Miner Queries: Voting - Can we connect the dots?
Last Wednesday, after a long weekend in Des Moines at the Iowa Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, I resumed my usual early morning habit of reading news online. I had missed many of the weekend’s events, including an altercation between police and teens at a Texas pool party.
In catching up, I came across an editorial in “The Guardian” by Minnesota Representative Keith Ellison headlined, “The link between police tactics and economic conditions cannot be ignored.”
In it, Rep. Ellison clearly links economic privation in communities of color with conditions leading to incidents of police misconduct or brutality. He writes: “But leaders in Congress and state houses around the country are ignoring the needs of people in low income communities because they’re cut out of our political process.
“The United States has one of the largest voting gaps by income in the developed world. Around 48 percent of Americans make under $50,000 a year, but only 36 percent of them voted in 2012. Meanwhile, 80
percent of people making $150,000 or more voted in that same election.”
But economic privation is not just an urban problem. Rural America suffers similar conditions. So on Monday evening, a group of Iowa United Methodists presented information about poverty and literacy among children here in Iowa.
Did you know:
• According to the Des Moines Register, 8,947 Iowa 4th graders (or 1 in 4) were not proficient in reading on 2012 state tests?
• Iowa ranks last in a 2012 Harvard study when it comes to improving reading scores over the past 19 years?
• 61 percent of children in poverty don’t have books at home?
• According to the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy, 55 percent of Iowa’s low-income children have parents without a high school diploma?
I’d add, again, that since 1992 when Governor Branstad replaced the annual school funding calculation with a political decision in the legislature, Iowa’s schools have been chronically underfunded, making it hard for them to address this issue.
Yet reading proficiency underpins economic success.
So the Iowa Methodist Church approved an initiative designed to help poor children in Iowa by providing them with books. Additionally, we’re hoping we can connect people with these children to read to them or listen to them read.
But it’s not just important to address the problem with books and reading mentors. As another United Methodist Church member noted during discussion at the conference, Iowa’s citizens must use our voices to get legislators’ attention. If children and schools are important to Iowans, we must tell them – over and over again.
But as Ellison concludes in his editorial, there is hope. He writes: “A recent 30-year study of all 50 states found that, when people vote, politicians listen. States with above-average turnout had higher minimum wages, lower income inequality, better health care and stronger consumer protections.”
Time for us to connect the dots. Time to speak up. Time to vote.
Cherie Miner is a local parent, community volunteer, freelance writer and artist. In a former life, she was a corporate writer and public relations professional. Contact her at news@redoakexpress.com or on Facebook.