obviously i'll have something to say about this...

Ace: Couldn't agree more about the involved parenting. When you have parents that hold teachers and administrators accountable, they tend to feel obligated to put their best foot forward in educating your children. They know you care, and your diligence rubs off on them.

 

So in other words, if a person or people bust their ass to work and make enough money to move to a different area, they will still be stuck with the same suck ass school district as if they stayed in the shitty part of town?

That's ridiculous -- you get what pay for in this country and if you pay higher taxes to live in a better neighborhood, you should get the benefit of better education for your kids.

I know, I know, the poor welfare mothers and blah, blah, blah -- all I know is this, those single parents who value education as much as they say find a way.

 

Well, I guess you could pay for a private school, zaggy.

 

The quality of a child's education should depend on how much money their parents make? Huh? That's absurd.

 

Focus on more African-American sportswriters?

No, no, no. ... How about more African-Americans in management. Seems the forum or whomever brought it up is once again selling minorities short. Aiming to become sportswriters is one thing, but why not push for the best positions out there - in management?

I'm appalled at the scarce number of minorities (women, African-Americans, Latinos, etc.) in upper-level positions within our sports departments.

If someone wants to make a statement, why not point out and discuss the disportionate numbers at the top instead of focus on the, and I quote from Wojo's column,

"The entry-level pay stinks. The hours are insane. The travel is gruesome. The deadlines age you. The demands ruin marriages. The athletes can be anywhere from engaging to insufferable. More leagues and teams are trying to control the message. There are ethical land mines. And did I mention life-threatening press box food?"

 

That's not what I wrote - I said it depends on how willing someone is to make it a priority.

I don't make squat -- well all of you in this profession know what we make -- but my kids go to a great school because I've made tremendous sacrifices to live in this district for my kid's sake. There is a guy who lives up the street from me who is a truck driver (and makes even less than me) and drives a cab on the side -- he does so to live here because he's got kids and wants them to have the best education possible.

It can be done if education is really a priority. The problem is it is fashionable for people to claim it is a priority -- but actions always speak louder than words.

And even in the shittiest of schools, if parents are engaged in pushing their child and assisting in the education process a child can succeed.

 

You really believe that? That's pretty disappointing - and surprisingly short-sighted, too, because the property taxes I'm talking about aren't necessarily related to house prices - although they can be.

An example: Say an industrial district - a plastics plant - happens to be on the edge of a district. Compare the property taxes pulled from that area - which is coded differently in the tax code - vs. a commercial area, like a mall. The houses surrounding these areas could be precisely the same - and the "good" people inhabiting them, too - and the schools within those districts would be pulling different funds based on the proximity of businesses that may be as far as six miles away.

I know you're a big "choice" guy, but do you really think homeowners should have play those kind of angles when choosing where to live?

In the end, why your little point of view is so stupid and shortsighted is because city governments will eventually - and already are - go for land grabs that take smaller, outlying cities and annex them into the larger city, thus capturing those funds to distribute to schools in depressed economic areas. Know what happens then? The people in those areas move even farther out. Ten years later, another land grab. More moving out. Pretty soon, you'll have a 100-mile city radius. And do you know what that means? City services are spread so thin, and cost so much, that you're suddenly paying nine times what you should for garbage collection.

That's what happening - all over the place. You want more of it? Keep peddling your belief system.

 

I'm speaking at the AWSM convention next week. I intend to bring up this very idea. There are, what, 4 women sports editors and 4 African-American sports editors? What should I say at the convention?

 

I think home owners -- or renters -- with children should investigate the school district they are moving in to and how well they are funded. There are areas which you would not think would have good school systems but do for some of the reasons you are speaking of.

And we have had judges reject the "land grabs" you are talking about in two very high profile law suits and forced the depressed schools near the city to be merged with much more affluent schools.

In one case it has worked reasonably well, in the other it has been a disaster. And a lot of it has to do with attitude -- in one case was the people in general and the school board members of the liquidated school understood the opportunity their children were getting to go to a better school and embraced it while in the other, well, the so-called community leaders spent years decrying the fact that they no longer had a "community" school to run into the ground.....

And let me add this -- if you look at the districts with the highest property taxes in this area -- amazingly they all also rank very highly by just about every measure school districts are measured. So I'm not saying there is a direct correlation, but it sure seems like a lot more than coincidence to me.....

 

Unfortunately you don't have the stats or a whole lot of precedent to present. It's an uphill battle, but it doesn't mean we should push young journalists to aim for "entry-level positions." I mean, jeez, when you become a salesman, the goal is to surpass quotas. Why should our goals be structed differently?

 

It is hard to really make this an issue -- getting more women and minorities into leadership positions -- when we are talking about a rapidly shrinking and terribly depressed business. People are nowdays just trying to survive in this business and that's a reality that, unfortunately, is not going to change.

 

Well, one of the things that advertisers clearly covet is female readers. So if a female sports editor could connect better with potential female sports readers and get them reading the section, that would be a plus.