Posted on 01/10/2008 3:42:37 PM PST by Diana in Wisconsin
One out of three school-age children in Milwaukee, WI lived with a family in poverty in 2005, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates released Wednesday.
Milwaukee ranked sixth highest overall among the nation's 70 largest school districts; only Cleveland, New Orleans, Detroit, Fresno, Calif., and St. Louis had higher percentages of children living with families in poverty.
Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett said creating jobs, resolving school-funding issues, getting more fathers involved in raising their children and getting kids to stay in school are key elements in reversing poverty's grip on the city.
"I literally go into classrooms and say, 'I'm Tom Barrett, I'm mayor of Milwaukee, and I'm begging you to stay in school and work hard,' " Barrett said. "We know that's the long-term solution. The short-term solutions are job retention and work force development."
Overall, 12% of Wisconsin children ages 5 through 17 lived with a family in poverty. Within many school districts in southeastern Wisconsin, the rates were extremely low. Ozaukee, Washington and Waukesha counties ranked among the nation's 28 counties with the lowest poverty rates of school-age children.
But Milwaukee continued to struggle, with 38,785 of 117,884 school-age children living with a family in poverty, up nearly 10,000 kids from the 2000 census.
Brother Bob Smith, president of Messmer Catholic Schools, said he sees the impact of poverty every school day. Eighty percent of the 1,500 students in Messmer schools are eligible for free school breakfasts and lunches, he said.
Recently, one student missed classes because her family was homeless and she couldn't get her uniform washed, Smith said. He said there are numerous cases of children who come to school in need of warmer coats or money for bus fares.
"One of the first things is to make sure we understand what poverty is," he said. "On one hand, it's not a death sentence. I grew up in Chicago in poverty. You deal with gangs or you deal with being made fun of because you don't have the latest shoes, or you're eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch.
"On the other hand, if you're able to really get kids to believe that there's a future and there's hope, and so many educational opportunities, you have to let them know they have to earn those," he said. "You don't get scholarships just because you're poor or you're black. You get them because you earn them."
William G. Andrekopoulos, superintendent of Milwaukee Public Schools, said poverty affects schoolchildren in a range of areas, including academic preparedness and health.
"We need to get kids in quality day-care programs so they can deal with the deficits children have, like vocabulary development," he said.
He said many impoverished children in the school system are in desperate need of care for physical, mental, even dental health. Children who are either homeless or who are often moving from home to home - and school to school - also are at risk, he said. Recently, one school principal told him that a child was acting out in class. It turned out the child needed a blanket because he was sleeping at night on a pallet.
"This housing thing is probably bigger than I ever know or can imagine," Andrekopoulos said.
School kids living in poverty also may be in unstable family situations, he said.
"When kids live in poverty, there is such a disarray with who really is the primary adult in the child's life," he said. "A number of people are struggling to make a living, (working) multiple jobs; their own survival is critical. That becomes an issue with the family. The whole parenting thing is an issue. It is a problem for the school system. We don't want to use it as excuses."
The Horror! The Horror! Yeesh. More ground-laying sob-story articles for money-grubbing politicians.
At least they kind of, sort of, might have, maybe did hit on a few of the reasons these kids are in poverty in the first place. I'll give them credit for that.
The people who made Milwaukee a great city don’t live there anymore.
Not just blue. The darkest of blues. I love PB&J. As do my kids.
I’m gonna go out on a limb here, and guess that ebonics is the predominant language spoken there. They need a visit from Bill Cosby.
I grew up "poor" in a non-english speaking household. I watched black and white television and read tabloid newspapers to learn the language and culture. These crybabies are f'ing pathetic.
MA cities with serious problems are Dorchester, Roxbury, Mattapan, New Bedford, Fall River, Springfield, Holyoke, Lawrence and Lynn.
All are illegal alien havens...
MA is run by Democrats.
“living with families in poverty”
I presume most of those “families” are single mothers with a bunch of kids by different fathers.
Milwaukee: Another liberal success story.
Uh-huh. So, um, what exactly are the parents doing to address these deficits? I can still remember sitting on my mother's lap at three years old and reciting the alphabet in the evenings (that would be followed up by my father reading to me and, later, my brother before bed.) This was circa the mid-to-late '70s.
LOL! Yeah. You can have my PBJ when you pry it from my cold, dead, sticky fingers.
Maybe some reasons they are poor is because soo much of the parents pay goes for property taxes in the socialist republic. I was watching cnn today and they had a story about the subprime mortgage mess and showed a lady in a house and she had on all this gold jewelry and had these manicured fingernails with jewels imbedded in her nails. She was saying how she needs help making her mortgage payment. I wish they would let me show them- get rid of the cable, cellphone, highspeed internet, drive an older used car, shop at Goodwill or thrift stores for anything, get a second job doing anything, eat Ramen noodles, go for walks instead of the gym, rent free movies,cd’s from your local library-its free. I want to hear some politician say that people who are in this mess should have volunteers come into a home and show people what to sell, what to cancel, and how to live on a budget, beofre asking the taxpayers to bail them out.
Creamy or chunky PB. It’s all good.
I know. My Dad moved us out of there in 1970, bless him!
Public Ed ping.
There was a really neat study done by Ruby Payne on Generational Poverty and how it relates to school. Google her name and read on what she has to say about it. Very interesting stuff.
Of course, our Founding Fathers had much less than these people do but yet I think they did rather well for themselves. My grandmother did not have indoor plumbing when my dad was born, but they did pretty well.
Big cities have schools with big city issues, and poverty is no different. But you are correct, they do hit on most of the issues that are plaguing the poor, but of course, none of them will actually do anything to help themselves.
I’m an adult about it, though. I don’t cut the crust off anymore.
It'd be my guess that this word is absent in the majority of these households
There’s something very satisfying, yet humbling, about PB&J’s. True “comfort food”.
I like them when they get a little smashed, and the jelly seeps into the top piece of bread.
While you have very good points, most of those do not apply to the poorest of the poor. If someone is sleeping on a pallet at night and doesn’t have a blanket for their children, I doubt that they are paying property taxes for anything. They are not renting free movies because there is no television or DVD/VHS player. For these families, and these are families headed by women, every day life is a nightmare and there is no mortgage payment to make, just a search for a safe place to sleep
Gabz, Amelia, and I have volunteered to take over the list so that Metmom can concentrate on home schooling issues.
If you want on or off this ping list, please Freepmail SoftballMominVA who is this month’s official keeper of the list
Was it one of you that had some information on the huge voucher/charter school movement in Milwaukee?
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