New stories....on old topic.....

TIMELINE of 2008-2009 Nursery Admissions in Delhi

Nursery Admissions begin in Delhi....... Sep 07
Nursery Admissions Guidelines are out... Oct 07
Parents worries start for admissions.... Nov 07
Confusion over Admissions process....... Dec 07
Parents help parents through internet... Jan 08
Admission lists are out and parents in trouble... Feb 08
First ever nursery admission helpline started for parents by parents...Mar 08
Schools open...few get to school, and other make important decisions...Apr 08
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..........
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No news, no stories in media and no real work being done by DOE....... Jun 08
.......
......

Lots of things were planned by parents, some joined hands and came forward but lack of real support made it difficlt to continue with helpline. Parents blamed that media was more interested in "stories" than anything else. They chased parents to get "breaking" stories but I guess we all could certainly do better if we all could have met at least few more times and hold our spirits higher.

The spark is still there, fire will broke out again and helpless parents will start running around but do you think govt. has learned a lesson from this year's faliure? No! because they dont think that it was a faliure....they have made history.

We here are planning to launch this again at a bigger level this time, we are inviting parents (as usual) and for a change, we are involving teachers, principals, and schools (all sort of schools) who think a like on this education, admissions system and are willing to make a difference. Hope the efforts will go in right direction....ameeen!

Cheers!
Spyder

Congratulations on your (n your kid's) 1st day at school

Congratulations on the first day at school and here are some tips, suggestions that you may find useful in preparing yourself and your kid to new school, new friends, and a new milestone if the life.

Whether it's first day at a school nursery, or first day at pre-primary school, it's going to be an emotional time, and hopefully an exciting time too...it is a big day! You might find you're more nervous than they are! But whether your child is laid-back or nervous about starting school this day is a real milestone in both of your lives. Your child may be anxious about what to expect on the first day at school.

If so, one way of helping them is to talk through their fears:
+explain where they'll be going, what they'll be doing, and for how long
+answer questions, and iron out any fears by asking what they think the school might be like
+emphasise the things they may enjoy doing
+Don't dismiss your child's fears - things that seem obvious or silly to an adult can seem like terrible obstacles to a five year old.

Tips for starting school...
+For that first day, remember to find the camera the night before and put it out ready!
+Talk to your child about what they will do if they need the toilet or want a drink of water during the day - who they should tell. You will probably be able to go in with them and you can show them where the toilets are and where they will put their coat.
+Trousers with an elasticated waist, and socks rather than tights for girls, might be easier to start with. If they need a belt, the snake elasticated ones with 'S' buckles just pull up and down with the trousers. There's lots more clothing tips on the 'getting ready for school' page.
+Make sure they can undo their lunchbox themselves, and cope with their clothing - check it fits before that first morning! As it gets colder, you will need to help them learn to put on their coat and do it up, or it will take them ages to get out at playtime!
+You might occasionally want to take an apple or raisins to eat on the way home if the journey is a bit of a trek - help boost their energy levels. Some mums do this everyday for the first year or so.
+Expect them to be tired and perhaps a bit grumpy at home as they get used to the new routine!
+If you have a younger child too, they might find it strange that the older one is gone for longer periods now. Plan to make a special fuss of them - give them lots of attention until you all get used to it!
+Try to say hello to a different mum every day as you collect (not easy to do, but just stand nearby and make a friendly comment - see what happens!). Or if you're feeling shy, just smile a lot and people will talk to you. Once you've got to know a few people it gets easier for you and for the children.
Courtsey: WWW

Question many parents have been asking...and noone has answer!

Father of a girl child came with this analysis and I thought it would be useful to share with you all, he writes:

While my daughter has got admission in school of choice I guess I was lucky and I feel for the others who haven’t been so lucky. One particular thing that draws my attention is that while all the schools came out with the first list adhering to the points system, there hasn’t been any such second or third list of any significance.

Without naming the schools if we grade 4 schools as : A , B, C, D

And assume that all these schools are in the same vicinity ( say within a range of 8 -10 kms) it is obvious that a child getting admission in A,B and/or C will surely get admitted in A.

I have done a study of such schools out of sheer curiosity and found that the number of such overlapping seats would be around 15-20 whereas they have admitted only 7-8 from the second list.

Actually second lists were announced after the fee submission dates of A and B was over. Both A&B had fee submissions dates more or less overlapping each other.

So where does those seats go???

Pre-School, Pre-Primary seats available at Shemrock International, Dyal Bagh (Delhi Border)

Pre-School and Pre-Primary seats are available at Shemrock International, Faridabad. The details of this school are as below:

Address (close to Delhi Border):
Dyal Bagh, Nr. Charmwood Village,
Faridabad, Haryana
Contact:
95129-4092600, 601
2510870,
9212212262
9810121368

Minutes of Meeting: Delhi Parents First Meet

FUTURE of INDIA Initiative - Delhi Parents First Meet
Minutes of Meeting

Date: Sunday 2nd March, 2008
Time: 2:30 PM – 4:30 PM IST
Venue: Malviya Nagar, New Delhi
Total Invitees: 56
Accepted: 14
No. of participants: 8
Absent: 6

Minutes of the meeting can be found here. Next meeting will be held on Sunday 16th, Mar 08 or Sunday 23rd, Mar 08

Definitely no system can be improved in one meeting or probably two but a few can really change it for good. There are our initial efforts and we need your views, suggestions and queries on initiative and the discussion that we had in the first meeting. Please send your views, suggestions, queries to me at SpyderIndia@gmail.com

Please join us in this mission and we need your support to make it success!

Click here to Join!

Withdrawal case? Get you hard-earned money refunded from school....

Case Study: Refund of fee in case of withdrawal of admission
Rule No. 13 (Page 4 of 11) of “FINAL ORDER OF DATED 24.11.2007 AFTER INCORPATING ALL AMMENDMENTS EVEN SUSEQUENT TO HON’BLE SUPREME COURT - ORDER DATED 14.12.07” clearly states that:

13. If any parent or guardian, after depositing the full fee for admission of a child, chooses to withdraw the child from the school within one month from the date of the admission, then the school may retain the Registration Charges, Admission Fee and the tuition fee for one month only, and shall refund all other amounts of fee or other charges.

i.e. Schools giving admissions to Pre-School and Pre-Primary for the session 2008-2009 can only deduct money charged towards:
• Full Registration Charges, and
• Full Admission Fee, and
• One Month Tuition Fee

… and rest of the money has to be refunded back to the parents if the application is withdrawn within one month from the date of admission.

What parents can do if school refuses to refund the money? Read them the Rule No. 13 of the order issued by DOE on 14.12.2007 (as above).

Some prominent schools have been telling parents that they will only refund some fixed ‘X’ amount because they have written it on their school gate on Jan, or published it in the prospectus or on website and so on, but Parents, please understand that DOE order is one such document that overrides all these stupid rules. Go and get your money back!

If anyone of you is facing difficulties in refund, please let us know (post a comment on blog or write me an e-mail if you would like to keep it confidential) and we will try to help you.

Managment quota seats are on sale thru dalals known to mgmt....

No one can deny this fact, the one who is selling such seats are only accepting it through "Education Dalaals" those are very close to the management.

One such person contacted me (not as Spyder of course) today - thru some 3rd party and it got confirmed as another friend of mine told me that he knows one such person who can get you a seat for Rs. 2,00,000 (INR Two Lakh Only) at Amity, Saket under management quota.

Amrita Vidyalayam is another such case, management quota seats are available for money (amount not known - will try to get the exact figure soon).

God damn it! Sahi business hai dost!

I had written a e-mails to various schools, principles, ministers and no replies except one school.

We can diffinately do something if we all come togather and raise voice.

Enough of Talking, it's time for Action!

We know you are harried by the whole nursery admission fiasco but what hurts us is that despite so many efforts from your side there has been no solution to this issue. Elections are round the corner and the Government of Delhi does not have time to worry about small things like education and all thanks to the inaction by the Government schools are making most of it.

You might be thinking that it’s over but wait and take note that the nursery admission monster is going to raise its ugly head once again next year. This time it will attack new kids since it is hell bent on crippling the Future of your Child.

If you want to help us in our efforts to slay the monster once and for all, if you are for better admission procedures, if you are for better infrastructure than come - Join us to help “Shape the Future of India”....

To join, please enter your e-mail id below and click on "Join Us!" button. We shall be broadcasting the details very soon....

Enter your email address:

We will fight to the end……Even if we loose….We will not take it quietly!

We need education to shape the future of the nation..
Each one teach one
You must have heard these oft repeated quotes.
Have you ever stopped and asked yourself Does anyone care for these lines?
We do not know whats your reply is but what we know is that Schools and DOE do not believe in this, we would furter go to the extent of even saying that Schools believe that Education would shape their futre by generating fat donations and DOE agrees with schools by not taking action against such monstrous schools.

You would find below what can be labelled as GROSS INJUSTICE, Prejudice, Discrimanation and bias - against a 3 year old by denying a child his right to be educated.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To,
The Principal,
Delhi Public School ,
Mathura Road , New Delhi

Sub: Representation regarding gross injustice to Iklavya Singh, a candidate for admission to Pre-School in your school by adopting deliberate and illegal means.

Sir/Madam,
We are the parents of Iklavya Singh, who is a candidate for admission to the Pre-School in your school. We bring to your kind notice, the following few facts for immediate and necessary action:

That for our son, Iklavya Singh, born on the 10th of July,2004, we applied through the proper process of your school for admission in pre-school. On completion of the preliminary formalities as contemplated by the process of your school, our son was awarded 60 marks by you and was shortlisted for admission as per the original list posted on the website www.dpsmathuraroad.org .

That thereafter, we met your good self on the 29th of January,2008 and got the documents verified. During this entire meeting, you and your associates appeared quite satisfied and asked us to wait for the final list .

That , however when the final list was posted by you, we were shocked to find the name of our son missing from it. The score of our son’s marks reduced from 60 to 52 in a most arbitrary, mischievous and biased manner without any valid reason. On enquiry, your office told us that since our residence ( 139 – D , Pocket – C , Siddhartha Extension ) is at a distance of about 4-5 kilometers from the school. We respectfully submit that this observation by your office is factually wrong and is not likely to cause any damage whatsoever to the school. Moreover, kindly recollect from record that the destination of disembarkation of our son has been given as RajDoot Hotel which is precisely 1.8 Kilometers from your school. Also, our residence is precisely 2.75 Kilometers from the school . We are prepared to board our son and take him back at the bus stop of RajDoot Hotel , a fact thoroughly discussed and agreed upon in our interaction with you and your staff on the 29th of January,2008.


It is clear from the above-mentioned fact that deducting 8 marks of our son for this reason is absolutely arbitrary and illegal. We are forced to read between the lines to conclude that our son has been deprived this opportunity for the reasons best known to you, for which there is no just and concrete explanation.

By the above action of your office, we feel highly aggrieved and discriminated. In view of the above-mentioned facts and circumstances, we hereby call upon you to rectify the above defects committed by your office by reducing the score of our son, and give our son admission in your school at the earliest failing which we shall be construed to knock the doors of law for this intentional high-handedness and arbitrary process adopted by you.

A copy of this representation is retained by us for future reference if any.

Copy to:
1. Delhi Public School Society
2. Director of School Education, Delhi
3. Office of The Chief Minister of Delhi

Thanks and Regards.
Gurpreet Singh ( Father of Iklavya Singh )
Prabhjot Kaur ( Mother of Iklavya Singh)
139-D Pocket-C, Siddhartha Extension,
New Delhi – 110014
(contact numbers removed for privacy reasons - spyder)

Finally! Here is a case for DOE to solve! - Proof is attached NOW!!

UPDATED on 12-Feb-2008 at 9:00pm, we have attached the copy of Fax (see below) that was sent to DOE by parent and DOE has slept over this issue and probably many more such issues that went unreported.....

An issue reported by Mr. Gajendra Kumar:
------------------------------------------------------------------
School (Bluebells School International) have displayed the final list (most recent) on their website and my son's name is not there in the list.
I am also attaching file displayed by Bluebells on 14-01-08. My son Ojas Kumar's name was in this list (see S.No. 89). School just did not consider him in the second list because of age being 4+.

I made the complaints to Directorate of Education, but no response so far.

- Gajendra Kumar
-------------------------------------------------------------------


Spyder: Thanks Mr. Gajendra for showing the courage and reporting the matter! You have set an example for all of us and we assure you all support!

Look at the list dated 14-Jan-2008 the front page clearly states that "FOLLOWING IS THE LIST OF THE STUDENTS SELECTED FOR ADMISSION TO PRE-SCHOOL FOR THE SESSION 2008 – 2009" then later after that so called GD/Interaction/Document Verification how school can reject their application?

The worst part of this real problem is that DOE has not responded with any explaination to Mr. Gajendra Kumar.

Dear Mr. Lovely and Education Directors of Delhi State - here is a challenge for you folks! Accept this and show that DOE, Education Ministry can really help and take action against such schools if parents are reporting the matter.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copy of the fax is attached below that was sent by parent to Mr Sandeep Kumar, Director-Education, DOE on 7Feb 2008 (click on the image to enlarge).

Vasudhaiv Kutumbkam at Bluebells School International, Kailash

Blue bells neighbourhood criteria is a real life exmaple of "Vasudhaiv Kutumbkam" mantra!
The directive was of giving marks according to the distance from school for neighbourhood. The school kept 20 marks for 0-15 kms.

In 15 Km almost all the areas like Naraina, Sarita Vihar, Badarpur, Daryaganj fall. So basically the criteria of neighbourhood was nullified (oh I am sorry let me correct this- broad-i-fied) and school has set an exmple here for the world. Unfortunately people with less than a km from school, parents both PG, in proffessional degrees and alumi doesnt even reflect in the waiting list of the school.

Hey people, shall we all go and offer schools managment "Vasudhaiv Kutumbkam" flowers as an award for such a decision?

What's cooking in Spyder Labs?

The parents’ outcry on admission issue is valid and understood but the biggest question is that what is the real solution to this problem? Can it be designed-revised-implemented in a day? A month? An year? Couple of years? Not sure!

Three problems/issues we have been thinking for last couple of days:

• Problems that parents been facing so far?
• Problems that delhi schools faced?
• Problems that DOE/ Education Ministry faced?
  

Now here we are not only talking about problems/issues that surfaced this year but the ones that Delhi parents, schools, and DOE have been going thru for last several years. The problems that Mr. Ashok Agarwal and Ms. Shobhana Takiyar raised in their petition. The problems, issues that were discussed, investigated and analyzed by Mr. Ashok Gaguly and other members.

We have gone through that 9 page petition and a good 35 page Ganguly Committee report (aka recommendations) and also touched briskly another two most important documents1) Delhi Education Act 1973, 2) Delhi School Education Rules 1973. It really doesn’t make sense to bang heads in suggesting changes in past/current nursery admission rules, point system and so on without really understanding all this. Mr. Ashok Agarwal and his fellow really understood the problem when he decided the file that petition, Ganguly committee also did what they were asked to do and the document really a must read for all of us.

So what now? I invite suggestions from all parents but for now we shall be focusing on planned suggestions (based on facts from past not just this year alone) rather than random suggestions as I fear this will not work until we understand the problem, issues. Rest assured that there is a system approved by DOE but unfortunately the execution was wrong and some drawbacks added to the problem, and on top of that schools have flaunted it by all means.
Parents who have good understanding of (one or more of following): Delhi Edu Act (at least section 16), Delhi School Edu Rules (at least admissions specific), Mr Ashok Agarwal's petition and decision on it, Recommendations and report prepared by Ganguly committee and not to mention this year's DOE orders, please come forward and let's meet sometime this month on weekend and brainstorm on the issues so far (history so far, this year, and future), areas of improvement, and our plan for future (feasibility, and execution)

We all have had faced it ourselves for our kids, and parents have been going thru this pain for last several years. I am sure we have professionals from all backgrounds among us.

We think the real need is to do it all differently; platform is set we are ready to give our best efforts, what you say about this whole idea? Any suggestions, questions, ideas you may have - please do share as every comment counts and it will really help everyone.

(can't think of more at 1am night but little suggestion: for now/time being, please don’t send suggestions on fixing the system, because it is important to know your opinion on this thought to begin with – a well begun is half done so let’s take a very focused approach– right is n’t it?)

Spyder wishes every parent all the best for 1st Feb

The nursery admission process in Delhi is one of the most difficult and emotionally traumatic for everyone. It is simply heart breaking to watch amazing parents as they navigate this almost impossible process. We have seen almost every type of emotional reaction since November 2007 the date when DOE first came out with first order for nursery admissions guidelines.

I just want to wish every parent all the very best! I wish that every kid gets to at least one list tomorrow.

We plan to work closely with other parents and media starting next month and take it to next level where parents community will provide suggestions, solution to problems so that at least next year we see happy faces at school gates from start of the admissions till the last kid gets admission and even beyond. I will certainly need your help, so please keep sending your suggestions to me (at spyderindia@gmail.com) and I will try my level best and give my 1000% to this mission - no looking back from here. Thanks again to everyone and best wishes.

...and stay connected for more real stuff on Nursery Admissions in Delhi.

PLEASE NOTE: SELECTION LISTS/LINKS/URLs WILL BE UPDATED ON NAD SITE!

Cheers
Spyder

Apeejay School, Sheikh Sarai, Panchsheel Park - baby's day out!

Apeejay School, (Sheikh Sarai, Saket and Pitam Pura) has come out with their first list, I am sure by now most of us have got used to "not seeing" their lil' ones on the lists.

Congratulations to all those who have made to this list!! :)

The cut-off (score of the kid who is last on the selection list) is 65 marks. Myself being computer nurd, I keep doing experiments with the stuff I come across on net, and to my surprise, the school site of prone to "hacking" which is really a bad bad thing. This is hard-core programming stuff, has nothing to do with Nursery Admissions as such ;)

I am planning to inform the school tomorrow about this vulnerability so that they can secure the site information. Spyder is not that bad either - I am after schools for voilating norms and after DOE and Mr. Lovely so letting them do . Can't help it!

Just FYI, my kid also "failed" to make it to Apeejay (7 down out of 19, 12 more to go...) currently he is not aware of what we are going thru for his admission to a bigger school. He is busy playing "Need for Speed" on my laptop and can easily drive the car thru rough pathces on road....I am still learning on the roads of life though...

Problems/issues reported by parents and data verified from the school site:
It is confirmed that Apeejay (Saket, Sheikh Sarai and Pitam Pura - all three) has done soemething fishy with the list. There are kids with 40, 45, 50 marks who are on the selection list and there are those with 50, 58, 54 who have not made it to the list.

We are sending e-mail to school, lets see what resposne we get, if you have reported the problem to the school and have any info/response from school (any tele conv, mails etc), please share it with us. If we don't hear back from school within next 24 hours, let's see what can be done here!

Media? Interested? We have real data! You know my e-mail id - right?

Nursery Mathematics

I never thought that my good score in mathematics (shameless self-promotion: I scored 100% marks in 10th grade exams) would come handy after almost 19 years when I will start searching for a nursery school for my kid. What else you can expect from a harried engineer parent?

This “brain twisting” analysis idea came into my mind when I started analyzing chances/probability of my kid making to ‘any’ possible second, third of final list of any school in Delhi.

Hope you understand that the numbers used for this analysis are only indicative and doesn’t reflect any real data. I hope this would lit some ‘hope’ in everyone’s heart – yes there is still some hope. Keep smiling!

Let’s do some basic maths now:

Inputs:
100 - Schools taking admissions for 2008-2009 year in Delhi………...…..… (a)
3000 - Seats for 2008-2009 year (across all schools in Delhi)…………....… (b)
4000 – Applicants for 2008-2009 year (across Delhi)…………………………. (c)

Avg. no. of applications per applicant: 10 (data taken from poll results)
Total applications: 4000 x 10= 40000

Output:
Seats short (c - b): 1000
% of applicants appearing on more than one list: 10% = 4000 (c) x 10%= 400 …….....…….. (d)
Avg. no of lists one kid is appearing: 4
Total seats blocked by these applicants (d x 4): 400 x 4 = 1600 seats……………….…...……... (e)
These kids would free seats (e - d): 1600 – 400 = 1200 seats………………………………………. (f)
Avg. no of available seats per school (f/a): 1200/100 = 12……………………………………………. (g)

Average highest points (based on observations so far): 75 …………………………………...……… (h)
Average cut-off points (based on observations so far): 50 ………………………………….………… (i)
Average points per seat ((h - i)/(b/a)): (75-50)/30 = 25/30= approx. 0.75………..………….. (j)
Expected drop in points (g x j): 12 x 0.75 = approx. 10
Next expected cut-off: 50 – 10 = 40

If you think, you could not understand my point here, then here is the conclusion of this math :)
If you look at the final result of this calculation, the expected drop in cut-off is touching 40, and I am sure it would even drop to 30 which means that many of us would make to the list at one or other school after 1st Feb, 2008. I wish I could put actual numbers in this calculation, the output would have been really really interesting. What you say?

I wish I were right here with this calculation ‘cum’ prediction and see ‘many-many’ happy parents at schools gates in the month of February.

Cheers!

Survey results are shocking...we really need to think about it!

We conducted a survey and we had received almost 32 replies from parents within last 3 days. The results are very shocking and in fact reflect the kind of frustration and confusion every parent is going through. Here are the details:

As you can see, only 4% say that they will try Govt. school, so Mr. Lovely has a reason to smile as he can always come back and say that there are plenty of seats available in Govt. schools but parents are not willing to send their kids/wards to these schools.

Almost 40% parents ready to give bribe (well read ‘donation’) to the school/management in order to get that ‘one’ seat for their kid. Some parents (12%) think that they can plan shifting out of Delhi (to nearby regions) as they can get a seat there.

The most worrying part is that larger section of our community (62%) still doesn’t know what to do…if they don’t get a seat in Delhi.

Need help from my peer Parents

TAARE ZAMEEN PAR! SCHOOLS ON CLOUD NINE....

We have got tie-up with online media and we are planning to bring violation to attention of other parents and person responsible at DOE and Govt. This online media will publish the details anonymously so complete privacy will be maintained.

We need help from you all, please submit the information, news that you know, or are aware of anyvoilations taking place.

E.g: There are schools are asking for Rs. 20000/- or simillar deposit for registration which is non-refundable, or asking for documents that are vague and so on.

As some parents reported us that St Mary's school is charging Rs 20K at the time of form submission, but we dont know the exact address of school, so if someone can help us find the exact information we can really tap them, expose them for the sake of our community and our kids.

Please send your information to spyderindia@gmail.com and myself being parent of 3 yr old, I respect and assure the privacy in all communication to this mail id.

Or, you can post the comments here as well under any name you like.

Many thanks to all parents! Our efforts have been paid off!

Our collective efforts have been noticed and we were in Hindustan Times - Delhi Edition (Jan 10, 2008, See Page No. 6). I am getting so many e-mails from parents.

Thanks to everyone for helping us!

Delhi Nursery Admissions: Annoying issues! Who is responsible?

I've also noticed so many annoying issues for which i was really looking for a platform to share my views.

My first frustration is WE are made to buy the prospectus worth Rs. 250-800 each but still in that no school has given idea of its fee- structure. We are middle class people and have to do future planning for our investments in which child's monthly school expense will be counted. If I know in advance that a particular school will charge how much amount of fee it will be easy for us to take decision whether to apply in that school or not.

Second thing I think is that for all schools there should be a same date of declaring of lists so as to avoid confusion and submitting non refundable fees in 2-3 schools.

My third worry is the schools asking about the schooling of parents, what if the parents are well educated in post graduation and are in good jobs but hail from Govt. schools, as in our time education was the priority not the school name. I think schools should not ask parents this question in their interaction.

Please share your views on this.

Ryan Internation - thinking out of the box!

When DOE is trying to streamline the admissions procedure across schools, Ryan International has taken it to the next level......

Ryan international is asking for thumb size photo graphs for nursery admissions. Passport size photograph is a norm across all schools except Ryan, so if at all you are planning to apply in Ryan, make sure you have thumb size photograph of your little one.

And bytheway...they are also asking for Family Pic! Oh my God! What the hell is going on all around............

Life Saving Guide- options for 4+ year old in Nursery Admissions in Delhi

As asked by one of my fellow parents today, I thought I should share what I know.

Most schools are not denying forms for Nursery aka Pre-School admission to 4+ year olds reason being the following:

• they don't want to get highlighted just for denial of forms
• even if they SELL forms to 4+ yr old, they dont gurantee that kid will get a seat in pre-school aka nursery
• it doesnt cost them but add good money to their kitty, so no harm in giving form

There are only few (probably one or two) scools that are strict about age and are not allowing 4+ yrs forms for pre-school.

It's all money game......and unfortunately kids along with their por parents are are loosing side of this political game.