Ok, so rather than go to bed and lay awake thinking about this - I am going to get it all out....
The problem of student's laziness stems from home. Let's face it - when we boil everything down, these kids are really just that - kids. They have the maturity level of children and cannot see the bigger picture of the benefit of higher education. What if we started at the parents. What if we offered tax returns based on students report cards?
In my master's degree program, I heard about this wild idea on NPR and now it is making so much more sense. Offering parents a tax benefit incentive to place stricter regulations on their children to do well in school is such a positive thing. The better students do in school, the more likely they will be to become part of the middle-class working adults. These middle-class working adults all pay taxes. They are not reliant on the state for welfare or state-supported institutions for income. Yeah, it will cost more up front, but in the long run, think about how much money would be generated from the tax revenue of the working-class adult. Which has been increased due to the benefit of a better education.
Now, for the people who don' t pay taxes......which in my school are the class of the immigrants. Well - I don't have an answer for that. Before working in the school that I am in, I was completely against Arizona's Immigration Law Proposition 1070. I looked at the immigrant class as a group of people just trying to have a better life for them and their family. However, statistcally speaking, this is the class which stems the greatest draw on our state's economy. Tax dollars are funding programs for foreign language classes and integration classes. Support courses are being formed to help the children of these immigrants to integrate in to the mainstream education. And, their children can tend to have a lot of behavior issues which inhibit learning in the classroom. Now, please take these words to heart, "can tend to." I do have some ELL's that are bright and wonder assets to the classroom. But, on the whole, I have a great many more who are a distraction.
Well - that is my idea. Right down to B.F. Skinner and his philosophy on Behaviorism. Paying parents to stress the importance of good grades to their kids. Phenomenal right? :)
Great idea Miss Dooley! Really though, its a good idea! I also think schools should focus more on parents- I would like to see schools become more of a community center, where parents can go to learn, for daycare, for other things. A school should have the whole family involved- inside and out.
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