Welfare Tied to Test Scores?
Here's a thought. It's a long shot, but a thought none the less. We all know about the parents who have kids simply to get higher benefit payouts from the government. And this is going to sound absolutely nuts, but what if those benefit payments were tied to their children's test grades? What if we could empower all those people sitting at home collecting their checks, to home school their children.
The government pays out the same rate for the parents of those students who don't make the cut, but those that excel and do well, their families get higher payments. On the surface, I know this means higher social program payouts, but after a single generation, we'll actually have a crop of students that can do well and get good jobs getting them off the welfare rolls. And think about, no liberal in their right mind would argue against this, it hits all their major points. No one is getting kicked off the rolls, you're empowering them to get to off.
There would DEFINITELY be abuses in the system, but if we can educate even 20% of the current students whose family are on the welfare rolls, can you think of the cost savings and increases in quality for these kids and their generations down the line? The use of welfare is a generational thing. If we can pull a few families off of it now, we'll see huge gains down the line.
The government pays out the same rate for the parents of those students who don't make the cut, but those that excel and do well, their families get higher payments. On the surface, I know this means higher social program payouts, but after a single generation, we'll actually have a crop of students that can do well and get good jobs getting them off the welfare rolls. And think about, no liberal in their right mind would argue against this, it hits all their major points. No one is getting kicked off the rolls, you're empowering them to get to off.
There would DEFINITELY be abuses in the system, but if we can educate even 20% of the current students whose family are on the welfare rolls, can you think of the cost savings and increases in quality for these kids and their generations down the line? The use of welfare is a generational thing. If we can pull a few families off of it now, we'll see huge gains down the line.
I agree with your idea.
The claim that they will be off welfare in a generation is not necessarily an outcome of this experiment. The experiment says make children do better and I'll get more money. Have more children, have them perform better I get much more money.
Doesn't really break the welfare cycle.
Granted my statements are very very simplistic but what I describe is a scenario with a reasonable probability of occurring.
We could then make education and training available to the individuals. Once they have a marketable skill they could move back to the private sector to make something of themselves. Educate and train people.
Pressing people who have no drive and/or no marketable skill into homeschooling is going to do nothing but hurt children the same way as this “radical unschooling” crap is.
How about we ween people off welfare all together and expect people to be responsible for their own kids. What ever happened to THAT idea??