Poverty In America

Need for More Federal Help

(An editorial to be published in The New York Times)

Webquest for TIPS

Prakash B. Shrestha

Walton High School

Introduction

A study carried out by America’s Second Harvest in 2001 showed that 23.3 million people received emergency hunger relief from its charitable network. This figure is nearly two million more than the one in 1997. The study further revealed that hunger prevailed not only among the homeless and chronically unemployed people, it was widespread among even those who possess a home and are working. Nearly 40% of those who received assistance from the organization were working. Consider the annual income of a full time minimum wage earner in Washington State. The job pays only $13,978 a year. With the Earned Income Tax Credit, the monthly income would be only $1377. Is it enough to a family of three? The family would need $394 for food (based on USDA Low Cost Food Plan), $ 724 to pay for the rent (Central Puget Sound Real Estate Research Report 2000), $203 to pay for heat and electricity (Consumer Expenditure Survey), $600 for after school child care (Children’s Defense Fund), $75 for transportation and $25 for telephone. The total per monthly expenditure would be $ 2021.00. The only option available to such families is to seek help from charitable organizations.

Harvest receives several stories about such families. As one of such stories goes one

late Friday afternoon a young couple received a call from a family. The family of three including the newly born baby was forced to live on only one paycheck after the mom had to quit her job due to some complications Nothing left for food after paying all their bills, the family was compelled to make the call to the young couple. The young couple immediately rushed to the family at Northgate with an emergency supply of food.

Such stories only force those of us living in the wealthiest nation on Earth to ask ourselves- How and why we do justify one hungry family?

Such questions bear special relevance when President George W. Bush is preparing a budget for 2002-2003. He is in a very difficult situation since all the federal departments and states are asking for more money. Within a few months he has got to decide who will get how much money.

You will be a newspaper columnist. Your job is to write an editorial advising President Bush on the best public policy that will address the problem of poverty.

Your Task

Your task is to assume the role of The New York Times editor and write a one to two page typed editorial. Before you start writing the editorial, you will make an oral presentation of 5 minutes to your class. You will prepare the editorial by following the six steps of Public Policy Analyst (PPA): a) Define the problem, b) Gather the evidence, c) Identify causes, d) Evaluate the policy, e) Develop solutions, and f) Select the best solution.

The Process

A) You will be writing the editorial in pair. Before you start writing, you must have done the following:

a) found answers to the six PPA introductory questions:

1. What is the problem?

2. Where is the evidence?

3. What are the causes?

4. What is the existing policy?

5. What policies can you create to correct the problem?

6. What is the best policy to correct the problem?

b) worked on the following PPA worksheets:

1. Worksheet1i. html

2. Worksheet2i.html

3. Worksheet3i.html

4. Wroksheet4i.html

5. Worksheet5i.html

6. Worksheet6i.html

B) You will write at least three drafts during which you write and rewrite (revise) your editorial at least twice before your final draft.

Resources

You will use the following resources to do your task:

a) www.maxwell.syr.edu/plegal/ppae/ppae5a.html

b) www.maxwell.syr.edu/plegal/ppa/worsheet1i.html

c) www.maxwell.syr.edu/plegal/ppa/worksheet2i.html

d) www.maxwell.syr.edu/plegal/ppa/worksheet3i.html

e) www.maxwell.syr.edu/plegal/ppa/worksheet4i.html

f) www.maxwell.syr.edu/plegal/ppa/worksheet5i.html

g) www.maxwell.syr.edu/plegal/ppa/worksheet6i.html

h) www.secondharvest.org

i) www.northwestharvest.org/minwage.htm

Evaluation

You will be evaluated on the basis of your writing. Your article must demonstrate the following:

1. You have done the required research, are familiar with the topic and the background

information.

2. You are creative enough in your editorial. Your description of the situation is very clear and the arguments and the suggestion you make are logical and convincing.

3. Your editorial is complete.

4. Your language is correct and appropriate.

5. Your article will be evaluated using a scale of 1 to 5, which will range from very poor (1) to excellent (5) .

	POOR	FAIR	GOOD	VERY GOOD	EXCELLENT
Research Do your PPA worksheets reflect a well-thought-out analysis of the problem and development of policy?	1	2	3	4	5
Analysis Process	1	2	3	4	5
Quality of Writing and Oral Presentation: Do the writing and oral presentation exhibit sound understanding, interpretation and analysis of the task? Are the ideas elaborated using specific and relevant evidence? Do the writing and the presentation exhibit direction, shape, and coherence? Does the writing reveal an awareness of audience and purpose through effective use of words, sentence structure and sentence variety? Does the writing exhibit conventional spelling, punctuation, paragraphing, capitalization, grammar and usage?	1	2	3	4	5
Public Policy Have you formulated effective, feasible public policy in response to the problem?	1	2	3	4	5
Class Presentation Have you conducted yourselves professionally during class time while doing your research and while presenting your findings to the class?	1	2	3	4	5

20 – 25 points = 5

15 – 19 points = 4

10 – 14 points = 3

5 – 9 points = 2

1 – 4 points = 1

Conclusion

After completing the task you will have a clear understanding of the extent of poverty in the country. You will also have gained a valuable experience in writing a persuasive essay. In addition, you will be able to extend your present study to the study of poverty in the world by using different websites and provide your feedback to improve the PPA model if needed.

Credit and References

Thanks to Bernie Dodge for his Webquest Page, Jim Carroll for instructions and resources for designing this webquest, and Fred Fisher for going over this webquest. This webquest follows the New York City English Language Arts Standards in addition to the PPA webquest in designing the evaluation of its product:

E1c Reads and comprehends information materials.

E2a Produce a report of information.

E3b Participate in group meetings.

E6a Critique public documents with an eye to strategies common in public discourse.

E6b Produce public documents.

E7a Critique functional documents with an eye to strategies common to effective functional documents.

E7b Produce functional documents appropriate to audience and purpose.