Middle-class morality: postures toward the poor. Mary Loftin Grimes.

            Abstract: Poverty remains a major problem in the US despite efforts by state and federal agencies to confront
            the issue through legislations. The young are particularly vulnerable to its effects, affecting their growth, mental
            development and socioemotional functioning. However, until the middle-income class learns to discard of its
            bias against the poor and attempt to support sound social and economic policies, poverty will persist. Although
            these people deny that the problem also affects them, social theory maintains that the disease of one component
            of society affects the well-being of the whole.

            Full Text: COPYRIGHT 1996 Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi As state and federal bodies continue to
            confront the high costs of poverty, the language describing the affected population proliferates. We read about
            the urban underclass, the deprived, the disadvantaged, the underprivileged, the homeless, street people, the
            underemployed, welfare queens, and, among poverty's youngest victims, the at-risk and the underachievers.
            These descriptions of the poor, however benign some may appear, imply a perceptual bias: there are "those
            people" and there are the rest of us. This division between the "haves" and the "have-nots" pervades popular
            literature cataloging the ills attendant upon poverty, with observers frequently assuming the stance of
            diagnosticians or moralists, rather than of co-owners of the problem. Tacit in such rhetoric is the assumption that
            many (most?) victims of poverty have only themselves to blame - that they are, by virtue of membership in this
            class, the "Undeserving Poor," to borrow George Bernard Shaw's term (uttered by Alfred Doolittle in
            Pygmalion).

            The danger in such labels lies in the fact that our rhetoric informs our reality and, in turn, our social and
            economic policies. "The limits of our language are the limits of our world," to quote Sister Corita. Recognizing
            the difficulty of modifying perceptual structures, I offer the following observations, in an effort to stress the
            inefficacy of persisting in response patterns embedded in conventional metaphors, if we hope to mitigate the
            effects of poverty.

            Whether or not we belong to its ranks, poverty is a condition that more and more of us can expect to
            experience. For those born since 1944, each successive cohort of family heads is increasingly likely to be poor.
            Approximately one-fourth of all American children are born into poverty, with the percentage being
            disproportionately higher for minorities (over 50 percent for African-American children, for example).
            Compared with their counterparts in other industrialized nations, poor American children have lower real
            spendable income, even though high-income American children are comparatively advantaged, according to
            Rainwater and Sneading (1995).

            Study after study has documented the effects of poverty on the young. It affects children's growth, their
            cognitive development, their academic achievement, their socioemotional functioning, and their productivity later
            in life (See Hill and Sandfort, 1995). The poor are more likely to fail, to be retained in school, or to require
            special placement. They are three times more likely to drop out before graduating. Not surprisingly, they
            frequently have low self-esteem, problems relating to peers, and school conduct problems. These latter
            behaviors are particularly pronounced in boys, precursors, perhaps, of subsequent antisocial behaviors. Later in
            life, these children show increased incidences, compared with the general population, of criminal arrests,
            probation time served, and welfare-program participation. And yet we continue to be more willing to
            incarcerate a criminal at twenty thousand dollars a year than to invest in preventive measures such as Head Start
            programs, for considerably less money, and to more positive effect.

            INTERVENTION AND EDUCATION

            Given the pervasiveness of the problems of poverty and the extent to which it has been analyzed at all levels,
            one would expect to find more evidence of successful intervention programs. Study after study confirms that
            early (prekindergarten) intervention programs can have long-term positive effects, increasing the likelihood that
            the poor will attend school, achieve academically and socially, and persist to graduation. Longitudinal studies
            show that participants in early intervention programs earn higher incomes and own homes and second cars in
            greater proportion than their peers denied such experiences (High/Scope Perry Preschool Project; Ypsilanti,
            MI). The Perry Preschool Project reports that for each dollar invested in high-quality preschool education, the
            public saves $7.61 for special services later on.

            Yet many proposed measures appear punitive rather than therapeutic (those undeserving poor again!) in their
            approaches. One state proposes to deny benefits to juvenile mothers who fail to identify their babies' fathers. I
            assume that the male parents so identified would be prosecuted for statutory rape and/or dunned for child
            support. While I deplore the high incidence of teenage motherhood and its attendant strain on the welfare
            system, I suspect that these punitive measures would do little to alleviate the problems of poverty, but rather
            would further tax the judicial and penal systems, as indigent dads were added to their rosters.

            It seems obvious that reversing the effects of poverty will require heroic measures by schools as well as other
            social institutions. Yet Kozol and others cite growing public disaffection for educational institutions and note the
            harm done to millions of young people because of underfunding or eliminating programs and services (Mike
            Rose, 1995). Money, or the lack thereof, matters. Berliner and Biddle (1995) report a positive correlation
            between per-pupil expenditure (PPE) and educational quality.

            Consistent with their finding, others cite the positive effects of class and school size (smaller is better) on the
            achievement of poor children (Deborah Meier, East Harlem Project). The correlations established between
            PPE and achievement and between early intervention and diminished negative effects of poverty dictate that we
            allocate additional resources to addressing those issues.

            There is still much to do. Pennsylvania (1991) found that higher socioeconomic status in a community translates
            into higher PPE, with the wealthiest districts having as much as four times the revenues per child as the poorest.
            The Federal Act entitled Improving America's Schools (1994) represents an attempt to reverse this disparity,
            but poor African Americans and Hispanics continue to be more likely to attend schools where poverty is
            concentrated and resources are scarce. As long as school-funding formulas are based primarily upon property
            taxes, the PPE will continue to reflect the relative wealth of communities and districts. Inequalities inherent in
            funding formulas are further aggravated by federal and state reductions in some student-assistance programs,
            and by the introduction of alternative programs such as voucher systems and charter-school initiatives, which
            siphon off monies from an already overburdened budget. These last two ventures have the potential to further
            isolate the poor, as well, if they are used primarily to the advantage of the high-income groups, as many suspect
            they will be.

            Similar evidence of what Benrube calls the Disuniting of America is found in proposals to divert funds from Aid
            to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), which have helped feed up to half of the children in many major
            cities, to private businesses, which could then employ welfare mothers with the money. It is to the Tennessee
            House of Representatives' credit that it rejected such a proposal, passed by the Tennessee Senate. Aimed at
            moving families from welfare to independence, the pilot proposal would have taken away food money and given
            it to private small businesses, which would then have employed selected former AFDC recipients for a period
            of six months, after which their futures would have been uncertain. Tennessee's euphemism for this program,
            "Families First," requires a considerable stretch of the imagination on my part!

            MAINTAINING PRIVILEGE

            I suspect that the audience for my observations consists of economically secure readers who accept the justness
            of their status and who are strongly motivated to maintain that status. It takes little extension of Social
            Darwinism for the well-off to rationalize that the poor are indeed less deserving. But I trust that an educated
            reader can acknowledge the rights of all children to health, safety, well-being, learning opportunities, and other
            basic needs. I urge that reader to consider the complicity of us all in the status quo, and to recognize that
            economic policies addressing the ills of poverty have drastic consequences for poor children throughout all
            aspects of their lives.

            We are fast moving toward a society in which benefits such as education and health care will be available only
            to those who can afford them. There are no simple solutions to the plight of the poor; assuming that a healthy
            economy will resolve the problem is erroneous. Given the seriousness of the problem, we can choose to treat
            the effects of poverty, or we can seek to eradicate its causes. Metaphors of separation, applied to the poor,
            tend to objectify them as a class. If we wish to reverse that divisive tendency, we will work to make equality of
            opportunity a reality both in and beyond school experiences. Poor children must be seen as the shared
            responsibility of parents and the larger community.

            Contemporary evolutionary biologists continue the long-standing debate of earlier theorists on the interests of
            the group versus the interests of the individual in shaping the destiny of a species. At this point in our evolution
            as a culture, the interests of the group as a whole must prevail. A useful metaphor for that survival process might
            posit society as a living organism, within which the disease of one component compromises the health of the
            whole. In such a model, prevention is preferable to treatment of pathology, and chronic ignoring of symptoms
            has consequences for all. A social plan based upon this metaphor of inclusion would adjust its priorities to
            ensure the best possible opportunities for all children.

            Lowell Weicker, former Governor of Connecticut, defined privilege as "sharing what you received through the
            accident of birth." The opposite of that attitude is embodied in Alfred Doolittle's accusation in Pygmalion: "What
            is middle class morality? Just an excuse for never giving me anything." The tax-paying public and those elected
            to represent it would do well to endorse Weicker's concept and to put it into practice. Our common well-being
            depends upon it.

            Mary Loftin Grimes is a professor in the Division of Curriculum and Instruction of the College of Education and
            Human Services at the University of North Florida.