Will Ty'Sheoma Get a New School?

Published March 07, 2009 @ 10:38AM PT

In this week's People magazine, there's a profile of Ty'Sheoma Bethea, the 14 year old girl from South Carolina who attended Obama's Congressional address as the First Lady's guest after writing to Congress seeking financial support for her partially condemned school. The stimulus package includes over $40B for school modernization and new bond financing for school rehab, but Bethea's Governor Mark Sanford has spent the last three weeks posturing over how much stimulus funding to accept. Law enforcement and transportation dollars have been allocated to the state; what about funds for education?

The People piece, which I can't find on-line, tells us that Bethea lives in a 2BR trailer with her mom, a welder, and 3 siblings - with whom she shares one of the bedrooms. She's a star student with aspirations to be the first woman President - I love it! Rep. Clyburn describes her district of South Carolina as part of the state's "corridor of shame," a region long plagued by poverty and double-digit unemployment. I hope we can all agree that Bethea is doing her damndest to work her way out of there. Can we count on her government to make good on their promise of much needed infrastructure investment to make the hard road in front of her that much smoother?

It's likely rare you'll see me sourcing People for profiles of poverty in the U.S. My strength is not in the human interest angle. But I was struck by the story, because after the hype of her trip to DC, the quotes that appear from the Obama Administration are from Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who says, "I am going to work very, very hard to help." I hope he can be as persistent and effective as this young woman and her school principal, who repeatedly called the White House press office to bring attention to the mailed letter. If this were the Bush Administration, the best we could hope for was a one-off, corporate, privatized, charitable Extreme Makeover response. As it is, the most tangible resources Bethea has received is a $500 scholarship and month of free meals from McDonald's. Oy.

(Photo caption: "An unsafe auditorium serves as storage now at J.V. Martin Junior High School in Dillon, S.C." Photo by Milbert O. Brown, Chicago Tribune, February 12, 2009)

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Author

Leigh is a PhD candidate in urban planning at MIT, and a consultant on U.S. Gulf Coast recovery. She sits on the Board of the Allston-Brighton Community Development Corporation in Boston, and has worked with non-profits, foundations and local governments on policies and programs aimed at reducing urban poverty and inequality.