The Education Thread

Why does financing an educated populace require funding of only public grammar & secondary schools, without vouchers or tutition grants for private schools? At the university level, there is much government funding of private education.

Why can't taxes pay for private grammar & secondary schools?

 

Find where I said that, please. All I said was that people are mostly willing to contribute to the education of others. Nowhere did I address the mechanism by which that might occur.

At the university level there needs to be much more funding of all kinds.

 

One little note about that Belgian school in that piece. I fear that making a valid comparison between that school and the average American public school might be a bit difficult. The way our system works, kids at age twelve have to choose between three systems. ASO, TSO and BSO. ASO is the secondary education system that primarily focuses on theoretical knowledge, and is viewed as the ideal preperation for university. TSO is more technical in nature, but still fairly focused on theory. In that system, kids will already be taught some skills that would allow them to find a job after finishing HS, but a significant number of them still go on to uni, albeit most of them take on more technically oriented curriculums. BSO is the most practical oriented of the three. Basically, kids are taught a specific task or job over the course of six years, and very few of them go on to university.

Going by the the quality of their English, those kids either attend a lower- to middle-tier ASO public school or an upper tier TSO school. Non-Catholic as well, because those deprecating remarks some of those kids made about American students wouldn't have flown at my HS.

But my point is that around 40% of HS students in Belgium aren't quite at that level when it comes to their English and foreign language skills in general. In that, the comparison is somewhat misleading.

 

Two points:
1. All of those proposals above are still policies, they're just policiies favoring local control. That's my minor technicality.

2. More substantively, I would mostly agree with your assessments except for the one major exception with which I am familiar, which probably leads to more exceptions of which I am less familiar.

I am firmly convinced that local schools would not educate individuals with disabilities were it not for a federal mandate that they do so. I am also firmly convinced that schools will not adequately educate individuals with disabilities without a strong external enforcement policy.

This population of students is the exception, not the rule, and I don't believe local policies would be sufficient to ensure they are not forgotten because it would be too easy for a school to fulfill most of its mission by educating the 96% (my made up number) of students who do not have special needs.

Now, I don't know enough about ESOL, gifted, and other programs that service unique populations so I can't say whether schools would voluntarily educate those groups if not mandated to do so. But, I would say it's a consideration in evaluating federal policy. Particularly, when you think about this issue in terms of rural schools, not inner-city schools.

I look at this as a civil rights issue moreso than pure education and I think we would agree that we need federal mandates for civil rights to protect against the long history of not protecting minority populations. With this caveat, the remainder I give an A+

 

I don't know how I missed this thread, and my only association with the education system is that my wife is a kindergarten teacher in the Northern VA Suburbs.

And I can tell you, right now, which kids she has that are not going to college.

By age 5, some of the children have been sent to special math and literacy preschools. Some of the kids have never seen a book. Some of the kids already hit and bite and scream when asked to listen to the book the teacher is reading. Some of the kids already have their parents doing their writing journals at night. Some of the kids have different last names from month to month depending on how mad mom is at the not-living-at-home father. Some of the kids' parent-teacher meetings have to be rescheduled around the one arabic or korean translator available to the entire school system. Some of the kids cry at school remembering the scene in SAW where the guy cuts off his arm. Some of them sleep in school because they stay up until 11pm playing playstation 3. And yes, some of the kids are just plain average and making decent progress with parents that are interested.

And the school is brand new, elementary school, with 8 kindergarten classes and 2000 students from grades K-6. With one principal.

The problem with the school systems is that society, as a whole, has decided that the school system is responsible for raising and training children, and that parents and family are absolved of the problems. Vouchers ain't going to fix that. What will fix that is a return to the two-parent, married/partnered forever and looking out for the kids is the primary concern family. Which isn't going to happen.

 

In a sort of related education topic. It seems that parents have to fork over $ for every extracuricular activity nowadays. Way back when, field trips and all clubs were paid for. In NJ we pay through the nose to have good schools yet they still ask for handouts when the PTA isn't raising money to cover extracuriculars. Drives me nuts.

 

So what you're looking for is 1,000 very differing opinions on how an individual school should function? Sounds reasonable.

 

1. I didn't say that I don't favor policy changes! I said that I don't favor policy which seeks to control what goes on inside of schools, by which I meant curriculum, staffing, discipline, scheduling, etc.

2. Well said and I agree completely.

 

This isn't really true. Or at best, it's misleading in a very Stossel-esque way.

Of course most schools want parent involvement! They would love nothing more. That's why there are PTA's and parent coordinators and other community outreach. It's pure nonsense to say otherwise. It might be fair to say that many public schools don't do enough to encourage parent involvement. On the other hand I've read that schools which have focused on mobilizing parents have not have great success given the effort and resources invested.

The point, though, is that nobody is blaming parents for failing to get involved in choosing the curriculum or establishing the dress code or hiring teachers. Those aren't the parents' responsibility. The parent has other obligations. The frustration you're hearing is a reaction to parents who fail to fulfill their basic obligations to their children. There is no contradiction.

Parents are expected to have the child at school on time every day. They should make sure the child has slept enough and eaten breakfast. They should help the child with homework. They should discipline the child when she misbehaves at school. They should talk to the child about what goes on at school, and provide reinforcement, enrichment, and encouragement. If they disagree with something the child has been taught, they should discuss it with the child and explain the family's view on the subject. They can easily fulfill all of these responsibilities without having to direct how the school teaches the child.

 

First of all, the "education system" never discouraged parental involvement in the school or in the home. Secondly, you're not apparently understanding what I mean by "parental involvement." People didn't stop bringing their children to school on time because the school discouraged them from doing so. Schools didn't tell parents not to read books to their toddlers. These deficits in parental involvement are directly associated with low income levels and low education levels.

 

So many things I want to say here.... I'm afraid I'll be a rambling, incoherent mess, but I'll do my best.

1. There was a really interesting article in Harper's Magazine a couple of months ago discussing "failing" education. It's more of a sociological look at all the things we expect schools to do as Americans. We don't expect schools to just educate. We expect schools to socialize. We expect schools to build character. We expect schools to discipline. We expect schools to feed the kids. We expect schools to level the playing field.

We tend to look at a child and think school should effectively raise our child for us. Sure we'll feed the kid and put a roof over the kid's head and love it and all.... but education, discipline, socialization?? isn't that the schools job? That's what an american tends to think.

As a matter of fact, we look at education as solving things beyond education!! Problem with crime? Well, if only we could educate them more.... Problem with drugs? Well, if only we could educate them more.... Problem with poverty? Well, if only we could educate them more... People have been looking to education as the magic bullet for some time now.

Now, I'm not saying these are bad goals for us to have, but we need to realize that if these are our goals for education then of course academic excellence is not always going to pan out. The reality is that there ARE parents and situations that are not going to effectively raise and educate their kids so our society benefits from having a school system to pick up the slack. However, when the school doesn't magically solve everything, it's not necessarily fair or productive to start screaming failure. It's no shock that low performing states tend to be the poorest.

Specifically that we expect schools to create a level playing field where everyone has an equal oppurtunity. Personally, I think this is a fantastic goal, but what it ends up with in practice is what our belgian friend here is saying... You can't compare internationally because they have systems that encourage tracking of students at an early age. Now, if we decide as a society or as an individual that we want that, then fine, but as of right now that's not our goal.

On a side note, there are some interesting statistics in the article about what parents of different socio-economic levels desire in their school. Lower income families tend to rate their school based on academic performance while higher income families tend to rate their school based on how much their child enjoys school. I'm not entirely sure what this means but it kind of dismisses SOME of the ideas that lower income families don't care about academic achievement.

2. In regards to school vouchers... it's a good theory and I can see why people are interested in it (however I think a lot of people are fear-mongered into thinking schools need a drastic improvement). But in practice, I'm not convinced in the slightest. Hear in DC, I think something like 1/4th of the schools are charter and from everything I can tell, there isn't a significant difference between charter schools and regular public schools. In fact, I've read some studies that say the "regular" public schools do better!

Here's my hypothesis as to why this occurs:

Why do private schools and some charter schools tend to do better? Student choice, student selection, and parental involvement.

The population of a private school BY DEFINITION is comprise of students whose parents are active enough to take their kids out of public school and invest money in private scool. Those students are naturally going to have a leg up. In addition, a private school can be selective about who they pick. I remember being 5 and I got picked to go to a private school and my childhood friend didn't.

The same thing happens if we have a SMALL number of charter schools. These students have to go through a long selection progress and are therefore more likely to be motivated and supported by parents. As a result, shockingly, they are more likely to succeed.

Yet when the number of charter school increases or if charter schools HAVE to take any student because of a voucher, they lose their competitive edge. They can no longer simply pick the highly motivated and supportive students. Now they're overwhelmed with the regular population.

The reason businesses work with competition is that you can hire and fire competent employees to work in your school. You can't hire and fire competent students unless you are a selective private school or charter school.

3. So what's the solution?

That's the million dollar question. The short answer is that it isn't in dire need of fixing. People have been saying our education system is shit for decades but that hasn't lead to the collapse of the country. Simply put, if people think that education is going to be the magic bullet to solve all the countries problems (including the latest trend immigration), then they are going to be disappointed no matter what system is in place. Education simply isn't capable of doing everything an american wants it to.

Ok then, how do we at least improve it?

Now, there's the real question. Well, with any government run entity, CUT THE FAT. Working as a teacher here in D.C. I am constantly amazed at the waste of space paper pushers that occupy the main offices. These people are the embodiment of beauracry (sp?). They create paper work for teachers and admin. so they can stay entrentched in their jobs. Cut spending on education or revamp it so that money goes to the school instead of paper pushers.

An aside about school funding. Schools really don't need an abundance of cash and a lot of it comes with stupid beauracratic attachments. For instance, the school I work at occassionally gets some extra cash... 1,000 bucks here and there, but we never know when we are going to get it and then when we get it, we have to spend it or lose it. I would rather put it in the school treasury than waste it on the shit we end up buying, but I digress.

As much as it pains me to say it as a teacher, but job security needs to be lower for teachers. The unions are too strong though so I'm really not sure how you would go about this. But not just teachers, administration and county officials need to by more readily fired. There is a joke between myself and another teacher whenever we get caught not doing some paperwork... "what are they going to do, fire you?" It's funny because they would never. Now our principal happens to be a good principal and will make your life hell if you aren't educating kids, but not every school has that benefit.

4. A few closing notes:

First, I'm all for teacher incentives. If some teachers are better than others and you don't want to fire the bad teachers or bad administrators, then by all means reward the good ones monetarily. Maybe we'll keep more. Just don't base bonuses SOLELY on test scores.

Enough with this "highly qualified" bullsh#t. Studies have shown that there is no correlation between a teacher's level of degree and student achievement. It's extra stress and work that good teachers don't need. I don't need a masters to teach an 8 year old how to read.

Small classrooms = good.... BUT only if the teacher is good. I hear this all the time... smaller classes, smaller classes! My first year, I had a class of 17. This year (my 3rd), my class is 25 . About a 40 percent increase. But which class do I think got the better education? My class this year because I'm a better teacher now than I was then. Granted if my class this year was 17, I think it would be even better, but my point is that studies have shown that small class size does have a positive effect especially in low income communities, but if the teacher sucks, then hey, what's the point which goes back to the one area where I agree with stossel, that teachers should be more easily fired.

Buuuuuuuuuuut, it would be much easier to do that if you could actually KEEP A TEACHER. Most teachers quit within their first five years and do you know the single most important factor of a class's success aside from parental background? Teacher experience (to a certain degree.... it tends to level off after a certain number of years). Make teaching more attractive, less stressful, et cetera, et cetera, and you'll improve the quality of education.

Will that mean that we'll save the world? No, so people will still say the schools are failing, but there is room for improvement.

Man, I hope someone reads some of this....

 

Vouchers are flawed if you just look at the issue logically.

First, you have to ask yourself the big question: Do private schools do a better job of educating children? Most would say yes. Most would be wrong. I've encountered a ridiculously large number of private school teachers who are complete and utter idiots. To toss out an anecdotal example, my cousin Brian goes to a private school. He told me he didn't like Romeo and Juliet because he didn't understand the point of "the gay black guy." After speaking with him for a bit, it came out that his teachers version of "teaching" William Shakespeare in a 9th grade honors class was to put the 90's version of the movie in the DVD player and press the start button. No context. No explanation. Private schools are seen as better because the graduates tend to test higher, act more polite, etc. Why? Certainly not because there are some groundbreaking educational theories being used. It is because any parent willing to spend thousands of dollars to educate their child obviously values education and reinforces it at home.

This brings us to the next question. Would the smart students whose parents value education but can't afford private school tuition benefit from vouchers? Yes, yes they would.

Question number three is where it really starts to get fun. Assuming that all of the kids who can conceivably get into private school are given vouchers to do so, what/who is left? From the pupil standpoint, you will have all of the kids who don't care about education. You will have all of the special education kids. You will have all the kids who require the most funding (special education benefits, physical/speech therapists, parole/discipline related costs etc). Ready for the best part? The funding will be gone, because all of those middle of the pack kids took their slice of the pie and went to private school. (even though everyone talks about how they spent X dollars per pupil, that's not how funding is managed or dispersed)
From the teacher standpoint, you have plenty of teachers now out of work, and NOBODY will want to enter the profession knowing that they are sure to get everyone's worst nightmare of a class from hell. Why wouldn't they just go teach at the private schools? Easy, because the private schools know they don't have to pay for expertise in content. If someone can spell and loves God, many private schools would prefer that person over an atheist PhD holding Shakespearean scholar if given the choice. Not only is it in line with their beliefs, but it's a hell of a lot cheaper.

So we get to question number four. Why not just mandate that private schools accept a certain amount of special education kids, druggie kids, etc? It's a legitimate question. The government would be able to make such a mandate if the private school is taking gov't funds. This is why many private schools are on the fence about vouchers. They don't want to be told that they can't cherry pick the best of the best.

So, taking all of the questions into account, if vouchers are put into place, and mandates regarding acceptance policies are NOT passed: You will have huge private schools for the rich and upper/middle class, being taught by teachers less qualified to teach their subject. Meanwhile, the old public school system, now with a dearth of any sane individuals wanting to work there, will be the dumpster where poor and lower/middle class kids can be cast aside.

If vouchers are put into place and mandates regarding acceptance policies ARE passed: You have exactly what you have now, with two minor differences- a less qualified teaching staff (including some schools who don't bother with background checks), and money in the pockets of religious organizations.

This is why voucher policies are ridiculous. No matter how you look at it, it would be a cluster******** designed to boost the wealthy and religious interests at the expense of the students who need the most help.

Education funding needs to be streamlined, and vouchers would do nothing more that add another ocean of red tape.

 

One thing. The term "special education" encompasses an enormous variety of specific needs. Just because a child is classified as requiring special education services, does not mean that he or she has the same needs as every other similarly classified child. That's why children are given IEP's -- Individualized Education Plans. It is simply not the case that children with IEP's will be better off at a school populated entirely or mostly by other students with IEP's.

Furthermore, such a practice would be in violation of the law. Schools must provide children with instruction that is appropriate to their needs. But they must do so while allowing the child as "normal" a school experience as possible. The child must be placed in the least restrictive environment possible. That means that, whenever possible, the child should be kept in general education classes. If the child's disabilities make that impossible, the next step is an inclusion class (one with a mix of general and special ed students, taught by one regular and one special ed teacher). If that's impossible, the child can be placed in a self-contained special ed classroom. Sending the child to a specialized school is considered a last resort, when the current school simply can't provide the services needed. In that case, the child may be sent to a public school or a private school.

So the scenario you've envisioned violates the law, as well as the prevailing philosophy in special education.

 

Don't try to use me to knock Demosthenses, please. My post was about vouchers because you specifically said you wished someone would post about vouchers, NOT because I was following any thread topic.

You didn't read/comprehend parts of my post, did you? Private schools operate far below public school budgets because funding is NOT actually divvied up per student. Special needs students require TONS more funding than the typical private school student. Further, (again, as stated before) private schools have a lower budget for teachers because many private schools don't look for the same certification/skills that public school require. In some private schools, you don't even need a college degree to be a teacher. Public schools require a content and pedagogy degree, as well as passing a series of tests to show mastery over that content and pedagogy. The background tests that private schools often don't bother with are also expensive. It's easy to be cost-effective when you choose to just not bother with anything that's expensive (like quality educators, special needs students, etc).

You are still operating under the assumption that the instruction at private schools is better than that of public schools. What incentive do private school teachers have to do anything new and creative? Think of it in terms of war. In wartime, medical and technological advances are made at a far quicker rate. Why? Because they have to be. Public school teachers, aside from generally being better prepared, HAVE to keep on the cutting edge of the field because the students will drop out/fail/revolt etc if they don't. People don't seem to realize how bad the behavior has gotten in the average public school, even just over the past decade.

But it, again, ignores the fact that this ISN'T HOW SCHOOL FUNDING IS BROKEN DOWN. It is NOT done on a per-student basis. The students who get the most funding at the public school level are generally the ones who won't want to go to private school (the kids who want to take over the family farm/work on cars/etc) or the ones who don't have a prayer of being accepted to private school (most special education kids). If you remove funding from the public schools in order to give little Billy or Jenny their "slice" of the education funds based on this misconception of how school funding happens, then what happens to the kids left? You can't stop the special education services (not legal). Where does the money come from? You don't address that at all.

Aside from being fiscally impossible, it is also unlikely to succeed for Billy and Jenny. If you create a mass influx of mid-level students with marginal parental support going into the private schools, those private schools will fail. Private schools are designed not to deliver better education but to separate the top level kids from the "rest." It's easy to teach the top 5%. They practically teach themselves. Mix in the top 50%, increase class sizes, add to the behavior problems etc etc etc, and the private school system would RAPIDLY lose their golden reputation. Think of it like this: Private schools are the kids who whoop up on teams in Fifa 08 because the keep it set at the easiest difficulty setting. Adding that influx of kids would be the same as switching the setting to one of the highest difficulty levels. It would be a disaster.

The question you refer to was semi-rhetorical. I asked it to show two things:
1- that private schools would not want to accept special education kids.
2- that the public schools would be unable to financially pay for their special education services if the rest of the students left.

 

A couple of quick comments here. First off, we need to talk about what part of the system is "failing". American students perform at or above grade level until they get to secondary school. There has been a lot of discussion here that seems to miss this important (at least IMO) point.

Secondly, we cannot continue to design our schools for mediocrity. It has been said many times that we spend disproportionate amounts on "special needs". That is directly translatable into reduced resources for everyone else. Penalizing your best and brightest to bring the slowest up to average is no way to distribute scarce resources. I'm not advocating dismantlement of "special needs" programs by any means, but IMO resources spent on the top students are most likely to provide payoffs in the long term.

Thirdly, we need to stop steering students away from the sciences. There are far too many students that are told that "math is not for you" or "math is really hard" etc, by educators who should know better. I see it all the time.