<p>Mini, you’ve obviously never taught 5th grade in an inner city school. Is money an issue? Absolutely. But money thrown at schools doesn’t take dysfunctional families and make them whole; doesn’t make mothers marry the fathers of their children; doesn’t get the older brother out of jail; doesn’t prevent mom’s boyfriend from abusing the pre-teens in the household. The folks sending their kids to Andover know all of this–you seem to have bought into the ideology that families will heal themselves if the libraries are bright and airy, and if the halls are kept clean and French and Japanese are taught to anyone who is interested. </p>
<p>I agree that many public schools are a disgrace. But there are public schools in places which are spending significant money on buildings and grounds and instruction and aides and enrichment who face the following:
1)Kids coming to school having eaten cheetos and a coke for breakfast;
2)Kids who own every Xbox and videogame known to man but where they’ve never seen a dictionary or a newspaper in the house
3)Kids who have been brainwashed that it’s “selling out” to be respectful (or at least non-violent) to an authority figure such as a teacher.
And these are from the intact families, with at least one parent (or an aunt or grandmother) who is a continuing presence. Don’t call me racist; this cuts across racial lines; don’t call me an elitist-- it isn’t elitist to avoid getting so high at night that you can’t make your kid breakfast in the morning before school. You ought to talk to the teachers who face these kids every day and ask them if making pretty soccer fields is going to fix the pathology.</p>