What Are We Even Doing

[Content Note: Class warfare.]

This is what class warfare looks like:

For the first time in at least 50 years, a majority of U.S. public school students come from low-income families, according to a new analysis of 2013 federal data, a statistic that has profound implications for the nation.

The Southern Education Foundation reports that 51 percent of students in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade were eligible for the federal free and reduced-price lunch program in the 2012-2013 school year.

Above is a static screen cap of an interactive infographic at the WaPo, which provides state-by-state poverty rates. And, yes, you will surely notice a correlation between states which tend to be highly gerrymandered, have Republican state legislatures, and are thus less likely to have robustly funded state social safety nets.

But that doesn't tell the whole story. This is a national issue, and it speaks quite clearly to what our national priorities are. The United States is (nominally) the wealthiest country in the world, and we have a defense budget that could fund mansions built from recycled drones for every person on the planet, and we're fine with the fact that 51% of our public school students can't afford food.

Or many of their other needs.

The shift to a majority poor student population means that in public schools, more than half of the children start kindergarten already trailing their more privileged peers and rarely, if ever, catch up. They are less likely to have support at home to succeed, are less frequently exposed to enriching activities outside of school and are more likely to drop out and never attend college.

It also means that education policy, funding decisions and classroom instruction must adapt to the swelling ranks of needy children arriving at the schoolhouse door each morning.

...[No Child Left Behind's] federal focus on results, as opposed to need, is wrong-headed, [Michael A. Rebell, the executive director of the Campaign for Educational Equity at Columbia University] said.

"We have to think about how to give these kids a meaningful education," he said. "We have to give them quality teachers, small class sizes, up-to-date equipment. But in addition, if we're serious, we have to do things that overcome the damages of poverty. We have to meet their health needs, their mental health needs, afterschool programs, summer programs, parent engagement, early childhood services. These are the so-called 'wraparound services.' Some people think of them as add-ons. They're not. They're imperative."

They're imperative. And the Bootstraps Brigade shouts about how their parents are moochers, while making sure their parents don't have a livable wage, and sneers that you shouldn't have children if you can't afford them, while eroding at every turn the ability for women to control our reproduction.

What are we even doing in this country. This is intolerable.