fourth post

I must say that I agree with most of the people who have posted before me. Like Nicholas said, I don't think parents should have total control over their child's education. It's important for them to have some form of an opinion or idea, which should have an influence in administrators' decisions; but, it should ultimately be up to the people who have a lot of experience and knowledge in the subject matter. Parents, particularly in D.C. public schools, have little to no experience with education . . . so I feel like parents making such big decisions in the area of education isn't always the best idea. Like I said, it is important for the parents to have a say, but the administrators should be making the final decision.
As for choosing teachers . . . I believe schools should focus more on the person happily willing to teach, rather than what school they graduated from. I think it's really important to have a teacher who wants to be there and is making an effort. My freshman algebra teacher was a really lazy person who didn't seem to want to be there at all; but I do recall that she graduated from Harvard. I also remember my sophomore year history teacher, who went to a local college, but showed up everyday willing and eager to help us become better students-- I learned so much more in that history class than my freshman algebra class. Although my history teacher didn't have an ivy league education, like my math teacher did, she is by far a better educator in my mind. Therefore, I think it should be more about evaluating the person, rather than their college's reputation.