My gripe about schools

Oh, to be privileged enough to think that. I am no longer considered low-income, and my husband and I worked to get out of that, but we are still struggling- probably more now that we aren't than we were when we were low income because of medical bills. My parents were low income when I was growing up. My mom worked hard, and my dad was on disability because he had a lot of health problems that kept him from working. He worked until he physically couldn't. People have genuine reasons. There are people who abuse the system, but there are also a lot of people who don't. The biggest portion of our money goes towards Social Security, which doesn't really go towards those who pay into it currently, and there's a chance they could potentially get rid of it, so we are paying for those who are currently on it (they paid their share, so that isn't my gripe) with the chance that we may never personally get to see a dime of it if we die before we are old enough to get benefits or if they get rid of it, which they keep talking about. 11 percent of our taxes goes towards low income programs, which is but isn't a huge portion and not everyone is getting everything from that 11 percent. It's there in case people fall on hard times or are struggling. I know single mothers who work hard but can't get ahead because they have young children and had to leave a difficult situation or lost a husband. Things happen to people. To sit and argue with people about situations they can't understand is a blessing they aren't even aware they have. I would love to be so privileged as not to understand. Life is difficult, and most people are out there doing their best. I could argue this all day, but people who have that viewpoint will never change it until they experience every situation that prevents people from getting ahead. Ohio is experiencing issues with reading in some of our schools, but not all of them. I knew a few 4th graders who could barely read. One of them was a boy who had a single mother who was also dealing with an autistic child while doing her best to raise both of her children. The younger brother took a lot of her time and energy while she was trying to work to support them both. The older child was struggling at school, and intervention was put in place, but he had a lot going on and struggled academically; he is gifted in sports, dancing, and singing. We have another girl who comes from a difficult home life. Her mother, sadly, is one of the few who I believe uses the system. She has a real disability but somehow finds a way to do a lot of things she shouldn't be doing, but can't work. This is not her daughter's fault. Her daughter really does try, and I feel like she could really make something of herself later with the right interventions in place, but I worry about her because of all of the barriers they have placed in front of kids like her to get a diploma. She's determined and strong, and while I know she can be difficult, there is so much potential there. There are so many kids just like the two I mentioned. Tests don't take into consideration kids like them who have so many other strengths and who have both made a lot of progress, even though their progress still doesn't have them passing those tests. Our teachers work hard and are amazing, but when you are working with low-income kids, test scores will automatically be lower due to their home lives. It's not that those parents are all terrible, but a lot of them have a lot going on, so their kids unfortunately pay the price academically a lot of the time. A parent's financial status should never be a child's fault. Those who complain about the parents and think they shouldn't get help are basically saying they don't care about the children. While we pay less total for foster care than we do for welfare, if we put every child who has low-income parents in foster care because said parent can't financially afford it, we would pay WAY more in foster care than we ever would pay into welfare to help that family. It's so easy to say If you can't afford children, don't have them as if people always plan on falling on hard times or as if that's an easy solution. Fewer people actually are having children, which is creating a whole other issue. Then those who often say If you can't afford them, then give them up are against abortion (which, to be clear, I, with some exceptions, am not for abortion, but I also choose not to judge those who have them even though I don't personally agree with them), so they basically want to spend more money to force people to have them and then give them up as though every child automatically gets adopted. If a child has any sort of disability, that also significantly reduces their ability to be adopted. I could literally rant about this for hours, but I'll end it here. My point here is that low-income kids have a more difficult time, not always because the parents are terrible, but because the parents are dealing with a lot, and therefore so are the children. It reflects on schools that deal with the situation, and most tests aren't showing growth so much as wanting a certain score. Poverty plays a large role in scores and hinders children from being able to meet certain requirements, and we need to stop making things more difficult for them and stop blaming kids for something that isn't their fault. We need to find a way to make teachers want to teach again and give kids a fighting chance. They are our future, and if we want the world in good hands, we need to do better and stop taking away from education, and start giving more to it.

@sissy15 After reading this, more than ever do I wish you could chat with that person I alluded to. The person in question IS childless, and they often say if you can’t afford children don’t have them. LAUGHABLE.

@AmbiePam It's always easy to judge something until you have been through it. Those mothers without children are always the best mothers with their figurative children. They always know everything. I know the exact kind of person you're talking about. I see them all the time in comments. I always know exactly what they are going to say. The thing is, you can't tell them anything. It's like talking to a wall. Nothing I would say would change their minds. No facts or statistics, because no matter what, they already know it all with the limited information that they have memorized. They pull out that "information" and quote it like a textbook. You can't talk to a brick wall, and it almost makes you dumber for trying. I have started the kill em with kindness thing. When you have a certain mindset, you will always be blinded by life and privilege. They'll say things like, "I'm not privileged; I knew I couldn't afford children, so I didn't have them". Meanwhile, they are actively trying to get people to have more children because they are worried about supporting the economy later, as more and more people are realizing they can't afford to have children. I had my son when we were low income, and I wasn't trying to; he was actually a birth control baby. I had one child. We were on welfare for years before we were finally able to work our way off of it. I don't regret my child and would do it all again to have him, even though I wasn't actively trying to have him. I'm trying not to find the irony that the same president whose followers are against welfare is the same president trying to create incentives to make women have more children. Make it make sense. This is a major rant for me, but the people I need to rant to wouldn't listen to me if I tried. When they start failing in the argument, they resort to name-calling and call me a snowflake as if that somehow makes their responses all right and mine all wrong. I don't even bother anymore.

I really wish those who complain the most could see what it's like to deal with the issues we are faced with before saying a single word. It's so easy to judge from the outside.