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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
You are 100% wrong about the value that poor people place on education because the vast majority realize it's the most reliable path to a better life. You're also wrong that they're not entitled to it - it's in the Constitution. But if parents are making efforts to instill that lesson at home, then the lesson that sinks in at a failing school is this:  you are not going to find that path here.  Yeah, there are some extraordinary kids who are able to overcome the psychological barrier that a failing school puts up every day - where just walking in feels like punishment - but by the definition of the word, everyone can't be extraordinary.  Kids as young as first grade know when they're in a shitty school (I know, my students told me).  The ones who can get out do so; the ones who can't are riding on a vicious cycle of low expectation that starts early and transcends generations.

The lesson in the TAL episode is that if kids can see the path, they're MUCH more likely to get on it.  And yeah, that's simplistic but empirically true.

[/quote]

Can you please explain then the situation I quoted earlier?  I live in a city in the South where every student in a failing school has a right to go to any other public school or some private ones for free.  We also have magnet schools.

Also, in my city the real estate is very cheap, we don't have the situation like in DC where you can't afford to live in a good school district.  You can.  You can rent an apartment in the best school area for $600, the houses are very affordable.  Right now I can buy a house in the best school district for $135,000.  Median income is around $50K.

Yet, we still ended up have with the same result.  Failing schools are black.  Thriving schools are white.

How do you explain this? Please do.[/quote]
You keep harping on this $600 a month rent in a great school boundary, so let's do some math together.

Our hypothetical family is a single mom and her two children, ages 2 and 6. Mom works 50 hours per week making the federal minimum wage of $7.25/hour (you said you're in the south so I'm going to assume that your state doesn't have a higher minimum wage). She makes $362/week, pre-tax (for the purposes of our exercise we won't worry about taxes). She works 52 weeks a year since she doesn't have any time off, so she makes an untaxed $18,850 per year. Her $600 rent is $7200 per year. Daycare for her youngest is $100/week since you are in a low COL area, or $5200/year. She's spending $12,400/year on rent and daycare. That leaves $6,450 left. That breaks down to $537/month to cover food, all bills, transportation, insurance (her minimum wage job obviously isn't providing insurance), before and aftercare, and everything else that she might need for her family to survive.

So no, that $600 a month rent in the best school boundary no longer seems so affordable. It's all relative. [/quote]

Let's go further, not sure when you last worked a minimum or near minimum wage job, but they suck, they are exhausting jobs that you do because being homeless sucks more or you are 16.  So how much do you think this person can and is able to come home and do extra flash cards, do that extra science experiment, read that extra book?  You don't.  The problem gets even more difficult when you consider the shifts they have to work and if they will even know their shift that week.  Never mind the stress of just surviving.

Sure there are some shiftless, lazy people that would nothing for their kids if they won the lottery tomorrow, but that does not describe the majority of the working poor in America, just in your imagination. [/quote]

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