Comments on: Flunking For Welfare

By: Keegan

Keegan — Mon, 18 May 2009 17:42:35 +0000

I agree, definitely one of your best issues and analyses. I too was unaware of this backwards incentive.

By: pro patria

pro patria — Thu, 14 May 2009 21:22:45 +0000

Mr. Gibbon,

This is one of your best.

We shouldn't have a system that is set up to be taken advantage of at the cost of the most vulnerable parties involved: the children.

Very controversial idea. This would cause most of middle America to balk in disgust and disbelief. Unfortunately, it sounds like this kind of behavior/lifestyle seems normal where you teach.

By: barker13

barker13 — Thu, 14 May 2009 15:29:29 +0000

Tom,

Another heads-up:

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZGYyNTNhZTdjOTEzNjU2ZDcwOTQxNGM5ZjdhNWRkNDI=

I actually read "The Dumbest Generation" last year. It's an excellent read - especially for a teacher, but also for parents.

BILL

By: sw

sw — Thu, 14 May 2009 15:21:51 +0000

I don’t know where Tom teaches, but I suspect he has a very different demographic than we have here in Los Angeles. I haven’t run into the issue he talks about. Here, kids drop out of school because their parents feel that since they had only three or four years of school in their home country, if their kid gets to 9th or 10th, hey, that’s pretty good. High birth rates in immigrant communities, coupled with low educational levels, necessitate an ever-growing income stream. The welfare dodge … I just don’t know. I do know that many parents lie and tell their children to “act dumb” so they can qualify for SSI benefits. I saw this for years, working with this population, before I became a teacher. Next time some liberal whines about minorities being “shunted into” special education classes, remember that their so-called parents may actually want them there. It means more booze and drugs and cigarettes for them.

By: barker13

barker13 — Thu, 14 May 2009 12:03:26 +0000

Tom,

I always appreciate your dispatches from the front lines.

(*WINK*)

Here... check this out:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/636d553e-3d8d-11de-a85e-00144feabdc0.html

Plenty of good links WITHIN the above linked article too.

BILL

By: midcon

midcon — Thu, 14 May 2009 11:39:54 +0000

Schools are bureaucracies. They live by a myriad of local, state, and federal rules. There is no codified rule for “all intents and purposes.” So it becomes a Catch-22, where you can’t get them off the rolls unless you can confirm they have dropped out, which you can’t do unless you have it in writing for the parents who you can’t get in contac with or if you do managed to contact them, they say they will get after their children and the kid shows up to school for a day or two and then disappears.It is well honed system for beating the system. You’ll have to get up a lot earlier to beat the scams many of the parents have spent years improving.

By: Bulldoglover100

Bulldoglover100 — Thu, 14 May 2009 10:44:24 +0000

Sooooo where odes the admission that they are attending come from if they are in fact not attending school? Your Principle is signing them??? When the kids are not attending????? Seems to me that there is a fail safe built in that is being ignored while pointing fingers, once again, at goverment.NO ONE should sign anything if the kid has in fact dropped out for all intents and purposes. The parents may be henious but it sounds like the school system is helping them based on the facts you present.

By: Mheer

Mheer — Thu, 14 May 2009 00:31:18 +0000

“Stringent student attendance laws…” Wrong! …and then again, Wrong! Based upon their entry into 1st grade, welfare should stop completely at their calculated graduation date. The kid should not be eligible for welfare until they are 30.Your plan would only encourage ever more spending to ‘help’ them graduate. After school classes, private tutors at government expense, expensive, but useless, ‘learning’ specialists on every school’s staff, no, no way. Kids don’t learn because they do not care. That is the only reason you have any trouble at all. You cannot pass a law that makes them care. You can only take away their welfare.