Public schools, private schools, vouchers....

The BBQ Pit
81

[QUOTE=DMC]
It might seem that way to you, but we’re reading different studies then, or you’re wearing those “special” glasses again.

Grade 4 Reading, Private does -1.1 worse. Math, -4.1 worse.
Grade 8 Reading, Private does 5.7 better, Match, -0.6 worse.

Out of four different result sets, private school outperformed public in only one area, while public fared better in the other three areas.
[/QUOTE]
Well - not exactly. If you include all the result sets mentioned (adjusted and un-adjusted) then private schools do better in five of the eight result sets - all un-adjusted, and one adjusted. So again,

If he is a non-native English speaker, poor, etc., then

Regards,
Shodan

82

[QUOTE=Shodan]
Well - not exactly. If you include all the result sets mentioned (adjusted and un-adjusted) then private schools do better in five of the eight result sets - all un-adjusted, and one adjusted. So again, If he is a non-native English speaker, poor, etc., then
Regards,
Shodan
[/QUOTE]

But that isn’t what the results say. They are means not individual scores.

Lets say you have a public school. Scores are

52 56 68 72 72 73 74 74 75 75 78 79 79 79 80 81 81 83 84 85 85 89 91 98 for a mean of 77.625

You have a private school. Scores are

54 55 66 70 72 73 73 74 75 75 77 79 79 80 80 81 82 82 83 84 85 85 89 91 92 94 94 97 for a mean of 79.3

Private school does better. But now you need to adjust out. You drop proportionally the number of kids who qualify for free and reduced lunch - more of those in the public school set. Adjust for where English isn’t a first language - few of those in the private school system. Drop the special ed kids that the public schools are mandated to serve and the private schools can say “sorry.” Mean goes up to 79.4% - but the smart kids didn’t get smarter, you just adjusted the population.

83

BTW, it isn’t that simplistic. What you do (from what I remember and its been years since I’ve adjusted numbers for confounding variables) is do a series of calculations that tells you what amount of the score has to do with non-English speakers being tested in public schools and adjust that way. You don’t just drop the scores of non-English speakers.

84

[QUOTE=Shodan]
Well - not exactly. If you include all the result sets mentioned (adjusted and un-adjusted) then private schools do better in five of the eight result sets - all un-adjusted, and one adjusted.
[/QUOTE]
Why would you include the non-adjusted scores when the entire point of that study is that the primary reason that private schools do better is their selectivity of the students (which would likely disappear with vouchers)? We’re all quite aware, and have been for years, that private school test scores are better. The argument against that was that they get to pick and choose students. This study simply backs that up with data.

Perhaps your reading comprehension is also suffering from selectivity.

85

[QUOTE=DMC]
Why would you include the non-adjusted scores when the entire point of that study is that the primary reason that private schools do better is their selectivity of the students (which would likely disappear with vouchers)? We’re all quite aware, and have been for years, that private school test scores are better. The argument against that was that they get to pick and choose students. This study simply backs that up with data.

Perhaps your reading comprehension is also suffering from selectivity.
[/QUOTE]

I think a big problem here is that we are all spinning our wheels to avoid the racial and socio-economic question.

There is a significant subset of the population (is it 5, 10, 25 percent?) who will not learn, who’s parents don’t care, cause disruption, and an all-around destruction of all aspects of whatever environment they are in. What do we do with them?

NCLB pretends that they are no different than kids who want to learn. The public schools try as they might, but they can’t kick them to the curb. The private schools don’t have to deal with them and do better as a result.

So, it’s obvious that the kids who want to learn and the parents who care do better when these “students” are removed from the environment. And I’m all for that. To hell with those kids. Their parents have already signed their prison ticket for them.

I feel for them, and I wish there was a solution. I can’t think of one. The only “solution” I’ve heard in this thread is a continuation of the current system, which experience shows is no solution at all.

In short, what can we do for kids who grew up in an environment where they are not loved, are not taught that learning is important, get no support from parents and family, get chided by friends for selling out, and tell teachers to go fuck themselves? What do we do with them?

86

[QUOTE=DMC]
Why would you include the non-adjusted scores when the entire point of that study is that the primary reason that private schools do better is their selectivity of the students (which would likely disappear with vouchers)?
[/QUOTE]
Because it is by no means certain that this would disappear. And because most kids are average (in the sense I mentioned earlier).

Regards,
Shodan

87

[QUOTE=Shodan]
Because it is by no means certain that this would disappear.
[/QUOTE]
So we give out vouchers, but only the kids a school wants can actually use them? Feel free to try and sell that one. In fact, let’s let McCain jump on the bandwagon later this year.

88

[QUOTE=jtgain]

In short, what can we do for kids who grew up in an environment where they are not loved, are not taught that learning is important, get no support from parents and family, get chided by friends for selling out, and tell teachers to go fuck themselves? What do we do with them?
[/QUOTE]

We had damned well better figure out a way to get them educated, right now. A decent education is the strongest barrier against that kid stealing your car or robbing our house. Knowledge helps them socialize better, see more, dream bigger and want to get out and move up.

Seriously- these kids aren’t going away- they are going to grow up and be doing whatever they can to get by with no education, and that will probably end up being menial labor or crime, and that’s in nobody’s best interest. But try selling that in CA… :frowning:

89

[QUOTE=EJsGirl]
We had damned well better figure out a way to get them educated, right now. A decent education is the strongest barrier against that kid stealing your car or robbing our house. Knowledge helps them socialize better, see more, dream bigger and want to get out and move up.

Seriously- these kids aren’t going away- they are going to grow up and be doing whatever they can to get by with no education, and that will probably end up being menial labor or crime, and that’s in nobody’s best interest. But try selling that in CA… :frowning:
[/QUOTE]

I wish it were “only” that bad. My principal had an inservice for us about the theories of Willard Daggett. Daggett writes about the “Perfect Storm,” and it’s scary stuff.

http://www.leadered.com/pdf/Preparing%20Students%20for%20Their%20Future%206-05.pdf

He says:

There are four major trends impacting the U.S., in general, and our students, in particular, which must be addressed to assure that our nation and our students are prepared to meet the challenges of the near and distant future. These four challenges are globalization, changing demographics, technology, and changing values and attitudes.

Take technology, for instance. Now we can work from home…or the employer can digitize the information and send the work halfway around the world:

Most MRI and CAT scans performed in American hospitals are analyzed in India rather than here at home. Hundreds of thousands of U.S. income tax forms this year were processed in India. Reuters recently moved 1,500 jobs in their research division to India. The U.K.’s “A Level” exams for college prep students, which contain complex essay questions, are now being graded in India because of their well trained, but inexpensive work force. In effect, information technology has impacted the work place as much as e-mail and the World Wide Web have revolutionized the ways we conduct our personal business.

Add to this things like the impending social security disaster and we could really be screwed. Instead of students taking education more seriously, they’re going in the opposite direction. The old factory assembly jobs are disappearing and the middle class gets smaller all the time. We’ll be a culture of a few haves and a lot of have nots.

I asked my principal later what it all spelled to him, and I got the answer I feared: “One of these days the country is just going to implode.”

90

[QUOTE=jtgain]
I think a big problem here is that we are all spinning our wheels to avoid the racial and socio-economic question.
[/quote]

Why don’t you go ahead and state the question then? I’m interested in hearing it framed.

What percentage is it? What exactly are you saying is wrong with them? And how many are we talking here, in your professional opinion?

And is it not a very valuable public good to educate these “problem kids”? Because if we don’t, the cost to society will be much higher than giving them an education when they are young. No one wants to pay for preventative medicine, though, but you have no choice about paying for the triage later.

First, this is a very nihilistic and dare I say fucking awful way to look at children. Second, who decides which kids are to be removed? Based on what criteria? Are you going to get some sort of consensus? If so, by whom?

I offered some ideas that do NOT involve systematically dismantling the public school system. Apparently you don’t want to hear those.

If you take the attitude towards them that they are nothing but future inmates and nothing can be done to save them except pre-incarcerating them… do you think that’s really going to help anyone, including you when he mugs you or steals your SUV? Or when your tax dollars go towards welfare or prison?

91

[QUOTE=jtgain]

So, it’s obvious that the kids who want to learn and the parents who care do better when these “students” are removed from the environment. And I’m all for that. To hell with those kids. Their parents have already signed their prison ticket for them.
[/QUOTE]

My husband has some of these kids in his class. They’re seven years old. I can’t say to hell with a seven year old.

Not weighing on the voucher issue, not offering my opinion on public schools, but when you meet these kids–who are not, at bottom, mean or bad, who are already struggling with stuff I’ve never had to deal with in my 30 years of life–you can’t say to hell with them.

92

I’m not saying to hell with a seven year old kid. I’m saying that when a student has been given chances, parents have been called and nothing happens. The kid continues to disrupt the school environment and doesn’t want to learn, do we:

  1. Keep him there and harm the learning experience for the kids who do want to learn
    or
  2. Get rid of him

I’m all for #2. The question that I don’t have an answer for is what do we do with the kid when we do #2.

The current answer #1, which we do, is not working, and we go so far as to prevent parents from removing their kids from this environment (by opposing vouchers) in order to make this problem child feel “normal”.

93

Then I guess I am okay with that #2 kid robbing your house, raping your wife and shooting your dog. I mean, hell, someone else already signed his “prison ticket,” right? And no one should attempt to belay that order…

:rolleyes:

94

[QUOTE=EJsGirl]
Then I guess I am okay with that #2 kid robbing your house, raping your wife and shooting your dog. I mean, hell, someone else already signed his “prison ticket,” right? And no one should attempt to belay that order…

:rolleyes:
[/QUOTE]

What is your solution?

95

Eventually these kids figure school holds nothing for them. They fall through the cracks and drop out.

I remember seeing a thing on TV about a judge (in Ohio I think) who was starting to send parents to jail for their kids being truant. It wasn’t after a single offense or anything. IIRC they had gone in front of a judge and said, “I can’t control the kid,” so the judge said, “OK, when you know he’s truant, you have to let us know.” And the parents still enabled the kid…and finally went to jail.

I didn’t find that but I found this:
http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2008/apr/16/truancy-crackdown/

*With less than two months left in the school year, Hamilton County parents who let their children skip classes should be punished in a wider variety of ways, judges and law enforcement officials say.

[snip]

A consistently negligent parent who does not get a child to school can face a Class C misdemeanor charge in General Sessions Court, which includes a $50 fine and 30-day jail sentence, he said. Parents can face similar punishments on truancy charges in Juvenile Court, where parents and their children are sent by school-system social workers.

“It’s not my desire to put any parent in jail,” Judge Moon said. “Punishing parents is not going to solve all of the problems, but it is a beginning.”*

Here is the result of a google search (308K hits):

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=truancy+judge+parents+sentenced&btnG=Google+Search

96

[QUOTE=jtgain]
I’m not saying to hell with a seven year old kid. I’m saying that when a student has been given chances, parents have been called and nothing happens. The kid continues to disrupt the school environment and doesn’t want to learn, do we:

  1. Keep him there and harm the learning experience for the kids who do want to learn
    or
  2. Get rid of him

I’m all for #2. The question that I don’t have an answer for is what do we do with the kid when we do #2.

The current answer #1, which we do, is not working, and we go so far as to prevent parents from removing their kids from this environment (by opposing vouchers) in order to make this problem child feel “normal”.
[/QUOTE]

I’d like to point out that most kids who are this disruptive are already removed into alternative programming. I think most teachers would agree that the things we face most often are apathy, lack of motivation, occasional assholishness, parental non-involvement but not active negligence. There are a handful of kids who are below grade level in reading; programs to help them need to be augmented, along with different programming, not currently in place.

Indifferent kids are indifferent students. You can’t force them to care, though you could spend the time and money to educate the teachers and modify the curriculum so it’s more relevant to this student, might catch his interest (this has been done with Everyday Math, to mixed success). And it’s not even like they’re failing. They’re trudging along with C’s and a couple of D/F grades. Occasional behavior issues, mostly just blah. You aren’t going to get anyone to say such a kid should be ejected from school. But if you have half a classroom full of those kids, you’re not going to get smashing success either.

97

[QUOTE=Rubystreak]
I’d like to point out that most kids who are this disruptive are already removed into alternative programming. I think most teachers would agree that the things we face most often are apathy, lack of motivation, occasional assholishness, parental non-involvement but not active negligence. There are a handful of kids who are below grade level in reading; programs to help them need to be augmented, along with different programming, not currently in place.

Indifferent kids are indifferent students. You can’t force them to care, though you could spend the time and money to educate the teachers and modify the curriculum so it’s more relevant to this student, might catch his interest (this has been done with Everyday Math, to mixed success). And it’s not even like they’re failing. They’re trudging along with C’s and a couple of D/F grades. Occasional behavior issues, mostly just blah. You aren’t going to get anyone to say such a kid should be ejected from school. But if you have half a classroom full of those kids, you’re not going to get smashing success either.
[/QUOTE]

Those aren’t the kids I’m talking about. Those are most people in life, actually. They scrape out a meager existence and go to their shitty job everyday that almost pays the bills.

Those kids don’t harm the learning process for the kids who want to learn, so there is no reason to eject them from school.

98

[QUOTE=jtgain]
Those aren’t the kids I’m talking about. Those are most people in life, actually. They scrape out a meager existence and go to their shitty job everyday that almost pays the bills.

Those kids don’t harm the learning process for the kids who want to learn, so there is no reason to eject them from school.
[/QUOTE]

The kids you are taking about are a staggering minority in most schools. They are not “the problem” with public schools that will be solved by vouchers.

99

[QUOTE=jtgain]
What is your solution?
[/QUOTE]

I don’t have one. But I do know that just cutting kids loose is really short-sighted. In an ideal world (which we don’t have), I’d say that a small alternative school would be a start, somewhere that kids can be taught at least for part of the day, by teachers who can reach them (same ethnic or economic background, come from the same 'hood or something).

100

[QUOTE=EJsGirl]
I don’t have one. But I do know that just cutting kids loose is really short-sighted. In an ideal world (which we don’t have), I’d say that a small alternative school would be a start, somewhere that kids can be taught at least for part of the day, by teachers who can reach them (same ethnic or economic background, come from the same 'hood or something).
[/QUOTE]

That’s a great idea, I wonder if there exists some mechanism that would allow specialty schools like that to flourish…

And Ruby, your links are worthless. The first is a study that freely admits it’s massaging the data seven ways from Sunday to get the results they want, and even the synopsis states it’s contradictory findings. The second, aside from being someone who, judging by the spit flecked diatribes and remarkable lack of logic seems to be a liberal equivalent of Rush Limbaugh, deals with a program in Az that gave $1000 vouchers to parents. The only way for vouchers to work is for them to be for the entire amount of money spent on each child currently. $1000 vouchers? Meaningless.