Thank you Satan, you made some excellent points. And some that actually push alarm buttons on me.
"I have several concerns bout this:
- What criteria do we use to decide “failing schools?” If we use standardized tests, we open up that whole can of worms about biases inherent in them. In addition…"
We use standardized tests now. They are standardized by State level rather than federal and should/will continue to be done in such a fashion. That is how schools are graded and why the need for a quick fix and a long term fix have been identified.
“2) If we do overlook the biases, we then start having schools teaching students how to pass standardized tests instead of simply learning. This is not a good thing, and it has come under increased scrutiny in locations where they suggest such tests to be the yeardstick in which kids are measured.”
I’m not sure what bias you are referring to. The bias against children with a bad education? The arguments about cultural bias in the basic 3 Rs is an argument I disagree with, but can understand the propensity to excuse the lack of quality education with ‘cultural bias’.
“3) What about the person who wants the choice to go to a private school but are in a school that the goverment says is just dandy, but the PARENT (or STUDENT) feels differently for personal reasons. Why do they have LESS RIGHTS than their neighbors?”
They have that right now don’t they? Their neighbors are all in the same district, thus they all have the same rights. The issue is not what they would prefer, it is to help children that absolutely NEED help.
“4) What if a school is deemed “failing” and then it improves. Do all of the students who moved on have to go back there? If not, what of families with one kid in a private school… The school gets better, they have to have their kids in two different schools now?”
That is a good question and a potential flaw in the system. Now, keep in mind that the schools have three years to improve above the failing point. After that, if they lose students, I don’t see that they could force the students in their district back. Where then do they get their new base is an excellent question. Potential solutions, but I have not seen this issue addressed in the voucher program by GW
A. If they lost ALL their students, they wouldn’t be able to improve above the failing point, so they must retain some portion of their base.
B. All students in that district will have to return to the public school if they wish to leave the school that they opted out to.
C. All new students… starting K, will repopulate the school.
D. Overpopulation problems may arise, causing an exodus back to the public school.
“5) Are we just closing down “failing” schools? If so, where does improvment come in? What of good people in bad situations?”
I would like to see your proposal for fixing the failing schools. I would be interested in the refreshing new ideas that the Boards of Education and the Principals of these continuously failing schools have not thought of or tried. Good people in bad situations can always find a job elsewhere. Someone will still be teaching these kids. And the number of children in each classroom will eventually be smaller, perhaps not right away, but after the system evens out. This will create more of a demand for teachers than currently exists. It will also provide encouragement for good teachers.
“6) What of schools that are “failing” not because of the facilty but because of the students? Here, we are telling underpaid, possibly very passionate people that they are not good enough, maybe because they are just in an area where the students don’t want to learn in numbers disproportionate to the rest of the country?”
The scoring of the schools is a potential danger, I agree. It is not spelled out how the schools will be tested. I would think… opinion only… that they will continue to base failing/passing on the current State testing systems. The next issue will be how many failing students is enough for a failing school. Looking through comparisons on the links above, I believe having less than a 30% passing rate is negligent of the school, regardless of how much the teachers love their job or love the children. Again, I love my child with all my heart, I am not properly trained to perform surgery on her. And giving me an extra $20,000 a year will not make me a better doctor.
“7) What of the private institutions who do not WANT certain kids? What is the point of saying, “Oh sure, we can allow you to not be in the ‘failing’ school, but everyone else has the right to tell you you can’t go there either.” Where is the choice? And if the govdernment starts telling private institutions who they have to take, aren’t they no longer private?”
The private institutions decide to either participate or not participate. If they participate, they must be tested and they must charge no more for tuition than the federal/state voucher pays. With requirements like those, many private institutions will not participate, it’s true. The choice will come in transfers to other public schools, existing private schools that are willing to cater to the new clientele because they feel a moral obligation to do so and new schools that will cater particularly to that clientele because they feel they have a moral obligation to do so. If the options do not exist in some areas, then the same old failing education alternative is still there to push them through.
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No. I was saying that extreme times might demand extreme responses, but I have yet to see evidence that the school system is wrecked on par with our ecomony during the Depression. Please show me otherwise…"
A. I don’t think this is such an extreme response.
B. I think the diversity in testing results among various schools and typically those in depressed neighborhoods is evidence that there is a serious problem. You are obviously an intelligent person, it doesn’t affect you in any way shape or form. It won’t cost you any more money, it won’t affect your children most likely, it probably won’t even affect the children of anyone you know, not many people in the middle class hang out with people in depressed neighborhoods.
C. Please propose an alternative solution. I mean if you are all for status quo and letting the poor suffer for being poor, I can’t force feed a moral obligation on you. But the system is currently churning out children who can’t read, write or perform simple mathematics. The systems in place take in more and more money every year and are not giving the education that they are obligated to provide. If you have another, better solution, please present it. And not just throwing more money into a failing school without some kind of plan.
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Cites?
Besides, all studies say that kids who are home-schooled do better in tests. As such, it is just as logical to legislate the abandoming of ALL schools, public and private, and to give money to all parents to teach their kids.
Do you think this would help? If you just look at “stats” and “studies” and “standardized test results,” it would. How do you think it would work in practice?"
Home-schooling is an option to all parents now. Obviously, most parents are not equipped financially or otherwise to do so. How can you expect a parent who was the student of a failing school to teach their child things that they don’t even know? Also, most home-schooled children live in families with enough money that both parents don’t have to work, thus more opportunities, more equipment. Students with an at-home full time nanny/tutor probably do really well too, but that is completely unrealistic and off the subject. Not a viable solution at all, but an over-exaggerated attempt to make a point, which was wasted because of the over-exaggeration.
I’ll work on the cites, check the above link to Baltimore tests, there are lots of schools there with less than 30% passing rate on the standardized tests.
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- If nobody is attending a school because parents have all taken them out, this effectively closes that school, yes?"
As addressed elsewhere, I believe by Pigs in Space, not all parents will pull their children out. However, if they do, then so be it until someone works out a plan with the State to reopen the school under new management. If the students are all transferred, the teachers and staff will still be needed. Noone is going to use their voucher to send their children to a school taught by a janitor, they would just as soon leave their child in the school that they attend now. Don’t you think that any parent that took the time to exercise a voucher would check into the new school first?
“2) If the above scenerio is not allowed - maybe a limit on the number of defectors - how is this fairly implemented?”
Each school will obviously have a limit on the number of students they can handle. That is even true of the current public system. Redistricting in cities happens all the time to repopulate schools in aging areas. It isn’t fairly implemented.
“3) This still does not answer the question as to how this is going to make things better.”
I think it quite avidly does, I’m sorry we disagree on this. The goal of the voucher program and any program that is really looking at the education problems in this country is not to save schools, it is to save children. It is to save children from generations of ignorance that will continue until someone does something about it.
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How do you figure? This plan REMOVES MONEY from the schools. How does the subtraction of money equal more money for salaries?"
You are assuming that the only place these teachers can work is at their current public school. Who is going to teach in the new private institutions, in the existing schools that expand to accept more students? Their janitorial staff? No, it will be teachers. And really good teachers, the ones that put up the nice stats to attract more money/students are the ones that will be paid the most.
"You talk about getting rid of bad teachers. While a noble idea, look at this logical construct: We already have a poor teacher-to-student ratio in some cases. Eliminating schools, and teacher positions will only make that WORSE! And please do show me how this plan would create more teaching positions?
It wouldn’t. It would take them away."
Absolutely not, it will create more teacher jobs than ever before. New private schools would be formed with a lower student to teacher ratio. The lost students would create smaller classrooms in the failing private schools, not all students will leave. There will likely be a temporary imbalance as the system works itself out between profit and teaching success, but the solution will be smaller class sizes and more teachers.
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With the amount of money that teachers get, I submit that people who fit this categorization is in the minority. Crappy teachers can be crappy at other things and make much more money for it and deal with a tenth of the bullshit, after all."
Those who can do, those who cannot teach, I’m sure you’ve heard that before. They might love their teaching job, love getting a years salary for working 8 months out of the year, love all the holidays. If you annualize teachers salaries, it really isn’t such a bad deal. I won’t use the analogy of my child and my medical abilities again, but suffice it to say that just because you love something doesn’t mean you are good at it.
“And even if this was a pervasive problem (which I would like to see evidence of, by the way), why can’t we fix the problem with less drastic means?”
Did you read the links? Did you see how some schools are doing well year after year and some schools have been failing their students for generations? It isn’t on a one page chart, you have to dig into third party, Politic-neutral facts. If you would like me to make a chart or find a Partisan chart, I can, but to me the actual, neutral facts are a much better source of information. Political number crunchers lie all the time, I don’t trust any of them. What I do trust is that the Boards of Education, who have absolutely nothing to gain by showing the inadequacy of some schools, will not lie to show me that this school fails it’s students year after year and that one does really well.
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Why is this happening? Prospective teachers would find themselves constantly under a microscope if in the public schools. A perfectly good teacher could be on his or her ass because they taught at a “failing” school. A shitty teacher can be held up by GOOD teachers in another institution."
True. This could happen. But a good teacher will easily find a new job elsewhere.
“Competition = Better is not always correct. Things got better in some ways and worse in others when we deregulated airlines and telephone lines… To assume that all we need to do is allow some competition that everything would be nifty is naive.”
I agree. But the current system is failing many children. Suggest another alternative and perhaps it will exceed the voucher initiative in it’s merits. I have yet to see any alternatives presented that will fix the failing schools.
“In addition, the public school systems are already competing against private schools for teachers. In spite of this, public school teachers have not been magically getting “better” because they hoped to teach in a private institution, have they? Hell, youc an’t even prove to me that private school teachers are “better” right now en masse! I mean, I wouldn’t want to learn science in a Southern Baptist school…”
No, I can’t. No, I don’t have to. That really isn’t the point or objective. see… you wouldn’t want to learn science in a Southern Baptist School. Neither will other parents want their children to do that. This is why it is about alternatives. They can leave their children where they are… no different from what is happening now. They can send their kids to a private school of their choice that accepts the vouchers. Or they can (limited upon the availability of slots) commute their children to another public school. Why do you assume that the parents would be lining up for the Southern Baptist School. Oh, and by the way, since the standardized tests now have to be taken at the private schools, they may have to alter their curriculum to meet those tests.
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Bullshit. Read what you yourself wrote. You are saying that teachers MUST BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE! One is held accountable for errors, generally. And one is punished for these things."
I said that? It’s true, I just don’t remember saying it. But teachers really aren’t held accountable by this program, it is the school that is held accountable by the program. Teachers are thereby held accountable by the schools.
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- There is debate the money would be that big a help for a poor family."
$3,000 a year is enough to school a child for 8 months. Day cares have a much higher teacher to child ratio and do it for less.
“2) You yourself said that some schools would STILL be off-limits to some kids.”
Absolutely, as they are now. This is nothing new. It is an opportunity out of a school that fails to teach it’s children, not a free ticket to the private school of your choice on the taxpayer’s dime.
“3) Who is going to make the private schools take kids they might not want?”
Nobody… $3K per year is the incentive and the opportunity to do a good and moral thing for children.
“4) If parents are opting to bus their kids to “the good public school in the suburbs,” what happens when this school has twice as many pupils as it was designed to have?”
There have to be limits obviously, first come first serve. If demand stays strong, they can expand the school or that school can always take over the failing school. (BTW, that would seem a viable alternative, an interschool teaching/administrative initiative, not sure if/who is doing that and whether it has worked in the past)
“5) If we limit the numbers to avoid the above, again, how do we do this fairly?”
First come first serve, it can be no other way.
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Ah, so what you’re saying is we help the poor so much so as to actually have their “rights’ infringe on the rights of others such as the middle class?”
I don’t see how this program infringes on anybody’s ‘rights’. Please explain. Are you saying you don’t want some inner-city minority going to school with your middle-class suburbian white offspring? That is the only thing I can infer from that statement. That is racism and is illegal in the school system.
“I guess making the schools better in poor areas is too complicated a way to go about doing this, huh?”
Please enlighten me as to how you would succeed where people with years of education experience and practice have failed? There are some private institutions in the inner-cities that are succeeding. There are some schools making big turnarounds and leaping forward in their educational successes. But there continue to be bad schools.
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Then fix those schools."
How?
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You do realize, I hope, how stupid that sounds rolling off the tongue?"
Not at all. That is what you are suggesting they should do. Stay in the school that is failing them. You are arguing against giving them any other alternative but to continue to attend a school that continues to fail them with a poor education. That will remain an alternative.
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This makes it even easier! Since we are NOT in the equivalent of The Great Depression - more like we have a few cities with high unemployment - we help those areas by MAKING THOSE SCHOOLS BETTER!"
How?
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I see several scenerios where teachers are being punished:
- The “good” teacher at a “failing” school that closes thanks to the exodus of students."
Will subsequently get a job at a non-failing school.
“2) The “good” teacher at the school they all go to, sho suddenly has several more classes, all of which are larger, to handle the extra influx of students.”
Which is where the good teacher at the failing school would soon be employed.
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And you know this will happen… How, exactly?"
And you know this won’t happen? If it doesn’t then you get what you want. There is no other alternative than the school that fails it’s students. So there is no outflow of students and everyone stays in the public day care until they are eighteen so they can become drug pushers or janitors, anything that doesn’t require them to read.
“And what evidence do you have that these schools that suddenly sprout up will be all that better than the public ones?”
None. The parents who would be bothered with the voucher program will also be bothered with looking into the school that they transfer their children into. The GW plan requires a private school to be self-sufficient and passing for a year before participating in the voucher program.
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I think you are deluding yourself here."
How so? Because I am not willing to give up on children condemned by their current school to a life of low wages and mediocrity?
“Either you are making an even playing field, or you are not. Youc an’t say, “well, we’ll make you even with these people, but not those,” or at least you shouldn’t.”
Why not? That is communism. It hasn’t worked anywhere.
"Hey - We can have a voucher program! When the mid-level private schools start to fail (why wouldn’t at least some of them?) we can give even MORE vouchers to get the kids into thre BEST schools!
Can you see how silly this is? I guess not…"
Absolutely, I see that you see how silly it is too. See?
I just don’t see how anyone can or should turn their back on the ‘life goes on’ approach while thousands of children are graduating through social promotion. The voucher program seems to me a very viable option. I see your arguments and agree that on some points there is a danger, but not on enough points to disuade me that something needs to be done and that the voucher program can work.
Pigs in Space…
“I asked for DEFINITE, CONCRETE answers, not the same old
“competition will force them to get better” line. Should they get rid of half the administators? Should they fix their facilities? Should the teachers use their own money to buy supplies and work after hours with no pay? No wait, they already do that. Please tell us where you got the figure you quoted. You do have a good, unbiased source for that, don’t you? And a lot of the money in administration goes toward complying with state-mandated policies, dealing with difficult parents, etc., things they have no control over that aren’t going to go away.”
If I knew, I would jump up and write a plan for improvement and we wouldn’t need a voucher system because all schools could succeed off the same blueprint. You tell me as an opponent of the voucher system? How do we correct a school that has continuously, generation after generation, failed to educate the majority of their students to a minimal standard of education? If you have another alternative, please present it.
I don’t know which figure you are referring to… I don’t believe I use any numbers intentionally without referencing the source. If you are referring to about half the money making it to the classroom, well it may be rhetoric, but it has been a long argued position against all the red tape and bureacracy of the public education system. Since the opposition (the public education bureaucracy) has never stepped up to the plate with the numbers that they have as to how much money gets into the classrooms, I have to assume that they do not disagree, but make excuses as to why it is that way. “complying with state-mandated policies, dealing with difficult parents, etc.”
“DO NOT suggest money should be taken out of educator’s salaries. My mother is a Superintendent with >25 years in ed. (~10 as a Superintendent) and 2 master’s and a doctorate from Harvard. I’m an aerospace engineer with four years of experience and a bachelor’s, and I make about what she did 5 years ago. My first year out of college I made more than what the average teacher makes - not a first year teacher, and approximately what my Dad made with 20 years of experience and a doctorate (there were a few years of inflation between that, but not that much).”
I don’t believe I said anything about reducing anyone’s salary, more like reducing some jobs. Obviously, I would think to you, your mother is not in this for the money. Not many people teach to get rich. Now as an aerospace engineer with four years of experience… correct me if I am wrong, mid 70s? six digits? If your mother with 2 master’s and a doctorate from Harvard wanted to make money with all that intelligence she wouldn’t have gone into teaching.
And she is making a hell of alot of money isn’t she? smile She also went to Harvard, which implies your family comes from money, because who else can afford Harvard? Correct me if I am wrong, but I doubt she ever stepped foot in an inner-city school. If she did, she might figure out how to fix them, but she probably never will so the school is stuck in failure.
“There are problems in schools, and they need to be fixed, but vouchers aren’t the way.”
Enlighten us, what is ‘the way’ that noone else has tried?
DITWD…
“JAG: Only students from “failing schools” get the money- but do the private schools take the same test? Not here in CA, they are, by law, exempt from all such testing. So, a kid could go from a “failing public school” to an worse failing private school. How will that help?”
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The GW plan requires participants of the voucher program to conduct the same testing.
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The parents who wish to exercise the vouchers should check into the school before they transfer their student there.
I am unsure how you feel you have this affect on public schools, maybe in your local school, but assuredly not on a national or even statewide basis unless you are on the Board of Education.
“I pay MY taxes so that others kids can go to school as an investment in my Nations future- and 'creation science” is NOT part of what I what them taught. Nor is religious intolerance- again a popular item."
You pay your taxes because if you don’t you will be thrown in jail or have your property taken away. Don’t give yourself quite so much credit.
The GW program requires testing by participating private chools and it requires that they eliminate religious schooling requirements from their curriculum. Look it up from Jeb’s current program, after which it is modeled. You seem to have alot of pent up religious intolerance DITWD.
“Vouchers are like decieding that every one should donate to
Churchs- and taking YOUR money to support MY Church. I don’t
think so!”
That is a terrible comparison and wrong on so many levels…
A. The voucher can go to a non-demoninational private school or a public school. It is up to the individual parents to select the appropriate educational opportunity for their child.
B. Donation? If you see the cost of education as a donation I can see your opposition to the voucher program because it assumes that people deserve an education in return for the tax dollars paid for educations.
C. There is no forced hand to send any student or money into any institution. There is no forced hand to make any private insitution participate, but if they do they are subject to testing and religious indifference.
