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ORIGINAL: defiantbadgirl

To fine parents for looking out for their children is soooo wrong. I don't understand how they get away with it, especially with the resulting protests and phone calls.

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ORIGINAL: gungadin09


Parents would do better to encourage their kids' success by taking responsibility for it themselves, and making their kids take responsibility for it, rather than buying in to the idea that all they have to do is send their kids to the right school. This quick fix mentality and lack of personal responsibility is perhaps the reason why so many kids are failing, and not the school.

pam

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ORIGINAL: defiantbadgirl

So you think the father of a mentally challenged daughter deserves to be fined for doing what he had to in order to send his daughter to one of the best schools instead of one of the worst?

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ORIGINAL: defiantbadgirl

So you think the father of a mentally challenged daughter deserves to be fined for doing what he had to in order to send his daughter to one of the best schools instead of one of the worst?

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Elementary school rankings based on the CMT test scores at the two schools shows Brookside ranked 352 out of 580 and Thomas Hooker ranked at 220 out of 580. (Based on the combined math and reading scores for 2009-2010. The CMT or Connecticut Mastery Test is the standardised test given to elementary students in Connecticut.)

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ORIGINAL: Termyn8or
What about those Parents who do not have the intelligence to effectively teach ?

Every parent has the ability to teach certain things if they want to. For example: honesty, accountability, making good choices, the idea that success comes from hard work and not from taking shortcuts, etc. Call me naive, but i still think those traits are the keys to success in school and in life, and that was exactly what this mother failed to teach her child.

And you can't teach anyone much of anything when you are at work all the time.

i don't know what to tell you there. I don't know why she was homeless, or whether there were programs that could have helped her. i don't know she had 2 jobs, or 1 job, or none. i don't know if her kid was living with her, or with friends or family, or in a shelter. i don't know why this country doesn't do something about the problem of homelessness. But i'm pretty sure about this- this kid was underpriveledged because his mom was homeless, not because of what school he went to.

But now, it's not just the acamedic scores that make a school desirable.

i don't know, i think it is.

So maybe she wanted her kid to hobnob with the rich kids, which might lead to a better future.

i can't remember a single person i went to kindergarten with. i can barely remember anyone i went to elementary school with. i can't imagine those connections being of any use to me as an adult. At different times i have gone to school on the rich and the poor part of town, and yet i never felt that *where* i went to school was what held the key to a successful future.

Does this indicate the possibility of a class war ?

i have seen plenty of evidence that there is a class war. i work in a blue collar profession where most people have limited education, and many of them were born into the lower middle class and will die in the lower middle class, without ever knowing anything else. i have heard it said (i don't know if it's true) that the U.S. has one of the lowest class mobility rates in the Western World. It wouldn't suprise me. i've worked for enough people to know that hard i work, intelligence, and proficiency aren't always enough to ensure success. But i'm confident that those traits are still the most likely to lead to success. i'm also pretty confident that most people can be successful if they try, and i wish this woman had tried to teach her child *that* philosophy instead.

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ORIGINAL: WyldHrt
Think what you want about what her actions, but she did pick the better school.