Cold Hard Cash for School Attendance

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Bird of Prey

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tourdeforce

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Friggin' poor people.

Screw them and the never-ending cycle of poverty they rode in on.
 

tourdeforce

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In all seriousness, I disagree with this approach and do not think payments should be made.

School attendance is compulsory and should be enforced.

However, maybe this test program will prove to be worthwhile if positive results can be tracked.

On an individual level, the cycle of poverty for a family can be reversed within one single generation.

Such success would definitely be worth $300.
 

tourdeforce

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It's a good idea. I can't wait to see what forms of abuse they come up for it.


Homeschooling parents will now encourage their kids to go hang out at the school playground so that they will get $300 to then force them to stay home.
 

TsukiRyoko

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Man, if I got paid back when I went to school, I wouldn't have skipped nearly as much. We really could have used the cash :(.

Still, I think it's a bit ridiculous to pay for attendance. School is there for the student's personal achievement. If they can't realize that, then too bad for them. While I think it's great that the poor families are getting offered support, I think this sounds more like a bribe.
 

William Haskins

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yet another device to reinforce the notion that education is bad medicine.
 

William Haskins

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that's a real photo, love.

don't shoot the messenger.

in her defense, she was listening to ted kennedy.
 

Cathy C

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To me, it depends. I was raised in a relatively poor agricultural community in the 60s/70s. Kids often skipped whole growing seasons to get the crops in, and I know of more than one kid my age that quit school as early as the freshman year to work to help pay the family bills. My own mother never graduated high school because the family was too poor to survive, and too proud to accept "charity." A lot of Italian and Hispanic families in my town were very proud and would rather tithe to the church and not eat dinner for a week than take food stamps.

So, on a case by case basis, I have no problem with replacing the income a teenager can contribute to the family with other money so the kid can get a diploma. I fear it'll be abused if it passes, but I'd LIKE it to work. :Shrug:
 

William Haskins

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it was a raw AP photo if i recall... but yes, in that posture and with that expression, surely a busy newsroom struggling to keep up with a competitive 24-hour news cycle took the time to make it look marginally worse in order to undermine ms. clinton.
 

trumancoyote

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What a bunch of bull-hockey. Anyone with half a brain would score low the first few times on purpose, then gradually raise their test scores to reap the benefits.

In fact, if this law goes into effect, I'm moving to New York, getting poor, and I'm-a gonna rape the system.
 

trumancoyote

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Not only that, but can you imagine the pressure put on the kids? What if someone's got a short-tempered and violent daddy or mommy, and Johnny gets beat for playing hooky and not doing his part of the bread-winning?

I remember in fifth grade they had this thing that if everyone in class returned their library books in on time the whole class would be rewarded with popsicles. Well, I forgot to get mine in on time and I was absolutely mortified when the teacher announced that, because of me, the class wouldn't have their popsicles that day.

I can't imagine how bad it'd be were it my loved ones bereaved of popsicles as a result of my absent-mindedness.
 

Sohia Rose

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And how far do they think a high school education will get them? From $5 per hour to $7? Please!

Today, people need some kind of technical training skills or a college education to move above the poverty line. Then, they need to do something about teenage pregnancy so girls don’t drop out of school. But before that, they need to start with the mental prison that many poor people put themselves in.

I grew up poor, in a ghetto, where it was “cool” to sell drugs or figure out a way to cheat the system. Looking back, I believe my family was poor because they wanted to be. They were lazy and why shouldn’t they have been? The government was going to give them money anyway, so why try? My mom worked a job, but had very little money because she didn't have much of an education and had two small kids at 19 years old.

Not only that, a lot of the kids I grew up with didn’t believe in themselves. My mother told me that I could be anything I wanted to be (when I was a kid, I wanted to be a genetic scientist). I went to college and made something out of myself to get out of poverty because my mom told me I could.

I think Mr. Bloomberg means well. Paying poor individuals will probably make them finish high school, though their minds will still be poor. I doubt if they will have a sense of accomplishment because they were bribed. The change has to happen from within. He’s trying to put a Band-Aid on flu-like symptoms.
 

Robert Toy

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NYC to test cash incentives for poor
2007-03-30 07:11:00.0

NEW YORK, Mar 30, 2007 (UPI via COMTEX) -- New York City plans to move ahead with a test of a program that would pay poor families for good school attendance and other achievements.
The program is based on one in Mexico but would be the first of its kind in the United States, The New York Times reported. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, in an announcement at a family services center in Brooklyn, said Thursday that 2,500 poor families would be selected at random for the program, and their progress would be compared to another randomly selected group of 2,500 poor families.
"In the private sector, financial incentives encourage actions that are good for the company: working harder, hitting sales targets or landing more clients," Bloomberg said. "In the public sector, we believe that financial incentives will encourage actions that are good for the city and its families: higher attendance in schools, more parental involvement in education and better career skills."
Families would get money every two months. Payments might range from $25 if a child is regularly attending elementary school to $300 for improved test performance. URL: www.upi.com

LOL. It's not good enough that we support the whole public school system thing, we gotta pay 'em to go, too.
You can start a whole new industry, just think of the kick-back money the teachers can make for faking attendance and test scores.
 

dclary

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NYC to test cash incentives for poor
2007-03-30 07:11:00.0

NEW YORK, Mar 30, 2007 (UPI via COMTEX) -- New York City plans to move ahead with a test of a program that would pay poor families for good school attendance and other achievements.
The program is based on one in Mexico but would be the first of its kind in the United States, The New York Times reported. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, in an announcement at a family services center in Brooklyn, said Thursday that 2,500 poor families would be selected at random for the program, and their progress would be compared to another randomly selected group of 2,500 poor families.
"In the private sector, financial incentives encourage actions that are good for the company: working harder, hitting sales targets or landing more clients," Bloomberg said. "In the public sector, we believe that financial incentives will encourage actions that are good for the city and its families: higher attendance in schools, more parental involvement in education and better career skills."
Families would get money every two months. Payments might range from $25 if a child is regularly attending elementary school to $300 for improved test performance. URL: www.upi.com

LOL. It's not good enough that we support the whole public school system thing, we gotta pay 'em to go, too.


Why the F*CK would we want to model our school system off of one so bad... its parents sneak into our country to use ours?
 

dclary

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So you're saying the largest school district in the United States should adopt a model based on a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT CIRCUMSTANCE?

MADNESS.
 
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