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ORIGINAL: RacerJim


Under the plan you are referring to A MINIMUM of ELEVEN MILLION ILLEGAL ALIENS already here would get AMNESTY/CITIZENSHIP without CLOSING AND LOCKING the border.

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ORIGINAL: RacerJim

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ORIGINAL: DomKen

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ORIGINAL: papassion

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ORIGINAL: vincentML

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Basically, it's still an employers' market and they can do whatever they want. Since I'm out of work and searching intensively, I can also attest to the absurdity of employers' reasons not to hire.

There is really too much blaming the victim here. When I graduated high school back in the day there were no shortages of decent paying factory jobs and need for skilled labor. It is ridiculous to lament lack of motivation among young people when manufacturing jobs have been outsourced or replaced by technology. What remains are low wage service jobs at fast food stores which do not require much in the way of education.

Yeah, lets make the problem worse with the Liberal's HUMANE plan to bring in millions more of uneducated workers who will work "under the table" so the US worker will be fucked out of even the fast food jobs!

Then again, why work? Get citizenship, get pregnant, tell them you don't know who the father is, and you get an apartment, food, money, child care (so you can fuck around some more) etc., etc. Yeah, these LIBERALS really know how to set us up!

What plan are you referring to? The only immigration plan currently under discussion is to regularize the status of those undocumented immigrants that are already here.

Under the plan you are referring to A MINIMUM of ELEVEN MILLION ILLEGAL ALIENS already here would get AMNESTY/CITIZENSHIP without CLOSING AND LOCKING the border.

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The problem is at least in part a troubling anti intellectualism and anti education culture amongst a great many people who are in the lower class. There is intense peer pressure on these young people not to do well in school and a general lack of encouragement from their parents.

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First off the working poor parent is often working evening or overnight shifts (if not multiple jobs) so no one is at home in the evening to require homework and study.

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Last year, they spent half a BILLION dollars in ONE school district and the best they could manage was a less than 50% graduation rate.

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ORIGINAL: DarkSteven

The thing that troubles me is that the future is so bleak for dropouts and yet the dropout rate is so high. Why? Is getting a job considered so valueless that people will spurn it and drop out? Is school considered too hard? Why is education so undervalued?

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ORIGINAL: Arturas

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First off the working poor parent is often working evening or overnight shifts (if not multiple jobs) so no one is at home in the evening to require homework and study.

except that is not reality. Reality is these are families who hand down from generation to generation the best methods and ways to beat the system and live off welfare without working. Your premise is they want to work whereas the reality is they do not under any circumstance and are playing the libs for more ways to not work and live better doing it. Their children come home to a mother who never left the house and a father who hides under the bed from social workers because he has supposedly abandoned them so they can get even more benefits.

You realize this quickly when you work downtown and work around these populations.

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ORIGINAL: DarkSteven

The thing that troubles me is that the future is so bleak for dropouts and yet the dropout rate is so high. Why? Is getting a job considered so valueless that people will spurn it and drop out? Is school considered too hard? Why is education so undervalued? Why is working so undervalued?

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ORIGINAL: Kana

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Last year, they spent half a BILLION dollars in ONE school district and the best they could manage was a less than 50% graduation rate.

Please give me a citation here. I'm genuinely interested in learning more abbout this

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ORIGINAL: MasterCaneman

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ORIGINAL: Kana

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Last year, they spent half a BILLION dollars in ONE school district and the best they could manage was a less than 50% graduation rate.

Please give me a citation here. I'm genuinely interested in learning more abbout this

Here you go: First the Buffalo, NY School Budget 2011-2012

Graduation Rate, Buffalo School District 2012

I won't bother to tell you that this town is a Democratic stronghold, I'll let you figure that out for yourself.

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ORIGINAL: Arturas

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First off the working poor parent is often working evening or overnight shifts (if not multiple jobs) so no one is at home in the evening to require homework and study.

except that is not reality. Reality is these are families who hand down from generation to generation the best methods and ways to beat the system and live off welfare without working. Your premise is they want to work whereas the reality is they do not under any circumstance and are playing the libs for more ways to not work and live better doing it. Their children come home to a mother who never left the house and a father who hides under the bed from social workers because he has supposedly abandoned them so they can get even more benefits.

You realize this quickly when you work downtown and work around these populations.

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ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri

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ORIGINAL: DomKen
The dropout problem is one of the biggest problems facing this nation and hardly anyone talks about it. It's pretty hard to find a job that pays a living wage with a bachelor's degree much less just a high school diploma. Dropouts are lucky to get work at a fast food joint.
The problem is at least in part a troubling anti intellectualism and anti education culture amongst a great many people who are in the lower class. There is intense peer pressure on these young people not to do well in school and a general lack of encouragement from their parents.
This is one of those problems that both scares me for the future of this nation and baffles me as to a way forward to ending it.

Re-quoting for emphasis and truth:

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The problem is at least in part a troubling anti intellectualism and anti education culture amongst a great many people who are in the lower class. There is intense peer pressure on these young people not to do well in school and a general lack of encouragement from their parents.

IMO, these are the greatest factors in academic achievement. Both can be overcome by the student him/herself, but the requisite motivation is staggering. You tend to have less of the first and more of the second in areas of higher socioeconomic areas, and the school achievements tend to higher. Even within the same District, you'll have schools that do better simply because of those 2 factors. It's not a black thing, though it does include more blacks than not. There is correlation, but not causation.

The issue that I have yet to find anyone with a good answer to (and I have talked to all of 3 school superintendents - admittedly, a low sample size) is how to break the cycle and change the home academic environments. There is no good reason for it. None at all.

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ORIGINAL: DarkSteven
I know someone who runs a small nonprofit in Chicago. It's an after-school program for kids one of whose parents are on drugs, in jail, etc. She provides them with hot meals, classes in stuff like martial arts, drumming, guitar, etc. She requires them to read a certain amount of time each day, depending on age, and to do their homework. For some, it's the closest thing they know to a family.
Obviously, these kids are prime candidates to be in gangs. She's had some of them get through college, when they would likely never even get through high school otherwise.

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She's got fifty-some kids right now, and I wish she had the funds to take in more.