Obama deprive Washington DC kids of education his girls have? (generations, suspect)

[Chatteress]

Originally Posted by KevK

A few parents are not going to make a damn bit of difference in an uncaring failing dangerous school. They will make ZERO difference when 90% of the students there are gang members and their parents worthless human slime. You DO know there are a FEW parents that do want better for their kids don't you? And they cannot win against those odds and they cannot afford to move elsewhere. They have parents who have been charged with FELONIES here for trying to simply enroll their kids in other schools. Mothers who will face 5 years in prison and be scared for life with a felony record for trying anything they could to get their kids out of public schools that are HORRIBLE and DANGEROUS in Clayton County. In fact they are so bad that they are not even accredited! Even if you manage to graduate without being shot or stabbed, you cannot get into any college because your diploma if frigging worthless! And 95% of the students and teachers in Clayton are worthless too. The other 10% deserve options other than having their kids cosigned to a life of failure because the school board drew a line around their house.
And the thing that bothers me is this- this is alot about racism. This is alot about white people who do not want to see black children educated. That is why they fled to the suburbs and the Catholic schools to begin with. And they don't want poor Negro children following them- even if they are good students and the parent(s) is involved fully.
And the teachers that gripe about it the most are a pretty sorry group of people too. Especially when one finds out that most of them send their OWN kids to private or suburban schools.
Mother gets felony for out-of-district student | ajc.com (http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/henry/stories/2009/02/07/felony_henry_school.html?cxntlid=homepage_tab_news tab&imw=Y - broken link)

Wow! And this is what we are subsidizing with our taxdollars? Lets provide blacks and other minorities with the same opportunity that afluent white students take for granted. School choice NOW!

[Chatteress]

Originally Posted by jenn02674

Oh OK, that is exactly what I said . Where do you come up with this stuff? Do you always jump to conclusions and put words in other peoples mouthes? I DO believe the school system needs to improve. I DO NOT believe vouchers are the way to do it!

Since we have been trying to improve the public schools for DECADES, what do you suggest that we do to improve our schools that hasn't been tried already?

[InformedConsent]

Originally Posted by msconnie73

And I don't want MY tax dollars to continue supporting failing public schools. So I guess we parents who want our kids to get a quality education have to pay TWICE: we pay taxes for the public schools AND have to foot the entire bill for a private school because the public schools are not educating. Now how fair is that?

...If the public schools were doing a better job at educating our nation's kids, then I'd have no problem paying my taxes! Unfortunately, our kids are lagging behind globally and I, as a taxpayer, am sick and tired of funding our failing public school system!

Me too! ...I like saganista's idea:

Originally Posted by saganista

I'm one of the 'I want my money back if you can't deliver what you promised' crowd.

Let's get the taxpayers' money back from the public schools for every undereducated student so we can use that money more productively in a school, public or private, that will actually educate each student. We can use value-added testing instead of the flawed NCLB testing to ensure each child is making educational progress commensurate with their effort/ability.

"The value-added approach to testing is very simple. It focuses on changes in test scores over time, rather than on a single test score at a given moment. The whole point of school is for children to learn and progress over time. Yet, most current testing regimes do not measure progress. Virtually every city newspaper publishes the average test scores of local schools at some point during the year, often accompanied by an article that highlights the best schools (those with the highest average scores), and the worst schools (those with the lowest). But are the children in the schools with the highest scores actually learning more than those in the schools with the lowest? Not if the high-scoring schools are just taking in children with the highest IQs from the most enriched environments and simply spitting them out at the same advanced levels years down the road."
http://www.ppionline.org/documents/Value_Added_Testing.pdf (broken link)

[Hi Horse]

Originally Posted by msconnie73

We have already tried ignorance with the failing public school system and are paying for it dearly. We need school choice!

We do not have failed school systems as a general rule. We have failed parents. Schools cannot do it all, and if you pay attention in large school districts where the funding is largely leveled the areas that have high home ownership, lower middle class on up the schools test scores are substiancially higher than are the scores in schools of the poorest.

I use the term "as a general rule" intentionally, because there are always exceptions.

[Chatteress]

Originally Posted by Hi Horse

We do not have failed school systems as a general rule. We have failed parents. Schools cannot do it all, and if you pay attention in large school districts where the funding is largely leveled the areas that have high home ownership, lower middle class on up the schools test scores are substiancially higher than are the scores in schools of the poorest.

I use the term "as a general rule" intentionally, because there are always exceptions.

If the public schools are not failing, as you claim, then the parents would not feel the need to utilize the voucher options. If the schools are failing, then why subject low income kids to remaining in the failing schools instead of offering them alternatives?

[Chatteress]

Originally Posted by Hi Horse

We do not have failed school systems as a general rule. We have failed parents. Schools cannot do it all, and if you pay attention in large school districts where the funding is largely leveled the areas that have high home ownership, lower middle class on up the schools test scores are substiancially higher than are the scores in schools of the poorest.

I use the term "as a general rule" intentionally, because there are always exceptions.

Also, you cannot blame the shortcomings of our public educational system squarely on the parents. As another poster mentioned, many parents (especially low income ones) are working long hours and do not have the time to spend 3-5 hours each evening helping little Susie understand concepts that she should have been taught in school. Parents do have a responsibility to get involved but it isn't always realistic. We, as parents and especially as taxpayers, have the rights to demand that the school system properly educate our children. In many cases (as Informed Consent have repeatedly pointed out), the public schools are failing to do even that. How can students obtain a HS diploma without putting together a coherent sentence or do basic math calculations?

[chielgirl]

Oh those poor overworked parents.
Perhaps they should have thought about how overworked they were before they decided to have kids.

Why don't parents take responsibility?
My mother spent hours with us every evening making sure we learned our lessons.
That's a parent's responsibility.

Again, school board members are voted in.
You can always run.

[Chatteress]

Originally Posted by chielgirl

Oh those poor overworked parents.
Perhaps they should have thought about how overworked they were before they decided to have kids.

Why don't parents take responsibility?
My mother spent hours with us every evening making sure we learned our lessons.
That's a parent's responsibility.

Again, school board members are voted in.
You can always run.

So the parents have to get involved, run for school board and take part in other time consuming activities with a slim hope of ever making a difference in our ineffective public school system (especially with unions calling the shots). On top of that, they are already paying taxes for their kid's schoolling? No, the school system needs to do its JOB of educating our children or give us our money back to help us pay for a school that will educate our kids.

[Chatteress]

Originally Posted by chielgirl

Oh those poor overworked parents.
Perhaps they should have thought about how overworked they were before they decided to have kids.

Why don't parents take responsibility?
My mother spent hours with us every evening making sure we learned our lessons.
That's a parent's responsibility.

Again, school board members are voted in.
You can always run.

And maybe they had kids when times were more prosperous but are now struggling due to our current financial crisis. Ever think of that miss judgmental?

[Greatday]

As the state of our public schools decline, Home Schooling increases.