What makes Public Schools "bad"? (college, teachers)

[whtviper1]

Originally Posted by Ian_Lee

https://www.civilbeat.org/2014/04/21...ublic-schools/

https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Pun...3,39_IM388.htm

[WaikikiBoy]

Originally Posted by Ian_Lee

It is not only teachers and students. But parents too.

In the teacher parent conference held in public schools, many have less than half of the parents showed up.

But in those conferences held in private schools, some students even have four or five family members come. Grandma, granddad, uncle, auntie,....etc.

I agree with this. The biggest factor in a child’s success or failure in school is the level of parental involvement and what the parent prioritizes for the child. There are always exceptions (child succeeds with uninvolved parents, or child fails with involved parents) but on average, if the parent is engaged and makes education a priority for the child, the child will succeed regardless of what school they go to.

I think poor performing schools tend to simply have a higher % of uninterested parents. And higher performing schools have more engaged parents. The children aren’t born more or less smart on average.

The other element is if you are and engaged parent and your child is surrounded by other students with engaged parents, then that is a bonus that helps create an environment where children excel further. Likewise, as an engaged parent you’ll need to work harder if your child is surrounded by a lot of in-engaged students.

Anyway, that’s my 2cents.

[PamelaIamela]

Originally Posted by blau808

By that logic there are no good schools, only good students?

Pretty much.
Obviously some schools have better teachers or curriculum or are safer, but without good students it's all for nought.

Do a mind experiment:
Replace all the students from any Flushing, Queens, primarily Asian, public school with any Harlem, NY public school.
Now, which school do you think will grade higher?
..and would you put money on it?

Parental involvement is important but that correlates with, dare I say it, intelligence.
Plus I doubt that computers would make a damn bit of difference.
IMO I think they may widen the performance gap, but that's another subject.

[whtviper1]

Originally Posted by PamelaIamela

Do a mind experiment:
Replace all the students from any Flushing, Queens, primarily Asian, public school with any Harlem, NY public school.

Hmmm, the majority of Hawaii public school students, are - wait for it, Asian. Since they really suck now - imagine if we took all those Asians out of the Hawaii public schools how much more they would suck.

[PamelaIamela]

Originally Posted by whtviper1

Hmmm, the majority of Hawaii public school students, are - wait for it, Asian. Since they really suck now - imagine if we took all those Asians out of the Hawaii public schools how much more they would suck.

Obviously you did not get the new release of the PC Code Handbook.
The Hawaiian students of which you speak are correctly referred to as "Pacific Islanders".

[prospectheightsresident]

I've found that its rarely an issue with quality of teachers/instruction, and more so a problem with the quality of students/families in the school. If you're not coming from a household where education is a priority (educational summer programs, reading to your children, having them do school work outside of school, etc., . . . all things that I was forced to do as a child), I think that you (as a student) will suffer for it. If you enter the school system already behind, it'll be that much tougher for you to catch up.

Many people view the quality of the school district by graduation rate, test scores, etc., but I find that the above factors into this.

Case in point--and I've discussed this in this forum before, too--there is a public elementary school in my parents' neighborhood back in NYC. For the longest time (we moved to the area in the late 1990s), the school was seen as a failure and a "do not attend" school. Low graduation rate, poor test scores, etc. Today (and this change started taking place about 10 years ago), the school is a must attend school and realtors use the school zone as a major selling point in the neighborhood; graduation rates and test scores are extremely good.

What changed, you might ask? It sure as hell wasn't funding (educational funding is not tied to property taxes in NYC and schools across the city will get the same per student funding allocation, regardless of whether you're in a poor school district or a wealthy school district). And it wasn't the quality of education/teachers. The aforementioned were pretty much a constant. What changed was the quality of student and demographics of the community. The community went from overwhelmingly poor to working class black and Latino to overwhelming affluent and white. The students at the school came into things much better prepared than students of yesteryear, based on some things I wrote above.

Some people I have talked to tell me that Hawaii "is different" and that the same does not apply. While I admittedly can't touch on the funding aspect, however, I haven't seen any convincing evidence to suggest that the same does not apply in Hawaii. And I'd bet my left show that if all of the students in Hawaii private schools attended public schools, they bulk wouldn't suffer for it, but the state would have much better education statistics as result.

[prospectheightsresident]

Originally Posted by PamelaIamela

Pretty much.
Obviously some schools have better teachers or curriculum or are safer, but without good students it's all for nought.

Do a mind experiment:
Replace all the students from any Flushing, Queens, primarily Asian, public school with any Harlem, NY public school.
Now, which school do you think will grade higher?
..and would you put money on it?

Parental involvement is important but that correlates with, dare I say it, intelligence.
Plus I doubt that computers would make a damn bit of difference.
IMO I think they may widen the performance gap, but that's another subject.

I'd be careful with that analogy (there are several wonderful, majority black/Latino public schools in Harlem and throughout Brooklyn and Queens, to include Bedford Academy and the Eagle Academy schools), but your overall point is valid.

[hotzcatz]

Originally Posted by PamelaIamela

Obviously you did not get the new release of the PC Code Handbook.
The Hawaiian students of which you speak are correctly referred to as "Pacific Islanders".

Nope, they're still Asian. They were advertised as 'Hawaii' students, therefore they can be of any nationality. If, however, they're 'Hawaiian' students, that's entirely different, those are by blood and Hawaiian.

Hawaii is weird that way, probably because most other states don't have an ethnic race named for their state. We have a lot of words which are used pretty precisely around here, although many folks don't realize the preciseness. "Hawaii" is the state and anyone in it, no matter their ethnic background - such as "Hawaii student", "Hawaii visitor", etc.

"Hawaiian" is a bloodline and ethnic group. You can't be Hawaiian unless you're born that way. Which is part of the reason they're having such a hard time getting traction for their group. Until they can expand somehow to allow the non-by-blood folks to be part of it or associated with it, it's always going to be an 'us' and 'them' sorta situation.

"Local" frequently means folks who live around here who aren't Hawaiian. Although, there's variations of that, too. "Native" would take it back to the ethnic Hawaiians.


(Plus, when does Vipe do PC, anyway?)

[whtviper1]

For those curious, Asians make up about 33% of the students, which is less than the general population of Hawaii. Native Hawaiians, which make up about 10% of the State's residents - are about 25% of the school population. White about 18%. Pacific Islanders, about 5%. 9.1% of the students were Japanese, which tells me either the Japanese aren't as prolific procreaters as the Native Hawaiians - or they are mostly going to private school.

On the flip side, only 10% of teachers are Native Hawaiian/Part Native Hawaiian - about 35% Asian, 25% White.

On Oahu, last school year, in Students who graduated on time, Kailua and Kaimuki performed the worse, both running about 65%. NanaKuli and Waianae were roughly 80%. Radford and Mililani had the best, running about 93%.

[Palms & Sand]

Originally Posted by prospectheightsresident

I've found that its rarely an issue with quality of teachers/instruction, and more so a problem with the quality of students/families in the school. If you're not coming from a household where education is a priority (educational summer programs, reading to your children, having them do school work outside of school, etc., . . . all things that I was forced to do as a child), I think that you (as a student) will suffer for it. If you enter the school system already behind, it'll be that much tougher for you to catch up.

Many people view the quality of the school district by graduation rate, test scores, etc., but I find that the above factors into this.

Case in point--and I've discussed this in this forum before, too--there is a public elementary school in my parents' neighborhood back in NYC. For the longest time (we moved to the area in the late 1990s), the school was seen as a failure and a "do not attend" school. Low graduation rate, poor test scores, etc. Today (and this change started taking place about 10 years ago), the school is a must attend school and realtors use the school zone as a major selling point in the neighborhood; graduation rates and test scores are extremely good.

What changed, you might ask? It sure as hell wasn't funding (educational funding is not tied to property taxes in NYC and schools across the city will get the same per student funding allocation, regardless of whether you're in a poor school district or a wealthy school district). And it wasn't the quality of education/teachers. The aforementioned were pretty much a constant. What changed was the quality of student and demographics of the community. The community went from overwhelmingly poor to working class black and Latino to overwhelming affluent and white. The students at the school came into things much better prepared than students of yesteryear, based on some things I wrote above.

Some people I have talked to tell me that Hawaii "is different" and that the same does not apply. While I admittedly can't touch on the funding aspect, however, I haven't seen any convincing evidence to suggest that the same does not apply in Hawaii. And I'd bet my left show that if all of the students in Hawaii private schools attended public schools, they bulk wouldn't suffer for it, but the state would have much better education statistics as result.

I agree, well said.