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Ever heard of something called supply and demand? I'm going to guess no, given your political orientation. No one's claiming all charters are/will be good, but it's idiotic to claim that more money available for parents to send their kids to these schools wouldn't lead to a larger supply of such schools.
Lewk tried that, but didn't fare very well. :p The suggestion is that privatization of things like education, preventative health services, sick care, elder care...and even infrastructure...would be better alternatives to anything "the state" currently funds or subsidizes through taxes. That argument assumes that government, by its own design, is wasteful and bloated, and any service that moves through its channels is also wasteful, and bloated.Quote:
Originally Posted by Khendraja'aro
I have yet to see any modern explanation that privatization of those public services would automatically reduce cost, waste, fraud, bureaucratic bloat....and result in better outcomes. It didn't work that way when poor or illiterate people, borrowers, students or sick people were at the mercy of private "benefactors", charities or philanthropic groups. Indeed, without state intervention we had debtor's prisons, leper colonies, state orphanages, exploitation of child labor, and a pauper underclass.
Contrary to their hopeful belief, no combination of church, religious groups, charities...or private enterprise....has the capacity to fund the expensive R & D breakthroughs, care for 80 million ageing seniors who need hip replacements or OHS, provide first class education to every one of our youth, while building the highways, airports, and energy grids for the 21st century and beyond. It's a romantic pipe dream.
isn't that one of the complaints against public schools? :bulb: that we have such a high education budget, but "no" results. and yet you expect this to be different with vouchers? without providing any evidence?Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Maybe it's his political affiliation. :haha:
Charter schools don't mean "more money in parents' pockets". Our charter schools also use public tax dollars, which are tied to property taxes. Even renters pay into the school tax base, as passed to them by their landlords. The only way a PA parent would have "more money in their pocket" would mean NO property taxation that's specifically assigned to public school funding....but then we'd have NO public schools, either.
70% of our public school funding comes from local property taxes.
edit to add: It's been brutal here lately, with some charter schools having to close---because they didn't budget their money well and ended up with huge deficits, losing their charter status. Plus, after a five year experiment, it turned out that charter school students weren't any 'better educated' or proficient than their PS peers. Problem is that all those kids being "diverted" to charter schools resulted in several neighborhood schools being closed. Efficiency, right? Now thousands of students have NO school to attend next year, and parents and teachers are freaking out. Supply and Demand, huh.
Indeed, there are a few things that are unique to Obama. But even some of the older programs are sort of presented out of context. Programs like Head Start is meant for low-income parents. It's not a broad-based entitlement, and it's not supposed to be. The subtext behind a lot of the cartoon panels is that these programs are things Obama is making available for everyone. At best, that's simply false. At worst, that's simply Obama's promise.Quote:
Originally Posted by wiggin
It's amazing when people deny the compounding effects of debt interest.Quote:
Originally Posted by GGT
The problem is government promising too much. Beyond the deleterious effect of government promising so many things to so many people, we all know government's ability to deliver is inverse to the scale of the promises being made.Quote:
Originally Posted by Khendraja'aro
You always bring up this nonsense you-want-to-let-sick-people-die-in-the-streets example. And I've said, time and time again, I have particular ideas for reforming the private health insurance market that also involve a government safety net for the very poor.
But it's fascinating that your government is effectively paying for the failed big-state promises of Greece, while you see no problem with those promises in the first place. Social-democracy is facing a massive crisis, yet social democrats like you completely refuse to acknowledge the problem. Instead, you flatchulate about corner cases involving hospital visits.
The difference between you and I is I'm willing to acknowledge the failures of my country's health system. You defend a doomed status quo with the ferocity of a true rent-seeker.
Wait, wasn't Greece just, er, ridiculous? I mean even for being a pink country :o
There are various shades of ridiculous. From where I sit, Greece is just the most egregious example of a fiscally unworkable social contract. After all, they aren't the only ones getting their credit ratings downgraded.
It's also a fallacy to assume that more money leads to better schools. Again a singular causal relation. Improving schools usually doesn't mean just turning one screw.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Unless they' really starved for money...
This is actually a very interesting comment. If you ask the majority of American parents with children in public schools how they feel about their kid's school, they say it is doing a good job. Ask the same people their opinion of the overall American public school system and they say it is failing. How can that be? Simple - Staggering failures in some school systems around the country are being intentionally portrayed as the failure of the entire system and all too many people believe the propaganda.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Interestingly, recent studies in Michigan comparing student performance in charter schools vs publics schools show no improvement in the charters over the local public schools. Ouch. If your intent is to dismantle the public school system and replace it with a for profit private system, then this shouldn't matter at all. But if you are under the false impression that the US public school system is a gigantic failure and charter schools will fix it, well, you might want to take a closer look at things like facts and the actual intentions of conservative policy makers.
It's the same model as our private health care system uses. The US spends the most and gets solid mediocre results. :up:Quote:
Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer
Well if there are long queues for the better schools then more money would mean more schools and surely SOME of those schools would be as good as the schools people are queuing for. It's not as if there'd be some sort of gold rush scenario where you'd get a bunch of profiteers of middling ability scrambling to soak up the sudden influx of money before it runs out, or some sort of educational apocalypse where the whole system would become destabilised and remain destabilised due to an insufficiently system-oriented approach. I think.Quote:
Originally Posted by Khendraja'aro
And it'd be awesome because more schools would mean a greater demand for teachers and higher salaries for teachers. And because of S&D there would be more and better teachers. The teachers' union would become more powerful than ever!
I'm not sure how this would work with their whole system of property taxes and lotteries etc, or how they'd be able to work out an appropriate voucher for a student, or how this charter school utopia would compensate for the often-touted advantages offered by efficiencies of scale. I dunno, maybe more charter schools would lead to less overhead, and maybe there wouldn't be any threshold effects.
I've read articles making similar claims about the US public school system's performance not being nearly as bad overall as it's being portrayed in eg. the media. I dunno, maybe it's true, or maybe the whole world sucks. I kinda just imagined that the problems were not due to where the funding came from or where it went but rather grounded in social things like poor home and school environments, gangs of disenchanted and unmotivated youths, parents who lack the resources (financial, educational, intellectual, emotional, personal) to help kids and teachers with the challenges of education. Stuff like that.Quote:
Originally Posted by EyeKhan
Still it's always a little curious to see these results where there are no major differences in performance between charter schools and public schools. I dunno, I woulda expected to see at least a positive effect in favour of charter schools purely due to selection. Maybe the existence of charter schools lead to better performance compared to the time before charter schools (eg. by offloading the public schools) even though charter schools themselves are no better at educating kids than are their contemporary public schools.
Or parents are just deluded (the same way everyone likes their congressman but hates Congress). Every single test comparing American students with students from other countries shows Americans to be worse than students of virtually every comparable country (we barely do better than Mexico and some eastern European states).Quote:
Originally Posted by EyeKhan
This. This isn't something you're imagining. This is the reason, and worst of all its nearly completely ignored by those that attack the public school system.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
This is the 4th or 5th time its been mentioned in this thread, and no one has issued a rebuttal.
I don't think there was any implication that Obama would be further expanding these programs. So, he wanted to claim that all of the programs he has laid ownership to affected the life of a hypothetical citizen? That's just normal campaign hyperbole, not some projection of a statist future. Were Americans supposed to believe that Joe the Plumber's situation was in any way representative of your average John Q. Public? No, it was just a convenient Republican campaign tool. Ditto with the fictional Julia.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
Every country can produce similar excuses. The reality is that most manage to find ways to deal with it; we don't.
Will these same deluded parents choose to have their kids change schools?Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
I think Chaloobi overstates his point. Or maybe his experience is from suburban schools in rich neighborhoods, where public schools tend to do reasonably well. For instance, I help teach at the top public university in Illinois, and yet I get far more students from the suburbs of Chicago than from Chicago itself. There are also very few students from rural and semi-rural areas, though those areas surround the university and make up a decent portion of the state's population.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
You're comparing the wrong numbers. suburb chicago enrollment vs chicago enrollment. shouldn't it be suburb chicago enrollment vs nonenrollment? top public university in illinois doesn't say much if it doesn't rank well against national schools (where chicago enrollment would flee to).
Its been a few years, but college enrollment had very little to do with my parents. It was pushed heavily by the schools, nonstop recruiters, and people trying to push loans. There is only a small group of students, those under 18 at time of graduation/enrollment, that would need parental signatures in order to enroll, move, or apply for loans.
citation. Love to see how the inmate populations and social expectations and beliefs roll into such figures.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
That makes no sense. The comparison is Chicago versus the suburbs because their population numbers are pretty similar. Illinois has a few better private colleges (U of Chicago and Northwestern), but they cost far more money. It's more likely that people who went to private schools would end up there (as well as people from other states, since there is no cost differential for in-state and out-of-state students at private colleges).Quote:
Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer
And if you're so deluded that most public schools in the US are comparable to their European and Canadian counterparts, why don't you have a look at the quality and quantity of information that's taught in those other countries. There's a reason why Americans end up spending their first two years of college learning what's taught in high school in comparable countries.
similiar population numbers or not (hell, flat population numbers have very little to do with this), you're ignoring the why and how for your original claim. In doing that, you're able to ignore the claim that Chaloobi, Aimless, and myself have made.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
there is a deeper issue before you attack the quality and quantity of information that public schools are able to present. Thats what we've been attempting to discuss.Quote:
And if you're so deluded that most public schools in the US are comparable to their European and Canadian counterparts, why don't you have a look at the quality and quantity of information that's taught in those other countries. There's a reason why Americans end up spending their first two years of college learning what's taught in high school in comparable countries.
Once again, you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. The comparison is between two groups of populations, not between people who do and do not go to college.
And there are no deeper issues in other countries, right? They're all bastions of harmony, respect for the pursuit of knowledge, and parental caring.
You're comparison is invalid. Thats what you don't understand. Saying that one expectingly lower class of students attends a higher caliber of schooling than their more well to do peers means nothing. You're leaving out the more important reason of why that "higher caliber" school is able to enroll so many lowly students. It shows the true level of where that school falls in the pecking order, "top public university" or not. The lower class isn't edging out the upper class, the upper class simply isn't there to compete with.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
EDIT:
Just noticed you edited the wording of your original response to Aimless. It now seems to agree with the previous claims that it originally appeared to argue against. That communities where you expect to see more time to focus on educational involvement (outside of school) see increased college attendence. Not sure how that answers Aimless' question now.:think: Unless I misinterrupted his remark to include the effort and level of involvement required to switch schools.
Yes, all countries have exactly the same issues, in exactly the same amounts, for exactly the same reasons :rolleyes:Quote:
And there are no deeper issues in other countries, right? They're all bastions of harmony, respect for the pursuit of knowledge, and parental caring.
Oh wait, thats not right...
What's amazing is how we went from surplus to deficit, and kept spending while cutting taxes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
The problem is that Americans have grown allergic to all taxes, without acknowledging the necessity and benefit of some taxes. Legislators are political wimps that promise-and-spend instead of promise-and-tax. Then we end up in unfunded Wars while cutting revenue, borrowing or moving money around, to appease the Norquist promise-keepers.Quote:
The problem is government promising too much. Beyond the deleterious effect of government promising so many things to so many people, we all know government's ability to deliver is inverse to the scale of the promises being made.
It's not surprising that tax-payers have such a disconnected sense of taxation and public services, when DC political culture has the same disconnect. "Government" has a purpose and can do good things for the public and nation, but our political culture is allergic to "governance". Promising lower taxes always sounds good during campaigns, until people start to see that roads and bridges crumble, airports turn into shitholes, outdated energy grids brown-out....plus fewer police/fire fighters, and public schools cutting teachers or closing.
Same results in my area of PA, too.Quote:
Originally Posted by EyeKhan
I think that's an old throw-back to "America is Exceptional" attitudes, knowing we used to be #1 in so many things. Parents and still comparing us to ourselves, not us to other countries. It's illuminating when our foreign-exchange students, or students whose folks are here on work visas....are placed in higher grades than their home country. Their math and language skills are far ahead (by age), and they have a better foundation in world history than our students. And we have a "highly rated" school district. :(Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
http://thelifeofjulia.com/
:haha:
Class and social problems still don't excuse the education system for being complete shit though. Many of the social problems could be fixed with better teachers who actually teach and gave real support rather than handing out worksheets or having their kids memorize vocabulary for a test. I'm lucky to attend one of the top schools in the state, but I realize I haven't truly learned anything until I took my Advanced Placement classes (and I had a few exceptional teachers as well in other classes that actually taught). School should be about learning the material (rather than memorizing it) and invoking critical thinking skills. This is what will allow kids to aspire to help their community and pursue more education and a better standard of living. Being forced to go to a hell hole every day isn't going to do anything for them. Even in upper middle class suburban areas, kids suffer from boredom and lack of interest in education if they take lower classes simply because teachers are a joke. In many countries, teachers are as highly regarded as university professors but here in the U.S., they're not any more important than a generic office employee which allows for the hiring of really lazy teachers who rarely even know what they're even teaching.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer
Oh I fully support removing NCLB which has pushed us into this memorization mindset, and that teachers need more respect. But I'm completely against the idea that teachers need to become the main parent or point of community support for students. Teachers should be able to rely on the community to support them, not the other way around. Huge difference between a teacher who cares, and who is the only one that cares; thats one of the issues that leads to burn out.
In inner city schools or gang-affiliated areas though, outside support can be really difficult to come by. School shouldn't just be able learning about academics, it should also teach life skills and provide heavy guidance which it completely fails to do. I've had some teachers that have been completely life changing because they really know what they're talking about. It's role models like that, that should appeal to children. Without this, stealing and violence may be the next best thing; or in the suburban areas, McDonalds.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer
Can you think of many other professions where the best performers often leave, while the worst performers continue working until retirement?Quote:
Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer