It ain't the money - it's the parents. Sadly enough, all the school funding in the world isn't going to replace missing dads or get mom out of the hell she's living in.
I'm aware of that, of course. And I'm aware of the situation in the D.C. schools, and understand its implications. Which are that the schools can't compensate for wretched parenting.
That doesn't mean that smaller classes and better trained teachers aren't preferable to larger ones. It doesn't mean that, assuming decent parents in each of two cases, the school with the better teachers, and a better ratio of teachers to students, doesn't offer significant advantages to its students.
I see teachers interviewed on TV occasionally, and note that sometimes they have shockingly poor grammar and are generally inarticulate. Intuitively, I draw conclusions from this that I can't defend about their competence as teachers. Teachers' unions have opposed the testing of teachers in the subjects they teach. I know there are many wonderful teachers, but feel much less sure than you that they are all or almost all "damn" good.
On a more amusing subject:
A year ago, NOTW reported that a library's resident cat had attacked Richard R. Espinosa's assistance dog, whose injuries have so discomforted Espinosa that he believes he needs $1.5 million to recover from the stress (i.e., his "terror, humiliation, shame, embarrassment, mortification, chagrin, depression, panic, anxiety, flashbacks (and) nightmares"). In April 2002, Espinosa amended his complaint (which is against the city of Escondido, Calif.) to take account that, with his disability, he is in a law-protected class and thus that the cat's actions should be considered a "hate crime" attributable to the library. [MSNBC.com-NBCSanDiego.com, 4-5-02] |
