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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.
(Score: 2) by dry on Thursday August 18 2016, @03:12AM
It keeps the off the streets and if they graduate, they can be talked into going into higher education, which will keep them off the street for that much longer. Bonus for the elite, they can also be talked into going into debt for life.
This was the primary reason for universal education. Once automation reduced the labour market enough that the elite allowed child labour laws to be passed, there were all these unemployed youngsters standing around on street corners getting into trouble, so they were put into school. As the labour market shrinks, they're kept in school longer. Eventually they'll be in school till 40+ yrs old, be in debt labour until they're too sick to work, and then be allowed (or encouraged) to die.