School Vouchers?

[tofu]

Most people seem to agree that American schools are of very poor quality. We've have several threads (http://bautforum.com/showthread.php?t=42090) along those lines.

So what is the solution? One possibility is to give the money to the parents rather than the school - so-called vouchers.

What are your opinions on this? If you don't like vouchers, what solution do you propose?

(note: This isn't a trap, but be warned that if you say "more money" I'm prepared to make you look very foolish)

[R.A.F.]

One possibility is to give the money to the parents rather than the school - so-called vouchers.

I don't know why you would think of that as a "solution" as It would just make a bigger problem.

[Doodler]

Let me ask this. What is the fundamental difference between a private school education and a public school education?

Is it the smaller classes? Heh, then what do you solve by sending everyone to them, thereby eliminating that advantage?

Is it better teachers? Why are they there and not in public schools? Better pay? Why not pay the public school teachers what they're worth?

Is it the ability to effectively discipline unruly kids by making the parents sign documents on entry that they are authorized to take disciplinary action with the kids? Why not put forward legislation that allows for more effective discipline in public schools?


I do not understand the logic of turning kids over to the private school system instead of making the necessary upgrades to existing schools.

Instead you get retarded nonsense like No Child Left Behind that steadily strangles public schools that don't perform. I cannot fathom the level of arrogant stupidity required to arrive at the conclusion that the way to motivate schools to perform better is to cut them off from the funding that might help them better do so...

[Moose]

(note: This isn't a trap, but be warned that if you say "more money" I'm prepared to make you look very foolish)

While it's certainly never going to be a cure-all, I maintain that a cultural emphasis on education, science, and just as importantly developping opportunities that are accessible to all would go a very long way towards preventing the despair and hopelessness that are at the root of the vast majority of the societal challenges we're facing today.

That, and sufficiently funding the chronically shorted educational systems.

[Moose]

Instead you get retarded nonsense like No Child Left Behind that steadily strangles public schools that don't perform. I cannot fathom the level of arrogant stupidity required to arrive at the conclusion that the way to motivate schools to perform better is to cut them off from the funding that might help them better do so...

"The beatings will continue until morale improves."

Well said on all points, Doodler.

[tofu]

I don't know why you would think of that as a "solution" as It would just make a bigger problem.

This is factually incorrect. Many studies have shown that vouchers and school choice increase educational achievement. Here's one page with links to six studies, let me know how many dozens more you need:

http://www.mackinac.org/article.aspx?ID=6995

A choice quote:
Students' achievement generally does rise when they attend voucher or charter schools

I'm sorry RAF, but this particular point actually isn't open to debate. It is an established fact.

Let me ask this. What is the fundamental difference between a private school education and a public school education?

Competition. Sorry, I should have said that in the OP. Public schools don't compete. When they perform poorly there are no consequences. They can't even fire teachers. Here is a good article about it:

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Stossel/story?id=1500338

Is it better teachers?

That's a big part of it, yes. Better teachers, and teachers with support.

Why are they there and not in public schools?

Some of them are in public schools. But here's the part your missing. IF a public school makes a mistake and hires a bad teacher, they can't fire them. Consider this quote from the article above:

Here's just one example from New York City: It took years to fire a teacher who sent sexually oriented e-mails to "Cutie 101," a 16-year-old student. Klein said, "He hasn't taught, but we have had to pay him, because that's what's required under the contract."
Only after six years of litigation were they able to fire him. In the meantime, they paid the teacher more than $300,000. Klein said he employs dozens of teachers who he's afraid to let near the kids, so he has them sit in what are called rubber rooms. This year he will spend $20 million dollars to warehouse teachers in five rubber rooms.

I'd love to hear your response to that.

Better pay? Why not pay the public school teachers what they're worth?

Impossible because of the extra layers of bureaucracy and the problem discussed above. Public schools waste money paying teachers who don't teach (because they sent sexually-oriented emails to students) and they waste money on lawyers so that they can eventually fire teachers. There's less money left for the teachers.

I do not understand the logic of turning kids over to the private school system

Why did you use the phrase, "turning kids over to" I don't understand why you say that. It is an intentionally demonization in that it conjures issues of poor little sally being dropped off at some horrible place where neither she nor her parents want to be. Here's the irony - that's the situation we have today! I can accurately say, "I don't see the logic in turning kids over to a public school." I can say that, because parents do not have any choice about the matter. With vouchers, a parent would make a choice. There would be no, "turning over" but instead there would a market and market options.

instead of making the necessary upgrades to existing schools.

But this is why I asked in the OP, what is the solution? Here are the things we've tried, that haven't worked.

1.More money - We've more than doubled the amount of money per child (adjusted for inflation) but schools have not improved. If we doubled the amount of money per child once more, what would you expect the outcome to be? Answer: the same thing would happen, no improvement. More money is NOT the answer.

2.Accountability - this was the idea behind No Child Left Behind, but as you yourself point out, that hasn't worked either. So accountability is not the answer.

What is the answer? What else have you got? I've got an idea. Vouchers. It's worked every time it's been tried. Why can't we try it some more? If someone has another idea, I'm more than open to it.

[R.A.F.]

I'm sorry RAF, but this particular point actually isn't open to debate. It is an established fact.

Ha Ha Ha...so you don't see a "problem" with parents choosing what it is there kids will actually learn in school?? That's what would happen with vouchers. So you don't see a problem with these students (for instance) "learning" that evolution and creationism are 2 "theories" that deserve (in some parents minds at least) equal exposure in a "science class"?

Science is not a matter of "popular opinion", and if left to the parents, I weep for any students "learning" in this manner...

So you really don't see the problem???

[farmerjumperdon]

Privatize education.

I'm OK with the government regulating, at some significantly high level, our system of education; but they should not be actually running the business. The only businesses government should actually run are policing and prosecuting criminal activity, printing and controlling currency, international diplomatic relations, collecting and allocating tax dollars, and keeping records. Everything else should only require regulation, not actually owning and managing operations.

It's already partially privatized anyway. For anyone who can afford private education and pay the existing taxes, the system is already essentially private in every respect. Why should so many options only be available to certain classes of people? Give everybody the power to make more choices about their children's education.

If the fear is that making it fully private would result in too many short-sighted people spending the money on a bigger car or bigger house; then vouchers that can only be spent on education would seem a decent solution. We'd need a voucher system anyway because just eliminating the taxes would not work. The taxes would still need to be collected from everyone, then the proceeds would need to be made available to parents for educational spending.

I do not know how anyone can defend the incredible amounts of money spent on public education in light of the results produced. In my opinion, teachers are most likely overpaid on average. People make what they are worth, mostly influenced by how easy (or hard) it is to replace them. It should be about supply and demand, not about how noble or worthy the cause. It's a job. Jobs should pay about the amount it would cost in a free market to replace the employee with a person of same skills and ability.

Problem is, the unions skew the model by making it very difficult to replace people who are not worth their salary and by propogating a system where length of service is more important than quality of work (unless the quality falls below some ridiculously low threshold).

I'm sure this rubs some the wrong way, but I'm following my principle-driven beliefs that free markets produce the best result and that ineffective behaviors are best controlled by regulation and laws (not by the government owning or managing the means of production). Following from that is that the profession of teaching (and all professions) should be subject to free market forces.

[Doodler]

This is factually incorrect. Many studies have shown that vouchers and school choice increase educational achievement. Here's one page with links to six studies, let me know how many dozens more you need:

http://www.mackinac.org/article.aspx?ID=6995

A choice quote:
Students' achievement generally does rise when they attend voucher or charter schools

I'm sorry RAF, but this particular point actually isn't open to debate. It is an established fact.



Competition. Sorry, I should have said that in the OP. Public schools don't compete. When they perform poorly there are no consequences. They can't even fire teachers. Here is a good article about it:

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Stossel/story?id=1500338



That's a big part of it, yes. Better teachers, and teachers with support.



Some of them are in public schools. But here's the part your missing. IF a public school makes a mistake and hires a bad teacher, they can't fire them. Consider this quote from the article above:

Here's just one example from New York City: It took years to fire a teacher who sent sexually oriented e-mails to "Cutie 101," a 16-year-old student. Klein said, "He hasn't taught, but we have had to pay him, because that's what's required under the contract."
Only after six years of litigation were they able to fire him. In the meantime, they paid the teacher more than $300,000. Klein said he employs dozens of teachers who he's afraid to let near the kids, so he has them sit in what are called rubber rooms. This year he will spend $20 million dollars to warehouse teachers in five rubber rooms.

I'd love to hear your response to that.



Impossible because of the extra layers of bureaucracy and the problem discussed above. Public schools waste money paying teachers who don't teach (because they sent sexually-oriented emails to students) and they waste money on lawyers so that they can eventually fire teachers. There's less money left for the teachers.



Why did you use the phrase, "turning kids over to" I don't understand why you say that. It is an intentionally demonization in that it conjures issues of poor little sally being dropped off at some horrible place where neither she nor her parents want to be. Here's the irony - that's the situation we have today! I can accurately say, "I don't see the logic in turning kids over to a public school." I can say that, because parents do not have any choice about the matter. With vouchers, a parent would make a choice. There would be no, "turning over" but instead there would a market and market options.



But this is why I asked in the OP, what is the solution? Here are the things we've tried, that haven't worked.

1.More money - We've more than doubled the amount of money per child (adjusted for inflation) but schools have not improved. If we doubled the amount of money per child once more, what would you expect the outcome to be? Answer: the same thing would happen, no improvement. More money is NOT the answer.

2.Accountability - this was the idea behind No Child Left Behind, but as you yourself point out, that hasn't worked either. So accountability is not the answer.

What is the answer? What else have you got? I've got an idea. Vouchers. It's worked every time it's been tried. Why can't we try it some more? If someone has another idea, I'm more than open to it.


Then we accept another damning reality.

Kids fail.

Sorry parents, you wasted a few hours of your life conceiving that one, hope you at least enjoyed the ride.

Period.

The End.

[Moose]

Scale, tofu. Scale. Vouchers work fine for getting some students into better schools, but that is an opportunity that is most definitely not available to all students.

It's like trying to claim that anybody can become very wealthy if they work hard enough. However, while seeming true on its face, it's still false.

It is clearly not true that everybody (in the literal sense) can become very wealthy as we understand it today without being sneaky with how we define "wealthy". If it is untrue that everybody can become very wealthy, then it is identically untrue that anybody can become very wealthy. Some people can become very wealthy, but these opportunities are not available to just anybody (and thus everybody). Money, unfortunately, is a zero-sum game. For someone to have more than their share of money, others must necessarily have less.

With vouchers, you're playing the zero-sum game. Some students get slots in the better schools (and thus the better schools get funding). But for every student in a funded school, others are left behind in a deteriorating situation in a school whose funding is getting gradually choked off. Vouchers work for some, but cannot possibly work for all. Thus, it's necessarily and entirely anathema to your claimed desire to improve education.

If you're trying to improve your education (and the devil take the hindmost), then vouchers are the way to go.

[Jim]

Is it the smaller classes? Heh, then what do you solve by sending everyone to them, thereby eliminating that advantage?

The student:teacher ratio is supposed to be something like 22 in Texas. That doesn't happen because there are too many students/too few teachers.

It is typically lower in private schools because the number of students is purposely kept low. (Big difference between the two... Publically funded schools have to take anyone; private schools can be selective and limit enrollment.)

Is it better teachers? Why are they there and not in public schools? Better pay? Why not pay the public school teachers what they're worth?

Second question first, for a good, dedicated teacher we couldn't afford it.

The "best" teachers are not necessarily in private schools. They are in the selective private schools that are willing to pay them properly; the other private schools (at least, in Texas) have typically used uncertified teachers and paid them less than public school.

Is it the ability to effectively discipline unruly kids by making the parents sign documents on entry that they are authorized to take disciplinary action with the kids? Why not put forward legislation that allows for more effective discipline in public schools?

"Keep you hands off'n my chil'!!" I'm not sure any politician seeking to serve more than one term would support a Public School Student Discipline Bill. However, I have noticed that more and more public schools are sending home contracts.

I think it goes back to the fact that public schools have to take anyone; private schools do not.

Also, the best remedy is parental involvement. You get more of that in private schools than in (most) public schools.

I do not understand the logic of turning kids over to the private school system instead of making the necessary upgrades to existing schools.

It's called "school taxes." Folks might vote a bond issue to upgrade the football field or add a swimming pool, but upgrade the classrooms? The school down the street from us just installed tennis courts, right beside the ten portable buildings used as classrooms.

Instead you get retarded nonsense like No Child Left Behind that steadily strangles public schools that don't perform. I cannot fathom the level of arrogant stupidity required to arrive at the conclusion that the way to motivate schools to perform better is to cut them off from the funding that might help them better do so...

NCLB is a farce. It gives the appearance of doing something while actually causing more problems than it solves. We've already had a scandal in HISD because teachers and administrators were fudging the test results and helping kids cheat. Teachers get bonuses based on test performance, and improvement in test performance. Interesting situation. If you have a class of really smart kids who learn well, they will probably test well; that's good for this year when they all score 90+%, but next year the odds of their improving very much are kinda slim. Bye bye bonus.

There is a provision in NCLB that stipulates the principal of a school that fails the test two consecutive years will be sacked. In private enterprise, the CEO of a company that posts a loss for two consecutive years gets a salary bump, a stock option, and a new limo... just so he won't leave.

[HenrikOlsen]

This is factually incorrect. Many studies have shown that vouchers and school choice increase educational achievement. Here's one page with links to six studies, let me know how many dozens more you need:

A major problem with vouchers is that they require active informed participation from the parents while the groups for which reforms are most desperately needed is precicely those where the parents can help the least.

As I see it, vouchers is yet another system that sounds good but ends up widening the gap between the classes.

[R.A.F.]

In my opinion, teachers are most likely overpaid on average.

...and you've formed this opinion based on WHAT??

[HenrikOlsen]

The problem isn't the average pay, it's the bias in payrates which ensures the weakest groups get the worst teachers.

[Jim]

This is factually incorrect. Many studies have shown that vouchers and school choice increase educational achievement. ...
I'm sorry RAF, but this particular point actually isn't open to debate. It is an established fact.

Not really. You have offered the results of a survey. For every survey you offer that "proves" your point, there will be another that shows the opposite. The devil is in the details, and many pro-voucher surveys typically leave those out. (See below.)

Public schools don't compete. When they perform poorly there are no consequences. They can't even fire teachers.

They can and do fire teachers. They just need cause, even with tenure.

And they can now compete. For years, public schools were touted as "neighborhood" schools; courts for a time implemented busing to correct racial divides. Now, however, more and more public school systems (HISD is an example) offer parents and students a choice of school, based on either curriculum or TAKS performance.

Better teachers, and teachers with support.

As I stated, some private schools have better teachers. Most private schools have better support.

However, when public schools get the support they deserve - from parents, the board, the lege - they can achieve very good results. They can even out perform private schools. (There are three in the Houston area that do so on a regular basis... Clear Creek, Deer Park and Spring Branch. Interestingly, these are three of the more affluent districts in the Houston area for different reasons. They have the additional funds they need to hire good teachers and provisde good plants. Although CCISD is resonsible for those tennis courts.)

... IF a public school makes a mistake and hires a bad teacher, they can't fire them. ...

Oh, bull hockey!

... Consider this quote from the article above: "Here's just one example from New York City: It took years to fire a teacher who sent sexually oriented e-mails to "Cutie 101," a 16-year-old student." ...
I'd love to hear your response to that.

Okay.

First, such things happen in private schools, too... both the sex with students and the lengthy time to remove someone. The latter is because of contracts; most private school teachers have them and they provide for a hearing process.

Second, are you against the "innocent until proven guilty" concept? Should your employer fire you immediately if someone accuses you of improper behaviour, or should you be allowed some sort of process to establish the facts?

Third, teachers are routinely dismissed or not rehired if found to be incompetent. Maybe NY doesn't do it, but around here they do. Again. it's part of the contract.

Public schools waste money paying teachers who don't teach (because they sent sexually-oriented emails to students) and they waste money on lawyers so that they can eventually fire teachers. There's less money left for the teachers.

Oh, neat little dig there, tofu.

Again, I am surprised that you don't think teachers should have the same protections as other employees, either through law or through contract.

But this is why I asked in the OP, what is the solution? Here are the things we've tried, that haven't worked.

1.More money - We've more than doubled the amount of money per child (adjusted for inflation) but schools have not improved. ... More money is NOT the answer.

You're both right and wrong. More money in and of itself isn't the answer; more money spent on the right things might help. (See my post about the tennis courts.) Also, there are those who would disagree with you. "There is a proven correlation between increased education funding and improved academic performance." http://www.investintexasschools.org/

Many very capable teachers leave the field each year because of pay issues; in Texas, they have to pay the entire bill for their health insurance, and they lose SS benefits because of the private retirement system the state has for them. Money applied here could keep them around a bit longer.

Also, if we used additional funds to hire more teachers and bring the ratio back to 22, that should help.

Many districts are so strapped for funding that classes are held in cafeterias and gyms; to them, those portable buildings would be a godsend. A/C would be nice, too. Money spent on the physical plants would help.

And learning materials. You might be surprised to hear that public school teachers routinely spend $100 or more each week on school supplies for low income kids. Some teachers even pay for their lunches because the district can't.

Now, I'd be the first in line to reduce the number of administrators. There is an uneccessary expense.

However, the funding per child has not doubled even with inflation. In 1999, the average expenditure nation wide per child was $6,251; adjusting for inflation, that's $7,247 in 2005 dollars. But the average expenditure per child in 2005 was $8,618. That's an increase, but hardly double.

2.Accountability - this was the idea behind No Child Left Behind, but as you yourself point out, that hasn't worked either. So accountability is not the answer.

Again, right but wrong. It's not just accountability, but properly placed and evaluated accountability. NCLB does a very poor job of this.

What is the answer? What else have you got? I've got an idea. Vouchers. It's worked every time it's been tried. Why can't we try it some more? If someone has another idea, I'm more than open to it.

No, it hasn't worked "every time it's been tried."

"Actually, what the lion’s share of studies conducted in other locations by researchers who have not received support from right-wing foundations found is that students receiving vouchers do no better than comparable students who remain in public schools."
quote from http://www.tcf.org/list.asp?type=NC&pubid=1233
referenced study http://www.ncspe.org/publications_files/OP112.pdf

[Swift]

Most people seem to agree that American schools are of very poor quality. We've have several threads (http://bautforum.com/showthread.php?t=42090) along those lines.

So what is the solution? One possibility is to give the money to the parents rather than the school - so-called vouchers.

What are your opinions on this? If you don't like vouchers, what solution do you propose?

(note: This isn't a trap, but be warned that if you say "more money" I'm prepared to make you look very foolish)
I don't like to be made to look foolish, but "more money". I am a big believer in you get what you pay for. Americans consistently say that education is the most important thing. But they also (at least in Ohio) refuse to pay the money to get it. Our funding for schools is terrible, since it is mostly based on property taxes, and so poorer districts are consistently underfunded. I also have no impression that teachers are generally overpaid. I know I would personally take a huge cut if I became a teacher.

I strongly oppose vouchers. As Moose (and others have pointed out), they may work selectively on a small scale, but probably won't if done massively. My tax dollar go into paying for those vouchers, and some of those vouchers go to the schools of organizations who I do not want to support - I do not want MY money going to those organizations.

[Demigrog]

Anecdotally, all of the private school teachers I know are paid significantly less than their public school counterparts; they are willing to take the lower pay so that they can work in a lower stress environment. I assume other states have very different perspective; Virginia has a very low percentage of private school students compared to, say, Florida.

Discipline is definitely a problem in the public schools around here, but the real deciding factor is and always will be the kids’ parents, especially in their pre-school years. If the kids grow up with parents that read to them, help them learn to learn on their own, and encourage them to be successful, they almost always are (IMO). Beyond the obvious problems of drugs and poverty, there is a vicious cycle of parents that simply do not know how to teach their children to learn. Relying on the schools to make up for that is a crap shoot at best; a special teacher might make a huge difference, but how do you create an institution that can systematically inspire children to learn?

Schools need mystique—something that the kids can claim as their own and take pride in being a part of. How many times have you heard a kid say, “I wish my school was like Hogwarts!”? Private schools and voucher schools gain something of this mystique by their relative “exclusivity”. Going there is a privilege that can be lost and requires some effort to maintain. That is one reason I think expanding voucher programs will reduce effectiveness—the mystique will be lost, and the motivated students and faculty that make the pioneering programs effective will be watered down as more schools open.

[tofu]

Ha Ha Ha...so you don't see a "problem" with parents choosing what it is there kids will actually learn in school?? That's what would happen with vouchers. So you don't see a problem with these students (for instance) "learning" that evolution and creationism are 2 "theories" that deserve (in some parents minds at least) equal exposure in a "science class"?

Science is not a matter of "popular opinion", and if left to the parents, I weep for any students "learning" in this manner...

So you really don't see the problem???

So the real problem here is that you demand control over what other people think. I knew that this was what it would come down to.

It works like this. Every year there would be a series of standardized tests created by and administered by the government. Even if a student went to a school owned and operated by Kent Hovind himself, a school where kids are taught, (to paraphrase Kent) "evolution is a lie from satan!" Those kids would *have* to be taught evolution. They would have to be taught it, otherwise they wouldn't pass the standard tests, they wouldn't be allowed to progress to the next grade, and Kent's school wouldn't receive any funding.

So, if there was some school that flat refused to teach evolution, that school would never be allowed to give diplomas and would quickly go out of business.

On the other hand, if there was a school that did teach evolution, and the kids passed the state tests, who are you to say that their education was lacking because, in addition to evolution, they were also taught something else?? Let me quote you from this thread (http://bautforum.com/showthread.php?t=41987):

if you pass the courses, you receive the diploma. It's that simple.

If the kids pass the tests, they receive the diploma. It should be that simple. But that's not good enough for you, is it? You want to go further. You demand that the kids also believe what you want them to believe. That to me is a very narrow and, frankly kind of scary view.

The point of education is to make functional adults, not to indoctrinate them - even if you and I happen to believe that something is the right doctrine, we don't have the right to force that on anyone. The point of education is that a kid has to learn that 2+2=4. If there happened to be some crazy religion that didn't believe that, they believe that 2+2=5, that is none of your business and none of my business. We don't have the right to tell them that they can't believe that. We only have the right to say that, on this test, you have to use the accepted math. So here's a test question, fill in the blank, 2+2=____ a student who answers 4 passes the test. If, deep down inside, they have some weird belief that 2+2=5, that is none of my business.

In reality, I don't think that this would be such an issue. There might be a tiny minority of schools operated by people with crazy ideas. But I think that the majority of schools would be operated by businesses that would be created to take advantage of the economic opportunity created by vouchers.

And what about that minority of schools that taught ID or creationism? Well, under the voucher system, they would also have to teach evolution. They would have to. And kids would have to learn it.

So compare that to the current situation: kids go through public schools and come out the other side largely ignorant of evolution, because the schools suck.

So present-day situation: kids don't really know about evolution. They are easy targets later in life for the IDers.

Proposed situation: every kid would get a better education in a school that had to compete in a market place. Every kid would learn about evolution. True, some small number might also learn ID or might not believe in evolution.

But you reject that?? To me, it sounds like we're on a plane and the engine is on fire. I'm the copilot, I look over at you the captain and I say, "hey this is really bad situation, we should land at the Godlike Productions International Airport and Massage Parlor and have it checked out." But you the caption shake you head - "no way in hell am I going to land there! Forget it! Out of the question! Never! I'll never do it! I refuse!" and meanwhile, the plane crashes and we all die.

great job.

[teddyv]

Anecdotally, all of the private school teachers I know are paid significantly less than their public school counterparts; they are willing to take the lower pay so that they can work in a lower stress environment. I assume other states have very different perspective; Virginia has a very low percentage of private school students compared to, say, Florida.

I think that is generally the case of private schools pay less than public schools except in the very exclusive prep schools. I know my wife probably makes about 15-20K less than in the public system. This is in Canada (BC), but I hear its similar though much of the US.

[Gillianren]

Actually, back before my dad died and we couldn't have afforded it anyway, my mother chose to keep us in public school instead of private school. And we're talking the private school associated with the church we actually attended.

Why? So glad you asked. No gifted program. In fact, I don't know of any private schools that are particularly suited toward teaching either gifted children (who do actually learn differently) or special ed kids, and as it turned out, my mother had kids in both. (My little sister's pretty severely dyslexic.)

As for teachers . . . I think there's a finite number of really good teachers. Where more money comes in is that a certain percentage look at the truly awful pay a public school teacher--or even a private school teacher!--gets paid and go into other fields instead. Granted, those truly dedicated to teaching still go into it, but why punish them because so do quite a lot of people who just want a three-month summer vacation? I mean, I could list excellent teachers I had, in public school, and the best I ever had was also having money problems--and teaching during the summer, too, because her family needed the money.

So, yeah, let me say "more money." Maybe then we could've had books in that class that knew how the Korean War turned out and that there was such a thing as the Vietnam War. Maybe we could've have functional pencil sharpeners in every classroom. Toilet paper in every bathroom. Enough janitors to adequately clean the school in the first place. Maybe then, schools wouldn't have to cut art and music because they can't afford 'em. (Truly shameful, though obviously not the fault of the school.)

Besides, as for vouchers, there flat aren't enough private schools to cover every child. Obviously; that's an untenable situation. Some kids are still going to end up in the public schools, and I bet it'd largely be the same ones.

[R.A.F.]

So the real problem here is that you demand control over what other people think.

No...wrongo...where in the heck did you get that idea...
I think it a VERY BAD IDEA that special interest groups would have control over what is taught in schools...which is what would happen with vouchers.

But that's not good enough for you, is it? You want to go further. You demand that the kids also believe what you want them to believe. That to me is a very narrow and, frankly kind of scary view.

You need to calm down...you're starting to freak out. How do I know this? Because you starting to "make up" things that are not even remotely what I have said...stop it!

And what about that minority of schools that taught ID or creationism? Well, under the voucher system, they would also have to teach evolution.

"Also" is simply NOT GOOD ENOUGH...there is not a "choice" when it comes to a science education. There are things that are right, and there are things that are flat out wrong. With vouchers, there would be absolutely no "safe guards" to prevent crap from being taught.

So compare that to the current situation: kids go through public schools and come out the other side largely ignorant of evolution, because the schools suck.

Because the schools suck??? How about because special interests are in a WAR against science education.

Tell me how that will change for the better with vouchers...

But you reject that?? To me, it sounds like we're on a plane and the engine is on fire. I'm the copilot, I look over at you the captain and I say, "hey this is really bad situation, we should land at the Godlike Productions International Airport and Massage Parlor and have it checked out." But you the caption shake you head - "no way in hell am I going to land there! Forget it! Out of the question! Never! I'll never do it! I refuse!" and meanwhile, the plane crashes and we all die.

What in the heck is wrong with you??? You're just rambling nonsense now...

added....and the next time you think it a wise idea to take my words from another thread, and post them out of context...THINK AGAIN...

[Van Rijn]

Besides, as for vouchers, there flat aren't enough private schools to cover every child. Obviously; that's an untenable situation. Some kids are still going to end up in the public schools, and I bet it'd largely be the same ones.

But with greater demand, there would be greater supply. Right now, you still have to pay taxes that go towards the school whether or not you use them. This limits the market for private schools and limits their funding. Religious schools tend to do somewhat better because of tax breaks.

In my opinion, the public school problem isn't going to be solved by throwing more money at it. I would like to see a voucher system, at least as an experiment, with a proviso that it would only go towards non-religious schooling. Yes, you're going to get some bad schools, but there are bad schools anyway.

[Doodler]

added....and the next time you think it a wise idea to take my words from another thread, and post them out of context...THINK AGAIN...

Whoa, chief, no channeling me without written consent. Seriously, Tofu is flaking kinda badly here, so take that into consideration when you consider the application of your statements.


Tofu's way off the deep end thinking that standardized education is a means of indoctrinating kids into a certain mode of thought. It IS about establishing certain benchmarks of knowledge and understanding that are considered to equate to a functional level of knowledge about the subjects they are being taught, but those benchmarks are not established in a vaccuum and in many cases, aren't subject to negotiation.

Some standards are mindblowingly simple. You are not rewriting the rules governing basic math/algebra, to even accuse such is inane. Grammar and spelling are equally non-negotiable. Science knowledge is constantly evolving, and the effort here is to ensure that the standards use represent the best possible information without dogmatic taint, hence the legal actions in Dover and the upcoming battle in Kansas.

These standards are applied EQUALLY to both private and public schools, because both means of education have to meet benchmarks established by the government/schoolboard. These standards also apply equally to the current trend of home schooling.

The issue at hand is not what is being taught in these different formats, but the effectiveness of each format's ability to bring students to the mandated levels needed to pass/graduate.

What has not changed from the first post is the reality that school vouchers do not solve the problem. They only change the venue in which the problem will be addressed.

[R.A.F.]

Whoa, chief, no channeling me without written consent.

That does "read" kinda Doodlerish, doesn't it. :)

As an excuse (cause that's all it is) it's in the mid 90's, and I'm without air conditioning.

Perhaps I should wait to post until after the Sun goes down.

[Doodler]

That does "read" kinda Doodlerish, doesn't it. :)

As an excuse (cause that's all it is) it's in the mid 90's, and I'm without air conditioning.

Perhaps I should wait to post until after the Sun goes down.

Not an environment conducive to reason, IMHO.

As for me, I've REALLY been trying to ease off the emotive throttle, though I still growl from time to time.

[farmerjumperdon]

...and you've formed this opinion based on WHAT??

Based on the fact that they rely on unions and a captive audience to create a false floor for wages. The public schools are basically a monopoly, and the teachers unions hold the districts hostage.

Notice that I said on average.

I also noticed in another post that someone said private school teachers make less than public. Maybe not solid evidence, even if true, but a factor could be the lack of union contracting that drives up salaries while at the same time protecting incompetents (ironically while also preventing pay for performance type programs).

The public school system already has the burden of being a monstrous bureacracy and a captive market (they do not have to do quality work to get paid); then on top of that you throw in union preotectionism - recipe for exactly what we have - humungous waste.

Bless those noble folks who become teachers and do a good job, but the system is archaic, ineffective, protectionist, and horribly wasteful.

[Swift]

But with greater demand, there would be greater supply. Right now, you still have to pay taxes that go towards the school whether or not you use them. This limits the market for private schools and limits their funding. Religious schools tend to do somewhat better because of tax breaks.

In my opinion, the public school problem isn't going to be solved by throwing more money at it. I would like to see a voucher system, at least as an experiment, with a proviso that it would only go towards non-religious schooling. Yes, you're going to get some bad schools, but there are bad schools anyway.
Ohio has been experimenting with it for years. At least in Ohio, religious schools can and do receive voucher money - I'm not sure I understand how this fits in with that whole seperation of Church and State thing.

I was not aware of any studies of how well voucher programs performed, but I found this (http://www.azsba.org/clevelandstudy.htm) very interesting analysis of the Cleveland, Ohio system by someone from the Arizona School Boards Association.
The Cleveland voucher study instead proves the failure of vouchers. Vouchers failed to go to the students who actually needed them and failed those students who actually received them. Indeed, given their higher baseline scores and greater demographic advantages one can only conclude that vouchers retarded the academic achievement of students who received them.

This link (http://www.azsba.org/cleve2003.htm) has more information from the same source (apparently from an Indiana University study - but that link no longer works).

However, a different study discussed here (http://www.hoover.org/pubaffairs/newsletter/00fall/voucher.html) and here (http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=130478) from the Washington, DC, NY, and Dayton schools, found improvements for African-American students from vouchers, but not for others. This (http://www.nyssba.org/scriptcontent/VA_Custom/News/newspage.cfm?Category_ID=15&Content_ID=441&showarchive=Yes&itemtitle=Article&Title=News) news item from the NY State School Boards Association casts some doubts on that study.

So, what's my take on all of this (as someone who has no kids but pays taxes) - the data is mixed and the analysis is very much being driven by the opinions of those doing the analysis. I suspect that this is an issue that is not going to be settled purely by science.

[Swift]

The public school system already has the burden of being a monstrous bureacracy and a captive market (they do not have to do quality work to get paid); then on top of that you throw in union preotectionism - recipe for exactly what we have - humungous waste.

At least in Ohio, there are at least three controls as to the accountability of school systems: school boards are elected bodies, answerable to the voters (and with a lot fewer links from the elected board to the teacher in the classroom than most bureacracies), voters also control the approval of almost all of the school districts moneies (mostly through property taxes), and school systems are accountable to the State Board of Education and can be "taken over" if they fall below accepted academic or accounting standards (this has happened in numerous cases).

School districts in Ohio also get a lot of public exposure from the print and TV media. It is consistently a big news story around here.

[mickal555]

You know I used to go to a privite school, It wasn't that good I prefer the public school I go to now. The teachers are better, and not so much religious stuff...

[Klausnh]

If you want solutions to the public education problems ask the people who are on the frontlines: the teachers and students. My wife, a fifth grade teacher, and her teacher friends pretty much agree with Jim's analysis of the public education system. He mentions special education. In NH, special education funding is about 15% of the total school budget. How many voucher schools even have special ed students? If we're going to institute a voucher system, then the voucher schools should be required to have 15% ??, of their budget for special ed students.
In NH, teachers, even though they are tenured, may also be fired (http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/rsa/html/XV/189/189-13.htm)
189:13 Dismissal of Teacher. The school board may dismiss any teacher found by them to be immoral, or who has not satisfactorily maintained the competency standards established by the school district, or one who does not conform to regulations prescribed; provided, that no teacher shall be so dismissed before the expiration of the period for which said teacher was engaged without having previously been notified of the cause of such dismissal, nor without having previously been granted a full and fair hearing.
Test results are not a good measure of teachers' competency. There are too many variables that affect students' scores. What incentive do the students have to do well onthe tests? Teaching to the tests is also becoming more popular.
Parental responsibility is probably on of the biggest factors on how well students do in school. If the parents have no respect for education, neither will the students.
While my wife certainly wouldn't mind making more money, it's lack of support (from the parents and the administration) that is close to driving her out of the public education system.

[Klausnh]

Based on the fact that they rely on unions and a captive audience to create a false floor for wages. The public schools are basically a monopoly, and the teachers unions hold the districts hostage.
Could you explain, in detail, how "the teachers unions hold the districts hostage"?

Notice that I said on average.

I also noticed in another post that someone said private school teachers make less than public. Maybe not solid evidence, even if true, but a factor could be the lack of union contracting that drives up salaries while at the same time protecting incompetents (ironically while also preventing pay for performance type programs).
So it's just your opinion. I'll respect your opinion
My opinion is that teacher's raises usually aren't large enough to account for inflation.
Concord, NH teachers' raise (http://www.nhpr.org/node/10892)
The union approved a one percent salary increase for this year and around four percent for each of the following three years.
They also agreed to pay much more for health benefits.They = the teachers
That's below the inflation rate!
How do measure a teacher's performance? Testing students certainly is not a measure of a teacher's worth.


The public school system already has the burden of being a monstrous bureacracy and a captive market (they do not have to do quality work to get paid); then on top of that you throw in union preotectionism - recipe for exactly what we have - humungous waste.
How large a bureacracy? What union protectionism? What waste?
So much opinion and so little evidence.

[jrkeller]

In my opinion, teachers are most likely overpaid on average.

...and you've formed this opinion based on WHAT??

In my school district the starting salary of a new graduate is 38000$ and that's for 187 days of work and a 7 hour day. Link (http://www.ccisd.net/employment_05/salary_teacher_schedule.html)

The starting salary for an engineer is 50000$ for 250 days of work and an eight hour day.

Using these numbers I get that the teacher makes an equivalent salary of 58000$


Looking at the benefits cost at my school district I would say that teachers get screwed in the health benefits area. I pay less than half of what they pay.

[HenrikOlsen]

Also take into account how much preparation time they're required to put in unpaid and your calculations might be slightly different.

[jrkeller]

If you want solutions to the public education problems ask the people who are on the frontlines: the teachers and students. My wife, a fifth grade teacher, and her teacher friends pretty much agree with Jim's analysis of the public education system. He mentions special education. In NH, special education funding is about 15% of the total school budget. How many voucher schools even have special ed students? If we're going to institute a voucher system, then the voucher schools should be required to have 15% ??, of their budget for special ed students.

In my school district special education is around 10%. In the Houston area, there are special private schools that cater to specific disabilities, so the special ed kids would have a place.

My own experience with the special education program in my public school system (I'm in Jim's school district) was horrible. My daughter has Down Syndrome but she is pretty high functioning. Our problems with the school district started in Kindergarten. She was to be placed in regular ed in the morning and special ed in the afternoon. This was all signed and dated and legally binding by the state and federal laws which govern special education. That arrangement lasted a week. We got fed up with all the BS (like we don't have the time or money to do this, they couldn't even provide bus service) and put her in private school. This school was a regular ed school, but it did have a few special ed kids, but my daughter was the most severe. They bent over backwards to make it work, including hiring at no cost to us, several consultants. The best thing they did was to treat her just like everyone else, which was something the public school never even tried. She did well for 5 years, then the last two years she just fell too far behind and we put her back in public school. By this time laws had changed as well as the district's special ed coordinator and things have been much better.

My statement about public and private schools is this,

Public schools accept everyone, but they don't educate everyone.

Private school don't or won't accept everyone, but they do educate the ones they accept.

[jrkeller]

Also take into account how much preparation time they're required to put in unpaid and your calculations might be slightly different.

My children's teachers also gets paid during the lunch hour, basically to eat, I don't. They also get paid when the kids go to PE, Art or Music and they have a free hour. I also don't get paid for non-work time hours, which easily ranges from 5 to 10 hours a week and has been as much as 40 extra hours in a week. At one company I worked at we were required to work 4 free hours a week.

[HenrikOlsen]

So does this mean you consider your work to be more important than your children's education or what?

[Gillianren]

A little perspective.

For one thing, teachers don't generally get salary increases at the same rate as other professions. While a teacher may be getting more in the first year than some other professions, those other professions pass teacher salaries very quickly.

While it may seem like teachers don't have to work as much for their salaries, the truly devoted ones put in literally hours each and every day outside the hours for which they're paid. In fact, they have to in order to keep up. You think teachers can grade tests in the hour (less) they get for lunch? Add to that mandatory training to keep up in their fields. Add to that reading reports, homework, etc. Add to that parent-teacher conferences. Add to that the fact that, at least at the public schools I attended, teachers pretty much always had to pay for their own basic supplies. And I mean ones that you'd expect the district to pay. Like chalk.

What's more, back home, teachers didn't get paid extra for being in charge of extracurricular activities. The best teacher I ever had ran on average three at a time. The one involving the most students--Future Problem Solving, with roughly 70 kids--she gave up her lunch hour for through most of the school year. What's more, she almost never had a student aide; students knew they'd actually have to work as her student aide and generally chose someone else. (I was her student aide senior year, and yes, I worked. A lot. But not as much as she.) She also in essence wrote the entire curriculum for California history, because--as I mentioned before--the textbooks issued by the state didn't know how the Korean War turned out. She was head of the social studies department at my high school, which was even more work.

And in order to make ends meet, both she and her husband worked, she wrote theatre reviews for the local paper, and she had to teach summer school. (Which she would have anyway, to be fair, as our Academic Decathlon team started work in the summer.)

Maybe it's because I know a lot of teachers, but I have a lot of sympathy for the work they do. Mrs. Nicholson, the teacher I was just describing, actually missed her own son's belt test for karate once because she was in Fresno with two of her Odyssey of the Mind teams.

No, not all teachers are as devoted as Mrs. Nicholson. Still, she is why I get so frustrated when people say a) public schools/public school teachers are necessarily bad and b) teachers are overpaid.

Oh, and what you should have learned in school was that, in America, at least, the dollar sign goes before the number.

[Moose]

My children's teachers also gets paid during the lunch hour, basically to eat, I don't.

... the lunch hour often lasting all-of 15 minutes, if they're not on rotation for lunchtime supervision which means they eat during their "free period", if they have one that day. If they do have one, that free period could literally be at any time of the day, effectively eliminating the teacher's lunch hour once or twice a week.

[edit:] And as Gillian rightly points out, all this assumes no extra-curricular activities. I don't know of any teachers at the school I briefly subbed at (or the one I attended as a kid, for that matter) who wasn't managing at least one, on their own time.

They also get paid when the kids go to PE, Art or Music and they have a free hour.

... which they need to mark assignments, prepare classes, and/or salvage the "lunch hour" they aren't getting, assuming they aren't asked to cover elsewhere for an absent teacher.

I also don't get paid for non-work time hours, which easily ranges from 5 to 10 hours a week and has been as much as 40 extra hours in a week. At one company I worked at we were required to work 4 free hours a week.

Sorry, JK, I'm laughing much too hard back here to come up with a pithy reply. You obviously have never lived with a teacher nor bothered to ask one how much overtime they put in.

I substitute taught for a year, and had a month-long term position. I was paid for the half-a-day I actually taught, but was on lunchtime supervision duty (unpaid) just about every day, and had to use most of my mornings to prepare the science class and mark the assignments (new curriculum and book, so I was blazing trail.) So yeah, I frequently had a 6-8 hour day for the 2-3 hours of actual teaching, daily.

You could really benefit from actually talking to a teacher sometime, JK, about their evening life before you come up with these rather strange opinions about how overpaid and/or underworked they are.

Oh, and their summer vacations? Those are actually unpaid. Part of their salary during the year is held back to cover those three months of unemployment (which means they then don't qualify for EI benefits that they pay for, but that other seasonal workers "get" to reap.)

*snorts in amusement* Hehehe. I gotta show this thread to my (retired) teacher mother. She'll find that funny. 7 hour days. Hehehee.

[jrkeller]

So does this mean you consider your work to be more important than your children's education or what?

I also only need 4-5 hours of sleep, so I have plenty of time to do my work while they are sleeping. They also have a mother too. Two of my children have straight A's, the third mainly A's and a few B's. The third one recieved a commended performance (greater than 90%, all of his were greater than 95%) on his three state required tests (Science, Math and English). He recieved some special award which was given only to 5 students in the fifth grade. So they are doing just fine.

Edit:

There is plenty of free time to work when they are doing one of their activities. I can always pull out something to work on.

[jrkeller]

You could really benefit from actually talking to a teacher sometime, JK, about their evening life before you come up with these rather strange opinions about how overpaid and/or underworked they are.

You obviously have never lived with a teacher nor bothered to ask one how much overtime they put in.


Let's see. All of my father siblings and their spouses are teachers, all of their children (my cousins) and spouses are teachers. A dozen total are teachers. My ex-wife is a teacher, so I guess I have l "lived with a teacher" I have at least a half dozen friends who are teachers too. Their complaints were not with the hours but with the administration BS which is where I think there needs to be the major overhaul in public education.

HenrikOlsen asked me to compensate for free time and my point was that all professionals that I know put in plenty of free overtime, including the afterhours and weekend customer and employer parties/picnics, etc. They are not mandatory, but reality of things is that you should be there.

[jrkeller]

Oh, and what you should have learned in school was that, in America, at least, the dollar sign goes before the number.

I know that, but my habits as an engineer mean that the units always go after the number. Also not all of my education was in America.

[Moose]

Their complaints were not with the hours but with the administration BS which is where I think there needs to be the major overhaul in public education.

You gotta want to be a teacher... I agree with you that administration is one place that needs overhaul, mostly in the "good sense" and "grow a spine" department.

It's hard to believe the unjustifiably trivial matters admin can crack down on (no tolerence policies), while completely hobbling the teachers in the discipline department where it matters.

While I see the sense of all-inclusive classrooms, some students are simply too chronically disruptive to allow to remain. The thought is that it would be unfair to exclude them, and I do see that point, but unfortunately, permitting them to remain means the other kids suffer for it.

It's going to come down to a change in the overall culture. One that again renders education as both desirable and cool. And the only way I know to effect change in a culture is through education (or the lack of it.)

[jrkeller]

It's hard to believe the unjustifiably trivial matters admin can crack down on (no tolerence policies), while completely hobbling the teachers in the discipline department where it matters.


Boy do I have a funny story that way. For history, my son had do a report on a famous person from history. He also had to do an oral presentation on that person. They put the all the fifth grade kids in the library and classes from the rest school would go in here the speach and then ask questions. Each student was required to dress as that person and also bring at least one prop. My son was Patton. Patton was famous for his dog, his pearl handled revolvers, and amoured warfare. Since the dog wasn't feasible, fake revolvers were probably out, I ended up bringing in a tank shell casing. I had to get special premission from the Vice Principle to do that. Other kids that had military figures ended up using sticks or pieces of plywood crudely shaped like a gun.

My favorite was Sacagawea who had a Nerf bow and arrow. Ironically, archery is part of the PE in middle school.

[Moose]

My favorite was Sacagawea who had a Nerf bow and arrow. Ironically, archery is part of the PE in middle school.

:lol:

Man, I have an odd memory of one of the older toughs in one of my elementary school classes having brought in some sort of revolver with what I assume were blanks. And I clearly remember seeing my teacher discharge it (intentionally, I think) while pointing it at the floor. It was loud.

As far as I know, nobody even got into trouble for it.

Ah well. No-one got hurt. And the teacher (ironically) has always been my very favorite for a lot of reasons. I still see her now and again.

[jrkeller]

I was in Boy Scouts in 73 and 74 and about once a month we would wear our full uniforms. I would bring my knife, with at least a 2 1/2 inch blade, and nobody said a thing.

[Tinaa]

The Blueberry Story

http://www.jamievollmer.com/blue_story.html

[Tinaa]

I also only need 4-5 hours of sleep, so I have plenty of time to do my work while they are sleeping. They also have a mother too. Two of my children have straight A's, the third mainly A's and a few B's. The third one recieved a commended performance (greater than 90%, all of his were greater than 95%) on his three state required tests (Science, Math and English). He recieved some special award which was given only to 5 students in the fifth grade. So they are doing just fine.

Edit:

There is plenty of free time to work when they are doing one of their activities. I can always pull out something to work on.

Aren't you lucky to have such smart kids? They have two parents that care. They don't seem to suffer from the plethora of problems low socio-economic status students endure.

Any child, whether metally retarded or gifted, that has the support of his parents can do well in life. My daughter will graduate high school with a head start on her career with 15 college credits. She attends *gasp* a public school. And she wants to be a teacher! She spends a period a day helping in an elementary school classroom.

She came home one day upset that a little boy in her class only had one pair of tattered shoes. We promptly went down and bought him a pair, which she put in his cubby. She said he was ecstatic over a pair of cheap tennis shoes. Sad, but in reality, just one more thing in the life of a teacher.

[Gillianren]

Did you compare the salaries on your own link as time passed to salaries for engineers? Regardless of how much overtime you or they work (and the better the teacher, the more unpaid overtime and paying for supplies), the pay scale is pretty schocking. Assuming an engineer had a Master's and worked for the same company for 35 years, how much would that engineer be paid?

[jrkeller]

Did you compare the salaries on your own link as time passed to salaries for engineers? Regardless of how much overtime you or they work (and the better the teacher, the more unpaid overtime and paying for supplies), the pay scale is pretty schocking. Assuming an engineer had a Master's and worked for the same company for 35 years, how much would that engineer be paid?

At the companies that I have worked for there are no automatic raises due to years of service. That might be a union thing. Typically, you get a yearly raise that is equal to inflation. If you're a good employee you might get 1% extra, a bad employee 1% less. But what usually happens is that after about 5 years the company realizes that new college grads are making more at other companies than their five year employees and then they compensate.

I think that the pay scale is pretty bad too. An extra $300 (see I got it right) a year is nothing. I can't think of any engineers with 35 years experience who aren't managers, so it may not be a fair comparison. Using my equivalence method I get than at 35 years experienced teacher would get 90K and at my company, I'd bet that 35 years of engineering expereince would get you 120K.

[jrkeller]

Most people seem to agree that American schools are of very poor quality. We've have several threads (http://bautforum.com/showthread.php?t=42090) along those lines.

So what is the solution? One possibility is to give the money to the parents rather than the school - so-called vouchers.

What are your opinions on this? If you don't like vouchers, what solution do you propose?

(note: This isn't a trap, but be warned that if you say "more money" I'm prepared to make you look very foolish)

At the conceptual level school choice and vouchers seem like a good idea, but I don't see how to implement it for an entire nation. If you give the parents the money, I can guarentee you that many parents will find the cheapest school and pocket the rest.

That's unfair in so many ways. The kids get the short end the stick. Other tax payers are just giving you their money. I could even envision people having kids just to cash in.

Also how do you handle children on divorced parents? Who gets the extra cash? The courts will be even more clogged with parents fighting over this issue as well.

If you go to the plan of the money being paid directly to a school, every school will simply find out maximum dollar that the school is willing to spend and raise their tuition to that value.



Since you asked, here's my if I were king scenario. (Based on my area where my kids go to school)

Reduce the number of administrators and their staff by at least half. When I went to elementary school (500 kids), we had a principle, secratary, art teacher, gym teacher, librarian and a half time music teacher. We did have a janitor and lunch room people, but I don't think that those folks are the cause of the problem. At my daughters elementary school of 600 kids, they have 26 administrative staff.

On a similar note, as Moose said


You gotta want to be a teacher... I agree with you that administration is one place that needs overhaul, mostly in the "good sense" and "grow a spine" department.

It's hard to believe the unjustifiably trivial matters admin can crack down on (no tolerence policies), while completely hobbling the teachers in the discipline department where it matters.


Eliminate the parents suing the teachers and school because their child didn't get the grade the parents thought their child deserved, didn't make cheerleader, football player, etc. A friend of mine who was on the school board for six years told me that lawsuits amount to millions each year.

Eliminate the do nothing classes like office assistant.

Return extra-curricular activities to extra-curricular status. Our school district asked the voters to approve building a 12,000 seat football stadium for only 25 million dollars.

A big problem in my district in new home building. We get about a thousand additional kids a year, which is basically a new school is needed each year. I would make all home builders donate a portion of their land for a new school and I tax each new home say for ten years to pay for the construction of a new school.

With my savings, I'd use half to raise teachers, a quarter to things with supplies, computers, etc, and the final quarter I'd return to the taxpayers. Keeping the taxpayers happy is a good thing.

[Demigrog]

If money were the only issue, I'd be all for spending more per student. However, when you break down the numbers you see that the areas that spend the most per student also tend to have the worst performance. Does giving them more money help? I'm also unclear where that money goes; take the area I live in for example. The County of Roanoke spent around $7100 per student in 2001 while the City of Roanoke spent $8008. Yet, there are severe textbook shortages in the City schools that you simply do not see in the county. What is going on here?

And, of course, the only contentious debate in the city right now seems to be whether or not to renovate the "historic" football stadium or build new ones at each of the local high schools... *sigh*

[jrkeller]

Add to that the fact that, at least at the public schools I attended, teachers pretty much always had to pay for their own basic supplies. And I mean ones that you'd expect the district to pay. Like chalk.


On this problem teachers need to take a stand. If the school doesn't provide chalk, just tell the kids that today we are not using the chalk board because I don't have any chalk and .... (fill in the blank, like watch a movie or you will take notes from the textbook I read). If anyone of my kids came home and told me that their teacher didn't have teaching supplies, I'd buy them and deliver personally. Then I'd talk to the principle and the higher ups about this problem. If it wasn't fixed, there would be an appearance on something like the O'Reilly Factor.

[Tinaa]

Our district recently gave the superintendent a $10,000 raise, yet didn't have enough calculators for the kids to take their TAKS test. For a very poor school district, our HS has a principal, six VPs, and there are seven or so vice-superintendents. That's close to a cool million dollars for freakin' administration, not counting the eight elementary schools, two middle schools, alternative school and learning center. It is absolutely crazy.

[TriangleMan]

Education is a complex thing and there is no magic bullet for fixing the problems. Some of it realte to money, some to teaching quality, teacher/student ratios, home environment, how much the parents are involved etc. All of these factors play a role.

For example an acquaitance of mine used to teach Grade 1 at a school in a poor neighbourhood. I'll assume she was a decent teacher - she was definately motivated and cared about the kids, and there was a great student/teacher ratio (16:1). So what was the problem?

Of the sixteen kids:
- only one came from a home with two parents
- she knew only six to eight would have eaten breakfast before coming to school and only about that many would bring lunch with them.
- at least two would show up wearing the same clothes every day
- three lived in a homeless shelter
- one of them had to move part-way through the year as "mom's boyfriend" was beating them so they fled

She found out years later that another kid she taught, who was always coming to class tired and sleepy, was spending much of the night outside because his drug-addicted prostitute mother would send him out of the apartment whenever she had "guests" drop by.

Her stories were very disheartening. :(

My friend would cry about this occasionally. She noted that these kids were so anxious to learn, and loved going to school where they would be treated well and have access to things like books and so forth - but given their home environment how could they possibly keep up over the next twelve years? Educationally, the vast majority of these kids were in trouble from the get-go.

Spending more on teachers, or books, may help a little but it is not going to make a huge impact on kids like that. A change to educational policy will have to address the overall situation and try to assist, and be tailored to the individual districts as there is no single solution. Things like free breakfast/lunches, after school programs and counseling would help kids like the ones I mentioned above - but would not help kids from schools where the problems are different.

[Damburger]

They tried to introduce 'competition' into the school system in the UK under Thatcher, and it was (and continues to be, thanks Tony) a disaster.

Privatisation would be disaterous. Western countries that privatised their education systems would go back to 19th-century levels of literacy. Of course, this wouldn't affect the wealthy, so they quite happily push for a system where their kids get schools and other peoples kids get dark satanic mills.

[farmerjumperdon]

Could you explain, in detail, how "the teachers unions hold the districts hostage"?

So it's just your opinion. I'll respect your opinion
My opinion is that teacher's raises usually aren't large enough to account for inflation.
Concord, NH teachers' raise (http://www.nhpr.org/node/10892)
They = the teachers
That's below the inflation rate!
How do measure a teacher's performance? Testing students certainly is not a measure of a teacher's worth.


How large a bureacracy? What union protectionism? What waste?
So much opinion and so little evidence.

The unions hold the district hostage with the threat of strike, which is extremely difficult for any district of size to counter with any tactic other than allowing the school to close.

Teachers raises not equalling inflation is not relevant. Many years mine don't either. What's relevant is whether a salary is driven by supply and demand or extortion by a union, not by the percent increase a person may or may not get in a particular year or years.

The bureacracy, protectionism and waste are so well established that asking me to prove them is like asking someone to prove gravity exists.

[farmerjumperdon]

Education is a complex thing and there is no magic bullet for fixing the problems. Some of it realte to money, some to teaching quality, teacher/student ratios, home environment, how much the parents are involved etc. All of these factors play a role.

For example an acquaitance of mine used to teach Grade 1 at a school in a poor neighbourhood. I'll assume she was a decent teacher - she was definately motivated and cared about the kids, and there was a great student/teacher ratio (16:1). So what was the problem?

Of the sixteen kids:
- only one came from a home with two parents
- she knew only six to eight would have eaten breakfast before coming to school and only about that many would bring lunch with them.
- at least two would show up wearing the same clothes every day
- three lived in a homeless shelter
- one of them had to move part-way through the year as "mom's boyfriend" was beating them so they fled

She found out years later that another kid she taught, who was always coming to class tired and sleepy, was spending much of the night outside because his drug-addicted prostitute mother would send him out of the apartment whenever she had "guests" drop by.

Her stories were very disheartening. :(

My friend would cry about this occasionally. She noted that these kids were so anxious to learn, and loved going to school where they would be treated well and have access to things like books and so forth - but given their home environment how could they possibly keep up over the next twelve years? Educationally, the vast majority of these kids were in trouble from the get-go.

Spending more on teachers, or books, may help a little but it is not going to make a huge impact on kids like that. A change to educational policy will have to address the overall situation and try to assist, and be tailored to the individual districts as there is no single solution. Things like free breakfast/lunches, after school programs and counseling would help kids like the ones I mentioned above - but would not help kids from schools where the problems are different.

That is quite sad, seen some of it myself doing volunteer work at an Alternative Learning Center. However, I do not think it is the burden of the educational system to solve the problems you mentioned. That's part of how we got into this mess to begin with, people thinking the education system is the new umbrella for social welfare.

Schools should do what they can to get back to the 3 R's. Stop trying to correct all the family problems of the students. It is a rotten shame that kids pay the price for the stupid decisions their parents make, but that is the way of the world; and it is not the job of public education to fix everybody's family life.

[farmerjumperdon]

Privatisation would be disaterous. Western countries that privatised their education systems would go back to 19th-century levels of literacy. Of course, this wouldn't affect the wealthy, so they quite happily push for a system where their kids get schools and other peoples kids get dark satanic mills.

Why are you so certain that literacy rates would fall?

People with big money are always going to get the most option in their educational opportunities. Privatization will not change that. I don't see how competition could make things worse. We'd get adminstrators and teachers that would have to post positive results and REALLY compete for jobs, and to keep good jobs. Parents would not actually get cash. They'd get credits to spend, and no cashing in unused ones. So basically, everybody would get the same dollar amount they get now, but would get to spend it at their school of choice instead of being forced to hand it over to a bunch of bureacrats running a virtual monopoly.

How did competition and free choice get so far distanced from a system that means so much to our future? Maybe this is another manifestation of our culture's unwillingness to own who we are and be responsible for our station in life. In my book, giving people choice allows them the freedom to succeed or fail. Taking away their choices allows them to blame everything on someone else. Unfortunately, I believe at least the simple majority of people live, and desire, the later.

[HenrikOlsen]

That is quite sad, seen some of it myself doing volunteer work at an Alternative Learning Center. However, I do not think it is the burden of the educational system to solve the problems you mentioned. That's part of how we got into this mess to begin with, people thinking the education system is the new umbrella for social welfare.

Schools should do what they can to get back to the 3 R's. Stop trying to correct all the family problems of the students. It is a rotten shame that kids pay the price for the stupid decisions their parents make, but that is the way of the world; and it is not the job of public education to fix everybody's family life.
Just remember that the parents grew up in a similar system. Where they are is likely not just not the result of stupid decisions, it's just as much a matter of having very few alternatives to decide between. And you're essentially condemning their kid to the same situation.
You're right that it shouldn't be the burden of the educational system, but when the social system has failed for whichever reason, then it becomes the burden of the next system.
It's not a solution to throw up your hands and dismiss the problem as "that should have been fixed by someone else".

[Damburger]

Why are you so certain that literacy rates would fall?


Because more kids would not get taught to read. If it costs money to go to school, as a privitised system would, huge numbers of kids will not go.


People with big money are always going to get the most option in their educational opportunities. Privatization will not change that. I don't see how competition could make things worse. We'd get adminstrators and teachers that would have to post positive results and REALLY compete for jobs, and to keep good jobs. Parents would not actually get cash. They'd get credits to spend, and no cashing in unused ones. So basically, everybody would get the same dollar amount they get now, but would get to spend it at their school of choice instead of being forced to hand it over to a bunch of bureacrats running a virtual monopoly.


This is the horrifically simplistic thinking which caused the current problems in the UK. 'Positive Results' are measured by tests, and by constantly testing kids and making their teachers jobs depend on those test you are forcing the teacher to teach to the test. 'Results' are often gained at the detriment of actual education. What the ratio of success/failure is the focus of attention, as it usually is, gifted students get very little attention because the school knows they can pass. The focus is on getting every pupil up to a basic level of literacy and numeracy. Furthermore, other subjects apart from maths and english tend to get pushed out - as those are the subjects which the performance of a school is measured on.

It hasn't worked here. It won't work in the US.


How did competition and free choice get so far distanced from a system that means so much to our future? Maybe this is another manifestation of our culture's unwillingness to own who we are and be responsible for our station in life. In my book, giving people choice allows them the freedom to succeed or fail. Taking away their choices allows them to blame everything on someone else. Unfortunately, I believe at least the simple majority of people live, and desire, the later.

See above. Your ideology of competition-in-everything is out of step with reality.

[tofu]

If you give the parents the money, I can guarentee you that many parents will find the cheapest school and pocket the rest.

*sigh* That's not how vouchers work. They are more like coupons. If you have a coupon for "$300 to the dentist of your choice" are you going to spend it at Uncle Bob's Cheapo Dentistry, where a checkup only costs $3.50, or are you going to go some place nice where a checkup is more like $100? You don't get to pocket the rest. Obviously you're going to find a good dentist. Everybody will, and Uncle Bob's Cheapo Dentistry will either go out of business or improve their service.

And, "to the dentist of your choice" actually means, "to any government-approved destist" and the government will have regulatory authority. They wont accept the vouchers from dentists that fix teeth with prayer or whatever.

[HenrikOlsen]

And that's one place where the current experiments with vouchers have broken down, since that regulation has been somewhat lacking.
Additionally, the system requires active participation y the parents which is easy enough to expect in middle to upperclass households, but which is often severely lacking for exactly those who are in most need of help.

[tofu]

And that's one place where the current experiments with vouchers have broken down, since that regulation has been somewhat lacking.

Economies of scale. In the present situation we the voters have to yell at our elected officials about the following:
1.educational standards (ie. Regulation)
2.classroom size
3.weird social issues (ie. Parents complaining that kids were taken on a field trip to a mosque)
4.teacher pay
5.upkeep of buildings

etc. etc. etc. Under a system of vouchers, all that we the voters have worry about is:
1.educational standards.

That's it. Private enterprise will take care of the rest. A good analogy is the food service industry. The the government owned and operated every restaurant in the country, we the voters would have to be concerned about keeping the bathrooms clean, making sure the employees wash their hands, etc. etc. But under the existing system, all of that takes care of itself. If a restaurant never cleans the bathroom, you just don't go there anymore. The only thing the government has to worry about is regulation - the government establishes and polices a health code. That's it. That's all they do. And they do it pretty well.

Vouchers would offer the exact same advantage to the educational system.

So what you thought was an objection to vouchers turns out to be one of its greatest strengths.

Additionally, the system requires active participation y the parents which is easy enough to expect in middle to upperclass households, but which is often severely lacking for exactly those who are in most need of help.

uh huh. Let A = the set of all households. HU is a subset of A consisting of upper class households. HM is the subset consisting of middle class households, and HL is lowerclass households.

often severely lacking for exactly those who are in most need of help.

often lacking, but not always. I think we both agree with that. So there is a subset of HL where it is lacking. We'll call that HLa. In the rest of HL it's not lacking, we'll call that HLb.

So let me just make sure that I fully understand your objection. You say that vouchers would help these groups:

HU + HM + HLb

but not help HLa

And so you throw out the whole thing?? Let me ask you something, why do we have schools at all? You know, they don't help some people. So therefore by your logic, we should just forget the whole thing.

Incidentally, here's another great thing about a free market. It will end up helping HLa. Is it so hard to understand why?? Let's go back to the example of dentists. Imagine that the population of HLa continues to patronize Uncle Bob's Cheapo Dentistry. I would argue that this still isn't enough to keep Uncle Bob's in business. If Uncle Bob's wants to stay in business, the *have* to compete for members of HLb, HU, and HM. And in order to compete, they have to improve. So every single school has to improve itself and every group benefits.

At the very least, every school has an incentive to improve. What incentive is there now?

[HenrikOlsen]

... If a restaurant never cleans the bathroom, you just don't go there anymore. The only thing the government has to worry about is regulation - the government establishes and polices a health code. That's it. That's all they do. And they do it pretty well.
I think this is actually the place where one of our most fundamental disagreements lies.
I don't think they do it well.

[Damburger]

Economies of scale. In the present situation we the voters have to yell at our elected officials about the following:
1.educational standards (ie. Regulation)
2.classroom size
3.weird social issues (ie. Parents complaining that kids were taken on a field trip to a mosque)
4.teacher pay
5.upkeep of buildings


Such silly things...


etc. etc. etc. Under a system of vouchers, all that we the voters have worry about is:
1.educational standards.


i.e. test results. I already refuted this rubbish.


That's it. Private enterprise will take care of the rest. A good analogy is the food service industry. The the government owned and operated every restaurant in the country, we the voters would have to be concerned about keeping the bathrooms clean, making sure the employees wash their hands, etc. etc. But under the existing system, all of that takes care of itself. If a restaurant never cleans the bathroom, you just don't go there anymore. The only thing the government has to worry about is regulation - the government establishes and polices a health code. That's it. That's all they do. And they do it pretty well.


Even your analogy is rubbish. The reason that the food service industry has good hygiene practices is BECAUSE THE GOVERNMENT SENDS INSPECTORS ROUND TO CHECK. Don't argue with me on this, my father owned a pub.


Vouchers would offer the exact same advantage to the educational system.


I've already outlined the 'advantages'.


uh huh. Let A = the set of all households. HU is a subset of A consisting of upper class households. HM is the subset consisting of middle class households, and HL is lowerclass households.

often lacking, but not always. I think we both agree with that. So there is a subset of HL where it is lacking. We'll call that HLa. In the rest of HL it's not lacking, we'll call that HLb.

So let me just make sure that I fully understand your objection. You say that vouchers would help these groups:

HU + HM + HLb

but not help HLa

And so you throw out the whole thing?? Let me ask you something, why do we have schools at all? You know, they don't help some people. So therefore by your logic, we should just forget the whole thing.


HLa being larger than the other groups put together....


Incidentally, here's another great thing about a free market. It will end up helping HLa. Is it so hard to understand why?? Let's go back to the example of dentists. Imagine that the population of HLa continues to patronize Uncle Bob's Cheapo Dentistry. I would argue that this still isn't enough to keep Uncle Bob's in business. If Uncle Bob's wants to stay in business, the *have* to compete for members of HLb, HU, and HM. And in order to compete, they have to improve. So every single school has to improve itself and every group benefits.


So they start teaching kids to pass tests instead of educating them. Utterly useless.


At the very least, every school has an incentive to improve. What incentive is there now?

You think teachers won't improve schools without financial incentives? Not everybody is as greedy as you are.

[farmerjumperdon]

[QUOTE: Even your analogy is rubbish. The reason that the food service industry has good hygiene practices is BECAUSE THE GOVERNMENT SENDS INSPECTORS ROUND TO CHECK. Don't argue with me on this, my father owned a pub. QUOTE]

So is the only reason he kept the bathrooms clean bexcause of the inspectors that came around?

I think a big factor is to keep customers happy. Do you think without inspectors most reataurants would let their bathrooms become filthy?

At least for most of the women I know, they won't go to a restaurant (and other similar places) if they have a filthy bathroom experience; and I don't think they care whether or not it was inspected or not. They are just a paying customer who will not patronize establishments based on certain quality factors. The tax-paying public deserves the right to make the same kinds of choices about the schools they use without having to pay once for a school they choose not to attend, and once again for the school they do choose to attend.

EDITED to properly capture quote.

[Damburger]

So is the only reason he kept the bathrooms clean bexcause of the inspectors that came around?

I think a big factor is to keep customers happy. Do you think without inspectors most reataurants would let their bathrooms become filthy?


I was thinking more of the kitchens. This actually helps illustrate why I'm right - you can't judge how clean a restaurant is by going to the toilet because the cleanliness of the kitchen is more important.

Can I ask, have any of you actually ever worked in a school? Or is this just recycled right-wing propaganda?

[Swift]

<snip>
And, "to the dentist of your choice" actually means, "to any government-approved destist" and the government will have regulatory authority. They wont accept the vouchers from dentists that fix teeth with prayer or whatever.
my bold
And this is my problem. At least in the Cleveland version of it, vouchers can and do go to private religous schools. I don't want my tax dollars supporting a religious institution, no matter what kind of test scores the kids get.

[Damburger]

my bold
And this is my problem. At least in the Cleveland version of it, vouchers can and do go to private religous schools. I don't want my tax dollars supporting a religious institution, no matter what kind of test scores the kids get.

And this is *my* problem.

Creationist schools could, I imagine, get good maths and literacy scores. You can't judge the quality of an education with such simple numbers.

[tofu]

And this is *my* problem.

Creationist schools could, I imagine, get good maths and literacy scores. You can't judge the quality of an education with such simple numbers.

What if they got good science scores?? Would you say, "well even though these students know more about evolution than dawkins himself, and even though they all scored higher than kids in the public school, they don't *believe* it and therefore I declare their education null and void"

That seems very totalitarian of you.

[farmerjumperdon]

Because more kids would not get taught to read. If it costs money to go to school, as a privitised system would, huge numbers of kids will not go.

It would not cost any more money to go than now. As pointed out by myself and others, parents don't get cash they can spend as they please. They get vouchers and there is absolutely no incentive not to use the full amount.

In fact, I think just a bit of time of letting the experiment run would result in efficiencies that would dramatically reduce the cost of education while improving quality. The improvements in cost/benefit structure would result in improved level of quality and access across the entire spectrum, but most dramatically at the low end. The $50,000 per year education probably wouldn't change much. But the average public school education, which is slowly sliding in quality but continuing to cost more and more money, should be helped by the competitive environment.

I think my competition-is-good attitude deserves a chance. In any decent size district, you would get competing schools and a fair playing field. Having to choose between a public school that only costs your tax dollars and a private school that costs tax dollars plus a bundle out of pocket is not competition.

If all parents got vouchers for a fixed amount, and the multiple schools available had to REALLY compete for enrollment (and their pay), the results would be dramatic and positive. Nobody would have access to less than they have now, and anybody who wanted more could get it easily enough.

Yes I know, strictly a matter of opinions since the experiment has never been run full-bore. Worth a try since the existing system has become a resource monster that just keeps getting worse. The last I heard we are now over $10K per year per student in this part of the country. That is absolutely ridiculous when you consider we are at 20 minimum per room, probably closer to 30 now. That's a quarter million per year per room - SHEESH!

[farmerjumperdon]

I was thinking more of the kitchens. This actually helps illustrate why I'm right - you can't judge how clean a restaurant is by going to the toilet because the cleanliness of the kitchen is more important.

Can I ask, have any of you actually ever worked in a school? Or is this just recycled right-wing propaganda?

That was a cheap shot. I am nowhere near the extreme right, and detest political labels in general. My background is project management. I do process flows, business requirements, user manuals, the usual mix of stuff a kind of jack-of-all-trades consultant does.

I've done volunteer work in schools, at all levels, for about 20 years now. At least half of my 10 to 20 days per year volunteering have been spent with kids at risk. I'm very familiar with the scene. Also, because I'm so passionate about kids issues, I'm sure I spend way more than the average parent at school. I step forward for every cause there is, from coaching sports teams (which I do a lot of - and is not counted in the number above) to reading and telling stories, to getting into the real nitty-gritty and reaching out to kids with problems nobody else (including sometimes their parents) wants to talk about. I can tell when something is wrong, and have gotten pretty darn good at telling what it is. Sometimes it is so sad when a kid clings on me and I can tell they would rather have practice go all night than go home. So, yeah, rambling. Gotta go.

[Damburger]

What if they got good science scores?? Would you say, "well even though these students know more about evolution than dawkins himself, and even though they all scored higher than kids in the public school, they don't *believe* it and therefore I declare their education null and void"

That seems very totalitarian of you.

You undoubtedly think that anybody who doesn't engage in blind worship of market forces is a Stalinist, but thats your problem.

A science education that teaches creationism is worthless because any child that accepts creationism cannot accept scientific method - and therefore their education is stalled no matter how many basic facts they can trot out in high school exams.

[Moose]

I'd like to request that everyone participating take a brief moment to look down and see where the "keep it nice" and "no partisan politics" rule lines are in relation to where this thread currently is. If you'll notice, it's now slightly behind some of our heels.

Lest this thread get locked, and good people sanctionned, I'd ask that we all take two really big steps back, turn 90 degrees, then breathe deeply a few times before we proceed.

Just my little PSA for the afternoon.

[Damburger]

I'd like to request that everyone participating take a brief moment to look down and see where the "keep it nice" and "no partisan politics" rule lines are in relation to where this thread currently is. If you'll notice, it's now slightly behind some of our heels.

Lest this thread get locked, and good people sanctionned, I'd ask that we all take two really big steps back, turn 90 degrees, then breathe deeply a few times before we proceed.

Just my little PSA for the afternoon.

To be honest, it was inevitable. The OP stated a fairly extreme position.

[tofu]

A science education that teaches creationism is worthless because any child that accepts creationism cannot accept scientific method - and therefore their education is stalled no matter how many basic facts they can trot out in high school exams.

So, should it also be illegal for parents to teach their kids creationism? After all, if the kids believe creationism then their education has been stalled. Perhaps we should make it illegal. That does seem to be what you're saying, and I repeat that you sound very totalitarian.

To me, it seems very reasonable to hold up a standard: kids must know facts A, B, and C in order to earn a high-school diploma.

It seems very wrong to demand: kids must BELIEVE EXACTLY what I believe. Do you also apply this oppressive dictatorial control to history and politics? If I have different musical tastes from you, are you going to kick me out of music school??

It's none of your business what I believe. I have a right to believe that the world is flat if that's what I want to believe. I want a high-school diploma, and I realize that to earn that diploma I must learn accepted scientific theory which states that the world is round. I accept my responsibility and I have learned accepted scientific theory. How dare you suggest that I do not deserve a diploma because I do not believe. How dare you? Keep your laws off my brain.

[dgruss23]

One of the problems with the Voucher proposal is that it is a one size fits all solution. Not every state has the same education system. And not every region within a state has the same problems.

Largely rural areas such as the one I live in would probably not benefit from a Voucher system. The schools are very similar and disparity from one school to the next is not nearly as great as you see in city school systems. What disparity exists is more about the program decisions of leaders than about money.

And there are other issues to consider - Do you really want a system where the money a school receives fluctuates from year to year and is subject to the whims of people deciding they didn't like the grades the teachers gave their child? Want to talk about grade inflation. Try telling public schools their funding is now dependent upon parents not being ticked off at the school. Administrators will start pressuring teachers to make sure the grades look good - because funding depends upon keeping parents happy. Teachers will now be in the position of having to defend every last grade - and none of this pressure will be on the students to perform - as if the student performance has nothing to do with the student effort.

Vouchers could put the students in the drivers seat. Mommy complains about the grade. Johnny blames it on the "bad, boring teacher" (because good teachers these days are defined by most students as teachers that entertain them - "edutainment" is what it has become. Mommy buys Johnny's reason because Johnny has nothing to gain of course by lying to mommy about why his grade is a 40 in his science class. It couldn't possibly be that Johnny did no homework - except that which he wasn't too lazy to copy from a friend - and it couldn't be that he never bothered to take his notes home, let alone actually study for the unit exams. The teacher must not have taught the material. That's the reason.

And why wasn't the parent notified sooner about Johnny's grade. It couldn't possibly be that Johnny interecepted the progress reports in the mail and hid them from mommy. Obviously the teachers weren't sending out progress reports. That is clearly the reason why 35 weeks into a 40 week school year mommy is just now finding out that Johnny is failing.

This is already a problem now. When many parents come to the school complaining - the problem is of course the teacher, not johnny. And too many parents of these students that are failing do not have the will to hold their child accountable. But they'll readily blame it on the teachers. Yes Johnny just happened to get the only 6 bad teachers in the high school this year. It couldn't possibly be the fact that Johnny does nothing in school, then leaves school, calls his friends on the cell phone and arranges to hang out somewhere playing video games, instant messaging, and looking at porn sites on the internet.

Or maybe Johnny doesn't do that stuff, but simply is too busy to study. Johnny needs to work 40 hours a week so he can pay for a car to drive himself to school and his friends house so that Mommy doesn't have to be bothered to do it.

This is of course very cynical as I've expressed it - and it is certainly not meant to describe all students/parents. But it is representative of some of the failures that occur in education. I can tell you from 13 years of teaching that student apathy is the biggest factor in student failure. There are of course bad teachers. I've seen them in action. But a student that consistently fails courses usually has parents that consistently fail to hold that student accountable. Take away something. No TV. No internet. No friends. No sports. No skateboarding. No ... whatever. It works almost every time it is tried and enforced. One big way to improve education is to give some of these parents a backbone and a clue.

Show me a kid that is failing and most of the time I'll show you a kid with parents that don't care enough or don't know how to enforce expectations at home. But give these parents a voucher and they'll use it as a hammer on the schools. They'll care about that.

Show me a kid that excels in school and I'll show a kid with parents that demand performance in school - or the kid suffers a penalty at home - some form of grounding.

Vouchers simply will not fix student apathy. Only parents can fix that by demanding performance from their child.

So, I'm not saying voucher systems cannot be implement in some areas. But I disagree with the notion that vouchers can fix the problems in every area or for every student. Just my nickel-o-thoughts.

[Klausnh]

Looks like Moose, Gillianren and Tinaa saved me a bunch of typing. :)
Any child, whether metally retarded or gifted, that has the support of his parents can do well in life. My daughter will graduate high school with a head start on her career with 15 college credits. She attends *gasp* a public school. And she wants to be a teacher! She spends a period a day helping in an elementary school classroom.

This post has led me to re-assess my views on the "problems" of the public education system.


I don't know about their classroom environment or their school's administration, but I bet most of the members of BAUT have the respect for education and have had parental involvement when they were in school. From the posts by BAUT members, it looks like most have gotten a good education. How many are public school graduates?

Public education can work. So the question is: "why does it work for some people and not for others?".
I think a respect for education and parental involvment are 2 of the most important factors in getting a good education.
Lack of respect for education and no parental involvement is not something any teacher/administrator/school can overcome. It's a societal problem.
The other two problems I've seen mentioned here are all-inclusive classrooms and lack of administrative leadership. The all-inclusive classroom is a tough fix. What does a fifth grade teacher do if she has 2 children reading at a second grade level and 4 students that are learning at an eigth grade level? Can we put the special ed children down in their own classroom in the basement, as was done when I was in school? Or set up classroom for "troubled" kids? I wouldn't want those solutions and I can't think of any solutions.
Of the few schools I'm familiar with in NH, the best ones have a strong leadership. A school with a principal, who's willing to back the teachers, and stand up to problem parents will have an environment that is conducive to learning.

I don't think the public education system is a failure. It has had some success educating students. It has room for improvement, but some of the changes necessary are out of the its control.

[Klausnh]

The unions hold the district hostage with the threat of strike, which is extremely difficult for any district of size to counter with any tactic other than allowing the school to close.

Teachers raises not equalling inflation is not relevant. Many years mine don't either. What's relevant is whether a salary is driven by supply and demand or extortion by a union, not by the percent increase a person may or may not get in a particular year or years.

The bureacracy, protectionism and waste are so well established that asking me to prove them is like asking someone to prove gravity exists.
Where is your evidence that the unions are holding the district hostage. In the link I provided, the teachers worked for a year without a contract. No school closings, no excessive pay raise! If the unions can hold the district hostage then why aren't the teachers making $100,000 instead of $40,000
My bold.
Actually it is relevant.

Maybe not solid evidence, even if true, but a factor could be the lack of union contracting that drives up salaries

How is getting a pay raise that is below the inflation rate driving up salaries?

[Damburger]

So, should it also be illegal for parents to teach their kids creationism? After all, if the kids believe creationism then their education has been stalled. Perhaps we should make it illegal. That does seem to be what you're saying, and I repeat that you sound very totalitarian.


That isn't what I said.


To me, it seems very reasonable to hold up a standard: kids must know facts A, B, and C in order to earn a high-school diploma.


It isn't reasonable, because faces D to Z get neglected.


It seems very wrong to demand: kids must BELIEVE EXACTLY what I believe. Do you also apply this oppressive dictatorial control to history and politics? If I have different musical tastes from you, are you going to kick me out of music school??


Demanding children be taught science is not 'totalitarian'


It's none of your business what I believe. I have a right to believe that the world is flat if that's what I want to believe. I want a high-school diploma, and I realize that to earn that diploma I must learn accepted scientific theory which states that the world is round. I accept my responsibility and I have learned accepted scientific theory. How dare you suggest that I do not deserve a diploma because I do not believe. How dare you? Keep your laws off my brain.

I don't care what happens in your brain (if anything at all) - but you public education should only teach those things which are provable. That should be obvious, even to you.

[tofu]

I am amazed at the misconceptions some people have about this. I thought that the people on this forum were better than this. We haven't even started the discussion yet because every post has these misconceptions. It's like trying to discuss Apollo with a hoax believer. You can't get into the good stuff with them because you have to keep repeating that no, rockets do not push off the air.

Here's just one example of what I mean.

Want to talk about grade inflation. Try telling public schools their funding is now dependent upon parents not being ticked off at the school. Administrators will start pressuring teachers to make sure the grades look good

schools will not give grades - at least, not the grades that matter, not the grades that determine advancement and graduation. Those will be determined by government standardized tests. There is absolutely nothing that a school can do to inflate these numbers. No teacher can say, "whoa, I need to pass a high percentage of my class" and wave a magic wand and give them all A's. No teacher will have that power, because no matter what the teacher does, the kids still have to pass those standardized tests, and the teachers don't have control over that. The only way to make the parents happy is to *gasp* make sure the kids learn.

So once again, we have an objection to vouchers that turns out to be moot.

[dgruss23]

I am amazed at the misconceptions some people have about this. I thought that the people on this forum were better than this. We haven't even started the discussion yet because every post has these misconceptions. It's like trying to discuss Apollo with a hoax believer. You can't get into the good stuff with them because you have to keep repeating that no, rockets do not push off the air.

Here's just one example of what I mean.



schools will not give grades - at least, not the grades that matter, not the grades that determine advancement and graduation. Those will be determined by government standardized tests. There is absolutely nothing that a school can do to inflate these numbers. No teacher can say, "whoa, I need to pass a high percentage of my class" and wave a magic wand and give them all A's. No teacher will have that power, because no matter what the teacher does, the kids still have to pass those standardized tests, and the teachers don't have control over that. The only way to make the parents happy is to *gasp* make sure the kids learn.

So once again, we have an objection to vouchers that turns out to be moot.

And that's a good example of someone not understanding what vouchers will do. Do you really think parents are only going to look at standardized tests? They're going to look at quarterly grades ... and if Johnny has a 50 they're going see that voucher as a fix - not all of them - but some. They'll take that voucher elsewhere - which doesn't fix Johnny's performance problem in school.

I've seen it happen. Grades will be inflated because of parent pressure. About 7 years ago my wife had a student turn in a plagarized research paper. She had the references that showed that 3/4 of the paper was plagarized. Daddy complained because failing the senior research paper was going to fail the student in English -which was going to prevent the student from graduating.

It didn't matter to Daddy that the plagarism was proven. He actually wanted my wife fired over it. End result - my wife keeps her job (Tenure has its value after all) and the principal caved to the parent and allowed the student to graduate. So yeah - there won't be any pressure on teachers to inflate grades.

Standardized tests will only be a small piece of what will happen with vouchers.

[tofu]

kids must know facts A, B, and C in order to earn a high-school diploma.
It isn't reasonable, because faces D to Z get neglected.

Gee, I'm sorry that I said A,B, and C instead of listing every letter in the alphabet. You're right, that completely negates my point.

Look, obviously you aren't taking conversation seriously. I wish you hadn't wasted so much of my time.

Demanding children be taught science is not 'totalitarian'

In this very thread, I have stated repeatedly that children must be taught science. Are you responding to me, or are you responding to the imaginary bogyman which you have described (in this thread) as being "extreme" as engaging in "blind worship of market forces" and as recycling "right-wing propaganda."

Yeah, one of us is extreme. It isn't me. The one who is extreme is the one who refuses to consider an alternative, preferring instead to repeat the same thing over and over again even when it doesn't work.

For anyone else reading (not for you since you haven't seen it any of the other times I've written it):

1.Children must be taught science. Real, majority-accepted science. No exceptions.
2.In order to be promoted to the next grade or to graduate, children must demonstrate to the government their mastery of science.
3.Parents, regardless of socio-economic status, have a right to determine where their children go to receive an education. Vouchers are a way to give parent's that power.
4.For a school to be able to redeem a voucher (turn it into money) that school must be accredited by the state, just like colleges are accredited.

[tofu]

And that's a good example of someone not understanding what vouchers will do. Do you really think parents are only going to look at standardized tests? They're going to look at quarterly grades

Yes I realize that. I'm sorry, I don't know how to explain this to you.

Imagine you have a class with 20 kids. Imagine that you suck as a teacher. You know that your kids aren't learning anything, but you want the parents to stay happy. What do you do? You give the kids A's.

Are you with me so far? Have I accurately described the problem as you see it? That's grade inflation basically. Here's why it doesn't work.

Happy parents or not, at the end of the year all 20 of your kids take the state standardized test, and all 20 of them fail. All 20 of them have to repeat that grade. Now, what happens to you as a teacher? What happens to your school?

Don't you understand? You will be out of a job. Is this really so hard to figure out? No school that operates that way will stay in business. The system will correct itself. This is exactly how vouchers work.

[Damburger]

Gee, I'm sorry that I said A,B, and C instead of listing every letter in the alphabet. You're right, that completely negates my point.

Look, obviously you aren't taking conversation seriously. I wish you hadn't wasted so much of my time.


It does negate your point, actually. If you were actually listening to me you would understand the flaws in testing, which I have pointed out at length. Because your precious market forces depend on testing, they will not produce better quality schools.


In this very thread, I have stated repeatedly that children must be taught science. Are you responding to me, or are you responding to the imaginary bogyman which you have described (in this thread) as being "extreme" as engaging in "blind worship of market forces" and as recycling "right-wing propaganda."

Yeah, one of us is extreme. It isn't me. The one who is extreme is the one who refuses to consider an alternative, preferring instead to repeat the same thing over and over again even when it doesn't work.


I'm not close minded or refusing to consider alternatives - I am just refusing to accept your argument because the evidence is against it.


For anyone else reading (not for you since you haven't seen it any of the other times I've written it):

1.Children must be taught science. Real, majority-accepted science. No exceptions.

You said otherwise.


2.In order to be promoted to the next grade or to graduate, children must demonstrate to the government their mastery of science.

By testing. See above.


3.Parents, regardless of socio-economic status, have a right to determine where their children go to receive an education. Vouchers are a way to give parent's that power.

Nice attempt at a populist touch - but vouchers help the children of the rich far more than the poor, because those parents are the ones who tend to be picky about schools. And it doesn't even address the problems about testing which you ignore because they contradict your ideology.


4.For a school to be able to redeem a voucher (turn it into money) that school must be accredited by the state, just like colleges are accredited.

So what?

[Klausnh]

Well written, dgruss23.
There were a group of girls last year who were determined to get my wife fired. They were going to sabotage her observation by the principal. A student who liked my wife brought it to her attention.
This year, my wife was told by some of her students, that a teachers job is to entertain them.

edited to add:
One thing I don't understand is how parents are supposed to get their children to the schools if the schools are not local. In our area, the schools are a about half an hour apart. If you don't like the local school, do the parents drive the half an hour, hour or more to get the children to the schools. Are the schools responsible for picking up the students?

[Moose]

Standardized tests will only be a small piece of what will happen with vouchers.

And on top of that, widely issued standardized tests mean that teachers will tend to "teach the test" rather than teach the material. Worse, standardized tests tend to target the lowest common denominator.

The lowest common denominator often tends to hold back a class. And we're talking about setting this lowest common denominator at the national level? Meh, and I say meh again.

I remember as a kid. In first grade, I was reading at a 5th grade level or better, but in fifth grade, my handwriting was closer to 3rd grade. (Still is.) In the school I attended during primary and first grade, reading classes were tailored to individual ability. I read Charlotte's Web in the first grade. I'd never even heard of Dick and Jane.

After I moved, reading lessons were tailored to the abilities of the weaker elements of the class. Which meant I read nothing but Dick and Jane (actually, the French "Rémi et Aline") in the second grade. And spent the rest of my school existance (until college) being held back in my reading, and not being pushed to improve in my writing.

You know, in group reading exercises, when the teacher called on me to read, I inevitably had to be told where we were (and was often skipped as a result.) Not because I was falling behind, because I literally cannot sight read slowly enough (for more than a few seconds, anyway) to keep from overtaking the group by entire pages and even chapters.

Thankfully, a few of my teachers were understanding and didn't cob me or go out of their way to embarass me when I couldn't hold back.

Meh and double-meh.

Teaching to standards and catering to the lowest common denominator is guaranteed to keep children from excelling when and where they can do so.

Tests standardized over a wide area are a great way to ruin education for all but an elite few (who can afford to suppliment). And vouchers are a great first step towards getting there.

[Moose]

Nice attempt at a populist touch - but vouchers help the children of the rich far more than the poor, because those parents are the ones who tend to be picky about schools. And it doesn't even address the problems about testing which you ignore because they contradict your ideology.

And since funding comes heavily from property taxes, families living in generally affluent areas nearly always have much better schools to choose from than families living in the inner city.

Or would you prefer little Johnny Smith commute from downtown LA to Bel-Air Elementary, which his voucher (by your plan) should entitle him to attend (if it's the family's choice, after all)? Do you really think little Johnny would be granted that option in the real world?

[Gillianren]

Test results. Meh.

My little sister is dyslexic, as I mentioned earlier. Pretty severely. However, because people at her elementary school were apparently looking more at her test results than her actual ability, it took until she was in fourth grade for anyone to notice.

Now, it may in part be my fault. I was labelled a "lazy genius" pretty early for not bothering with most of the work assigned, especially if it didn't really interest me, but I tested really, really well. Certain people within the school assumed that she was like me.

However, she had teachers I hadn't, so somebody should've caught it sooner. Regardless, even after her diagnosis, she still tested very unevenly, simply because she couldn't reliably read the tests properly in the time provided.

The best things I learned in high school weren't on standardized tests. In fact, there was no standardized test for my California history class, and I learned more in it than in any other, because the teacher was excellent.

Oh, and do you think that I of all people wouldn't tell my mother that the teachers had no chalk and there were no working pencil sharpeners in half the classrooms? It was well known through the entire state, but for some reason, people thought funding the schools adequately was just throwing money at the problem. (And the truly dedicated teachers, the kind you want your kids to have, taught anyway, because teaching was more important.)

[Klausnh]

Yes I realize that. I'm sorry, I don't know how to explain this to you.

Imagine you have a class with 20 kids. Imagine that you suck as a teacher. You know that your kids aren't learning anything, but you want the parents to stay happy. What do you do? You give the kids A's.

Are you with me so far? Have I accurately described the problem as you see it? That's grade inflation basically. Here's why it doesn't work.

Happy parents or not, at the end of the year all 20 of your kids take the state standardized test, and all 20 of them fail. All 20 of them have to repeat that grade. Now, what happens to you as a teacher? What happens to your school?

Don't you understand? You will be out of a job. Is this really so hard to figure out? No school that operates that way will stay in business. The system will correct itself. This is exactly how vouchers work.
Now let me explain why standardized tests don't work. Good teacher has students whose parents are all drug addicts. Students do poorly. Good teacher gets fired. Bad teacher has students with supportive parents. Students do well. Bad teacher keeps her job.
I know this is the extreme example, but I've tried to simplify to get my meaning across. Teaching means imparting knowledge, not getting kids to pass tests.

Maybe we should ask
Hazel Haley (http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060222/NEWS/602220400/1039), whose been teaching for 69 years!
School, itself, is becoming increasingly harder for teachers because government officials pile on paperwork, red tape and tests like the FCAT, she said. Haley is not a fan of the state's required assessment test.

[tofu]

well, I give up. you guys are just making things up at this point. I really feel like I'm arguing with Apollo Hoax Believers. The things you guys are saying sound so much like people saying, "omg the rockets have nothing to push against therefore it would never work!!!"

And since funding comes heavily from property taxes

Every kid everywhere in the country would get the exact same voucher value. Sure, maybe the funding would come from property taxes. Yes, with the present system, that means that public schools near rich areas are better. that wouldn't happen with vouchers because every voucher would be the same value

I'm shocked that I have to point that out.

[Moose]

well, I give up. you guys are just making things up at this point. I really feel like I'm arguing with Apollo Hoax Believers.

Funny, I feel like I'm arguing with a free-energy proponent. You might think your "system is closed", but it's not. It never is. There's always, always a bigger picture to consider.

[farmerjumperdon]

I was labelled a "lazy genius" pretty early for not bothering with most of the work assigned, especially if it didn't really interest me, but I tested really, really well.

My older daughter is that way. Drives the teacher nuts because she hands in homework late, . . .very regularly. Her desk is an absolute disaster! She daydreams, doesn't follow direction, etc.

Then she aces every test, HA! Last day of school today, and she did not miss a single science question all year. 100% on every science test, given every 2 weeeks.

THAT'S MY GIRL!

[mugaliens]

Most people seem to agree that American schools are of very poor quality.

Studies show that we're in the top 25%, worldwide. How does that translate into "very poor quality?"

[Moose]

Studies show that we're in the top 25%, worldwide. How does that translate into "very poor quality?"

... among industrialized nations, most likely.

[mugaliens]

I don't know why you would think of that as a "solution" as It would just make a bigger problem.

Why would this "make a bigger problem?" If parents wanted to send their kids to public schools, they would simply cancel their voucher. If they wanted to send them to a private school, their tax dollars would be used to fund their children's education, and given stats over the last few decades, privately-schooled kids fare significantly better in college and post-college than publically schooled kids. How is this a "bigger problem?"

[farmerjumperdon]

Where is your evidence that the unions are holding the district hostage. In the link I provided, the teachers worked for a year without a contract. No school closings, no excessive pay raise! If the unions can hold the district hostage then why aren't the teachers making $100,000 instead of $40,000
My bold.
Actually it is relevant.


How is getting a pay raise that is below the inflation rate driving up salaries?

Next time you see a teacher strike, that will be the evidence the union has taken hostages. Actually, they are holding the kids education as hostage for a ransom in the form of higher salaries. I think union executives are economically savvy enough not too ask for way too much. I'm sure they realize that at an average salary of $100K, the supply of teachers would increase to the point where the glut would have the opposite of their desire - which is to prop up salaries.

What I meant by irrelevant is that it's the actual salary being made that counts. If I'm being paid 20% below market and get a 20% raise, no foul. But if I'm being paid 20% above what the same-skilled person gets in the open market, then even a 1% raise is questionable. It's not the last raise or any of the ones before that, it's how much you make now - today, that counts when benchmarking against the market.

My contention is that teachers unions, and unions in general, create a false floor for salaries. They are especially predatory in their salary demands when they are negotiating with a business for which mobility is impossible, or very expensive. Schools and heavy industry (such as automakers) are prime examples.

[Klausnh]

well, I give up. you guys are just making things up at this point. I really feel like I'm arguing with Apollo Hoax Believers. The things you guys are saying sound so much like people saying, "omg the rockets have nothing to push against therefore it would never work!!!"



Every kid everywhere in the country would get the exact same voucher value. Sure, maybe the funding would come from property taxes. Yes, with the present system, that means that public schools near rich areas are better. that wouldn't happen with vouchers because every voucher would be the same value

I'm shocked that I have to point that out.
tofu, instead of complaining about how much we don't know about vouchers, why don't you provide a link that explains your version of the voucher idea?
What happens when students with a troubled background attempt to enroll in these private schools. Can they be denied admission?

[Klausnh]

My contention is that teachers unions, and unions in general, create a false floor for salaries. They are especially predatory in their salary demands when they are negotiating with a business for which mobility is impossible, or very expensive. Schools and heavy industry (such as automakers) are prime examples.
***sigh***
Can you please give me an example of some teacher's salaries that you think are too high because of union interference?
Will you acknowkedge the fact the the Concord, NH teachers worked without a contract for a year so that their students did not suffer? I have no doubt there are some abuses by unions, teachers, principals, parents, and whomever else you want to mention. If 1 union holds a district hostage, or teachers in 1 district are paid too much or .... it does not mean the system is broken. Show me some numbers how many teachers/unions hold the districts hostage.
I don't know how esle to get my point across. If anyone else here understands my point, perhaps they can try!

[teddyv]

I don’t think the salaries are what hold districts hostage. The fact that school is mandatory creates a situation where the (teacher's) union holds a lot of power. There are no (long-term) options for parents to send kids elsewhere in the event of a strike or other work stoppage.

I’m speaking from the situation where I live. This could be a lot different elsewhere.

[mugaliens]

Doodler asks some very good questions!

Let me ask this. What is the fundamental difference between a private school education and a public school education?

Is it the smaller classes? Heh, then what do you solve by sending everyone to them, thereby eliminating that advantage?

If the vouchers followed the students, the private schools would be able to afford to keep their student-teacher ratio much the same.

Is it better teachers? Why are they there and not in public schools? Better pay? Why not pay the public school teachers what they're worth?

There is some evidence which shows that the differing quality isn't one of pay, but of bureauracracy (ok, so I can't spleel!). In public schools it's much harder to fire a teacher than in private schools. It's long been demonstrated throughout industry that performance is related to many factors, but chief among them is both the expectation that "if I do well, it will be noticed and I'll advance, and if I do poorly, it will be noticed and I'll either not advance, or I'll be fired." Polls show this is felt by teachers more strongly in private schools, which have far less red tape involved to advance teachers, or to let them go, than do public schools.

Is it the ability to effectively discipline unruly kids by making the parents sign documents on entry that they are authorized to take disciplinary action with the kids? Why not put forward legislation that allows for more effective discipline in public schools?

This is a very good counter-arguement, and I agree that public schools should employ more effective discipline. Sadly, many school administrators and teachers reject strongly documented results for what works and what doesn't. In addition, there's the problem that every kid is different, and discipline remains as much an art form as it does a science, even when one only has one child to worry about! :)

I do not understand the logic of turning kids over to the private school system instead of making the necessary upgrades to existing schools.

It's easier, simpler, quicker, less costly, and more effective than trying to break through the horrendous layers of bureaucracy (there - I MW'd it - whew!).

Instead you get retarded nonsense like No Child Left Behind that steadily strangles public schools that don't perform. I cannot fathom the level of arrogant stupidity required to arrive at the conclusion that the way to motivate schools to perform better is to cut them off from the funding that might help them better do so...

You lost me here. It's long been proven that schools, agencies, companies, corporations, governments, and just about every other type of social group known to man, performs at their best when faced with the right combination of:

1. Lean times

2. Obtainable goals

3. Encouragement (mutual and support from above)

4. Innovative thinking

Private schools have evolved into what they are today because they're in the competitive market. By contrast, public schools are not. I am by no means saying public school teachers are "fat, dumb, and happy," because most teachers have several motivational resources, ranging from intrinsic to mutual, to top-down, to (please continue the list, those of you who're teachers). But by and large, public schools haven't been subjected to the same "incentives" (pressures) as public schools, either. All psychologists agree that stress and the right environment mix are powerful motivators.

One thing I have noticed, in part because one of my best friends teaches middle school, and in part because of my PTA involvements and other associations with school administrators, particularly those responsible for my son's education, is that the administrators of public schools have grown wise as to the various motivators, and are implementing them so that teachers will "rise above the challange" and step out of their comfort zones, and go the extra mile.

This isn't a commentary on capitalism, socialism, etc. It's a fact of human nature. People work better when they're under the gun, but only when they have a reasonably obtainable out, with varying, light to moderate amounts of stress, and with a vision they're both personally and professionally equipped to achieve.

Money doesn't solve problems. I know a lady who home-schooled her three daughters and son on no more budget than what paid for the pencils and paper on which she crafted their lessons and homework. I think her total annual cost for schooling supplies for all three was somethign around $300, annually, yet she managed to outteach a school that was spending more than ten times as much per kid. That was in the late 80s, and all three kids enjoyed college free of charge because their extensive knowledge and language and math capabilities earned them full scholarships.

Wow!

If she can do it, why can't others?

Perhaps a more appropriate question is, "why don't others?" What's holding them back from home-schooling, or being private, or even public school teachers?

My point is that America's education deficit has nothing to do with funding dollars - of the 24 countries that beat us in Academic achievement, only 2 outfunded us on a per-child US dollar basis.

So let us please drop the "we need more money!" arguement and continue with what's actually critical to improving both public, private, and home education in America. Because when twenty years have passed, regardless of their avenue of education, all of these folks will be lining up to be our future leaders, CEOs, middle management, customer service reps, fast-food servers, mechanics, information technology specialists, doctors and lawyers, and perhaps, for the lucky two or three, the President of the United States of America.

It doesn't begin with money, folks. It begins with education, and there's a fallacious arguement that says you can't have one without the other. I can show you countries who's education budgets are less than 1/1000th ours, who nevertheless turn out students that outperform ours.

No, they don't make very much money as teachers. What they do make are outstanding students, and for them, that's enough, and well worth their effort.

[mugaliens]

I don’t think the salaries are what hold districts hostage. The fact that school is mandatory creates a situation where the (teacher's) union holds a lot of power. There are no (long-term) options for parents to send kids elsewhere in the event of a strike or other work stoppage.

I’m speaking from the situation where I live. This could be a lot different elsewhere.

I've lived in several states in the US, and it was always the same. Well said, and with far fewer words than my post above!

[Gillianren]

Polls show this is felt by teachers more strongly in private schools, which have far less red tape involved to advance teachers, or to let them go, than do public schools.

What do you consider "advancing" teachers? In most schools, there's really no such thing, unless you consider becoming an administrator advancing, which really good teachers don't. Think about this--to someone truly devoted to teaching, there's no "promotion" options. Either they teach or they don't. Salaries are mostly geared toward how long you've been there, since performance evaluations are pretty hard for teachers--unless you count standardized testing, which has its own inherent flaws. (How, for example, would you evaluate a special ed teacher, whose students may or may not be able to improve test scores? Or a gym or music teacher?)

I had a teacher in high school--several, in fact--who'd been there the entire thirty years the school had. They were still teachers. One or two of them might've been department heads, but that was extra work with no extra salary, so I don't really think that was a promotion per se. How do you consider them to've advanced in the field?

[teddyv]

What do you consider "advancing" teachers? In most schools, there's really no such thing, unless you consider becoming an administrator advancing, which really good teachers don't. Think about this--to someone truly devoted to teaching, there's no "promotion" options. Either they teach or they don't. Salaries are mostly geared toward how long you've been there, since performance evaluations are pretty hard for teachers--unless you count standardized testing, which has its own inherent flaws. (How, for example, would you evaluate a special ed teacher, whose students may or may not be able to improve test scores? Or a gym or music teacher?)

I had a teacher in high school--several, in fact--who'd been there the entire thirty years the school had. They were still teachers. One or two of them might've been department heads, but that was extra work with no extra salary, so I don't really think that was a promotion per se. How do you consider them to've advanced in the field?

Teacher's can certainly advance by continuing on in education such as Masters/Doctorates. The public school system here rewards that quite significantly. The other way, as you mention, would be going into admin side of things.

I might take exception that only the "devoted" teachers stay in teaching for their whole career. There does seem to be a case of too many teachers hanging around too long and getting very stale - it takes a special teacher to stay fresh for 30 years.

I can't speak specifically if department heads are not compensated extra for that, that would all be part of the unions CBA. In my wife's school which is a independent religious school (non-union), she, as the Intermediate Coordinator, does receive extra pay for that role.

[Jim]

I am amazed at the misconceptions some people have about this. I thought that the people on this forum were better than this. ... Here's just one example of what I mean.

schools will not give grades - at least, not the grades that matter, not the grades that determine advancement and graduation. Those will be determined by government standardized tests. There is absolutely nothing that a school can do to inflate these numbers. ... So once again, we have an objection to vouchers that turns out to be moot.

Okay, maybe someone else has already responded, but...

First, let's drop the emporer's new clothes arguments. ("How can any really intelligent person disagree with me? You are intelligent, aren't you?")

Second, what you say cannot happen already has. Try looking up the Houston Independent School District and cheating on standardized tests. This was 1-2 years ago and involved teachers, principals, and administrators. It included everything from sending low performing students home so they didn't have to take the test, to "adjusting" the scores to supplying the answers.

When you tie someone's pay and job to how well kids do on standardized tests and only that, you are begging for cheating to happen.

Guess what? Not moot after all. Care to retract your statement?

[Tinaa]

Standardized testing sucks. If a child is a "bad tester" they are sunk. Vouchers are not the answer. Testing people before they are allowed to have children, to weed out the bad parents, would be an immense step forward. Many, many parents just don't give a hoot, as long as the child stays out of the way.

After working in the system for 7+ years, and being a parent for 17+ years, I can state that parental involvement is the major component in ensuring a good education for a child. Apathy is the hardest problem faced by teachers.

[Ronald Brak]

We sorta kinda have a voucher system here in Australia. Whether you live in a rich or poor area doesn't affect how much money your school gets (but it does affect how much extra time and money the schools can get parents to contribute). And private schools get two thirds of the money that a public school gets per student. Now the U.S. and Australian systems aren't directly comparable but our semi voucher system seems neither terrible nor wonderous.

As for standardized testing, well I'll tell a little story about how in Australia we don't get graded in gym class. In fact we don't generally don't have gyms in schools. As far as I'm aware, no one has to climb a rope. When a kid on an American TV show says they are failing gym class to us it makes as much sense as if they said they had failed lunch. And perhaps as a result Australia is one of the most sports mad countries in the world, always racking a huge number of medals at the olympics in comparison to it's small population. In Australia sports isn't about getting graded it's about doing the best you can. Perhaps some of that should apply to education in general.

[dgruss23]

Now let me explain why standardized tests don't work. Good teacher has students whose parents are all drug addicts. Students do poorly. Good teacher gets fired. Bad teacher has students with supportive parents. Students do well. Bad teacher keeps her job.
I know this is the extreme example, but I've tried to simplify to get my meaning across.


In fact that happens (without the firing part anyway). My first year teaching Chemistry I had 50% of my students master the state exam (85 or higher on the test). The guy in my department that had been teaching for 35 years had ~25% mastery. Did I do a better job teaching chemistry in my very first year than the teacher that had been at it for 35 years? Absolutely not. I know I didn't. But I had most of the accelerated students in my two classes - and they perform.

[dgruss23]

Well written, dgruss23.
There were a group of girls last year who were determined to get my wife fired. They were going to sabotage her observation by the principal. A student who liked my wife brought it to her attention.
This year, my wife was told by some of her students, that a teachers job is to entertain them.

This doesn't surprise me. People don't understand that this is the sort of thing Tenure is supposed to protect teachers from. Teachers can still be fired - but you have to have documentation to back up incompetence - and you must go through the legal system to make it happen.

We had a teacher in our district a while back that was eventually driven out (took an early retirement or face charges) for repeatedly being charged with inappropriate behavior toward girls.

edited to add:
One thing I don't understand is how parents are supposed to get their children to the schools if the schools are not local. In our area, the schools are a about half an hour apart. If you don't like the local school, do the parents drive the half an hour, hour or more to get the children to the schools. Are the schools responsible for picking up the students?

Yep - who will foot the bill for that? You can bet that some lobby group will get lawmakers to put into a voucher bill that schools must arrange for transportation of students up to some ridiculous distance. Hey, if a student wants to come to our school from 30 miles past our district line ... well we'll just send a suburban out for that one kid - because he brought us his voucher.

[dgruss23]

What I meant by irrelevant is that it's the actual salary being made that counts. If I'm being paid 20% below market and get a 20% raise, no foul. But if I'm being paid 20% above what the same-skilled person gets in the open market, then even a 1% raise is questionable. It's not the last raise or any of the ones before that, it's how much you make now - today, that counts when benchmarking against the market.



Teaching/Education is not a business. Good thing for our students. Teachers work together and share ideas within districts and between districts. If you make employment depend upon standardized tests/grades you'll create a negative competition. Teachers will compete to have the best students in their own classes - at the expense of their colleagues. There is already politics within schools (for dept. chair positions and so on). If you tie job security to the test, then every teacher knows that is in large part going to depend upon the quality of the students. Instead of working together to improve - teachers will be given incentive to keep their best strategies to themselves.

[TriangleMan]

That is quite sad, seen some of it myself doing volunteer work at an Alternative Learning Center. However, I do not think it is the burden of the educational system to solve the problems you mentioned. That's part of how we got into this mess to begin with, people thinking the education system is the new umbrella for social welfare.

Whoops, looks like two pages have been added to this thread since I was last here. I just wanted to note farmerjumperdon that you are correct, my intention was that an overall government social program needs to look at all of these factors in order to help these children. Saying it is part of Education policy was an error on my part.

That said I think I'll move on from this thread - getting hot in here.

[ngc3314]

Lots of thoughts on following this thread. Many hit too close to home at the moment, both ways, to post much about. After years of being an ardent supporter of public schools (even though the local administrators didn't always like exactly what we said), we have just enrolled one of our children in a parochial school for the next year (which may end up requiring sale of more household furnishings). Short form - we got tired of his being scared to go to classes (one student in his math class lost a finger in a classroom fight last year, and about two months ago a bunch of kids on his bus were stuck by two students with the tattooing needle they had been aplpying to each other). This added to a science teacher who neglected to reply to our attempts to get her attention by note, phone message, and email for ten weeks (so he didn't do very well in that class...). The guidance counselor, a passionate advocate of public schools, recommended this solution. We hope he'll thrive.

[Gillianren]

Teacher's can certainly advance by continuing on in education such as Masters/Doctorates. The public school system here rewards that quite significantly. The other way, as you mention, would be going into admin side of things.

Back home--and I'm pretty sure here in Washington as well--teachers have to have a Master's to begin with. What's more, they have to pay for their own continuing education. My best friend's almost done with her Master's, not even a PhD, and she's about $100,000 in debt now. (She went to a very good school.) The system doesn't compensate teachers for continuing education, and the pay raises don't either.

Which is all irrelevant to the point I was making. The point I was making was that, while there may be a pay increase, there aren't actually promotions in teaching except into administration, and I doubt you want to lose really, really good teachers to administration.

I might take exception that only the "devoted" teachers stay in teaching for their whole career. There does seem to be a case of too many teachers hanging around too long and getting very stale - it takes a special teacher to stay fresh for 30 years.

Especially given the discipline problems they have to put up with, the poor salary, and the shoddy equipment. But again, not really my point--my point was that, given a choice between "advancement" into administration and continuing to teach, a dedicated teacher would continue to teach instead of taking the higher salary, lower stress, and lower level of outside work that comes with being an administrator. And anyway I never said only "devoted" teachers stay with it the whole 30 years; I said the devoted ones wouldn't take a promotion to administration, which is different. As many admin positions as there may be, there's still more teaching jobs.

I can't speak specifically if department heads are not compensated extra for that, that would all be part of the unions CBA. In my wife's school which is a independent religious school (non-union), she, as the Intermediate Coordinator, does receive extra pay for that role.

To be fair, I'm not 100% sure either, and may ask Mrs. Nicholson. I imagine it may vary from district to district. What I do know for sure is that it wasn't exactly a sought-after position, given that I'm pretty sure both the position of head of the science department and head of the English department changed hands at least twice while I was there--and maybe one or two teachers left the school over the four years I attended.

[teddyv]

Gillianren,

I kind of anticipated your reply as soon as I submitted my post, but thanks for clarifying anyways.:)

As many admin positions as there may be, there's still more teaching jobs.

Surprisingly or not, north of the border there are probably more admin positions unfilled because few teachers are willing to go into admin due to the inevitable headaches associated with it (as you alluded to). Teaching positions are fairly hard to come by as there is an oversupply and a declining enrollment in virtually all districts (something like 25,000 less kindergarten enrolments from 5 years ago - but I'd have to reinvestigate that number).

Also I wans't aware teachers required a Masters, or did I misinterpret? Teacher's here require a Bachelor and then one year teaching certification course.

[Jim]

well, I give up. you guys are just making things up at this point. ...

I'd be interested in your list of things I have "made up."

Every kid everywhere in the country would get the exact same voucher value. Sure, maybe the funding would come from property taxes. Yes, with the present system, that means that public schools near rich areas are better. that wouldn't happen with vouchers because every voucher would be the same value

Weeellll, Texas tried something like that. It was called the Robin Hood Plan. Each district continued to levy property taxes (which meant the richer districts had more income to draw on) but the state then re-allocated part of that funding from the richer districts to the poorer districts, so that every school received about the same per capita funding.

The richer districts filed suit, claiming that monies their districts should have been allowed to keep and use were being given to other districts.

A federal court ruled Robin Hood unconstitutional. After three years, two regular sessions and three special sessions, the Lege finally came up with another plan.

If vouchers really do "redistribute the wealth," I would anticipate a law suit by the districts and possibly a finding of unconstitutionality.

Also, "every kid everywhere ... would get the exact same voucher value" is hardly fair. You would be rewarding those who live in low cost areas and penalizing those who live in high cost ones.

Also, how does this help the kids in rural areas, where private schools are all but non-existent? They'd have a voucher, but no place to spend it w/o considerable travel cost.

In fact, transportation is an issue with any private school. Many of them rely on carpools, which low income families could probably not manage.

And, you'd need to invest heavily in construction. There are not that many private schools and they are typically smaller. (The largest here in Houston is about 1200 for Pre-K thru 12; my public high school - 10 thru 12 - had 3000.)

Let's talk voucher values again. The 2005 average per-capita spending in the US was $8,618; in Texas, $7,142. In Houston, I found private school tuitions from $7,275 for Kindergarten to $14,845 for high school. What value do you propose?

[Klausnh]

I'd be interested in your list of things I have "made up."



Weeellll, Texas tried something like that. It was called the Robin Hood Plan. Each district continued to levy property taxes (which meant the richer districts had more income to draw on) but the state then re-allocated part of that funding from the richer districts to the poorer districts, so that every school received about the same per capita funding.

The richer districts filed suit, claiming that monies their districts should have been allowed to keep and use were being given to other districts.

A federal court ruled Robin Hood unconstitutional. After three years, two regular sessions and three special sessions, the Lege finally came up with another plan.

NH schools are paid with the property tax.
NH didn't have vouchers, but the government tried taking money from wealthy districts and giving it to poorer districts. NH Supreme Court also struck that down. Our state has been working on a plan to meet the NH Constitution' s requirement "to provide an equitable education through an integrated system of shared responsibility between state and local government." for 10 years.

[Gillianren]

Also I wans't aware teachers required a Masters, or did I misinterpret? Teacher's here require a Bachelor and then one year teaching certification course.

Here, yes, teaching in many areas requires a Master's. Which is one reason quite a lot of people I know have gone into grad school at all. It's one of only three Master's programs my alma mater provided, in fact--the MiT, or Master's in Teaching.