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posted by janrinok on Wednesday August 17 2016, @08:45PM   Printer-friendly
from the study-with-suds dept.

Whirlpool (the appliance manufacturer) donated washers and driers to schools and increased attendance.

According to Whirlpool's research, one in five school children report difficulty finding clean clothes to wear to school. It turns out that offering free in-school laundry services to kids with attendance problems increases their attendance.

When compared to factors like economic opportunity, unemployment, and institutional racism, laundry seems pretty inconsequential in the fight to keep kids in school. But while that might be the case for their parents, for a ten-year-old who already has the odds stacked against them, having nothing clean to wear to school could be the deciding factor in whether or not they want to face their classmates that day.

I can remember my grandmother telling me that she thought lunches in schools were a wonderful innovation, because they didn't have anything like that when she was a girl, and many children couldn't come because they wouldn't have lunch. I'm sure back then nobody thought of lunch as something school should provide. Now apparently laundry is the next big innovation.


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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 18 2016, @01:46AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 18 2016, @01:46AM (#389438)

    Narcissius Delusionius Libertarianius

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Hyperturtle on Thursday August 18 2016, @02:06PM

    by Hyperturtle (2824) on Thursday August 18 2016, @02:06PM (#389593)

    What I find striking is because none of the proposed ideas are perfect, the only acceptable perfect answer is to prevent the enemy, which is good in general, because it isn't the friend that is completely perfect. I do not really understand that argument. Compromise is what this is about. If you dont feed the kids, they won't be learning as well or paying as much attention, and your tax dollars later will end up trying to fix some problem that was mostly preventable if a compromise was reached before. A ounce of lunch provided now is a pound of paying taxpayers later.

    Based on the responses, it doesn't sound like the perfect solution of doing nothing has many friends.

    I didn't read the book, but I am going to guess Atlas Shrugged because he was indifferent to such burdens since he was carrying his own.

    Similarly, we might next learn that my kids are not hungry because I haven't had any, so the solutions proposed are just as unacceptable because they are not perfect for my needs, which are presently none due to the lacking of said children to feed. Providing resources is unacceptable because The Man is stealing from my mouth no matter how you present the results.

    I pay property taxes for schools I don't attend and don't send anyone to--but I see it as a benefit. A libertarian can view this two ways -- that this is a terrible expense that rips off able bodied tax payers to bulge the coffers of the local governments, or... that I can hope those kids that grow up in a relatively stable environment and good schools become adults that may be some of the young people that take care of me when I am old! Getting them angry and jaded now probably won't help me when I am in the old folks home... they might grow up into people that don't care about anyone else.

    Of course I'd much rather that their parents foot more of the bill, but my demands for cheap stuff and inexpensive services makes it hard for their employers to pay much more and still be competitive and stuff. The invisible hand sometimes has an invisible middle finger that is more widely felt than one would expect.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 18 2016, @04:34PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 18 2016, @04:34PM (#389638)

      Ideology over rationality. Its the hallmark of fundamentalism.