An answer to Newt's “Really poor children in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working"..
An Op-Ed to our local paper by Brianne Murphy, a lawyer in Syracuse, is a Democratic candidate for the 25th Congressional District seat. I stated the quote in the middle of the editorial so please click and read!
http://mobile.syracuse.com/advsyra/db_/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=n5rbvBfl&full=true#display
"When I attended Fowler High School in Syracuse in the 1990s, The Post-Standard ran an article titled “ Two Schools, One Question: What Makes Westhill and Fowler Differ?” (March 16, 1997, Paul Riede).
Riede interviewed 17 students in the Class of 2000, nine at Fowler and eight at Westhill. According to Riede, “In separate group interviews, members of the Class of 2000 at Fowler and Westhill high schools described radically different life experiences, but similar aspirations.”
While all expected to go to college, and most were hopeful that with hard work they’d be able to land professional careers, their different realities were stark. In 1997 at Westhill High School, only 2 percent of students were from low-income families and 94 percent were white, compared with 55 percent low-income and over 50 percent minority at Fowler. In 1996, 71 percent of Westhill’s graduates received Regents diplomas, one of the highest rates in the state, compared with 7 percent at Fowler, one of the lowest in the state. And contrary to Gingrich’s claim, four of the Fowler students held down jobs after school, while none of the Westhill students interviewed did.
In order to address the widening gap between the wealthiest and poorest Americans and revitalize the American dream, policymakers need to understand the cyclical nature of poverty, the challenges facing our poorest students and acknowledge the struggles of our working poor. The most vulnerable members of society, our poorest children, cannot remain invisible to the Washington elite."
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