[HN Gopher] All Foster Kids in California Can Now Attend Any Sta... ___________________________________________________________________ All Foster Kids in California Can Now Attend Any State College for Free Author : pessimizer Score : 191 points Date : 2023-07-23 21:24 UTC (1 hours ago) (HTM) web link (themessenger.com) (TXT) w3m dump (themessenger.com) | ecf wrote: | Where is the support for the middle class? The ones deemed too | wealthy for financial aid, but not wealthy enough to actually | afford the cost of college? | | Just more tax dollars being siphoned away from my family that got | zero assistance. | j45 wrote: | The cost of post secondary education is untenable. | | Post secondaries are quite overpriced. Community / state | colleges are usually priced better. | | Can you give an example of a college that you are priced out | of? | | The increasing gap between graduates and the non market because | the rate of change in the world is outpacing the rate of change | in curriculum to keep up in post secondaries is an opportunity. | | Effective allocation of public funds and ensuring there is | value received for the public purse is something that needs to | be taken up by the average person to learn about and to ask | informed questions about. | ProllyInfamous wrote: | ALL kids in Tennessee can now attend any two year trade school | upon graduation from a state high school. Adults can, as well, | based on certain additional requirements (that really are easy | after you've lived in-state). | ec109685 wrote: | California's junior colleges are super cost effective as well. | brightlancer wrote: | What is the legal status of foster kids with regard to general | financial aid? Is their parents' income considered to be $0? Does | the government want the parents' income information? (This used | to be the norm for non-custodial and estranged parents.) | | It feels great to say "California's most vulnerable young people | can take agency over their lives by seeking higher education," | but how much is this changing? And since we know most high school | grads aren't prepared to basic college freshman classes (cough | social promotion cough), then how many of these foster kids are | really going to benefit, rather than just spinning their wheels | before they fail out? | | This feels a lot like a big headline that makes people feel good | but doesn't actually do much (if anything, or makes things | worse). | charles_f wrote: | Something doesn't need to be perfect to be better. We're | talking about 60k kids who will be able to receive an education | instead of 4% of that. It won't solve hunger, but for these | kids it's a good news. | lopkeny12ko wrote: | It's odd that many of the same people cheering this decision are | the same ones crying for meritocracy in the workplace. | | Handouts and free passes as long as you're characterized by | $some_immutable_trait? Then don't be upset when you're passed | over for a promotion to fulfill a company diversity promotion | threshold. | lern_too_spel wrote: | This doesn't guarantee them a spot at any public university. It | guarantees that their education will be paid for at any public | university they are admitted to and subsequently matriculate | at. | j45 wrote: | There is no shortage of studies verifying babies do not select | the families, location or socio-economic conditions they are | born into, but the world will treat them as if they chose | poorly. | | Or look down on them. | | It's funny hearing about the concepts of handouts when the | people most offended are too often including those who have | access to some amount of privilege but not enough to be upset | about sharing it. | | There is a lot of easily accessible learning available there | for your statement that would help illuminate a bigger picture | for you. You are already part way there by being engaged on it. | | Mostly about it's not being about an immutable trait. Knowing | this requires you to exert more than a basic interpretation and | opinion. | | If you don't think it's a big deal would you switch positions | with someone in that position since it's so easy? | pessimizer wrote: | "Foster child" is no more an immutable trait than "lack of | ability to speak French." | AYBABTME wrote: | Now we're talking about actually useful policy. Glad that my | taxes pay for this, versus all the other stuff. | Racing0461 wrote: | What's to stop parents from putting their kids up for foster care | when they turn 15 so they can attend college at 16 for free? | ekam wrote: | The state only takes care of kids if a court assumes | jurisdiction under WIC 300. You can only voluntarily give ups | kid within the first few days of birth (this is known as safe | surrender https://advokids.org/legal-tools/safe-surrender/) | otherwise courts usually assume jurisdiction due to cases of | abuse, neglect, abandonment, etc | version_five wrote: | I'm not against it necessarily, but curious about the stats or | wisdom on what happens to people who get a free ride like this, | as in do they complete university successfully and usefully or do | they milk their free room and board and fail out eventually? | | Handouts are not generally a great way of accomplishing goals. I | don't have a better idea, just thinking if there can be a way to | make sure there is some ownership on the part of the students. | starside wrote: | I think this is a good idea. That is the first time in a long | time I have thought "wow, the state is doing something useful | with my tax dollars" | tarr11 wrote: | also free lunches in schools | | https://www.nycfoodpolicy.org/states-that-have-passed-univer... | WirelessGigabit wrote: | I love this policy. If it's free then no-one brings their | own, and no-one is looked down at. | | BUT... I checked the menu of a school where I used to live... | | Pizza, hot dogs, fries... We can make the most delicious | vegetables, roasted, ... | | And they get carbs. Nutrition taken from nature decomposed in | its elemental components put back together for the perfect | addictive meal... | steve_adams_86 wrote: | I'm not opposed to the carbs. I think if they're in a whole | food form, the kids are so much better off than if they're | eating processed... Anything. | | Not teaching kids to eat whole foods is one of the greatest | assaults on public health we've done in the last century, | from what I can see. They become adults who normalize | eating these perfect addictive meals, who allow their own | kids access to the same junk, and then they their own kids | as well, and so on. Until today when grocery stores are | quite literally predominately food that you shouldn't eat. | You just shouldn't. | | Most common diseases in north America are highly correlated | with diet. I find that so profound. We're all eating | ourselves to death in some form or another, it seems. To | have that start in a public school is a real affront to | individual and social well-being. | armchairhacker wrote: | We teach kids to eat whole foods, we just don't teach | them well. | | I remember in school we had a lot of programs for | nutrition which were basically health-food propaganda. | Yes it was the "Food Pyramid" so not ideal, but there was | a clear message to eat minimally-processed foods (fruits, | vegetables, dairy, grains) and avoid junk. We watched | "Supersize Me" and a documentary which explained all | these "vegan / whole foods" diets. But kids still eat | junk because they're kids and they don't really | understand or care, and everyone around them eats junk; | and then grow up and continue to eat junk because it's | cheaper/easier and they did as kids. | | Also, we had fruits and vegetables in every school lunch, | as well as salads and wraps as alternatives to the hot | meal. But the fruits were often wilted or bruised, and | vegetables canned and/or overcooked. If we had good- | tasting healthy food, I'm sure more kids would eat it; | but the school lunch was school-lunch quality, and bad | quality degrades healthy food more than it does junk | food. | | The problem is, if we want to teach kids how to eat | unprocessed food so that they actually listen, we need | nuance and funding. To teach them "healthy <> bad | tasting", we need to give them access to good-tasting | healthy meals, which are hard to cook. Or if we just keep | scaring them into eating less junk, we need to change | society so that it's more ingrained that junk food is bad | outside of school; right now they get mixed messages, | where 1 semester of health class says "junk food bad", | but few people care anywhere else. But nuance, funding, | and affecting culture are things the government is really | bad at, especially when it's an issue as "insignificant" | as eating healthy. | WWLink wrote: | We shouldn't let perfect be the enemy of good. I'd rather | see kids get free pizza and hot dogs for school lunch, than | I would a system where it costs $8 per student and only | some kids get free lunch, but it's 100% vegan fair trade | certified healthy food. | | Now if you can pull a boiling frog meme and make the pizza | be healthy, haha more power to them! | giantg2 wrote: | Interesting, most places I've seen are increasing the food | restrictions, including in food brought from home. This is | probably something you can address with your district if | your state doesn't already some healthy school food law. | megaman821 wrote: | All school lunches and breakfasts should be free. It is | abhorrent that any child in a country as rich as the United | States should go hungry at school. | torstenvl wrote: | As a taxpayer who funds public schools, I find it | acceptable to subsidize the food of those who are | struggling, but I do not have any desire to subsidize the | ruling elite (who, in many cases, intentionally keep | working class pay low). They can pay for their own | children's food. | JumpCrisscross wrote: | > _I find it acceptable to subsidize the food of those | who are struggling, but I do not have any desire to | subsidize the food of those who keep my pay low._ | | Doesn't the means-testing bureaucracy frequently outweigh | any potential savings? Food is cheap. Bureaucrats are | not. | brightlancer wrote: | > Doesn't the means-testing bureaucracy frequently | outweigh any potential savings? | | Maybe. Don't assume yes. | JumpCrisscross wrote: | > _Maybe. Don 't assume yes._ | | I'm not. I'm positing yes based on the cheapness of food. | chowells wrote: | The ruling elite don't let their children eat school food | in the first place. | themitigating wrote: | Since the children of elites represent such a small | percentage and the cost per child is low is it really | that big of a hit? | MikeTheGreat wrote: | On the one hand I 100% agree | | On the other hand we've got the phrase "Programs _for_ | the poor _become_ poor " for a reason. Having a program | that benefits everyone means that we all can support it | out of enlightened self-interest. | | We can reduce overhead by providing food for everyone and | not putting in place a complex government bureaucracy to | carefully approve some people but not others, to give | lobbyists a chance to advocate for the benefit of their | constituents at the expense of everyone else, etc, etc. | duskwuff wrote: | Moreover, if free food is only available to low-income | students, having to eat that food can become a symbol of | poverty, and some students may feel ashamed to receive | it. Making it available to all students, without | reservation, avoids that. | pessimizer wrote: | Also, you can literally lower the quality of the food. | reverend_gonzo wrote: | The ruling elite don't go to public school. They already | pay for their children's food. | pessimizer wrote: | You shouldn't be a sucker. For the ruling elite, it's an | insignificant tax rebate. The overhead of a means-testing | system to make sure that people who have been taxed for | 50 free lunches don't get one is a waste that wouldn't be | tolerated, except for the fact that we know the hurdles | of bureaucracy will eliminate most of the people who | qualify, bringing down costs by leaving children hungry. | | edit: The idea that your tax dollars are going to pay for | the universal benefit of someone who pays more taxes than | you do is mathematically nonsensical. It's purely a | gimmick. It's a shell game with no shells other than | innumeracy. | megaman821 wrote: | There is no reason not make it universal. A lot of kids | will still bring their own lunches. Teens in high school | will choose paid lunch options some of time. The program | would probably have a similar cost to SNAP. | | Hungry kids don't learn well, so feeding them will lead | to a modest increase of academic achievement on average. | Academic achievement correlates with higher earnings, | thereby paying for the program with their future taxes. | giantg2 wrote: | This seems to make sense on the surface, but I'm | skeptical about the last part. It seems we're in a race | to the bottom and "good" jobs are increasingly scarce. It | seems there aren't enough good jobs for the population. | Basically, the logic you laid out is probably sound for | small marginal changes, but I'm skeptical it would scale | well due to the competition and limited resources. | dymk wrote: | The number of ruling elite is laughably small compared to | the number of poor in the United States | spamizbad wrote: | The solution to this problem (Wealthy elites getting free | stuff) is to just ensure they're taxed appropriately. I | do not care if the children of the wealthy are receiving | free lunches as long as they're paying their fair share | of taxes. Chances are, even with California's weird tax | system, they are paying _more_ than your typical middle | class family. | Rebelgecko wrote: | In theory I agree with you, but in practice I think means | testing does more harm than good. Some parents aren't | gonna fill out the paperwork and we shouldn't punish kids | for that. It also adds overhead to the programs. | | And I don't think the ruling elite's kids are eating free | lunch at public schools :) | ochoseis wrote: | What if you thought of it as: perhaps at your income | level your taxes fund one kid's meals, and at the elite's | income level their taxes fund ten kids' meals? IDK how | the actual numbers work, but that would be the gist in a | progressive tax system. | throwaway72762 wrote: | Is everything culture war all the time now on this site? Every | post becomes a stupid comment section where we'd be better off | getting an LLM to write the comments for us. | | Here it's people trying to insert their affirmative action | narratives and also rant about California a bit (in a backhanded | way). | | We can do better. | osigurdson wrote: | Well kids, see you later. Let's talk again when you are 30. | remote_phone wrote: | I hate Newsom but I think this is a good idea. Education and | support should be 100% free for those in the more difficult | economic situations. | ecf wrote: | I don't agree. | | My parents are low middle class. We didn't qualify for any | financial aid and they were tasked with trying to find a way to | send both my sister and I to college which they couldn't | afford. | | So what did we do? Take out a bunch of loans. Good thing I got | a decent job that can pay for them. Too bad for my sister who | had a masters and is making $35k as a teacher in Tennessee | which is barely more than minimum wage. | tester457 wrote: | I think it should be free because of stories like yours. It | shouldn't be a requirement to be saddled with debt to | participate in society. | bagacrap wrote: | I agree it should cost less, but I don't understand why | everyone seems to think the government (taxpayers) should | be paying these tuitions. The problem is that tuition is | ridiculous. | slt2021 wrote: | Problem with free tuitition is it only incentivizes cash | grab from educational institutions. | | There will be gazillion universities overnight similar to | coding bootcamps - all competing for state funded tuition | without any regard to quality | brucethemoose2 wrote: | > Too bad for my sister who had a masters and is making $35k | as a teacher in Tennessee which is barely more than minimum | wage. | | This is the real crime. | ecf wrote: | It's always depressing when we talk about the latest | developments in minimum wage and how a day one burger | flipper at an In and Out in California is making just as | much as someone with 6 years of schooling and | responsibility for teaching the next generation. | | Oh and that's not even considering how much of her own $$$ | is needed to successfully supply a classroom and how barely | is tax deductible. | | Her experiences almost single handedly altered my political | viewpoints and who I vote for. | JumpCrisscross wrote: | > _my sister who had a masters and is making $35k as a | teacher Tennessee_ | | If it's a public school, those loans should begin falling off | after five years and be forgiven after ten [1]. | | [1] https://www.forbes.com/advisor/student-loans/teacher- | student... | j45 wrote: | Still not ideal. | throwaway5959 wrote: | Nothing is ideal. There's always a compromise. I think | supporting foster kids is a good idea. | musicale wrote: | IIRC PSLF originally required not ten years of elapsed time | but rather 120 sequential on-time payments in full under a | qualifying repayment plan, where "on-time" was determined | by the loan servicer. And you had to keep working beyond | that time until the application was approved (most were | rejected) and processed (probably as quickly as government | departments usually operate.) | | Loan servicers had every incentive to thwart this by | declaring payments late or incomplete, steering borrowers | into forbearance or non-qualifying repayment plans, etc. | | As you can imagine, fewer than 1% of applicants | successfully had their loans discharged. | | They've been trying to fix things since the pandemic for | people who consolidate to a federal direct loan. | JumpCrisscross wrote: | > _120 sequential on-time payments in full under a | specific repayment plan_ | | The sequential requirement has been removed, right? | throwaway5959 wrote: | So you got a good paying job and had supportive parents. I | don't get why you're complaining, at least you had parents. | What is this program costing you? | nickstinemates wrote: | This is awesome. | Bostonian wrote: | Standardized test scores have been falling, and most high school | students are unprepared for college. The numbers for foster | children will be worse. Making college free regardless of | academic preparation (the article does not mention any) is a bad | idea. | | https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/new-graduates-act-s... | Only about 1 in 5 U.S. high school students students graduated | prepared to take college classes in English, reading, math, and | science in 2022, according to new data from the college testing | firm ACT. | | Average performance on the composite ACT fell for the fifth year | in a row, to 19.8 out of 36 points in the class of 2022--the | lowest performance since 1991. | | Across all racial and ethnic groups, only Asian students improved | in average scores, from 24.5 points in 2018 to 24.7 in 2022. | Black students' composite scores fell from 16.8 to 16.1 points; | Hispanic students from 18.8 to 17.7 points; and white students | from 22.2 to 21.3 points during that time. | Me1000 wrote: | Remedial classes help bring students up to speed without | slowing down students who performed better in high school. It's | always been true that not every student who graduates High | School received the same education as their peers who went to a | different school. Being behind doesn't not necessarily mean | you're bound for a doomed college experience. | | Students grow up a lot during their college years, and part of | that growing up is recognizing this is the time in your life to | work hard because it may be your last opportunity to get a | quality education. | | The students that don't take advantage of it will drop out, the | students that do will have been given an opportunity they | otherwise wouldn't have. It's all around a good thing to give | students more opportunities and let them decide if it's right | for themselves. | jrockway wrote: | Don't people with the lowest test scores benefit the most? If | you already know everything, what's the point of going to | school? | pessimizer wrote: | The common belief among all Harrison Bergeron referencers is | that resources should be concentrated on those who need them | the least, because those are the people who have shown | _merit._ | [deleted] | analog31 wrote: | Not necessarily. At some level you run the risk of not being | able to get through college at all. Accreditation requires | courses to be conducted at a certain level. In fact as I | understand it the correlation to success in college is how | the standardized test companies originally sold themselves. | My college math advisor was a consultant for one of those | companies. | | Now, I hope California has included community colleges and | trade schools in this program, where some of those students | might stand a better chance. | | Also, the stuff tested by the tests is pretty remedial to | begin with. | nvahalik wrote: | That depends. Are the test scores because they don't care? Or | are the scores reflective of someone without means? | | On the former, probably not. They'll just suck up the oxygen | in the room. | | The latter? Sure, they could benefit immensely. | kortilla wrote: | The test is to ensure you know enough to be able to get | something out of college and not slow all of the other | students down. | | It's not testing if you already know college materials. | kevinventullo wrote: | The tests only cover high school level material, while | colleges courses take that material as a prerequisite and | build on top of it. | eropple wrote: | _> Making college free regardless of academic preparation (the | article does not mention any) is a bad idea._ | | Where does it say that acceptance is guaranteed? | whartung wrote: | It can also act as an incentive for the student to do better | if they know there's actually a college program waiting for | them. | benatkin wrote: | Community colleges are included in the program. | | This seems to be a part of a guaranteed jobs program. Wish we | were moving to a basic income program but I'm convinced that | we will need one or the other or some combination of the two. | Jobs at a community college would be ideal to replace some of | the early jobs that would be eliminated by AI. | giantg2 wrote: | I would assume a guaranteed job system (with a disability | component) is a form of basic income. | musicale wrote: | As I understand it, faculty positions at community colleges | usually require graduate degrees and tend to have many | applicants for few slots. | | I don't expect that community colleges will be greatly | increasing their faculty sizes. | zffr wrote: | My understanding is that the Fostering Futures program only | affects tuition costs, not admission probability. Foster | students will still need to work hard to get into the state | schools that offer them free tuition. | | If anything, this policy may (slightly) increase the average | test scores at California state universities. Now that foster | students can attend for free, it means there will be more | applicants, and this means the universities can be more | selective with who they admit. | permo-w wrote: | >Across all racial and ethnic groups, only Asian students | improved in average scores, from 24.5 points in 2018 to 24.7 in | 2022. Black students' composite scores fell from 16.8 to 16.1 | points; Hispanic students from 18.8 to 17.7 points; and white | students from 22.2 to 21.3 points during that time. | | I wonder if there were any earth-shattering global-scale events | in that time period that could be skewing the numbers? no, I | can't think of any | Waterluvian wrote: | 64% of foster youth graduating high school is far far higher than | I thought it would be. I'm beyond delighted by this. And if that | 64% has free access to post-secondary... that's a cycle breaking | opportunity. | hotpotamus wrote: | I wonder how many non-foster kids graduate high school? | bushbaba wrote: | In California it's ~85% of high school students graduate on | average across all demographics | | https://www.cde.ca.gov/ds/ad/datasummary.asp | giantg2 wrote: | Every time I see these numbers I'm shocked at how it's not | >98%. | serf wrote: | the high school era in ones' life has a lot of | opportunity for personal hardship; in many ways it's the | beginning of personal responsibility for a lot of people. | | in other words : it's less likely that an elementary | school student has to juggle an unwanted pregnancy, an | estranged family, and a job at McDonalds; it's not that | uncommon later on. | TheDudeMan wrote: | I wonder if this will cause any parents to give their kids up in | an effort to let them attend college. | getmeinrn wrote: | This is what affirmative action should be... helping people out | based on their individual situation, not because their skin color | or gender. | j45 wrote: | Are you commenting on not comment on things that would to apply | to you? | | It can be easy to say what's good for another and how to solve | them when their problems aren't ones you have grown up or lived | through. | [deleted] | lotsofpulp wrote: | I do not understand why it should be limited to foster kids. | | Just make the schools free for all, and collect with higher | marginal income / wealth taxes. | | It should not be dependent on parents' status either. I got | zero aid due to my parents, but I also got zero from my | parents. | er4hn wrote: | Assuming the best intentions of those running this, there may | not be enough money in the budget for it to be free for | everyone. | ttfkam wrote: | Somehow European countries pull it off without bankrupting | themselves. | WalterBright wrote: | If it's all free, it'll be just like the public school | system. | lotsofpulp wrote: | It all does not have to be free, just a government funded | option to provide a floor. Public school was my only saving | grace, being from an immigrant family that did not know | English or how to navigate America. | | Although, I also do not think government needs to pay for | free schooling for 17 years. Can easily cut some fluff and | drop that to 15 years, and still give people a solid | foundation equivalent to a Bachelors. | mmanfrin wrote: | Affirmative action was to address _systemic_ inequalities, not | individual ones. Bringing it up in an article about foster kids | and then further including the bit about gender feels like | flamebait. | lockhouse wrote: | Ironically affirmative action _is_ systemic racism itself, no | matter how well intentioned. | PierceJoy wrote: | True, but many forms of discrimination are legal and good. | Minimum age to drive is ageism, but I think we would all | agree that it's a good form of discrimination. You say "no | matter how well intentioned" as if the intention isn't | important. But intention and outcome are both very | important and determine whether a given form of | discrimination is good or bad. | desireco42 wrote: | Pretty much I thought the same thing, this is the right thing | to do, everybody benefits, nobody is getting less from this. | | I am almost amazed how they managed to do the right thing... | asveikau wrote: | In the United States, a lot of times the individual situation | is correlated to their skin color. | | The condition of being descendants of slaves, or people who | faced other forms of official discrimination cited in the | prevention of intergenerational wealth such as redlining, | blockbusting or unfavorable treatment in the GI bill, etc., is | ultimately an individual situation for each individual | affected. | | The idea that you can dismiss that as not an individual | hardship -- though it kind of is for those impacted -- strikes | me as pretty much a word game, nothing more. Not unlike the | word games American laws started to use when they could no | longer punish people _de jure_ for their race. | lolinder wrote: | I don't think anyone here is denying that there is a | correlation, but there's a very legitimate question over | whether policy should target the correlated trait (skin | color) or the hardship itself (poverty) when trying to fix | the problem. | asveikau wrote: | The issue is, a lot of problems have been nominally | "fixed". But the black community on average has not caught | up with the gaps created and re-enforced by these earlier | systems. eg. They didn't get to participate as much as | white peers in housing booms due to redlining, | blockbusting, etc. So if you started out European-American | in 1930 [random 20th century year], or having the same | wages and being black in that same year, odds are pretty | good descendants of the latter are doing poorer, due to | multiple racist housing policies. | lolinder wrote: | If they haven't caught up, that's presumably true by | several concrete metrics, correct? So the question still | is: why target skin color (the correlated trait) instead | of those metrics? | | I'm not staking out a position here, I haven't made up my | mind myself. I'm just pointing out that OP raised a valid | point which you didn't really address. | axlee wrote: | How many slaves in the family tree should someone have to | qualify? Should only atrocities performed by the USA count? | How far back should we go? | | It's a lot easier to quantify and equalize the situation here | and now rather than to try to make up for a future that could | have been, and for which no living being is responsible. The | past is complex and blurry, and families aren't a straight | line. And generally, people aren't bound by their ancestor's | misdeeds. | | Poor people should get more help from society in the US, | that's a fact: race might be a strong predictor for poverty, | but the best signal for poverty remains income and wealth, | right here and right now. | | Why bother looking at anything else? Are poor whites or | asians somehow more blameable for their poverty than poor | blacks? Should a successful black person get reparations from | a white hobo, simply based on their lineage (that none of | them have control on)? | asveikau wrote: | I agree, it's hard to codify. But there is undoubtedly a | large group of people, often identified by their race, that | face disproportionate hardship and continued to be legally | discriminated against well after slavery was abolished. And | note that I mentioned other, post-slavery problems, and you | jump right into "how many slaves??" | themitigating wrote: | There were racist laws all the way up to late 1960s. | pessimizer wrote: | Affirmative action shouldn't ever have been a contest with | prizes for the most unfortunate. It was sold as a way to fix | the wrongs of slavery. Having been enslaved legally in the US | is not a race, it's an atrocity. | | The reason we should be paying for foster kids' college is | because the state is their parent, so it's our responsibility. | In a country that wasn't shit, regular people would be jealous | of how kids who were wards of the state lived, and how well- | raised they were. There's no clearer illustration of our values | than the fact that _children_ who, through no fault of their | own, have become the responsibility of the state are treated | like unwanted trash. The idea that a society like that could | figure out how to ethically treat prisoners or immigrants is | laughable. | themitigating wrote: | It wasn't just about slavery but also racist laws that | existed until the 70s~. | bagacrap wrote: | > regular people would be jealous of how kids who were wards | of the state lived | | In this utopia you describe, I'd think _all_ kids lived like | kings. | BurningFrog wrote: | Status is relative. If everyone is a king, no one is a | king. | j45 wrote: | Learn like kings | | Grow like kings | | Dream like kings | | Give back like kings | noah_buddy wrote: | History is not my forte but it's funny to use kings in | this metaphor. | pessimizer wrote: | Utopia has a really low bar if we get it from treating | foster kids like middle-class kids. | steve_adams_86 wrote: | I agree completely. Something so striking about the situation | as well is that on balance, we have a staggering amount of | wealth to share with the less fortunate. | | Yet these are children, specifically, who deserve every | opportunity we can afford them by default. Not "hopeless | addicts" or some other group deemed not worth saving by so | many of us, but people quite literally the epitome of worth | saving. These people need every ounce of reassurance that we | care and that they can integrate and function in society. | That they deserve opportunity as anyone else does. | | If we had to be self serving we could look at it like "each | one of these people is statistically far more likely to be a | burden on my own children in the future, so a small | investment now could save a lot later", but we seem to fail | even in being selfish about it. I find this topic heart | breaking. | pessimizer wrote: | For me, state wards are one of the four metrics for judging | the quality of a country. | | _Wards of the state:_ our responsibility, through no fault | of their own. | | _Prisoners:_ our responsibility, their fault. | | _Immigrants:_ not our responsibility, but an indication of | how well we can manage our economy. We should be able to | put anybody who comes here to work. | | _Emigrants:_ we should let people leave who don 't want to | be here. | | The first three are connected because there's no way to | sustain providing anything for prisoners and immigrants | that you don't provide for regular citizens. Wards of the | state are the nation's children; there's nothing that | normal citizens get that they shouldn't get. If they don't | get anything, normal citizens are getting less than | nothing. | shric wrote: | > Prisoners: our responsibility, their fault. | | What percentage (approximately) of prisoners in the | United States would you categorize as "their fault" and | not some product of their upbringing/situation? | nverno wrote: | > Wards of the state: our responsibility | | People that really feel this responsibility become foster | parents. But saying the state should deal with them isn't | taking on that responsibility - at the end of the day | actual people need to be their parents. | jewayne wrote: | > we have a staggering amount of wealth to share with the | less fortunate | | Many Americans will stop you at that first word. Who is | this _we_ you speak of? | | If the pandemic taught me anything, it's that to all too | many Americans the most important freedom is freedom from | strangers' problems. They don't want to see them, they | don't want to hear them, and they sure as hell don't want | to pay for them. | | Now, if THEY happen to have that problem, that's a | different story...after all THEY are real people, | unlike...checks notes..."foster kids". | throwawaysleep wrote: | > regular people would be jealous of how kids who were wards | of the state lived | | Given that the money to do that would have been taken from | those parents, you can see why in a democracy parents would | object to having their resources stolen for government kids | to have better lives over their own. | pessimizer wrote: | They should give their kids up if they don't want them. | nonethewiser wrote: | > In a country that wasn't shit, regular people would be | jealous of how kids who were wards of the state lived, and | how well-raised they were. | | Actually this sounds completely dystopian. In what world | should people really wish they were foster kids? Its no | wonder people warn against an effort to destroy the nuclear | family. | slashdev wrote: | Do reparations for slavery even make logical sense? Please | cut me some slack here, by the nature of the world we live | in, I have not uttered these thoughts to another human being, | and they might have obvious flaws. It's tough when you can't | talk about ideas out of fear of the consequences. | | I think nobody argues that it's a vile, morally repugnant | thing to enslave another human being. But that was a long | time ago, and all those slaves and the people who enslaved | them are all dead. | | The descendants of those slaves are now much wealthier and | better off by pretty much any metric than their relatives who | were not enslaved. How do you make an argument that those | descendants are victims in need of reparations? No crime was | committed against them directly, and they seem to have | benefited from the crimes committed against their ancestors. | | I must stress that this is not in any way excusing or | justifying the wrongs that occurred. But how would you make | an argument for reparations, given how things turned out? | throwawaycities wrote: | Just to play devils advocate... | | Foster children are not a protected class under the law. | | Perhaps they foster kids could or even should be a protected | class, however unlike most protected classes that have face | historical systematic discrimination codified in law, the | general hardships of foster children are not based in unjust | laws. | | I have worked in Dependency law (ie with children that have | been abused, abandoned and neglected) which deals a lot with | foster kids. | | I favor programs that provide funding for foster kids like this | and provide assistance when they "age out" of care, but it is a | broad brushstroke and doesn't take into consideration | individual situations as you suggest. In other words foster | children are not all alike nor are their situations. Some live | in group homes and they are just a number or a check for foster | parents, some live in loving and supportive homes, even | sometimes in the homes of relatives when parental rights were | lost but they are still considered foster children. Some become | foster kids at 17 and others are born into it. There is | everything in between. | | It is about the equivalent in terms of diversity of situations | as being a minority/protected class that has historically been | discriminated against. | ttfkam wrote: | Oh no! Some young adults might have an easier time attending | college even when their lives weren't as shitty as others. | | Squint and we might start looking like college tuitions in | Europe. | JumpCrisscross wrote: | > _what affirmative action should be... helping people out | based on their individual situation_ | | Also, just helping them out. Nobody gets hurt. This isn't | creating an allotment of seats for foster kids. The selection | process, and thus odds, are the same for them and everyone | else. | bushbaba wrote: | Generally state colleges will take any applicant who meets | the pre-set bar. Where as tier 1 universities are more a zero | sum game. | INGSOCIALITE wrote: | This is exactly correct. Fairness and equality. | j45 wrote: | Equality is very different than equity. | | https://onlinepublichealth.gwu.edu/resources/equity-vs- | equal... | JumpCrisscross wrote: | > _Equality is very different than equity_ | | How old are these definitions? | | I've only seen them used this way in public policy | circles, and left-leaning ones at that. It's also totally | discontinuous with the treatment of equality in classical | literature. | | Put another way, isn't equity just a masking term for | top-to-bottom wealth transfers? | BurningFrog wrote: | I think "Equity" was launched to the general public 2-3 | years ago. | j45 wrote: | Maybe the new affirmative action is visible minorities or | other groups just get free education? | | But then you'd need a K-12 system that doesn't fail them or | set them up for not succeeding by getting them into lower | stream courses. | JumpCrisscross wrote: | Free prenatal and neonatal care seems like an obvious first | step. It's literally taking care of the unborn and babies, | so they have a healthy start to life. (I similarly believe | education, school breakfasts and lunches, and pediatric | care should be free.) | ttfkam wrote: | We could sidestep all the drama by letting anyone who meets | the academic qualifications attend public universities and | colleges without tuition (or at least an insubstantial | fees). We might actually end up with a system like we had | 75 years ago... but with less overt racism and sexism. | happytiger wrote: | About time. These kids needs all the love and support we can give | them. | | Now let's invest in a free state education for every citizen! | WalterBright wrote: | We already do. There's probably a free public school in your | neighborhood. | ldjkfkdsjnv wrote: | As a raging capitalist, I am for this | 999900000999 wrote: | Now in a better world we'd drop a word from this sentence and | make it free for all state residents. That's closer to what it | used to be. | | Realistically this doesn't change much since it's extremely | unlikely a foster kid wouldn't qualify for a full ride prior to | this. | | The only people who really get screwed are middle class families | who make too much to qualify for aid, but can't really afford to | pay for school. | armchairhacker wrote: | I thought this was already a thing. It turns out to be partially | covered in 35 states: | | > As of 2021, there are 35 states that have some type of | statewide postsecondary education tuition waiver or scholarship | program for students who have been in foster care. | | > 24 states have statewide tuition waivers: Alaska[1], Arizona, | California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, | Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, | Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, | Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, (Dark blue color on the | map) | | > 4 states have state funded grant programs for students in | foster care are: Ohio, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Virginia. (Light | blue color on the map) | | > 7 states have state funded scholarship programs for students in | foster care are: Alabama, Arkansas, Iowa, Michigan, New York, | North Carolina, and Washington. (Purple color on the map) | | > 16 states and the District of Columbia have only the Federal | Chafee Educational Training Voucher: Colorado, Delaware, District | of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, | Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, | Vermont, Wisconsin and Wyoming (Yellow color on the map) | | https://depts.washington.edu/fostered/tuition-waivers-state | (bonus points for software gore right below the title) | | What I was thinking of was the Chafee Educational Training | Voucher, which gives up to a $5000/year reimbursement: | | > Students can get up to $5,000 per academic year based on cost | of attendance, available funds, the student's unmet financial | need. | | > Note: For the federal fiscal year 2022, the voucher's maximum | annual amount was temporarily increased to $12,000. On Oct. 1, | 2022, the maximum award will revert to $5,000 per year. | | https://studentaid.gov/sites/default/files/foster-youth-vouc... | Avshalom wrote: | N.B. in New Mexico we recently made state school free for all | residents. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-07-23 23:00 UTC)