E-mail: higgens@aol.com
Marvelous idea if the teacher works in a school serving affluent children. Bad idea if the teacher works in a ghetto school.
Why? Parental support--the key ingredient in student success--is noticeably less in schools serving impoverished communities and noticeably greater in wealthier neighborhoods.
Parents and guardians have access to their children for 53 percent of the year while teachers occupy only 14 percent of their time. The 33-percent balance is spent sleeping.
Since parents have the most opportunity to influence student success, why not base their school taxes on their child-rearing performances? Normal taxes for success and increased taxes for failure.
Graduated tax penalties would be paid by parents for failing grades, missed homework assignments, suspensions, expulsions, truancies, teen pregnancies, drug offenses, etc. experienced by their school-aged children. (23 JULY 2000)
