Not Yours to Give

[kandrathe]

I need to poke around in the childstats web site some more, but that probably won't be tonight. What I didn't see in a quick glance was a way to compare those stats among children of different income levels.

The thing is, it's not really like there's a few isolated cases where there are issues at home among the kids I work with. It's the few isolated cases where there are no issues at home. If you're going to include "read to" on your list of criteria, well, the numbers just get smaller.

I honestly wonder if most if the increase in the cost of education lately is actually an increase in the cost of health care. With health care costs out of control and rising, the cost to employ anyone, in any field, is going up substantially.

Some argue that we should cut teachers' health benefits, but of course that's not getting to the root of the problem.

I don't see the issue to be with teachers. their methods, or their benefits/pay. I think the huge increases in education costs are due to the huge demands we are placing on the education system itself. I have a relative who works in an urban school where the children speak 43 different native languages. We are having trouble just getting to the basics of education. Add to that, the maniacal focus some people have on coupling sports or other frivolities with secondary schools, and then insuring that their high school has THE best facilities. And, it is no different in at the College/University level either. My take on education in general at all levels beyond the 6th grade is that there are too many distractions from what is really, really important to be taught.