I think everyone here needs to go spend some time in an inner-city school so you can obtain a fscking clue.
It's not really the teachers faults why these kids are not learning. It's the kid's faults, these people are complete and utter idiots. They talk all day about getting high and the party tomorrow night, and have no real reason for being in school other than their mom is gonna whoop their ass if they don't since she loses some of her welfare check. (yes, many kids told me that in school) How many of you went to schools where guns were found daily? Did it have metal detectors at the doors? Did you have to wear and ID tag around your neck while in the building? Did all the staff have two-way radios so they could call for help quickly? Did you have armed city police officers in your school at all times (we had 4 stationed there)? Did you see every DAY a major fight go down usually with some sort of weapons? Did you watch someone get arrested daily?
And more importantly, the kids in inner city schools have a complete lack of respect for anyone. The problems are so much more than "we don't have schoolbooks", it's in the attitudes of the kids.
The idiot who said public schools are the same as private obviously does not speak from experience, living in the surburbs and all (At elite squad hits again). I went to inner city public schools, inner city private schools, and suburban public schools (THE top of the line surban school). The private school in the inner city was FAR and away the better of the inner city school. It was arguably better than the suburban school, but I would rank them about the same. Inner city public schools are horrendous, teachers have to worry more about fights, and getting people to STFU during class, than actually teaching.
There were some VERY good teachers at the inner city public schools. (and some bad ones of course) Yet, they were unable to teach since most of their time was either spent dealing with idiots who should have never been passed up to that grade, or dealing with discipline problems. The blame needs to be put either on administration for not kicking all the problematic morons the hell out of school, or their parents for not beating the living hell out of them. Unfortunately because of this, even kids who REALLY want to learn, don't get the same level of education they could elsewhere (make no mistake, someone who wanted to learn could indeed do it. They would have no problem scoring on an SAT decently, but they would do much better somewhere else).
All in all, I honestly don't have one iota of sympathy for most of the kids going to public schools in the inner city. They don't deserve an education with their attitudes. Should they change their attitude, and go to school to learn rather than going to school to see who's the coolest toughest badass of them all, most would do quite well.
-Phil