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Politics : Right Wing Extremist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RON BL who wrote (9207)	6/2/2001 12:08:13 AM
From: Mr. Whist	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 59480

Re: "There you are the public school system." Your roofing analogy dealt with the general. Let me respond in the specific. Tonight I attended my son's high school graduation. My wife marched with the school district faculty. I sat in the bleachers at the football stadium along with 1,500 other people. As class president, my son gave the closing remarks. The theme of his 6-minute address was: "Be proud of your school ... always." At the end of his speech, 200 kids stood up on the football field and cheered in unison ... black, white (mostly Appalachian), Hispanic ... blue-collar working-class people for the most part. Made his parents, 89-year-old grandfather and older sister proud. He goes to what might accurately be termed an "inner city public school." Drop-out rate between freshman and senior years is 40 to 50 percent. Four hundred enter as freshmen, 200 exit as seniors. There's an on-campus day-care center so that girls who give birth in their teens can continue their high school education without dropping out. Valedictorian was a Presidential Scholar ... one of only 100 in the nation. She's headed to an Ivy League university in the fall. One of my son's friends (boy) won an appointment to West Point. Another classmate (female) won an appointment to Annapolis. One of my son's best friends won a full ride to the University of Louisville to study engineering. This particular Kentucky public high school isn't that different from thousands of others in the country. A good number of the public school teachers (and, yes, NEA members) at this particular high school push these lower-class and lower-middle-class kids beyond what they, their parents and their community have a right to expect. For those kids who really want to work, there's an I.B. diploma at the end of the tunnel. Perhaps that's why a few parents in the 'burbs are now paying tuition and sending their kids to this "inner city high school." I guess you could call it a voucher system in reverse. I'm tired of hearing about our failing public schools. Maybe the parents need to "pick it up a notch" and start supporting their public schools and teachers more instead of whining about low test scores and saying that vouchers are the way to go.