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I would like to challenge the "equal opportunity" motif. Liberals believe it's not "socially just" for wealthy areas to have better funded and overall better quality schools than poorer areas. But, don't wealthy areas pay more in taxes? Why is unfair to get what you pay for? Heck, if I am able to afford to live in whatever neighborhood Obama lives in, you bet I'm going to demand good schools! Do liberals really believe that Bill Gates should be forced to send his kids to crappy schools just so things can be "more equal"? Or if we try to make every school the same, what will be the incentive for any school to be decent? Won't rich people just flock to private schools or homeschooling? Would the next step be to make homeschooling illegal so no one has an "unfair aadvantag"? Just wondering how far we should take this equality stuff. It seems like the book Animal Farm.
Poor children do get the same quality of education as wealthy children. Now, whether they actually value that education is a different story.
On what basis do you make that statement? Per pupil funding does not necessarily determine the quality of education that a student experiences. Surely you know that teacher pay is often significantly lower in private schools. An even in the schools with the most dysfunctional students, there are still those who value education and should not be denied based on the relative wealth of their classmates' parents.
Many urban districts cannot pay enough to ensure that they can staff their schools with experienced, capable teachers, so students in those districts may be in classrooms with unqualified staff, even as their district pays a greater per-pupil amount due to the intensive need for special education teachers in districts with large numbers of students mandated to receive such services. When teacher quality is such a critical part of the overall quality of education, it is clear that lack of such quality implies a lesser quality of the overall educational experience. Teachers who are not experts in their field rarely achieve the same results as those who are. That seems to be common sense.
Why do you believe that poor children do get the same quality of education as wealthy children?
That is of course quite absurd. Even within a district the quality of education varies by large amounts. Just the quality of the student body guarantees that.
Forgive me, but I of all people should know how this works. Again, back in high school I went to one of the worst rated schools in the county. Very poor area. Most kids there always made fun of me for taking school seriously. I was a goody two shoes. Most kids I went to school with did not care if they passed or failed. My french class had 4 pregnant girls. I still somehow managed to get into the University of Chicago.
This argument that if you take kids from bad schools and put them in good schools will somehow magically change their attitude about education is absurd.
Why do you believe that poor children do get the same quality of education as wealthy children?
Because half of the education experience depends on the children themselves, and that part of it depends on what kind of motivation they get from their parents.
You can't throw money at the system and expect a miracle happen like the parents and the children all of a sudden start caring. It doesn't work that way.
Forced equality is mediocrity and misery and a recipe for extinction. Freedom and individuality leads to evolution.
Forced equality is the arbitrary application of evil and aggression upon some for the benefit of others to reach a state of existence that can only arise with widespread oppression.
Most of the wealthy send their kids to private schools anyway, some because of religion education. So I don't understand your point. The problem is that these schools don't have to accept you if you don't meet their standards, like test scores. They just don't accept everyone who applies. They take the best of the best. Public schools don't have that luxury. They have to accept everyone, including all the disabled kids which private schools won't. So yes, they need more funding then they are getting. As a family of teachers, they pay out of their own pocket for supplies for their classroom.
Forgive me, but I of all people should know how this works. Again, back in high school I went to one of the worst rated schools in the county. Very poor area. Most kids there always made fun of me for taking school seriously. I was a goody two shoes. Most kids I went to school with did not care if they passed or failed. My french class had 4 pregnant girls. I still somehow managed to get into the University of Chicago.
This argument that if you take kids from bad schools and put them in good schools will somehow magically change their attitude about education is absurd.
I'm not talking about taking kids from bad schools and putting them in good ones. I'm talking about eliminating bad schools and making sure that kids like you are in an environment where all children are expected to do their best, even if their parents aren't. It doesn't matter what the kids want who don't care. It matters that the kids who do care get the same quality of education that the children of the wealthy get. By the way, some of them don't care either, but their parents get them tutors and essentially force them into attaining a basic college-prep education. Then the wealthiest of them buy their way into colleges that cannot effectively require them to earn the degree that they are bestowed. They believe that their money should be able to buy the best education diploma that they can afford.
Forgive me, but I of all people should know how this works. Again, back in high school I went to one of the worst rated schools in the county. Very poor area. Most kids there always made fun of me for taking school seriously. I was a goody two shoes. Most kids I went to school with did not care if they passed or failed. My french class had 4 pregnant girls. I still somehow managed to get into the University of Chicago.
This argument that if you take kids from bad schools and put them in good schools will somehow magically change their attitude about education is absurd.
As someone who has been through both good and bad schools, I can assure you what you said is absolutely true.
The vast majority of the study is actually done at home. If the parents don’t do their part, no matter how much money you throw at the school, it would be a waste.
I remember my parents sat beside me each and every day so that I would finish my homework. Later, I was literally locked in the room to study - no TV, no play. It was a LOT of effort from their part as parents.
TeachAmerica has tried to provide better teachers in poorer areas. Fresh out of school and still enthusiastic new teachers go to poorer areas to teach with the promise that their college loans will be written off after two years. But I know young people who quit after the first year because they were threatened, felt unsafe, and couldn't get anywhere with students who were disrespectful and obnoxious.
The very first education any of us gets is in the home. If you're not taught to respect authority, to listen and obey, there's going to be a problem receiving education at any level.
You cannot force people to do anything. As I've said in the past, schools should split classes between those who are serious about learning and those who just need to be babysat because they're disruptive. Keeping them together drags everyone down.
Because half of the education experience depends on the children themselves, and that part of it depends on what kind of motivation they get from their parents.
You can't throw money at the system and expect a miracle happen like the parents and the children all of a sudden start caring. It doesn't work that way.
I'll grant you that part of the experience depends on the children themselves, but I don't think that you can quantify it and generalize it to every poor child everywhere in the country. But even so, if the half of the quality that must be provided to the child is significantly below that which is provided to the children of the wealthy, then the overall quality of education that the child receives is therefore significantly less.
I'm not talking about throwing money at the system and expecting miracles to happen. I am talking about ensuring that children in poor areas receive the same quality of teachers and other resources that the children of the wealthy receive.
In other industrialized countries, they have poor children, but they don't have poor schools. Teacher quality and physical resources are more uniform across schools serving the range of socio-economic groups. In our country, we have no problem relegating poor children to poor schools, where the available resources are proportional to the property values of the vicinity where the children's parents happen to live.
I just want to know why you think having poor schools is better for our country than having uniformly high quality schools.
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