4 ms·

let's blame the parents. if the schools suck, and they choose to send their kids there, how are they not responsible?

by curi 19y ago

gibsonf1 19y ago
Unfortunately, parents don't get to choose which public school their child goes to. (In San Francisco, there is a bizarre lottery with all sorts of conditions attempting to give preference to minorities that puts kids all over the city even if there is a school a block from their home.) The only choice is public or private, and private is very expensive and for many is not an option.
- curi 19y ago
  Besides private school, they could live somewhere else, or homeschool. Or if none of those will work, not have kids in the first place. None of these are easy options, but if you think the public schools are awful places, it's not reasonable to send kids to them.
  - rms 19y ago
    Why don't the kids have a responsibility to educate themselves?
    - curi 19y ago
      young kids have very little control over their lives. for example, they don't get to choose if they want to go to school or not. as they get older and become able to (and gain the legal right to), they certainly should take responsibility for their own life and education.
  - jimbokun 19y ago
    "Besides private school, they could live somewhere else, or homeschool." What if both parents work? What if everywhere else they can afford to live has public schools just as bad?
- stuki 19y ago
  It's worse than that. Simply by operating shitty public schools 'for free', the ruling riff-raff is crowding out investment in private alternatives for the less than well off. With no public schools available and minimal to no regulation of private ones, every neighborhood would have private alternatives with plenty of eligible kids to fill them. I suspect well off neighborhoods would still in general have 'better' schools, simply due to having more resources, but even the poorest of parents would have at least some competitively exposed, hence at least decent, options. If nothing else, charity, churches and such would help out the neediest of kids. As it stands now, a poor parent in an inner city (even more so in one as much at war with religious anything at all as Oakland), is pretty much left without viable alternatives to the local public indoctrination institutions.
gommm 19y ago
Plus frankly if one count the number of hours a kid spends at school and the number of hours a kid spends at home, parents should have a rather big influence on the kid's education ;-)

let's blame the parents. if the schools suck, and they choose to send their kids there, how are they not responsible?

by curi 19y ago

let's blame the parents. if the schools suck, and they choose to send their kids there, how are they not responsible?

Unfortunately, parents don't get to choose which public school their child goes to. (In San Francisco, there is a bizarre lottery with all sorts of conditions attempting to give preference to minorities that puts kids all over the city even if there is a school a block from their home.) The only choice is public or private, and private is very expensive and for many is not an option.

curi 19y ago
Besides private school, they could live somewhere else, or homeschool. Or if none of those will work, not have kids in the first place. None of these are easy options, but if you think the public schools are awful places, it's not reasonable to send kids to them.
- rms 19y ago
  Why don't the kids have a responsibility to educate themselves?
  - curi 19y ago
    young kids have very little control over their lives. for example, they don't get to choose if they want to go to school or not. as they get older and become able to (and gain the legal right to), they certainly should take responsibility for their own life and education.
- jimbokun 19y ago
  "Besides private school, they could live somewhere else, or homeschool." What if both parents work? What if everywhere else they can afford to live has public schools just as bad?
stuki 19y ago
It's worse than that. Simply by operating shitty public schools 'for free', the ruling riff-raff is crowding out investment in private alternatives for the less than well off. With no public schools available and minimal to no regulation of private ones, every neighborhood would have private alternatives with plenty of eligible kids to fill them. I suspect well off neighborhoods would still in general have 'better' schools, simply due to having more resources, but even the poorest of parents would have at least some competitively exposed, hence at least decent, options. If nothing else, charity, churches and such would help out the neediest of kids. As it stands now, a poor parent in an inner city (even more so in one as much at war with religious anything at all as Oakland), is pretty much left without viable alternatives to the local public indoctrination institutions.

gommm 19y ago

Plus frankly if one count the number of hours a kid spends at school and the number of hours a kid spends at home, parents should have a rather big influence on the kid's education ;-)