My point was that better funded schools tend to be in wealthier areas; with
exceptions of course. Wealthier parents tend to have more time and money to
spend on their children’s education. Parents with money have the “luxury” of
not having to decide between working overtime to keep their children fed and
staying home and helping with homework. These parents are also more likely to
have college educations and see the value of their children receiving a college
education, which causes an increased level of importance on the education
itself. This falls into the culture and home life that you pointed out.

My feeling is that schools are failing because they have an effective monopoly
on education. The school a student goes to is generally dictated by geography.
Were schools forced to compete on quality rather than simply have students
“given” to them I believe that our education system would be forced to improve.
Although that does beg the counter argument that schools would then also be
competing to get the “best” students which would leave the children behind even
moreso. No Child Left Behind is an argument that I’ll leave for another time -
for now I’ll just say I disagree with it.

Thank you for your comments. This site was set up as a humor site and it is
rare that I get to actually stand up on a soapbox for things I feel strongly
about. But the failure of our education system is certainly something I feel
strongly about.