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

Nor should they all be funded equally just for the sake of political correctness. It's a fallacy that equal funding bears the same results. That's why a voucher system makes so much sense. The lousy schools step up to the plate and compete, or die off.

 

Wow, has this thread taken a few twists and turns. How many topics do we have going now?

My thoughts on a couple of them:

1. To get more minorities in management, now and in the future, you absolutely need to focus on entry-level positions as well as the top dogs. Where do you think managers come from? They move up the ranks. If there are few on the lowest rungs, there will be even fewer climbing to the highest rungs.

2. If involved parents are the No. 1 asset to education -- and I believe that is the case -- why is the public in general down on home schoolers? They are obviouly involved in their child's education, and they pay money into the system via property taxes but take little to no money out.

3. And I still think Whitlock misread Stringer's motives for her reaction to Imus. I find it humorous and ironic for Jason to rip her for being an attention-seeking blowhard, and I find it downright wrong and offensive of him to accuse her of hypocrisy with no basis for doing so.

 

Property taxes aren't politically incorrect. They're a shitty way of funding schools. In the long run it hurts a lot of people - including rich, white people, if that's what you're getting at. I mean, when a really good school needs a new art room, voters shouldn't have to choose between that and lower taxes.

I mean, it's bad. In some districts, some jackalope pushes through a big, fat tax levy increase for some school bond, and suddenly the county assessor is swamped with request to reassess property. Who the hell wants that? Most people who live in a given district don't even have kids in the schools - why is their house used to fund a new swimming pool?

 

I'm not contending property taxes are the best way to fund schools.

I just want to counter any argument you (or anyone else) may make that all schools should be funded equally. Because that is a very easy leap to make when you remove property taxes from the funding equation.

 

Let me get this straight…you'd actually a prefer a system where we charge the taxpayers a glut of cash to close all the bad schools, expand the shit out of all the good ones, and build new ones because rich people secretly hate the idea of poor kids using vouchers to invade their lily-white halls? You've got to be kidding.

On this issue and health care Americans are so stupid it makes my vision blurry.

 

No, I'd prefer the system of funding schools that we have right now. It isn't perfect, but at least it offers every American that cares about their child's education choices.

 

Some of those "choices" are very limited. It doesn't make the current system right by any means.

 

No. I think optimistically. I think the bad schools would actually step up to the plate and compete if they were held accountable.

If you think indiscriminately throwing more cash at problems is always the answer, you're the one who's kidding himself.

 

Many of those choices are not nearly as limited as many people make them. There are sacrifices that need to be made for things that are your priorities. It isn't a popular truth, but it is still a truth nonetheless.

 

Why not ask the people that live among these vast choices you seem to encounter?

I can't say in earnest that many of the parents and students living at the bottom of the totem pole i've encountered over the years were provided with many options.

Maybe they're blowing it all away on Mad Dog 20/20 or simply want to stay in their positions.

 

Look I am not going to speak for the world as a whole or in general but I can tell you countless people that i know personally who have had opportunities to better their situations and didn't take advantage of them and then want to bitch about it.

I can also cite countless examples of parents I know who wanted a better education for their kids so they moved, in some cases to smaller homes or even into rental units for a short period, to better school districts.

It can be done if someone is willing to make it happen. That's not to say it is easy or there aren't sacrifices to be made and that it can be done in every single individual situation, but I've been around long enough to know that it can be done a whole lot more than people would like you to believe.

 

Well i'm saying it as someone who grew up with a parent that didn't have the means to areas with better schools, and it wasn't by a lack of trying.

I actually lived through the things you claim to have been around. Many in the ranks of the working poor don't have these vast opportunities you state are widely available. The "I did it, so you can too" mentality allows certain conditions to persist.