Back and forth about schools at the PureReform Blog

Some good and long discussions are unfolding about Pittsburgh Public Schools at the Pure Reform blog, http://purereform.blogspot.com. This is a comment from someone in the treads there, giving me some support.

solutionsRus has left a new comment on the post "Neighborhood tensions":

Although I don't always agree with (or for that matter understand) some of Mark's comments, on the point of the value of coaching, I believe that he is right on. All children (not just at risk) benefit from having a positive adult influence in their lives. Even with all the support in the world raising two kids was a challenge and I was thankful for the positive impact that several coaches made on my children. High school sports do get waaayyy too much attention by the media with a little to much focus on winning for my tastes, but the value of learning team play, sportsmanship, leadership skills etc. can not be stressed enough. Yes, academic subjects are the #1 need, but cannot be taught in a vacuum.

Mark's comments on the state of PPS sports programs are right on as well. For every wonderful coach that my children have had, there is one that is just taking a paycheck (one coach used to read the paper during practice and another would grade papers during matches).

We should all stop speaking in absolutes. There are good and not so good coaches, teachers, principals, administrators and parents. Making changes to a system that ensures more good and less not so good will only strengthen that system. But the changes have to be effective, vetted and implemented correctly or it is just "change" and not improvement.