Tax Credit for Children Leaves Neediest Behind

Jason DeParle, “Tax Credit for Children Leaves Neediest Behind,” New York Times, December 17, 2019 p. A1-

     Money helps children in part because of what it can buy— more goods (cheesy chicken spaghetti) and services (gymnastics classes or tutors).  Ms. Bradford, the teachers’s aide, is so eager to invest in her sons that she has used tax refunds to send them on Boy Scout trips to 42 states— even when a flood left them living in her car “I’m trying to instill in them that it’s education that gives you knowledge and power, not cars or clothes,” she said. Before traveling to Washington and visiting the Vietnam Memorial the boys — Tony 17, and Micah 13— wrote a report on a Monroe man killed in the war, which the public library added to its collection.  Finding the soldier’s name on the wall, Micah said, “felt like touching history.”

COMMENT

     The article is about people who are too poor to get the full amount of a child tax credit.  In this example, the extra money helps buy educational experiences that aren’t available at public school.  The library is part of an education plan that includes schools, extra-curricular clubs, field trips and independent research. 

     The student work was added to the local history collection.  This kind of hyperlocal collecting is important for community identity.  What’s more, the library collection is a way to validate the importance of student research.  Academic libraries typically require graduate students to deposit dissertations and theses, but many also allow professors to submit selected undergraduate work for the collection.  In public libraries, display space is available for K-12 students to show off artwork and projects to the larger community. Since people without kids seldom have reason to go into a school building, the library becomes a link between students and community