17 Nov 10
Originally posted by no1marauderHow is it a "handout for the middle and upper class" when the "middle and upper class" will be treated EXACTLY as the "lower" class with regard to the vouchers?
Another handout for the middle and upper class.
Outside of the box, I'd end compulsory education laws. And repeal the monstrous No Child Left Behind boondoggle.
17 Nov 10
Originally posted by no1marauderThe DOE could administer the accreditation process (as they do already in any case) to make sure schools teach appropriate curricula. Only accredited schools would be eligible for voucher money. That's exactly the system that currently exists for post-high school education, which few complain about (other than Russ Feingold and a few other grumpy old windbags). The only difference would be that everyone would be eligible for an equal voucher per child. You want to even decrease the subsidy a bit based on high income? We can talk. But in the mean time, you can make a mint selling off the public schools, keep costs down by limiting the voucher amount unlike out of control public school budgets and get the free market to innovate and improve education for its own bottom line rather than continuing in the morass of red tape and mindless bureaucracy that is the public education system.
But exclusive reliance on private schools, many of whom don't even want to teach basic science facts like evolution, would be far worse.
17 Nov 10
3 edits
Originally posted by SleepyguyI am. Well, okay, not necessarily exclusive.
Who but you is talking about exclusive reliance on private schools?
I would convert to an entirely voucher based system.
Public schools can still exist as do public universities, but they would have to compete with private schools for students' voucher dollars.
Wanna bet who wins?
17 Nov 10
Originally posted by no1marauderNope, according to my post, which is right there for you to read, I said dismantle and transform a "conglomeration of large, centrally controlled institutions/ organizations / unions" etc. that are leading to the results we seem to agree are poor. That's an argument for fixing a broken system, not relying solely on private schools.
You're going to "dismantle" public schools according to your post.
17 Nov 10
1 edit
Originally posted by sh76Because it's the middle and upper class who are presently sending their kids to private schools and this would just be another handout to people who are quite able to afford something already. In effect the public would be paying people who don't need it to buy something they would anyway.
How is it a "handout for the middle and upper class" when the "middle and upper class" will be treated EXACTLY as the "lower" class with regard to the vouchers?
17 Nov 10
1 edit
Originally posted by sh76Yeah, the private sector has been shown to be a model of efficiency these last few years, hasn't it?
The DOE could administer the accreditation process (as they do already in any case) to make sure schools teach appropriate curricula. Only accredited schools would be eligible for voucher money. That's exactly the system that currently exists for post-high school education, which few complain about (other than Russ Feingold and a few other grumpy old windbags). ...[text shortened]... tinuing in the morass of red tape and mindless bureaucracy that is the public education system.
Public sector funding and regulation of education so that private companies can make oodles of cash is a scam.
17 Nov 10
Originally posted by SleepyguyOh, you meant the version of the word "dismantle" that doesn't mean to take something apart.
Nope, according to my post, which is right there for you to read, I said dismantle and transform a "conglomeration of large, centrally controlled institutions/ organizations / unions" etc. that are leading to the results we seem to agree are poor. That's an argument for fixing a broken system, not relying solely on private schools.
Yup, the school system sure hasn't been doing its job at least in your neck of the words.
17 Nov 10
Originally posted by no1marauder
Oh, you meant the version of the word "dismantle" that doesn't mean to take something apart.
Nope. I really do know what it means. I meant to take it apart and transform it into something that works. That's still not an argument for a sole reliance on private schools no matter how you try spin it.
Yup, the school system sure hasn't been doing its job at least in your neck of the words.
Now that's just funny right there. LOL.
17 Nov 10
1 edit
Originally posted by SleepyguyI'll leave the typo if that makes someone who doesn't know what the word "dismantle" means happy.
Originally posted by no1marauder
[b]Oh, you meant the version of the word "dismantle" that doesn't mean to take something apart.
Nope. I really do know what it means. I meant to take it apart and transform it into something that works. That's still not an argument for a sole reliance on private schools no matter how you try spin it.
[b at least in your neck of the words.[/b]
Now that's just funny right there. LOL.[/b]
17 Nov 10
Originally posted by no1marauderWow you are really being ridiculous tonight. Very boring. I'll concede if you provide a link that proves your initial assertion about the parrot.
I'll leave the typo if that makes someone who doesn't know what the word "dismantle" means if it makes you happy.
ANYway . . .
New Orleans might make an interesting case study on how to improve schools. Their school system was essentially re-booted by Katrina, freeing them to try something new.
An excerpt from an article I just Googled up . . .
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/26/new-orleans-s-charter-school-revolution.html
Early in August, just before school started, Ben Marcovitz, the principal of New Orleans Charter Science and Math Academy, was not sure which of his students were going to show up.
“They’re encouraged to enroll in as many schools as they want,” he explains. A student might show up on the first day, disappear for the following two—presumably to check out other schools—and reappear on the fourth, satisfied with his choice.
In most public school systems in America, students attend the school for which their neighborhood is zoned. But in the five years since Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans has created a school system unlike any other in the country. “We used Katrina as an opportunity to build—not rebuild, but build—a new school system,” says Paul Vallas, the outgoing superintendent of the Recovery School District, which, authorized by the state to turn around failing schools, took over most of New Orleans’s schools after the storm. Last year more than 60 percent of the city’s students attended charter schools; this year nine additional schools switched to a charter model, so that number will be higher. Vallas calls this new paradigm an “overwhelmingly publicly funded, predominantly privately run school system.”
NOTE: i.e. dismantled, transformed, and still public - Sleepyguy
In 2005 Orleans Parish was the second-worst-performing school district in the state, and in some schools 30 percent of seniors dropped out over the course of the year. In 2003 one high-school valedictorian failed the math portion of the state exit exam five times and could not graduate. Things were different at the charters: at New Orleans Charter Middle School, which in 1998 became the city’s first charter school, parents would put their head in their hands and cry if their child’s name didn’t come up in the admissions lottery.
In New Orleans today, students and educators have unprecedented leeway to mold educational experiences. Students can apply to and, if accepted, choose to attend any of the 's 46 charter schools or 23 “traditional” schools. The vast majority of schools have open-enrollment policies that allow any student to attend, regardless of past academic success. (Schools with more applicants than spots hold lotteries.) The prevalence of charters means that in most of the city’s schools, educators can choose how their schools are run. Even in traditional schools, principals have unusual autonomy over the hiring—and firing—of teachers, since the city’s teachers’ union lost its collective-bargaining rights.
So far, the experiment appears to be working. Before Katrina, two thirds of students were attending schools deemed failing by state standards, notes Leslie Jacobs, a New Orleans education-reform advocate; in the 2010–11 academic year, she says, it will be less than one third. “The fact that we haven’t gotten everything right yet shouldn’t take away from the fact that we’re getting a whole lot more right,” she says. New Orleans schools are still performing below the state average on achievement tests, but according to Jacobs’s analysis of state data, the gap between New Orleans and the rest of the state has basically been cut in half.
17 Nov 10
Originally posted by no1marauderFine. Decrease the subsidy on a sliding scale for high incomes. Whatever. That's not the point.
Because it's the middle and upper class who are presently sending their kids to private schools and this would just be another handout to people who are quite able to afford something already. In effect the public would be paying people who don't need it to buy something they would anyway.
The point is that public administration of schools, especially inner city schools has, by and large, been a disaster. Let private companies compete for voucher dollars and they'll be more efficient and earn better results than the bureaucrats who have their cushy jobs and don't need or care to do anything but toe the line of the mindless bureaucratic rules that were instituted by their higher-ups.
Do inner city students deserve to be given jungles like these as their schools?
http://www.city-journal.org/html/13_1_how_i_joined.html
Really?
How long would that zoo... I mean school, last if it was subject to private competition?
17 Nov 10
Originally posted by Sam The ShamIf I am not mistaken, USA has a very high number of analphabetics, rather strange for anotherwise high developed country. Cuba has a reputation to have a quite low nomer of analphabetcs. Maybe USA should learn from the Cuban educational system?
America spends a fortune trying to beat a dead horse and teach the unteachable.
After the age of 15 they should drop those that won't learn or can't learn, instead of keeping them in High School until they are 22 years old, foolishy trying to teach them to read , write, and do arithmetic at the level we would expect from a small child.
No other country does it why does America?
If you don't know how to read and write you have a lot of trouble getting a job. But it is always easy to get money in criminal ways. Is this the explanation why USA has so many of its inhabitants in jail?
I say good educational system is alpha and omega for the future.
17 Nov 10
Originally posted by sh76Itd be the same or , perhaps worse under private compitition, dude. Conservatives should not be weenies about calling a spade a spade. The market will give us the full range of choice,,, scandal, failure and squalor at one end, and the best learning in the world at the other. Poor people will get crap education, and the more money parents got, the better there kids schools. Winners and loosers is the order of things And we gotta trust the market to deliver it fair. Private compotition aint gonna help people who got no money. Being squeemash about this does the conservative cause no favors. Hell yeah,, private competition dude. But lets not pretend the natural order of things [ that leftist cretins always wanna tinker) aint gonna be the outcome.
How long would that zoo... I mean school, last if it was subject to private competition?