🚀 go-pugleaf

First off, let me say that I agree with those who say Clinton is
being hypocritical -- IMO he is.

But that's not my main point.  So far, every post about education
in this thread has been obsessed with _schools_.  Pepole seem to
have forgotten how much learning takes place _outside_ of school
and structured class lessons.  Of course, this means that the
child's environment outside of school has to be conducive to learning
and development.  But take a look at the statistics -- both parents
are working now, yet the US spends a shamefully low sum on child
care as compared to the rest of the first world.  Parents should
be able to spend time with their children, yet US workers have the
least vacation of any industrialized nation save Japan.  Maternity
leave?  No luck there either.

And then there's the whole issue of what kind of student one gets
if that child doesn't get enough to eat (and comes to school hungry),
if the parents are unable to take time off work to care for him/her
when s/he is sick (so s/he gets well slower and misses _more_
school), if the child comes from a slumscraper like Cabrini Green
and is more concerned with staying alive than with studying and
getting enough rest, etc., etc., etc.

All this talk about school choice strikes me as one big red herring
(although if truth be told, most of the school-choice proposals
I've seen have defects the size of a small planet).  It's as if
there is a treacherous mountain highway with a very rusted guard
rail (painted white) with rotten support posts and the highway
department comes and paints it metallic silver and trumpets that
all is fixed and safe now (it sure _looks_ different, doesn't it?).

Sorry, I don't think so.
-- 
David Barts  N5JRN                      UW Civil Engineering, FX-10
davidb@ce.washington.edu                Seattle, WA  98195