Surviving the State: Policy Neglect in the Rio Grande Valley

Friends:

Bekah Hinojosa’s powerful account of life in the Rio Grande Valley reveals what many policymakers refuse to confront: for marginalized communities, “disaster” is not episodic—it is structural. In a region marked by chronic underinvestment, failing infrastructure, and deep poverty—conditions disproportionately affecting Brown, Indigenous, and Latino populations—power outages, unsafe water, and extreme heat are not anomalies but predictable outcomes of long-standing policy neglect. Public resources have not flowed where they are most needed; instead, as Hinojosa notes, the region sees massive investments in border enforcement infrastructure while basic systems—electricity, water, housing—remain fragile or absent. Climate change intensifies these conditions, but it is the state’s uneven allocation of resources and accountability that renders entire communities perpetually vulnerable.

In response, community organizers have developed “Just Recovery Kits”—tools originally designed for emergencies but now used for daily survival. Their very necessity is an indictment of the state. When residents must rely on water filters to make tap water safe, solar chargers to compensate for unreliable electricity, and mutual aid networks to fill systemic gaps, we are no longer talking about resilience alone—we are witnessing the privatization of survival under conditions of abandonment. 

Hinojosa’s piece makes clear that what is often framed as community strength is, in fact, a response to policy failure—which is good to remember lest we romanticize community. In the Rio Grande Valley, survival has become a form of environmental justice work precisely because the state has failed to guarantee the basic conditions for life.

-Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

We Built Disaster Kits for Our Rio Grande Valley Neighbors—They Use Them for Daily Survival

As climate 'shocks' increasingly puncture wealthier parts of the U.S., they lengthen like a shadow across this borderlands region.

By Bekah Hinojosa

Bekah Hinojosa with disaster kit and checklists. Image: Venisha Colón
Published:February 13, 2026, 9:21 am
Last updated:February 19, 2026, 4:20 pm

Bekah Hinojosa with disaster kit and checklist. Photo credit: Venisha Colón

On a typical sunny South Texas day, I made a run to the grocery store, H-E-B, near my apartment in Brownsville, Texas. I walked around, and just as I stretched my arm to grab some sausage from the freezer everything went pitch black in front of my eyes.

“Did I die?” I thought. “Is this the afterlife?” When I heard cries from other shoppers and the lights switched on, I saw people’s concerned faces.

This was far from my first power outage in Brownsville, one of many communities stretched across the Rio Grande Valley, which itself spans four counties along the Rio Grande River and the Gulf of Mexico.

Our combined population of about 1.43 million is often referred to by the Wall Street Journal as one of the poorest regions in the country. Brownsville was recently ranked the second “neediest” city in the U.S. Tax dollars don’t reliably trickle back to build basic infrastructure. Instead: We get billion-dollar border walls.

Power goes out with gusts of wind, a storm, or high consumption during extreme temperatures.

Water service is even worse. It’s not uncommon for homes or businesses in Brownsville and throughout South Texas to lose power or face other infrastructure issues, such as water shortages and boil-water advisories. In some parts, people lack access to running water or electricity entirely.

The Brownsville area suffers from crumbling infrastructure due to inadequate funding, mishandling of city resources, and various forms of exploitation. The makeup of this South Texas region is predominantly brown, Indigenous, or Latine. Poverty is an epidemic.

Elements included in a typical disaster kit. Image: Venisha Colón

As a local economist summarized recently:

“42.2 percent of children in McAllen … and 39.2 percent in Brownsville-Harlingen live below the poverty line, and many of them live in a chronic state of food, health, and housing insecurity.”

Climate change impacts, such as flooding and extreme heat, make it worse.

Texas has had a record number of state-declared disasters and is gaining a national reputation for frequent disaster declarations, such as those from the Texas Winter Storm of 2022 and Hurricane Harvey in 2017.

Cameron County Emergency Management’s website says that between 1953 and 2024 Texas has suffered 374 disaster declarations; that’s almost 6 disasters a year. The number of disasters and their extremity due to climate change are increasing, as we’ve witnessed in just the last three years, Winter Storm Uri and the devastating flood that dropped over 20 inches of rain in the Rio Grande Valley last year. These rising crises have forced families and organizations to devise their own solutions for daily survival, and also during extreme weather.

I’m from the Rio Grande Valley and have lived here for several decades, and I have experienced six devastating tropical storms. My late grandma, who was multigenerational from the Rio Grande Valley, taught me to help your neighbor. She met a man from Mexico walking the streets of Mercedes, Texas, who needed a dollar, and she brought him to her house for dinner and a safe place to sleep.

A person helping another is essential; however, a group of us realized that as disasters were rising, different resources were needed. I became a founding member of the South Texas Environmental Justice Network, which focuses on ways to contact those most impacted by disasters and to create ways for immediate aid.
One of the projects that we have developed is a Just Recovery Kit. We built these kits for our neighbors with climate crises in mind, but found many needed them for daily survival.

Each kit may include a high-quality water filtration system, large jugs, a carbon monoxide detector, non-toxic insect spray, a solar battery charging system, gloves, personal protective equipment (PPE), and more. The Just Recovery Kits designed by our members are assembled for each family based on their needs and include contact information should they require maintenance.

Bryan Parras, an environmental justice advocate based in Houston with Another Gulf Is Possible is the lead designer of the kits. He told me how quickening hurricane disasters on the upper Texas coast inspired him.

“It would be in Texas and then Louisiana, starting with Katrina, then Rita, then Ike, Gustav,” Parras said. “It could go on and on.”

South Texas Environmental Justice Network (SOTXEJN) members distribute kits to families at an Emergency Preparedness Conference in Alamo, TX, in 2023.

Like Bryan, I’ve also experienced an increase in disasters on the lower coast. The area has mandatory cooling shelters for the high temperatures, but never enough. Last year, a family was found dead in their home in Brownsville due to extreme heat and lack of air conditioning. Ask anyone in the region, and they have a personal disaster survival story about living in South Texas.

My colleague’s car filled with water during a thunderstorm; my father was rescued as his car was being washed away.

My apartment was without electricity for three days during Texas’ winter storm Uri.

One summer, my cheap shoes fell apart because of the hot asphalt.

These disasters have severe consequences in a region doubly marked by the daily disaster of poverty. Not only are basic needs lacking, but it can be challenging to find items needed to prepare for or recover from a disaster.

Bryan explained to me how, over the years, the Just Recovery Kits evolved from a disaster kit to one that improves people’s daily needs.

“A lot of our communities are starting in a place where they are behind most of the population; it’s much harder for them to recover from disasters,” he said.

“But if we have products to help them inch their way up to a more equitable space, then that’s the whole point of the kits—to improve their quality of life, their health, their capacity for thinking about emergencies, and to provide them with those things that are unaffordable or not a priority: ‘I have to buy groceries before masks, sorry.”

Dina Nuñez, a community organizer in Brownsville has been forced to rely on the kits daily. She said she doesn’t trust the water coming out of the faucet from the Brownsville Public Utilities Board (or BPUB). Water here mostly meets federal drinking-water standards, but there are ongoing debates over safety still. The Environmental Working Group lists a variety of contaminants found in the water that are known cancer causers.

“I use it [the kit] frequently, especially the water filter, I use it every day,” she told me in Spanish. “We know the water is contaminated, for sure. There was actually an agency that came to my house to do water testing. They tested the faucet, our water mill, and it came back that the city water is actually highly contaminated.”

She went on to say that rising extreme heat means the public utility, which is already failing her with bad water, is also continuously raising the cost of electricity.

“They [the public utility] still don’t want to be responsible,” she said.

“It’s like they don’t actually filter the water. And there are high bill costs coming up. During high heat times, the [kilowatt] usage charge goes up whether we use it or not—BPUB keeps raising those in our monthly electricity bills.”

South TX EJ Network has distributed 200 kits to families living in Cameron and Hidalgo counties over the last three years. Our organization also plans to build a network, or “resilience hub,” of families with kits who can receive and disseminate vital emergency information and help others in their neighborhoods.

There’s a need to inform the public utility of ways to meet the community’s needs. Until improvements are made, the South TX EJ Network will continue brainstorming solutions, such as providing kits to support the families who need them.

How America's Poor Subsidize Wealthier Consumers in a Viscious Income Inequality Cycle

In this Medium.com piece that earlier appeared at Brookings.edu and authored by Aaron Klein, he provides a cogent, credible analysis on just how much it costs to be poor with respect to basic financial services and how this cost subsidizes wealthier consumers.  While a policy and political issue, this is largely unnoticed by policymakers.  This is a sad, painful read on the "hidden drivers of income inequality."

-Angela

How America's Poor Subsidize Wealthier Consumers in a Viscious Income Inequality Cycle

by

Aaron Klein

Being poor is expensive. This problematic paradox is evident with basic financial services. And judging by Bank of America’s recent decision to impose fees of almost $150 a year on what were free checking accounts, the problem is getting worse. Too bad (almost) no one is paying attention.

In January, The Atlantic’s Gillian White noted that, “free checking is basically a thing of the past.” White’s headline captures a reality for many Americans who regularly live near the bottom of their bank account. But it also misses the other side of the coin: financial services are cheaper the richer you are. This hidden driver of income inequality is embedded in something that we use every day and never think twice about: the payment system.

It isn’t what or where you buy, but rather how you pay that determines whether you ultimately benefit or lose from our economy’s payment system. Antiquated and unnecessarily slow, this system indirectly imposes large costs on middle and working class families, in the process actually redistributing money up the income scale. Indeed, substantial portions of the $14 billion that people pay in overdraft fees a year, and the $9 billion in payday loans fees, are partially the result of a U.S. payment system that is slower than similar ones used in Mexico or Poland. Meanwhile, credit cards that lower-income consumers are ineligible to receive reward wealthy users for money spent. The richer you are, the better your rewards.

It isn’t what or where you buy, but rather how you pay that determines whether you ultimately benefit or lose from our economy’s payment system.

And while our system operates at a scale larger than major U.S. government programs, it has largely gone unnoticed by policy makers and income inequality scholars. As a result, the less money you have, the more money you spend to just be able to use money.

Did you realize that working and middle class Americans subsidize the wealthy when they pay in cash or use debit cards? Everyone appears to pay the same price, regardless of how you pay. But that’s not the case. How you pay changes what stores receive, and ultimately how much is in your wallet.

If you pay in cash, you are paying full freight. If you use a debit card, the merchant pays a relatively small processing fee. You likely get zero or very little back in rewards. On the other hand, if you use an American Express credit card, the merchant will lose quite a bit: 3 percent goes to AmEx, plus a fixed fee. So where does that slice go? Some goes to American Express, but a fair amount goes right back to the credit card user in the form of cash back, reward points, or frequent flier miles.

It might not seem like a lot, but these perks can add up. Consider that a family charging $80,000 a year on a credit card and earning a fairly typical 1.5 percent cash back bonus will get $1,200 at the end of the year. (Full disclosure: I wrote this essay while flying on an airplane I paid for using points earned on my credit card). Those checks and points are not usually taxed, so it is equivalent to closer to $2,000 in pre-tax earnings.

That’s quite a gift from a payment system that provides lower income Americans with nothing. It is more than most families will see from the Trump tax cut and more than a family of four earning $45,000 a year receives from the Earned Income Tax Credit.

As long as merchants do not vary the price based on payment, economics dictate that people who pay using cash or debit cards are subsidizing people who use credit cards. The fancier the credit card, the larger the subsidy. Payment methods are correlated with income: lower income people are more likely to use cash, pre-paid or debit, while higher income use credit cards.

[T]he Federal Reserve Bank of Boston estimated that every household that uses a credit card receives $1,133 from cash users every year.

This happens for a variety of reasons. For example, not everyone can qualify for a credit card and the poorer you are, the worse the terms of the card; subprime credit cards can charge an annual fee greater than 10 percent of your credit limit. At the same time, the high costs of overdraft fees make debit cards far more expensive for those who occasionally hit zero in their bank account.

On the other end of the spectrum, platinum status and big rewards cards are reserved for the elites. One study by economists from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston estimated that every household that uses a credit card receives $1,133 from cash users every year. This amounts to a hidden subsidy for those able to secure credit.

Another cost for lower and middle class American families is related to payment speed. America has one of the slowest payment systems in the world. Americans have to wait up to seven days for money deposited in their account to be available. This contrasts sharply with other countries that have had real-time payments for decades: South African introduced real-time payment in 2006, Brazil in 2002, Turkey in 1992 and Japan in 1973. The technology is there, but the U.S. remains inextricably stuck in the slow lane, with the Federal Reserve now setting 2020 as a goal.

But if you are one of the more than 6 in 10 Americans who could not access $500 in case of an emergency, any delay can be costly. A cup of coffee can cost you $35 in overdraft fees if a paycheck deposited yesterday doesn’t clear in time.

A few days of delay probably does not matter if you regularly have thousands of dollars in your bank account; the minimum balance to have free checking in the new Bank of America account is $1,500.

But if you are one of the more than 6 in 10 Americans who could not access $500 in case of an emergency, any delay can be costly. A cup of coffee can cost you $35 in overdraft fees if a paycheck deposited yesterday doesn’t clear in time. Even worse are the high-cost payday loans that can become a desperate person’s only option to pay rent if their ex-spouse’s alimony or child support payment didn’t arrive in time. Recent research from the U.S. Financial Diaries project shows working families cobble together income from an increasingly diverse set of sources that are highly volatile.

Put all of this together, and you can see why Lisa Servon, author of “The Unbanking of America,” concludes that: “banks’ requirement to keep monthly minimum balances, the speed with which overdraft charges are levied, and the days it takes between depositing a check and having access to the money, all are a poor fit for the growing number of Americans who cope with unpredictable cash flow.”

In worst case scenarios, government policy can actually make the cost of providing free checking even more difficult. It can cost banks between $250 and $400 to establish a new checking account and another several hundred dollars a year to maintain it. As anti-money laundering (AML) regulations have grown in complexity, costs for ‘knowing your customer’ have risen sharply; one estimate is by 50 percent in just three years. Poorly targeted regulation that drives up costs often ends up impacting those least able to afford them.

The somewhat good news is there are simple steps the government could take to combat these problems. The Federal Reserve could implement and/or mandate real-time payments. Congress and financial regulators could improve AML laws and regulations to better capture bad guys and lower the costs for banks to open and maintain low cost basic bank accounts for customers.

New financial technology (fintech) is already trying to tackle some of these challenges, including the implementation of real-time payments system for some of the largest banks (including Bank of America). Of course these innovations are driven in part by a fear of non-bank fintech capitalizing on the demand for faster payments. Banks don’t want to be taxis in an Uber story. Meanwhile, employers like WalMart are working to provide employees faster access to their pay through new FinTechs like Even.

Despite these signs of progress, the reality is that income inequality is exacerbated by our current payment system. And the system does not have to be like this. The technology and alternative structures exist. Unfortunately, absent fleeting moments like the Bank of America announcement, most people and policy makers do not think about or appreciate the magnitude of the problem — or the solutions that could address it.

This post originally appeared on brookings.edu on February 6, 2018.

Abortion is totally a more complex issue than ever portrayed—which is why a blunt, one-size-fits all policy is harmful, risking the lives, in particular, of low-income women.

For low-income women and women of color, the prognosis is more grim. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that black women are 3-4 times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women. And Texas now has the highest maternal mortality rate in the "developed" world, according to a report in the journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

 I agree that pro-life should include women, too, since the right to be one is unequally distributed.


Angela

Fulbright: Pro-life should include protecting the lives of women

By Amelia K. Fulbright

Updated 10:54 pm, Wednesday, November 8, 2017

• 

Photo: Fry Design Ltd

A pro-life law endangers women.

 

The pro-life movement is clear about when the life of a fetus begins, but what seems to lurk beneath the surface is a notion that pregnant women are no longer fully human or fully free. Pro-life advocates insist that once a woman conceives, regardless of the circumstances, she must choose motherhood - over her physical and emotional wellbeing, over her vocation, even if it means living in poverty. Even if it kills her.

During this year's legislative session, the Texas Legislature passed a law banning the most common and very safe abortion procedure used during the second trimester known as "dilation and evacuation." Only 11 percent of abortions occur after the first trimester. But since they are more likely to be situations where the mother's life is threatened, this ban directly endangers women who may already be at risk. The law is under appeal this week in a federal courtroom in Austin.
Being a white, educated, middle-class woman has shielded me as devastating anti-abortion laws have shut down women's health clinics across the state. Today, 95 percent of the state's counties do not have an abortion provider. But this newest law may directly affect me: My husband and I are considering having a second child, but at nearly 40, I am at a risky "advanced maternal age." Heaven forbid I encounter complications because pro-life politicians might prefer I die than terminate a pregnancy.
For low-income women and women of color, the prognosis is more grim. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that black women are 3-4 times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women. And Texas now has the highest maternal mortality rate in the "developed" world, according to a report in the journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
These latest developments in Texas have reinforced the astonishing barriers American women face in determining their own reproductive freedom. Since the start of 2017, state legislatures across the country have already passed more than 50 abortion restrictions, including waiting periods and mandatory counseling designed to dissuade women from having an abortion. West Virginia and Mississippi have already banned the dilation and evacuation procedure, and similar bans are pending in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Kansas and Alabama against heavy legal opposition.
As a former Southern Baptist, I know firsthand what it means to be devoutly pro-life, but experience has taught me that abortion is a much more complex issue than often portrayed. The basic limitation of the self-described pro-life movement is that it attempts to confront the moral complexity of real life with a rigidly simple set of commandments. I can sympathize with this approach; it is a survival instinct. But it threatens our capacity to experience the abundant life that Jesus promised by holding women's lives captive to the dictates of public officials. Parenthood inevitably involves sacrifices.

But isn't there a qualitative difference between sacrifices freely made and those legislated for us? Do we really expect women to sacrifice their lives to bear children? When does a mother's right to life begin? When does her personhood start?
I am not trying to persuade anyone to terminate a pregnancy. I am saying that women's lives matter to God and to their families, and they ought to matter to politicians. So long as we only define life as the protection of a fetus, we have dangerously oversimplified the issue. Only when we can affirm that a mother's life need not end for a child's life to begin, only then can we truly call ourselves pro-life.

Fulbright is founder and director of Labyrinth Progressive Student Ministry at the University of Texas at Austin and a member of the advisory board for Just Texas: Faith Voices for Reproductive Justice.

Related Stories

• Study shows black babies bear brunt of infant mortality gap in U.S.
• Questioning Texas maternal death rate
• With Trump's backing, House approves ban on abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy

Local nonprofit may have an answer for district's poor exams record

Amazing story about what a Houston high school teacher, Adeeb Barqawi, did to address the chronic poverty and crises in his school community.  So inspiring!

 Sí se puede!  Yes we can!

Angela Valenzuela

Local nonprofit may have an answer for district's poor exams record

Nonprofit ProUnitas works to bridge gap between students and services

By Ericka Mellon

December 4, 2016 Updated: December 5, 2016 9:13am

•  

• 

Photo: Gary Fountain, For The Chronicle

Adeeb Barqawi, left, and Damon Hoyle tutor students at the ProUnitas Kashmere Success Center. Seated, from left, are students Paige Porter, Genea Moorehead, Ignacio Moreno and Zion Toussiant. The nonprofit also ... more

In his first year teaching at Kashmere High School, Adeeb Barqawi asked a student why she was sleeping in class.
Her mom, she said, was murdered the day before. She came to school so she could eat.

"Go back to sleep," Barqawi told her gently.
Barqawi heard so many stories of struggle from his students. How could they concentrate on physics, he thought, when they went hungry at home or were stressed about bills or a parent in jail?

In his third year, the science teacher made the hard call last year to leave the classroom to try to help more students, and their teachers, another way. He started in 2015 a nonprofit, ProUnitas, to address students' personal challenges so they could focus on learning. The Houston agency works with schools to connect students with counselors, doctors, mentors, clothing, shelter, food, whatever might help.
Barqawi and ProUnitas are being put to the ultimate test this year at Kashmere High School. The north Houston campus, in one of the city's poorest neighborhoods, has failed to meet the state's academic standards for seven straight years. Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath has ordered a state appointee to oversee instruction at Kashmere and to report back. The school is under immense pressure to improve fast.

Over the last decade, the nation's public school-reform strategy has centered on being tougher on educators, toeing a no-excuses line that students would score higher on standardized exams if teachers did a better job.
Barqawi's approach joins a growing national effort to stop the teacher blame game. The movement embraces the idea that, while schools may not be able to do it alone, they must pay attention to the whole child - their physical and mental health, family life, emotional needs, as well as reading and math.
"We're not here to take over a school," Barqawi said. "We're here to work alongside. We're an organization that believes that, whether a test score goes up or doesn't, kids need basic services."

***

Barqawi, 27, has been on the fast track. He attended a private international school in Kuwait, moving there from suburban Virginia, for his dad's engineering job. By 16, he was accepted into college, at Virginia Commonwealth University.
At 19, although Barqawi had the credits and grades for medical school, he deferred for more real-world experience. He worked as a scientist for Pfizer and Product Pharmaceutical Development for about a year and then left for Georgetown University, where he earned a master's degree in physiology and biophysics. Not ready to commit to being a doctor, he followed his brother's lead and applied to Teach for America, pledging at least two years at a high-poverty school.
Barqawi, then 22, taught his first class at Kashmere High School four years ago. The school, long on the state's low-performing list, had been tapped for then-Superintendent Terry Grier's reform program, Apollo. Barqawi joined a mostly new faculty in 2012. The Apollo creed was high expectations, no excuses.
"They were the sweetest kids," Barqawi said. "But after probably a couple of days, I started to see the wear and tear on the clothes. Kids would put their heads down more as the weeks went by. Kids would start to ask for money: 'Can I have bus fare?'
They opened up to him:
"The FBI raided my house."
"My mom got shot."
"I'm visiting my dad in jail. He has 50 years."
Barqawi, single and without college debt, would dip into his own wallet, stocking his classroom with snacks and bus passes. He would call doctors to arrange appointments for students. He checked on them during lunch, gave them rides, visited their homes. In his spare time, he earned a master's degree in education through John Hopkins University online.
In 2014, Barqawi's students had the highest passing rate on a district-wide physics exam. They earned a mayoral proclamation.
"We had success," Barqawi recalled, "but I look back on it, and it was such a localized impact."

***

Barqawi set up his ProUnitas office in 2015 at the Kashmere Multi-Service Center, a city building on Lockwood, five minutes from the high school. Nearly half the adults in the area lack a high school diploma, and 53 percent earn less than $25,000 a year. Most families have one car or rely on public transportation. The neighborhood is short on grocery stores, health care facilities and after-school hangouts for kids.
From his computer, Barqawi can access data to see which students need help. Are they skipping school? Are their grades low? Are they getting suspended? Like a doctor, he wants to catch problems before they spiral. This year, ProUnitas has expanded to work with Key Middle School and Kashmere Gardens Elementary, which both feed into Kashmere High. Nearby Paige Elementary will be served starting in January. Barqawi hopes to add the three other feeder elementary schools by August.
ProUnitas employees, housed at the campuses, essentially work as case managers, reaching out to the neediest students and deciding what would help: private counseling, a support group for depression, assistance with college essays. Nearly all the services are provided at school.
Barqawi describes ProUnitas as a broker, bringing together the city's disjointed network of nonprofits. He formed a volunteer community council of local residents, alumni and the school principals to vet the service providers and give direction. The ProUnitas name is based on the Latin word for "unite."
"We're not only keeping Kashmere (High School) going. We're keeping the community going as well," said Keith Downey, the community council chairman, a 1980 Kashmere graduate who returned to help the neighborhood in 2015 after three decades as a New York architect.
The KIPP charter school network has experimented with a similar strategy of partnering with nonprofits at its southwest Houston campus, hoping to break the cycle of generational poverty.
In the Houston Independent School District, the Houston Federation of Teachers union has been lobbying for more campuses to become "community schools," serving as hubs for families and offering so-called wrap-around services such as medical care and counseling. In September, the district, urged by school board members Rhonda Skillern-Jones and Mike Lunceford, hosted its first ever summit "Wrap-Around Services Summit" for principals.

On a recent morning at Kashmere High, several students stopped by the trailer buildings where the ProUnitas "linkage managers," Donua McDaniel and Talicia Stringer, work. The students were out of uniform. McDaniel and Stringer, both in their 20s, suspected some simply ignored dress code. Others come because they're short on money for clothes or perhaps can't get laundry done at home.
The trailer is stocked with various clothing items, shoes, toiletries and non-perishable food for students or their families.
Later in the day, McDaniel attended a meeting with an assistant principal about a student caught with weed. He said his friends encouraged him.
McDaniel planned to connect him with ChildBuilders, a nonprofit that teaches good decision-making skills.
Another student with a history of marijuana use stopped by the trailer. He had gotten in a fight with his girlfriend and came to talk to McDaniel instead of sneaking off campus early.
McDaniel reminded the student that he had set a goal of becoming a mechanical engineer.
"See how your right now impacts your future?" she told him.
He liked poetry, too, so she gave him a composition notebook.
"You can write poetry about your day, how you're feeling," she said.
"I want to make poems to motivate single mothers," he said. "No food in the fridge. No lights. Be strong."
After chatting for about 40 minutes, the student said he was ready to return to class. McDaniel walked him there. On the way, she asked if he would be interested in counseling.
He shook his head yes.
Nancy Blackwell, in her second year as principal of Kashmere, said ProUnitas has been a "godsend," vetting the agencies peddling services and helping the students overcome the obstacles of poverty.
"The kids don't fail," Blackwell said. "It's the systems that fail the kids."

***

Donna Bahorich, chair of the State Board of Education, said she could see a model like ProUnitas expanding across Texas. She met Barqawi when he was a teacher, and his enthusiasm was infectious.
"We're asking a lot of teachers and administrators," she said. "His vision of being that middle man ... in a way that holds those services accountable - what a great idea."
ProUnitas, funded by grants and donations, doesn't charge schools for its services. Its biggest backers are the Houston Endowment, which has given $415,000, and the Menninger Clinic, which donated nearly $350,000. Barqawi said at some point he could see asking schools to cover some of the costs. He envisions expanding the program nationally. For him, med school is off the table.
"I'm not going anywhere," Barqawi said.

Ericka Mellon

The Poverty Trap: Slack, Not Grit, Creates Achievement

Excellent read.  This piece articulates well just how wrong-headed the discourse on "grit" in education is. -Angela

by P. L. Thomas, Furman University

Poverty is a trap children are born into:

No child has ever chosen to be poor. Children have never caused the poverty that defines their lives, and their education.
Yet, the adults with political, corporate, and educational wealth and power—who demand “no excuses” from schools and teachers serving the new majority of impoverished children in public schools and “grit” from children living in poverty and attending increasingly segregated schools that offer primarily test-prep—embrace a very odd stance themselves: Their “no excuses” and “grit” mottos stand on an excuse that there is nothing they can do about out-of-school factors such as poverty.
Living in poverty is a bear trap (and it is), and education is a race, a 100-meter dash.
“No excuses” advocates calling for grit, then, are facing this fact:
Children in poverty line up at the starting line with a bear trap on one leg; middle-class children start at the 20-, 30-, and 40-meter marks; and the affluent stand at the 70-, 80-, and 90-meter marks.
And while gazing at education as a stratified sprint, “no excuses” reformers shout to the children in poverty: “Run twice as fast! Ignore the bear trap! And if you have real grit, gnaw off your foot, and run twice as fast with one leg!”
These “no excuses” advocates turn to the public and shrug, “There’s nothing we can do about the trap, sorry.”
What is also revealed in this staggered 100-meter race is that all the children living and learning in relative affluence are afforded slack by the accidents of their birth: “Slack” is the term identified by Mullainathan and Shafir as the space created by abundance that allows any person access to more of her/his cognitive and emotional resources.
In the race to the top that public education has become, affluent children starting at the 90-meter line can jog, walk, lie down, and even quit before the finish line. They have the slack necessary to fail, to quit, and to try again—the sort of slack all children deserve.
Children in relative affluence do not have to wrestle with hunger, worry about where they’ll sleep, feel shame for needing medical treatment when they know their family has no insurance and a tight budget, or watch their families live every moment of their lives in the grip of poverty’s trap.
As Mullainathan and Shafir explain: “Scarcity captures the mind.” And thus, children in poverty do not have such slack, and as a result, their cognitive and emotional resources are drained, preoccupied.
The ugly little secret behind calls for “no excuses” and “grit” is that achievement is the result of slack, not grit.
Children living and learning in abundance are not inherently smarter and they do not work harder than children living and learning in poverty. Again, abundance and slack actually allow children to work slower, to make more mistakes, to quit, and to start again (and again).
Quite possibly, an even uglier secret behind the “no excuses” claim that there is nothing the rich and powerful can do about poverty is that this excuses is also a lie.
David Berliner (2013) carefully details, “To those who say that poverty will always exist, it is important to remember that many Northern European countries such as Norway and Finland have virtually wiped out childhood poverty” (p. 208).
More children are being born into the trap of poverty in the U.S., and as a result, public schools are now serving impoverished students as the typical student.
The “no excuses” and “grit” mantras driving the accountability era have been exposed as ineffective, but have yet to be acknowledged as dehumanizing.
Instead of allowing some children to remain in lives they didn’t choose or create and then condemning them also to schools unlike the schools affluent children enjoy, our first obligation as free people must be to remove the trap of poverty from every leg of every child.
Reference
David C. Berliner (2013) Inequality, Poverty, and the Socialization of America’s Youth for the Responsibilities of Citizenship, Theory Into Practice, 52:3, 203-209, DOI: 10.1080/00405841.2013.804314

What All Americans Need to Know About How Poverty Impacts Education

The real issue is not teachers, but concentrated poverty.

 

By Teacherken / Daily Kos

January 23, 2015

"For the first time in at least 50 years, a majority of U.S. public school students come from low-income families, according to a new analysis of 2013 federal data, a statistic that has profound implications for the nation."

That is the opening paragraph of a Washington Post story on the new report released by the Southern Education Foundation, which found 51% of our nation's school children in 2013 were from low-income families. Allow me to offer three early paragraphs from that report:

In 40 of the 50 states, low income students comprised no less than 40 percent of all public schoolchildren. In 21 states, children eligible for free or reduced-price lunches were a majority of the students in 2013.
Most of the states with a majority of low income students are found in the South and the West. Thirteen of the 21 states with a majority of low income students in 2013 were located in the South, and six of the other 21 states were in the West.
Mississippi led the nation with the highest rate: ­71 percent, almost three out of every four public school children in Mississippi, were low-income. The nation’s second highest rate was found in New Mexico, where 68 percent of all public school students were low income in 2013.

This should have major implications for policies on education at both the national and state levels, because it highlights this truth: the real educational issue in the United States is not and never has been about poor quality among teachers. Rather, it's about the concentration of poverty.
Let me offer some data from recent international comparisons to underscore the point: Finland, the highest scoring nation in recent years, has less than 4% of its children in poverty. Even using somewhat out of date statistics from OECD, which sponsors the PISA tests used to bash US schools in comparison with international competitors, US schools with less than 25% of their children in poverty perform as well as any nation, and those with 10% or less of their children in poverty outperform Finland.
Despite the existence of social welfare programs in this country, we still have a problem of concentrated poverty. Yes, we now offer free lunch and in some (but not enough) cases free breakfasts to children from poverty. But that does not feed them on the weekend, or if school is closed because of weather.
Children in poverty are often food insecure. They may be homeless, or not that far from being homeless. Their families lack consistent sources of money. Even if they have access to health insurance through Medicaid or SCHIP, it often does not cover vision, hearing or dental. They live in neighborhoods where violence may make life itself insecure.
I am going to push fair use by quoting five consecutive paragraphs from the Poststory to provide a sense of this. I understand this may be anecdotal, and the plural of anecdote is not data. And yet, any teacher who has taught students in high poverty situations, as I did briefly before my wife was diagnosed with cancer, has experienced what you will encounter in these five paragraphs:

“When they first come in my door in the morning, the first thing I do is an inventory of immediate needs: Did you eat? Are you clean? A big part of my job is making them feel safe,” said Sonya Romero-Smith, a veteran teacher at Lew Wallace Elementary School in Albuquerque. Fourteen of her 18 kindergartners are eligible for free lunches.
She helps them clean up with bathroom wipes and toothbrushes, and she stocks a drawer with clean socks, underwear, pants and shoes.
Romero-Smith, 40, who has been a teacher for 19 years, became a foster mother in November to two girls, sisters who attend her school. They had been homeless, their father living on the streets and their mother in jail, she said. When she brought the girls home, she was shocked by the disarray of their young lives.
“Getting rid of bedbugs, that took us a while. Night terrors, that took a little while. Hoarding food, flushing a toilet and washing hands, it took us a little while,” she said. “You spend some time with little ones like this and it’s gut wrenching. . . . These kids aren’t thinking, ‘Am I going to take a test today?’ They’re thinking, ‘Am I going to be okay?’
"The job of teacher has expanded to “counselor, therapist, doctor, parent, attorney,” she said.

If you are in a community with high levels of poverty, you are likely in a community that lacks the tax base to provide decent public education, even were the students not already disadvantaged in their basic living situations.
The federal involvement in education beginning with the first Elementary and Secondary Education Act under Lyndon Johnson, who as a young man had taught children in schools populated by the disadvantaged, had as a major goal addressing the needs of such children. But somewhere along the way, too many in this nation seem to have lost their souls when it comes to addressing those in poverty.
When more than half of our school children are from low-income settings, and far too many from situations of severe poverty, how can they - the children - be held responsible for that?  Where is our societal responsibility not to condemn them to a lifetime of poverty? How is it that we have allowed a small percentage to get disgustingly, even obscenely wealthy, without acknowledging and addressing the increasing percentage of our population whose economic situations continue to worsen?
Those of us who teach do all we can to ameliorate the difficulties with which children arrive in our classrooms. But what happens outside school has a profound effect on what we can do in school. We know these children will score lower on the kinds of tests we are using to beat up on public education, but those of us who teach also know that does not mean they cannot learn. Yet it is often precisely these children, who need the enrichment of music and art and poetry and drama and access to the things taken for granted by kids of middle class settings and up, who lose the most when we cut out those "frills" in order to raise scores on tests that really do not indicate a higher level of learning.
51% of our school children are low income.That means we are not a middle class society any more. It 's an example of American "exceptionalism" that should be a matter of deep concern. No, that's not strong enough -- it's an example of a national shame.

Very important report by the Southern Education Foundation regarding "a nation in decline."  This should move us to action. -Angela

A New Majority Research Bulletin: Low Income Students Now a Majority in the Nation's Public Schools 

2015-Low income students are now a majority of the schoolchildren attending the nation’s public schools, according to this research bulletin. The latest data collected from the states by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), show that 51 percent of the students across the nation’s public schools were low income in 2013.

In 40 of the 50 states, low income students comprised no less than 40 percent of all public schoolchildren. In 21 states, children eligible for free or reduced-price lunches were a majority of the students in 2013.
Most of the states with a majority of low income students are found in the South and the West. Thirteen of the 21 states with a majority of low income students in 2013 were located in the South, and six of the other 21 states were in the West.
Mississippi led the nation with the highest rate: ­71 percent, almost three out of every four public school children in Mississippi, were low-income. The nation’s second highest rate was found in New Mexico, where 68 percent of all public school students were low income in 2013.
This defining moment in America’s public education has been developing over several decades, and SEF has documented the trends and implications in two prior reports. In its 2013 report, SEF Vice President Steve Suitts wrote:  “No longer can we consider the problems and needs of low income students simply a matter of fairness…  Their success or failure in the public schools will determine the entire body of human capital and educational potential that the nation will possess in the future. Without improving the educational support that the nation provides its low income students – students with the largest needs and usually with the least support -- the trends of the last decade will be prologue for a nation not at risk, but a nation in decline…"    
Download the research bulletin and map.

 

Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance in the United States in 2013

Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance in the United States in 2013

Posted by Jason Furman and Betsey Stevenson on September 16, 2014 at 11:03 AM EDT 

Today’s report from the Census Bureau shows that key indicators of poverty and family income improved in 2013. Moreover, there is reason to believe that this progress has continued into 2014, as the labor market has strengthened and millions have gained health insurance coverage. At the same time, the data also offer a clear illustration of the large amount of work that remains to strengthen the middle class in the wake of the worst recession since the Great Depression. To address this challenge, the President will continue to do everything in his power to ensure that hard work pays off with decent wages and financial security. And he will also continue to push Congress to take constructive steps that invest in job creation, boost wages, and ensure equal pay for equal work.

FIVE KEY POINTS IN TODAY’S REPORT FROM THE CENSUS BUREAU

1. The overall poverty rate declined to 14.5 percent in 2013 due to the largest one-year drop in child poverty since 1966. The poverty rate for people under age 18 fell by 1.9 percentage point from 2012 to 2013, equivalent to 1.4 million young people lifted out of poverty. Poverty rates for other age groups (18-64 and 65+) were little changed. The official poverty rate for 2013 remains above its pre-recession rate. This official poverty rate does not reflect the full effect of anti-poverty policies because it excludes the direct effect of key measures like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). Notably, the EITC was expanded in 2009, and those expansions were subsequently extended. Accounting for such policies would reduce the number of people counted as being in poverty by millions.



2. Real median income for family households rose by $603 in 2013 but remains below pre-crisis levels. Income gains in 2013 were driven by family households, as overall median household income (which also includes households with single people living alone or with unrelated individuals) also rose, but by a smaller $180. As discussed below, there is reason to believe that this progress has continued into 2014. Nevertheless, the typical family has still not seen its income recover from the deep recession which came on top of a decade in which incomes stagnated for the middle class, itself part of a longer-term trend of increasing income inequality.


3. While still too wide, the gender pay gap narrowed slightly in 2013, with the female-to-male earnings ratio climbing above 78 percent for the first time on record. Looking over the last thirty years, the gender pay gap narrowed in the 1980s and 1990s, but progress stalled in the 2000s. Indeed, the female-to-male earnings ratio had been unchanged, on balance, from 2002 to 2012. The progress made in 2013 reflected a $817 increase in average earnings for female full-time, year-round workers. At the same time, earnings for men and women are still far from parity. This issue remains a high priority for the President, which is why earlier this year he built on previous steps and signed an Executive Order that will empower workers at Federal contractors to negotiate for fair pay. The President will also continue to push Congress to take steps like passing the Paycheck Fairness Act.


4. Children and the elderly were much more likely than non-elderly adults to have health insurance coverage in 2013, reflecting the contributions of public programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Eligibility for public insurance coverage contracts sharply at age 19, the age at which the more generous Medicaid/CHIP eligibility rules that apply to children cease to apply, and expands sharply at age 65, the Medicare eligibility age. Among non-elderly adults, insurance coverage generally increased with age, except that young adults ages 19-25 were slightly more likely to have health insurance than slightly older adults ages 26-34. Insurance coverage among adults ages 19-25 has increased markedly in recent years due to the Affordable Care Act’s dependent coverage provision, which permits young adults to remain on their parents’ health insurance plans until they turn age 26.
These Census Bureau estimates are part of the first set of estimates produced using a revised suite of health insurance questions in the Current Population Survey. These revised questions are designed to address longstanding shortcomings in the older questions and will generate a more accurate picture of health insurance coverage going forward. The methodological change does mean that these data are not suitable for evaluating changes in insurance coverage from 2012 to 2013. Nevertheless, other data out today from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey showed that coverage expanded modestly from 2012 and 2013, and data released by the National Center for Health Statistics showed a sharp increase in coverage from 2013 through early 2014. For a detailed analysis of all of the health insurance coverage data released today, see this companion blog post.


5. The data released today by the Census Bureau cover the calendar year 2013, and so do not reflect the notable improvement in the labor market seen over the first eight months of 2014. In particular, job growth so far this year has averaged 215,000 per month, up from 194,000 per month last year. As of August, the unemployment rate was down 1.1 percentage point from a year earlier, with three-quarters of that decline due to falling long-term unemployment. Further, average hourly earnings for private production and nonsupervisory workers were up 2.5 percent from a year ago, the largest year-over-year increase since 2010. While data on poverty and family income in 2014 will not be available until this time next year, the recent labor market data suggest that those figures will likely show further improvement as families continue to recover from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
Next year’s report is also likely to show that health insurance coverage increased sharply in 2014, reflecting an improving economy and, much more importantly, the effects of coverage expansions under the Affordable Care Act. Notably, an analysis published last month in the New England Journal of Medicine estimated that the uninsurance rate among non-elderly adults dropped by 5.2 percentage points from late 2013 through the second quarter of 2014, corresponding to 10.3 million people gaining coverage.

Jason Furman is Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. Betsey Stevenson is a member of the Council of Economic Advisers.

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