I've got one question for Sarah Palin: Do your kids ever go to school?
That Bristol Palin has essentially been glued to her mother's side since the news broke that she's got Levi Johnston's bun in the oven has made me wonder if the Republicans have dropped all pretense of subtlety and are outright telling us they really don't think a girl needs an education once she's fulfilled her duty of making babies. Then Johnston announces he's opted out of school too and gotten a job in the Alaskan oil fields.
Why? The baby won't be here until December, yet no one thinks these teenagers should be spending the precious days left before the birth in a school building? Sarah Palin expects us to put her a heartbeat away from commander in chief because she's in charge of the Alaska National Guard, but has she forgotten she's also head of that state's education system? Not exactly a shining reference for becoming second-in-command to the guy overseeing the nation's department of education.
One quarter to one third of female dropouts in this country say pregnancy played a role in their decision to leave school before graduation. But a study by the Gates Foundation found the girls who dropped out of high school due to motherhood were more likely to say they would have stayed and done well if they'd had a little support. They were more likely to have been on track to graduate, many with higher marks than their peers.
So what happens to them? The National Women's Law Center report,
When Girls Don't Graduate We All Fail, says dropouts have lower paying jobs, higher health risks and lower access to quality healthcare. Then - surprise, surprise - their kids turn around and drop out of school. Another shocker? Many end up living off the state. The NWLC report surmises that every student who graduates from high school saves the state as much as an average of $40,500 in total publich health and $3,000 in welfare expenditures over his or her lifetime.
Yet Levi Johnston has decided to forego his senior year of high school, and the woman who told us she's from a family of school teachers during the debate is OK with this? She's OK with her pregnant 17-year-old daughter spending days flitting around the country instead of sitting inside an Alaskan school building? No, there's been no official announcement that Bristol is droping out of school, but there's little evidence that she's actually attending. Considering the chunk of time she spent playing hooky last year that helped fuel (untrue) rumors that her baby brother was really her child, there's no sign her mother really cares.
Let me explain something to you Governor Palin, your job as a mom is to prepare your kids for their future. Want what's best for them and your grandchild? Tell your daughter to get her hind end back to Alaska and go to school. And call the Johnston family and tell them to do the same. Unless you want the people of Alaska to be stuck supporting them too.
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