Today's Indy Star editorial reads: Education paves path out of poverty.  This is absolutely incorrect!  According to a paper published in April, 2006 by the Annie E. Cassey Foundation, one can see that WORK paves the path out of poverty...not education.  Education is one of several dimensions important to child and adolescent well being.  But the most important factor impacting those "several dimensions" is family economic resources. 

The study states: "Children who live in low-income families are at a substantially higher risk of negative economic, educational and health outcomes compared with children who live in more affluent families."  Affluence I remind you, is earned by working, it's not granted by the government.  According to the report,  45% of the children in the lowest income brackets (family income < $10K a year) do not have a parent in the labor force.  In Indiana, that number is 72%.  A child or teen who expects to live off welfare will place no value on education.

Breaking the $10K threshold means greater advancement potential for kids.  Even an "uneducated" teen parent can earn more than $10K a year working for minimum wage.  But their "parents"  have set the bar low: sitting at home and collecting welfare.  The education they are missing is from the home-front, not the classroom.

Nationally, welfare cases have dropped an average of 58% from August 1996.  In Indiana, the case load fell only 6.3%.  People who don't like to work will not like school...it involves hard work and homework.  To many Hoosiers work is a 4 letter word.

Raising expectations of school systems and reforming schools WILL NOT WORK until we reform parenting first.  If you want to give kids a leg up, then give their parents a kick in the pants!