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

So your solution is to punish those Americans who have found a way to negotiate or navigate their way into a better situation by pulling all of the better schools down?

And in an age of charter schools and a number of subsidies for private schools and academies that are available to impoverished families -- again, if it is a priority then it can be done.

It is all in what you value.

Nobody says you can go from poverty or in public housing to a $300,000 home, but there are plenty of places in between that still afford you and yours a better life. It just takes some work.

 

In NYC, over 25,000 parents applied for 3,000 available slots to transfer their children charter schools or better performing schools.

Are we somehow going to say its a lack of effort on the part of the 22,000 who didn't get in?

 

Not to derail an interesting debate on the struggles we confront with our schools, but I've just found an interesting rebuttal to Mr. Whitlock, written by a participant from the summit meeting that launched this mighty thread. Shall I post it here? Or start a new thread?

 

No, but are to somehow assume that all 22,000 have really tried and exhausted every alternative?

Think about it.

There are good things happening. Look at Philadelphia where officials of the public school system are alarmed at the number of charter schools popping up -- and the declining number of students in the public schools.

People are finally getting fed up.

 

Post it here.

 

You tell me Oz. You yourself limited the opportunities to charter schools and subsidized private schools and I told you those doors were closed to many. Now what? Nicely wording that they're not not trying hard enough isn't working for me.

 

No I didn't limit the opportunities to charter schools or subsidies -- those were merely starting points.

Moving to another part of town or sending their kids to a better school in the same system in the town even if it is further away, provide other opportunities.

There are alternatives, not all are easy and none are without sacrifice.

 

And I said many of the working poor don't have the means too.

Are they simply unwilling to to make some sort of sacrafice or not trying hard enough?

When are you going to realize that things aren't as grand as you make it out to be?

 

Big Chee,

Zag's arguments mirror the classic Republican mantra: If people only tried harder, and worked harder, and were just better people, etc.

That logic works to a point. It stops working when not a lot changes, people who are held accountable still aren't accoutable, and a nice chunk of my paycheck goes to pay for all those unaccountable people in prison.

It's mindblowing how much money we spend on all the bad people who just couldn't be accountable for themselves. What's our solvency to this issue? Oh, to get more mad at them.

 

Post it here, but also know that the best rebuttal to Whitlock will, sooner or later, be supplied by Whitlock himself. That's usually how it works with him.

 

Okay. For a brief interruption in the bootstrap vs tax levy schooling argument, I give you this, from the Huffington Post.

Etan Thomas - only a basketball player, but apparently a thoughtful one - has some ideas about our Mr. Whitlock's performance on the panel, and on his arguments generally. They are not all flattering.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/etan-thomas/an-open-letter-to-jason-w_b_48247.html

 

Etan has been that dude for a while now.