Sitting at my son's IEP meetings with a roomful of expensive professionals who documented all of the ineffective things that they were doing was eye-opening. I pulled him from public school and put him in a private school that specialized in children with lack of executive function (primarily ADHD and autistic). For a cost of about half the per student average in the school he was in (where he had cost far more than average) he got real help. He went from there to a college prep school that is far more academically rigorous than public schools, at similar per capita cost.
He is doing far better than public schools could have done, in a much more cost effective way.
On minority schools, a big part of the problem isn't funding. For many good reasons, schools in bad districts see very high turnover. As a result their teachers tend to be inexperienced. Plus there is the whole disrupted classroom issue, which is much worse in a tough neighborhood.
And about Obama, statistics do not support his having made lives better for blacks in general. But he's still cited as an inspiration a whole lot. And his success seems to have inspired other blacks to try to perform at the top level. Including our current vice president. So he seems to have become a useful symbol.
Sitting at my son's IEP meetings with a roomful of expensive professionals who documented all of the ineffective things that they were doing was eye-opening. I pulled him from public school and put him in a private school that specialized in children with lack of executive function (primarily ADHD and autistic). For a cost of about half the per student average in the school he was in (where he had cost far more than average) he got real help. He went from there to a college prep school that is far more academically rigorous than public schools, at similar per capita cost.
He is doing far better than public schools could have done, in a much more cost effective way.
On minority schools, a big part of the problem isn't funding. For many good reasons, schools in bad districts see very high turnover. As a result their teachers tend to be inexperienced. Plus there is the whole disrupted classroom issue, which is much worse in a tough neighborhood.
And about Obama, statistics do not support his having made lives better for blacks in general. But he's still cited as an inspiration a whole lot. And his success seems to have inspired other blacks to try to perform at the top level. Including our current vice president. So he seems to have become a useful symbol.