First lets take a look at the stops on the Road to One America during day 2:
Cleveland, Ohio has suffered a wave of home foreclosures in recent months as a result of a combination of job losses, predatory lenders and falling home prices. Predatory lenders and mortgage brokers have targeted the Mount Pleasant neighborhood, like many other working-class and predominantly African-American neighborhoods across the country. While subprime loans can be valuable to families without other credit opportunities, African-American and Latino borrowers are three times more likely to receive subprime loans than white borrowers with similar credit scores. Mount Pleasant resident Mariah Crenshaw is fighting to keep her family home of 30 years after a coercive and deceptive mortgage process. In Cleveland—a city with more than 13,000 foreclosures a year—ACORN is helping citizens like Crenshaw and organizing residents of economically distressed neighborhoods like Mount Pleasant. [Schiller, 2007; NCRC, 2007; ACORN, 2007]
Youngstown, Ohio was once home to a thriving steel industry, but the decline of Youngstown Sheet and Tube in the late 1970s was the start of economic challenges. In the past few years, startup technology companies have revived the local economy. The Youngstown Business Incubator has helped local companies receive 19 new patents and create over 160 full-time, technology based jobs. The need for affordable housing is a pressing issue in Youngstown. Nationally, landlords remove 2,000 apartments a month from the list of publicly supported affordable apartments. Seventeen million families pay more than half their incomes in rent and over 800,000 are homeless. In Youngstown, Edwards will visit the Beatitude House for homeless women and children. Last year, Beatitude House helped over 400 people last year gain education, employment, and housing. [YBI; Fannie Mae, 2002; JCHS, 2007; HHS, 2007; Beatitude House, 2007]
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania's economy also rose and fell with the steel industry, and it is now rebounding unevenly. The neighborhoods of the Hill District have suffered. By 1990, most residents lived in public housing, and 41 percent are now in poverty. The Hill House Association offers early learning, tutoring, summer camps, and senior services. Edwards visited Hill House to discuss his plan to create economically integrated schools for the benefit of all students. [Houser, 2003; U.S. Census, 2005]
Again, John Edwards made some really good selections as far as places to go to highlight the Two Americas we are all fighting to bring together. I have been to all three of these cities and seen how the policies of the last thirty years have gutted their industries. I have also seen the hearty, hard working people who live there and deserve better. These places are like my home, struggling to adapt to a switch to a more service-oriented economy. From providing steel and other materials to build America, to flipping burgers at Micky-D's. A painful transition indeed.
Edwards used today to not only highlight the plights of the hardworking men and women of Ohio and Pennsylvania who have been forgotten, he also rolled out a plan to promote economically diverse schools. Lets look at some of it. Of course you can't have a solution without a problem, and Edwards identifies it nicely here:
Our nation has two school systems, segregated by race and economic status. The recent Supreme Court decision limiting school districts' efforts to integrate their schools will exacerbate the problem. While not a substitute either for racial integration, which may still be permissible under some circumstances, or for improvement of high-poverty schools, efforts to achieve income diversity can put poor students in schools where they are more likely to have experienced teachers, classmates with high aspirations and parents who are more involved. These students perform better without hurting the achievement of middle-class students. In fact, a school's socioeconomic makeup is the second most important predictor of academic achievement, after only a children's own socioeconomic status. By fourth grade, low-income students attending affluent schools are two years ahead in math of their peers in high-poverty schools, with no adverse impact on other students. [Kahlenberg, 2007]
I don't care who you support, poor kids should have every much a right to an outstanding education as rich kids. I believe some things in this world should transcend money, or anything else. That is the way children are treated. I don't care what race, country or class any child comes from they are a child and if we won't even attempt to uplift all of them then what does that make us? Well, nothing to be proud of in my eyes. But hey, its not all grey skies, Edwards goes on to talk about an excellent model in North Carolina to create economically diverse schools:
A national model exists in Wake County, North Carolina, where Edwards' eldest two children attended public school. Wake County attempts to limit low-income students to 40 percent of the student body and students performing below grade level to 25 percent. With its economic diversity program, low-income students in Wake County's public schools are outperforming their peers in comparable North Carolina school districts on statewide exams and the county's schools have the second highest on-time graduation rate among the nation's largest 50 districts nationally. Wake County's policies have also sustained racial diversity in its schools. Experience has shown that success of these kinds depends on an aggressive district-wide effort. [Harris, 2006; Kahlenberg, 2007; Flinspach and Banks, 2005; NY Times, 7/15/05]
Hey, I guess you can't argue with results!!
Edwards will be releasing his plan for K-12 schooling later in the campaign, but he did make three specific proposals today:
Give Bonuses to Middle-Class Schools Enrolling Low-Income Students: Edwards will provide $100 million for school districts implementing economic integration programs, helping finance transportation and additional resources for schools enrolling low-income children. Similar programs have successfully attracted suburban participation in places like St. Louis. [Century Foundation, 2002]
Create Magnet Schools Dedicated to Economic Integration: To attract more students to low-income areas, Edwards will double current federal magnet schools funding to $200 million a year and dedicate the increase to schools that draw students from across district lines and pledge to maintain economically diverse schools. The right magnet schools can attract middle-class suburban students to high-poverty urban neighborhoods, as does a Montessori school in Harford, if the school at the end of the bus ride is excellent. Nationally, an estimated 150,000 students are on waiting lists for magnet schools. [Kahlenberg, 2003; Colvin, 2004]
Create a Million New Housing Vouchers: Our current housing policies concentrate low-income families together, isolating children from economically diverse schools. Edwards will create a million vouchers over five years to help low-income families move to better neighborhoods. At the same time, he will phase out housing projects that tie families to certain locations and are often lower quality and more expensive than private sector alternatives.
All of these ideas seem very sound to me. I will admit I am no expert in these things, but quotes one and three I thought really made sense. These add to other Proposals Edwards has to support our schools. As mentioned above, there are more to come before this campaign has ended. Here are some of the other proposals to date:
Strengthen Public Schools and Invest in Teachers: Edwards proposed expanding access to preschool programs, investing more in teacher pay and training to attract good teachers where we need them most, and strengthening high schools with a more challenging curriculum.
Create Second-Chance Schools for High School Dropouts: As many as one-third of all students drop out of school, and the rates are even worse for poor and minority students. Large majorities of recent dropouts regret their decision. Edwards will create second-chance schools to help former dropouts get back on track. [Civic Enterprises, 2006; Manhattan Institute, 2006]
Expand College Opportunity: Edwards will enact a College for Everyone program to pay public-college tuition, books and fees for students who agree to work part-time during their first year at school. Additional student aid can make the greatest difference in the first year of college. [Dynarski, 1999]
http://www.johnedwards.com/...
I have spoken on all of these ideas before, and would just like to say that I agree completely with every one of these ideas. Now I would like to speak on another bit that came out of today on Edwards trip to highlight poverty. The National Intelligence Estimate. As you all know by now, it wasn't good. This foolish neo-con propoganda ploy the "War on Terror" has blown up in PNACs face. Well, I guess they still made the money!!
Here was Edwards statement from the road today about the estimate:
"Today's new National Intelligence Estimate demonstrating Al Qaeda is expanding their reach is proof positive that George Bush's "Global War on Terror" Doctrine is more of a bumper sticker than a strategy to eliminate terrorism. This Administration has failed America - 6 years after 9/11, Bin Laden is still alive, Al Qaeda is more powerful now than ever before, and we have fewer allies. As the NIE shows, the next president will need a bold new strategy that will attack the root causes of terrorism, rather than wait for the problem to get worse. We need an anti-terror strategy that tailors our force structure to the threat; puts the military, not politicians, in charge of operational decisions on the ground; and creates a new "Marshall Corps" of 10,000 professionals to stabilize weak and failing states."
As one who has been saying this War on Terror is all a bunch of garbage for a long time now, I can only thank John Edwards for stating this publicly and bringing all who feel and have felt the same as me into the mainstream. We no longer are considered kooks for this view. This strategy was never intended to catch bin-Laden and won't. The last part of this is what I believe sets Edwards apart. Not only does he understand what the "War on Terror" is all about, he has a different vision of what should be done. If you haven't yet seen his ideas please look here:
http://www.johnedwards.com/...
I think this was a very good day for Edwards. I think he is proving that he is not a phony and has actually studied long and hard to identify real problems that face real Americans and propose real solutions to them. I really feel as the campaign progresses and more people start paying attention that John Edwards is going to win over a whole lot of Americans.
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