Making a difference
According to a study, changing neighborhoods makes little difference for inner city children. That might be because the home environment has not changed…
Many social reformers have long said that low academic achievement among inner-city children cannot be improved significantly without moving their families to better neighborhoods, but new reports released today that draw on a unique set of data throw cold water on that theory.
Researchers examining what happened to 4,248 families that were randomly given or denied federal housing vouchers to move out of their high-poverty neighborhoods found no significant difference about seven years later between the achievement of children who moved to more middle-class neighborhoods and those who didn
Filed under: Black American Muslims, Changing World, Children's Issues, Convert Issues
This is why I stay in the hood… Mainstream America may not care, but I do. I see so much hope and potential in our disenfranchised youth. As Muslims all of our masjids should serve as a hub for after school activites - tutoring, chaperoned productive events, etc…
There are so many stories of ONE PERSON encouraging a child who had lost hope and that child went on to great things… check the stories of Dr. Rhodes, Malcom X (Remember he wanted to be a lawyer and his teacher told him he’d be nothing), Delegate Benson (MD REP - her HS guidance counselor told her she’d be nothing, it broke her spirit, when she went home her father, YES HER FATHER, reminded her of who she is, and look at that beautiful black woman, opps NUBIAN QUEEN today!). The examples of those succeeding despite the odds are too numerous.
We owe our children, especially those in inner cities, a lot. We can’t claim success when our children are lagging behind. WE can’t turn a blind eye on them, because whoever it was didn’t turn their backs on us.
Bint is right, and the post is a good reminder that education is also the parent’s responsibility. Volunteering at school, especially tutoring, is essential.
Ya Haqq!
[...] Ah, Socialism! You know, I never get tired of extolling the virtues of socialism. This time the grand effects of socialist policy come to us from a study reported on by The Washington Post, which finds that moving poor inner city children into middle class neighborhoods has had little or no positive effect - in fact, this policy has increased behavioral problems among some students (H/T: Tariq Nelson). [...]
” That might be becuase the home environment has not changed..”-Tariq Nelson
*Family First by Dr. Phil McGraw
*Relationship Rescue by Dr. Phil McGraw
*7 Habits of Highly Effective Families by Stephen Covey
Salaam
I had some other thoughts about this issue:
a) I do not believe this housing relocation program should be eliminated for the following reasons:
1- Many parents are striving to the best of their skills and abilities to provide a safe, healthy, stable, and loving home environment but find themselves unable to compete with external forces including the negative consequences of sending your child to a public school. Their children’s normal sense of self becomes overwhelmed by so many external poisons that they began to shut down and remain in a long term state of dysfunction. I believe the old cliche is ” they got caught up.” It is harsh, extreme, and unjust to blame the parents and isolate other contributing factors to the down fall of inner city children.
2- 300 hours of parenting classes and 300 hours of family counseling should be required prior to relocating anybody. Instead of demonizing and demoralizing people becuase they are poor or operate in a subculture, perhaps these parents are simply uneducated about how to create a home and what a functional family really is. I also think this is the time where absentee farthers should be pursued aggressively to be apart of their childrens life. I find it funny how critics of the poor can’t measure up to the standards they set for others and lack the required “soft skills” necessary for sustaining and maintain a functional home. Middle class blacks and white have more than their fair share of dysfunctional home environments.
3- In addition to classes and counseling, parents should be required to enroll their children in programs where mentoring, and supervision are available in their absence prior to relocating. They should submit documentation as proof they have ascertained services. Boys& Girl club of America; Big Brothers&Bis Sisters, and after school programs are examples of this. These children are going to need additional support.
4- Church’s and other places of worships should create parent support groups so that parents can transition and adjust- you can’t give what you don’t have.
5- Parents and children should be evaluated for psychological disorders and learning disabilities prior to re-locating. When a “poor black” person exhibits some type of behaviour they are labeled ” immoral” ” unstable” or ” dysfunctional”. The language is allot “softer” and toned down when it comes to their white counterparts. Many of the complaints about the habits, lifestyles, and decisions of “poor black” people are often classic tell tale signs of mental illness, learning disabilities, and trauma. Addressing their mental health needs versus complaining about their failures would do everybody some good.
Concerning the volunteer idea
Let’s be real here..
Many white and black middle class parents are preoccupied with their careers or personal lives and don’t volunteer much.
These people can afford a SAHM- which is what is really needed to 1) properly care for and monitor your own child in this type of public institution and 2) support this institution.
Many low income mothers can not afford to stay home, they are often working two or three jobs trying to remain in a good situation- they don’t have the time to volunteer much of their skills and time.
This is actually an age old debate that can open up a can of warms between WM’s and SAHM’s. SAHM’s have long complained that working mothers are the burden on the school system becuase their work obligations do not give them enough time to support their schools and properly care for their own children- this is a debate amongst the middle class, it’s going to be worse with the working class or working poor. Their ( low income) jobs may not offer “flex time” and ” shared shifts” like jobs that require college degrees do.
College educated middle class working white women(mothers) have millions of books, organizations, blogs, and websites about the failure ;challenges of the “work life balance.” They are struggling and they have more resources including stable extended family support and their children fall through the cracks to. These women have the ability to “life sequence” their childbearing years becuase they began in marriage and have resources to do so. This isn’t the case for most low income people.
I have two single mothers in my family.
They are not able to volunteer and can barely attend conferences and meetings becuase they half to provide. Damned if they do and damned if they don’t. People would bitch them out if they were collecting welfare and people bitch them out becuase they can’t give the same time as other parents who are more affluent.
I’m not trying to glamorize parents who abdicate their obligations to their children but I’m trying to say that the ” black republican” uncompassionate conservative “slap down” approach doesn’t even scratch the surface at resolving the problems which aren’t confined to one origin or source.
Salaam
P.S. Kicking children to the curb is child abuse and neglect. That is not going to solve a dang thang. Some of these children are angry, very angry, they are not deliberately sabotaging themselves and their education becuase they are “lazy” “maladaptive” or ” immoral.” It’s becuase they have been “abandoned” “abused” “lived in deprivation” and ” have undiagnosed psychological disorders.” Kicking children to the curb is the usual punitive tactic of republican minded people who lack compassion for the underprivileged out of stinginess and unwillingness to pay up.
“Many vision problems are often misdiagnosed as learning disabilities, Rousseau said.
Some states are passing laws that mandate thorough eye exams for school-aged children. Virginia has started it because so many education dollars have been spent on children who were misdiagnosed as having learning difficulties when in reality, it was vision problems.”
Read more…
http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070814/LIFE/708140318/1005
Bint Will is spot on. For most kids who come from a troubled background and make it there is that one person they can point to that believed in them and gave them help and inspiration.
I came from a troubled background and didnt have that one person. I made it, Alhamadulillah, but not without years of struggling and making big mistakes.
That one person can make all of the difference in the world.
$500 grants to help solve community problems
Grant Title: Game Stop and Plum Grants
Organization: Do Something
Eligibility: People 25 years old and younger
Value: $500 grants
Deadline: December 31, 2007
Each week during 2007, Do Something will award a Game Stop grant. Plum grants (begin in April) are also weekly. These grants support local activities generated by students and designed to solve a community problem or issue.
Contact: http://www.dosomething.org/grants