I beg your pardon, but it IS a fair statement to make. Just look at the numbers. Its big here, its big in other cities and states where family and friends are teachers. I come from a large teaching family, as does my husband.

As for middle class affording college.... What middle class would you be referring to? We are solidly middle class and drive Saturns, not Hummers. The kids in my school disctrict driving Hummers live in million dollar homes and their parents rake in half a mil a year - that would classify as upper class. The only way my kids are going to college is through scholarships based on their athletics and academics. We barely pumake ends meet each month, how on earth are we going to afford an additional $20-30,000 a year per kid?

As for the ghetto kids... they'll get scholarships regardless color. Scholarships and grants are offered based on financial need. They are plentiful. I remember in highschool a cartoon pinned up on the guidance counselor's door. It showed two kids doing a perfect swan dive into a pool. It read under each of the two pictures: "The rich kid's way to college", and the other read "the poor kid's way to college" then they depicted a kid doing a major belly flop, it said "the middle class kid's way into collge" Its SO true.

I am not racist in any way. I just cannot justify the attitude that allows one kid get freebies while another has to work ten times harder for something. I live in an area that is 57% Latino. My Latino friends work VERY hard to fight the "stigma" of being a minority. Lets face it, there are judgements on a group of people... but my friends fight the sterotypes and strive to beat them. Too many people are just saying "well, thats what society expects of me, so I guess I'll never be anything but." Thats a cop-out and lazy!