zlacker

I was literally a teacher in a poor school district. I am looking at it from a different perspective, but that doesn't mean my opinion is inherently not valuable. Yes, it might out work great for those kids who can take advantage. But all those who can't are left behind. And actually be left even more behind, especially as all the extra money that would be going to their school flows out. But, hey, they're not your kids right?

>>dorcha+(OP)
You mistake my disagreement with HOW to take care of those kids with whether or not I care about them, or want to help them. There are other solutions.

I was one of those kids. My mother was a drug addict, I spent a large portion of my childhood in a trailer park. There was nothing a teacher could do without me having a structured home life. She would frequently interrupt me when I tried to do my homework, and then yell at me 2 hours later for not having it done. She undermined my teachers at every turn, and when they called to complain about my behavior, she took my side instead of theirs. Once I was provided this structured home life (courtesy of the courts finally giving my father custody of me and my siblings and getting us away from our psycho mother) suddenly I was able to focus on school. If I disrespected a teacher, one phone call to my dad, and I was faced with a terrifying man who made my life hell. This was a powerful incentive to behave for the teachers, and do my homework as well. Bad behavior at school resulted in consequences for me at home.

The current public school system isn't capable of fixing this problem. You are just throwing good money after bad, and dragging the kids who would do well in a better school down with the kids whose homes make it impossible for school to do any good.

Geoffrey Canada's Harlem Children's Zone is an example of a model that works. He keeps the kids at school for very long hours, and minimizes the time they are at home.

Public schools were not designed or intended to replace the role of functioning families. Trying to force them into that role is a bad idea, and very ineffective and wasteful. Society has changed, an increasingly large percentage of kids across all ethnic groups (except for Asian Americans) are living in single parent homes. You were a teacher, so I think you are aware of. the fact that they are going back to homes where they are entertained by screens all night. The parents frequently throw their hands in the air, and ask "how can I keep him off video games?" seemingly unaware of the fact that they can take the controllers/phone/laptop whatever away and god forbid take the TV out of the kid's room. The point is that teachers can't fix this.

Teacher's unions and public school districts are incentivized to pretend they are capable of addressing the problem, provided they get more money. That's what institutions and organizations do, after all. They always want to expand their scope, get more personnel, do more, and get paid for it. It's dumb in this case.

>>JPKab+Zi1
I do want to say I completely agree with most of what you have said. Current schools are not capable of handling it. But I don't think there's any possible model of schools that can handle it, except, as you said, keeping kids out of their homes when they're in these situations. That's why I don't think any model of vouchers will work, and will just make things worse for the kids whose parents can't afford or don't want to make things better for them.

Basically, to fix this problem, we need to fix the societal issues in the country, not the schools. That's something I entirely agree with. My disagreement is that I think switching to a voucher system and things like that only makes matters worse for those who can't take advantage of just moving for whatever reason.