Quote:
Originally Posted by Tymberwulf
You can not blame all of these problems on NCLB and/or bad teachers. There is also cultural issues at hand here most folks do not pay attention to. These kids that drop out have many different reasons for doing it, ranging from boredom, fear of the environment, to needing to work to support their family. There is also peer pressure that makes it uncool (no idea what current slang is for that today) for students, particularly minority students, to have high achievement in the classroom.
We need to focus on the whole problem, not just throw money at it and hope to bury it out of sight.
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I agree fully, but here's one of the places where I diverge from more liberal ideas on education.
We need to be ALLOWED to talk about and address this stuff. Hey, let's face facts, minorities are our worst performing demographic. But why? It isn't because the schools or teachers discriminate against, or don't want to teach minorities. It's because these particular minority students in question belong to another demographic.... POOR PEOPLE!!!
Hey, one thing schools cannot do is give money to these families. Problem is that
if these kids cannot or will not participate in schooling and are typically disruptive, they need to be shown the door. Not because they're black. Not because they're Hispanic, Not even because they're poor. But because they are disruptive and are depriving everyone ELSE of a fair shot at an education.
IMO the best way around this is to either reduce the age of compulsory education, or end it entirely. Public schools will still be there, but it's up to YOU to sign your child up and it's up to YOU to make sure that your child attends and performs. No child gets kicked out for being behind, BUT..... Children DO get kicked out for being a constant behavior issue and a distraction.
Problem is that anything like this is seen as a knock on minorities. The FACT of the matter is that the determining factor tends to be economic. IF we just stop the PC garbage and connect the dots, "Hey, minorities have more of a tendency to be economically disadvantaged. Let's see what we can do about that OUTSIDE OF OUR SCHOOL SYSTEM and stop trying to pretend like all along minorities lagged behind in education because 'We just didn't like them'...", then maybe we can finally accomplish something and move forward in education in this country.