So we raise the following question what if we could get every kid to follow 3 simple. Graduate from high school. Get a job and continue work and dont have still room till youre 21 and right now weve walked out the entire country and weve classified people according to whether they broke all those rules or they followed one or 2 or all 3 of the rules the results are astounding. So i started talking to judges and lawyers and doctors and Health Providers and interviewing people and literally asked thousands of people how many of you had the course istria poverty United States of america. And we are segregated in america by social class obvious think about who the middle class people hang out with. Most middle class people dont know someone in poverty by 1st name in a fit in down to dinner together. Today millions of American Families are tossed in circumstances beyond their control. Their children will be compelled to live lives of poverty unless the cycle is broken. President johnsons war on poverty has this one goal to provide everyone a chance to grow and make his own way. I think everything in life thats important really lives in the grey like theres no black and white theres this gray how do we make it more clear of what the problem is there are so many different Life Experiences of poverty and we dont have a real clear definition of the federal government doesnt meet the definition they say if your family is more right about. To take care of your family for a year in 2000 does that mean that if youre making more youre not in red. Thats not the case i think the most difficult challenge. Your way out of your current predicament. Of course people cannot contribute to the nation if they are never taught to read or write. If their bodies are stunted from hunger. If their sickness goes on 10 didnt if theyre alive to spend and hopeless poverty just drawing a welfare check. So we were off to open the gates to opportunity. Were also going to give all our people the help that they need. To roll. Through those gates. All of our wealth you get money and you get more have less income go through at 0 income get the biggest money. And then as you earn money lose part of the benefit sometimes if you were the. One extra dollar used to hold benefit medical. Health insurance for people and people who are disabled but that number seems low it should because its based on 1000 fixed these costs of living in the sixtys economists came up with a formula for calculating as a family need and they said things like well well have a parent in the home so we dont have to include childcare people can walk to work so we dont have to include transportation and employers will pay for health care so we dont need to include that 3 major family expenses are not included in the 2017 federal poverty guideline where you have more women in the workplace than ever in the history if you look at parents and divide their income into 5 equal parts and lets just the bottom 20 percent of this would be parents with income below roughly 25000. 00 and now we come watch their kids grow up and we made sure their kids income. 3030 to 34 years of age are they doing better than the kids from that bottom 5th of income below 25000 are twice as likely as we would expect based on chance to be in the bottom its very difficult to get out of the bottom. Its a fight every day to meet your needs and the needs of your family. For having long hair on the. More must be done to reduce poverty in dependency and believe me nothing is more important than welfare reform i think. Its also a state of mind. So its. Hard. To get done have a. Noble cause you can put some make. Some close. Sometimes if we struggled with poverty in a certain way we tend to be most critical because we say well we didnt i pulled myself up by the stress i got it done i struggled i had to work 2 jobs i did it well your situation is not the same somebody else is because were individuals and our characteristics our personality our network of people our demographics of the area that we lived in are different that we cant take 2 people from different sections the person that he must be good and this person didnt do it they train an elephant backhand an elephant with a little girl when theyre young. And elephant growth of the bulls than the. Elephant. But the same little world around that elephant. But that alpha has been conditioned only goal in. As a result will lead. Anywhere say wait a minute faces of people as he has a little rope around their mouth. Will will only let him go so far. You know enough of. So far in there with your. Newly grew up. The same little rope youre talking about. It only goes towards. The 2 most important thing is where youre born and who youre born to so this one guy he said ill do your study for you he said i grew up in poverty and i said thank you so much i said tell me how did your family get by he said well my father was a physician he died when i was 12 i had to go live with grandparents i worked in their store i pulled myself up by my own bootstraps i had the right mindset and i was determined and i became a doctor like my dad and im listening to him through the eyes of somebody whos bought her 5 brothers in the back window of the car and im thinking you knew someone who owned a store and you were related to bill. But if you look at it from his context his experiences who do the children a professional singer. Typically its going to be other children of professionals and what people do is we compare ourselves to the people around us and we sometimes put an umbrella and say poverty is just poverty and thats not thats not true thats not the case its so difficult to come up with a solution to help someone we dont understand the problem ourselves how can we Work Together how can we understand each other and the answer is we have to accurately understand poverty what is poverty about. So understanding the perspectives of people who live in generational poverty or working class poverty or immigrant poverty or situational poverty theres so. Many different Life Experiences of poverty and we use one word to describe them so many people theyve they have no idea if youre born into a poor family youre born into a minority family if youre born into a family that only has a single parent that really constrains your life chances people die on average 15 years younger if youre born into generational poverty. Only 70 percent of the people born into generational poverty move out so you move a lot and you just get through the day and the life becomes about getting through the day generational poverty is the deepest part radio cycle out of any people in generational poverty are working 1. 7 jobs and the decide between paying more and. Thats the kind of poverty i come from where most of my family members cant read and write theres high mobility are absolutely a victim youre going hungry to have nutrition if you dont really really sick you know the bridge through and you just hope they give you sales. By the prescriptions working class poverty is a little different youre living paycheck to paycheck dont have a lot left over but know that checks coming so you feel like you have a little more control over your life but theyre very hard on themselves they buy into the idea that if they work or dont make it and they have the labor statistics they without an education or skill or your whole life. And then theres any poverty where you have people who are struggling with housing transportation child nutrition out of your basic human needs in addition to that you have the language barriers the cultural barriers. The discrimination racism to live to move really big obstacles to address to really develop to their potential and then you have situational poverty globally middle class environment you hear middle class words since you were in the war you know middle class and structure youre now saying you maybe have a divorce and you fall. Into poverty or maybe you get downsized in your job and you fall into poverty those are the ones that sometimes dont find their way into our numbers that didnt fill out the papers for the free and reduced lunch. So in america we like to thank that everybody who works hard and has a certain amount of talent can make it and can join the middle class thats the American Dream and past generations the American Dream seem to be working pretty well its not working as well now we always think that in america on the theory of the land of the brave equal opportunity. For. Kids. To. Go to school so. Through education you can also better yourselves in other words you learn how to learn how to think critically and find solutions to unexpected challenges education also teaches you the value of discipline. But the greatest rewards come not from instant gratification but from sustained effort and from hard work. And finally with the right education both at home and at school you can learn how to be a better human being. Look forward to talking to you all. Should work for people. Must obey the orders given by human beings except where such conflict with the 1st law. Should be very careful about official intelligence the point only. Ever. Played on theories seen with Artificial Intelligence will summon the demon. The robot must protect its own existence was only exist. If. So what weve got to do is identify the threats that we have its crazy. Let it be an arms race. Very dramatic probably the only mostly. I dont see how that strategy will be successful its very critical. To sit down and. When you look at the landscape of our Community One of the things that keeps me up at night is. Our education attainment rates 70 percent of our citizens are neighbors with no postsecondary credential todays economy is very demanding. And skills means education getting a job these days with just a High School Education is a lot harder than it used to make the chances are youre going to be in power. Especially if youre trying to support a faith. Why did 20 different focus groups i did surveys i did interviews expecting to find that students were afraid of math which they are that students need more tutoring which they do but those werent the barriers that students identified that were keeping him from being successful in the classroom what students told me overwhelmingly is the Biggest Barriers to their success in the classroom had nothing to do with the classroom transportation Childcare Health care housing food utility payments statistics show that college is a very successful way to go and its still the best decision for students or anyone who wants to get out of poverty or level up in what they want to do however i also think that the worst thing to do is go to college and drop out years ago the goal is to graduate youve got to graduate thank you just cant drop out because unlike anything else you still got to pay the bill. Now what higher ed would do is they would look at those success rates and they would go oh our students arent as well prepared theyre not smart they dont know how to study theyre not dedicated and i think what weve learned in emerald colleges those arent true at all our students are smart theyre ambitious theyre capable they want for themselves theyre burdened not just provide a future for themselves but to save their families but they have real barriers that they bring with them if were going to fulfill our mission and i are education weve got to understand those barriers and address them. If we want our students to be successful in the classroom. You know i teach people that if you dont get educated you dont get skilled you going to be poor your whole life and so will your children is an absolute exception of a person who is living you know so little say well my uncle makes a 100000 and not educated but im quoting labor statistics and census data thats an exception i didnt know what i wanted to be and so after i graduated from college i think that thats somewhat normal but i went ahead and i i went to college and i picked the major and i was glad that i had people in my life that encouraged me just to go ahead and a lot of people because theyve learned that theyve been sent messages that theyre not smart enough theyre not good enough they dont try and tell me which i. Bet your High School Diploma gets your College Degree and then keep pursuing what it is that you have a skill set for and youre passionate about one of the hardest most heartbreaking things about not having your eyes with a coma is sometimes you hit the ceiling at work or you miss an opportunity we dont want you to miss we we want people to have those are. The best food you know im not i asked them a lot of Walking Around but i graduated man education and you need to plan. One of things i think were really not talking to High School Students about is this subject that i like to call success we teach english we teach math but we dont teach success which regardless how smart you are in any of those other categories if you understand the subject of success because when you lose basic fundamentals of understanding you know how to network how to communicate will be bold but also how to be strategic realizing what the. College is not about how smart you are its about how hard youre willing to work. Who should expose. Its. It shows the average income of people who drop out of high school and people who graduate from high school but google for the kids who get a 2 year degree in kids who get a 4 year degree when they get to be adults with different. Levels for the education have exploded over the last 3 or 4 decades and if we could show the kids and make them understand and say you know if i get more education im going to make more money and that will have an impact on every other part of my life the most important thing is not the freedom to buy things its the freedom to dream and chase what you really want to do the more money you can make and now and not spending it allows you to dream at a place and give you the oxygen and during where youre not thinking short term. Thing that i think is so important to understand is how poverty steals your hope. And your confidence i was talking to 2 students at my t. Place and i loaded one up on my car brought them over here walk them through the process got him signed up we got a man rolled and then that student told me after we got him a schedule when it came time to go to class but the 1st day he said in his car in his parking lot for 3 hours that he couldnt get out of the car. Thats thats not because he won smart capable or he didnt want to do it thats because he was a brave and. Thats real but it cant be an excuse everybody in their lives everyone has fear i just challenge you dont work through your fear and dont let fear keep you from being your best self dont give out my yourself when you are educated and when you know the things that you know anything. Argue and work. You need to create the story for yourself you need to surround yourself with other people who are going off the ability and do not allow negative people or negativity to talk you out of your. What are you passion about what you have skills that are and in the meantime pursuing your education you have to understand you have so much purpose between 1024 that the decisions you make not only going to pack you are going to pack your kids and your grandkids you dont even know whos going to benefit from the little decisions you make today you may not see you but your grandkids will definitely see. And. I am. I am. I am. I watched. That was going to be a singer. And and im telling you. From the moment she decided she was going to be a singer. Because of that really a little girl at that point and every time i saw her do is not what i think about. You know this work ethic that she had was this weekend amazing i mean you know as a kid authorise thing and all the things and then when we started this church in downtown houston our family joe and brought the kids to an assistant and she joined a choir. And every now and then c. B. S. Solo and she would put more into that fellow than the whole choir would into the whole 12 and now she is on the largest platform in the world and they would be a thing. All because of a work ethic i mean young woman who made a decision what she was going to do and be in life. And allowed no one to get away will everyone be a. No. Thats why you got to have a plan a a plan b. And a plan c. We have a hard workers in this Community Whether theyre students in Amarillo College or employees in the community we have a really hard work ethic the issue is theyre underemployed so theyre working really hard and not making a living wage doing she already is i work in a crisis is 1. 00 jobs and still i cant put food and pay rent i have to make a choice so we say youve got to work harder in order to to make it thats not true not when youre experiencing poverty because people in poverty are working. I started looking at whos the number one teacher of poverty in the United States of america and the answer that i found was the media. So whats the average person going to know about poverty and the people who live in it its probably going to be things like whether getting rich off welfare with a kid in high school is think of its not that big a deal as long as i have kids ill be fine ill be getting well for all the good cash well for will be covered by medicaid i can get housing and so. It doesnt happen that way in 1906 my welfare check before going and 8. 00 for me jennifer was 6 daniels to my 15 year old homeless cuz i was living with me and they said we wont help her because shes not yours well give you 400. 00 my rent in a neighborhood. In Portland Oregon was 395. But then do the math a welfare check today her family of 3 National Average or 78 thats 1962000 17 the average rent according to had a modest apartment 750. The average disability check is 0. 75 its almost impossible to get out of poverty based just on public. Our labor statistics if you take a minimum wage job and you work 10 years and you dont have Education Beyond High School you dont have a skill like an electrician or plumber the average increase after working hard for 10 years in a persons income is 2. 00 an hour didnt matter how hard you were big about it who works harder the person cleaning the hotel room or the person in their office you dont move up without a skill or an education so if you want to buy your mama house going to make sure your kids dont go hungry cant get a skill got a good education now if you want to on say start a