Legitimate debate on kids in schools

[spacemonkey]

[fstarcstar]

[spacemonkey]

I wonder when the Hispanics become the majority, will they still be content with field work? Or, will they be locked in a permanent underclass that is being created today?

[Dylan]

[Dylan]

You seem to not really understand some basic concepts though. I would not vote for you brother. I'm sorry.

[uebermann]

[fstarcstar]

Hyperbole uber, get over yourself man. Streamline education, put responsibility on parents and students. Schools should be about learning, technology and the future. Not sports and other crap we put in our buildings now. My whole point about food was to show you how ridiculous it is and what our kids get what government tries to make food and pick big companies to make it. There's a reason china has 50+ students in uniform in a classroom with 1 teacher and excel better than American students. School should not be to provide everyone with a chance at sports when less than 1% even make it into professional/top level college sports.

Wake up to reality, school should not be the only place on the planet that teaches kids behaviors. Society used to do that, and we've designated it to the teachers now. Its why I started this thread, where kids have become as unruly as ever. And a new school program doesn't fix what's at home. Continue the current trend of just passing students and focusing more on sports and other things then getting an education. It will work out great for all of us. Sports of all things is the least of our concerns, but I guess you care more about a kid catching a football than passing his classes.

What's funny, is you assume that the current model of pay-to-play is the only method. You know how other countries run their football (soccer) programs? Even the poorest can make it without paying thousands. Our current US soccer development academy is the top level youth teams, and they don't charge a dime because it discourages players who are poor. We are just too dumb to realize it because were pumping millions into new athletic facilities instead of new classrooms or paying teachers decent wages. Did you know Lindale ISD, just north of you is the top school district in east Texas, yet their teachers start at 30k? But lets make sure that football program is up to standard!! Lets continue paying the college coaches millions of dollars!! You can bash me all you want, I'm not the only person who sees our education system for what it is.

Good day sir.

[uebermann]

[Divinity11]

My wife is a counselor at a Title One elementary school (read: high minority, high poverty).

In her first year there, she learned there were several students who were not eating on the weekends. So, she partnered with a local church, and started a backpack program. Then, winter time came (she works the bus lot and parent drop-off mornings/afternoons) and noticed many children not wearing warm coats. When she'd ask them where their warm coats were, they'd say they didn't have one. Elementary kids. So, she partnered with a local business, and now she gets clothing donated, and secretly provides for these kids. Let me tell you something...if it weren't for her, some of these kids wouldn't eat and they would freeze to death.

It's easy to say, "put it back on the parents...." Yeah, NO SHIT, SHERLOCK. But, when the biggest failure IS the f**k parent, then what???? The trend that has been forming for the past few decades is that parents are no longer the solution, they are part of the problem. Many reasons, sometimes it's not even the "fault" of the parent, but regardless...problem. In fact, the reason my wife started that backpack program was because two of her students were going home to "methhead" parents. Another student who she found out wasn't eating on the weekends...come to find out, this nine year-old was getting up on his own, getting ready on his own (dressed, shoes, etc...), and had to step over his mother who was passed out on the living room floor from partying too hard the night before (or morning?), along with some random guy. Think she packed her son a lunch that morning? Trust me, a school lunch is the only guaranteed meal of the day for far too many of our children. That's just a f**k fact, like it or not. That's just two, out of a dozen stories I can tell you right now off the top of my head.

Sorry fstar, you sound like someone who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. You haven't a clue, and I'm happy for you that you don't have a clue. And I disagree wholeheartedly about not having sports in school. I can go on for days about the values and how the pro's outweigh the con's. I agree with you about the absurdity in spending ridiculous amounts of money on sports complexes at high schools and such, but you are in Texas. They love their high school football there.

And Menson...still gonna disagree. Unless your goal is segregation and non-uniform standards, I predict your plan of unlimited, customized charters to be counter-productive to what should be the goal of our nation, unless you follow a universal set of educational standards. We already have a problem with charter school accountability, and that's WITH oversight from each state's Department of Public Instruction. Your idea of free-market capitalism will create the perfect storm for fly-by-night charter chains to set up shop for a couple years, fleece local taxpayers, close down, and move to another state and do the same thing. It's already happening.

Until I hear one better, I still think my solution is the best one out there.

[fstarcstar]