In reference to this post, in which it was revealed that the City of New York was actually paying people to be 'better' parents, I have some new information for you.
It seems the program is a) not quite dead yet, and b) even more ridiculous than I had at first imagined.
My source is someone who is a member of the local school board and has over a decade of first-hand experience about how the city partnership between PTA's and School Administrators actually works, and who also , incidentally, happens to have the skinny on this particular program because she's been questioning it's very existence ever since she was first made aware of it.
To recap the program in question:
The City of New York hands out cash payments to people it deems "bad parents". How they get tagged as "bad parents" is anyone's guess, but from what I gather, it seems the schools are identifying the "bad parents" according to some sort of bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo which takes into considerations some, or all, of the following factors:
a) A Child's school attendance record.
b) A Child's eligibility for other 'special' programs offered by the Department of Education.
c) Enrollment in a School's FREE Breakfast/Lunch program(s).
d) Enrollment in a Special Education class.
e) Race and associated Socio-economic factors.
f) A Child's school health records (i.e. verification of vaccinations, number of visits to the school nurse, evidence of abuse or neglect reported by school health officials, and so forth).
g) A Single-parent versus Two-parent home environment.
The theory goes that a child who has parents who 'fall into' the 'lower end' of the spectrum on most or all of these criteria is probably a child living with 'bad parents' who apparently don't care if they are fed, clothed, injured or sick, or even showing up to school. Once the school system identifies a 'bad parent', it then does something absolutely galling.
It pays them to 'make an effort' at being a 'better' parent. What this means is, simply, if a child's attendance should improve, for example, the parent earns a cash reward. There are different rewards for meeting different 'parenting goals', so that taking your children to a doctor or dentist for a routine checkup, attending an Anger Management course, or signing your child up for an after-school tutoring session or two, gets you paid more. And the rewards are cumulative and can be extremely lucrative.
In fact, this source of mine is aware of at least half-a-dozen people in her own district who are collecting as much as $3,000 a month through this 'better parent program', absolutely tax free. And if that doesn't piss you right the fuck off, all six are apparently also collecting welfare, and food stamps, and live in subsidized housing.
They all also have one other thing in common.
Not a single one of them is Caucasian.
By the way, my source has been a member of the local school board and PTA since 1999, and is generally regarded as the best damned school fundraiser on Staten Island. Yes, you read that right: New York City Public Schools have to have FUNDRAISERS because...get this...there isn't enough money to do things like pay for music programs and class trips and new computers, not to mention loose leaf paper, soap, paper towels, pencils and finger paints. If you're a parent of a public school student, you know this phenomenon: every year, you are handed a list of expensive supplies which you are REQUIRED to supply to the school.
Mostly because the 'bad parents' aren't sending their little tykes off to class with note books and crayons, and more often than not, they are sending them off to school with fucking Swine or Avian Flu, measles, whooping cough, and bedbugs, which are all making epic comebacks in the NYC Public Schools . The majority of the supplies on that 'required' list tend to be things like hand sanitizer, Lysol, and other cleaning products, and tissues and toilet paper.
Good thing I paid my $6,000 in property taxes this year to keep the schools open, huh? And I don't even have kids.
Now, the program in question was originally funded by private contributions, probably from flaming retard liberals who believe that when someone commits something approaching a crime (like failing to raise their own fucking children), they should be rewarded for leaving that important responsibility to the Unionized Libtards who run the school systems. After all, without overpaid, union teachers who are held to such ridiculously-low standards, there wouldn't be a constant supply of Libtards to manipulate politically, racially and economically for generations to come.
However, the funds for that original program ran out more or less at the end of the last school year, but never fear: Mayor Michael Bloomdouche is riding to the rescue. Never let it be said that Mayor Moron didn't have a grasp of the real priorities in this city.
He's promised to kick in another $21 million for this program, according to my source, but the details are, to say the least, sketchy. No one is quite sure just where the money will be coming from, and the general consensus is that one of the more...ahem...'affluent' (which is a code word in Department of Education circles for 'White') school districts will have to cut back on 'non-essential' services. One of the 'non-essential' services which is...again...in the crossshairs, is the elimination of yellow school bus service for Middle Schoolers on my very own Staten Island (I've written extensively about that situation in this post).
Of course, the Mayor has touted this program as a 'success'; the majority of the people tagged as 'bad parents' suddenly managed to get good grades in the parenting department, but only after they were given $30,000 a year -- tax free -- to do that which they should have been doing all along. To stop the program right now would mean that the totally-bogus 'progress' that has been made (bought) to this point would come to a screeching halt, and then be represented as some sort of Dark Age regression that hurts the kids.
That regression would begin, coincidentally, the very day the fucking funds dry up. Only our Mayor and Education Bureaucracy could fail to see the correllation between cash and compliance. And given the knowledge of just how badly city administration functions in this City, it's probably not even checking on 90% of the 'bad parents' it initially identified to verify compliance.
It's about time this nonsense stopped. Send an e-mail to Mayor Doofus, and get him to back off on this horrible idea of rewarding people -- generously,and always at the expense of people who were doing the right thing in the first place and actually PAYING THEIR OWN FREIGHT -- for absolutely terrible behavior.
My guess is that $21 million bucks is gone before the school year is even half way done, as more and more of the recipient class discovers that keeping Junior out of school for a few days leads to a new flat-screen.
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