Re: Bump
 

What are "assistant principles"?

Was your culture not "rigorous?"

Re: Amen
 

Yea, I think teacher's unions are pretty hooterific, but being a brand new teacher this year and having the fear of God beat into me, with all the possible law suits, liability, bratty kids trying to ruin your life, etc.......the liability insurance seems like a huge plus. I talked to a rep from ATPE (association of Texas professional educators) and asked her, "if i join are you going to secretly send my dues to the john kerry campaign?" and she said that they weren't involved in politics unless it directly concerned teachers. Anyway, I'm not really decided on whether or not I'll join one. I know there are ones that are far more conservative than others, I think it's just a matter of finding the right one.

If the teacher is paid $48,000 per year, that's the money for four kids. If there are 25 or 30 in the class, where is the other $252,000 to $312,000 going?

I support vouchers, if they are full-pay vouchers. Little Jonny's parents should be able to take his full $12,000 to a school of their choice. Offering a $3,000 voucher is a waste.

Each school would have a limit, so everyone can't choose the same school.

If XYZ school has 60 kids who leave, they have to fire two teachers, or (preferably) add some program that will attract 60 kids from other schools.

The capitalist for-profit system works in every other part of American life - surely it deserves a trial in education.

The USA govt. has been totally involved with three things: schools, post office, and VA hospitals. All three pretty much suck. Private schools, UPS/FedEx, and private hospitals are mucho superior.

I don't think vouchers are the answer to the problem of poor public schools. If everyone was allowed to have a vouncher then everyone would leave, and the public school would only get worse. Private schools would become more crowded and have more money- only widening the gap between a public and private education. Resources should go into strengthening the communities and current public schools.

But why would private schools become more crowded? They can choose not to admit kids if they want, even if it means more money. Some schools cap the number of students at a certain number. Several private schools here recently added new wings or buildings, but not every school is admiting more kids.

ideally the money should be put into fixing public schools. i don't know how practical that is.

*HOWEVER* i am 100000000% AGAINST government money paying for kids to attend religiously-affiliated private schools.

Is it wrong if the government pays for someone to attend a university like Notre Dame?

Re: Integration
 

That's a little before my time, so I honestly don't know how to answer because I don't know how it worked (i.e. did random kids from all areas of the SD get bussed to another school, or was it more of a "merger" type situation).

Interesting that you should ask that, because the SD where I live now only relatively recently was released from court control. It was created by merging 3 predominantly black and 4 predominantly white districts. The order was lifted because it's been determined (legally, that is) that the district is fully desegregated. This is a very very very simplified explanation.

I guess what I'm trying to say is a merger is one thing, cherrypicking individual kids out of their home schools is another.

Vouchers are not limited to religiously affiliated private schools.

I went to a 'magnet school' - it did nothing to help the bottom end of the socioeconomic spectrum keep up with test scores etc. It just removed the top tier of students from classes. Incidently, this was the greatest positive for these students - 'bottom-up' education has never been proven to work, and they benefitted greatly with no significant gain for others. Regardless - public schools are being faced with a harsh reality: they are borderline anachronistic.

There's not enough money to go around, and very little draw for new or experienced teachers. What little money there is gets watered down by new, difficult realities for public schools, things like increasing sex ed and higher incidences of violence.

Why not subject schools to the 'marketplace'? Give every person the same amount of cash as you'd give the schools, and force the schools to privatize. If the schools can't survive, they can work for more money or improve to gather more students.

Does this really help rich families that much more than the current system? The current system is hugely slanted toward the wealthy - how could it get much worse?

Why pour money down the crapper? We have models of schools that work - what if these are private? How now?

You guys really want to know what I think about school vouchers? All in favor but only if they're paying for Catholic or Jewish schools. That's it. Kids can get Protestant crap shoved down their throats at PS 121, so all Catholic and Jewish children should be able to attend a school where they are taught their ideals.

Oh boy oh boy I can't wait for the flames.

I had Protestant crap shoved down my throat at my 160-person public school. :(

That's funny, I teach World History and everything we teach about Christianity from a historical perspective is Catholicism. There's the short little section on the "heretics" of the Protestant Reformation, but everything else is Catholic. So you're saying Catholics and Jews should get funding to go to their own schools and learn their ideals but not Protestant children? Oh that's a good idea. :rolleyes:

Maybe if you had learned some American history you would have learned that the entire purpose of the American public school system was to propagate Protestant ideals. :rolleyes:

http://www.pbs.org/kcet/publicschool...ry/photo2.html

There's a link from PBS.

so let's privatize it.

Personally, it wouldn't bother ME, since I'm out of school and I'll be able to afford sending any of my potential its to a Catholic grade school, which is where they'd be going anyway. I've just seen too much corruption with the Milwaukee voucher schools to think that it can work properly everywhere.

Yea ok, I don't know anything about American history.................whatever..................
If the entire purpose was to propgate Protestant ideals, why change it now? :D

Um, maybe because there are more people who practice more religions?

Maybe because the widespread discrimination towards Catholics and Jews in this country has simmered down--if only just a bit?

On an unrelated note, I thought Catholic grade schools were usually pretty reasonable. I know that Catholic schoolteachers get paid considerably less than their public school counterparts, and even those at non-religious independent schools.

OK, since we got on a tangent:

Do you agree with people sending their children to Catholic (or Jewish or Muslim or any religion, for that matter) schools simply because they feel the discipline etc is better, and not because they believe in any of the tenets of the faith - and in fact, might be completely against it?

I mean, I can kind of understand where they're coming from, but if I didn't agree with or practice a faith I wouldn't want to give that much money to it, and if I WAS of that faith I wouldn't want the religious study that my child is supposed to be receiving interfered with or watered down because there are more non-Catholics there than Catholics.

Catholic Schools in New York City set their own tuition and fees which depends on how involved parents are. In Queens the annual grammar school tuition ranges from $3,000 to $5,000 plus various fees, a weekly contribution to the parish, and the price of a uniform. In Manhattan the grammar school tuition is higher $4,000 to $10,000. Catholic high schools range from about $4,000 to over $20,000 for the private Catholic schools. My friends pay about $900 per month for their h.s. students. Many schools have sliding scales for families with two children or more.

Private schools in NYC range from about $8,000 to over $25,000 per year per student for all grades including kindergarten. Catholic school is reasonable compared to private school, but it can still be a struggle especially if you have two or more children.

33girl, My mother sent my sisters and me to Catholic grammar school because it was better and safer than my local public school. She had attended Catholic schools as well. Interestingly, in New York City about 1/4 of students at Catholic schools are not Catholic. They opt out of religious classes.

Um maybe I was just kidding..............

My parents sent me to a private Catholic high school and we are independant Baptists, I mean we're talking complete opposite ends of the Christianity spectrum, Jesus is probably the only common thread between the two. I don't think it's wrong, I was better prepared for college and not everyone there was Catholic. They didn't care, they'd take anyone's money!!! :)

*bump*

Voucher battle heads to court

The Florida Supreme Court will hear Bush vs. Holmes this week, with many educational and religious issues in the balance.
By RON MATUS, Times Staff Writer
Published June 6, 2005

Call it a culture war showdown.

Competing factions will square off over race, religion and education Tuesday when they argue the school voucher case before the Florida Supreme Court.

At direct issue in Bush vs. Holmes is Florida's Opportunity Scholarships program, created by Gov. Jeb Bush in 1999 to allow children in failing public schools to attend private schools at state expense. The court's decision, which could come before school starts in August, will immediately affect about 700 children using the vouchers.

But much more is hanging in the balance, including thorny questions about how to improve public schools and where to draw the line between church and state.

Both sides are predicting doomsday if they lose.

If vouchers go down, supporters say a host of other state programs with links to religious organizations could fall, including the wildly popular Bright Futures scholarships for college students and the state's fledgling prekindergarten program.

Meanwhile, voucher opponents say court approval for Opportunity Scholarships would open the door to "universal vouchers" - vouchers for anybody and everybody - leading to the demise of public schools.

In one corner is Bush, a Republican who has never hesitated to push controversial school initiatives. His supporters include a long list of conservative think tanks and legal foundations.

In the other corner: the National Education Association, which is the nation's largest teachers union and a pillar of the Democratic Party. It is backed by a who's who of liberal groups, including the NAACP, the American Civil Liberties Union and the American Jewish Congress.

Legal experts say the fight is impossible to handicap. Florida's high court rarely deals with church-state issues, so there are few rulings to analyze for patterns. And two of the seven justices are recent appointees.

The court's track record is "so skimpy that anything I or anyone else says is almost purely speculative," says Steve Gey, a professor of constitutional law at Florida State University.

Bush vs. Holmes isn't likely to plow new legal ground nationally. The U.S. Supreme Court sanctioned vouchers in 2002. And vouchers remain an issue in Florida only because the state Constitution has different - and some say more restrictive - language than the U.S. Constitution.

But the fight in Florida still has enormous symbolic value.

The Florida program is the first and only statewide voucher program in the nation - the "crown jewel of school choice programs," says Clinton Bolick, head of the Alliance for School Choice in Phoenix.

To have it struck down, he says, "would be a very stinging defeat."

Link

If school voucher is allowed, can I sent my imaginary son to the School for the Advancement of Satanic Studies?

If Satan offers an accredited program, then I'm sure you can. :p

If the vouchers can be used for Christian schools, then you can also use them for other faith-based schools, just as long as they meet the state's criteria.

What do we do when we are left with bad schools with bad students only?

I guess anyone can answer it. I'm just not sure how you could counter that. The good students go to where the good schools with the good teachers and high funding are. So how do you del with what's left?

-Rudey

Actually, I agree with you. In general I don't support school vouchers because I firmly believe that it does take away from public schools, leaving them with no incentive to do better.

The issue isn't a Christian or religious one, but about how we can reform our public school system. I know some folks hate to hear this, but I firmly believe that the downward spiral happened when discipline was taken out of the public school system. Coupled with lack of parental guidance/concern, it left teachers with no way to foster respect for who they are and their job nor with an effective way how to nip troublemakes in the bud from jump.

I mean seriously, its a sad day when grown people have to call the police to restrain a 5 year old child, because of fear of being accused of abuse/harm (because now, teachers can not touch or handle students even if its to protect themselves from harm).

This is just one of many factors though.

Make all schools Private.

Take away the Courts decession to say give them more money. School Districts depend on tax money from Citizens of said County. I dont have any kids but pay for the Local School/Jr. College Tax. Why?

Allow Teachers to beat the hell out of little shits who disrupt classes or place them in detention. Screw the ACLU!:mad:

Make Children Mind Now as they will be the leaders in the future!

MAYBE!:(

I don't know. I saw West Side Story. I don't think they knew how to discipline kids back then.

-Rudey

Of course someone who needs a good spanking would think that. :p

Almost all of the bad schools that currently exist are public. They don't have to compete. If they had to compete they would either improve or go out of business.

As far as the "bad kids," that's usually more of an issue of bad parents.

Florida Supreme Court Declares Vouchers Unconstitutional

By BILL KACZOR
Associated Press Writer

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -- The Florida Supreme Court struck down the state's voucher system that allows some children to attend private schools at taxpayer expense, saying it violates the state constitution's requirement of a uniform system of free public schools.

Thursday's 5-2 opinion struck down the Opportunity Scholarship Program, championed by Gov. Jeb Bush, which was the nation's first statewide system of school vouchers. About 700 children statewide are using the program to attend a private or parochial school after transferring from a public school the state considers to be failing.

Chief Justice Barbara Pariente, writing for the majority, said the program "diverts public dollars into separate private systems parallel to and in competition with the free public schools," which are the sole means set out in the state constitution for educating Florida children.

Private schools also are not uniform when compared with each other or the public system and they are exempt from many standards imposed by law on public schools, such as mandatory testing, she added.

Justices Kenneth Bell and Raoul Cantero, both appointed by Bush, dissented.

The 1999 law previously had been ruled unconstitutional by the 1st District Court of Appeal on grounds that it violated the separation of church and state in the Florida Constitution.

Competition has made almost every part of the US economy better, and created a standard of living unmatched ever anywhere.

I think competition (in stuff besides basketball) would promote improvement.

The parts of the US economy where there is not a free market and competition are the problem ones. Medical care is an example.

Doctors, hospitals, specialists don't have to compete, don't post prices, and don't advertise, and their costs are growing unchecked.

A part of medicine that does compete, like lasik eye surgery, is getting better and getting cheaper.

I suspect, for example, that if doctors had to compete and publicize the cost of tonsilectomies, they would get better and cheaper.

Let schools compete, let schools publicize their plans and programs, and let schools improve.

Hoosier-

I disagree with your analogy of medical care. The issue is not about an elective surgery, like lasik, the issue whether not to relieve a subdural hematoma, like the one in Ariel Sharon's head, to enable LIFE. Medical doctors have made an "oath" once they graduated from medical school to "secure that life"--at least in accredited US and Canadian and some European school's they have... The concept of "best practices" is always implored upon residents and fellows. When I attend a "grand rounds", it amazes me how much MD's must know to do their jobs effectively to ensure the best care for their patients.

The issue is many patients, most of them not educated about their healthcare, come in with insurmoutable problems--basically too late to have effective treatment. But our current medical system and establishment at least tries to help people--even when their health outcome is poor. With advancing technology, health might improve. This does not include some malpractice that does go on, but with better patient advocacy and compliancy, healthcare can be improved.

As with the case of Mr. Sharon, he was obviously overweight. He had probably been told to slowdown by his medical doctors. He probably was under a lot of stress and for his age, that kind of stress will kill. I think his MD's are probably doing the best they know how to do, given the circumstances--i.e. he came in a hour away after having another stroke that may have been massive...

So I do not think you can equate having a free market with a "trickle down theory of economy" for either medicine or education. In my view, call me a whatever you want, but both should be a basic human right to have in a so-called pluralistic democracy.

I have played nicely with you and I expect the same kind of discourse from you. If you fail to place nice in the "sandbox", I will take counter-measures--because "one in glass houses ought not throw stones..."

I am mister nice, a cuddly teddy bear in real life. My new condo is mostly stone and stucco.

Some parts of education, and some parts of medicine, could be improved by allowing competition. Some parts are not suitable for competition (emergency brain surgery, parts of special education, etc.).

An expensive part of medical care, ambulance service, is high priced because the govt. usually limits the service to one company. If you needed an ambulance ride home from the hospital, and called three services asking for a price, you could choose the cheapest (and the services might offer you a deal: "after 6:30, we offer a $50 discount", etc.)

I don't know about that one. In fact, I call complete and utter bullshit.

Where my parents live, everyone knows that the private schools (with the exception of the Catholic School) are all fly-by-night places that are the last resort for kids who get kicked out of our (generally excellent) public school system. None of them are nearly as rigorous as the public schools, so most of the "graduates" end up going to places like Liberty and Bob Jones. In the past four years, however, the public high schools have sent their graduates to all of the Ivies, MIT, Stanford, Northwestern, Chicago, and all of the great state schools.

This really has no bearing on Russ's point, but this sort of anecdotal evidence may not be the norm nationwide - I would assume that a higher percentage of bad schools are public, but I'm not sure if we can really ever discover this information for sure, due to difficulty in definition etc.

However, either way, calling bullshit with anecdotal evidence really doesn't help us get there.

The free-market/increased competition proponents never realize that is based entirely on an efficient-market scenario.

-Rudey
--The world is neither efficient nor fair, and religious/criminal/racist/any "ist" people should have no further rights to exploit that.

Hey, what if I'm a capitalist? ;)

Did anybody watch the 20/20 Stupid In America Program tonight?

I thought it was pretty good. I think parents should have a choice to send a kid to whatever school they want. I read som earlier posts in this thread about the difference of the values in vouchers from county county or whatever....seems to me that a voucher idea would work if the STATE took the total cost of educating all schools and diving it equally, rather than by county. That way, it wouldnt matter which county you lived in and how much your voucher was worth - as long as you went to a school in the state you lived (which is common sense) then all students in that state would get couchers worth the same amount to go to any school.

I dunno. Sounds good to me. Oh yeah - and after watching that program - I totally think teachers unions suck. If a teacher can send a sex email to his 16 year old student and NOT get fired because of a union contract, theres a serious problem.

I am so frustrated after watching 20/20 tonight. School vouchers are bull crap! The only lesson they are teaching is that crappy schools should just stay crappy. It makes me mad that private schools are getting my taxes but when I have a child they will not be able to go there. Meanwhile where my children might go, there are 40 kids in one classroom. It is things like this that make me not want to get into the teaching field. Sorry if anyone agrees with vouchers, whatever floats your boat, but I think they are crap!!

Ok now I need to calm down.