It seems as if everyone is missing the point. This particular story has little to do with failure. The enrollment rates have dropped and the tax base has dwindled. In this case they are actually doing the right thing by closing several schools.

The actual education being provided still sucks but this consolidation gives them a real chance at improving things.

So, back in the 80s, they were able to afford the best teachers? If that is the case, what happened?

I hate to play the race card here, but let me call it like I see it. I play tennis, I play racquetball, I bowl, I play handball. But damn it I refuse to play basketball. What does that have to do with anything? It seems that the only time local black youth are celebrated or thought of as valuable or worthwhile is when they are on a basketball court at KU OR MU. **** that. Here they are on the court spending valuable time practicing for a fan they have nothing in common with. A fan that does not want to have anything to do with the neighborhood, the school district, or friends they grew up with. For what, a bubble gum degree in psychology, sports training, business, communication? The main reason they are there isn't about education, it about entertainment of alumni and wanna be alumni. Most of which are middle class whites. Most of those black kids are of average intelligence at best, and they don't even have the time or energy left after sports to pursue a worthwhile degree. Just another microcosm of what is at the heart of the problem of inner-city schools in this area and across the country. Whites value worth wile educations and endeavors and are encouraged to do so. Blacks on the other hand are handed a basketball

Really? Wow, all these years I've been teaching my students wrong. There going to be really mad.

Oh, lighten up.

They're*

:D

Awesome!
ROFL

NewPhin is my boy. I have to assume he knows I'm playing.

Fu*k that

...the really good ones go on to the NBA and own million dollar homes and 3 hummers and 2 escalades....I dont think they're feeling to bad about being "used" by the university.

And for the others that arent good enough for the NBA....screw them again....they have opportunity that many people in america dont have...a free-ride at a 4-year university with the opportunity to get a degree. What they do with that opportunity is up to them....but again, there are a lot of 19 year old kids working at jack in the box and not in school.....or even worse, working 30 hours a week to pay rent, etc....and trying to pay tuition for themselves at a junior college.

I feel no pity for "student athletes".

Something that was brought up twice in this thread and completely ignored each time:

If the enrollment for the schools has dropped from 35,000 to 17,000 why the **** should they not close half the schools?

Hook line and, sinker.

THIS.

They've thrown money at the supt. position, hired family and friends, and run the district into the ground. The blacks in the schools were provided 15 year old history books in the 70s. AP history, english? If you could read at the 8th grade level, you were a total success.

I lived through that inequity. The greatest challenge in the KC school district, is for a kid not to get physically hurt while "earning" a worthless diploma.

I have to agree with DJ's Left Nut's take. 13and3's, too.

Discipline at home and school is critical to the success of youth. The lack of it, physical and fiscal, from parent(s), teachers, and administration, has garnered a goose egg in the KCSD.

Here's a magnet program for you: gravitate back to the three R's.

As I was pecking that post out I couldn't help but feel like I was being duped.

All of them were intentional other than the initial extend/extent.

I'm actually so lazy about my revising/posting here that it's ridiculous. I find so many errors in my posts when I reread them. At one time, I was extremely conscientious about such things. Now I don't really care.

Of course they were. I mean, how many teachers actually spell "you" as "u"?

Perhaps the KCMO district teachers.