I am not a teacher, but I'd say that along with the money in wealthier districts, you also are more likely to have parents who went to college and have the resources to be actively engaged in their childrens' education.

Doesn't always work well. We live in a quote/unquote "wealthy district" or at least, one that's considerably better off than the majority in the state and the kids' classes are still overcrowded (average 30 kids in a class), in the middle school they've dropped all electives with the exception of band, P.E., and art/health (everything else is an extracurricular activity), and even the electives are short on money. The band director can't buy new music for the band, all of the kids have to either rent or buy their own instruments from an outside source because the school can't afford to buy instruments for the kids to borrow (which was the norm when I was in band), and if the band needs buses to go anywhere, even up the street to the elementary school, to do a performance, they have to pay for the buses-- neither the school nor the district will pay for them.

And the downside to parents who are college educated (at least around here) is they have a sense of entitlement that is not to be believed. It's not a matter of being engaged and active in their kids' academic lives, it's interfering in them. They want to ensure that their kids get the best education (read: make good grades) and refuse to take into account that teachers have more than just that one child they must teach.

This is just a HUGE difference from my solidly middle class public school education-- but then again, we're twenty-five years removed from that.

Timelies all!

We ended up going for a TiVo last year when we couldn't find a DVD recorder for a reasonable price.

I would absolutely agree that money is not a sufficient solution to problem schools, but it sure as hell is a necessary one.

This, but also given what java said about family involvement -- our school district is failing horribly and is set in an economically depressed area. One way teachers get around the issue of family involvement, or lack of it, is simply to assign very little homework at the elementary level. Work gets done in class, where it can be supervised.

Totally as an example, a school district with funding might try to finesse the lack of parental involvement with more agressive and extensive after school programs where kids could do and get help with their homework.

And that's not a perfect solution either. But money gives you options, and lack of money generally means you're stuck picking from the worst ones.

[From way up: Sorry, I had to go to a meeting, so had to leave this post in the middle of writing it!]

I am not a teacher, but I'd say that along with the money in wealthier districts, you also are more likely to have parents who went to college and have the resources to be actively engaged in their childrens' education.

An excellent anecdotal evidence note: My friend Karen basically won SF's version of the lottery when her children were accepted into one of the BEST public schools in SF. It's literally a lottery. The Friday before the official first day of school, there was a special optional orientation. Karen took her daughter and had a great time meeting teachers, seeing the classrooms, meeting new classmates. However she said that a lot of the name badges that were prepared for the kids across town (from the poor part of town) were still lying on the table at the end of the day. Those parents didn't have the resources to take time off of work and attend something like this. So already their kids were going to be at a disadvantage because so many of the kids there on Friday got that huge head start. My cousin the sociologist refers to this as "structured racism". It's not intended, but it's not properly mitigated, either.

Thanks. Really all I want is a VCR that has a hard drive instead of tapes. My needs are simple.

I got a Panasonic DVD player/recorder a few years back that I'm still happy with.

This is what I have, courtesy of Omnis. Thanks Omnis!! I had no idea it existed, but I love it. Among other things, you can easily edit episodes to cut out commercials. My favorite feature is that I can make a playlist of multiple episodes and then use the DVD-RAM disc to copy the playlist and make one long episode that I then save back to the hard drive. So I was able to save my favorite Season 5 SYTYCD routines as one commercial-free 3.5-hour episode.

The only drawback currently is that it doesn't download program information, I have to set it to record manually. But that's only because I know haven't hooked it up exactly right. I need to get another cable and fix that one of these days.

I do love the idea of not having to rely on a subscription to anything.

Thanks, Strega. I'm looking through that info now.

We ended up going for a TiVo last year when we couldn't find a DVD recorder for a reasonable price.

It is looking like what I want was on the market 2 years ago and has since disappeared.

If you're going to get a recordable dvd player, stay clear of Toshiba--they don't let you use DVD+R discs, so you can only record up to two hours per DVD-R disc, which really sucks. I only discovered that after going to their website, because even the instruction book doesn't mention that little fact.

Does anyone want a 50-pack of DVD+R discs?

How a Basic Income Program Saved a Namibian Village:

It sounds like a communist utopia, but a basic income program pioneered by German aid workers has helped alleviate poverty in a Nambian village. Crime is down and children can finally attend school. Only the local white farmers are unhappy.

It's a pretty fascinating and fantastic story.

Parents are now able to pay tuition, and the proportion of children attending school rose to 92 percent last year. The school has used the additional revenue to buy paper, pens and ink for its printers. The rate of malnourishment among the children has plunged from 42 to 10 percent. The local police crime statistics show a decline in theft and poaching. People with AIDS are responding more effectively to treatment, now that their nutritional needs are being met more consistently. "Suddenly the children were wearing shoes," says the teacher. A man went to see Dirk and Claudia Haarmann. Beaming from ear to ear, he asked: "Don't you see?" They asked him what he meant. "Don't you see? I now have trousers and a t-shirt. I am now a person."

Even dignity, it seems, can be purchased for 100 Namibian dollars a month.

Even when gmail was down, they were saying, "Users can access their email via IMAP or POP."

My notifier checks the web interface. The moment I gave up on the web interface and set up IMAP, boom, the web interface came back.

That's fascinating, Polter-Cow. I really like the underlying principle and that it seems to be working is just wonderful.