Tennessee GOP Lawmaker Wants To Tie Welfare Benefits To Children's Grades

[dballance]

81. As I've Posted On Other Threads My Home State of TN Keeps Embarrassing Me

On my Face Book I posted this:

While I am all for encouraging parents to be involved with their children's education this is not the way to do it.

Making a poor family struggle more and perhaps causing parents to have to take perhaps yet another minimum wage job in addition to the one or more they might already have is asinine. It could cause the parents to be less available to their kids. Not to mention making them poorer and making it harder for the struggling child to get good nutrition so they are better able to learn is asinine.

Also, the tremendous mental stress and strain this would put on the struggling child is just cruel. If the legislator's goal is to make the children hate school because it causes their family to lose money in their TANF then this is a good way to do that. We certainly don't need to think of ways to make poor and minority kids hate school so that they are more likely to drop out. We all know how well that works out.

School is difficult enough for poor and minority kids already. Why this legislator thinks he knows more about how to motivate kids to learn than all the teachers and educators is just a typical function of the arrogant, angry old white men in the TN State Legislature.

If you want to encourage families to be involved in their kid's education and motivate the kids and make them feel good about learning Mr. Legislator I have a suggestion. How about let's put away the punitive measures that make people feel bad about themselves. Why don't you propose legislation to give the kids whose families are on TANF some kind of bonus at the end of each semester when the children do well. It doesn't have to be a cash bonus and it doesn't have to be huge. Gift cards to grocery stores or department stores would be great for their families. Then the child can feel a sense of reward for doing well. A sense of accomplishment rather than a sense of failure.

Why not try the carrot rather than the stick?