John Edwards for President-Building One America By Creating Opportunity

Building One America By Creating Opportunity

"Education should be the sturdiest ladder of opportunity in this country. But more than fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, we still have two school systems in this country, where the quality of our children's education depends on their parents' zip code. We cannot go on this way if we hope to build One America."
– John Edwards

Today is the second day of John Edwards' three-day Road to One America tour. He will visit Cleveland, Youngstown and Pittsburgh as part of his effort to put a spotlight on places and people struggling with poverty and highlight solutions that will restore economic fairness. America's so-called "Rust Belt" has been hit hard by the loss of manufacturing jobs in recent decades, and many of its urban neighborhoods are now experiencing concentrated poverty.

Today, Edwards announced a new plan to promote economically diverse schools. These schools have been shown to raise the achievement of low-income students without impacting their peers. One national model exists in Wake County, North Carolina, where two of Edwards' children attended school. Today's initiative is the latest in his agenda to expand opportunity, which will also strengthen schools and recruit excellent teachers, make college affordable, encourage savings, stop abusive lending, and support affordable housing near good jobs and good schools.

Today's Stops On The Road To One America

Cleveland, Ohio has suffered a wave of home foreclosures in recent months as a result of a combination of job losses, predatory lenders and falling home prices. Predatory lenders and mortgage brokers have targeted the Mount Pleasant neighborhood, like many other working-class and predominantly African-American neighborhoods across the country. While subprime loans can be valuable to families without other credit opportunities, African-American and Latino borrowers are three times more likely to receive subprime loans than white borrowers with similar credit scores. Mount Pleasant resident Mariah Crenshaw is fighting to keep her family home of 30 years after a coercive and deceptive mortgage process. In Cleveland—a city with more than 13,000 foreclosures a year—ACORN is helping citizens like Crenshaw and organizing residents of economically distressed neighborhoods like Mount Pleasant. [Schiller, 2007; NCRC, 2007; ACORN, 2007]

Youngstown, Ohio was once home to a thriving steel industry, but the decline of Youngstown Sheet and Tube in the late 1970s was the start of economic challenges. In the past few years, startup technology companies have revived the local economy. The Youngstown Business Incubator has helped local companies receive 19 new patents and create over 160 full-time, technology based jobs. The need for affordable housing is a pressing issue in Youngstown. Nationally, landlords remove 2,000 apartments a month from the list of publicly supported affordable apartments. Seventeen million families pay more than half their incomes in rent and over 800,000 are homeless. In Youngstown, Edwards will visit the Beatitude House for homeless women and children. Last year, Beatitude House helped over 400 people last year gain education, employment, and housing. [YBI; Fannie Mae, 2002; JCHS, 2007; HHS, 2007; Beatitude House, 2007]

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania's economy also rose and fell with the steel industry, and it is now rebounding unevenly. The neighborhoods of the Hill District have suffered. By 1990, most residents lived in public housing, and 41 percent are now in poverty. The Hill House Association offers early learning, tutoring, summer camps, and senior services. Edwards visited Hill House to discuss his plan to create economically integrated schools for the benefit of all students. [Houser, 2003; U.S. Census, 2005]

John Edwards' Plan To Promote Economically Diverse Schools

Our nation has two school systems, segregated by race and economic status. The recent Supreme Court decision limiting school districts' efforts to integrate their schools will exacerbate the problem. While not a substitute either for racial integration, which may still be permissible under some circumstances, or for improvement of high-poverty schools, efforts to achieve income diversity can put poor students in schools where they are more likely to have experienced teachers, classmates with high aspirations and parents who are more involved. These students perform better without hurting the achievement of middle-class students. In fact, a school's socioeconomic makeup is the second most important predictor of academic achievement, after only a children's own socioeconomic status. By fourth grade, low-income students attending affluent schools are two years ahead in math of their peers in high-poverty schools, with no adverse impact on other students. [Kahlenberg, 2007]

A national model exists in Wake County, North Carolina, where Edwards' eldest two children attended public school. Wake County attempts to limit low-income students to 40 percent of the student body and students performing below grade level to 25 percent. With its economic diversity program, low-income students in Wake County's public schools are outperforming their peers in comparable North Carolina school districts on statewide exams and the county's schools have the second highest on-time graduation rate among the nation's largest 50 districts nationally. Wake County's policies have also sustained racial diversity in its schools. Experience has shown that success of these kinds depends on an aggressive district-wide effort. [Harris, 2006; Kahlenberg, 2007; Flinspach and Banks, 2005; NY Times, 7/15/05]

Income diversity programs should draw students into both low-income and middle-class communities. Edwards will release his full K-12 education agenda in the coming weeks. As one element of that agenda, in order to promote economic diversity within school districts and across district lines, Edwards will provide new federal resources to:

Give Bonuses to Middle-Class Schools Enrolling Low-Income Students: Edwards will provide $100 million for school districts implementing economic integration programs, helping finance transportation and additional resources for schools enrolling low-income children. Similar programs have successfully attracted suburban participation in places like St. Louis. [Century Foundation, 2002]
Create Magnet Schools Dedicated to Economic Integration: To attract more students to low-income areas, Edwards will double current federal magnet schools funding to $200 million a year and dedicate the increase to schools that draw students from across district lines and pledge to maintain economically diverse schools. The right magnet schools can attract middle-class suburban students to high-poverty urban neighborhoods, as does a Montessori school in Harford, if the school at the end of the bus ride is excellent. Nationally, an estimated 150,000 students are on waiting lists for magnet schools. [Kahlenberg, 2003; Colvin, 2004]
Create a Million New Housing Vouchers: Our current housing policies concentrate low-income families together, isolating children from economically diverse schools. Edwards will create a million vouchers over five years to help low-income families move to better neighborhoods. At the same time, he will phase out housing projects that tie families to certain locations and are often lower quality and more expensive than private sector alternatives.

Building On Edwards' Opportunity Agenda

On the Road to One America, John Edwards outlined his agenda to end poverty and create One America where everyone has the opportunity to live up to their potential, no matter where they come from or the color of their skin. Today's new policy announcement complements Edwards' existing policies to create opportunity for American families:

Defend Homeowners against Predatory Mortgages and Foreclosure: Edwards will pass a strong national law to prohibit the worst abuses in the mortgage market. The law will strengthen underwriting standards to ensure that borrowers receive affordable loans suited to their means and reach non-bank lenders and mortgage brokers. To help the estimated 2.2 million families already facing foreclosure, Edwards will create a Home Rescue Fund to help families get into more affordable mortgages and let families shed excess mortgage debt that exceeds their home's value through bankruptcy. [Center for Responsible Lending, 2007; New America Foundation, 2007]
Protect Families from Abusive Financial Products: Families need someone on their side to help them get a fair deal from lenders and investment companies. Edwards will create a new Family Savings and Credit Commission to protect consumers. It will review all financial services products marketed to consumers and oversee all types of financial institutions, whether chartered under federal or state law. [Warren, 2007]
Limiting Irresponsible Credit Card Practices: Edwards will restore balance in the credit card market through a Borrower's Security Act that creates a late payment grace period, limits penalty interest rates to new purchases, and ends the practice of universal default. [Demos, 2003; GAO, 2006]
Banning the Most Abusive Payday Loans: After the Pentagon concluded that exploitive payday loans undermined military readiness, Congress capped interest rates on payday and other loans to military families at 36 percent, a cutoff that many states use to prevent loan sharking. Edwards will extend this cap to all payday loans, which now average over 300 percent APR. He will also encourage states, local non-profits and responsible lenders to offer low- or no-interest emergency loans. [Center for Responsible Lending, 2006]
Create New Work Bonds: Edwards proposed a new tax credit to help low-income, working Americans save for the future. The credit would match wages up to $500 per year.
Revitalize Devastated Neighborhoods: Edwards believes that it is better to invest in struggling neighborhoods than abandon them. He will reform and expand the HOPE VI program to replace dilapidated housing in areas of concentrated poverty, while ensuring that the neighborhood's current residents benefit from the improvements.

Supporting our Schools:

Strengthen Public Schools and Invest in Teachers: Edwards proposed expanding access to preschool programs, investing more in teacher pay and training to attract good teachers where we need them most, and strengthening high schools with a more challenging curriculum.
Create Second-Chance Schools for High School Dropouts: As many as one-third of all students drop out of school, and the rates are even worse for poor and minority students. Large majorities of recent dropouts regret their decision. Edwards will create second-chance schools to help former dropouts get back on track. [Civic Enterprises, 2006; Manhattan Institute, 2006]
Expand College Opportunity: Edwards will enact a College for Everyone program to pay public-college tuition, books and fees for students who agree to work part-time during their first year at school. Additional student aid can make the greatest difference in the first year of college. [Dynarski, 1999]