ANOTHER VIEW OF EDUCATIONAL CRISIS, AND A FIX
Here's our editorial for today's Daily News. I don't need to tell you Citizen Hunters how important the veterans issue is to me. Just read it and if you agree feel free to let your congressional representatives know.
THE GRIM NEWS of the city's high dropout rate (45 percent) and low numbers of people with college degrees (18 percent) is even grimmer considering we're seeing a similar troubling trend in the military.
The National Priorities Project, a research group that analyzes federal data, found that only 71 percent of Army recruits had earned regular high-school diplomas, about 20 percentage points away from its target of 90 percent.
This has far-reaching implications on the battlefields and the homefront, but there is one silver lining: Congress can use it to spur positive action by adapting a 21st-century version of the G.I. Bill.
The G.I. Bill - the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944 - was designed to help veterans assimilate into civilian life, with tuition assistance, low-cost housing loans, and unemployment benefits.
Sadly, the G.I. Bill has been left to decompose, not updated or adjusted to deliver the same promise to our newest veterans.
The nonprofit Fund for Veterans' Education reports that the maximum amount a veteran who served on active duty could get out of the old G.I. Bill is $39,636 over four years. While not insignificant, it would hardly cover the cost of a four-year state college for an in-state student, which averages $65,428; private college averages more than $105,000. So, veterans are asked to saddle tens of thousands of dollars of debt, or find the cash to go to college on their own. If they can't, we tell them, "Go find work with your high school diploma, if you have one."
That's a national disgrace.
Sending veterans to college isn't just a moral issue; it's a practical one. Historian Stephen Ambrose said of the old G.I. Bill that it "was the best piece of legislation ever passed by the U.S. Congress, and it made modern America." Indeed, the G.I. Bill created hundreds of thousands of teachers, doctors, artists and engineers, who went on to create, in the 1950s, what we now call the middle class.
U.S. Sens. Jim Webb, D-Va., and Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., are working on a 21st-Century G.I. Bill that will restore America's promise to those who fought for us. Fixing the G.I. Bill is the right thing to do, not only because of the benefits it provides to all of us, but because it would go a long way to rectifying the government's shameful treatment of the health and well-being of those we ask to serve.
Congress should fast-track that legislation, and sign it. *
Comments (4)
Couldn't agree more, about damn time. And add some sort of inflation clause to keep up with the (above inflation) tuition raises that occur every year. It shouldn't pay for Harvard, but the stipend should cover tuition for a state college, in-state, commuter student.
How about a follow up on the positions of Specter and Casey? How about every presidential candidate?
Posted by: jimmymack on January 25, 2008 17:11
Nice work.
Thanks for the props to the Vets.
Posted by: evolo on January 26, 2008 08:44
Can't believe I have not read this suggested elsewhere. Good Work.
Posted by: Kevin on January 26, 2008 12:22
Maybe one day, just one day down the road our veterans will have a reason to believe in our country when they return from fighting for it.
Great read, Flavia.
Posted by: TheBoss on January 26, 2008 15:08