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Comment by gentleman11 | Hacker News Reader

If you say the problem is social class and poverty, and not having available role models to show how adult life actually works, you’ll get flamed and trolled. If you say the problem is racial issues, you’ll get upvotes. I’ll just sit here and await my downvotes now

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Role models are kind of a non-answer to the question. It's like saying the problem is "bad luck." Role-model-based policy solutions are, if not impossible, at least deeply impractical. Childcare subsidies and other forms of welfare, including simple direct cash transfers, have been shown to be strongly beneficial and are much simpler to implement. What people dislike about those is that they involve starting fights with lobbyists. Hence non-actionable perspectives like "the problem is role models" or "the problem is personal responsibility," which are not solutions so much as excuses for collective inaction.

> Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Is it possible that the issue is both and that the two are interrelated?

It seems to me that there can be both a problem with lack of role models and problems with racial issues and that both should be improved.

It seems to me that lack of role models could be exasperated by structural issues (mass incarceration, parents having to work too many hours) and in turn the lack of role models could exasperate the structural issues (unattended kids getting into crimes, kids struggling to get into college since their parents don't have time to tutor them).

The pattern I've noticed is that the poor and the poorly educated have no career expectations from their kids. If the kids with wealthy and/or highly educated parents showed up at home with just one poor grade all hell broke lose. Grounded for 6 months, allowance cuts, no more TV or video games etc One kept his kid at home during the holidays to tutor him himself, screaming 90% of the time. The other parents would look at the grades for < 1 minute and compliment the single thing they did well. Later on, when the other kids ended up in their first factory job the mantra was if only my parents gave me a good kick in the but I wouldn't be here right now

I would send all 13 year olds to the factory for a good few months. Earnings to be paid when 21. I would also introduce Sunday school if your grades are crappy, 8 hours every week until you are no longer behind. And finally, call in the parents regularly just to annoy the fuck out of them. You don't seem very involved mr Jones. Could you be so kind to explain these grades?

I hope you're never in a position to make any of these decisions.

Which one(s) and why?

A few months in the factory is nothing compared to your entire life. Stories are no substitutes for experience. Those who go on to get degrees and nice jobs would also benefit from the experience.

Sunday school because if you are sufficiently behind on the material you will never catch up. Never is a long time.

Getting the parents to show up and explain why the grades are bad will force them to consider why that is. I had lots of friends with parents who absolutely loved them but couldn't be any less interested in grades.

I appreciate how anecdotal this all is. How do you see it?

> screaming 90% of the time.

Well isn't that just awesome parenting.

I'm not suggesting it is a good idea, it was just to illustrate the difference. He did learn grammar and went to university.

I'm pretty sure he is equally stubborn and hot headed as his dad if not more so. Now that I think about it, he even believes in pulling oneself up by the bootstraps. ha-ha

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