Capitol Hill Blue Forums Life and Moral Issues Education US Schools -- a failed system?

I will submit that some parents who truly value their child are too tied up with keeping a minimal roof over said child's head, food in said child's stomach, and bullets out of said child's body to be able to also get the best in education.

Reality is what it is. Children are neither luxuries nor rights; they are the results of biological events, and nothing is going to change that. If it were true that only people who can afford children should have them, we would be missing huge numbers of valuable citizens from this country.

My opinion only; your (in the sense of "all y'all's") mileage may vary.

Then we get the society and the school education that we deserve. I'm all for changing society's perception and attitudes towards "biological events" - but not many share my idea.

I tried.

John Quincy Adams never attended a formal school until he entered Harvard at the age of fourteen. Abraham Lincoln likewise received all of his education, except one year, through home schooling.

I wonder how President Adams and Lincoln would fair today being home schooled? I wonder if Mr. Adams and Lincoln would rise to the same level of greatness if they lived today?

Yet, when most people have kids - they just have 'em.

If people understood that they'd have to pay to literally pay for their kids schooling, and rearing, I'm sure we'd have a better society and less unwanted kids and a lot less social problems that we have today, ie. gangs
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Rick I honestly don't know if this would even make a difference. The lack of parental responsibility some exhibit is a reflection of the lack of personal responsibility in society at large. It's not limited to the lower income brackets, in fact, many, many of the lower income families I see are more involved as parents than their wealthier brethren.

Just as pets seem to be disposable, it seems children's needs can also be seen as disposable. Why? I don't know. Why do some parents have the attitude they do toward their offspring? Is there any one cause? Requiring parents to pay for school is not going to work for many reasons, in todays world, even if parents DID pay for school based on income, there still wouldn't be enough money to supply the school, pay the teachers etc. Private schools are pay as you go, I can afford to homeschool my kids, but I darn sure can't afford the 16,000.00 a year it would take to put my two in the closest private school!! Families with lower education levels tend to have lower paying jobs, to require them to paygo for school would put the entire family at huge risk for failure, so sorry, I'm not going to be able to embrace your ideal model,IMHO on many levels it's doomed to produce more societal problems and resentments than we currently endure