ABSTRACT
By way of illustration, the poverty program is probably the one vehicle that is most responsible for the effort to decentralize the school system. Most of New York City's poverty funds are currently being spent for the various programs' central administrative staffs. By way of illustration, Williamsburg has an annual allocation of $1,300,000 of which $700,000 is spent on central administrative costs, primarily personnel. Even if Jews had meaningful representation on the local boards, they would not deal realistically with Jewish poverty. One has to clearly understand that the politics of poverty have nothing to do with the substantive problems of poverty. The figures on Jewish poverty that have been quoted recently are exaggerated. The kind of poverty defined by government is not prevalent in Crown Heights, and not even in Williamsburg. The most important aspect of dealing with Jewish poverty is in the area of training, since even those Jews who are employed tend to be underemployed.
