07 October 2013

Go to School, Get an iPad.

Our tax dollars pay for "incentives" for kids to show up to crappy Detroit schools on "Count Day," when enrollment numbers are collected for funding.  Charters attract a large number of area families, the local schools no longer have an easy monopoly, and the administration is feeling the fire under their butts.

“We have competition. I think we may have gained in market share" this year, Detroit Public Schools Emergency Manager Jack Martin said recently.  A news article relates that 90 percent of state funding is determined on "Count Day."

You'd think this would be a great thing.  Schools lose money if you don't show up.  So demand better things and tell them your child will be "sick" that day if they aren't delivered.   Schools are just like any other business in that they can piss off a sizeable minority of their "customers," but when a good number take their business elsewhere, it will hurt.

I have to wonder at any parent who would allow their child to get on the bus that day.  To think that the schools can offer crappy "education," year after year, and buy the kids off with an occasional bicycle or an iPad is insulting and disgusting.  These children deserve so much better.



5 comments:

  1. Count day? I didn't know schools did such a thing. I don't think it's done here. I remember in primary school, in the 50s and 60s, teachers would request as many kids as possible in uniform on days when the school inspector would be visiting. Not all kids had uniform as it wasn't compulsory until high school.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Really? Uniforms were a big deal when I went in Aus. They even got picky about coloured hair bows. You had to have just plain elastic (black or white, nothing fancy).

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    2. probably it depends on which school, I went to a small country town school, where uniform was encouraged but if you didn't have one it wasn't a big deal. Lots of kids didn't wear them. It may have been different in the city. These days uniforms are much more popular even in the country towns and hair elastics match the school colours.

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  2. The comments are priceless: "How about giving the kids an education instead?"

    ~Luke

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. An education is so much more difficult and life-changing than an iPod to impart. As you know, you can put out the best curriculum on the planet, but if parents and teachers don't teach kids to read and learn for themselves, it won't work.

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Non-troll comments always welcome! :)

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