Be for Real ?

Gail Collins spends a serious moment worrying about Texas schoolchildren:

Nobody wants to see underperforming, overcrowded schools being deprived of more resources anywhere. But when it happens in Texas, it’s a national crisis. The birth rate there is the highest in the country, and if it continues that way, Texas will be educating about a tenth of the future population. It ranks third in teen pregnancies — always the children most likely to be in need of extra help. And it is No. 1 in repeat teen pregnancies.

Nowhere in the entire piece though, does she address the citizen/non-citizen dilemma, and the incentive of "anchor babies" to gain a legal foothold for young women and their extended families who would otherwise be considered non-citizens here.* If these new American citizens are being born in a border state like Texas, and not by accident, how can Collins simply avoid the issue, without acknowledging that means less for the already existing Texas schoolchildren?

Again -- typical lib -- the underlying problem is not addressed, but the solution is to pour more money on an already poorly incentivized problem. And to have the country as a whole share in the Texans' dilemma.

But just as when the economy stalled, and there were less jobs for undocumented non-citizens, we saw less people risk their lives to live here with no Constitutional protections at the mercy of cheating employers -- perhaps decreasing the flow of the financial spigots will prove beneficial to the problem Collins hints at, but doesn't really address.

To give her the benefit of the doubt, maybe that's next week's column though.



* It's insulting to think that young teens, particularly those undergoing a repeat pregnancy, are absolutely ignorant of how babies are made. Sad, perhaps impossible for Collins to comprehend from her upper-middle-class mindset, but I'm guessing many of these pregnancies are by CHOICE. The child was indeed planned. It's not that they don't know where babies come from ... it's that, for whatever reason, they believe their quality of life with child is better than the alternative.

Once the white professional feminist women like Collins can understand that -- it's a cultural thing, not an ignorance thing -- they'll see why flooding the region with condoms and "where babies come from" info packets might not be the panacea they promise. The problem is waaay bigger than sexual ignorance, I suspect.

As the country diversifies, and surely one of these days the NYT columnist roster will eventually follow?, we might recognize the true facts on the ground, and respond with more effective and efficient incentives, instead of assuming all these children are unwanted "accidents", and not the most recognizable products of our cultural times.

(Wasn't Ross Perot warning us of the unintended consequences of NAFTA years and years ago? Sadly, I suspect the Collins' of the world were laughing it up back then too.)


ADDED:

Tortolero, who lectures around the country on effective ways to prevent teenage pregnancy, once testified before a committee in the Texas House that was considering a bill to require that sex education classes only provide information that was medically accurate.

The bill was controversial. I’ll let you ponder that for a minute.

What the heck is wrong with teaching sexual values along with "how your parts work, and what goes where?" Think of the young women???

No way would any gun safety class merely teach parts and procedures, without drilling -- repeatedly -- the situational ethics of the powerful tool being held in one's hands. Sexuality too is a powerful tool. As soon as the libs admit it's not just fun and games and leisure-time entertainment, and that sexual values must be taught and are not instinctual, then come and talk to me about how otherwise preaching abstinence is not the most honest way for these young women to better themselves and keep themselves internally safe.

Otherwise, it's just cheap talk from libs like Collins really, and such valueless teaching perhaps sexualizes these young girls more than they already are in this shared culture. Just Say No.