Advocates for the poor in Michigan are casting a cold eye on a new state policy that, beginning Oct. 1, will strip families of welfare benefits if their children are chronically absent from school.
Some question the efficacy of the plan in its effort to curb truancy. According to one report:
Judy Putnam, spokeswoman for the Michigan League of Human Services, said there is no doubt that children need to be in school.
But, she said, Gov. Snyder needs to focus on a plan that targets all truant students and not just those in struggling families. She said it’s hard to tell what percentage of chronically absent students come from homes receiving cash assistance.
“Until you walk a mile in those persons’ shoes, it’s difficult to understand why those children are absent,” she said.
“Families in need often lack reliable transportation, they don’t have a support system when children are sick and they don’t have reliable work schedules. They need this assistance.”
Others just see it as flat out cruel and pointless…
Maureen Taylor, head of the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization, believes the plan unfairly targets low income families since they are not the only ones who aren't going to school, according to Fox2.
"What kind of plan is this? Let's punish everybody. Because this kid may have missed some days of school, maybe we should find out why that kid missed school," she said. "I like motivation, but the motivation here is to take away breakfast, lunch and dinner."
Of course, there are many people around the city and the state -- probably a good majority of folks -- who feel that there are gallons of merit to a policy like this. And there are few against what state officials say is the ultimate aim of the policy: "Our whole goal is that we're going to increase academic success for children," said Sheryl Thompson with the Department of Human Services. "We're going to have higher graduation rates because the most important thing with this also is that we want to end generational poverty and it starts by increasing our educational values."
Education is critical indeed. But there's something deeply hypocritical about a state that pushes for billions in cuts to education funding but at the same time wants to threaten the benefits of poor families who, at worst, are merely mirroring the state own foolish values when it comes to the importance of education.
Hell yeah education is important. And yes, in order to learn anything at all in school, a kid first needs to have his or her little behind seated at a desk. That's why we've already got truancy laws on the books now, I assume.
But I wonder just how much this policy will hurt the kids it purports to ultimately want to save? For instance, there's nothing in the policy that will spare children with good attendance from the punishment brought down by a sibling who, for whatever reason, doesn't show up to class. If your big brother or sister skips school, it doesn't matter how few days you've missed: You're still looking at the possibility of going hungry.
And, as Taylor and Putnam both point out, the policy also does nothing to assure the attendance of students from homes that don't receive state assistance. The policy goes after those most vulnerable and susceptible to state arm-twisting — the poorest of the poor — without any clearly defined idea of how welfare recipients contribute to the truancy problem.
That said, I think the policy may actually have the intended effect, at least in a few households. The loss of a state aid check just might make a few more parents a little more diligent about making sure that their kid has his rear in a chair at school. And there's something of a win there for all.
It'll be interesting to see whether this policy has any dramatic effect on truancy overall, though, largely because there are many other factors tied to truancy that have nothing to do with some trifling ass parent. It sounds good to say "there's no excuse for missing school'"— and in stable homes like mine, that damn sure rings true. Income level be damned: My working-class mother was just as driven about ensuring a good education for her children as my middle-class wife is today.
But I've known households where the parent doesn't even know where his or her 14-year-old is living 25 days out of the month. I've known households where kids don't show up to school because they're out earning money to feed their family precisely because a welfare check already doesn't mean shit to them. And I've known households that didn't even have a home.
We need policy, good and well-intentioned policy, that does much more to address these problems, too. And just as critically, we need real and serious policy crafted not just to play carrot-and-stick games with poor people around truancy, but to actually boost the quality of education for poor children who stream through schoolhouse doors in Detroit and other Michigan cities every day.
To be sure, we should all care about attendance. But we shouldn't be content with students showing up. They deserve an education that allows them to step up as well.
