Pandering hurts schools

I find it difficult to agree with Cal Thomas, but he is correct that increased school funding doesn’t automatically bring about improved results. He’s wrong about the reason, however.

It was ironic that his column appeared in the same paper that carried a story about the Supreme Court decision making school districts (taxpayers) financially responsible for parents’ decision to send their child to a private school. The simple fact is that public education in the U.S. is in the condition he criticizes because of misguided parents and their attorneys, court decisions and legislators pandering to special-interest groups and writing regulations in order to get re-elected. Public schools must continually deal with children motivated only to disrupt the process and backed by dysfunctional parents.

Handicapped and oppositional, defiant children are not welcome in the “better schools” to which Thomas refers. Public school teachers are more skilled than ever before and students who come to learn achieve great things, despite the drawbacks imposed by the misguided parents, courts and legislators. Most of the elements of public education that Thomas decries are the results of lawsuits brought by misfits. Public education is in trouble, but not for the reasons that Thomas asserts.

Robert Crabb

Colbert