Public Education
 

I am curious. Why do you think we have public education? Do you think the purpose is still timely? Should it be abolished and just give vouchers to everyone? Sincerely, curious...

I think everyone should have to pay for their education. That way those that value it will go, and those that don't value it won't go and can take the place of the illegal immigrants that everyone bitches about taking our jobs.

Does this mean you think the indigent should just not go to school? Do we just relegate poor children or children with selfish parents to a life of crime or poverty?

Re: Public Education
 

I'd like to see vouchers given a major trial.

Many of our public schools have gotten so politically correct that real learning is sacrificed. Locally, at Cross Keys HS, in the midst of major bunches of Latinos, Asians, etc. (probably 25% white), they have almost monthly festivals celebrating the holidays of Mexico, Korea, Japan, Hawaii, etc. The greatest American holiday, Christmas, is totally ignored. Not a tree in the building.

Vouchers might also be a way to trim the power of the Teachers Unions - a school might attract some students by advertising "we are an independent school, and our teachers do not choose to belong to the NEA or AFT.

Re: Re: Public Education
 

I actually agree with you here, but for a different reason. I am just tired of poor children being forced to attend failing schools. I think when a school reaches a level of failure vouchers should be optional for every student zoned to that school (those attending that school and those already in private school). However, I think the voucher amount should not simply be the amount the state spends on education in the failing school, but 75% of the cost of the private school.

This will do two things 1) give poor students an actual opportunity to use a voucher b/c often they are for an amount to small to actually help them go to a good private school and 2) enourace the state to not let a school reach failing status b/c they know if it does they will be handing out vouchers in amounts that far exceed what they would have paid for the students to attend the public school.

Re: Re: Public Education
 

I always thought that the 4th of July or Thanksgiving were the great American holidays... whereas Christmas being one of the great Christian holidays.

There's actually a group that wants to abolish public education. I forget what they're called--maybe someone can help me out?--but my education professor this summer was talking about it. But I get the impression that their motivation is more to keep the lower classes from getting education and therefore any power...

Re: Re: Re: Public Education
 

I'm really torn on vouchers. I'm not sure they wouldn't have the effect of making the great schools more crowded and the bad schools worse.

I think our public education system needs a major overhaul. Someone somewhere had a pertient comment (can't remember the source) that we still have a sliderule education system in a world full of calculators. I tend to agree.

The teachers' unions have a valid complaint - they don't get paid enough in many states for the work that they do. That said though, I don't think that teachers' unions give a crap about a quality education, just that the teachers that they represent have a good work environment.

I'm not sure about the voucher system. Might work depending on the specifics.

Here in Oklahoma City, we have a pretty robust Charter School System. A Charter School is a school that although it is still a public school it is given a lot more autonomy, less funding per pupil, however. Parents are allowed to pull their kids out of their regular schools and put them into charter schools. They don't cost anything, and there's no admission requirement as far as IQ, grades, etc. but most require some kind of time donation from the parents. My fiancée teaches at a charter school that requires 50 hours of service from their parents each year (although, I understand that they make exceptions when the parents are total bums).

-- the school she teaches at is as I understand around 40% white.

Charter schools are able to require a lot more academically of their kids. In my fiancée's school, all classes are AP classes, the class does not slow down for people who 'just don't get it', they routinely flunk kids and do not pass them on to the next grade unless they actually do the work, but they do have this thing called AVID to help kids who otherwise would not be college bound due to their background prepare for college.. Behavior problems are given the boot. Their API score (how schools are ranked here) is as high as the best schools in the richest suburbs.

Charter schools as far as I have seen are the best answer in urban areas. As far as rural areas go, no easy answer, but here in Oklahoma, a little district and school consolidation could go a long way.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Public Education
 

How are you not sure about that? It's pretty much a given...

-Rudey

The problem with vouchers is that private schools generally can't be forced to take students. What would presumably happen is that students would bring their vouchers to private schools; the private schools would cherry-pick the best students; and the worst students, who presumably need the most educational help, would be left in the bad school. If you made open admission a condition of the voucher program, the best private schools would never join. They already have tons of students who want to get in, even without a voucher program.

Not really.

Private schools are a business, just like the many private colleges.

There will be enough private schools to accomodate the children.

-Rudey

Re: Re: Re: Re: Public Education
 

One of the givens for vouchers is school capacity. Good school X has classrooms suitable for 800 kids. There are 500 neighborhood kids who go there based on housing, so there are 300 spots for voucher kids.

Kid #301 and up have to go somewhere else.

Other schools would seek these Kids, and might say "give us a try - we are upgrading to attract more voucher kids by strengthening our foreign lang. program, requiring more math, instituting a 'if you're absent more than 5 days, you flunk' policy", or what ever they choose and whatever they think will attract voucher kids.

If a school reaches capacity, it gets full compensation from the school bd. for all 800 kids.

If a school is unable to attract the 800 kids, and only has 700, the school loses the money and has to eliminate four teachers and two coaches and two cooks, cuts back on fancy uniforms for the football team and cheerleaders, etc. It is also motivated to come up with plans and programs that will attack more kids next year.

It's worth a try.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Public Education
 

Maybe. It would be just as likely, I think, to either overcrowd the school. or start seeing "mobiles" (school room trailers) spring up in the parking lots.

Our kids went to a very fine school system and graduated from a "new" high school -- which was overcrowded within five years of opening. It has since been expanded, but bricks and mortar are expensive -- and as it grew, the standards went down.

That's not necessarily something that will happen everywhere, but it's certainly a concern to me.

(At my charter school, filled with voucher-waving kids, this won't be a problem)


Group gives schools 'F' on condom availability



BY ELLEN YAN
STAFF WRITER

November 4, 2005

Students have problems getting condoms and health advice at NYC high schools, where the health curriculum fails to reflect updated lessons on AIDS, a community nonprofit said Thursday.

The Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project has sent out more than 60 student activists on a "Find the Condom In Your Schools" campaign, asking them and their recruits to request condoms from staff and survey peers on condom accessibility. The results are to be released later this month.

"If you spend most of your time at school, I think that's where the condoms should be," said Bailey Ramos, one of the campaign's activists and a sophomore at Martin Luther King Jr. High School for Arts and Technology. "If you go to the store in your neighborhood, you're afraid of your parents finding out or 'What if they tell this person?'"

In the last 18 months, the majority of high schools -- 212 out of about 380 -- did not order condoms and schools that did got a total of 320 boxes, each with 1,000 condoms, according to the Department of Education's response to a Freedom of Information request filed on behalf of the nonprofit.

Sarah Howell, the nonprofit's program coordinator, said that translates to 1.4 condoms per sexually active student, a "drastic and dangerous shortage." (According to a federal 2003 survey, 48 percent of city high school students are sexually active.)

"Students don't have the tools they need to have to protect themselves from HIV and sexually transmitted diseases," Howell said. "New York City has historically been a focal point of the AIDS epidemic, and what that means is that the Department of Ed and the city has a huge responsibility to students."

Education officials said the group's calculations do not take into account the condoms ordered more than 18 months ago. Condoms have expiration dates but the shelf life of an average one is about five years.

DOE officials said schools carry condoms as needed because the chancellor's regulations from 1981 require schools to give out condoms upon request, unless the student's parents chose to opt out of this service.

That's your second "condom" posting this afternoon.

I'm currently in my last year of school and this semester I'm at two public schools and one (my first) private school. At the private the scores were off the charts compared to the public school. HOWEVER, the student-teacher ratio at the private is 10:1 while at the public is 30:1. Therefore with less students you can work with them more and more indepth. Also the students who go to the private school have to work, they just can't sit in the back and float through classes like you can many times in some public schools. I'm still torn on this subject. I like the idea of vouchers due to it allows students to recieve a better education. But, if x amount of students leave public schools and go private there will be less students in the public system and teachers will be given the chance to work with them much more and their scores may rise. Since there may be more students in the private setting, teachers may not be able to give the attention they previously could therefore scores may falter.

Okay, I'm now lost on what the heck I just wrote.

In Michigan, school districts who wish to open up their doors to other students (usually those who have room for other students) are listed as Schools of Choice. Students from other districts who want to go there can apply to go there and the chosen district receives the state money for that student, rather than the original district. We have also had a host of charter schools open up. From my own observation, this is what is happening:

1. Students who are expelled from their original school go to schools of chioce or charter schools. so they just shuffle from school to school, wreaking havoc at each of them.

2. The local charter schools aren't meeting their AYP required in the NCLB act, in spite of the fact that when they opened, they were touted as being exceptional schools.

3. Students who are really poor can't afford transportation to the alternate choices of schools can't go to them.


The reality of the situation is, the best teachers in the universe can't help kids learn if they are hungry or malnutritioned, ill with no access to health care, don't have parental support, are living in crime infested neighborhoods where they can't sleep because of the gun fire outside and don't have heat, electricity or water in their living quarters. When teachers spend most of their time just keeping order in the classroom and worrying about whether they'll be shot or stabbed at work that day, children aren't going to learn much.

Let's do something about THAT and I bet the school situation will take care of itself.

Dee

I agree with you 100%. Unfortunately, my educating professor doesn't buy it. When she asked if we had any concerns about student teaching/teaching in general, I mentioned being physically attacked (a lot of those middle/high school kids are way bigger than me!) and dealing with kids who just don't prioritize learning very highly because of their home situation (i.e. no parental encouragement, poverty, etc.). She looked at me like I had three heads and said in amazement, "Oh, you don't have to worry about that." Like it doesn't happen??? Riiiiiiiiight. My dad is an elementary school counselor and he has been assaulted by students on numerous occasions. When I subbed at that same school, I encountered children whose parents didn't give a rat's a$$ about education and taught their children to do the same. Some of those kids couldn't get their homework done because they had to go home and take care of little brothers and sisters, and sometimes their parents. That's reality.

I also detest NCLB and standards and all that bull hockey, but that's a whole other post.

When Mrs. DA taught high school, she had a knife pulled on her and was close to being assaulted on other occassions.

That was at a suburban/country school in the early 1970's.

Things certainly haven't gotten better.

What are the poor people going to do with a $2000 voucher if the schools charge 5-10k in tuition?

Or that they're trying to empower the lower classes. Public education, as provided to the poorest of Americans, is often just a cruel joke. The parents can't just move to a district that has good schools, or send their kids to private schools.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Public Education
 

That would only happen in the short run. Within just a few years, market forces would cause new schools to open, and the over crowding argument would be a moot issue.

Nor can the good public schools. In the current public school system, which is supposed to be egalitarian, poor kids are in the bad schools (which are often overcrowded,) and the rich kids wind up in good schools.

Every argument against vouchers cites a scenario that describes the current public education system when broken down by class.

Not much. The poor should be given vouchers equal to what the public schools spend on a per child basis. In NYC, we spend more than $12,000/student.

Imagine what kind of education each poor child could get if the private school market responded to their $12,000 vouchers!

No, no. The purpose of this group is to get rid of public education because they believe that only the rich upper classes deserve it, so they're seeking block the lower classes' entry into jobs that require education, thus curtailing their power. So says my professor. I'll have to ask her for their website again.

In our system, anyone can go to any of the middle or high schools as long as there is space available.

You think so? What happens when the poor kids from single parent homes that don't care about education, don't go to class, don't study and cause problems at the private school? What will the excuse be then?

How are vouchers going to solve that problem?

What would you suggest?

The US already provides free breakfast and lunch at school. Food stamps for the family. Counties have free health clinics, and a hospital has to treat anyone who shows up.

The earned income credit sends thousands of dollars to families with low income.

Some of the old housing projects have crime problems, and every child age 10 and up knows who the drug sellers are. The ghetto 'code of silence' keeps them from telling the police, which might help reduce crime.

Every city has housing codes. If the necessities aren't being provided, the code dept. will take action upon request.

In reality, you get more of what you reward. If you provide free/cheap food, housing, med care, transportation, books, pencils, education, etc., you get more people wanting the free stuff and much more for free.

On the other hand, one of the more successful plans - put thru Congress by the Republicans before the '96 election - has been workfare. If you are healthy and don't have an infant, you have two years to get a job and get out of the project (and help will be provided). When the two years came up, thousands had found jobs and found better housing.

If oportunities are available, and the free stuff is not available or very hard to get, people will get their act together.

No - if there are more kids taking their vouchers to private school ABC, the school has more money and hires more teachers.

Dollarwise: if a voucher is for $8,000, and their are 20 kids in the class, the income is $160,000. Even the Teachers Union wold be happy with 20 kids per teacher.

You're talking about some utopia that definitely isn't Detroit. The unemployment rate is 7.1% in Michigan. The city is almost bankrupt. There are no county hospitals in this area. The crime rate is sky high and there are areas of the city that even police and EMS won't go because it's too dangerous. YET, the kids who fail in those schools are failing because of the teachers? Nope.

I share your feeling that it is a tough situation. It's a self-inflicted toughness, for the most part.

Michigan used to be about the most socialist state, with high welfare payments, govt. controls, and high taxes. Now it - and especially Detroit - are reaping the consequences.

Many of these parents are at fault - they may have dropped out of school, had children with no fathers for support, spent money on big screens instead of books, and watched soap operas instead of seeking a job. That was sufficient when welfare checks were coming in and getting larger every six months. Now they have a problem.

Agree with HOOSIER once again! Parents will or cannot disipleine Kids. it is not the Teachers Jobs to do this.

Because of the Laws in place via the ACLU. the Parents nor The Teachers can do anything.:(

So, where does the blame lay?

Many Mothers with Children with different Last Names? Mothers who are trying to get by on piticance from the Federal Govt Who cannot keep their legs together because they are are on drugs?

Detroit Has caused many problems them selves along with many Major Cities.

Do not ever blame on teachers as they are hamstrung too.

Beat The Kids Ass like many of us were! When No is said, Then NO is The Word!

We still have the high taxes, one of the highest in the country, I believe. Income tax of 4.9%, Sales tax of 6%, gas tax of (can't remember exactly, but I think it's 17 cents a gallon), cig tax of $2.00 a pack... I pay a 1.5% income tax to the city of Detroit but have no vote there. Residents pay 3%. People who work there pay more in actual dollars than residents do. With the city going bankrupt, they are cutting police and fire services. They cut bus services drastically,making it impossible for some folks to get to work at all. We're in rough shape right now.

I think the biggest problem is that they've remained dependent on the auto companies for unskilled labor jobs, but those are no more. Delph and Visteon are talking about cutting their employees salaries by 2/3. We're talking from almost $30 an hour to $9 an hour. How are people going to survive on that?

In part, unions inflated Michigan's economy and the businesses can't afford to survive here. Detroit never rebuilt after the riots of '67. There was a corrupt mayor for a long time. The fact that they allowed crime to get so bad in some areas that it's not safe for police or EMS is a crime in itself.

Maybe the city going into receivorship will help, but I'm not convinced. In any case, I don't think they should keep taking money away from those schools, because the school should be the one place where kids can feel safe, warm, get those two free meals and learn something, from stable adults who care about them.