February 13, 2008
Editor:
Notably missing from your endorsement of the District Attorney's plan to jail parents of kids who regularly skip school (Editorial, Feb. 7) is any call for school officials to also get some “motivation to change problem behaviors.”
Where are the demands to award merit pay to outstanding teachers and fire those who can't or won't teach? Where is the call for D.A. Harris to prosecute government officials when kids graduate from SFUSD schools unable to properly read, write, or do basic math? How come only families, and not school officials, are to be baited with carrots and threatened with sticks?
It’s well known that compulsory government education camps – er, I mean “public schools” – are habitually truant in their responsibility to deliver a quality education to all the students in their custody. Maybe some parents are simply taking a hard-headed look at this reality and deciding there is little point in leaning on their children to attend classes where they aren’t learning anyway. Why should they bend over backwards just so an unmotivated, unaccountable, and underperforming school district can submit their kids’ names as “present” in order to collect fatter checks from the state?
Sincerely,
Starchild
Outreach Director
Libertarian Party of San Francisco