But why are there discipline disparities in Metro Schools?

From The Tennessean.

By Rod Williams - Sunday's Tennesseean had an article that started on the front page taking two-thirds of the page and continued for two full pages on the inside of the paper called, "Discipline Disparities." The article makes the point with text, data, and charts and illustrative pictures that Black children are suspended from school at a much higher rate than White children.  The whole tone of the piece is that this is somehow unfair and something that must be corrected.

The article explains that Metro Schools spent five years trying to close the racial gap through an initiative called Passage and other reform efforts and spent more than $2 million in the process but instead of the gap narrowing, it got worse.  The program focused on training teachers on alternative forms of discipline and tightening guidelines on when administrators could suspend a child. It worked in that suspensions decreased. Last year 8,500 students received out-of-school suspensions, down from 11,000 in the 2013-14 school year.  However, there was a greater decrease in the number of white students suspended than the decrease in the number of  Black students suspended.  The result was the gap widened rather than narrowing.  In the 2013-14 school year, black students were 2.7 times more likely to be suspended than white students but by 2018-19, they were 3.1 times more likely.

School officials could offer no explanation as to why there was such a gap. It seems they are clueless. I am going to go out on a limb and take a wild guess that has not even occurred to the Tennesseean or Metro School officials. Here it is: Black students have more disciplinary problems than White students. 

Does that seem so far fetched that it is not even discussed in a lengthy article?  It is not only true of children but when it come to adults, Blacks commit more crime than White people. In 2017, blacks represented 12% of the U.S. adult population but 33% of the sentenced prison population. Whites accounted for 64% of adults but 30% of prisoners. And while Hispanics represented 16% of the adult population, they accounted for 23% of inmates (link). Do liberals think this is just a result of discrimination or do they recognized that Blacks commit more crime?

Wikipedia link

The article did not at all examine gender gap disparities, but I don't doubt anyone would be surprised if data showed that  boys get suspended at a higher rate than girls. I don't think the cause for this is discrimination against boys, but I suspect girls are less of a discipline problem.  Why can we not even recognize that Black children are more of a disciplinary problem than White children. 

We need to recognize the fact that Black culture is dysfunctional. I am going to venture an explanation as to why. Seventy-two percent of black children are raised in single-parent households, and the national average is only 25 percent (link). Most of the single-parent households raising children are single mother-headed households.  I fervently believe that 'when it comes to raising children, that's a job meant for two.'  Young boys with no father in the household are more likely to display disciplinary problems.  There may be a variety of reasons why the Black family has broken down, but I believe the growth of the welfare state beginning with the Great Society in the 1960's made fathers a liability rather than a asset. We often hear people say we need to have an honest conversation about race in America; we do.

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What causes a 12-year-old girl to commit cold-blooded murder of a random stranger?

by Rod Williams - In February five teenagers murdered Kyle Yorlets, a 24 year old Nashville musician. Yorlets was originally from Carlisle, Pennsylvania but moved to Nashville to pursue his education and music. He was a recent graduate of Belmont University and was a member of a rock band called Carverton.

The accused murderers are three girls ages 12, 14 and 15, and two boys, ages 13 and 16.  Kyle Yorlets was murdered in the yard of his home in the middle of the day.  Police say Yorlets was a random victim. He was not targeted, but just happened to encounter the kids. Reports say the kids were in a stolen pickup truck in an alley that runs behind Yorlets' home. They saw Yorlets outside. At gun point they robbed Yorlets of his wallet, and told him to hand over the keys to his vehicle. Police seem to think that Yorlets was shot when he refused to give the kids the keys to his car.

When I first heard this story, I was shocked.  I have one daughter who is grown but I stopped to recall what she was like at age twelve. That is the seventh grade for most 12 year olds. Most 12 year old girls are just starting to notice boys. They may be too old for Barbie, but not by much. I recalled nieces and nephews and what they were like at ages 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16.  That a 12-year old girl is capable of cold blooded murder is so foreign to me.  I know that by age 16, some boys are at a point where it is easy to fall into mischief,  if they have no guidance and discipline.  Even good kids can get into trouble by age 16.  But a twelve year old and a thirteen year old shooting a man in cold blood? It is hard to fathom.  That they were girls even makes it harder to accept.  In general, I think of boys as more capable of doing something like this than girls.

The children have been charged as adults. Following this murder, there has been lots of news coverage and hand-wringing. A lot of attention has been focused on the need for Juvenile Justice reform.  Comments by State Senator Sen. Raumesh Akbari of Memphis reflect what many feel: “When you have children that young participating in that high level of a dangerous crime, I feel like somewhere along the way there was an intervention that wasn’t taken and we failed those kids.”

Who can disagree with that?  Maybe, if we had a more perfect juvenile justice system, these kids could have been turned from the path that led to this terrible tragedy.  Prior to this tragic murder, an 18-member special committee had been created by Governor Bill Haslam to identify gaps in the system and help children before they commit violent crime.  Several people mentioned the work of this committee, hoping it can make meaningful changes that will prevent future juvenile crime. State Rep. Michael Curcio, R-Dickson, said he hoped the group would take a comprehensive approach that extended beyond the courtroom and examined schools, mental health services and the criminal justice system for young offenders.

That is a good goal. We should look at schools and mental health services and the criminal justice system for young offenders.  As reported in the Tennessean, Nashville police Lt. Blaine Whited, who supervises the police department's Juvenile Crime Task Force, said his officers often rearrest the same juveniles over and over again.  He said there is "problem in the system."  Since the police task force was formed last February, 222 minors have been charged with crime and during the year, the Police arrested 101 of them more than once.

There is a "problem in the system," but I think we need to look deeper than the schools, the mental health services, and the justice system.  What is wrong with society, that leads to this?  It is not often that 12-year-old girls commit murder, but juvenile crime in general is a problem and it appears to be getting worse, not better. 

Some would offer a simple answer and say society took a wrong turn when we banned school prayer. I think there may be validity to that. I think starting the day with a solemn acknowledgement of God whose blessing we seek and whose will we should try to follow inculcates a common sense of morality.  It causes people to stop and say to themselves, I ought to try to be a good person.  In a society with so many different religions, however, I don't know how one can acknowledge God without offending others who have a different concept of God. As difficult as it may be to reintroduce prayer into the school without violating Supreme Court ruling, I think it is a goal worth pursuing. it may help.  That may be impossible to achieve, however, and would take a very long time and don't think that in and of itself that would resolve the problem.

A problem I see is that we are so conditioned and intimidated by political correctness that we are in denial of societal problems rather than trying to solve societal problems.  While the problem of crime and violence cuts across class and race lines, we should acknowledge that crime is a problem that plagues the Black community more than others.  Instead, we bend over backwards to make it impossible to acknowledge this.  When schools punish Black kids more than white kids, rather than acknowledge that Black kids may commit more offenses than White kids, we chastise the schools for unequal treatment and racial profiling and accuse teachers of bigotry. A good place to start in addressing problems is to acknowledge the truth.

I don't know anything about the kids who committed this senseless murder other than their sex and age which I read in the paper.  I am going to bet however, that one thing they have in common is that their is no father in the home. This is a problem, about which we are in denial and it is impolite to observe that having intact families makes for a better society.

Fathers matter. Seventy-one per cent of high school dropouts are fatherless. Fatherless children do less well in school, scoring less well on tests of reading, math, and reasoning skills. Eighty-five percent of youth in prison are from fatherless homes. Girls from fatherless homes are more likely to become sexual active earlier and are more likely to themselves become unwed mothers. Ninety percent of  runaway children are from fatherless homes. From drug abuse to sexual abuse to any number of measures of well-being, children from intact families fare much better than children without a father in the home.  The data is easy to find. Father Absence, Father Deficit, Father Hunger by Dr. Edward Kirk writing in Psychology Today provides a good analysis.

If we acknowledge that fatherless children is a problem, what as a society do we do about it?  There are no easy answers. A good starting place is simply to acknowledge it. The welfare system is a problem.  There are public benefits that drive families apart or keep families from forming.  A single women with two children may qualify for benefits such as housing, food stamps, and health care that if she were married to the father of the children, the combined income of the two parents would make the family ineligible for assistance. To qualify for these public benefits, the parents may just live together and get the welfare but not get married. Unmarried parents living together do not prove as stable of a family structure as when the parents are actually married. 

The role of this "marriage penalty" needs to be acknowledges and addressed. One approach would be to abolish all welfare benefits and replace them with a guaranteed national income.  There may be other less drastic solutions but the fact that welfare is a cause of fatherless families should be acknowledged. There are also tax structure issues that could be changed to favor marriage.

Persuasion can go a long way in changing values and behavior.  I think there is a public interest in promoting the value of families.  Just as there was a pubic campaign to persuade people to reduce litter, wear seat belts, and stop smoking, there should be a public campaign to persuade people to wait to have children until after they are married. Advertising campaigns could feature a contrast showing a single mother of two labeled "the face of poverty," and a father, mother and two children labeled "the face of success."  The facts of the devastating impact of father less families should be featured in public service announcements so that everyone knows that children born to single mothers are more likely to do poorly in school, to live in poverty, become runaways, to get pregnant early, and to go to prison.

Also, condemnation and societal pressure can change behavior.  In modern America, one of the things we are most judgmental about is being judgmental.  We have embraced absence of moral values as a moral value. To disapprove of another's behavior and to show your disapproval is considered mean.  We need to began to change that.  Bringing children into the world without a father should be stigmatized.  We have almost made being a single mother a badge of honor and something to be celebrated.  I think it should be something to be condemned and the children pitied.  Single women who have children should be embarrassed and ashamed. Also all "single mothers" should not be put into the same basket. The media always refers to all single women raising children as a "single mother."  We should change that and recognized that there are "widowed mothers," "divorced mothers," and "unwed mothers."  Being an unwed mother should not be a badge of honor.


For more on the murder of Kyle Yorlets and related stories, follow these links: link, link, link, and link.   For more on the issue of fatherless children, follow these links: link, link, link, and link. 

 

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First Nashville baby of the new year is again a baby born to an unwed mother

The Tennessean reports that the first baby born in Nashville in 2017 was an illegitimate child named Kinston Ashby, born to Mykyla Ashby.  The report does not specifically say the mother is an unwed mother and that the child is illegitimate but no mention is made of a father.  From the details of the story we can assume the mother is unmarried. Since no father is mentioned and the child takes the last name of the mother we may assume the mother does not know who the father is or chose to not make the father take responsibility for his offspring. Why she is having a child as an unwed mother and who the daddy is would seem to be relevant questions, but they are not asked. "Illegitimate birth," and "unwed mother" are terms no longer used in polite society shaped by liberal values and fathers are considered superfluous.

Children born out of wedlock is the leading cause of poverty in America and breakdown of the family is the cause of  crime and various other social ills, especially in the Black community.  According to U.S. Census Bureau out of about 12 million single parent families in 2015, more than 80% were headed by single mothers. Today 1 in 4 children under the age of 18 — a total of about 17.4 million — are being raised without a father and nearly half (45%) live below the poverty line.  In contrast, among children living with both parents, only 13% are counted as poor.

In 2015, out of more than 10 million low-income working families with children, 39% were headed by single working mothers or about 4.1 million. The proportion is much higher among African Americans (65%), compared with whites (36%).  Only one third of single mothers received any child support,and the average amount these mothers received was only about $430 a month.

The strongest predictor of whether a person will end up in prison is that he was raised by a single parent. Seventy percent  of inmates in state detention centers serving long-time sentences were raised by single (never married) mothers.

The birth of a baby to a single mother should not be a cause for celebration but sadness and shame and regret.   For source material follow this link  or simply do a search engine search. The statistics and analysis of the correlation between children born to single mothers and societal ills is readily available. 

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How's that gun control working for you?

82 shot- 15 fatally- in Chicago over holiday weekend

Between 4 p.m. Thursday, July 3, and 3:30 a.m. Monday, 82 people were shot on the streets of Chicago. Fourteen of them died. McCarthy cited lower numbers- and a shorter time span from 6 p.m. Thursday to midnight Monday - during his news conference.

In eight incidents, Chicago police officers were threatened or shot at and returned fire, McCarthy said. Police wounded five people, killing two of them, in those shootings.

Who are the murderers and their victims? A 2011 Chicago police analysis found 90 percent of murder victims in the city are men, 76 percent of victims have prior arrest records, and the most common ages of killers are 17 and 18 years old.

Eighty-two in one weekend!  That is more than some nations have in a whole year. The report of course does not tell us the race of the perpetrators or the victims, but I would bet it was mostly Black-on-Black crime. The report does not tell us the familial status of the victims or the perpetrators, but I would bet most are children of single mothers. Chicago has some of the most stringent gun control laws in the nation but has one of the highest murder rates. The real crime problem in America is not guns but the break down of the family and the problem of the Black underclass. As long as there are things that cannot be discussed we will not make a dent in the crime problem. Rod

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What prevents poor children from becoming middle class adults?

From Family Action Council of Tennessee:

What is the greatest obstacle in the U.S. to upward intergenerational social mobility, that is, what's the primary factor preventing poor children from moving up the economic ladder as adults?  Is it income inequality?  The quality of their schools?  Racial and economic segregation? Much to the dismay of liberals, the answer is ... none of the above.  It is family structure. Children living with married moms and dads have the greatest chance of moving up the economic ladder, according to a new study by researchers at Harvard and University of California at Berkeley.

The study of more than 40 million children and their parents found that "the fraction of children living in single-parent households is the strongest correlate of upward income mobility among all the variables we explored...."  While liberals believe the answer is throwing more money at supposedly underfunded government programs, we believe the solution is public policies and societal support for encouraging and strengthening marriages that provide children with both a mother and a father.  As we recently observed, 40% or more of births since 2008 in the U.S. have been by unmarried women, and the percentage of all babies born who are born to unmarried women has more than doubled since 1980.

My Comment: This truth is almost universality ignored by popular culture and the mainstream press. There can be big conferences and lengthy reports addressing the issue of poverty that never mention the fact that the primary factor contributing to poverty is unmarried women giving birth to children. We need to change the economic incentives that encourage single women to have children and we need policy changes that support families.  However, we need a cultural shift. Instead of single motherhood being something that is to be celebrated and single mothers being treated as noble heroes, they should be pitied and having a child out of wedlock should be condemned and be a shameful event. Public condemnation can influence behavior. Women are not having children out of wedlock because they don't know what causes pregnancy. Women are not having children out of wedlock because they don't have access to birth control. They do it primarily because it is the norm and not condemned. When something is socially condemned you will have less of it.

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Dear Katryna, I am so sorry that you are having financial difficulty and I wanted to respond

Dear Katryna,

I am so sorry that you are having financial difficulty and I wanted to respond to your letter. You say that Republican are cutting student aid. The way I understand it is that Republican are not cutting the amount of money being spend on student aid. The Republicans are proposing to cut $100-billion from the president's budget request and included in those cuts are cuts to student aid. During this recession so many people could not find jobs that many of them  have gone back to school so there has been an increase in demand for student aid and the Democrats proposed adding $5.7 billion to the Pell Grant program to cover the shortfall in the program.

Due to unexpected demand in the wake of the Great Recession, the Pell Grant program needs a funding fix to prevent grant cuts in 2011. So, the Democrats proposed the funding fix and the Republicans are proposing a reduction from the amount of that funding fix. The costs of the Pell Grant program have been growing at a rapid rate. More is going to be spend on Pell Grants and yet each Pell Grant recipient will get less under the Republican plan. Does that make sense to you?

Republicans are proposing to trim the maximum Pell Grant by 15 percent, or $845, from the current $5,550. Katryna, are you sure you are going to lose your student aid or just have a reduction? Now, some people who would have qualified for Pell grant under the Democrat spending level will not qualify under the Republican spending level but most will simply see a reduction in the amount of student aid. I don’t know if you will lose your student aid or not of course, but don’t jump to conclusions. The funding calculation is complicated and it is means tested so some people will qualify by virtue of qualifying for other programs and others will really lose their aid, but most will only see a reduction.

Did you know that President Obama is also proposing cut to the Pell Grant program? Obama's program cuts would end supplemental Pell Grants starting in summer 2012. Since 2009, students planning to attend summer school could apply for a second Pell Grant to pay for school year-round. Obama's proposal would do away with the year-round Pell Grant. MoveOn didn't explain that to you did they? The truth is that both Republicans and Democrats are proposing to spend more on Pell grants and both would reduce the amount of Pell grants anyone person could get, but the Republicans would cut more.

I think we have to cut a lot out of the federal budget, so no, I will not be asking Senator Corker to restore Pell grants to their former level. I am asking Corker to show courage and slash federal spending.

I know that losing your Pell Grant, if you do lose it, will be a hardship on you, but you see our nation is broke. Forty cents of every dollar the government spends is borrowed money. Our government is deeply indebted to the Chinese and others and we keep borrowing money to pay our expenses. We are much like a household that keeps taking out new loans to pay the payments on previous loans. 

The national debt is $14 Trillion dollars and it continues to increase at the rate of $4.11 billion per day and each citizen's share of this debt is $45,889.90. This is not sustainable. If we do not get a handle on this runaway spending, we will all lose the American dream and America will become a third world nation. I do not want to alarm you, but we can’t keep living on borrowed money for ever. Also, another problem is that the government is just creating money out of thin air. People refer to this as “printing money” although it is not really "printed money" but it is created as if it were printed and this can lead to rapid run-away inflation. So, unless the government gets a handle on spending we could see a rapid economic decline in the United States. We could see massive poverty never seen before in this nation. Painful cuts are necessary to stop spending more money than the nation can afford.

I know MoveOn wants you to feel resentment against rich people and blames our financial problems on the wealthy by saying they are not taxes enough. The wealthiest 5% of Americans pay half all taxes and the lower 50% of income earners pay no taxes. Also, job growth is created by wealthy Americans investing money. If we tax the wealthy more, we may have less job growth because we will have less investment. Higher taxes does not necessarily mean more tax collection despite what liberals will tell you. We do not have a problem in this country because we do not tax enough but because we spend too much.

Assuming you do lose your student aid, can you not qualify for student loans? If your education is a good investment, should you not be the one making the investment?

Katryna, you open your letter saying, "I never wanted a handout." Katryna, a grant is a handout. When the government gives you money and you don't have to pay it back, that is a handout. Also, Katryna you say you earned less than $4500 last year. You can't live on that. I bet you are living in subsidized public housing, getting food stamps, medicaid and you got the earned income tax credit last year. Am I right? I bet that in reality you are getting a lot of handouts. Is that not true?

Katryna, you say "I'm going to have to choose between paying rent or buying diapers." Have you thought about using cloth diapers and washing them out. People used to do that all the time. You don't have to buy diapers. You can rinse  them out in the commode and then wash them.

Katryna, I must ask you, where is your child's father? Is he paying child support? Did you have your child out of wedlock? You say you want to provide your daughter with the opportunities that your mother couldn't give you. You say nothing about your father. Your mother was a single mom, wasn't she? Did you do a really foolish thing and get pregnant without being married? I know that many do. In fact almost 70 percent of black children are born to single mothers. The disappearance of marriage in low-income communities is the major cause of child poverty in the U.S. today. Katryna, I think you should not blame your problems on Republicans but admit that your brought your problems on yourself, by your decision to have a child out of wedlock. Nevertheless, I do feel sorry for you.

Please continue to try to get out of poverty. Try to get student loans if you can't get the Pell Grant. If you do have to give up the dream of getting a nursing degree, please do not give up the dream of getting out of poverty. There is help available. Contact United Way or a good neighborhood community center to learn about job training programs and money management programs. A lot of poverty is due to poor decision making. Enroll in a life skills course and improve your life skills. Get a full time job.  Get out of the environment of public housing which creates a mindset that keeps people in poverty. And Katryna, please teach your child not to follow in your footsteps. Teach her that being a single Mom is foolish and most of the time it is a ticket to poverty.

I wish you the best.

Sincerly,
Rod

Dear fellow MoveOn member,

I never wanted a handout.

I just wanted to get my nursing degree and build the life I've dreamed of. I wanted to provide my daughter with the opportunities that my mother couldn't give me when I was growing up.

That's my dream, but I'm afraid my dream is about to die. 

Republicans are trying to cut the financial aid I rely on to pay my tuition. Last year, as a student, I couldn't find steady work and earned less than $4,500. If my financial aid is taken away from me, I won't be able to afford to get my nursing degree. 

Once again I'm going to have to choose between paying rent or buying diapers, between having heat or having enough food for my family to eat. Can you imagine the pain involved in making those choices?

Can you help save my dream? The Senate is on recess, and Senator Bob Corker is home in Tennessee. Can you call him in his district office in Nashville, and ask him to vote against any budget that makes cuts to education, health care, and Social Security, and puts corporations and millionaires above hardworking Americans like me?

Here's where to call:

Senator Bob Corker

Nashville office: 615-279-8125

Then, please report your call to MoveOn by clicking here:

http://pol.moveon.org/call?cp_id=1545&tg=FSTN_2&dofcs=1&dofcp=615-279-8125&id=26616-15255949-7pS3m_x&t=3

I recently got a part-time job at Walmart and with that money, along with my student aid, I'm now able to cover all my expenses. I even had enough money to get new glasses for the first time in six years. I've struggled to get this far, but I finally feel like I'm going to be able to make a good life for myself and my daughter.

Please, don't let the Republicans take all this away from me. You see, the cuts they want to make aren't abstract. And they aren't limited to student aid, either. They're trying to cut job training, food aid to women and children, and more. Congress doesn't seem to understand the consequences to people like me all across the country if these programs are cut.

Can you call Senator Bob Corker, and ask him to vote against any budget that makes cuts to education, health care, and Social Security, and puts corporations and millionaires above hardworking Americans like me?

Thank you.

–Katryna Wade, Arkansas

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Obama's Father's Day Speech

Barrack Obama’s Father's Day speech was a breath of fresh air. The state of the Black family is such an incredibly sensitive matter, only a Black person can raise the issue. People tiptoe around the issue when discussing urban policy or anti-poverty initiatives. There is an assumption when talking of Black crime rates, or Black poverty, or Black homeownership rates, or Black school dropout rates that the disparity simply must be due to discrimination. It is considered impolite to point out that Blacks commit more crime, and have poorer credit ratings, and voluntarily drop out of school. To point these things out is considered “blaming the victim” if not downright racist. Political correctness keeps us from talking honestly about the problem of Black poverty.

For most of my adult life I have worked with poor people, and for the last 15 years or so, I have worked as a housing counselor. As a housing counselor, part of what I do is work with low-income people seeking homeownership. I help clients clean up their credit and improve their money management skills, allowing them to become qualified to get a mortgage. I have counseled hundreds of clients. Most of them have been Black, single mothers.

Unfortunately, as I have discovered, having children out of wedlock is the norm in the Black community. More Black children are born to single mothers than to intact families. Black, single mothers do not seem to expect to be married or receive child support. I have counseled women who themselves became single mothers at age 16. While in my counseling program, I have had these same mothers come to me and tell me their own 16-year-old daughter is now pregnant.

It is my conclusion that the primary reason for Black poverty is the self-destructive behavior of Blacks; the single most destructive behavior, in my estimation, is having children out of wedlock. Young boys are less likely to get into trouble and young girls are less likely to get pregnant when there is a father in the home. Also, poverty is a function of income. A family consisting of a household of a mother earning $20,000 a year and a father earning $20,000 and with two children can get by OK; a family consisting of a single mother earning $20,000 with two children is poor.

The legacy of slavery and Jim Crow certainly contributed to the state of the Black family, but the modern culprit is the legacy of the liberal welfare state. Welfare made fathers irrelevant. When mothers could get food stamps, public housing, and Aid to Families with Dependent Children if there was no father in the home, we destroyed the Black family and enslaved Blacks to institutional poverty. In The War on Poverty, poverty won. Welfare changed Black society for the worse.

Welfare reform was certainly an important development and a step in the direction of correcting the mistakes of the past. Unfortunately, it did not go far enough. Since the initial reform there has been backsliding and retreat on this front. Welfare reform alone, however, will not change the Black culture, nor will it change it rapidly. It will take time and a willingness to face the problem. Cultural norms and the way people think do not change overnight.

To make meaningful progress in ending Black poverty, there must be a change in the values of the Black community. I don’t pretend to know how to do this, but a place to start is for Black leaders to admit there is a serious problem within the culture and values of Black society. Blaming society for all of the problems of the Black community relieves the individual of personal responsibility. Black ministers need to challenge their parishioners to end self-destructive behavior. Black men should be shamed for abandoning their children. Single motherhood should not be celebrated. An out of wedlock birth needs to be viewed as a tragedy.

If elected President, Obama may very well end up like other Democrats, advancing the welfare state and keeping Blacks enslaved in poverty and dependency. But from what I read of his Father’s Day speech, he is saying exactly what needs to be said. One speech will not make much difference, but maybe the tide is turning. With a Black leader of Obama’s stature, maybe Black society can reform itself, and Blacks can change these aspects of their culture and join the mainstream of society.

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