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I completely agree that "government schools" are a complete waste of childrens time. If there is anyone out there that likes "government schools", please tell me which "government" office do they enjoy spending most of their time? Anytime I have to go to a "government" office I use it as a chance to teach my kids a lesson about "government" and how everything it touches is pathetic.
I should have known all along it was my paternalistic desire to control the lives of others and my fundamental distrust of the intelligence and dignity of the individual, as I like all "progressives" am simply a number, a member of a collective group psychology possessed with the desire to indoctrinate more into the fold of our collective delusional unconsciousness and make them "numbers" themselves by use of the big government welfare state and multiculturalist public education mind-destruction which shall result in the dismantlement of the god-ordained spiritual free market! I guess...
This editorial will further clarify the odd situation 'liberals' find themselves in with their opposition to school choice. It likens school choice opponents to Lenin's preference of letting Russians starve to death rather then allowing free trade in grain, and includes this quote from the NEA's 1990 president Keith Geiger, "Why should some children be allowed to 'escape' from the very bad public schools they are attending?"
One thing public schools do well- transportation. I've been to a private school (not religious) and the bus cost extra. You had to walk to school or be driven. The public schools have a decided advantage in economies of scale for transportation. I'm guessing alot of private schools would either not want to touch bussing, or they'd charge substantial gas surcharges.
I live in an area where alot of parents drive their kids to school, and it ties up traffic. It's also a waste of money because the school payed for busses and only some people use them. With gas getting more expensive, maybe that will change.
When I lived in the UK, incidentally, I went to a DOD school with other Americans, but lived off base and had English neighbors. Most of the English kids walked to school or rode a bicycle, it seemed. The busses we road were the big charter coaches, nothing like public school busses in the US. Most of the English kids went to their public schools, but their parents had to buy uniforms (which you could buy from places like Woolworths).
I think public charter schools in the US might have a place, especially in at-risk areas where public schools are poor, but I don't believe mass public funding of private schools is a good idea.
Abolishing public schools would probably be a disaster. That's how our country was two centuries ago when the thinking was that children didn't need schooling; they needed to work in the mills and coal mines.
Our public schools are in need of reform. I know, I'm a teacher in a large urban public high school.
But to get rid of public schools in favor of some nebulous privatization scheme is short-sighted at best and a complete catastrophe at worst. For some reason privatization appears to be the neocon cure-all for so many things. But in far too many cases, it makes the problem worse rather than better and more money is shifted away from the intended services into the bank accounts of some well-connected individuals. We've all heard the recent tales of how Halliburton, Blackwater and other private contractors have performed poorly in Iraq on megadollar contracts.
Here's a link detailing some privatization difficulties in public schools:
My own suggestions for improving the public schools:
1. Disband the federal Department of Education. This bloated bureaucracy absorbs billions of "education" dollars annually, but educates no one. They're really good at coming up with ever-increasing requirements for silly nonproductive busy work, mostly in connection with Special Ed. We don't need anything they're peddling.
2. Get rid of this crazy "one-size-fits-all" approach to schooling. Kids have a wide variety of interests and goals. Treating each HS student like they're college-bound isn't working for a large percentage of kids, and the drop-out rate reflects that. We need to reintroduce vocational skills training in the high schools to meet the needs of the large number of kids who simply are not academically inclined.
3. Reduce the student/teacher ratio at all levels. Classes of 30 students are really far too big for a decent learning atmosphere in most subjects. Kids who need individual attention are less likely to get much in a large class. From my experience, classes of 20 to 22 students seem to be the largest that work out well on a regular basis.
4. Trim the bureaucratic fat in school districts and state education agencies. There are far too many mid-level administrators at the district level whose sole funtion seems to be communicating with their counterparts at the state level to ensure compliance with some set of federal regulations. Again, these folks consume a considerable portion of the education budget, without ever entering a classroom or in any way supporting instruction.
5. Reduce the size of our schools. In my district, there are elementary schools with over 1000 students. We also have high schools with well over 3000 students. In both cases, I think they're twice the size they should be.
OK, rant over...
I can see a lot of thought went into your post.
Excellent suggestions. I particularly feel that your point no. 2 is right-on the money. 5 is there, too.
I’d add a no. 6 that relates to sports programs in the schools.
There’s too much money and focus on the world of physical pursuits and too little on educational excellence.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bagz
We should continue the public funding of schools through vouchers and also the mandatory attendance. These are what made our country great - not the fact that the schools are public
I completely disagree with the voucher system.
If you are using my tax dollars, they are for public education only.
Want to send your kid to private school, you pay for it.
Abolishing public schools would probably be a disaster. That's how our country was two centuries ago when the thinking was that children didn't need schooling; they needed to work in the mills and coal mines.
Our public schools are in need of reform. I know, I'm a teacher in a large urban public high school.
But to get rid of public schools in favor of some nebulous privatization scheme is short-sighted at best and a complete catastrophe at worst. For some reason privatization appears to be the neocon cure-all for so many things. But in far too many cases, it makes the problem worse rather than better and more money is shifted away from the intended services into the bank accounts of some well-connected individuals. We've all heard the recent tales of how Halliburton, Blackwater and other private contractors have performed poorly in Iraq on megadollar contracts.
Here's a link detailing some privatization difficulties in public schools:
My own suggestions for improving the public schools:
1. Disband the federal Department of Education. This bloated bureaucracy absorbs billions of "education" dollars annually, but educates no one. They're really good at coming up with ever-increasing requirements for silly nonproductive busy work, mostly in connection with Special Ed. We don't need anything they're peddling.
2. Get rid of this crazy "one-size-fits-all" approach to schooling. Kids have a wide variety of interests and goals. Treating each HS student like they're college-bound isn't working for a large percentage of kids, and the drop-out rate reflects that. We need to reintroduce vocational skills training in the high schools to meet the needs of the large number of kids who simply are not academically inclined.
3. Reduce the student/teacher ratio at all levels. Classes of 30 students are really far too big for a decent learning atmosphere in most subjects. Kids who need individual attention are less likely to get much in a large class. From my experience, classes of 20 to 22 students seem to be the largest that work out well on a regular basis.
4. Trim the bureaucratic fat in school districts and state education agencies. There are far too many mid-level administrators at the district level whose sole funtion seems to be communicating with their counterparts at the state level to ensure compliance with some set of federal regulations. Again, these folks consume a considerable portion of the education budget, without ever entering a classroom or in any way supporting instruction.
5. Reduce the size of our schools. In my district, there are elementary schools with over 1000 students. We also have high schools with well over 3000 students. In both cases, I think they're twice the size they should be.
OK, rant over...
I'm right with you on your five points. Unfortunately, BOE members are often persuaded by school business administrators that bigger schools are the way to go. The cost savings aspect of "centralizing resources" is marketed heavily to the senior citizen populations making any alternative seem like a costly and unnecessary alternative.
As a math teacher, the "one size fits all" approach is unworkable. We now have two levels of math at the 7th-grade level, pre algebra and academic. The academic classes have great differences in ability levels from students who lack any functional knowledge, work ethic or interest to students with strong foundational skills and developing higher-level problem solving and application skills. These classes are the most difficult to teach because those students without the foundational skills and/or work ethic substantially negatively impact the progress of those capable of doing grade-level work.
The notion that higher functioning and achieving students will act as role models and bring up the lower achievers has not been the case in my 14 years of experience as a teacher in any of the schools I have worked in. In fact, the exact opposite has been the case in most classes resulting in many children from families that value education moving their children to school districts where "heterogeneous grouping and curriculum" is not the model or enrolling them in private school.
Last edited by Lincolnian; 04-11-2008 at 03:44 AM..
Way back when I was in elementary school, there were A, B, C divisions. In the local public schools, they had a scholar program. The curriculum was similar but addressed the groups differently.
There are unintended negative consequences of reducing school size, such as the inability to offer a wide range of academic options - having enough classes at each grade level to be able to group students for the most advantageous targeted instruction, and the inability to offer a wide range of academic options among them.
I completely disagree with the voucher system.
If you are using my tax dollars, they are for public education only.
Want to send your kid to private school, you pay for it.
This sounds like NEA (teacher's union) president Keith Geiger who asked, "Why should some children be allowed to 'escape' from the very bad public schools they are attending?"
The 12 year unlimited funding experiment in Kansas City failed to improve their public schools. Bill Gates went into school reform thinking that he could improve schools and after already spending $1 Billion fruitlessly is learning otherwise the hard way. Well-informed advocates have been trying for decades to reform public schools, and have gotten nowhere.
What makes you think public schools will ever improve? What magical event is going to happen that will suddenly set public schools back on the right track of an academic agenda? Academics haven't been the public schools' agenda for decades. Why do you think we're hearing so much NCLB bashing even when many states have set their passing scores so absurdly low compared to the NAEP standards that it's a national travesty?
As to public schools' agenda, this explains it succinctly.
Horsefeathers - ON EDUCATION: BY RITA KRAMER (http://doctor-horsefeathers.com/archives2/000391.php - broken link)
Other academics have even been trying to tackle the misguided direction our public schools have been operating in for the last few decades - in particular the constructivist, discovery, problem-based, experiential, and inquiry-based teaching methods that ignore the prerequisite for expert level knowledge to be effective as an instructional technique - and ignore what is known about human cognitive architecture thereby overloading and overtaxing students' working memory which in reality prevents students from learning.
In school you were taught that "two plus two equals four". However, this fundamental principle of mathematics - which worked with consistent regularity in the classroom - breaks down immediately when applied to the affairs of men, where you are confronted with the confounding fact that two plus two equals five, or only three (depending on one’s investment counselor or tax advisor); and according to the government, the actual sum may amount to several billion (depending on how you "crunch the numbers"). But now people are demanding an accounting; and the nation is facing a crisis over the budget. You listen in dumb amazement to the news of the Chairman of the Federal Reserve testifying before the Congress on the need for "fiscal conservatism." (What does that add up to?) Anxious for some reassurance, you punch up two plus two on your pocket calculator; but in your hurry you press the wrong function key and make an error. You reflect on life’s contradictions: Why didn’t they teach that in school?
I can see a lot of thought went into your post.
Excellent suggestions. I particularly feel that your point no. 2 is right-on the money. 5 is there, too.
I’d add a no. 6 that relates to sports programs in the schools.
There’s too much money and focus on the world of physical pursuits and too little on educational excellence.
Sports is the one area of public education that the general public seems to pay attention to. It certainly has its place, but I agree that too often it's overemphasized.
I'm right with you on your five points. Unfortunately, BOE members are often persuaded by school business administrators that bigger schools are the way to go. The cost savings aspect of "centralizing resources" is marketed heavily to the senior citizen populations making any alternative seem like a costly and unnecessary alternative.
As a math teacher, the "one size fits all" approach is unworkable. We now have two levels of math at the 7th-grade level, pre algebra and academic. The academic classes have great differences in ability levels from students who lack any functional knowledge, work ethic or interest to students with strong foundational skills and developing higher-level problem solving and application skills. These classes are the most difficult to teach because those students without the foundational skills and/or work ethic substantially negatively impact the progress of those capable of doing grade-level work.
The notion that higher functioning and achieving students will act as role models and bring up the lower achievers has not been the case in my 14 years of experience as a teacher in any of the schools I have worked in. In fact, the exact opposite has been the case in most classes resulting in many children from families that value education moving their children to school districts where "heterogeneous grouping and curriculum" is not the model or enrolling them in private school.
I see some peer tutoring in my classroom, but not enough and not consistently. There are some students who won't hear anything I say, but will gladly listen to another teen explain things to them, so they occasionally get some benefit. But I agree that the old notion of "tracking" would be a better approach.
Unfortunately, education seems to be ruled by "flavor of the month" strategies that are sold by consultants to administrators as cure-alls.
They never are.
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