As I was cleaning out one of my bookbags yesterday, I came across something I’d clipped from The State newspaper a few months ago. Although I don’t know the exact date of the publication, I know that it was somewhat recent and that the information was borrowed from The Aiken Standard. If anything, the stats mentioned are even worse now…not better. Nothing will get better until people open their hearts and minds and pocketbooks and get involved with this social issue.
According to the newspaper(s), the most recent Kids Count data places SC as as “45th in the nation in the living quality for children…In South Carolina, 31.3 percent of the children live in single parent families and 47.2 percent of children are born to single mothers. It is not shocking from those figures to find that 20.8 percent statewide test not ready for the first grade.”
Will things improve? “With cuts to education budgets as well as those of health and social services, it seems unlikely that South Carolina’s children will fare better in years to come.” Distressing, isn’t it?
What will you do? What will you say? What advice do you have to the state’s parents? To its young people? In the words of Solomon Burke, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
mom's musings 