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I agree with the others on here. I think it is high time we get the government out of education. It is a giant, big mistake. It doesn't work and just causes more problems. I agree, let it work, get rid of tenure. Tenure, in my experience, just protects bad people who get good benefits for life. Stop the insanity. Government is this giant black hole where all our taxes just disappear!
There was a time when the government was out of education and the result was most people were uneducated. You can't get the government out of education and guarantee kids are educated as with no government intervention there will be no one policing whether or not kids are educated.
Do you know what tenure is? It simply means a teacher has been around long enough that they cannot be fired without cause and for reasons that others were not fired for. They can still be fired with cause and doing your job poorly is cause enough to fire a teacher. Tenure just means I made it through a trial period and was deemed worth keeping. Tenure is needed for two reasons: 1) to enable teachers to teach without being micromanaged by administrators and 2) to stop districts from simply firing high paid teachers and replacing them with low paid teachers. What people like you don't get is that teaching isn't like other professions where there is competition to hire and retain the best workers. Teachers are expected to hire into a district and stay for life. There's no mobility in this profession and there is disincentive to move because you start over at the lowest pay grade if you do. Hence teachers need some kind of protection. Otherwise you'd have district letting teachers go as soon as they reach the highest pay grade. If that were the case few people who can do something else would want to go into teaching.
I agree with the others on here. I think it is high time we get the government out of education. It is a giant, big mistake. It doesn't work and just causes more problems. I agree, let it work, get rid of tenure. Tenure, in my experience, just protects bad people who get good benefits for life. Stop the insanity. Government is this giant black hole where all our taxes just disappear!
You do realize that Catholic schools do not have to take all comers, right? And they can kick students out who don't conform to their rules, right? My daughter went to a high school where you could be kicked out if you would not dress out for PE. At her school, there was, maybe, one fight a year. Failing all your classes? You're out. Go to dean on discipline referral one too many times? You're out. Need much in the way of Special Ed? You don't get in. Your middle school core teachers don't give you a recommendation? You don't get in. Her school usually was the #2 school in the county school system of over 300,000 students.
Meanwhile, at the school I worked, don't dress out for PE? No biggie. Take the F and remain at the school. There were fights several times a week despite constant supervision by adults. I've seen it with as many as five a day. Each one had to be thoroughly investigated, which took hours. Discipline referrals? No biggie. It's a revolving door in the dean's office in a public school. We have to abide by district, state, and federal regulations. Therefore, it tied the hands of doing any real discipline. If a student did something horrific (brought a weapon, drugs, arson, etc) we could expel them and send them to alternative school for a couple of months, but then they would come back. If not to our school, then another public school in the same district. Failing all your classes? There's summer school or any number of other avenues so you can get your D and go on to the next grade. Special Ed? My school had students everywhere on the continuum from students who were confined to a wheel chair, in diapers, and had no control over their bodies, to significantly autistic, to Down's Syndrome, to children who were born from mothers who were addicted to drugs when they were pregnant with their children (those students, usually have significant behavior disorders). When you are determined to be special ed, a whole new set of laws cover you. It is almost impossible to discipline or expel a special ed student.
This was every day at my school.
How did your Catholic school handle these problems?
Our local Catholic high school is almost $14,000 a year, plus textbooks and fees. And that is with the Catholic church subsidizing it. That is one of the less expensive private schools.
Your comments regarding public education are exactly the reasons I support school vouchers. The high school you've described was exactly what I experienced as a teen and it's what I've witnessed when volunteering and working in local public schools. For the kids who want to learn, those repeat offenders are strong distractions day after day in the classrooms and hallways, making it difficult for others to learn. Why should the students who behave and want to learn suffer at the expense of those who don't care? That jeopardizes their futures!
Since I didn't attend a Catholic high school, I'm not sure how they handled disciplinary problems. I can't give you an honest answer for that one. I'm assuming they were less tolerant of bad behavior, since my friends who attended it didn't experience what I did: kids dealing drugs out of lockers, lots of fights, etc. That was foreign to them and they couldn't relate to my stories. My guess is that those kids knew what was expected of them from both their parents and the school, so they behaved accordingly.
I'm well aware that most of the problems the poorer public schools face are a direct result of poor parenting and not necessarily poor teaching. I've worked directly with the single mothers of children they can't afford to support; I've taken care of those babies born addicted heroin and crack; and I've been in their homes too. So when you see what those kids are dealing with at home, it's no wonder they can't behave in school. That said, not all children in poor public schools face the problems at home and can focus in school, so why shouldn't they be given the opportunity to study in a safer, more productive and supportive environment? With the bulk of the attention going to the kids who need more support for emotional problems, what happens to those who can actually function on a normal or higher level?
President Obama lives in Washington D.C., a city with failing public schools. Does he send his daughters to a failing inner city school? No, he doesn't. He sends them to the ultra-prestigious Sidwell Friends. Why do his daughters deserve a private school education if he supports public education and shuns school vouchers for those who want a better education?
One of my colleagues from my old job in NYC lived in a dangerous neighborhood, so she chose to send her daughter to a local Catholic school even though she wasn't Catholic (I don't believe she identified with any religion). She said her local public school was too dangerous and the education wasn't good. Her salary wasn't huge, but it was sacrifice she made for her child. I'm sure she would have appreciated the school voucher.
I agree that private schools are expensive, but they're expensive because they don't receive public funding. If parents can use a school voucher to help defray the cost and make up the difference through scholarships (which many of them offer) and/or pay the difference, then why not have it as a viable option? Those parents are most likely paying property taxes that support the local schools anyway, so why not be able to use those dollars to send your kids to the school of your choice? Those property taxes will continue to be paid long after those kids have graduated anyway.
They select by scholastical ability.. "everyone who qualifies" is given a lottery number.. Just like several schools I am aware of in Fla. and Ill. If your child wasnt in the top 2 or 3 % they wouldnt qualify through the entrance exams. This is another dumb idea by the GOP , like right to work and no child left behind and a dozen others..This will be a Brain Drain..It wont happen everywhere but it will happen where ever there is a limited number of Scholastical High Achievers.. The N and NW Suburbs of Chicago do not have to contend with this issue, but most areas of the south will sink even lower than they are already because of it.. Like Immigration reform the GOP Screams More and Now, but NONE of their business owners will quit hireing illegals for starvation wages.. and Non-for profit part is a joke..
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tinawina
No, they are not allowed that everywhere.
In some states charters have to put everyone who applies into a lottery for slots and they have to accept anyone who wins the lottery.
Now one can argue that they can do some filtering just by how they recruit and how difficult they make the application process, but that is not the same as getting to pick and choose a class.
Do you have evidence for this accusation? I attended a public high school, but our local Catholic high school's students consistently outperformed our students in all subject matter, even though we had substantially more money to educate our students than the Catholic school had. We even had brand new science labs, while theirs were decades old. We had teachers with BS degrees in the sciences, while they had teachers with graduate degrees, including PhDs teaching them. Something tells me those PhDs didn't have a strong stance against science.
Why did the Catholic schools have teachers with graduate degrees in the sciences and we did not? Teachers' unions would require the public schools to pay a PhD teacher substantially higher than a teacher with just a BS, but those PhD teachers needed jobs too, so they obviously took lower paying jobs at the Catholic schools.
As for Catholic schools pushing conservative political values, there's both truth and non-truth to that statement. Catholic schools encourage prayer and teach the Catholic values in their religion classes (from what I understand), but the parents sending their children to these schools know what to expect from the school's mission and realize that parts of Catholic faith will be taught. Considering that I live in one of the largest east coast cities and know that many of my local Catholic schools are rich with economic and racial diversity, it's pretty safe to say that many liberal parents know their kids will receive a stronger education at our local Catholic schools than our abysmal public schools. If they learn a few values on the way, such as treating others the way we wish to be treated, then that's a good thing. With the number of non-Catholics attending these schools, I'm not under the impression that they're heavily indoctrinating these kids. There's just not much of an affordable option for parents not wanting to send their kids to our failing local public schools.
Lastly, I attended a Catholic college, even though I was an atheist and never once felt that I was being indoctrinated. I had to study the Catholic church, but that's all it was: learning about its history. I also took a course in world religions and never felt as though I was being indoctrinated. Catholicism was there on campus if you were interested, and they offered numerous community service projects, since Catholics do so much for the poor. If anything, I learned just how much they do to serve the less fortunate. (By the way, my Catholic college's science department was recognized for being outstanding - we consistently sent numerous students each year to medical school, despite what a small school we were.)
So, just out of curiosity, if you don't believe that children should be taught conservative values in Catholic schools, what do you suggest for a curriculum (both public and private) that's becoming more and more liberal from elementary through college, regardless as to whether or not that's what parents or students want? Do you believe that only liberal theory should be taught in public schools or do you believe that political ideology should be left out of all institutions, unless they're political science courses?
To address the OP, I agree with school choice. Our local schools continue to fail, regardless as to how much money we throw at them. With a budget in the billions, they still continue to ask for more money to solve problems that can't be solved solely with money. Our local private schools continue to outperform our public schools with far less money, so maybe it's time our public school system looked at the private schools to see how schools should truly be run. One of our biggest issues is corruption within the administration. It's widely known and is regularly covered in the media, but nothing is ever done about it. Instead, they continue to waste and waste and waste, and the kids never see that money. So, yes, please give OUR money to kids who want to attend a better school and have a chance at succeeding.
Of course a school that can be selective in its admissions, has free rein to kick out whomever they please, and consists of kids whose parents care enough about them to spend thousands of dollars on tuition will outperform a public school, who by definition must accept everyone and really can only expel kids for the most egregious offenses.
I thought that would be common sense, but apparently not.
I don't know what private schooling costs in Nevada, whether church or secular schools. But that extra cash will certainly help affluent parents already paying tuition, while it might not be enough at all to help poor parents find a good school.
Like I say they could just fund the public schools. But that flies against their ideology.
What the latest results of an international test tell us about the state of education in the United StatesAmerica Spends a Lot of Money Per Student
The U.S. ranks fifth in spending per student. Only Austria, Luxembourg, Norway, and Switzerland spend more per student. To put this in context: the Slovak Republic, which scores similarly to the U.S., spends $53,000 per student. The U.S. spends $115,000. The PISA report notes that, among OECD countries, “higher expenditure on education is not highly predictive of better mathematics scores in PISA.â€
I would move before I sentenced my children to a life of failure by sending them to some public schools. I said "some" as in "some public schools are very bad" but for the Nazi's out there I did not say ALL public schools were bad.
I would move before I sentenced my children to a life of failure by sending them to some public schools. I said "some" as in "some public schools are very bad" but for the Nazi's out there I did not say ALL public schools were bad.
There is pretty good analysis that says much of the problems with PISA scores deal with who is tested rather than an actual US shortcoming.
There was a time when the government was out of education and the result was most people were uneducated. You can't get the government out of education and guarantee kids are educated as with no government intervention there will be no one policing whether or not kids are educated.
Do you know what tenure is? It simply means a teacher has been around long enough that they cannot be fired without cause and for reasons that otherenough to fire a teacher. Tenure just means I made it through a trial period and was deemed worth keeping. Tenure is needed for two reasons: 1) to enable teachers to teach without being micromanaged by administrators and 2) to stop districts from simply firing high paid teachers and replacing them with low paid teachers. What people like you don't get is that teaching isn't like other professions where there is competition to hire and retain the best workers. Teachers are expected to hire into a district and stay for life. There's no mobility in this profession and there is disincentive to move because you start over at the lowest pay grade if you do. Hence teachers need some kind of protection. Otherwise you'd have district letting teachers go as soon as they reach the highest s were not fired for. They can still be fired with cause and doing your job poorly is cause pay grade. If that were the case few people who can do something else would want to go into teaching.
I think our current system is broken and needs major reform. My experience with the public education system is that too many tenure teachers could be mean and get away with it. Where I am currently at a professor who is addicted to pain meds is not currently teaching and still getting a salary. WTF? I have too many bad memories of teachers making me feel stupid and embarrassing me in front of the class. Not fun at all. I think it still needs to go. We need major reform.
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