Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
As a relatively bright youngster myself, I'll say even 50 years ago, with rare exception, a child that was interested in learning would learn. One that wasn't engaged or just didn't care wouldn't. A teacher may or may not influence that, but a parent(s) 100% does.
With the electronic distractions available to kids today, the number that simply don't GARA is a helluva lot more than it used to be.
That would be a poor guess....giving people's tax dollars back and letting them choose which school they send their children to will most likely have positive consequences. Private and Charter schools usually do much better than public schools...
The main argument I have against charter schools is they're essentially private institutions using government funds, and that defeats the purpose of a private school. I would much rather do away with public schools, allow education to be fully privatized, and have parents pay for their children's education on their own without tax money. I know that will never happen, but the least we can strive for is to make parents who use the public system pay all the taxes for it, instead of burdening everybody else.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Oklazona Bound
Public schools will get worse but people now have a choice. Home schooled and private school students have higher test scores than public school students. More opportunity for school choice should improve test scores. Public schools have had their chance. Your stats above show they have failed horribly.
Absolutely! There have been statistics showing that kids who are private schooled are much more likely to be college graduates and have successful careers. Public schools have had more than their chance with the amount of tax money poured into them, but the output has always been mediocre at best. Also, it's not exactly fair to make those without children in the system pay the taxes to support this beast. Let parents decide how to educate their children, and make them pay for it themselves.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Seguinite
As a relatively bright youngster myself, I'll say even 50 years ago, with rare exception, a child that was interested in learning would learn. One that wasn't engaged or just didn't care wouldn't. A teacher may or may not influence that, but a parent(s) 100% does.
With the electronic distractions available to kids today, the number that simply don't GARA is a helluva lot more than it used to be.
Absolutely! There have been statistics showing that kids who are private schooled are much more likely to be college graduates and have successful careers. Public schools have had more than their chance with the amount of tax money poured into them, but the output has always been mediocre at best. Also, it's not exactly fair to make those without children in the system pay the taxes to support this beast. Let parents decide how to educate their children, and make them pay for it themselves.
The argument is there is some sort of societal gain from kids going to school. But I agree people should be paying for their kids education.
The main argument I have against charter schools is they're essentially private institutions using government funds, and that defeats the purpose of a private school. I would much rather do away with public schools, allow education to be fully privatized, and have parents pay for their children's education on their own without tax money. I know that will never happen, but the least we can strive for is to make parents who use the public system pay all the taxes for it, instead of burdening everybody else.
Absolutely! There have been statistics showing that kids who are private schooled are much more likely to be college graduates and have successful careers. Public schools have had more than their chance with the amount of tax money poured into them, but the output has always been mediocre at best. Also, it's not exactly fair to make those without children in the system pay the taxes to support this beast. Let parents decide how to educate their children, and make them pay for it themselves.
Arizona ranks 48th in the nation for per-student public school funding. Proof that you get what you pay for.
AZ teachers don't even make enough to live on, and yet they have to buy their own school supplies. My kid came home from the first day in school there with a list of supplies that the teacher needed in hopes that various parents would supply one of the items on the list. My wife bought everything on the list and dropped it off for the teacher. The teacher cried upon receiving it. Massive classroom sizes too. But hey, blame it on the teachers.
Omigod, that's so awful. They have to buy all the supplies for all the students?
I suppose it's a consequence when people object to taxes.
Omigod, that's so awful. They have to buy all the supplies for all the students?
I suppose it's a consequence when people object to taxes.
Oh yes, it's just terrible when parents have to step in and buy the supplies for THEIR kids, isn't it? I never agreed with Kdog very much in the past, but his wife should be applauded for being generous enough to buy the supplies for the classroom. More parents need to be involved like that, and bear the financial responsibility for their children's education. It's not the teachers' fault ... in fact, I think it's horrible what they have to put up with, including the plethora of lazy parents who use the school system as free babysitting. But that's a consequence with a public/socialized system!
There is better stuff online for free. Besides that, it is much more modern and current. www.brilliant.org
is one I have been using it to stay way ahead of the students in Algebra. I have subbed off and on for 27 years. The pay is better now, but the attitudes and discipline have never been worse. How much is being spent on Spanish instruction for teenagers, who are technically native speakers of Spanish, but are filling up classes of Spanish I and II.
I'll throw in my 2 cents, or zero cents, since my opinion is offered for free. For those who want answers to the problems but don't want to read my long blathering, I'll nut-shell it: The problem is simple, and can be defined with a single word, and it is also what makes any solution so difficult. I'll start with a little test that everyone should get the answer to, and that answer holds the key to why the system is what it is.
Question: What's the first word in - Public Education System? Hold the answer in your head, as it's very important to the issue.
Where my opinion comes from:
I recently retired from the system, (different state) and it's important to note, I wasn't a Teacher, Para-Ed, Counselor or an Administrator. I held a couple different positions in my 35+ years and interacted with kids from preschool, through high school and some of their families. I was a parent with a kid in the same school district, knew a lot of the families, and personally knew kids from when they enter the system at kindergartenm to when they usually, but not always, left as a senior in high school. I knew, worked with and around everyone from the Superintendent, to teaching staff, Transportation, Food service, Nurses, Specialists, Custodial, Coaches, Maintenance, etc. Even had involvement with the PTO at the elementary level. I feel fortunate enough to have been able to see the public school system from many points of view.
Ok, now for the meat of the matter....
What's the answer to my question above? You were paying attention weren't you?
Right, it is: "Public."
I can't emphasize this word enough. It's the most important word in our current education system, and it's the word that frequently missing in so many of the solutions that are suggested as a fix. Let's try a few offered in this thread:
Private Schools, including parochial schools
Home Schooling
Charter Schools
Vouchers (yeah you could say this fits under the title Public Schools, see below later why it isn't a good fit)
Is the word "Public" in any of those titles? Noop.
Once you start quoting these as solutions, you are comparing a self selected sample, to that of a mostly random sample. This skews the results. It's bad science.
You will also find if you try to slice up the word public into its many pieces, it loses it meaning. Saying it's parents, teachers, unions, administration, or political, those are all ingredients that make a public pie.
A favorite catchy saying education is: "It takes a village...." Well, not only does it take a village, you are also dealing with all the villagers. From the Head of the village, down to the village idiot, or and the lord of the land, and the king. Come one, come all.... This is where vouchers kinda fit under the public umberella, If used as the overall system, there will be stratification. You'll eventually end up right where you are today in some form or another. Some doing well, others not, and everything in between. The whole pie will look much the same, because the sample set is the same, just the funding model would be different. Same with privatization. While it may work better at first - our district privatized it's food service program for a while. After the shine wears off the new private system, profit starts working it's finger into the machine - and the outcome. Not only that but do you feel a private company will offer the same service to wealthy areas as they do poor? What if in some areas meeting the needs of the students is more costly, maybe even much more costly? Sure you could offer examples where this works, but remember, these are isolated examples, skewed data, and don't predict the effectiveness of the model when it becomes system wide. When it become Private-PUBLIC education.
Now lets look at the word :"Public" in a more meta sense. "Public" goes hand in hand with "culture." Culture is large scale version of public. With these two words in mind, I'll offer the opinion that culture is reason that another often mentioned single slice of the pie has little affect - that's money, or budgets. I think everyone would agree a poor education system, where the floors are dirt, and the students do their work with chalk on pieces of slate, in a place that strongly values education as a culture, will do much better at educating its children, than a wealthy culture with air conditioned classrooms, and computers that doesn't value education. I knew dirt poor parents who's kids did well, and rich parents who's kids didn't, and vice versa. Oh, and before you quote statistics on how education success tracks income, the reason for that, isn't simply money. It's success breeds success - its environment. Successful people have a tendency to be more motivated, and when a child is growing up in that environment, its not only how you actively parent that impacts them, it's how parents behave as a person (modeling as they say) and the environment your kids grow up in. "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree" is a pretty good saying. You could place this influence under the word "motivation." I liked the use of the acronym DGARA in a previous post. DGARA is a part of the data set and can plug in anywhere in the system. Take any random cross section of society, and you'll see it reflects wide ranging amounts of motivation. This motivation can be influenced by the environment, not only in the home, but in the community and society at large. Another saying I love when it comes to many of society's problems is: "I have met the enemy, and he is us."
How 'bout I throw in a metaphor?
The system is a boat made of meat.
Whaaat, does that mean????
The public education system is like a boat made of meat, traveling through waters where carnivores swim. Each one wants it's a piece of the system, and believes its bite should be larger than the other carnivore's bite. While a good captain can help navigate through the less dense schools of carnivores - get it? schools - the problem is, captains come and go, and even while they are at the helm, the admirals want to take the wheel, and the secretary of the Navy wants the wheel, the president wants the wheel and the most aggressive carnivores jump into the boat and want the wheel. All this is happening in a boat that keeps getting remodeled while under way. I used to think of the system as a carcass being tugged at by a large pack of wolves, but that's too passive even if it does paint a decent picture. For every force that demands one thing, there's other forces demanding the opposite. It's not just too many cooks in the kitchen, the dishwasher, the waiter, the hotel manager, the mayor the governor, and most of the guests all want to cook. Yikes, that's too many metaphors in one paragraph. Uhhgg.
Maybe another simple way to describe the Public in Public education, is it's a system that is forced to try to be everything to everyone, including locals who either don't have kids, or who's kids are grown and don't like paying for a system they don't use. Any future system that truly serves the public at large, faces the same forces. One group wants new math books, another wants new football uniforms, or a play field that isn't a muddy mess. (A real example) Music or art? PE or English, Libraries or lunches? Local control vs state curriculums. Oh, and all this must be done while trying to comply with changing rules and laws. Chomp chomp, tug tug, oh I wonder why the boat is sinking?
What about culture? Well, I'm of the opinion we, as a culture, don't really value education. Not really. I've personally witnessed it when it came time to vote for levies and bonds. In our town, if a levy failed, or there were budget issues, and the district needed to cut back, having kids share textbooks was met with some grumbling, but threaten to cut the Football program and the angry mob arrives with torches and pitchforks, ready to burn the district office to the ground. That showed me what our community really valued.
There's more to the story, and I have examples of what goes on inside the system, but this perspective is of the big picture, and I gladly admit one painted by a single person, who worked at a single district, in a fairly small town in a single state.
I am pretty confident in my belief that pesky word is why things are the way they are. What's the word again? Public. Oh, and just in case anyone is wondering, yeah, I'm a member of that group, now get out of the way while I take MY bite! My child may be grown, but I have a granddaughter who is special, and I want what's best for HER! Chomp Chomp, tug tug.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
