Sally Redux

I don't really understand, actually.

You appear to be dismissing the objective quality of any particular school and saying it's all down to good parenting?

Giantaxe

That's pretty clear. And I do agree that guns are the elephant in the room. Police just have to assume that they are interacting with an armed civilian, because that is so often the case. I've had police come to my condo a few times (I have a crazy neighbour) and when they come in you can see from their actions and body language that their initial priority is to defend themselves. Of course, that changes as soon as they see my place isn't a crack house...

Giantaxe

Great, so you can now stop posting the true but meaningless point that no one is denied access to an "education" and focus on the disparities in provision of said education and on parental involvement.

Hotscot

Not at all.

But parental support/involvement has far more influence on the learning process than the nature of the school. Particularly the encouragement of reading/writing/critical thinking at home.

Hotscot

Well if you hadn't denied it a few pages back..

Leslie

Sooooo .... did officer Wilson know about the convenience store when he approached Michael Brown?

Sally Redux

I don't agree. It has influence, but not far more.

Sally Redux

Good question.

Hotscot

Ok.
I respect your right to disagree.

Here's a couple of references.

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/paren...c_success.html

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...1029121554.htm

Mrs Danvers

I'm also thinking that a child in a poorer neighborhood and bad school district may have the most well intentioned parent(s) in the world, but peer pressure during certain parts of childhood and adolescence can be the greater influence.

RoadWarriorFromLP

You might as well argue that the problems should be fixed by the Education Fairy.

I understand that theoretically, we would all reside in a world filled with competent, loving parents who have embraced a love of learning and have the time to share it.

However, reality suggests that we have a lot of poor broken families that either have no appreciation of education or else no free time away from their menial jobs to provide it.

Going through the motions may sound like a fine policy objective to you, but some of us differ, as we can see that your way doesn't actually work. We cannot rely on the families in order to make substantial improvements -- while we should attempt to include them, we cannot depend upon all of them to make considerable changes that will improve the outcomes. It sounds like a nice idea, but it is horribly naive to depend upon such a plan.

So in answer to your question, yes, some of us disagree.

SultanOfSwing

It is my understanding that he fit the description for the robbery and he was about to call it in to dispatch when whatever kicked off, kicked off.

So, it would seem he knew about the robbery but not for sure that Brown did it.

Giantaxe

There was no denial from me at all. I've consistently posted in this thread about differences in the quality of provision.

Sally Redux

Some of the schools are really failing, just because there is a building there with 'School' written on it doesn't mean everyone is getting the same life chances.

If parental involvement is all that matters, why didn't I stay Westside, where I liked to live, and send my kids to Fairfax?

Sally Redux

Well exactly. Neat little geek kid doing his homework is going to be toast.