Living in poverty is a very personal thing

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2 SOCIALIST ACTION AUGUST 1991 We keep getting statistics on children in this wealthy country. One out of five children live in poverty in the United States; 40,000 infants die in their first year; 2000 minors were murdered in the U.S. in 1988; and 78 percent of child deaths in the U.S. are caused by accidents, suicide, homicides or other violence. Medicaid, the so-called government healthcare program for the poor, covers barely 40 percent of those living below the poverty line.

Living in poverty is a very personal thing. I was born in 1926—just in time for capitalism, barely three years later, to prove it doesn't work.

I had no shoes of the most embarrassing events of my life occurred when I NO For decades, teachers in the United States have been inspired by the liberal educational methods in use in Britain, such as those that encourage students to progress at their own rate. Today, unfortunately, Britain's "model" educational system is being torn apart—a victim of the government's "free market" designs.

I stayed recently with some friends in a small town in the English Midlands. One evening, I Editors: MICHAEL SCHREIBER Staff: Alex Chis, Paul, Colvin, Gerry Foley, MayMay Gong, Hayden Perry, Barbara Putnam, Weinstein.

Business Manager: BARRY SHEPPARD 308, San Francisco, CA 94110.

These are expressed in editorials.

By was seven years old. shoes for school.

When our shoes got holes in the soles my grandmother stuffed them with cardboard. When they were hand-downs and too large, she stuffed paper in the toes. If they were a little too tight she poured boiling hot water into them and when the water cooled down we put our feet into the shoes-water and all-and walked around until they stretched. So when I say I had no shoes, I really had no shoes.

I did have a pair of red rubber boots given to me by a neighbor whose child had outgrown them. I really loved those red boots; they were shiny and bright. One day 1 had to just wear the boots-without shoes—to school.

At school that morning, the By lichael Schreiber shared a table at a local pub with two primary school teachers. Both of my companions were angry and felt the need to let off some steam.

"The government has tried to highjack education for its own purposes," they complained. "The entire process of liberal educational reform is being undone.

Several days later, I spoke again with one of the teachers, Tony Lane. He explained that education• co Suzanne Forsyth, Malik Miah, Kwame M.A. Somburu, Sylvia teacher demanded that I remove my boots and put them in the cloak room. They were rain boots and not to be worn in class. I had no shoes on so I just refused to take off the boots. I was sent to the principal's office for being stubborn and sassy.

The principal wormed the truth out of me and forced me to walk back to the class in my stocking feet. She had me stand up in front of the class and made me request that children bring shoes to school the next day.

For two weeks my class was covered by old worn-out children's shoes. I took them home and all of my sisters and brothers wore them.

Please the 'church ladies' Other memorable occasions were the dresses from the Ladies Aid Society. These were church ladies who sewed up dresses and brought them to our school for the "poor children." Of course, I was eligible. However, the dresses were sewn from the same bolt of ugly cloth and all the same size pattern.

The "Ladies" would come into class, and we girls would have to go into the cloakroom, put them on, and give a fashion show for the class and the "Ladies." Since I was short, the dresses always just topped my ankle and the sleeves al "moderization" had been a pet project of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her Conservative Party. "When the government failed to make its promises good," he said, "they started looking for scapegoats. Education was an obvious choice."

Teachers' strikes defeated About seven years ago, a series of strikes by the teachers' unions were defeated. The media did their best to portray the strikers as "lazy" and "greedy." After the defeat, the government quickly took the opportunity to reorganize the schools.

Several laws were passed to force the teachers to "work harder." For example, 1) more control was placed over the minimum number of hours teachers have to work; 2) school administrations were allowed to "direct" more of the teachers' time outside of class; 3) teachers were forced to put in extra preparation time without pay; 4) teachers lost the right to negotiate their hours through collective bargaining.

But Thatcher's "modernization" plan went far beyond those measures. This year, a new "national curriculum" is going into effect. Courses are becoming standardized. Children will have to memorize the material in government-approved texts (such as a pro-British Empire view of history) in order to perform well on standardized written examinations.

George Bush has proposed a similar plan for this country. "But when you teach," Tony Lane pointed out, "You just can't do it that way. You have to tailor the material to the children's needs." Run schools like business The heart of the "modernization" scheme is an attempt to make the schools "independent" of financing and control by the local authorities. Those schools that take the bait are rewarded with fell off my shoulder. None of this mattered—the teacher would praise the "Ladies" for their generous spirit and make us children thank each "Lady" profusely.

My grandmother would not alter the clothes to fit because she thought this would make the "Ladies" angry, and they would stop giving me dresses.

But I was a dreamer. After listening to Little Orphan Annie on the radio and seeing some Shirley Temple movies I used to dream that some day some rich person would come along and demand to adopt me because I was so charming. After all, it always happened to Shirley who suffered no end until some wealthy person took over and she lived happily ever after.

I even considered that perhaps I had been given to this poor family by mistake, and someday my real rich mother and father would drive up in a big car and rescue me from poverty.

I had no idea that it was the rich of this country who were the cause of the problem. That came later. I remind the reader this all took place in the 1930s, during the Depression.

A few weeks ago, all of these memories came back to me when I read an article in the June 20 issue of the San Francisco Chronicle. It concerned the Gordon Trickle down economics (origin of the term)

slightly larger government grants. The more students they can attract, the more money they receive from the goverment.

Thus, schools are driven to compete for government funding; they even have to try to lure pupils away from other school districts. This is done, in part, by demonstrating that they can produce higher scores on the new government exams.

Unfortunately, the children in poorer communities (with less educational resources) usually have lower test scores. Their schools often have declining enrollments, and thus face diminished government funding.

This forces the poorer districts into a vicious cycle. They must lay off even more teachers and pare down their programs. At the same time, the remaining teachers must work harder and try to manage larger class sizes. As a result, their test scores will probably continue to plummet.

In some cases, schools have been forced to look for corporate Gettys and their new home. Gordon comes from the billionaire family of oil-rich Gettys. He got his money the "old-fashioned way." He inherited it from his father who inherited it from his father, etc., etc.

Conspicuous consumption Gordon and his wife Ann, are buying a $4.25 million home next door to their $3.75 million mansion. They want to convert this new home into a concert hall with a swimming pool. It will be connected to their original home with passageways and will cost $500,000 to remodel to their satisfaction. The city planning commission granted them permission. Hey, let them eat cake! In California, those in the top one percent income bracket, (those who make $550,000 a year or more) paid $84.4 billion dollars less in state and federal taxes in 1990 than they did in 1977. It is the working class and poor families who are paying the taxes for the rich.

When I was a child I was embarrassed at being poor. I thought it was my fault. Becoming a socialist taught me different. Now I wouldn't be embarrassed. I am just mad as hell at the outrageous conduct of the rich in the face of all of this poverty. sponsors for student plays and other "extracurricular" activities. (This is happening in this country, too!)

Education for the rich only The plan for "independent" schools, said Tony Lane, "is really part of the government's strategy to bring back the old system of education for an elite—to create ghettos in culture. Mrs. Thatcher and the goverment have made it a crime to be poor. Yet they've made poverty inevitable."

More and more, it seems, the state schools in Britain are to be run along the dog-eat-dog principles of private profit. But many teachers are actively opposing the government's reorganization scheme. In Scotland recently, teachers refused to implement the new standardized examinations— and they were backed up by the parents.

"Education is about enlightening minds," Tony Lane underscored. "It can't be put on a profit basis. It won't work."