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By the time students are tested on the ACT, SAT, etc., in high school, it's too late. At that point, the damage of years of inferior education has already been done, as I explained in my example. And that was a high-income Chicago suburb.
All those kids who couldn't get into UIUC because their test scores were too low... And believe me, there were plenty of parents writing letters to the newspapers complaining about that. They couldn't understand why their kids weren't educated well enough to be accepted at their alma mater.
UIUS has an undergrad student population of 33,000. Obviously 33,000 students performed better than some legacy, who did not.
Where were the 33,000 who were accepted, go to high school?
What did the 33,000 who were accepted do differently than those declined?
Why do you believe ineffective schools shouldn't be defunded? Medicare reduces payments to hospitals that have insufficient quality of care measurements.
It's not the hospitals' fault people overate, didn't exercise, smoked, etc., and died at the hospital from cardiac arrest. But guess what happens when they do? The hospital gets dinged. Democrats deliberately put that into Obamacare.
I strongly suggest school vouchers and choice. Those who give a damn about pursuing a better education can choose better schools and won't continue to be dragged down by those who don't. Schools will continue to receive education funding for those who attend.
And I'm not just talking about other students when I say "those who don't give a damn." There are lax school administrators and teachers, as well, like in the example I gave.
I cannot fathom how school vouchers/ choice would work.
Elementary? middle? highschool?
Choice within a district? a city? a state? Across states?
How do students get to/ from the school of choice?
Seems to me the so call best schools would be inundated with more students than capacity? Then what? Lottery?
Family chose to live a block from the local school so they could easily walk to school. Lottery determined your kids have to go elsewhere. Now what?
Seems to me a voucher thing is the great equalizer, not necessarily a bad thing despite that many parents prefer their children to attend schools with similar students.
Property taxes are the primary source of public school funding. Some communities choose to spend more, a lot more, on education than others. How do you determine the value of a voucher? If the voucher is not equal to the per pupil cost, then what?
Last edited by middle-aged mom; 09-20-2016 at 12:04 AM..
UIUC, as the state flagship university, is difficult to get into with an ACT score of less than the 30-32 range (out of 36 max) unless one is an under-represented minority (not Asian) or has some other kind of "hook." UW-Madison is much the same in that regard.
The ACT College Readiness scores are in the 21-23 range. When a high school in a supposedly "good" school district only has about 30% of their graduating seniors earning those comparatively lowish scores or above in the tested subjects, a lot of them are NOT going to be accepted.
Believe me, the school's college readiness score revelation was a BIG shock to many. Parents were really angry.
For anyone looking at colleges for their kids or whatever, College Confidential has discussion forums on many colleges/universities. Every admissions season, there are threads in which posters say whether they got in or not, and what their stats were. It's eye-opening, to say the least.
schools would be inundated with more students than capacity? Then what? Lottery?
I agree, but doesn't that then sound to you like we need many more, more academically challenging schools?
Quote:
Family chose to live a block from the local school so they could easily walk to school. Lottery determined your kids have to go elsewhere. Now what?
I would tell anyone to carefully inform themselves before deciding where to live. Many think their local public school is better than it really is. See the Daily Herald chart I posted.
Quote:
Seems to me a voucher thing is the great equalizer, not necessarily a bad thing despite that many parents prefer their children to attend schools with similar students.
Property taxes are the primary source of public school funding. Some communities choose to spend more, a lot more, on education than others. How do you determine the value of a voucher? If the voucher is not equal to the per pupil cost, then what?
Let the money follow the student. If the community spends a lot on its schools, don't you think they should be academically challenging enough that students and their families shouldn't even want to go elsewhere for a better education?
The Daily Herald chart I posted shows the prior 11-year education cost total per student in the first column.
"It's pretty horrifying," said Jennifer Presley, who has studied the issue of college readiness for the Illinois Education Research Council at Southern Illinois University. "We've turned graduating from high school into an almost meaningless benchmark for people, and you're seeing that in the data."
Local community colleges say they're seeing it in the number of incoming kids -- about half -- who must take at least one remedial class before they can take freshman classes.
And employers say they're seeing it on the job, as applicants who aren't ready for college increasingly aren't ready for work either.
I cannot fathom how school vouchers/ choice would work.
Elementary? middle? highschool?
Choice within a district? a city? a state? Across states?
How do students get to/ from the school of choice?
Seems to me the so call best schools would be inundated with more students than capacity? Then what? Lottery?
Family chose to live a block from the local school so they could easily walk to school. Lottery determined your kids have to go elsewhere. Now what?
Seems to me a voucher thing is the great equalizer, not necessarily a bad thing despite that many parents prefer their children to attend schools with similar students.
Property taxes are the primary source of public school funding. Some communities choose to spend more, a lot more, on education than others. How do you determine the value of a voucher? If the voucher is not equal to the per pupil cost, then what?
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