We Must Deal With The Real Problems Facing Children Who Attend The Low-Performing Schools - And Response (2)

  • Sunday, May 28, 2017

What is the real problem with our five underperforming schools? I believe that until we address the issues that our children face in their homes and neighborhoods, there will be little improvement. 

Who could value an education while fighting for their lives? These children are faced with gang violence, not having enough food to eat, and worrying if they have a home to live in. Their parents were faced with the exact same issues as children.

We can put the very best teachers, spend millions of dollars in these schools, and still have the same results. The definition of insanity from Albert Einstein is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.   

I do not have the answers, but surely someone with an advanced education degree could realize what the true problems are. 

Michael E. Martin  

* * * 

Quite simple!  The schools offer the teachers and tools to get a fair education.  However most of the attendees that come from the welfare society created by the American government that has shown generations of these low performers that they will be taken care of without giving them any incentive have no desire or support from their homes to do better.  The parents, and in some cases the grandparents, have traveled this path and don’t know any other way to perform.  The few that do perform above average are to be rewarded for their hard work and dedication to do better in this environment. 

Once the handouts are taken away and people are made to work for their existence then change will slowly take place to correct the problem, same as the problem took years to slowly create. 

I’m not advocating the termination of welfare as there are truly those that need this, but the welfare system on a whole has been abused by too many for too long and has put a big burden on the hard working citizens of this country. 

Michael Mansfield 

* * *

It is time for a reality check, long overdue, that somehow those that live in poverty can magically pull themselves up by the bootstraps and create a new world for themselves.  I have heard for years the magical solution to poverty but what is not said is who is pulling the bootstraps? Let me share some 40 years of work with those that don't know where their bootstraps are and are more worried about food, shelter and the isolation of those that live in poverty.  

The simplicity of solutions begs to answer the following questions.. Is the educational system working for the inner city poor?  Do residents of the inner city have the tools, the power to change the status quo and if so how would they gather forces to make those changes? Let me address one at a time.

The educational system fails and has failed to educate the inner city poor for generations. Hear that again, generations.  Fault resides squarely on the schools and it is the schools that could address; could change that status quo and give those residents the ability to make changes in their society once they know how.  

Reading failure within the inner city community is pretty consistent over the entire nation. About 40 percent. The figure in the news of 60 percent should alarm the school officials but waking up the creative forces seems not to be present. What is needed is really quite simple and probably cost effective. Mom, family and child as part of an educational partnership working together to achieve reading success.  Without family, the schools cannot achieve success and especially so the isolation of the school to the community they serve.  

I feel confident that a few of the current school board members are open to program changes for this population but leadership is lacking. That famous definition of insanity is appropriate here. The school cannot achieve educational success when the subject is treated no differently then the student at Normal Park Elementary.  School achievement can only come when the process of educating the inner city poor changes. That can only be done when we know clearly what the objectives are and what the subject needs. That includes mom, family and child as a team. 

Robert Brooks

 

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