Submitted by Mansfield Frazier
Poverty, as we all know, is a function and byproduct of a deficient education. And we can’t solve the problem of poverty without first solving the problem of our failure to educate the underclass. We blame the school systems and teachers (who certainly should shoulder some of the blame) when, in reality, the majority of the blame should go to parents. However, beyond the parents lie the real culprits: uncaring politicians. The following summarizes some of my thoughts.
An idea whose time might one day come
The most recent disturbing test results posted by Cleveland schoolchildren cited in the PD editorial “Failing our children,” (Dec. 4, 2005), leads me to but one inescapable conclusion: Eventually we will have to adopt former US Senator Bill Bradley’s prescriptive (put forth over a decade ago) of establishing “children’s camps” as the solution to the seemingly intractable problem of failing (and failed) underclass children. We have been nibbling around the edges of this tragic situation for years with admirable sounding programs such as Head Start, which have only produced uneven results when viewed in the long term. The fact unfortunately remains that placing a child in a safe learning environment for six, seven or even eight hours a day has limited lasting effect when every evening that child is returning to a home environment where little value is placed on education, health care and strong, positive role-modeling. If Head Start and other such programs really worked we would not still have a problem with low performing children in any American city.
The focus has to be on the home environment; therein lays the problem. But how long will we continue to restate the obvious by yelling at the top of our lungs, “You parents have to do a better job!”? Of course they need to, but when will we realize that we are asking the virtually impossible from these oftentimes marginally educated and poorly equipped mothers and fathers (mostly mothers)? If these parents knew how to do a better job with their children they would ... but, mostly being ill-raised themselves, they, by and large, don’t have the requisite skills to be better parents. How does a parent read to their child after school when they themselves are oftentimes functionally illiterate ...and don’t want their children — or anyone else for that matter — to know of their deficit? Or what about the parent that spends all day in a grinding effort just to put enough food on the table... where are they supposed to find the energy for spending quality evening time with their children?
Sen. Bradley put forth the idea that we could break the cycle of substandard education (which leads to low goals, eventual poverty, and too often criminal behavior) that continues to plague so many underclass American children of all colors by a massive, one-generation effort whereby middleclass mentors hands-on assist in the raising of these underclass children during those critical early years in a safe, stable — and, most importantly of all — 24-hour environment. And these mentors would not have to be trained social workers, just ordinary, everyday citizens willing to make a commitment to help. Of course the young parents of these children would also be getting the education they missed in their formative years in the process.
Certainly establishing such a program would require a Herculean effort on the part of government, but it would not be as expensive as it might appear at first blush. Much of the funding for such an effort is already being spent by government on various and sundry support programs for the underprivileged; those funds need to be redirected, and the facilities to establish the children’s camps provided. At the time, Sen. Bradley suggested utilizing closed military bases for the camps. Some would question if parents would willingly bring their offspring to such a place, but why don’t we build one — just one — and see if they will come?
Creating the political will to institute such an undertaking would require the efforts of real visionaries , but anything short of the all-encompassing Bradley program is (as the last 50 or so years have so amply demonstrated) doomed to failure. The PD editorial stated that the city, county and faith-based communities must also be held accountable for the welfare of Cleveland’s children, and no one would disagree with that position. However, government at the state and federal level has to do its share too. “No Child Left Behind” has to become more than simply a slogan hijacked by the Bush Administration from the Children’s Defense Fund. This is a problem that can be solved if enough federal dollars are allocated for the solution. The plain fact is, we’re either going to pay up now and try to solve the problem once and for all with a real solution, or we’re going to continue to pay and pay incrementally forever for our collective failure to face hard truths and make tough decisions.
The PD editorial ended by calling on Mayor-elect Frank Jackson to use the dismal test results as a rallying point to ignite community concern over this issue, and I have no doubt that he will use his bully pulpit to do just that — on this issue ... and others of import to the residents of the City of Cleveland. Nonetheless, we have to be cognizant of the fact that these problems facing many underclass children in the city were generations in the making and no single mayor of any size city ... no matter how talented, well-meaning and energized they might happen to be ... is going to be able to overcome them without a substantial commitment from the governor and State Legislature, along with a big hand from the president and Congress.
The problems faced by Cleveland children are beyond critical, and new, innovative measures for solving them have to be given serious consideration at some juncture. In view of the myriad semi-successes and mostly failures of past programs, now, at the beginning of a new City Hall administration, is the time to try Sen. Bradley’s idea on at least a limited, pilot program basis. I am firmly convinced that we will eventually come to our senses and give Sen. Bradley’s idea a try — if for no other reason than all else has failed to produce the desired results and we have run out of other options. The only thing we have to lose is ... another generation of undereducated, ill-equipped and marginalized Cleveland school children. Children that will, in all likelihood, remain mired in poverty their entire lives.