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RECENTLY, an article on welfare reform that appeared in the publication of an education group conveyed a message that essentially said, "Don't worry. The details don't affect us much." True. The specifics of the legislation probably won't mean much more to schools than some changes on the fringes, but this analysis fails to look at the big picture. From a wide-angle perspective, virtually everyone is in the view finder, and even the most privileged students and their families will be drawn in eventually because what is done (or not done) for the least of us will affect us all.
The poor and their problems are so complex that blame is passed around freely and solutions are fractured into pieces too small to have much impact. Some maintain that teachers and administrators, even those in the most disadvantaged schools, are justified in believing that they cannot have much of an effect on the lives of the poorest children because of what happens outside the school and what has occurred before these youngsters are old enough even to attend school.
That is pure nonsense. At the core of the problems of those on or nearly on welfare is the inadequacy of the schools' efforts to teach what they should teach first and foremost -- language. Above all else, young children must be taught to read, write, speak, and listen so well that they can use these skills competently and can interpret increasingly challenging material.
Unfortunately, three-fourths of all welfare/food stamp recipients perform at the lowest levels of literacy as defined by the National Adult Literacy Survey. And this is not a problem of race and ethnicity. The largest number of welfare mothers who will soon be required to be skilled enough to join the work force are white. Higher percentages of blacks and Hispanics are on welfare,...