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.
If any of you saw the debate last night, I'd like to know what you thought about Romney's comments regarding ranking schools and allowing parents to decide where they would put their child. What bothered me about this was that by not saying he would help low achieving districts , it seems like he would ignore them; I may be thinking too much into it, but it's my honest opinion. What about you guys?
As a strictly theoretical exercise, because that's all it is, it's ridiculous. Are good schools in good neighborhoods all of a sudden going to magically expand in size and welcome the refugees from failing schools? And who would be paying for such an altruistic endeavor?
This is the kind of vapidity you get during election season. It's nothing of substance.
Schools are already being ranked by magazines, websites, newspapers, etc. I don't know that grading them would be that much different.
But I think it's fair to say that no parent is going to want to put their child into a "C" school when they could put them into an "A" or "B" school in the next neighborhood....
1. Who is going to actually grade the schools? How would they be graded - by test scores alone?
2. Would the good schools be forced to accept all students whose parents wanted them to go to these schools? How would the schools reject students if it led to overcrowding in the good schools?
3. How would overcrowding at the good schools be prevented? When the good school became overcrowded, how would that effect the ranking of the *good* school?
4. Who would pay for new teachers who would have to be hired to teach the new classes?
5. Who would provide transportation for children to the other schools?
If it can be done accurately and fairly, sure, it's not a terrible idea. But unfortunately it will probably follow the model that some states and cities already use which correlates far too closely with student demographics. Regardless I don't think that such a measurement needs to be done at the Federal level anyways.
1. Who is going to actually grade the schools? How would they be graded - by test scores alone?
2. Would the good schools be forced to accept all students whose parents wanted them to go to these schools? How would the schools reject students if it led to overcrowding in the good schools?
3. How would overcrowding at the good schools be prevented? When the good school became overcrowded, how would that effect the ranking of the *good* school?
4. Who would pay for new teachers who would have to be hired to teach the new classes?
5. Who would provide transportation for children to the other schools?
All good questions which confirm the notion that this was a throwaway line by a politician trying to get elected. I'm sure no answers would be forthcoming from the campaign if you were able to ask.
All I could think of is NCLB and the impossible 100% grade level passing requirement to not end up on a watch list. And the teaching to the test that sometimes comes at the expense of gifted kids not being challenged because the focus needs to be on the bottom of the class to bring test scores up.
I think it's a laughable idea; a soundbite. Too many possible flaws.
If any of you saw the debate last night, I'd like to know what you thought about Romney's comments regarding ranking schools and allowing parents to decide where they would put their child. What bothered me about this was that by not saying he would help low achieving districts , it seems like he would ignore them; I may be thinking too much into it, but it's my honest opinion. What about you guys?
Of course, he will ignore helping any schools that he thinks are low achieving. He is not trying to help any schools. He is trying to privatize them.
Rankings and ratings, we have a problem with them. Most people don't understand what they mean and chase the numbers rather than figure it out.
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.
