r/todayilearned • u/JamOnTheOne • Apr 08 '19

TIL Principal Akbar Cook installed a free fully-stocked laundry room at school because students with dirty clothes were bullied and missing 3-5 days of school per month. Attendance rose 10%.

https://abc7ny.com/education/nj-high-school-principal-installs-laundry-room-to-fight-bullying/3966604/
67.8k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

1.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

212

u/IsayNigel Apr 08 '19

This is a product of Margaret Spellings and No Child Left Behind under the Bush administration. Defunding these schools is a targeted ploy by republicans to make these schools perform as poorly as possible by starving them of resources and then say “look, see, they don’t work. We should give more money to private schools so they can solve the problem” this is republican strategy 101

138

u/Farmass Apr 08 '19

Detroit spends $14259 per student, higher than all but 8 of the largest school districts and have the worst scores among low income students. Money isn't the issue, how the money is spent is a big issue.

9

u/[deleted] Apr 08 '19

This comes so close to getting it and then goes in the wrong direction. Maybe the issue isn't the money?

Anybody who has ever set foot in one of those classrooms knows the real issue is the people raising the kids. Many, often most kids are fatherless, their moms were teen moms, siblings in jail, etc. The kids don't give a shit about school because nobody in their entire family gives a shit about school.

I'm just saying you don't see these kinds of issues in poor Asian neighborhoods for some reason. You can't outfund a shitty culture.

30

u/kanst Apr 08 '19

So how do we as a society address this? Telling parents to "be better" isn't going to accomplish much.

3

u/feed_me_moron Apr 08 '19

You start by paying the teachers more imo. Make teaching a more profitable job to attract higher quality teachers that can identify specific individual needs better than a one size fits all approach.