Do wrap-around resources, 3 free meals, after-school activities, etc. move the needle?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It doesn't matter. We've gutted social services, and now it's up to the schools to keep poor kids fed, safe, and out of the cold, and up to the jails to care for the addicted and mentally ill.

If we funded those services, maybe we could stop pouring endless money into schools that has no direct application to education. Yes, I get it that you can't learn if you're hungry, but feeding people is at least one step removed from the central point of a school.

What do you mean we have gutted social services? You have no idea. Food stamps doubled between 2000 and 2008, and again between 2008 and 2014. Medicaid expansion, Earned Income Tax Credit expenditures keep increasing, CHIP, WIC, etc., etc. Then we layer all of the school stuff on top.

I agree about the mentality ill, but I am guessing that any attempt to do more residential care would be seen as evil by civil libertarians. Frankly, more inpatient and long term treatment is what is needed.

We keep importing poor and uneducated people, so we have a lot of poverty.

- social worker

[Anonymous]

Doesn't improve a damn thing. Kids are lost before they ever see a classroom because of poor genetics and awful 0-4 early-childhood development.

—teacher

[Anonymous]

^ more to the point, it's all just feel-good bulls^&$%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It doesn't matter. We've gutted social services, and now it's up to the schools to keep poor kids fed, safe, and out of the cold, and up to the jails to care for the addicted and mentally ill.

If we funded those services, maybe we could stop pouring endless money into schools that has no direct application to education. Yes, I get it that you can't learn if you're hungry, but feeding people is at least one step removed from the central point of a school.

What do you mean we have gutted social services? You have no idea. Food stamps doubled between 2000 and 2008, and again between 2008 and 2014. Medicaid expansion, Earned Income Tax Credit expenditures keep increasing, CHIP, WIC, etc., etc. Then we layer all of the school stuff on top.

I agree about the mentality ill, but I am guessing that any attempt to do more residential care would be seen as evil by civil libertarians. Frankly, more inpatient and long term treatment is what is needed.

We keep importing poor and uneducated people, so we have a lot of poverty.

- social worker

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Eating three meals a day and having after school activities seemed to make a difference with my children.

Did you or the school provide them?

I don’t think who pays for it makes a difference.

Of course it does. When you pay for them, the school has more money for other priorities.

When the mission of one institution, like schools, is expanded to include what should be the mission of other institutions, like social services, then it becomes difficult to allocate the money fairly. Because, obviously, preventing starvation is always more important than new textbooks or smaller classes. So when can we work on those other, educational priorities, when the social service basics could, conceivably, consume most of the institutions funds and time if allowed to?

Then you should work on increasing funding for social services.

Why is this kind of thing always the response?

The only way I know how to work for that is electing people who care about it and lobbying my elected officials.

We have decided as a country that we don't give two shits about social services, we only care about lower taxes and test scores. So, those people who do care found a work-around by using test scores as the rationale for adding needed social services to the schools. That these services are needed still doesn't change the fact that they are not helping improve our schools' focus on education.

This is like saying that if I am told to bring $10 for lunch, but then told some other people don't have lunch money so we'll all contribute $5 so they can have $5 for lunch, too, what's the difference? We all have lunch, even if it's a crappier lunch. I would like to have $10 for lunch, and I would like their $10 for lunch to come from some other pot of money so we can all have good lunch.

If the schools get $15 million, I would like to spend $15 million on core educational priorities. Find the $3 million necessary for social services somewhere else, and if we can't, then let's all admit we don't care about people and take up a charitable collection.

Because it's the answer. If you want social services to do it instead of the schools, then social services need to have the money to do it. If you don't want the schools to do it, and social services don't have the money to do it, what you end up with is nobody doing it. And that's not what you want, right? It's not what I want.

I was responding to the "You should work on" part of the post. As in, unless I am personally working hard to fix the social services funding problem, then I cannot complain about the effect of pouring all that money into social services on educational services. It's an argument designed to shut down this conversation and say, "we cannot change the status quo unless some impossible future goal is reached. so shut up." I disagree. I think we complain until the schools give up and the money is found somewhere else for social services, or we admit the truth, which is that low taxes are more important to Americans than social services. And then we recognize that restricting immigration actually follows from that premise. There are an awful lot of us who would love to see more of a social safety net, but don't really want our taxes to go up either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It doesn't matter. We've gutted social services, and now it's up to the schools to keep poor kids fed, safe, and out of the cold, and up to the jails to care for the addicted and mentally ill.

If we funded those services, maybe we could stop pouring endless money into schools that has no direct application to education. Yes, I get it that you can't learn if you're hungry, but feeding people is at least one step removed from the central point of a school.

What do you mean we have gutted social services? You have no idea. Food stamps doubled between 2000 and 2008, and again between 2008 and 2014. Medicaid expansion, Earned Income Tax Credit expenditures keep increasing, CHIP, WIC, etc., etc. Then we layer all of the school stuff on top.

I agree about the mentality ill, but I am guessing that any attempt to do more residential care would be seen as evil by civil libertarians. Frankly, more inpatient and long term treatment is what is needed.

We keep importing poor and uneducated people, so we have a lot of poverty.

- social worker

What I mean is that the legions of social workers, working OUTSIDE the schools that are necessary to run programs that would genuinely put people on a path out of poverty, are not there. We don't even have enough people to cover child welfare in a meaningful way.

Money for food is not the only need. Families need guidance, clothes, transportation, help with resumes and job searches, backup care for illness, emergency funds for when someone loses a job or gets evicted, we need oversight of these programs ... And, oh, didn't Congress decide not to fund CHIP in the budget that passed? Many of these programs are being held inside schools now. I would like them OUT.

[Anonymous]

Do we as a society think it is OK for our children to be hungry? No.

Are there parents who are not able or willing to feed their children in this city? Apparently, yes.

Are we willing to feed those children? Yes.

Where can we most easily find them and feed them without having to rely on their parents? At school.

Can we afford to do this? Yes.

OK, done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I was responding to the "You should work on" part of the post. As in, unless I am personally working hard to fix the social services funding problem, then I cannot complain about the effect of pouring all that money into social services on educational services. It's an argument designed to shut down this conversation and say, "we cannot change the status quo unless some impossible future goal is reached. so shut up." I disagree. I think we complain until the schools give up and the money is found somewhere else for social services, or we admit the truth, which is that low taxes are more important to Americans than social services. And then we recognize that restricting immigration actually follows from that premise. There are an awful lot of us who would love to see more of a social safety net, but don't really want our taxes to go up either.

It's not an argument designed to shut down the conversation. It's just a fact. It's not going to happen without advocacy. And if you say, "X is bad," but you don't do something about it, then you're just complaining.

Also, increased funding of social services is not some impossible future goal.

If you think that social services should be funded, but not through education, then you need to advocate for that. Or, if you think that the most important thing is that education does NOT fund other social services -- whether or not those other social services get funded through some other means -- then you need to advocate for that, I guess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My city moved to free school lunch for all this year, and some schools are also offering a dinner option during aftercare. I work for a non-profit that offers afterschool programming (college application support) to high school students and we may also be able to offer free meals. It seems like studies are showing a positive effect, but there's no magic solution-and it seems like the people in power want to fund magic not incremental progress.

For the curious-other wrap around services include health care, support for parents applying for benefits, GED classes for parents, last year a few schools that had installed washers and dryers for student and parent use where getting a lot of attention.

I teach third grade and have 24 students. On any given day I would say 2 or 3 get the school lunch. It’s very unpopular. I don’t think any get the breakfast.

My daughter is in third grade in a relatively well-off school, and a lot of kids from her grade, DD included, buy lunch at the school cafeteria. It is not free for us, and it is not 'unpopular'.

Makes me wonder why Title 1 kids don't eat food - for free - that our relatively more affluent children have to buy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

My daughter is in third grade in a relatively well-off school, and a lot of kids from her grade, DD included, buy lunch at the school cafeteria. It is not free for us, and it is not 'unpopular'.

Makes me wonder why Title 1 kids don't eat food - for free - that our relatively more affluent children have to buy.

PP, there's no such thing as a "Title I kid".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Doesn't improve a damn thing. Kids are lost before they ever see a classroom because of poor genetics and awful 0-4 early-childhood development.

—teacher

I'm a teacher too (high school), and while I don't disagree with you, I still think they should get to eat, be warm, have wellness checks, etc.

But yeah by the time they get to me some of them are in rough shape educationally. It's sad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I was responding to the "You should work on" part of the post. As in, unless I am personally working hard to fix the social services funding problem, then I cannot complain about the effect of pouring all that money into social services on educational services. It's an argument designed to shut down this conversation and say, "we cannot change the status quo unless some impossible future goal is reached. so shut up." I disagree. I think we complain until the schools give up and the money is found somewhere else for social services, or we admit the truth, which is that low taxes are more important to Americans than social services. And then we recognize that restricting immigration actually follows from that premise. There are an awful lot of us who would love to see more of a social safety net, but don't really want our taxes to go up either.

It's not an argument designed to shut down the conversation. It's just a fact. It's not going to happen without advocacy. And if you say, "X is bad," but you don't do something about it, then you're just complaining.

Also, increased funding of social services is not some impossible future goal.

If you think that social services should be funded, but not through education, then you need to advocate for that. Or, if you think that the most important thing is that education does NOT fund other social services -- whether or not those other social services get funded through some other means -- then you need to advocate for that, I guess.

Much like making the school the purveyor (not just the location) for social services, turning the discussion to what I, personally, am or am not doing to change the status quo is an attempt to change the discussion in such a way as to remove the possibility of objections to the status quo. If you (or whoever) made the original comment meant to open a discussion about how to effect change through active means, he or she (or you) could have said that as a more general call for ideas for affecting change. Instead, it was posted as a pointed remark directed at a single person that was intended to indicate that clearly, a person who doesn't believe schools should be providing social services should shut up about it unless she can prove that she's got a better idea that she's actively pursuing. It does not matter what I do or don't do personally to change things when I'm not typing on DCUM -- that it neither provable (if I said I was lobbying daily, for example) or particularly relevant to conversation that was going on; the point of this discussion is whether or not the status quo is beneficial or not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Much like making the school the purveyor (not just the location) for social services, turning the discussion to what I, personally, am or am not doing to change the status quo is an attempt to change the discussion in such a way as to remove the possibility of objections to the status quo. If you (or whoever) made the original comment meant to open a discussion about how to effect change through active means, he or she (or you) could have said that as a more general call for ideas for affecting change. Instead, it was posted as a pointed remark directed at a single person that was intended to indicate that clearly, a person who doesn't believe schools should be providing social services should shut up about it unless she can prove that she's got a better idea that she's actively pursuing. It does not matter what I do or don't do personally to change things when I'm not typing on DCUM -- that it neither provable (if I said I was lobbying daily, for example) or particularly relevant to conversation that was going on; the point of this discussion is whether or not the status quo is beneficial or not.

PP, do what you want. If you just want to complain, then complain. Everybody likes to complain every now and then. (Often the only thing people do is complain.)

However, if you what to get the policies and programs you want, and the funding for them, then you're going to have to do more than complain.

Also, keep in mind that right now, the realistic choices are:

1. either the schools provide the additional social services to the kids
2. or nobody provides the additional social services to the kids

Decide which you prefer, and act accordingly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Much like making the school the purveyor (not just the location) for social services, turning the discussion to what I, personally, am or am not doing to change the status quo is an attempt to change the discussion in such a way as to remove the possibility of objections to the status quo. If you (or whoever) made the original comment meant to open a discussion about how to effect change through active means, he or she (or you) could have said that as a more general call for ideas for affecting change. Instead, it was posted as a pointed remark directed at a single person that was intended to indicate that clearly, a person who doesn't believe schools should be providing social services should shut up about it unless she can prove that she's got a better idea that she's actively pursuing. It does not matter what I do or don't do personally to change things when I'm not typing on DCUM -- that it neither provable (if I said I was lobbying daily, for example) or particularly relevant to conversation that was going on; the point of this discussion is whether or not the status quo is beneficial or not.

PP, do what you want. If you just want to complain, then complain. Everybody likes to complain every now and then. (Often the only thing people do is complain.)

However, if you what to get the policies and programs you want, and the funding for them, then you're going to have to do more than complain.

Also, keep in mind that right now, the realistic choices are:

1. either the schools provide the additional social services to the kids
2. or nobody provides the additional social services to the kids

Decide which you prefer, and act accordingly.

The problem, that we all see here, is that as long as the schools provide the services, nothing will change.

I actually do think we should stop all of it except the meals.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What does "move the needle" mean? I am asking sincerely. What are wrap-around resources?

Agree.

I don't understand the title of your post OP.

Can your provide specifics in your post at the very least?

15:35 already answered this.

NP:--does it end the cycle of poverty? Do the kids that receive wrap around services "get out"? Can they get a job that provides a better life for their children? Do they understand how the world works enough that they can avoid poverty for their children?

Here's another question is it the school sole responsibility for ending the cycle of poverty?