[Pharylon]

> By the way, why do you think wealthier people shouldn't get more advantages in life?

Wealthy people will always have nicer cars and better vacations and bigger houses, but that doesn't mean the children of poor people should be relegated to terrible schools where they'll have no future.

[lintiness]

sorry, but schools are a lot less important than families.

[Pharylon]

It's not either/or, it's both/and. Having parents that are willing and able to be involved with their children is huge, but going to a good school is to. The top rated comment linked to a This American Life story on achievement gap and how busing poor black students to white neighborhoods in the 80s and 90s almost magically improved their scores.

Don't forget that part of being an involved parent and making sure your kids get a good education is, critically, getting them in a good school.

[lintiness]

plenty of home schooled kids do just fine without attending "good schools".

[athenot]

True. And the poor have severely amputated family time due to job requirements. If both parents work a combined 3 jobs (and probably don't have the luxury of personal transportation, meaning increased transit times), how many hours are left with their children?

Yes, family education cannot be fully replaced by school instruction. But the reality for many struggling families is that they need as much help from the schools as possible.

I'm very pro-family but I take issue at the wealthy who point their fingers at struggling/broken families who haven't been dealt the same cards in life, and justifying blame by judging their lifestyle.

[indigo_rex]

They're both important, and one could argue that schools are more important to children with less supportive families. You also have to consider what is breaking up the families you appear to be referencing - over-policing, redlining, etc. Even if you come to the conclusion that the poor deserve everything they get (which would be a myopic conclusion), why should children suffer for the sins of their parents?

[CJefferson]

In that case, let's do inverted funding -- we seriously underfund schools in rich districts, and overfund in poor ones.

[lintiness]

"under" and "over" fund are subjective measures of nothing. the us spends substantially more per pupil than it did 40 years ago with roughly the same results.

further, we spend more per pupil than other developed countries that are delivering superior results.