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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'd rather have a podcast about school districts that are making progress and have instituted policies or changes that have led to overall improvement. Because we hear all about the problems but nothing about real solutions with concrete examples. It makes me feel like there aren't any.[/quote]

I totally agree.  I haven't listened yet, and it sounds interesting/entertaining but also, not to contain actually any ground breaking new information.

What do we do about it?  What are the solutions?  Are they scalable?  Someone report back if she gets to that....[/quote]
The solution is in the living room at home. Which is why there exist no government policies that will ever work, other than parental education (which itself requires parental involvement) and early intervention (which is proven to work amazingly well for as long as it continues). I know it’s impossible to believe on DCUM, but not everyone cares if their child goes to college or even graduates high school, not everyone wants to read 20 minutes per day to their children or nag them to do their homework. The best place to invest policy money is in poorer preschools. If you paid just $1000 to teach every single poor URM 4 year-old to read fluently, you would see the single greatest leap in education in a single generation.[/quote]

There are free preschools available already.

[b]I had a friend in Tennessee, the state sent free books to them every month from ages 0-5[/b].

Most poor people know how to read at an elementary level from free public schools.  I wish the solution could be as simple as reading, that actually does work in many poorer countries.  But not here.  This "cycle of poverty" thing in this country is uniquely American.  Of course there are cycles of poverty in other countries, but it's very different than what we see here. It's not just a matter of offering a better education.  A lot of people simply don't want it.
[/quote]

Dolly Parton is wonderful and the program has spread all over the country and all over the world.

The reaction of posters in DC was a model in rich white guilt though.  They refused to sign their children up because it's a program for poor kids and they didn't want to take advantage.  [/quote]

That's the total opposite of my experience in life. Every DC kid (mostly UMC to rich) we do playdates with has the same collection of Dolly Parton books at home.[/quote]

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