[mredskins]

Originally Posted by Schneed10

Good response.

Second jobs and late night shifts can explain SOME of the absences. But 3 parents out of 1000? That simply shows a lack of involvement and total apathy. Lord knows, the only way to get a school board or administration to make ANY changes at all is to get the parents in an uproar.

Principals and teachers are people. People like and are used to the status quo. If you don't do something to break the inertia, the status quo will remain in effect. No amount of government funding is ever going to change that.

The only way to get schools to change is for the parents to organize and be a pain in the ass so large that it makes change the easier option for the school to deal with. You have to make the school choose between dealing with change, or dealing with the pissed off parents. They'll simply take the path of least resistance. It's human nature, it works in business, in politics, in schools, when you call up your phone company screaming for customer service... everywhere.

And if you have 3 people showing up for a PTA meeting, you're not going to change anything.

You speak of environment not playing or even a minimal roll in a person’s success is absurd. If you are growing up in an environment where education is not regarded you most likely are not going to care about it.

If you had to put your money on who will succeed in life, would it be the child born and raised in McLean or the child born and raised in inner city DC. Not saying the DC kid won’t make it but the odds are stacked against him.

Also you speak of making the right decisions, which is true but explain to me what decision the DC child makes when he is handed (or not even given) a vandalized text book to learn from.

In the end the majority of people become the product of their environment