Andy Driscoll wrote: > Mr. Atherton asks if he's deluded. The answer is yes.
I may be. It maybe impossible to change the educational establishment, but one should not accept social injustice just because change is illusive. > Mr. Atherton suggests that only the schools are responsible,... > False implication. I had said, "Sure parental support is important, but that doesn't let the public schools off the hook for lousy management." For those who are having trouble understanding my position, please allow me to explain further. I don't want to play the "blame" game, it's an iterative, no win process. I want to play the "responsibility" game. And, here's how you play: everyone accepts that they are part of the problem and works as hard as possible to achieve a solution. When someone says, "Well, we offered summer tutorials and nobody came," they are playing the blame game. I think that the schools need to admit that their management policies are ineffective and work on developing new ones. There will always be parents who are not willing or able to take responsibility for their children; that's not an excuse for the schools failing to teaching them to read. On the other side of the coin I have emphasized parent involvement programs because it is one way of getting parents to take responsibility. You need to work on all aspects of the problem to achieve a solution. Tim Bonham wrote: > How can anyone seriously compare the teaching of a child with the > repair of a mechanical contraption like a TV set? > With imagination, something that seems to be missing in this debate. Both, TV repair shops and the schools provide a service. In the case of the schools the service is so bad, at least for minority students, that it is unacceptable. Unfortunately, unlike middle class parents, poor parents can't afford to take their business elsewhere. And in Minneapolis it appears that the middle class parents just don't give a damn as long as their children when the lottery. Has anyone else noticed how ironic it is that a child's entry into a good school is based on a roll of the dice? If you lose you sell your house and move to the suburbs or put your kids in private school; that is unless you are poor. Equity in modern America. Michael Atherton Prospect Park _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
