
The Latest Crime Wave: Sending Your Child to a Better School - petercooper
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903285704576557610352019804.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
======
aik
>> In case you needed further proof of the American education system's
failings, especially in poor and minority communities, consider the latest
crime to spread across the country: educational theft.

I'm not sure if it is entirely fair to single out the education system here
(once again), or at least batch it in with "yet another failing". I believe
more is at fault here.

Unless I'm mistaken, tax payers in a particular school district (or county)
fund the school district they're part of. A consequence of this fact, in the
name of fairness for the parents, is the necessity for your child to attend a
school that you are directly funding (and not attend a school you're not
funding, which is what the mother in the story is doing). As long as we're
sticking with this system of funding our own schools in this manner, we will
naturally be encouraging segregation of classes and have no choice but to turn
down those who try to get around it.

So I agree a woman shouldn't be jailed for trying to circumvent the system in
this manner, but with the above knowledge of how the system operates, it
doesn't surprise me that she would be punished, as I'm sure many others are as
well.

Allowing people to attend any school they like (which this article is arguing
for I believe?) is a pretty fundamental shift in the system.

~~~
gamble
The problem is that American cities are structured to keep the poor and
minorities in nominally independent cities or suburbs that are geographically
indistinguishable from the richer areas, but just independent enough to ensure
that property taxes aren't shared.

It's also hard to escape the fact that many, if not most of these suburbs were
explicitly set up to keep out blacks, latinos, Jews, and other undesirable
groups. Until the sixties, houses in these communities often carried a
restrictive covenant that explicitly prohibited sales to non-whites.

Canada shares a lot of the basic educational structure as the US, and sadly a
good share of the racial baggage as well, but our cities are far more
monolithic than most American cities. There are only two school districts in
my city (pop. ~1 million) and students can register in any school throughout
the district. The only choice I make as a taxpayer is which district, public
or Catholic, I want my property taxes to fund.

~~~
anamax
> It's also hard to escape the fact that many, if not most of these suburbs
> were explicitly set up to keep out blacks, latinos, Jews, and other
> undesirable groups.

Actually, it's pretty easy to escape that "fact" because it simply isn't true.

Yes, there were some covenants like that, but they were relatively rare.

And, most of the housing stock is newer than that, so even if such covenants
were somewhat common and were still in force, they'd cover a small fraction of
the population.

Since they haven't been in force for decades....

> Canada shares a lot of the basic educational structure as the US, and sadly
> a good share of the racial baggage as well, but our cities are far more
> monolithic than most American cities.

More "monolithic" is right. Canada is about as diverse as Minnesota.

~~~
ojbyrne
I was mostly with you till that Canada/Minnesota comment. Perhaps Minnesota is
exceptionally diverse...

Because Canada is very definitely more diverse than the US.

~~~
Turing_Machine
Wikipedia puts the "Visible Minority" population of Canada at 16.2%
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Canada#Visible_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Canada#Visible_minorities)
and the (at least partially) non-"White" population of the U.S at 27.6%.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Stat...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States#Race_and_ethnicity)

~~~
halostatue
The absolute numbers don't tell the whole story, and illustrate part of the
difference between the U.S. and Canada on this.

The Wikipedia article on Canada is horrible on one point: "Black" isn't a
single minority group in Canada. We have people from the Caribbean and people
from many different regions in Africa and, yes, like U.S. we also have
descendants of black slaves (in sometimes surprising places). But while they
often share similar skin colourings, that is often the only thing they share
in common. Many of the Ghanaians, Nigerians, South Africans, and Caribbeans I
know have nothing in common except their skin colour—and their love of
partying, at least the ones that I've come into contact with over the last ten
years.

So, the 2.5% Canadian "black" population is a substantially more diverse
population than the 12.6% U.S. "black" population, which is _primarily_
descended from black slaves. This group may be less diverse, but it's also
something that the U.S. must come to grips with as much as Canada must come to
grips with its treatment of its Aboriginals (which, to be honest, the U.S.
must do, too, but they're not as visible to most Americans).

~~~
anamax
> So, the 2.5% Canadian "black" population is a substantially more diverse
> population than the 12.6% U.S. "black" population, which is primarily
> descended from black slaves.

Maybe half of the US black population is descended from slaves. The rest,
which is about 6% (from your numbers) comes from the same places Canada gets
its 2.5%.

And then there are all of the different groups under the hispanic label.

~~~
halostatue
The numbers do not support your assertion.

> Since the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, an estimated total of 0.8
> to 0.9 million Africans have immigrated to the United States, accounting for
> roughly 3.3% of total immigration to the United States during this
> period.[4] -
> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_immigration_to_the_Unit...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_immigration_to_the_United_States)

At 0.9 million African immigrants, that's a bit less than 1/30th of the
overall African American population in the U.S.
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Stat...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States#Race_and_ethnicity)).

> One of the more noted aspects of Black Canadian history is that while the
> majority of African Americans trace their presence in the United States
> through the history of slavery, the Black presence in Canada is rooted
> almost entirely in voluntary immigration.[17]
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Canadians>

I reiterate the original point: Canada is a substantially more diverse place
than the U.S. in terms of places of origin, even though the U.S. has a larger
percentage of visible minorities.

~~~
anamax
Africa isn't the only source of black people. Also, as your source points out,
there were basically no controls on African immigration until the 1920s.

BTW, a significant number of fleeing slaves went to Canada....

------
guard-of-terra
AS if anybody cared - how it works in Russia:

\- There are virtually no private schools, every school is public.

\- There are better schools and worse schools. In a big city there are a few
really good ones and a bunch of mediocre ones.

\- A school have to accept anyone living in a proximity, but it may also
accept anyone else. So the good ones set up entry exams. Mediocre ones enroll
everybody.

\- I guess there are some bad schools, some really poor ones, but there are
probably none or a very few "failing" ones, with meaning as in article.

By the way, where do illegal immigrants' children go to?

~~~
LoveLinux
The problem with that in America is that allowing entrance to schools based
entirely on tests scores results in large numbers of Asians and whites and
very few black and Hispanics and you end up with this racial discrimination
mess.

~~~
guard-of-terra
The solution is that you perhaps should be making bad schools less bad,
instead of making the awesome schools more shiny and then digging moats around
those.

~~~
pyre
Therein lies the problem. How? In general, bad schools suffer from a lack of
funding and the political will to do something about it.

~~~
william42
The answer is to stop funding schools locally. Until that's done, nothing we
do education-wise matters.

~~~
va_coder
You want the Federal government to fix the school system?

~~~
Daishiman
Works in many places in the world.

------
maxklein
America is still a deeply segregated society. And the segregation is built in
such a way that it tends to keep people where they always where.

~~~
LoveLinux
Is there something wrong with groups of people wanting to self segregate?

~~~
andrewljohnson
If by "wrong" you mean "leads to worse outcomes" - then very possibly yes.

~~~
burgerbrain
How do we define "segregate"? Is it just across 'skin color' / 'irrelevant
heritage' lines? What if I identify with and want to live around
entrepreneurs? atheists? 'survivalists'? Homosexuals?

I think I can make a fairly strong argument for homosexuals preferring to live
among themselves as being ultimately detrimental to society (reduced exposure
to homosexuals allows intolerance and misunderstanding to fester), however I
would never _dream_ of calling the desire to isolate themselves from hatred
"wrong".

Edit: I take it from the downvotes that we're just talking about segregation
across _"'skin color' / 'irrelevant heritage'"_ lines for some reason...

~~~
andrewljohnson
I'm not arguing preference here. All of your examples still apply. And I would
simply say that right and wrong are poor constructs to let us formulate ideas
about how we should live.

There's a good chance that atheists who choose to live only among atheists are
going to suffer worse outcomes. Living in a diverse society leads to more
perspective and better ideas, and an eventually better society.

Only living with other gay people or other Hacidic Jews or other white
supremacists may feel comfortable, and it might lead to a functioning society.
But is it ideal? Does it leave the people better off? Society at large?

I don't actually know the answer tho these questions, but I suspect you're
better off meeting all sorts of people, living in all sorts of places, and
absorbing all sorts of ideas.

I don't really believe in right and wrong.

~~~
burgerbrain
I fully agree that these sorts of segregation are ultimately bad things. I
merely disagree that we should label them "wrong", since I think that doing so
expects too much of the individuals. Society will certainly become better off
if Athiests spend more time with theists, however I cannot in good conscious
really fault them (say that it is 'wrong') for their decision.

I think we pretty much agree in other words ;)

------
mattdeboard
I'm not sure if, as I progress through my 30s, I am becoming more liberal,
more cynical or more jaded, or what, but it seems like every day I read some
article about the United States which elicits a, "What the FUCK?" from me.

This is one of those articles. Seriously? _Prison_??

~~~
dlokshin
Why do you associate this with becoming more liberal? Seems the reverse should
be true.

~~~
_delirium
One of many reasons the single-axis scale is misleading. :)

It does somewhat fit the traditional fault lines over school districting,
though. Traditionally, conservatives quite strongly opposed to allowing school
attendance to cross boundaries, supporting separate districts in which each
district was funded exclusively by local taxpayers and attended exclusively by
children resident in that distrct. Mix of reasons, ranging from (on the nicer
side) federalism/decentralization to (on the less-nice side) maintaining de-
facto segregated schools.

In addition, liberals have tended to be the main ones behind aggregation-with-
choice programs, in which many smaller districts in a metropolitan area would
be aggregated into one organizational district, where parents could choose to
send their kids to any school in the district. Conservative suburbanites have
tended to prefer keeping their schools separate, without cross-boundary
enrollment permitted.

------
tokenadult
My state has a more rational state law. For more than twenty years now, all
public schools anywhere in the state offer open enrollment to all students
anywhere in the state, up to the limits of the capacity of each school
district to receive students.

[http://education.state.mn.us/MDE/Academic_Excellence/School_...](http://education.state.mn.us/MDE/Academic_Excellence/School_Choice/Public_School_Choice/Open_Enrollment/index.html)

Funding of course is based on enrollment.

<http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/hrd/pubs/mnschfin.pdf>

More students means more enrollment, so school districts make efforts to
provide attractive programs that will bring students across district lines.
This competition among school districts has promoted innovation in programs
and resulted in a fair amount of interchange among students who live in
different neighborhoods. For example, the first public school program for
"highly gifted" students in our state

<http://www.invergrove.k12.mn.us/atheneum.html>

began precisely because the offering district knew it could build a program
that would attract in new students to the district (which was losing student
population because it was in an inner-ring suburb with an aging population).
That district enjoyed such success with its program that soon other school
districts set up similar programs.

[http://www.springlakeparkschools.org/schools/la/la_lighthous...](http://www.springlakeparkschools.org/schools/la/la_lighthouse.asp)

[http://department.services.bloomington.k12.mn.us/modules/cms...](http://department.services.bloomington.k12.mn.us/modules/cms/pages.phtml?pageid=201931&sessionid=7ed12a7f68aafbb779daff0c410248ec=bb1f727f0c37c2c7a6f2b98cb942232c&sessionid=7ed12a7f68aafbb779daff0c410248ec%3Dbb1f727f0c37c2c7a6f2b98cb942232c)

[http://www.minnetonka.k12.mn.us/ACADEMICS/NAVIGATORPROGRAM/P...](http://www.minnetonka.k12.mn.us/ACADEMICS/NAVIGATORPROGRAM/Pages/default.aspx)

And the main point is that school districts don't just compete with programs
for "highly gifted" students, but also with programs for fine-arts-inclined
students, or students who desire language immersion programs (Spanish
immersion and Chinese immersion programs are both hot programs in Minnesota),
and students with many other characteristics. Some school districts gain
almost half of their enrollment from open enrollment, and correspondingly some
of the historically worst school districts in Minnesota have lost large
percentages of enrollment to families crossing district boundaries to look for
better schools. (Minnesota also has a huge number of charter schools, which is
a distinct form of competition for publicly subsidized students, but they
cannot offer some of the programs that public school districts can.) This
competition keeps all districts accountable for providing a good learning
environment, and helps change the psychology of teachers and principals
dealing with families from one of treating learners as a burden to one of
treating learners as an opportunity to be grateful for.

Any other state in the United States could do the same, and a few already
have.

[http://educateiowa.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task...](http://educateiowa.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=649&Itemid=636)

[http://www.ecs.org/html/offsite.asp?document=http%3A%2F%2Fww...](http://www.ecs.org/html/offsite.asp?document=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eecs%2Eorg%2FOpenEnrollmentDatabase)

~~~
aik
Very interesting. It's clear that Missouri (where I used to live) doesn't have
open enrollment. A huge amount of resources are spent on ensuring students do
NOT cross district lines. As a personal example, certain ESL students in my
mother's class are visited at home very often to validate that they truly do
live where they say they do.

When schools have to serve students that they're not getting paid for, the
incentive to keep those students out is surprisingly strong.

tokenadult, Are you aware of any downsides/negatives to the open enrollment
system?

~~~
surfsurge
I dont't want to generalize, but if there is one thing I have learned from my
limited experience working in both a Title I HS district and a fairly affluent
K-12 district is that these problems are very, very complex.

aik, Here's one example of a downside: Even relatively well-performing school
districts can struggle when their student population starts moving to a new
charter school in the area. Since many of the costs for education are fixed
within a certain margin, it becomes difficult to shed costs to compensate for
the lost funding for each student that left the district.

------
mchusma
Good examples of the effects of government getting involved in education,
particularly tying it to location. The solution to this problem is clear but
politically difficult: limit government involvement in education to vouchers
at most, preferably none at all.

~~~
jleyank
If government is not involved in education "at all", then you have the
situation that people pay $$ for schools and then have no say in how the money
is spent. This would not go down well...

~~~
delinka
I suppose the Free Market would make sure that their 'customers' had input
into how tuition money is spent. After all, if the government isn't involved
and you're free (Free Market, remember) to move your student, then the school
needs to cater to your expectations or lose tuition money.

~~~
lurker19
Yeah so it turns out that the education consumer doesn't tend to spend the
education dollar on quality education. Consider the current mess in privately-
paid higher education.

Education is the vegetables on the dinner plate of life. I is a complicated
long term investment to make good choices, but those choices have huge
externalities. Parents make choices that affect their children (that is an
externality) and those children grow up to affect society (another
externality)

~~~
JupiterJazz
Don't forget that the for-profit colleges get 99% of their income from
government financial aid. They don't have to serve their customers well; they
just have to do the minimum amount of work to get the financial aid money.

------
zeteo
>Ms. Williams-Bolar last year used her father's address to enroll her two
daughters in a better public school outside of their neighborhood.

This is not civil disobedience, it's just plain old falsification of records.
If she had falsified another crucial piece of information - say, income level
on a scholarship application - would Ms. Williams-Bolar still get all of this
"end justifies the means" sympathy?

~~~
jxcole
Obviously not. The whole point of the article is that poor, intelligent
children do not have any way to enroll in schools that would allow them to
excel. Presumably if you lied on the income level on a scholarship
application, you would have the funds to send your kid to a nice school but
you wouldn't want to pay for it. Note that if you were very poor lying about
your income on your scholarship application would not be necessary.

If you're still not convinced, let me ask you: Would you _not_ lie about where
you lived if it meant you could get a better life for your child? I am not
sure you could be called a good parent if the answer to that question is no.

~~~
zeteo
No matter how worthy the purpose, falsehood is falsehood. Is it really such
good education for your children to demonstrate that lying should be used to
obtain the important things in life?

~~~
timtadh
Since you are purporting that falsehood is never wrong...

exodus 1:15-20 (NRSV)

The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah
and the other Puah, ‘When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see
them on the birthstool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she
shall live.’ But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt
commanded them, but they let the boys live. So the king of Egypt summoned the
midwives and said to them, ‘Why have you done this, and allowed the boys to
live?’ The midwives said to Pharaoh, ‘Because the Hebrew women are not like
the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife
comes to them.’ So God dealt well with the midwives; and the people multiplied
and became very strong.

tl;dr : The king told midwives to kill baby boys. The midwives did not. When
asked by the king why the boys still lived, they lied.

~~~
zeteo
No, I'm not purporting that "falsehood is never wrong" (you meant "never
right", I suppose). In context, I was talking about falsification of records
with an intention to obtain educational benefits otherwise disallowed.

~~~
wnight
So falsehood is okay when midwives save infants' lives, but not when teachers
educate them?

~~~
zeteo
It's not OK to falsify records in order to get into a better school without
paying extra; look at the original post, that's what the argument was about.
Taking a subsequent phrase out of context and stretching it to bring in baby
killing is not exactly adding to the conversation.

~~~
timtadh
Agreed. I used the passage not to equate the two but to illustrate moral
issues are not always straight forward. I personally am not sure that lying
your way to a better school is the right approach.

------
nazgulnarsil
underground history of american education and an econ 101 textbook. These are
the bare minimum of material you should be familiar with before spouting
policy prescriptions on this subject.

------
rdl
This is sad -- there is a need to restrict access to a limited resource, but
for any individual parent, it's the right choice. The ultimate solution is to
improve the quality of the bad districts, but that will take a long time.

For now, I think the best approach is strict enforcement of residency, but
three tracks in for out of district students: cash payment substantially in
excess of per-student marginal cost; competitive entrance for a limited number
of students based on objective merit (not race based, like the PA/EPA system);
and children of employees of the district (or maybe of city government in
general).

I'd be fine with a parent who really wants to give a child a chance taking a
job with the district primarily to get children into the schools. Maybe a
second job, maybe part time, but the sacrifice should be made by the parent,
not by other residents of the school taxing district. If this lets the
district hire people more cheaply, or of better quality (which DOES happen in
Palo Alto for just this reason), it's win/win.

~~~
mckoss
Why not use a lotery? I don't see why any public district shouldn't be
available to any state resident. What would be the rationale for any
preference to residents or district workers?

Any other policy serves only to preserve the inequality of the education
offered between districts.

~~~
rdl
They're funded locally, not by the state (in most states). There's just as
much of an argument for a national lottery as a state lottery, if you want
people outside the funding area to have an even shot of coming in.

------
bmj
This is hardly anything new. 20+ years ago, I knew kids with parents that did
the same thing (though often for athletics instead of academics). Even within
the city (where, at the time, you were required to attend the neighborhood
school), parents found ways to game the system.

------
nasmorn
This reminds me of how european peasants could not move to a different parish
then the one they were born in unless the priest would accept a transfer.

The land of the free. Free to move to any trailer park in the whole country.

------
callmeed
I was so close to doing this for 2 of my kids this year—we were to the point
of signing the papers. Our neighborhood was in the region of the worst-
performing school in the district (not even the closest, either). My mom owns
a house 3 blocks from a great school and we were going to use that address. My
mom wasn't comfortable with it so we opted for private school.

------
0x12
Only in the US will you find people that go to prison for arranging better
education for their children.

Utterly ridiculous. The best way to ensure that people do not do stuff like
this is to make sure that all schools are held to the same _high_ standards.

~~~
mattdeboard
I agree with you that it's ridiculous they'd go to prison over it. However,
"holding all schools to the same high standard" is impractical with the way
the system is now.

------
shithead
_used her father's address to enroll her two daughters in a better public
school outside of their neighborhood. After spending nine days behind bars
charged with grand theft, the single mother was convicted of two felony
counts_

Slightly insane, eh, what?

I can think of a few people roaming around foot-loose and fancy-free, and even
pocketing scores of millions of dollars, who should be doing _that_.

------
NY_Entrepreneur
Don't try to send them to a 'good' school, certainly not an 'academically
good' school. Bluntly, the K-12 teachers don't know anything worth much
serious study or effort.

The best can hope for from a K-12 school is that it will do no harm.

Find a school that has a nice 'social atmosphere' and otherwise is RELAXED,
e.g., with as little homework as possible.

Then for the real learning, have your children do that at home -- evenings,
weekends, summers, and/or school study hall.

What materials? Sure, academically by far the crown jewel is just math. So,
get them through math to the college sophomore level ASAP. The next best
subject is physics. So, get them through freshman physics based on calculus
ASAP. How? Get the best texts (good used copies are FINE, especially for the
math) and work through them. If need some help, ask some friends who know the
material well and/or find an appropriate, helpful college prof. Or have one
parent enroll in, say, a community college course and there learn enough to
guide their children and be able to ask the prof questions.

After math and physics, emphasize writing, say, letters, notes, blogs,
whatever.

Sure, get 'computer literacy' and also learn the basics of programming.

Then emphasize geography, history, and art history. For English literature, at
least learn about the basics of 'drama' and 'formula fiction' and touch on the
more famous works. For as many of the works as can, start by watching a movie
of the work. For more in drama, understand how movie and TV dramas work.

Somewhere get some basic coverage of 'people and personality', especially
about human emotions. E.g., lacking anything else, read E. Fromm, 'The Art of
Loving'.

For more, have the child take some community college courses, e.g.,
biochemistry and biology.

For more, look at the International Baccalaureate program and pick and choose
from that or, maybe, just go through the whole thing.

During the last 2-3 years of the 'high school' time, review what else, if
anything, is required to do well on the SAT tests.

For more? Maybe learn piano?

Likely could study accounting and take the CPA exam. A CPA would be nice to
have.

For more? Jump into college material at the junior level and keep going. Get
through college ASAP and then go for graduate or professional school.

For K-12? Don't ask for much and mostly just circumvent it.

~~~
bd_at_rivenhill
I think these parents are trying to get their kids out of schools that can't
even enforce basic discipline in the classroom. There's a big difference
between an environment where teachers don't know anything worth much serious
study or effort and an environment where teachers spend almost all of their
time trying prevent a riot from breaking out in the classroom and thus spend
almost no time actually instructing students.

Also, it can be very hard to support real learning at home if you are a single
parent working two or three jobs to make ends meet.

~~~
NY_Entrepreneur
What you wrote with:

"almost all of their time trying prevent a riot from breaking out"

is quite similar to what I wrote with:

"The best can hope for from a K-12 school is that it will do no harm.

"Find a school that has a nice 'social atmosphere' and otherwise is RELAXED,
e.g., with as little homework as possible."

So we are at least partly agreeing.

What to do about a school with knife fights in the classrooms, drug deals in
the halls, and pimping at lunch time is to get the hell out: Such a school
fails on "do no harm" and "a nice 'social atmosphere'".

If just have to leave and can't afford a wealthy neighborhood, then pick a
small town in a rural, farming area in one of the more northern states; there
essentially any school will do no harm.

Also good, pick a college town. Even if sweep floors, flip burgers, wash pots,
and act as a security guard, will be able to do a terrific job getting
children ready for college and life.

My good news is that don't have to move to some neighborhood with all
millionaires. Instead, quite sufficient is JUST "do no harm" and a 'social
atmosphere'. Academically relaxed is also good.

This is a radical recommendation: For good work in actually learning for
college and life, mostly don't depend on the school. Don't mostly depend on
the school even if in one of the best school districts in the country or even
are sending children to one of the best private schools.

Why? Again, yet again, to repeat, bluntly the K-12 teachers don't know enough
to teach much of anything to be taken very seriously. The K-12 years are some
of the very best years for learning, and it is a grand disaster that those
years are turned over to the K-12 system and, thus, largely wasted.

Also implied but not stated was, get the heck into college level material
ASAP. In the US, the good academic material starts in college and continues
into graduate and professional school. K-12 is wildly different and,
academically, is a really bad joke -- mostly can just skip it. For most
parents who want good education for their children, this is radical but good
advice.

With my advice, careful parents, and a one-room school house in a serious,
rural farming community will totally knock the socks off ANYTHING in formal
K-12 education.

For your:

"Also, it can be very hard to support real learning at home if you are a
single parent working two or three jobs to make ends meet."

True.

So: (1) Young people, listen up: Work however hard is necessary to form stable
marriages and, really, stable, larger families. Marriages and families are
IMPORTANT. Again, listen up.

(2) Unless you want a series of disasters for the rest of your life, delay
having children until you can form a stable marriage.

(3) In the home, set up a 'culture' of learning instead of TV, cars, fashion
frocks, popularity competitions, cell phone gossip, pop culture, fast food,
sports, wild parties, etc.

Then, get the children started and going on learning, largely independently,
ASAP. Then the children can learn on their own time with minimal time from
parents, so little that there still is a chance for a single parent.

But this matter of a 'culture' of learning is just CRUCIAL. If there is any
doubt about the culture in your home, then disconnect the TV. Keep children
away from 'pop culture'. Emphasize LEARNING and, then, curiosity.

------
LoveLinux
In general, "Better school" means a school with more whites and or Asians.
"Bad schools" means a school with more black and Hispanic students.

~~~
showkiller
Not sure by your statement if you have children or not. But I just finished
enrolling my children in a private school instead of the local public school.
I really don't care if they are black or white I want my children to go to a
school where the parents value education as much as I do.

~~~
LoveLinux
I have mixed race children and do whatever it takes to make sure that they are
in schools that made up of mostly white, Asian, or Indian (India) students.
Black and Hispanic students have shown no signs of valuing education and the
schools usually plagued with violence. I'm not alone in this thinking; every
single Asian family I know does the same.

~~~
mattdeboard
>Black and Hispanic students have shown no signs of valuing education and the
schools usually plagued with violence.

 _ALL_ of them? Almost certainly not. You're just being plain, old fashioned
racist. You also sound ignorant and naive to claim to have _never_ met a black
or Hispanic student who shows a single sign of valuing education.

Do you live in the Bay Area? If so, take a trip over to San Jose and visit
some of the high schools schools there with predominantly white & asian
students (there are only a few). They're not garden parties. They're rough
schools with gangs and drugs.

~~~
adrianN
It doesn't have to be all of them. Just a few are enough to disturb the
learning environment.

~~~
mattdeboard
Just a few what? Black students? Disruptive students? Disruptive black
students?

------
maxxxxx
I am not sure this is the whole story. The Wall Steet Journal lately seems to
be on a mission to discredit any form of government. Of course it's different
when they wear a uniform, do things in secret and tell us they are there to
protect us...

------
cafard
Forty years ago, I remember hearing from a neighbor that the Arizona school
district she had worked for took some pains to see that the snowbirds didn't
just drop their kids off for instruction. Her oldest child was probably born
in 1951 or 1952, which suggests a terminus ad quem for her teaching days of
about 60 years ago.

Now and again the New York Times will write about the efforts New Jersey
districts will take to investigate suspicious enrollments. I've never read of
such investigations resulting in more than a kid shipped from one school to
another.

And it strikes me as utterly disingenuous for the WSJ to be going on about
this.

~~~
lhnn
How is it disingenuous for the WSJ to talk about this issue?

