After giving this whole “accountability” issue some thought, I was wondering (perhaps this can spin a more positive discussion):
Why are we punishing teachers/educators/districts for poor student performance? As mentioned, poor educator/district guidiance is only a small part of the equation. It’s just not possible to assess what the student is going through purely based on test performance.
Shouldn’t the government be asking “what can we do to help you”, instead of “I don’t care how you do it, just make sure the kid passes”? Educators are pouring their heart out for the kids (at least most are). And now we are taking away what’s important to the curriculum of learning and just stuffing them with test-prep sessions for the high-accountability exams.
Money won’t fix everything. But damn, wouldn’t it be nice if the teachers don’t have to consistently foot the bills themselves for the materials they need for classes. I don’t know any teacher who does not spend some money of his/her own for class due to lack of spending budget.
If taken to extreme, the accountability system will force schools to become nothing more than test-prep centers for pupils to pass high-stake exams such as ones proposed by the NCLB Act of 2001. In an economy where money is most needed in schools, the law threatens to take away funding from schools without the performance the law is looking for. Again, this ties to point #1: shouldn’t government be asking, “what are you doing wrong? Let’s improve it…”, not “bad district, no money for you”?
Well check yourself in for a session with a good psychiatrist about why you have this zero sum game mentality when it comes to the rich. Who cares how much money they have? how does that affect you?
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Fred, read my last post again. What the hell are you trying to say here? I don’t want to here any of this shit form you again.
Go back and do some research about vouchers, and don’t accuse me of not having read anythign about them. I have. Essentially they are just state (taxpayer) subsidisation of the fees of students at private schools.
Tax the rich hard and don’t give them any favors you said. Okay. You think that vouchers help the rich who already have good public schools and/or send their children to good private schools including most of the senators and representatives who vote against vouchers.
This myth that teachers are buying materials because the schools are not paying for things is bullshit for the most part. Huge chunks of money are available for ridiculous and divisive programs, take DARE for example. See how much is spent and rate that against the goals achieved if you can find them.
You may have read about vouchers but I actually worked with them and if you can show me an article not submitted to a newspaper by a group supported by the teachers unions posing as “real news” then post it on over. The idea that vouchers are for the rich defies logical explanation. What is essentially being done with vouchers is the following:
You are from a school that is “failing.” Vouchers are not for successful public schools.
You decide to take SOME of the tax dollars allotted to you and apply them to a different school.
Since you are going to a different school, the school you were at previously is no longer required to “educate” you. So one less student means that much less in expenses for that school right? Since we hear so much about how poor schools are overcrowded, then voila sending these children to other schools will reduce the problem no? Public schools cannot ask for more money for overcrowding and more money to raise quality and then say that we cannot ship students to other schools since that will reduce their “budget.”
What we are finding is that private (often religious schools mostly Catholic) in inner cities are able to take the monies refunded. Remember the student only gets part of his tax dollar contribution per student to take to the other school so if a failing public school in DC say gets US$7,500 per student, probably the student would be lucky to get US$3,500 to US$4,000. That would be at the HIGH range. What they are getting on average is US$1,500 to US$2,000 but PRIVATE foundations (the same that dump money that goes beyond and above the US$7,500 rate for public schools) subsidizes the remainder. So if the total tuition is US$3500 then the private foundation would ante up the remainder of US$1,500 to US$2,000 in addition to the voucher money.
Now you tell me HOW in the name of all that is HOLY this benefits the rich? Especially since the public school (failing) still gets to keep maybe half to two-thirds the original per pupil cost. So they still get US$3,000 to US$4,000 for not even educating that student!
Please start reading both sides of the debate. There is no reason that parents that care should be forced to have there children in a crappy school. Most inner city corruption and nepotism rampant schools qualify as crappy schools. Please read the following about the Washington DC school districts. nationalreview.com/comment/larti … 070825.asp
I have a problem with your choice of reading materials. Do you expect education professionals to actually support a voucher program? I don’t, but I do expect them to make good points about issues that need to be addressed. Choice is good, people should be allowed to make their own choices when clear and transparent information is presented to them. This is something that I find the liberal half not accepting. Gov’ts. have always been poor allocators of scarce capital.
My 2nd point, how do vouchers favor the rich? If the money state and federal gov’ts give to the school is taken away and is to be reearned by having studnets enroll in the school, how does this take or give anything to rich people. When final legislation is passed a clause barring people from getting vouchers at a certain level of income or decreasing the value of a voucher as your income rises. Is this fair? Why should someone who pays more taxes be barred from getting there school voucher?
Parenst will have choice to send their children to different schools that fit their view of what is best for their child. What is wrong with that? How does that hurt society?
Many public school systems wave the rich will benefit thing to get people to support their initiatives just like they give the old budgets are being cut etc. When have budgets been cut? I think that most times it involves a cut in the growth of growth. This is a pre-emptive tactic used by teacher’s unions to shift the debate firmly away from how the money is spent and whether it is spent well. Like discussions of race, YOU RACIST, these discussion boil down into HOW CAN YOU SKIMP ON OUR FUTURE, OUR CHILDREN’S EDUCATION? Nice strategy and it obviously works well. I don’t know how to feel about that good that I have fooled people like Bulaien with these pathetically simplistic public relations campaigns or annoyed that this four-decade old problem is now only beginning to be addressed and that it is readily apparent that it has a long way to go.
More competition. More choice. After all, who is kicking the poor students out of the bad school? And so the other debate is that public schools (failing) will only be left with the worst students, but if they are already failing schools does this not mean that we are merely condemning students with potential to suffer the same fate? Equalization of failure ala communism?
Two reasons vouchers favour the rich. (And in this context, by rich I really mean the moderately well-off or non-poor).
Vouchers are still a subsidy for the tuition of student’s at private schools. That’s the bottom line. Whether it’s some or all of the tuition, it’s still taxpayer’s money which could otherwise be spent on underfunded schools, and I expect the costs of tuition at most private schools are more than the cost of educating a student at a public school.
Only the moderately well off will be in a positionto take advantage of vouchers. Most private schools are not located in poor areas. For poor families transport considerations will not allow them to choose the school they go to the way richer families can.
Vouchers are not an educational initiative. They are a market initiative. Education reforms shoudl be about education. Not about ‘making the market more competitive’ which is what vouchers were designed todo. These are schools we’re talking about, not soda brands. Competition is not a good thing. A non-competitive school failing could be a disaster for the people who rely on it.
Vouchers are not for middle class schools. They are for school children at FAILING schools READ poor.
Private religious schools cost LESS than public schools and the students do not get all the money allotted to them on a per capita basis.
If schools complain that they need more money to educate students because they are “overcrowded” then how about moving some of the crowd away and leaving the schools with some of the money anyway? The truth is that the schools are spending it unwisely but do not want any of the money to go away because it will prove that others can do better.
Admit it, you have no clue what you are talking about with vouchers. I have worked on this issue for nearly two years and kept in touch with it since leaving the United States. Do not tell me you know anything about it when you are making glaring errors about middle class students running off with the money. THESE ARE FOR FAILING SCHOOLS ONLY.
Yet another report of D.C. Public Schools proves what frustrated parents, and other taxpayers and school-choice proponents have said all along: The more money school authorities have at their disposal, the more they waste. The latest examples of mismanagement come as city leaders ponder how best to end flagrant mismanagement.
So, how prevalent, really, is choice in the district and how much more choice would a voucher program add? A review of the options currently offered by the city reveals two things: (1) the amount of choice is limited to low-performing schools that parents want to escape and that, (2) a voucher program would vastly increase the educational options available to students.
Please familiarize yourself with the US. Even private schools get gov’t money where I’m from. Not as much as public schools, but still enough. I’ve seen people spend a lot of money and time working to keep their children in private schools and out of failing public schools. Most private schools in the inner city are catholic or denominational and they have agreed to help. Vouchers go a long way to helping them and the students that need to escape a failing school system. I find it telling that New york Education professionals said Catholic schools couldn’t do the job properly only to have to later turn down the catholic school offer of taking their worst 200 students.
I look at it from a personal viewpoint. Would I want to choose my child’s school, yes. Will I send my child to a good private school if I have the money, yes. Do I want to be involved in my child’s education and make sure he/she is in a small sized class, yes. Will I send my child to a private kindergarten, even if it is not my religious denomination or faith, yes. Do I trust public schools to do the job properly, not really.
Really? Can you back up this claim? If the largest group of private schools is catholic and they are located mostly in the inner city does this not count. Please don’t make assumptions about the US that you can not back up. I will do likewise for NZ.
Market initiative drives efficiency and often resorts in a better product at a lower cost, than if it is a gov’t initiative. Don’t believe me? Look at phone service, look at successful charter school that do operate in some states and then look at the absolute appalling state of airline companies with so much gov’t involvement(as an industry, a net destroyer of capital, the world over). Don’t expect absolute perfection, just because it is a gov’t operation and then absolute imperfection because it is a private initiative. The beauty is that people choose and have only themselves ot blame. I think a little responsibility is a good thing. Poeple tend to invest more time and effort into things that they can have an influene over. I don’t necessarily see this as a bad thing.
I was reading Christopher Hitchen’s writeup about Edward Said the other day and he said something worth repeating here, and in other forums. While praising Said’s humanity, and compassion, his erudition and cultured personality, Hitchen’s also had to point out that he disagreed strongly with the man’s politics. But, as Hitch noted, a man is rarely at his best when it comes to his politics.
Let’s try to remember this when we debate here. You know, whenever I argue with Tigerman about the war my blood starts to boil. But whenever I read him in another forum, talking about his family or his life in Taiwan, I recognize that he is a pretty decent guy who I in now way should wish to make an enemy.
Civil debate is a lost social art. Let’s try to revive it, sincerely or not.
Brian, to be fair, voucher programs in the United States are generally devised to protect and channel money for poorest families to send children to other/private schools. Most programs specifically requires that the money must go to poor communities. The fairness of this practice is a topic for another debate.
One of the biggest controversies for the voucher program, while promotes choice for parents on the surface, some people argue, unfairly channels a significant portion of public funding to private religious schools (which indirectly violates the Constitution on “separation of church and state”). Though parents may not give a damn about the “religious” part of the education (or they can just pick another non-religious school, which is hard because 85% of all private schools are religious-based), some people worry about legality of the practice.
I should also note that the rise of modern voucher program really took root during the George Bush era (not to bring him up to bash him or anything; it just so happens). His educator czar, Alexandar Lamar (if you still remember his presidential bid for presidency back in the days) tried to push hard for private school voucher program… for very simple reasons, because he was an investor in this new private school system called the “Edison Project”, and the voucher program would have given a boost badly needed for the project to take hold (Edison made their first profit this year). But of course, the policy proposed by GB and AL did not pass.
Some states/cities have regulations in place for vouchers. Some studies have shown that students under the voucher program do perform better (there are also other studies that show little to no change in performance). But just how programs like this (channeling public funding to private and corporate entities) affects long term well-beings of the society remains to be seen.
Privatization, I argue, isn’t always for the best of everyone. The key should be fixing the public school system and make sure education remains free for everyone. Private entities, afterall, serves their investors. You can’t count on a for-profit organization to run public-interest bodies for little to no cost to you forever.
The nation's schools are telling an unbalanced story of their own country, offering students plenty about America's failings but not enough about its values and freedoms, says a report drawing support across the ideological spectrum.
Without a change of approach, schools will continue to turn out large numbers of students who are disengaged in society and unappreciative of democracy, the report contends.
Produced by the nonpartisan Albert Shanker Institute, “Education for Democracy” is the latest effort to try to strengthen the nation’s underwhelming grasp of civics and history. Authors hope it will lead to curriculum changes and, in the short term, stir debate about today’s social studies classes as people reflect on the terrorist attacks of two years ago.
Beyond its provocative findings, the report is notable for the range of people and groups supporting it, from Republicans and Democrats to labor unions and conservative think tanks.
I’ve been saying this for years. U.S. Students are indoctrinated in anti-Americanism that leads to apathy and continued ignorance about their country that lasts well into adulthood. It’s good to see a bipartisan commission agrees and thinks it’s a serious enough problem to do something about.
There are a couple very fine quotes from Larry Diamond, including this one: “It’s important that students understand not only our flaws and failings, but also the degree to which the United States was really the first modern democracy, and the degree to which it has inspired democrats around the world.”
QUOTING SOMEONE ELSE: Privatization, I argue, isn’t always for the best of everyone. The key should be fixing the public school system and make sure education remains free for everyone. Private entities, afterall, serves their investors. You can’t count on a for-profit organization to run public-interest bodies for little to no cost to you forever.
There got that part down but don’t remember who posted this…
First of all, the government has had four decades to “fix” the problem and guess what it ain’t been fixed. Your same argument against privatization was used for the airlines, telephones, mail service, railways, steel, and on and on. Guess, what. All wrong.
Finally, there is an assumption in your statement that public interest bodies do not have bureaucracies that are not prone to running such interests in their own interests rather than the public’s. If you do not know that this happens, I suggest you get a government job for one week. The very problem stems from the fact that the teacher’s unions are more concerned about perpetuating their endless programs rather than fixing the problem. Once the problem is “fixed” so are all the jobs and the need for endless diversity, educational, research grants and consultants. Know what I am saying?
[quote=“fred smith”]QUOTING SOMEONE ELSE: Privatization, I argue, isn’t always for the best of everyone. The key should be fixing the public school system and make sure education remains free for everyone. Private entities, afterall, serves their investors. You can’t count on a for-profit organization to run public-interest bodies for little to no cost to you forever.
There got that part down but don’t remember who posted this…
First of all, the government has had four decades to “fix” the problem and guess what it ain’t been fixed. Your same argument against privatization was used for the airlines, telephones, mail service, railways, steel, and on and on. Guess, what. All wrong.
Finally, there is an assumption in your statement that public interest bodies do not have bureaucracies that are not prone to running such interests in their own interests rather than the public’s. If you do not know that this happens, I suggest you get a government job for one week. The very problem stems from the fact that the teacher’s unions are more concerned about perpetuating their endless programs rather than fixing the problem. Once the problem is “fixed” so are all the jobs and the need for endless diversity, educational, research grants and consultants. Know what I am saying?[/quote]
Funneling public money to religiously-sponsored interestes is not exactly Constitutional. Separation of church and state. Over 80% of private schools in the United States today are religious-related.
Yes, vouchers do help open up choice. But when the choices are selective, private religious schools, that’s not much choice. Since private schools are selective of who they admit and probably costs more than the value of the voucher, even if the student is accepted, it’s up to the parents (often-times lower income families) to cough up the money for the student to attend the school.
While I don’t disagree that more money doesn’t mean better results, slamming laws that can’t be properly put in place without additional funding is just absurd. One of the reasons that U.S. education is more expensive than any other country’s is the human capital. The U.S. pays a lot more than most other countries.
I think that there are some misconceptions about vouchers yet. They do cover the cost of most of the private schools which as you noted are religious. Also there are several private foundations that are subsidizing any differences for poor students.
The Supreme Court has determined that such schools are not a violation of separation of church and state. According to the Constitution, there is to be no established religion in the United States. This does not mean that the founding fathers envisioned no role whatsoever of religion in society.
I would argue that what is in place is already the worst possible scenario, the greatest failure. Anything would be an improvement so rather than holding vouchers up to a perfect standard, look at what is in place and tell me that this is not an improvement.
Again, this idea that more money is the answer is wrong wrong wrong. In my opinion, most public schools could cut half the spending and still provide a better education than they are doing now. In DC’s case, I would say the budget could be cut by 2/3rds. Why? The religious schools are handling the same population, the same type of students, the same problems and are doing it for around one third of the cost. How? Administration is lean to say the least.
Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom in their new book, No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning explode the myth that more money for education is an answer. In fact, they outright slaughter two sacred cows: Title I
[quote=“fred smith”]Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom in their new book, No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning explode the myth that more money for education is an answer. In fact, they outright slaughter two sacred cows: Title I