Don’t coddle ungrateful students
Recent articles by Dan Walters on “Smarter Balanced” (Sept. 11) test scores among California’s K-12 students provide many discouraging statistics foreshadowing a rather dismal outlook for our future.
There are always reoccurring discussions of facts and figures, but not many productive ideas to improve these scores. Why is the old standby always more money? Pouring money into these targeted “high-needs” schools with the new Local Control Funding Formula isn’t a complete solution. There should be stronger discipline and consequence.
You can throw all the money you want at students, but that won’t change their willingness to learn. More money on textbooks and programs is fine and dandy, but it’s all a waste if students aren’t going to respect what they’re given, or use these resources correctly to their advantage.
More important than tests, students need to be held more accountable for their actions and stop taking their free education for granted, because there is no free education.
Hiking up our taxes so ungrateful kids can be more and more coddled with unnecessary spending isn’t the answer. I will be genuinely surprised if the LCFF actually proves to show significant improvement among these targeted students in the years to come.
Melanie Hall, Fresno
This story was originally published September 16, 2015 at 7:49 AM with the headline "Don’t coddle ungrateful students."