent of adults in the U.S. read below a 5th grade level, and 19 percent of high school graduates can't read.

The current literacy rate isn't any better than it was 10 years ago. According to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy (completed most recently in 2003, and before that, in 1992), 14 percent of adult Americans demonstrated a "below basic" literacy level in 2003, and 29 percent exhibited a "basic" reading level.

We probably don't need to spell out the benefits of reading and writing for you. Economic security, access to health care, and the ability to actively participate in civic life all depend on a individual's ability to read.

According to the Department of Justice, "The link between academic failure and delinquency, violence, and crime is welded to reading failure." The stats back up this claim: 85 percent of all juveniles who interface with the juvenile court system are functionally illiterate, and over 70 percent of inmates in America's prisons cannot read above a fourth grade level, according to BeginToRead.com.

Why do you constantly look to govt to solve your problems when they constantly fail ie dept of education?

 

[Roadrunner]

I know many kids that escaped poverty by that exact path, inspired to escape, they worked hard, took advantage of all the opportunity there is in this country, and blazed their own paths out of poverty.

For every one that you know that did what (escape from poverty) you say, there are 5 more that didn't. Not because they didn't try. What do you want them to do? Or what do you want to do to or for them? If anything.

Without a good education along with a desire to succeed and examples of others who have escaped poverty it is very hard for a poor person to imaging themselves successful. And what you can't see yourself doing will not be done.

Sometimes you Republicans have a strange idea of what human nature is like in poor people. Just telling them to go out and be successful is no more successful with them than to tell that to your kid and then not prepare them.
You have to prepare to succeed.

Hard to be successful with out preparing to succeed and have opportunities to succeed in.

Hate to say it, but there are plenty of people who would be perfectly happy to sit on their arses and collect benefits for doing nothing for their entire lives. Yes, when you do, do and do for a person, that person tends to become a lazy and entitled person. True story.

I saw a bunch living off of the government yesterday.

Wouldn't say they were content with it, but, it was what they were taught from birth, and the schools reinforced it.

Known them since they were babies, abandoned by their mothers, living with an old granddaddy that took in all his daughters' throwaways.

At times the old man had 10-12 grandkids with him.

Some of his grandkids that had a mother that cared for them did pretty well.

The others, well, when I see them, I am just glad they are not in jail; they hardly ever had a chance.

That said, they are making their kids go to school every day, something nobody ever made them do.

And when I see them, they know I love them and all their kids, and they love me and all my kids.

Lots of love in this world, you know.

Nothing like small town life sometimes!!!!

: - )

 

[Roadrunner]

I know many kids that escaped poverty by that exact path, inspired to escape, they worked hard, took advantage of all the opportunity there is in this country, and blazed their own paths out of poverty.

For every one that you know that did what (escape from poverty) you say, there are 5 more that didn't. Not because they didn't try. What do you want them to do? Or what do you want to do to or for them? If anything.

Without a good education along with a desire to succeed and examples of others who have escaped poverty it is very hard for a poor person to imaging themselves successful. And what you can't see yourself doing will not be done.

Sometimes you Republicans have a strange idea of what human nature is like in poor people. Just telling them to go out and be successful is no more successful with them than to tell that to your kid and then not prepare them.
You have to prepare to succeed.

Hard to be successful with out preparing to succeed and have opportunities to succeed in.

They have opportunities to succeed, many paths to a good life even without a college education. They just need to hear from people other than you to tell them they are the captain of their own vessel and nobody can give them success but themselves. There are too many people who stopped listening to Leftists and applied themselves to a path to success for your bullshit to be true. They serve as examples to the rest that nobody has to be a "victim" of the Left.

Lets make it easy on you cause I see that the complexity of the problem is to much for you and your buddies to comprehend.

How do you propose to fix the illiterate and the math challenged? Just curious.


According to a study conducted in late April by the U.S. Department of Education and the National Institute of Literacy, 32 million adults in the U.S. can't read. That's 14 percent of the population. 21 percent of adults in the U.S. read below a 5th grade level, and 19 percent of high school graduates can't read.

The current literacy rate isn't any better than it was 10 years ago. According to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy (completed most recently in 2003, and before that, in 1992), 14 percent of adult Americans demonstrated a "below basic" literacy level in 2003, and 29 percent exhibited a "basic" reading level.

We probably don't need to spell out the benefits of reading and writing for you. Economic security, access to health care, and the ability to actively participate in civic life all depend on a individual's ability to read.

According to the Department of Justice, "The link between academic failure and delinquency, violence, and crime is welded to reading failure." The stats back up this claim: 85 percent of all juveniles who interface with the juvenile court system are functionally illiterate, and over 70 percent of inmates in America's prisons cannot read above a fourth grade level, according to BeginToRead.com.

We need to start doling out money equally to all school systems so that we have good teachers, teaching materials, etc. in all of our schools, even the ones in the most poor communities. That gives every child an equal opportunity to succeed at life.

It does NOT start with money in the schools.

It starts at home.

When a kid enters kindergarten with a huge vocabulary of four letter words, but cannot name the basic colors, no amount of money and remediation can fix the situation.

As for all those illiterates in jail, they are the same assholes that held back their classmates with their constant disruptions.

I taught in a school that has gotten a D rating ever since they started giving letter grades to schools, which was after I retired.

I assume we would have gotten a D too, when I was there.

Funny thing, this rural shithole school provided Valedictorians for the high school, year after year.

 

[ChrisL]

I know many kids that escaped poverty by that exact path, inspired to escape, they worked hard, took advantage of all the opportunity there is in this country, and blazed their own paths out of poverty.

For every one that you know that did what (escape from poverty) you say, there are 5 more that didn't. Not because they didn't try. What do you want them to do? Or what do you want to do to or for them? If anything.

Without a good education along with a desire to succeed and examples of others who have escaped poverty it is very hard for a poor person to imaging themselves successful. And what you can't see yourself doing will not be done.

Sometimes you Republicans have a strange idea of what human nature is like in poor people. Just telling them to go out and be successful is no more successful with them than to tell that to your kid and then not prepare them.
You have to prepare to succeed.

Hard to be successful with out preparing to succeed and have opportunities to succeed in.

They have opportunities to succeed, many paths to a good life even without a college education. They just need to hear from people other than you to tell them they are the captain of their own vessel and nobody can give them success but themselves. There are too many people who stopped listening to Leftists and applied themselves to a path to success for your bullshit to be true. They serve as examples to the rest that nobody has to be a "victim" of the Left.

Lets make it easy on you cause I see that the complexity of the problem is to much for you and your buddies to comprehend.

How do you propose to fix the illiterate and the math challenged? Just curious.


According to a study conducted in late April by the U.S. Department of Education and the National Institute of Literacy, 32 million adults in the U.S. can't read. That's 14 percent of the population. 21 percent of adults in the U.S. read below a 5th grade level, and 19 percent of high school graduates can't read.

The current literacy rate isn't any better than it was 10 years ago. According to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy (completed most recently in 2003, and before that, in 1992), 14 percent of adult Americans demonstrated a "below basic" literacy level in 2003, and 29 percent exhibited a "basic" reading level.

We probably don't need to spell out the benefits of reading and writing for you. Economic security, access to health care, and the ability to actively participate in civic life all depend on a individual's ability to read.

According to the Department of Justice, "The link between academic failure and delinquency, violence, and crime is welded to reading failure." The stats back up this claim: 85 percent of all juveniles who interface with the juvenile court system are functionally illiterate, and over 70 percent of inmates in America's prisons cannot read above a fourth grade level, according to BeginToRead.com.

We need to start doling out money equally to all school systems so that we have good teachers, teaching materials, etc. in all of our schools, even the ones in the most poor communities. That gives every child an equal opportunity to succeed at life.

It does NOT start with money in the schools.

It starts at home.

When a kid enters kindergarten with a huge vocabulary of four letter words, but cannot name the basic colors, no amount of money and remediation can fix the situation.

As for all those illiterates in jail, they are the same assholes that held back their classmates with their constant disruptions.

I taught in a school that has gotten a D rating ever since they started giving letter grades to schools, which was after I retired.

I assume we would have gotten a D too, when I was there.

Funny thing, this rural shithole school provided Valedictorians for the high school, year after year.

I'm not talking about home life. I'm talking about each child having an equal opportunity in our school system, which they do not have as of right now. Money is doled out to schools by district. Richer districts get a LOT more money than poor districts, and therein lies the inequity in education between rich and poor.

 

[Roadrunner]

For every one that you know that did what (escape from poverty) you say, there are 5 more that didn't. Not because they didn't try. What do you want them to do? Or what do you want to do to or for them? If anything.

Without a good education along with a desire to succeed and examples of others who have escaped poverty it is very hard for a poor person to imaging themselves successful. And what you can't see yourself doing will not be done.

Sometimes you Republicans have a strange idea of what human nature is like in poor people. Just telling them to go out and be successful is no more successful with them than to tell that to your kid and then not prepare them.
You have to prepare to succeed.

Hard to be successful with out preparing to succeed and have opportunities to succeed in.

They have opportunities to succeed, many paths to a good life even without a college education. They just need to hear from people other than you to tell them they are the captain of their own vessel and nobody can give them success but themselves. There are too many people who stopped listening to Leftists and applied themselves to a path to success for your bullshit to be true. They serve as examples to the rest that nobody has to be a "victim" of the Left.

Lets make it easy on you cause I see that the complexity of the problem is to much for you and your buddies to comprehend.

How do you propose to fix the illiterate and the math challenged? Just curious.


According to a study conducted in late April by the U.S. Department of Education and the National Institute of Literacy, 32 million adults in the U.S. can't read. That's 14 percent of the population. 21 percent of adults in the U.S. read below a 5th grade level, and 19 percent of high school graduates can't read.

The current literacy rate isn't any better than it was 10 years ago. According to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy (completed most recently in 2003, and before that, in 1992), 14 percent of adult Americans demonstrated a "below basic" literacy level in 2003, and 29 percent exhibited a "basic" reading level.

We probably don't need to spell out the benefits of reading and writing for you. Economic security, access to health care, and the ability to actively participate in civic life all depend on a individual's ability to read.

According to the Department of Justice, "The link between academic failure and delinquency, violence, and crime is welded to reading failure." The stats back up this claim: 85 percent of all juveniles who interface with the juvenile court system are functionally illiterate, and over 70 percent of inmates in America's prisons cannot read above a fourth grade level, according to BeginToRead.com.

We need to start doling out money equally to all school systems so that we have good teachers, teaching materials, etc. in all of our schools, even the ones in the most poor communities. That gives every child an equal opportunity to succeed at life.

It does NOT start with money in the schools.

It starts at home.

When a kid enters kindergarten with a huge vocabulary of four letter words, but cannot name the basic colors, no amount of money and remediation can fix the situation.

As for all those illiterates in jail, they are the same assholes that held back their classmates with their constant disruptions.

I taught in a school that has gotten a D rating ever since they started giving letter grades to schools, which was after I retired.

I assume we would have gotten a D too, when I was there.

Funny thing, this rural shithole school provided Valedictorians for the high school, year after year.

I'm not talking about home life. I'm talking about each child having an equal opportunity in our school system, which they do not have as of right now. Money is doled out to schools by district. Richer districts get a LOT more money than poor districts, and therein lies the inequity in education between rich and poor.

And I saw money does not buy educational quality.

I taught I poor schools for 25 years, and saw MILLIONS of dollars of extra federal money wasted on obsolete equipment and unproven programs.

What exactly are your credentials in regard to poor black schools?

 

[ChrisL]

They have opportunities to succeed, many paths to a good life even without a college education. They just need to hear from people other than you to tell them they are the captain of their own vessel and nobody can give them success but themselves. There are too many people who stopped listening to Leftists and applied themselves to a path to success for your bullshit to be true. They serve as examples to the rest that nobody has to be a "victim" of the Left.

Lets make it easy on you cause I see that the complexity of the problem is to much for you and your buddies to comprehend.

How do you propose to fix the illiterate and the math challenged? Just curious.


According to a study conducted in late April by the U.S. Department of Education and the National Institute of Literacy, 32 million adults in the U.S. can't read. That's 14 percent of the population. 21 percent of adults in the U.S. read below a 5th grade level, and 19 percent of high school graduates can't read.

The current literacy rate isn't any better than it was 10 years ago. According to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy (completed most recently in 2003, and before that, in 1992), 14 percent of adult Americans demonstrated a "below basic" literacy level in 2003, and 29 percent exhibited a "basic" reading level.

We probably don't need to spell out the benefits of reading and writing for you. Economic security, access to health care, and the ability to actively participate in civic life all depend on a individual's ability to read.

According to the Department of Justice, "The link between academic failure and delinquency, violence, and crime is welded to reading failure." The stats back up this claim: 85 percent of all juveniles who interface with the juvenile court system are functionally illiterate, and over 70 percent of inmates in America's prisons cannot read above a fourth grade level, according to BeginToRead.com.

We need to start doling out money equally to all school systems so that we have good teachers, teaching materials, etc. in all of our schools, even the ones in the most poor communities. That gives every child an equal opportunity to succeed at life.

It does NOT start with money in the schools.

It starts at home.

When a kid enters kindergarten with a huge vocabulary of four letter words, but cannot name the basic colors, no amount of money and remediation can fix the situation.

As for all those illiterates in jail, they are the same assholes that held back their classmates with their constant disruptions.

I taught in a school that has gotten a D rating ever since they started giving letter grades to schools, which was after I retired.

I assume we would have gotten a D too, when I was there.

Funny thing, this rural shithole school provided Valedictorians for the high school, year after year.

I'm not talking about home life. I'm talking about each child having an equal opportunity in our school system, which they do not have as of right now. Money is doled out to schools by district. Richer districts get a LOT more money than poor districts, and therein lies the inequity in education between rich and poor.

And I saw money does not buy educational quality.

I taught I poor schools for 25 years, and saw MILLIONS of dollars of extra federal money wasted on obsolete equipment and unproven programs.

What exactly are your credentials in regard to poor black schools?

I don't need credentials to see what is happening. AND there is no such thing as "black schools" anymore. I don't know how old you are (must be pretty darn old), but we don't segregate anymore.

You are wrong. Funding of the schools is VERY important. How can say that it isn't? That is silly.

 

[Katzndogz]

I know many kids that escaped poverty by that exact path, inspired to escape, they worked hard, took advantage of all the opportunity there is in this country, and blazed their own paths out of poverty.

For every one that you know that did what (escape from poverty) you say, there are 5 more that didn't. Not because they didn't try. What do you want them to do? Or what do you want to do to or for them? If anything.

Without a good education along with a desire to succeed and examples of others who have escaped poverty it is very hard for a poor person to imaging themselves successful. And what you can't see yourself doing will not be done.

Sometimes you Republicans have a strange idea of what human nature is like in poor people. Just telling them to go out and be successful is no more successful with them than to tell that to your kid and then not prepare them.
You have to prepare to succeed.

Hard to be successful with out preparing to succeed and have opportunities to succeed in.

They have opportunities to succeed, many paths to a good life even without a college education. They just need to hear from people other than you to tell them they are the captain of their own vessel and nobody can give them success but themselves. There are too many people who stopped listening to Leftists and applied themselves to a path to success for your bullshit to be true. They serve as examples to the rest that nobody has to be a "victim" of the Left.

Lets make it easy on you cause I see that the complexity of the problem is to much for you and your buddies to comprehend.

How do you propose to fix the illiterate and the math challenged? Just curious.


According to a study conducted in late April by the U.S. Department of Education and the National Institute of Literacy, 32 million adults in the U.S. can't read. That's 14 percent of the population. 21 percent of adults in the U.S. read below a 5th grade level, and 19 percent of high school graduates can't read.

The current literacy rate isn't any better than it was 10 years ago. According to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy (completed most recently in 2003, and before that, in 1992), 14 percent of adult Americans demonstrated a "below basic" literacy level in 2003, and 29 percent exhibited a "basic" reading level.

We probably don't need to spell out the benefits of reading and writing for you. Economic security, access to health care, and the ability to actively participate in civic life all depend on a individual's ability to read.

According to the Department of Justice, "The link between academic failure and delinquency, violence, and crime is welded to reading failure." The stats back up this claim: 85 percent of all juveniles who interface with the juvenile court system are functionally illiterate, and over 70 percent of inmates in America's prisons cannot read above a fourth grade level, according to BeginToRead.com.

We need to start doling out money equally to all school systems so that we have good teachers, teaching materials, etc. in all of our schools, even the ones in the most poor communities. That gives every child an equal opportunity to succeed at life.

It does NOT start with money in the schools.

It starts at home.

When a kid enters kindergarten with a huge vocabulary of four letter words, but cannot name the basic colors, no amount of money and remediation can fix the situation.

As for all those illiterates in jail, they are the same assholes that held back their classmates with their constant disruptions.

I taught in a school that has gotten a D rating ever since they started giving letter grades to schools, which was after I retired.

I assume we would have gotten a D too, when I was there.

Funny thing, this rural shithole school provided Valedictorians for the high school, year after year.

Articles Why Shakir Can t Read



Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2008/06/why_shakir_cant_read.html#ixzz3JzyO83XM
My friend's class is not a large one; she has five to eight students. She also has a teaching assistant, and between them, the kids receive a lot of personal, one-to-one attention. Nevertheless, Shakir still can't read.
The why of this phenomenon is quite important; you see, there are lots of Shakirs in the black community. For he is one of many kids flunking his way through the educational system, even as he advances through it. I think there are many causal factors for Shakir's non-performance in school; amongst them are Shakir himself and his priorities; the instability of his family; his community culture; and, the school system itself.

A large part of the problem is that Shakir refuses to do his bit to educate himself. Given classwork in school, Shakir engages in a series of acts of avoidance. He will disrupt, pick fights with his classmates, curse, destroy objects in his environment, sleep, declare that he will do nothing, or take the entire day simply to write his name. No amount of cajoling, promises, or behavioral modification methods can change Shakir's mind. For him to work for a little bit, there must be some immediate object or event that he finds desirable to attain or participate in. Even then, when the gain is weighed against the effort required to work,

Shakir's family situation is a significant part of his problem. He is one of four children to a twenty-something mother who has three other children by three different men, and she might well be pregnant again by her current boyfriend. Shakir's mother is unemployed and on welfare. She and her current boyfriend tend to have loud fights which can become physical, and often her boyfriend, who can be a positive influence on Shakir, will disappear for weeks at a time to avoid doing violence to her. Shakir's father is currently in prison, scheduled to be released some time later this year; his current stint in prison is not his first, and I fear it is not likely to be his last.

On welfare and a recipient of a Section Eight housing grant, Shakir's family experiences a regular housing cycle from apartment in a tough neighborhood to government-sponsored motel/hotel and back before the cycle repeats all over again. What determines the move from apartment in a tough neighborhood to a motel/hotel is his mother. Given an apartment found by the proper authorities, Shakir's mother will not pay rent, even though she receives money to do so.

What she will do, when school authorities call her to complain about her son's behavior, is come to the school ready to curse and fight his teachers. No matter how badly Shakir acts in school, his mother will, in front of him, blame his teachers. Often, she will add to the lack of stability in the boy's life by changing his school because she thinks his teachers are out to get him. Thus, Shakir has been to several schools in his district and has even gone to schools in a neighboring state. Nevertheless, Shakir still can't read.


Regrettably, in low income communities like Shakir's, the external force compels kids away from educational achievement, in spite of the efforts of some to turn things around. For many of Shakir's peers, educational achievement is a mark of whiteness; thus, the high achieving black kid has to deal with issues of authenticity.

If he does not sound ghetto, he experiences a loss of black identity. More than that, he will be preyed upon by the gang-bangers and thugs who will consider him easy prey. So, he has to be tough, and educational achievement is not part of the toughness.

In the school system, Shakir, whatever enthusiasm he might have started out his school career with, by the age of ten has none. He has spent the years since kindergarten fighting, cursing, and distracting away from his reading problems. Each teacher he has encountered has made an active effort to help him. Each has been beaten by the combination of forces outside of the school system and by the child himself. Tired of his behavior, of his resistance and refusal, even when he is held back, his teachers have passed him on to the next grade where he is ill-prepared to do that grade's work because he never mastered the content matter of the previous grades.

 

[ChrisL]

For every one that you know that did what (escape from poverty) you say, there are 5 more that didn't. Not because they didn't try. What do you want them to do? Or what do you want to do to or for them? If anything.

Without a good education along with a desire to succeed and examples of others who have escaped poverty it is very hard for a poor person to imaging themselves successful. And what you can't see yourself doing will not be done.

Sometimes you Republicans have a strange idea of what human nature is like in poor people. Just telling them to go out and be successful is no more successful with them than to tell that to your kid and then not prepare them.
You have to prepare to succeed.

Hard to be successful with out preparing to succeed and have opportunities to succeed in.

They have opportunities to succeed, many paths to a good life even without a college education. They just need to hear from people other than you to tell them they are the captain of their own vessel and nobody can give them success but themselves. There are too many people who stopped listening to Leftists and applied themselves to a path to success for your bullshit to be true. They serve as examples to the rest that nobody has to be a "victim" of the Left.

Lets make it easy on you cause I see that the complexity of the problem is to much for you and your buddies to comprehend.

How do you propose to fix the illiterate and the math challenged? Just curious.


According to a study conducted in late April by the U.S. Department of Education and the National Institute of Literacy, 32 million adults in the U.S. can't read. That's 14 percent of the population. 21 percent of adults in the U.S. read below a 5th grade level, and 19 percent of high school graduates can't read.

The current literacy rate isn't any better than it was 10 years ago. According to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy (completed most recently in 2003, and before that, in 1992), 14 percent of adult Americans demonstrated a "below basic" literacy level in 2003, and 29 percent exhibited a "basic" reading level.

We probably don't need to spell out the benefits of reading and writing for you. Economic security, access to health care, and the ability to actively participate in civic life all depend on a individual's ability to read.

According to the Department of Justice, "The link between academic failure and delinquency, violence, and crime is welded to reading failure." The stats back up this claim: 85 percent of all juveniles who interface with the juvenile court system are functionally illiterate, and over 70 percent of inmates in America's prisons cannot read above a fourth grade level, according to BeginToRead.com.

We need to start doling out money equally to all school systems so that we have good teachers, teaching materials, etc. in all of our schools, even the ones in the most poor communities. That gives every child an equal opportunity to succeed at life.

It does NOT start with money in the schools.

It starts at home.

When a kid enters kindergarten with a huge vocabulary of four letter words, but cannot name the basic colors, no amount of money and remediation can fix the situation.

As for all those illiterates in jail, they are the same assholes that held back their classmates with their constant disruptions.

I taught in a school that has gotten a D rating ever since they started giving letter grades to schools, which was after I retired.

I assume we would have gotten a D too, when I was there.

Funny thing, this rural shithole school provided Valedictorians for the high school, year after year.

Articles Why Shakir Can t Read



Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2008/06/why_shakir_cant_read.html#ixzz3JzyO83XM
My friend's class is not a large one; she has five to eight students. She also has a teaching assistant, and between them, the kids receive a lot of personal, one-to-one attention. Nevertheless, Shakir still can't read.
The why of this phenomenon is quite important; you see, there are lots of Shakirs in the black community. For he is one of many kids flunking his way through the educational system, even as he advances through it. I think there are many causal factors for Shakir's non-performance in school; amongst them are Shakir himself and his priorities; the instability of his family; his community culture; and, the school system itself.

A large part of the problem is that Shakir refuses to do his bit to educate himself. Given classwork in school, Shakir engages in a series of acts of avoidance. He will disrupt, pick fights with his classmates, curse, destroy objects in his environment, sleep, declare that he will do nothing, or take the entire day simply to write his name. No amount of cajoling, promises, or behavioral modification methods can change Shakir's mind. For him to work for a little bit, there must be some immediate object or event that he finds desirable to attain or participate in. Even then, when the gain is weighed against the effort required to work,

Shakir's family situation is a significant part of his problem. He is one of four children to a twenty-something mother who has three other children by three different men, and she might well be pregnant again by her current boyfriend. Shakir's mother is unemployed and on welfare. She and her current boyfriend tend to have loud fights which can become physical, and often her boyfriend, who can be a positive influence on Shakir, will disappear for weeks at a time to avoid doing violence to her. Shakir's father is currently in prison, scheduled to be released some time later this year; his current stint in prison is not his first, and I fear it is not likely to be his last.

On welfare and a recipient of a Section Eight housing grant, Shakir's family experiences a regular housing cycle from apartment in a tough neighborhood to government-sponsored motel/hotel and back before the cycle repeats all over again. What determines the move from apartment in a tough neighborhood to a motel/hotel is his mother. Given an apartment found by the proper authorities, Shakir's mother will not pay rent, even though she receives money to do so.

What she will do, when school authorities call her to complain about her son's behavior, is come to the school ready to curse and fight his teachers. No matter how badly Shakir acts in school, his mother will, in front of him, blame his teachers. Often, she will add to the lack of stability in the boy's life by changing his school because she thinks his teachers are out to get him. Thus, Shakir has been to several schools in his district and has even gone to schools in a neighboring state. Nevertheless, Shakir still can't read.


Regrettably, in low income communities like Shakir's, the external force compels kids away from educational achievement, in spite of the efforts of some to turn things around. For many of Shakir's peers, educational achievement is a mark of whiteness; thus, the high achieving black kid has to deal with issues of authenticity.

If he does not sound ghetto, he experiences a loss of black identity. More than that, he will be preyed upon by the gang-bangers and thugs who will consider him easy prey. So, he has to be tough, and educational achievement is not part of the toughness.

In the school system, Shakir, whatever enthusiasm he might have started out his school career with, by the age of ten has none. He has spent the years since kindergarten fighting, cursing, and distracting away from his reading problems. Each teacher he has encountered has made an active effort to help him. Each has been beaten by the combination of forces outside of the school system and by the child himself. Tired of his behavior, of his resistance and refusal, even when he is held back, his teachers have passed him on to the next grade where he is ill-prepared to do that grade's work because he never mastered the content matter of the previous grades.

I don't deny that this is true of some children, but there are a plenty of others who would like to succeed and do try hard. There are also those who actually do succeed in spite of the odds stacked against them.

I think good teachers make a world of difference too. I've had bad and good teachers. Good teachers know how to make learning fun and know how to relate to the kids on their level. I think we have a lot of terrible teachers who are protected by the teachers unions. I would also suggest doing away with the teachers' unions.

There are some unions that I feel ARE still needed, but the teachers' union is not one of them. I feel that it hurts the kids and their education, and they are the top priority here, not the teachers.

 

[Roadrunner]

I think a part of the problem is that in this economy, there just aren't enough jobs for everyone. Also, most of the poor would be probably low skilled workers with little to no training and they just aren't in demand, as they don't have anything "special" to offer. So, these people, even if they get jobs, are going to have the lowest paid jobs and will more than likely still need to supplement their incomes, and employees such as these are a dime a dozen. They are not very valuable to the employers.

There you go. Can't work em, can't train em, have no jobs for them and they haven't much value to our society.
What to do what to do?

And there are about 125 million of them. That's a bunch of poor people.

There is the problem.

There is no market for unskilled labor with no work ethic.

Minimum wage is so high, most goes to middle class kids who know how to get to work on time.

Your untrained, unskilled kid today has little chance of getting that first job, or keeping it if he does.

The thing to do, and it is so classically leftist, is to open re-education camps, similar to FDR's programs, and offer remedial education and an opportunity to earn a wage.

Taking it a bit further to the left, and what I would do, if in charge, would be to guarantee a job to every able bodied American.

As long as there is trash to pick up, and streets to be fixed, the government could employ everyone.

Those who refuse to be trained, or to take an unskilled job, would be left to their own devices, and, most likely face severe punishment in the judicial system.

In this age of easily accessible information, how is it possible for this kind of ignorance to continue to fuel people's lives?

Its this kind of ignorance that is killing the middle class.

Your parents/grandparents worked their butts off for what you're so blithely willing to give away to the 1%.

Your own grand children will not thank your stupidity.

My kids are 1%ers.

They have oil and land, oldest retired last week at 40, youngest is in grad school, majoring in professional bass fishing and the marketing thereof.

Me, I am happy as a tick on a boar's balls living modestly in the woods.

We will always be immune from the "useful idiots".

 

[Roadrunner]

For every one that you know that did what (escape from poverty) you say, there are 5 more that didn't. Not because they didn't try. What do you want them to do? Or what do you want to do to or for them? If anything.

Without a good education along with a desire to succeed and examples of others who have escaped poverty it is very hard for a poor person to imaging themselves successful. And what you can't see yourself doing will not be done.

Sometimes you Republicans have a strange idea of what human nature is like in poor people. Just telling them to go out and be successful is no more successful with them than to tell that to your kid and then not prepare them.
You have to prepare to succeed.

Hard to be successful with out preparing to succeed and have opportunities to succeed in.

They have opportunities to succeed, many paths to a good life even without a college education. They just need to hear from people other than you to tell them they are the captain of their own vessel and nobody can give them success but themselves. There are too many people who stopped listening to Leftists and applied themselves to a path to success for your bullshit to be true. They serve as examples to the rest that nobody has to be a "victim" of the Left.

Lets make it easy on you cause I see that the complexity of the problem is to much for you and your buddies to comprehend.

How do you propose to fix the illiterate and the math challenged? Just curious.


According to a study conducted in late April by the U.S. Department of Education and the National Institute of Literacy, 32 million adults in the U.S. can't read. That's 14 percent of the population. 21 percent of adults in the U.S. read below a 5th grade level, and 19 percent of high school graduates can't read.

The current literacy rate isn't any better than it was 10 years ago. According to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy (completed most recently in 2003, and before that, in 1992), 14 percent of adult Americans demonstrated a "below basic" literacy level in 2003, and 29 percent exhibited a "basic" reading level.

We probably don't need to spell out the benefits of reading and writing for you. Economic security, access to health care, and the ability to actively participate in civic life all depend on a individual's ability to read.

According to the Department of Justice, "The link between academic failure and delinquency, violence, and crime is welded to reading failure." The stats back up this claim: 85 percent of all juveniles who interface with the juvenile court system are functionally illiterate, and over 70 percent of inmates in America's prisons cannot read above a fourth grade level, according to BeginToRead.com.

We need to start doling out money equally to all school systems so that we have good teachers, teaching materials, etc. in all of our schools, even the ones in the most poor communities. That gives every child an equal opportunity to succeed at life.

It does NOT start with money in the schools.

It starts at home.

When a kid enters kindergarten with a huge vocabulary of four letter words, but cannot name the basic colors, no amount of money and remediation can fix the situation.

As for all those illiterates in jail, they are the same assholes that held back their classmates with their constant disruptions.

I taught in a school that has gotten a D rating ever since they started giving letter grades to schools, which was after I retired.

I assume we would have gotten a D too, when I was there.

Funny thing, this rural shithole school provided Valedictorians for the high school, year after year.

Articles Why Shakir Can t Read



Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2008/06/why_shakir_cant_read.html#ixzz3JzyO83XM
My friend's class is not a large one; she has five to eight students. She also has a teaching assistant, and between them, the kids receive a lot of personal, one-to-one attention. Nevertheless, Shakir still can't read.
The why of this phenomenon is quite important; you see, there are lots of Shakirs in the black community. For he is one of many kids flunking his way through the educational system, even as he advances through it. I think there are many causal factors for Shakir's non-performance in school; amongst them are Shakir himself and his priorities; the instability of his family; his community culture; and, the school system itself.

A large part of the problem is that Shakir refuses to do his bit to educate himself. Given classwork in school, Shakir engages in a series of acts of avoidance. He will disrupt, pick fights with his classmates, curse, destroy objects in his environment, sleep, declare that he will do nothing, or take the entire day simply to write his name. No amount of cajoling, promises, or behavioral modification methods can change Shakir's mind. For him to work for a little bit, there must be some immediate object or event that he finds desirable to attain or participate in. Even then, when the gain is weighed against the effort required to work,

Shakir's family situation is a significant part of his problem. He is one of four children to a twenty-something mother who has three other children by three different men, and she might well be pregnant again by her current boyfriend. Shakir's mother is unemployed and on welfare. She and her current boyfriend tend to have loud fights which can become physical, and often her boyfriend, who can be a positive influence on Shakir, will disappear for weeks at a time to avoid doing violence to her. Shakir's father is currently in prison, scheduled to be released some time later this year; his current stint in prison is not his first, and I fear it is not likely to be his last.

On welfare and a recipient of a Section Eight housing grant, Shakir's family experiences a regular housing cycle from apartment in a tough neighborhood to government-sponsored motel/hotel and back before the cycle repeats all over again. What determines the move from apartment in a tough neighborhood to a motel/hotel is his mother. Given an apartment found by the proper authorities, Shakir's mother will not pay rent, even though she receives money to do so.

What she will do, when school authorities call her to complain about her son's behavior, is come to the school ready to curse and fight his teachers. No matter how badly Shakir acts in school, his mother will, in front of him, blame his teachers. Often, she will add to the lack of stability in the boy's life by changing his school because she thinks his teachers are out to get him. Thus, Shakir has been to several schools in his district and has even gone to schools in a neighboring state. Nevertheless, Shakir still can't read.


Regrettably, in low income communities like Shakir's, the external force compels kids away from educational achievement, in spite of the efforts of some to turn things around. For many of Shakir's peers, educational achievement is a mark of whiteness; thus, the high achieving black kid has to deal with issues of authenticity.

If he does not sound ghetto, he experiences a loss of black identity. More than that, he will be preyed upon by the gang-bangers and thugs who will consider him easy prey. So, he has to be tough, and educational achievement is not part of the toughness.

In the school system, Shakir, whatever enthusiasm he might have started out his school career with, by the age of ten has none. He has spent the years since kindergarten fighting, cursing, and distracting away from his reading problems. Each teacher he has encountered has made an active effort to help him. Each has been beaten by the combination of forces outside of the school system and by the child himself. Tired of his behavior, of his resistance and refusal, even when he is held back, his teachers have passed him on to the next grade where he is ill-prepared to do that grade's work because he never mastered the content matter of the previous grades.

I had at least 4 Shakirs and a LaShakira or two in every class for 23 of my 25 years of teaching.

One year they gave me a class of four fourth graders, all 16, and had never passed the Fourth Grade exit test.

I had my own building, and they just ran wild, you could not get them to sit still for anything.

Best I could do was teach them some cooking, and some gardening skills.

 

[FA_Q2]

I know many kids that escaped poverty by that exact path, inspired to escape, they worked hard, took advantage of all the opportunity there is in this country, and blazed their own paths out of poverty.

For every one that you know that did what (escape from poverty) you say, there are 5 more that didn't. Not because they didn't try. What do you want them to do? Or what do you want to do to or for them? If anything.

Without a good education along with a desire to succeed and examples of others who have escaped poverty it is very hard for a poor person to imaging themselves successful. And what you can't see yourself doing will not be done.

Sometimes you Republicans have a strange idea of what human nature is like in poor people. Just telling them to go out and be successful is no more successful with them than to tell that to your kid and then not prepare them.
You have to prepare to succeed.

Hard to be successful with out preparing to succeed and have opportunities to succeed in.

They have opportunities to succeed, many paths to a good life even without a college education. They just need to hear from people other than you to tell them they are the captain of their own vessel and nobody can give them success but themselves. There are too many people who stopped listening to Leftists and applied themselves to a path to success for your bullshit to be true. They serve as examples to the rest that nobody has to be a "victim" of the Left.

Lets make it easy on you cause I see that the complexity of the problem is to much for you and your buddies to comprehend.

How do you propose to fix the illiterate and the math challenged? Just curious.


According to a study conducted in late April by the U.S. Department of Education and the National Institute of Literacy, 32 million adults in the U.S. can't read. That's 14 percent of the population. 21 percent of adults in the U.S. read below a 5th grade level, and 19 percent of high school graduates can't read.

The current literacy rate isn't any better than it was 10 years ago. According to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy (completed most recently in 2003, and before that, in 1992), 14 percent of adult Americans demonstrated a "below basic" literacy level in 2003, and 29 percent exhibited a "basic" reading level.

We probably don't need to spell out the benefits of reading and writing for you. Economic security, access to health care, and the ability to actively participate in civic life all depend on a individual's ability to read.

According to the Department of Justice, "The link between academic failure and delinquency, violence, and crime is welded to reading failure." The stats back up this claim: 85 percent of all juveniles who interface with the juvenile court system are functionally illiterate, and over 70 percent of inmates in America's prisons cannot read above a fourth grade level, according to BeginToRead.com.

What would you do with them?


What are THEY going to do for themselves? Learning to read is not something that is impossible no matter what age you are and there are avenues for any adult to take that are completely free to do so. If you are mentally challenged there are other programs that will ensure that you are taken care of. Interesting that those people you speak of are not rectifying their problem.


That is the core issue here – no one can help you when you are unwilling to help yourself. If you are unable to read in this nation you have no one other than yourself to blame. If you are a minor then there is a serious issue with your family – something else that the schools can do nothing about.


You cannot ‘help’ those that are unwilling to help themselves. All we are doing is keeping them in poverty by giving them just enough to get by without them ever needing to address the problems that they are perpetuating. Excuses are just that and they are a million of them all worth exactly nothing.

 

[zeke]

What would you do with them?

What would I do to solve the literacy problem. Is that your question?

Well, back in the old days when we employed thousands and thousands of people in manufacturing jobs, the manufacture themselves conducted their own schools to teach English, math and reading. They offered apprenticeships to some. They needed an educated workforce to some degree. But that won't work today.

We could make paid position to teach literacy to adults instead of volunteers.

We could have volunteers in the schools specifically trained to teach reading skills to kids struggling with reading.

But mostly, we need a research program to study the portion of the brain the is most responsible for learning to read. And when that's done, we need a pill to feed a kid that stimulates that region and gives them a burning desire to read and learn everything they possibly can about everything they can.

Failing to do anything will just see more and more people who can't read. Oh well.

If your parents can't or don't read, neither will the kids. Couple generations of that and they are well and truly fucked. Illiterate is the correct term. And what are we gonna do with a bunch of illiterate people? Not much.

 

[FA_Q2]

What would you do with them?

What would I do to solve the literacy problem. Is that your question?

Well, back in the old days when we employed thousands and thousands of people in manufacturing jobs, the manufacture themselves conducted their own schools to teach English, math and reading. They offered apprenticeships to some. They needed an educated workforce to some degree. But that won't work today.

We could make paid position to teach literacy to adults instead of volunteers.

We could have volunteers in the schools specifically trained to teach reading skills to kids struggling with reading.

But mostly, we need a research program to study the portion of the brain the is most responsible for learning to read. And when that's done, we need a pill to feed a kid that stimulates that region and gives them a burning desire to read and learn everything they possibly can about everything they can.

Failing to do anything will just see more and more people who can't read. Oh well.

If your parents can't or don't read, neither will the kids. Couple generations of that and they are well and truly fucked. Illiterate is the correct term. And what are we gonna do with a bunch of illiterate people? Not much.

First off - a pill is completely silly. There is no magical 'motivation' pill and we don't need to look for a pill that solves lack of motivation. The last thing that society needs is yet another drug to solve problems associated with simply being human.

The only other solution that you put out there is to replace volunteers with paid teachers and that is fixing something that is simply not a problem. We already have paid adult education teachers for one and we do not have an access problem. We already have specialists that work with children struggling to read. We have targeted programs to deal with ESL students as well. We have a whole host of specialized people ensuring that those that have problems with education get the resources needed. No one that cannot read is under that condition because there are no resources to get the education. They are that way because they don't access those resources.

The assertion that illiterate parents are going to have illiterate children is also completely false. Those children are certainly more at risk for poor education but they are exposed and given the resources to learn to read (by the paid teachers you wanted). Education is provided to all in this nation. Poverty (much higher among the illiterate) and poor values are going to have far more impact than the fact that the parents are illiterate. The real problem is that illiterate parents are more likely to fail to reinforce the importance of both education and doing well in school. The resources are provided, the question is weather or not they are going to be effectively utilized. A pill or other drug is not going to solve that.

 

[SmarterThanTheAverageBear]

Mostly this myth is pushed by feedingamerica.org a group that, like any global warming "cause" solicits funding by getting people to believe a myth.

You've seen the billboards, heard the radio ads, and seen it on television, this myth that 40 million Americans are going hungry, that millions of children are hungry. And the figures used roughly assimilate to the food stamp and school lunch program rolls, as if anyone who's on food stamps or any child eating a federally subsidized school lunch is starving.

The last time we ever had a genuine problem with starvation is when there was a rash of food shortages affecting the people of the Appalachian Mountains, a problem that was quickly rectified over 20 years ago. It's not like starvation can't happen, it's that in this land of largess and abundance, it's exceptionally rare, nigh to being a non existent issue.

So why is this lie so successful? Could it be because Gruber is right, the American public truly is stupid and prone to believe anything?

The guy in that picture should be euthanized.

I'm sorry but he is a waste of every resource he consumes.

 

[zeke]

First off - a pill is completely silly. There is no magical 'motivation' pill and we don't need to look for a pill that solves lack of motivation. The last thing that society needs is yet another drug to solve problems associated with simply being human.

I be done with you. You be fucking stupid. Even if you can read.

You think brain researchers are not looking at the areas of the brain responsible for learning? And how to effect that region for the good. Then you need to do a bit if reading yourself.

You think factors like parents reading and parents reading to young kids does not effect a kids ability to read and desire to read, you be fucking stupid and need to do some reading on the topic instead of making up stupid shit like you do.

You seem to think a lack of reading skills is not a real big problem. It is.

And I think you are a real big fucking idiot.
And I am correct in both regards.

 

[saintmichaeldefendthem]

Mostly this myth is pushed by feedingamerica.org a group that, like any global warming "cause" solicits funding by getting people to believe a myth.

You've seen the billboards, heard the radio ads, and seen it on television, this myth that 40 million Americans are going hungry, that millions of children are hungry. And the figures used roughly assimilate to the food stamp and school lunch program rolls, as if anyone who's on food stamps or any child eating a federally subsidized school lunch is starving.

The last time we ever had a genuine problem with starvation is when there was a rash of food shortages affecting the people of the Appalachian Mountains, a problem that was quickly rectified over 20 years ago. It's not like starvation can't happen, it's that in this land of largess and abundance, it's exceptionally rare, nigh to being a non existent issue.

So why is this lie so successful? Could it be because Gruber is right, the American public truly is stupid and prone to believe anything?

The guy in that picture should be euthanized.

I'm sorry but he is a waste of every resource he consumes.

With Obamacare death panels coming our way, that might just happen.

 

[saintmichaeldefendthem]

First off - a pill is completely silly. There is no magical 'motivation' pill and we don't need to look for a pill that solves lack of motivation. The last thing that society needs is yet another drug to solve problems associated with simply being human.

I be done with you. You be fucking stupid. Even if you can read.

You think brain researchers are not looking at the areas of the brain responsible for learning? And how to effect that region for the good. Then you need to do a bit if reading yourself.

You think factors like parents reading and parents reading to young kids does not effect a kids ability to read and desire to read, you be fucking stupid and need to do some reading on the topic instead of making up stupid shit like you do.

You seem to think a lack of reading skills is not a real big problem. It is.

And I think you are a real big fucking idiot.
And I am correct in both regards.

Amazing how you Leftists see a profit motive in everything except the psychotropic drugs prescribed for our children. Then it's a charity.

 

[SmarterThanTheAverageBear]

Mostly this myth is pushed by feedingamerica.org a group that, like any global warming "cause" solicits funding by getting people to believe a myth.

You've seen the billboards, heard the radio ads, and seen it on television, this myth that 40 million Americans are going hungry, that millions of children are hungry. And the figures used roughly assimilate to the food stamp and school lunch program rolls, as if anyone who's on food stamps or any child eating a federally subsidized school lunch is starving.

The last time we ever had a genuine problem with starvation is when there was a rash of food shortages affecting the people of the Appalachian Mountains, a problem that was quickly rectified over 20 years ago. It's not like starvation can't happen, it's that in this land of largess and abundance, it's exceptionally rare, nigh to being a non existent issue.

So why is this lie so successful? Could it be because Gruber is right, the American public truly is stupid and prone to believe anything?

The guy in that picture should be euthanized.

I'm sorry but he is a waste of every resource he consumes.

With Obamacare death panels coming our way, that might just happen.

Then yay for death panels.

 

[PGreen]

Here are some facts. 1 in 6 people in America face hunger. 50.1 million Americans struggle to put food on the table. 40 percent of food is thrown out in the US every year, or about $165 billion worth. All of this uneaten food could feed 25 million Americans. So, I have only one question- what's wrong?!

 

[NYcarbineer]

The lack of starving people, people going hungry in America, is BECAUSE we have a social safety net.

Yes, that social safety net, the one conservatives would love to dismantle.