Post by DHPost by DHAll children deserve an equal education regardless of anything.
All children should have the same opportunity for a
quality education.
Please note that these are not the same thing. The first restricts all
children to the same level of quality, whether that be good or bad. The
second leaves open the possibility that either the child or the parents
may choose (probably ill-advisedly) to not take advantage of the
opportunity.
Post by DHShould the poor ghetto
child be punished just because he was born into a poor family? Obviously
no. Should that child have the same educational opportunity as George W.
Bush? Again, the obvious answer is yes.
And how would you handle the situation where the child or his/her
parents choose to not take advantage of having the same opportunity that
Bush (or Al Gore, Jr., or Lacy Clay) have? High quality public schools
and individual teachers and administrators (yes, there are some) have to
deal with students who don't want to learn, or parents that prefer to
see the schools as just glorified child care everyday. How would your
proposed system change that?
Post by DHBussing was a gallant effort to combat this inequality.
No, bussing is a failed attempt at implementing a flawed hypothesis.
Initially, it was thought that by simply sending black children to
schools that were previously predominantly white would provide them with
a better education. What the proponents failed to take into
consideration was that also meant that an equal number of white children
would have to be bussed to the poor quality, previously predominantly
black schools. Since the bussing plans started immediately, without
much time to implement any improvement programs to the poor performing
schools, it shouldn't have surprised anyone when the parents of the
white children balked, and voted with their feet to move to different
school districts where they could insure that their children would
continue to receive a quality education. Then, the "purpose" of the
bussing program shifted to be one of insuring "diversity" instead of
improving educational quality. However, since most of the white
students had already fled the system, this was also an unachieveable
goal. Now, bussing programs are holding on because they are a public
sector jobs program with union backing.
Post by DHSomething needs to be done.
Agreed. In the meantime, however, parents of children caught in failing
public schools have to be given a means to opt out, whether that is the
choice to send their child to a magnet school or a charter school (which
are public schools, despite everything that their opponents claim), or
to be able to use the same amount of tax dollars to send their child to
the school of their choice. If the number of children leaving the
public school system is large enough to begin closing the worst public
schools and laying off the worst teachers and administrators, then that
sounds like a good thing to me.
Michael Chance