There are many students who could attend KIPP similar schools, except that their parents will not commit to the requirements of the schools, such as ensuring that their children are present and on-time, and checking to see that homework is completed.
Instead, the children of those parents fail in the public schools.
And, hold them accountable.
I, and most of the public school teachers I know, agree that parents and students should be more accountable, and that teachers can't be solely responsible for ensuring that children are properly educated.
How do you suggest that schools hold parents and students accountable? If you give me your stock answer of privatizing K-12 education, I still need to know how you'll ensure that the children of these unconcerned and uninvolved parents will be adequately educated.
Like my son, I think many fall through the cracks. These kids may not be able to read but many are very smart and are good at hiding their disability. It’s much better to get labeled as a trouble maker than have people know that you don’t understand what you are reading.
Since we can't help **all** of the disadvantaged students, then we should subject **all** of student to a model of schooling that seems to produce results only for functional families.
Do we **really** know if the government school model working optimally for academcially successful children?
The academically successful children very well may be succeeding **in spite** of being institutionalized, not because of it. If these children are learning 99% of what they know due to “afterschooling”, then perhaps these children are learning **in spite** of being institutionalized, not because of it.
At every turn the teachers unions fight innovation and privatization.