You told us what you wanted to ask Hillary Clinton, and we got the answers. Find out what she had to say about everything from the political to the personal. Read on and get to know Senator Clinton:
I work at two vastly different elementary schools; the first school has middle and upper class families and the second one has a 95% free and reduced lunch count. I see kids at my "poor" school battling so many more elements: incarcerated parents, gangs, drugs, lack of dental and health coverage and lack of food and parental education. Yet these poor souls are still expected to show up to school and perform the same as their peers who got a good night's sleep, breakfast and have a stable family life. What do you think we as a country can do to help our children living at the poverty level?
SENATOR CLINTON: We need a smart, bold, daring, comprehensive approach to child poverty—one that is based on the fundamental premise that all our children are all of our responsibility. Because after all these years, I still believe it takes a village to raise a child.
I believe we have to start with good prenatal care and for at risk families, with early interventions, to help children get on the right path. We know what works; I've been working on this issue for 35 years. Let's use proven programs like home visitation programs, where we send in qualified nurses and social workers and others to go in and help young mothers and fathers understand what they need to do for their children. Let's expand and build a program I helped to start during the 90's—the Early Head Start program. And let's provide universal pre-kindergarten for every low-income four year old—access to quality, affordable early learning when it really can make a difference in the lives of children.
But let's not stop there. I want to provide early mentoring opportunities and create a new public/private internship initiative to give at-risk middle- and high-school students job skills and work experience during the summer. And I have a plan to offer 1.5 million disconnected youth a second chance with meaningful job training in growing industries in their own communities, including renewable energy, health care, construction and financial services.
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