What Makes a School in PG County Bad? (Baltimore, Fort Washington: elementary schools, quality of life)

[bunky3301]

Originally Posted by mbieber1029

gotta play the devil's advocate here:

In business you have control over your product. You control the quality of parts coming in and going out. If you do not like your supplier you can change and get better parts. This is not so in a school. Your parts (students) cannot be switched out for better quality parts. You can control your workers (teachers, staff, etc.) but cannot control what happens to your parts prior to their arrival at the factory.

Additionally not all parts are the same. You do not get carbon copies of the same part over and over again. One process does not work for all parts.

I disagree with your business model, I think it is flawed and here's how:

The product is not the children , its "education". Children are the consumer here and there getting robbed by a "monopoly" called public school education and teachers Unions and by failed policies year after year.

I really don't think the public school system should be treated as a business , I think it already is "big business" for the Unions and like minded. They have control and alot of money backing them and won't give into new "radical" ideas like vouchers which have been working in some Wash. DC test programs. Here's a link about them:

Safer Kids, Better Test Scores: The D.C. Voucher Program Works

Yes to competition and standards that make the school systems and teachers "teach again period". Isn't that all we really want are Schools that teach again, and now adays we want the schools to be safe as well. Something most of us didn't have to worry about so much 20 some years ago when we attended school and as I've said in prior post I'm a product of the PG School System (Surrattsville High 1985). I saw alot of kids pushed threw the system , lets not keep this cycle going.

[mbieber1029]

I agree, the concept of a school being run like a business is a horrible idea.


The problem with the voucher program is even in the article you posted it says the gains made by the students were statistically significant. What the voucher program can do though is get the students and their families who want and are trying to achieve more but are stuck in a poorly run and failing school.

It is not the union that is keeping the schools running the way they are. It is more so NCLB. The unions are for the teachers and the principals. They do not cover the "people at the top".

[trying2moveup]

SChools are not a business in the traditional sense of the word. There is no autonomy when it comes to curriculum; it is mandated by the state and the county is responsible for implementing it (there is some variation in how to do that - whole language vs. phonics, etc) but the bottom line is that the state presents the test, which the students have to pass to a certain degree or the whole school doesn't make AYP (adequate yearly progress).

In the "real world," businesses that do not stay creatively competitive go OUT of business. You are constantly competing against the next Joe down the block. There is NO INCENTIVE to think outside of the box, to crack down on the students that are disrupting the class, etc., because the taxpayer dollars assure that the school is NEVER GOING TO GO AWAY - it will always be there so hey, let's just toss MORE money at it and "fix" the problems.

If you have schools competing against each other with no dependency on taxpayer funds (or extremely little) then you're going to have a business where one does not put up with crap. You don't perform; you're out - and this applies to students and well as the teachers. You don't achieve, you're out. I mean, where else in a successful business do you see people just passed through. . . private business here, people, not the federal goverment!!! (remember, public vs. private - if the fed. govt isn't a good analogy here, I dont know what is. . .). Successful businesses don't get there by just drifting along, making miniscule changes here and there, and putting up with student and teacher bulls--t along the way.

As long as the main source of funding is tied to taxpayer (i.e., government) spending then there is no way to truly reform the system.

[jmking]

Anyone here experience busing when it was instituted in PG back in the 70s? I remember, and what I noticed was a decline in academics as soon as it was instituted. This happened suddenly and was done, I was told by a teacher, on purpose to allow students to "catch up" academically. That was many years ago and as the demographics changed drastically in very short order it took years to end busing in PG. I moved away several years ago but it seems the system suffered from this experiment and still does perhaps.

[NJ2MDdude]

Originally Posted by jmking

Anyone here experience busing when it was instituted in PG back in the 70s? I remember, and what I noticed was a decline in academics as soon as it was instituted. This happened suddenly and was done, I was told by a teacher, on purpose to allow students to "catch up" academically. That was many years ago and as the demographics changed drastically in very short order it took years to end busing in PG. I moved away several years ago but it seems the system suffered from this experiment and still does perhaps.

PG Cty generally has always had the negative reputation, regardless of the demographics. The ugly stepsister of Montgomery Cty and greater DC area.

[jmking]

One last note. I remember who the judge was who instituted busing in PG, it was judge Kaufman, who incidently sent all his kids to private school.

[Roshawn Markwees]

PG County's median income is $11k higher than the national average. Poverty or ostensible poverty is used as a political excuse. PG is inundated with unstructured families, mostly fatherless. That is why PG is crime-ridden and its schools are in perpetual demise.

[Roshawn Markwees]

BTW, PG wasn't always so bad. High Point HS was rated among the top 10 nationally in terms of academically performing public high schools in the late 1960s.
But the incidence of fatherlessness in PG has changed all of that dramatically.
The politics of race have circumvented the fatherlessness issue as the source of these problems and have ultimately exacerbated the problems as a result. It's really very simple but race politics get in the way.

[expgc]

Originally Posted by bunky3301

I disagree with your business model, I think it is flawed and here's how:

The product is not the children , its "education". Children are the consumer here and there getting robbed by a "monopoly" called public school education and teachers Unions and by failed policies year after year.

I really don't think the public school system should be treated as a business , I think it already is "big business" for the Unions and like minded. They have control and alot of money backing them and won't give into new "radical" ideas like vouchers which have been working in some Wash. DC test programs. Here's a link about them:

Safer Kids, Better Test Scores: The D.C. Voucher Program Works

Yes to competition and standards that make the school systems and teachers "teach again period". Isn't that all we really want are Schools that teach again, and now adays we want the schools to be safe as well. Something most of us didn't have to worry about so much 20 some years ago when we attended school and as I've said in prior post I'm a product of the PG School System (Surrattsville High 1985). I saw alot of kids pushed threw the system , lets not keep this cycle going.

Great answer! Big unions have changed the mission of teaching children to be productive members of society.

(Surrattsville Hornets '72)

[TuborgP]

Originally Posted by ChocLot

I read a lot on here about schools in PG County being bad. What makes them so? A breakdown from ES up to HS would be helpful.

Thanks!

Good schools/bad schools is a state of mind in all reality. Forget test scores and focus in on property values and housing cost in a school district. If folks with the ability to having a wide range of housing mobility elect to send their kids to school there then it is a good school.