Saturday, March 29, 2014

Poverty in America

Poverty in America: Standards and Objectives

California State Standards for History Social/Sciences

11.11 Students analyze the major social problems and domestic policy issues in contemporary American society.

11.11.6.  Analyze the persistence of poverty and how different analyses of this issue influence welfare reform, health  insurance reform, and other social policies. 


California Common Core Standards for History Literacy

The California Common Core History Literacy skills are skills that the State of California expects you, the student, to master. It would behoove you to familiarize yourself with this document as it is one of the guiding documents that California Public schools use to guide the instruction you receive. Some of your parents will support the implementation of Common Core while other parents will not. Still other parents might be confused or even ambivalent about Common Core. Your job is to learn why you agree with, or disagree with, the implementation of any policy or procedure that affects you. After all, you will soon be of voting age and must learn to become informed of decisions that impact you or you must resign yourself to becoming docile sheep subjected to the political spin of the mainstream media outlets and the mindless banter of political ads of the right and the left. Either way the choice is yours: I would recommend that you should never stand idly by while any teacher, agency, corporation, or union attempts to force a particular political agenda on you to include myself: We all have biases and biases are ok but you MUST learn to determine the bias of all sources of information you take in. You must learn to listen and to think critically for yourselves otherwise you become the pawn of another: "11.11 Students analyze the major ... domestic policy issues in contemporary American society."

Setting the tone: 

Think about what you know, or what you think you know, about poverty in America and then listen to the words of this song entitled "In the Ghetto" by Elvis Presley and then read the introduction to this Unit. When music is offered as a commentary reflect on the artist's words as you might upon a work of literature or the artistic elements of a painting when discussing its relevance within a historical period.

Introduction: 

America is arguably one of the wealthiest countries in the world: Even our poor have access to services and supports only dreamed about by the impoverished in other countries. Yet, for many of us poverty is only a paycheck away. Why is it that such disparity can exist in a nation of such means? Some of you may already feel poverty biting at your heels. Others of you may never know its cold hard hand. I for one feel particularity suited to lecture on this topic having grown up impoverished - I understand its harsh reality gained from the first hand knowledge that comes from growing up in both the back woods and the inner city projects of upstate New York. Running water at my house was the crick outside and often the only electric light that shined in my house came from the sole street lamp on rural route 43. We both heated the house and cooked upon a small pot belly and Franklin Wood stove with wood that my brother and I spent the summer time chopping up and stacking in between track practice and fishing so we could have extra food. Cold in upstate New York comes early, lasts long, and bites to the bone. To avoid not being able to eat during school I took extra classes instead of lunch period. The smell of the school lunch, derided by many except those of us that could not have it bit hard at our empty stomachs. The extra classes helped keep my mind of the ever all encompassing hunger that was always present. Even this dismal picture I painted is not as harsh for those in other countries and still even more in America have experienced poverty to a greater degree than I have.

Why then does such disparity exist: Why is America both rich and poor at the same time? Do we need to redistribute the wealth of the rich as my friends on the left may argue or does poverty exist because those of us that were, and may still be affected by it, need to work harder to improve our condition as my friends on the right would counter? Or is there yet another answer?

 Music arguably brings voice to passions and where Elvis' deeply somber tone sings us a sad melody about poverty other artists take a more robust approach, but with no less of a desperate description of the subject matter: Naughty by Nature's, "Everything's Gonna be Alright," used here without permission for educational purposes per fair use policy, and located on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaaSbgXZBh0 describes poverty in the inner cities of America. Forward:  Parental advisory due to strong language applies to this link but understand the language is important to the dialog:



The Task:


This then is your task: Working in groups of three to four over the next two weeks you will analyze poverty and greed in America. Starting from President Johnson's  "War on Poverty" through the 1996 Republican "Contract with America" and continued ongoing welfare reforms your group should look at current issues related to the recent "Great Recession," such as housing prices, the Bernie Madoff ponzi scheme as well as earlier scams, such as those portrayed in the fictional Wall Street novel/movie of the 1980's and the nonfiction Wolf of Wall Street novel and movie of the 1990's. how did the recession hurt America? Did it increase poverty? Why/why not? What part does government play in economic reform and assistance for the needy? What part do charities, churches, and other non government actors play? What are some of the Programs started by the Federal government and/or your State government to combat poverty? Have these programs worked: Why or why not?

Questions you should seek to answer both for yourselves, and for the class in general, are what part does greed play in the current decision making of the average American and that of the privileged few? What responsibility, if any, do we have to those with less than what we have and can poverty in America be effectively abolished or just controlled? What exactly is the American dream and is it a realty?

Unit Presentation:

The finished presentation will include a Google.doc, power point, or other graphical software presentation that includes at a minimum: 
1.) Complete a Group Presentation that includes the following:
  • Research and discuss ten (10) social programs from the chart listed on the wiki Social Programs page.
    • Choose at least one program from each of the following sections of the Wiki Social Programs table: 
      • Education
      • Cash Assistance
      • Medical
      • Food
      • Housing
      • Child Care
      • Other Services.
  • Describe what the program is and what it is designed to do: tertiary sources may be used for this part. 
  • Include when the program was started and by whom (administration/party etc).
  • Discuss program effectiveness.
  • Video clips should not be utilized in the presentation: You must paraphrase your sources -  not replay them.
2.) Answer the following questions as a group:
  • How did individual, corporate/banking and union greed contribute to the Great Recession?
    • Think about home loans, mortgage scandals, various types of consumer credit, negative value loans, long term pension costs, corporate profits versus employee compensation, etc
  • How do student loans contribute to the Era of the Modern Serf?
  • Discussion of multiple view points is required (discuss various perspectives such as that of the borrower, the lender, the tax payer).
  • Primary and/or secondary sources are required for the discussion component.
    • Sources may include journalistic/scholarly works and/or op-ed pieces from major newspapers but they may not be sources of an overly normative nature: i.e, avoid sources such as Rush Limbaugh, Bill Maher, and almost any political diatribe from anyone in Hollywood regardless of political party affiliation unless said person has authored a peer reviewed/scholarly source.
  • You are highly encouraged to interview a charity organization and discuss how they help combat poverty in our community/state/country. Keep your notes as this would now be a primary resource.
  • Each group member is required to locate at least five primary and/or secondary sources with at least two being scholarly journals and/or books.
    • In addition each group member will complete their own properly sourced and annotated reference page titled in the following format: References: Lastname.

References and Resources:

These resources are provided, in addition to your class text book, to get you heading in the right direction. The articles are examples of secondary sourced materials of a journalistic and/or scholarly nature. The YouTube lecture will supplement your class text and the speeches by King and X are designed to get you thinking of poverty in America during the 1960's. You will build upon this list through your own group and individual research.

 * If the class had access to a digital text it would be listed here.
Conclusion:
Poverty seems here to stay. Family structure, or lack of it, would seem to be a major indicator on ones ability to successfully climb out of poverty and attain the status of the Horatio Alger mythos. While personal choices do contribute to poverty those born into it are not there of personal choice. They are byproducts of the decisions made by others. The 71% of children who live in poverty live in that poverty because their father left the home or did not marry their mother. A stable two parent family structure, regardless of type of family unit: the traditional man + wife or the non traditional man+man or woman + woman would seem to be the best resource to prevent or help a child climb out of poverty followed by a family that maintains a strong social network (religious or not).

 While this will not be a politically correct argument I would argue that it is within each and every one of your individual abilities to help prevent poverty. You must think before you reproduce. Are you ready and financially able to raise a child? Have you chosen a solid mate? These are questions you will be faced with in the not to distant future and ladies, unfortunately the burden lies on you as their is a disproportionate number of young males that have been socialized to believe they not only have no responsibility, the choice is yours and yours alone, with what happens to your offspring. They will seek to use you and leave you: partly out of 400,000+ years of biological evolution but mainly out of immaturity. You young men must seek to take responsibility for your actions and you young ladies must seek to avoid the irresponsible ones.

 Should the child be born the choices of their immediate care givers (you) has a much greater impact upon their individual ability to succeed in the educational, social, and financial world of tomorrow. Children in family situations that are rampant with drug, alcohol, or domestic violence face a tougher climb out of poverty and up the social ladder than do those of middle and/or upper class backgrounds. The question becomes what can you do, or not do, to assist others out of that situation and do you or do you not have a moral obligation to these persons? Do they in turn have an obligation to the society that assists them with tax payer funded programs? These are questions that you will continue to encounter the rest of your natural life at the voting ballot. We have touched briefly upon poverty and greed during this unit: What more can you learn and contribute to the discussion?

 We will be looking at other social policy situations such as abortion, religion, education, 2nd Amendment issues, etc The discussion of the past few weeks related to poverty and greed, as well as those earlier units on Civil Rights and Cold War America, will have laid the foundation for these and other discussions in the weeks ahead:

   ***The past is but prelude to our future***


 Writing Rubric
Your project should adhere at a minimum to these standards: All class rubrics will be built using Common Core and State Standards. I encourage you to read and understand them as mentioned at the beginning of this blog.

Materials List

  • 1-2 computers per group and or tablet PC's for class research.
  • Internet connection.
  • Appropriate word processing software.
  • Appropriate presentation software.
  • Appropriate over head/white board hook ups for the presentation.




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