The New Three Rs: Reading, Writing, and Relief

This morning on the way to work I was listening to a radio news segment covering the impact of California's budget woes on the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), L.A. County's beloved public school system. (A brief introduction: LAUSD serves 694,000 students: 73% Hispanic, 11% African-American, 9% non-Hispanic white, 6% Asian and Filipino. It is the second-largest employer in Los Angeles County after the county government.)

The reporter on the radio show was basically delivering a sob story about all the badly needed services, programs, and facilities that would be endangered by a severe budget cut for LAUSD -- pretty typical. But then the report shifted gears a bit and took a disturbing angle I hadn't anticipated at all. The reporter said the budget cuts might drastically scale back the following two services for LAUSD students:

1. Free lunches
2. Free after-school and summer programs

She proceeded to explain why that would be very, very bad. Scaling back free lunches would be disastrous because countless single parents who send their children to LAUSD schools are very close to the poverty line and factor those free lunches into their daily food budget. And scaling back after-school and summer programs would be unthinkable because it would put the children (whose parent or parents work all day) back on the streets without any adult supervision, thus likely increasing the amount of gang violence.

What that report conveyed to me was that evidently we're not actually talking about education cuts here -- we're talking about welfare cuts. Free lunches funded by LAUSD are glorified food stamps, and free after-school and summer programs funded by LAUSD are glorified babysitting.

I'll venture a few guesses here as to the main reasons why LAUSD is in a world of hurt right now, and none of them have anything to do with the economic meltdown:

• Single parent homes, especially fatherless homes
  
• Parents having children when they are not in a financial position to take care of them
• Parents having children when one parent or relative cannot stay at home to raise them and instill values in them

Isn't it clear how the above three factors contribute directly to the problems of poverty and gang violence? When a family defers having children until its finances are in order, free lunches funded by LAUSD are not necessary. And when a family has two parents, it is more likely that at least one of the parents will make sure that a boy grows into a man rather than a baggy-jeaned thug, and that a girl grows into an honorable woman rather than a pregnant teen.

Come on, LAUSD. Reading, writing, and relief isn't the answer. Placing emphasis on values for once -- nuclear families, financial prudence, hard work, excellence, achievement, independence -- there's your guaranteed winning strategy for the long term if you have the courage to commit to it.