<p>Xiggi:</p>
<p>IMO a significant amount of the problems being seen in California are due to the huge influx of illegals by people with a low educational level, who place little emphasis on the importance of education, and who refuse to learn English and thereby typically have no idea what their kids are doing in school much less actually help them. This in turn, means the schools must have more classes aimed at the low performers which brings down the level of the entire class and consumes money and resources. Until this illegal immigration problem is addressed more substantially, the problems will only get worse.</p>
<p>I agree that improvements need to take place as well - especially in counter-acting the hugely influential Teacher Union and making it easier to get rid of poor performing teachers and making it easier to more substantially reward the high-performers. </p>
<p>Regardless of the system and the school, I’d say it’s the student’s family that has the greatest influence on the students performance. As long as parents effectively delegate all education to the school, are uninvolved in the process, place little value on education, and don’t bother to learn the language even though they chose to move here, the problem will continue.</p>