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Homeless Student Is Intel Talent Search Semifinalist
An anonymous reader writes "Samantha Garvey, a senior at Brentwood High School, has managed to become one of the remaining 300 semifinalists in the Intel Science Talent Search this year. Her research focused on mussels and on her discovery that they change the thickness of their shells if a predator such as crabs are introduced. Why is Garvey's achievement so impressive? Because she and her entire family are homeless, and rely on a local homeless shelter. Such a situation would stop many students from being able to focus on studying, let alone a research project, but Garvey has instead used her situation as motivation."
Canadian speaking here.. An entire homeless family is not something that should be considered "normal" or a consequence of some unfortunate chain of event that we just have to accept. Our society and economy, laws and culture are not that different from the US on most issues, but when I hear about homeless children and families in USA, that's where I truly grasp how vastly different our countries are.
Really?
The homeless rate amoungst school kids is about 2.2%:
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2011/1213/Homeless-children-at-record-high-in-US.-Can-the-trend-be-reversed
There were 300 semifinalists. This means that all other things considered equal, there should be 7 homeless semifinalists.
Of course, given the situations that homeless kids are in, I wouldn't at all expect that other things should be considered equal, and that it would be extremely surprising to find the same distribution for such achievers between homeless and non-homeless kids.
With that said, though, one semifinalist is not at all surprising.
Especially with what's being done to the middle and working classes in this nation.
Check your premises.
Fortunately nobody cares about men on the street. Maybe that's why over 3/4 of homeless are men.
Actually, figures demonstrate that income isn't keeping up with productivity for the vast majority of the population, but for the super rich, income is skyrocketing. That means that MOST people aren't getting out what they're putting in. That isn't some lame excuse like 'the way it is', 'reality', 'probability', or 'evil polka-dotted leprechauns', it is a systematic inequity in our society that needs to be addressed. Many people strive, don't suck, and things don't work out anyway.
Though none are perfect, the vast majority of 1st world countries make a better effort than the U.S. to address this.
Nobody has worked out how to stop bad things from happening but most civilized countries have figured out how to reduce the impact of those things or at least maximize the odds of recovering from them.