NCLB isn't "going to improve public education" -Diane Ravitch, former supporter

[DiogenesofJackson]

The more I research this issue, and education history in general, it's as if (using a metaphor here) that public education in the United States is an ocean liner. It's on a collision course with an iceberg that's larger than the ocean liner itself, but small enough to navigate around it. The passengers as well as the crew know the ship is headed for an iceberg, yet everyone's complaining about who's going to be in which lifeboat (and how this is decided) rather than correcting the course the ship is on.

Public schools have numerous problems, yet the only solutions lawmakers come up with (and the public either tacitly supports or ignores) is to create another school system that's going to be plagued by essentially the same problems.

[skyway31]

Originally Posted by DiogenesofJackson

The more I research this issue, and education history in general, it's as if (using a metaphor here) that public education in the United States is an ocean liner. It's on a collision course with an iceberg that's larger than the ocean liner itself, but small enough to navigate around it. The passengers as well as the crew know the ship is headed for an iceberg, yet everyone's complaining about who's going to be in which lifeboat (and how this is decided) rather than correcting the course the ship is on.

Public schools have numerous problems, yet the only solutions lawmakers come up with (and the public either tacitly supports or ignores) is to create another school system that's going to be plagued by essentially the same problems.

I agree. And the same problems the system is going to be plagued by are outlined in my three posts at the end of page 5 of this thread.

[Rhett_Butler]

Originally Posted by skyway31

Let's make this really simple:
The "leeway" you refer to revolves only around two key steps the charter school can take:
1) Require kids wishing to attend to complete an application process where only those taking some initiative in the first place will apply and any bad applicants can be denied admission.
2) Upon housing kids at said school, should behavior become an adverse factor, the charter school can essentially kick the kid out and back to the regular public school.

In the above set of circumstances, the charter has two HUGE advantages:
1) A stronger pool of students enrolled on Day 1 due to the application process.
2) The charter school has something to hang over the kids heads to get sufficient effort and cooperation out of the kids in that the charter can always rescind the rights of the student to attend.
Public schools have neither of the above. Many of you who haven't spent much time in public, inner-city schools likely have no grasp of how vital the concepts above are.

I'm well aware of what I meant, and way ahead of ya......

//www.city-data.com/forum/13233874-post5.html



Couldn't agree more.

[skyway31]

Ah, great post in that link! I've been on the indivdual city forums for a while now but haven't ventured to the education forum until today.

Now, once we establish what we/you established in those posts, here's the issue: The public and lawmakers are NOT sufficiently aware of what we speak of. I read newspaper articles everday on the failed public school system. I read a ton about how schools are "low performing" and are failing our kids. I'm aware of an infinite number of cases of parents wanting to move their kids out of the zone of a "bad" school elsewhere. I see disgruntled, untruasting parents all the time. None of them seem to have the awareness of exactly how big of a problem defiance is and how our schools simply-as it stands now-can't do much about it. Somehow, we have to increase awareness of this within the taxpaying public and lawmakers. It's clear based off of rhetoric and policy these groups don't get it.

Now, does any of this mean schools are otherwise perfect? Does it mean every teacher is great? Of course not. There is plenty of room for improvement. But, without addressing and properly dealing with (or eliminating) the issue of defiance/uncooperation, nothing is really going to change in public, inner-city education.

[Rhett_Butler]

So we need a standard disciplinary guideline for all public schools that outline a process of dealing with and/or purging the malcontents...

We need to get over parents defending thier "saintly" children to the last and make them understand that behavior issues won't be tolerated.

Sadly, this is a tall order because, as I was implying in my other post, it will all come back to being labelled as "discrimination" if the majority of those kids being removed come from low-income situations..... It sucks, because EVERYONE can see the link and understand why this is the tendency, but no one has the political sack to come right out and say it and make people understand that, regardless of circumstances at home, schools are not going to tolerate bad behavior that jeopardizes the other student's learning.

[skyway31]

Certainly, that element exists and is a barrier. BUT, I think if much larger segments of our taxpaying population and lawmakers saw things as they really are and understood reality, that overly "liberal" segment of the population is sure to be outnumbered. Rational, objective thinkers will see that this is not about liberal or conservative politics (or discrimination, racism etc) but about what's right for the kids. I don't think any rational lawmaker who has a clear and accurate grasp of what's going on in our schools would disagree with us. Right now, we have a lot of people just ASSuming that low scores and other problems are a result of a school being "bad". Those people only see things from the outside looking in. We need to bring these people "inside" to see things up close.

[PurpleLove08]

Originally Posted by skyway31

Let's make this really simple:
The "leeway" you refer to revolves only around two key steps the charter school can take:
1) Require kids wishing to attend to complete an application process where only those taking some initiative in the first place will apply and any bad applicants can be denied admission.
2) Upon housing kids at said school, should behavior become an adverse factor, the charter school can essentially kick the kid out and back to the regular public school.

In the above set of circumstances, the charter has two HUGE advantages:
1) A stronger pool of students enrolled on Day 1 due to the application process.
2) The charter school has something to hang over the kids heads to get sufficient effort and cooperation out of the kids in that the charter can always rescind the rights of the student to attend.
Public schools have neither of the above. Many of you who haven't spent much time in public, inner-city schools likely have no grasp of how vital the concepts above are.

Yep. ::nods in agreement::
My whole K-12 was spent in public school and I know how vastly different things would be had the schools I attended had the advantages charter schools do in some areas.

Originally Posted by Rhett_Butler

Exactly, and then some want to boast about the superiority of charter schools. Well, if public schools had the same leeway you might see equal or greater results. We're essentially setting up our public schools to lose the war against charters because we aren't allowing them any room to try anything different.

Unfortunately, that's the case.
The charter schools in my area are beginning to lose some of their glimmer. One wasn't allowed to expand because the kids aren't doing as well on the test scores as they're "supposed to."

I personally want to get away from all these freakin' standardized tests.
There is more than one way to judge the quality of a school than some score on a test.

[skyway31]

Further putting the regular publics at a disadvantage is that, now that most of the best students within an attendance zone have gone to the charter, the overall quality of student (based off of initiative etc) is now LOWER at the public. This not only has a negative impact at face-value (i.e. lower average test scores etc) but also eventually drags the overall culture of achievment on the public campus down. Underachievers tend to "inspire" others to underachieve much the same way overachievers have the opposite affect.

I AM all for assessment of kids and using that to judge school and child progress. But, I do think we need a more varied, comprehensive manner of assessment as opposed to just one day of scantron testing. Still, I'm not a beleiver in the whole idea of people knowing material but being "bad test takers".

[PurpleLove08]

Originally Posted by skyway31

Further putting the regular publics at a disadvantage is that, now that most of the best students within an attendance zone have gone to the charter, the overall quality of student (based off of initiative etc) is now LOWER at the public. This not only has a negative impact at face-value (i.e. lower average test scores etc) but also eventually drags the overall culture of achievment on the public campus down. Underachievers tend to "inspire" others to underachieve much the same way overachievers have the opposite affect.

I AM all for assessment of kids and using that to judge school and child progress. But, I do think we need a more varied, comprehensive manner of assessment as opposed to just one day of scantron testing. Still, I'm not a beleiver in the whole idea of people knowing material but being "bad test takers".

I agree. I had a friend who took "regular" classes at our high school and she said most of her classmates didn't want to do better because they felt the standards were lower. "Why should I do more when the teacher doesn't expect a lot out of me anyway?" A lot of the other kids fed off each other. "Well, if so and so gets by doing the bare minimum, I can do the same."

Some people really are bad test takers. Some kids can ace an essay test while bombing a multiple choice test and vice versa. Sometimes kids can have a bad day. To judge a school based on a few days testing seems silly. Maybe they didn't have breakfast, maybe they didn't get enough sleep, etc. I know I had a few moments during test taking where I'd just psych myself out and cry.

[skyway31]

If you had a multi-pronged asessment occuring over several days most of that can be minimized. I agree one multiple choice test on one day can lead to a bad day yielding worse results than a kids really is capable of.