It's usually not just one book. My friend's kid lost her privledges because she lost five books. That's $30 even at the thrifty rate. And she's a reader. The kid reads books. But, for now she has lost her access to the library. What I'm describing is the grey area in between.
Here, people work. They are employed (oilfield). They are not well educated and many have large families starting as teenagers. Everybody has food in their belly and there's no homeless children. Two years ago less than half of the kids passed the math standards test for the year. They raised it to over 90% by afterschool tutoring at the school. That's probably waaay TMI, but these articles always leave it out that not everybody is going to college, or even thinks much of it. If the system is getting easier to "game" maybe it's getting better at sorting the people who want an education from those who don't. And from what everybody says there's not enough seats in the good schools for people who want theid kids to have a good education. Why not try to make the schools fit the peoples needs in stead of trying to make the people fit one idea of "a good education".
If a kid lives in the ghetto you need to make his school a safe haven and teach basic literacy. If a kid lives in the oilfield you need to teach him votech in case he doesn't finish school he has something to fall back on. If too many people are hyperfocused on gaming the system it's because you need to build more good schools in those neighborhoods.
Nodding my head yes in agreement with you.
I've seen more than my share of kids who had no real business in college.... and grew up with a fair number who went to work in the mills or the woods rather than finish high school.
Where are the options for THOSE kids?
Should we say that they "don't care about education?" I think that wrongly labels them as clods when the reality is that they may just not care about THAT KIND of education.
Frustrating.
