Biden’s Proposed American Families Plan Would Revolutionize Life for Poor Children | janresseger

Biden’s Proposed American Families Plan Would Revolutionize Life for Poor Children | janresseger

Biden’s Proposed American Families Plan Would Revolutionize Life for Poor Children

When public policy has been entirely inadequate and misguided for decades, it is difficult to grasp the full implications of the beginning steps for reform. Such is the case with President Joe Biden’s proposal last week to respond to our society’s outrageous level of child poverty. The development of coherent, efficient policy to ameliorate the overwhelming and complicated problems of America’s poorest families will take a long time, even if Democrats continue to occupy the White House and sustain Congressional majorities.

But on April 28, President Biden introduced a plan to begin the journey to remedy fiscal austerity when it comes to our society’s poorest families and children. We can turn to some experts to put the significance of President Biden’s proposed American Families Plan in perspective.

California’s EdSource quotes Deborah Stipek, a professor in the Stanford University Graduate School of Education: “Biden’s proposals, so far, will go further toward supporting children—especially those living in poverty—than anyone in the White House in my lifetime… Right now, children from low-income families are beginning kindergarten substantially behind their middle-class peers. Most of the achievement gap is well in place when children begin school. One reason is lower participation in preschool and lower quality preschool for low-income children. Anything that broadens access and ensures quality is worth doing, and the child care and extension of the tax credit initiatives are very exciting.”

First Focus on Children’s Bruce Lesley also believes Biden’s American Families Plan is revolutionary: “There are moments in time when historic or transformational changes are made by our nation’s leaders to really make a difference for children and families in this CONTINUE READING: Biden’s Proposed American Families Plan Would Revolutionize Life for Poor Children | janresseger

Schools Matter: Dear Sen. Bennet: The best way to help "high poverty schools" is to eliminate "high poverty schools."

Schools Matter: Dear Sen. Bennet: The best way to help "high poverty schools" is to eliminate "high poverty schools."

Dear Sen. Bennet: The best way to help "high poverty schools" is to eliminate "high poverty schools."

Call me excited about the many billions of dollars that Team Biden is planning to invest in new and renewed education initiatives, from pre-K through college.  Even more exciting is the total absence (so far) of systemic efforts to bribe and/or extort states to adopt corporate policies favored by the profiteers of the education industrial complex.  It's too early to know for sure, but it looks as if these unprecedented education investments now on the horizon actually acknowledge the massive education debt owed to public institutions that have been deprived for decades of needed funds for staffing, physical plants, transportation, and instructional resources.

As these new funding streams come closer to reality, the Biden Team has also targeted child poverty, with tax credits in the Covid relief legislation that will cut child poverty almost in half. If these cuts can be made permanent, the reductions in child poverty would constitute, in themselves, the most important education reform of the past 50 years.  For as child poverty rates decrease, we may certainly expect increases in student achievement.

But old habits of thought die slowly, it seems.  For as we stand on the cusp of dramatically cutting poverty rates and addressing other structural issues that have helped preserve segregation based on race and class, some politicians remain focused on treating the symptom, rather than the disease.  

Senator Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) offers a good example of politicians who believe that the performance, CONTINUE READING: Schools Matter: Dear Sen. Bennet: The best way to help "high poverty schools" is to eliminate "high poverty schools."

Is Canceling “High Stakes Testing” More Important than Halving Childhood Poverty? | Ed In The Apple

Is Canceling “High Stakes Testing” More Important than Halving Childhood Poverty? | Ed In The Apple

Is Canceling “High Stakes Testing” More Important than Halving Childhood Poverty?

Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize winning economist , calls our nation “a beacon of failure,”

“The U.S., with its cherished image as a land of opportunity, should be an inspiring example of just and enlightened treatment of children. Instead, it is a beacon of failure,”

“Though an average American childhood may not be the worst in the world, the disparity between the country’s wealth and the condition of its children is unparalleled.”

Our childhood poverty rate is 19.9 percent, the highest among all developed countries, except Romania.

President Johnson’s “War On Poverty” offered hope; however the Republican Calvinist approach, “helping” the poor would only reinforce poverty, prevailed. 

The Biden initiative, the American Rescue Plan reverses half a century of ignoring the “truly disadvantaged” and offers hope for abandoned Americans.

 Nick Kristoff in the New York Times writes,

  Today one of our saddest statistics is this: American children ages 1 to 19 CONTINUE READING: Is Canceling “High Stakes Testing” More Important than Halving Childhood Poverty? | Ed In The Apple