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Our county has a couple of magnet programs, too. Mostly the country tried "magnet housing" to switch things up, desegregate schools that were based on income and housing. Apartments that were heavily section 8, block grants for landlords to fix up low rent row houses, or build new cluster housing for the working poor in higher rent areas, mixed-use buildings for shop owners living above the shop, that kind of thing. It not only desegregated our middle and high schools by race, but income.
$50/month by your estimates isn't a lot. The status quo costs parents and society money as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer
http://i53.tinypic.com/mhu3w5.png
Then stop bitching about taxes that go toward Education, paying more for excellent teachers, or blaming unions for fucking everything up. :bored:
Of course it's not simply a "money" issue, but one of goals, quality and results. Still, it's ridiculous to think excellent teachers shouldn't expect a rising wage reflecting their experience and expertise. Or that the best way to improve Education is to slash funding, cap teacher salaries, ban collective bargaining.
$50 a month was giving you the benefit of car pooling, which would require 5 families that each owned a minivan :noob:Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
and yes, $50 a month (remember, impossibly low number as is) is a lot for a low income family with kid(s). Fucking christ on a stick, don't be so ignorant.
Dread, you seem to be thinking of this from a NYC perspective. Concentrated groups of people with access to public transit (you don't have Big Yellow School buses but students use metro bus cards or subway tokens) all within a manageable distance. But you don't really think vouchers would work to move students from Queens to Long Island, do you? In the broader America, there are barriers related to mileage, time, and transit.
Logistically it sounds like a nightmare for anything outside dense urban areas.
Err, we have school busses too. :rolleyes:
For the fourth time, school vouchers does not require sending students over large distances. In fact it's possibly easier to set-up a new school in a smaller place than in a larger city (there's just a smaller pool of students to attract). You also seem to think I'm some kind of bumpkin who doesn't know that most of America lives in suburbs; America is not full of one horse towns.
But the point is the ability for an individual or a school management company to identify a failing school, invest the funds to set up a competing school across the street is a powerful incentive that is many orders of magnitude more powerful than our current incentive-less system.
It's also worth pointing out the obvious fact that in many areas nothing would happen at all. Parents can and will park their government-given money in their local public school. Vouchers simply allow for choice. But choice is somehow horrid and offensive to you.
To liberals choice is bad. Because then they (government) do not have control.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
Parents and teachers are quick to know what's a failing school, we don't need "school management companies" to identify them for us. Plus, you're comparing schools like it's simply a competition between corner gas stations or fast food joints. Build it and they will come? :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
Quote:
It's also worth pointing out the obvious fact that in many areas nothing would happen at all. Parents can and will park their government-given money in their local public school. Vouchers simply allow for choice. But choice is somehow horrid and offensive to you.
Wow, never thought I'd see the day when Dread and Lewk spouted the same damn nonsense. :donkey:Quote:
Originally Posted by Lewkowski
Everyone should agree that parents want the best for their kids, and would choose that first. Unfortunately for the USA, people are restricted by housing costs, transportation costs, and employment opportunities.
We can ALL only live where we can afford to live....poor people can't afford high property taxes or high-rent neighborhoods, the kinds of areas that attract well-paid excellent teachers. Vouchers may help a small minority of students trapped in "bad schools", but that doesn't translate into schools they fled becoming schools they want to return to. Vouchers don't mean "bad schools" will become better. Not when their parents are still trapped in low-income, low-rent, high crime areas.
Often parents know their kids are going to a school that could be better, but their kids are effectively trapped because there are no options and the parents have no leverage.Quote:
Originally Posted by GGT
Why parents should aim to send their kids back to a bad school is beyond me. If the failing school can't improve, why should anyone go there?
The idea that bad areas can't have good schools is simply bizarre and easily disproved by the growing success of inner-city charter schools which operate with public funding and without the restrictive environment of their public school counterparts.
Have you read anything I've written, or are you choosing to ignore it? :sour:Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
Can we agree that monied areas don't necessarily guarantee the best education, but poor areas almost always guarantee they can't provide the best education?Quote:
The idea that bad areas can't have good schools is simply bizarre and easily disproved by the growing success of inner-city charter schools which operate with public funding and without the restrictive environment of their public school counterparts.
Where money is concerned, we have it backward as a nation. Not only do wealthy districts not need more funds, but poorer districts probably need more. That's a symptom of our Education-by-Property Tax model. It's a failed model. Vouchers won't fix that! Moving students around and out of their community does NOTHING to address other factors that affect students and their families.
Vouchers do NOTHING to fix how we fund and allocate Education tax dollars, they don't repair failing schools, and they certainly don't provide the "best" education for everyone.
Are you not reading what I'm saying? I'm talking about cutting the link between property taxes and education, and not situating all of the best schools in "monied" areas.
and you're ignoring that you're going to see little to no difference by sending public school students to private schools in the same troubled areas. No, you don't have to send students long distances, but not doing so is defeating the purpose of improving the recorded improvement.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
See: OP.
This isn't an incentive, this is a threat, with unproven benefits in America so far.Quote:
But the point is the ability for an individual or a school management company to identify a failing school, invest the funds to set up a competing school across the street is a powerful incentive that is many orders of magnitude more powerful than our current incentive-less system.
Voucher aren't the only option here either.
Whoa. Full stop right here. Your best defense against the damages vouchers would do is to claim they won't be used? Really?Quote:
It's also worth pointing out the obvious fact that in many areas nothing would happen at all. Parents can and will park their government-given money in their local public school. Vouchers simply allow for
No, but they do seem to be more responsive to threats that would damage society. Such as parents who think that a thorough understanding of the bible is the best education a person can achieve.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lewkowski
Vouchers should not be the knee jerk reaction to such a claim.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
how are you grading success? because they are growing? or because you have actual research that shows that they are, as a whole, producing better, smarting, more successful students?Quote:
The idea that bad areas can't have good schools is simply bizarre and easily disproved by the growing success of inner-city charter schools which operate with public funding and without the restrictive environment of their public school counterparts.
Vouchers should not be the knee jerk reaction to such problems.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
I'm not doing the slice and dice. The tests in the opening post don't prove anything at all.
Then focus on your claim that charter schools being better. I want that research. We can touch on your other bullshit after that. Although I have managed to get you to reply to a post that was 4 quotes deep, I have started to understand why you're against them. When you ramble on in long paragraphs you're more likely to slip in unproven claims and personal believes as fact, and when they are replied to in the same format, you're more likely to ignore those rebuttals. Very smooth.
how are you grading success? because they are growing? or because you have actual research that shows that they are, as a whole, producing better, smarting, more successful students?Quote:
The idea that bad areas can't have good schools is simply bizarre and easily disproved by the growing success of inner-city charter schools which operate with public funding and without the restrictive environment of their public school counterparts.
Are you not comprehending what I'm saying? Vouchers won't necessarily fix what's wrong with our property tax-funded educational system, any more than busing did.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
The culture :o Traditional Swedish existence is summed up by the word "lagom", which roughly translated means "not too much and not too litle". Sometimes "lagom" can lead us astray.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
It's hard to escape the reach of Jante. Disinclination towards taking action or taking responsibility. As a society they are too happy to let the institutions that govern almost every aspect of their existence carry on perpetrating injustice through ineffeciency/sloppiness/laziness/mismanagement. "Not my table. Not my business." Cultural chauvinism. Frank racism. Inability to welcome and integrate immigrants.
Most worrying to me is the burgeoning culture that celebrates excess and encourages disregard for other people. In many parts of Sweden, young people are becoming hard and callous, more interested in living large (parties, booze, expensive clothes and gadgets, luxurious trips all over the world, sex, drugs) than in anything else. Rising misogynism. Every dude in every club drunkenly trying to play The Game.
I'm not entirely sure why (and tbh I'm not entirely sure how true this is ;)) Perhaps it's the result of individuals not having to care too much about their society or about their fellows. Perhaps it's a result of society not caring enough (or in the right ways) about individuals. After all, Swedes are more likely than any others to suffer mental health problems :o barring the Fins of course.
But most Swedes lead very comfortable lives, which in many ways is a blessing rather than the curse some people imagine it to be. At the very least it makes the differences between schools summat less noticeable.
Dang you aimless, I was doing so good. Now I lost again :(Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
What is The Game?
I was of course referring only slightly obliquely to the book by Neil Strauss :o
So if we discover that my kid is in a grade school that can't meet his needs, due to our address, I can't get him to a differnt school? There are 3 in my town. Why not have a voucher for even that?
3 public schools? Wouldn't open enrollment cover your needs?
Or are you speaking of learning/physical disabilities? Most places have exceptions for those. I spent a semester shadowing in a school like that, they had a service that transported their children in from all over the place.
Well at least it's worth a freaking shot. Or just stick with what we are doing?Quote:
Originally Posted by GGT
And before ya'll jump in, I realize it's not a binary choice, but at no one is interested (or has the courage) politically in really fixing our schools, what options do parent have?
Nope. We are assigned by address.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer
The Boy has ADHD (so they say, I'm just thinking he has had a shitty life up till now, but by law I have to give him the meds as he is a ward of the state until we adopt), but differnt schools have different approaches, teachers, and staff, on how they address that.
Currently, we are driving 25 miles (one way) to get him to his current school (a whole differnt county) to keep his life stable in at least one respect (100 miles a day). So the STATE thinks that school choice is fine when they 'own' the kids. Just not for regular parents. :)
WE could decouple property taxes from educational funding, for a start.
I mean wouldn't open enrollment, allowing you to decide which public school is best situated for your needs, fix this? I don't see a reason yet to jump all the way to vouchers.Quote:
Originally Posted by Veldan Rath
Isn't this in effect, a voucher program? (Just with public schools?)Quote:
Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer
It keeps the money in the public system, and the government still has control over the curriculum, as well as who is permitted where, and reasons why someone wouldn't be permitted. No risk of any sort of classism/racism, and no cherry picking by removing this year's lowest performers from next year's roster.
I reply in paragraphs because paragraphs are how people write.
But these concerns about vouchers leading to racism/classism are really unfounded. Private schools don't expel low performers, it's not a steel mill. If anything, the school's funding is decoupled from issues like having low performers around. The schools want the money and have every interest in helping the low performers improve and stick around.
Contrast that to public schools, where mindless test scores dictate so many issues that teachers will teach to a test, instead of actually teach.
Also, why is it so important if the government controls the curriculum? It makes sense for the government to set standards, but if I want to send my daughter to a school that has a particular ideological bent behind it, I should be able to as long as she will be able to meet the state's educational requirements to advance to the next grade.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreadnaughtthe growing success of inner-city charter schools which operate with public funding and without the restrictive environment of their public school counterparts.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer
Also:Quote:
Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer
derp dee derp :bulb: (but lets hold off on that until after you justify the previous claim)Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
We've been over this, not all charter schools are better. Some are worse according to some metrics. Others are better according to some metrics. The sample sizes are small and the appropriate metrics don't have much consensus around them. Also please note I was discussing urban charter schools, not charter schools as a whole.
Now can you please explain how giving parents more choices is tantamount to racism?
PS- It's called social promotion. It's the taking of mindless tests, but ignoring the results at the same time.
oh, this is comedy gold. :haha:
This:
actually means:Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
See, that wouldn't have been so hard to admit the first time around. Don't have evidence, then simply say so. Now I'm left wondering whats being used to disprove what :noob:Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
We'll get to some more fun quotes some time tomorrow I think. I'm watching The Other Guys and Portal 2 is expected to unlock by the time its over.
I think you're viewing this wrong. The people opposed to this aren't trying to deny parents the choice of what school to send their child to, they are opposed because it could potentially lead to money being moved out of public schools in certain areas, leaving those parents/students with less money, and thus less choice of where to attend school being shafted, or they are opposed because they don't feel it will change anything in regards to the quality of education, but instead allow a slow creep of privatization into schooling, which should mostly remain a public resource.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
:rolleyes: Your "this is comedy gold" doesn't work here. I'm saying that all of the research you're undoubtedly Googling (and which I've read in the past, because unlike you I actually follow this issue) has been national. They had to account for enormously complex differences in achievement tests across state lines, racial/economic makeup, time spent in charter schools, etc. Which is why I focused my remark on urban inner-city schools (where you can control for some of those variables, albeit there are still a lot of variables to control for).
You complain that I like to write in paragraphs, but you ignore the specific language I'm using in those paragraphs. Charters are also merely a step in the direction of vouchers.
None of this explains why school vouchers are racist. Now can you please dispense with the bull and answer this?
I haven't had to google anything yet (heck, I haven't presented anything yet thats required research). I asked you for proof of this claimed success in charter schools. You obvious know why this proof doesn't actually exist, yet you continue to use the claim, and its kind of hilarious that you're doing so.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
Much like Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, you're very good at muddying the waters but you're less good at sticking your neck out and articulating a position. I would say the fact that I post before and after I sleep makes my post a bit fast and loose, except I really wasn't being unclear. You just use political-style slicing-and-dicing in place of making more substantive points.
My original point was that school choice is good for parents, especially inner-city parents who shouldn't be denied access to more alliterative schools, such as charter schools. I said this in response to your assertion that bad neighborhoods can't have good schools. Said charter schools are examples of why your assertion is false.
Did I say all charters are better all the time across the whole country? No. My point is giving parents options for their kids opens up educational opportunities that otherwise wouldn't exist. This is a good thing, as we've seen in DC and Sweden.
I don't know for sure, but I think the piecemeal dismantling of the public school system - which regardless of propaganda has served our nation very well for a century - in favor of a patchwork of for-profit private enterprises is a bad idea. It is something that once fully under way will not be reversed, regardless of how well the schools perform, whether they includes all children, whether the system's inherent inefficiences cost more than the public system, etc....
No paragraphs were harmed in the following response.
What the fuck is this bullshit, how does a political attack from 8 fucking years ago have anything to do with the horrible idea of school vouchers? Fucking hell Dread, show some class. If you have a point, make it, no need to dilute your posts with off topic bullshit like this. Is posting fast and loose the new excuse for posting unsubstantiated bullshit? Are you expecting a reward for not posting while you're sleeping?Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
I don’t know of a more precise way I can make my position understood; vouchers = bad.
Suggesting that education is some sort of crystal clear pool of rights and wrongs is a very dumb thing to do. You can’t look at some program in a different country and say “copy that!”, societies don’t work like that. You can’t cherry pick a single location and say “that works!, copy that!”. Our country doesn’t work like that. Education in America is heavily intertwined into several different aspects of what defines us as citizens. You can’t fuck with one thread while ignoring the others and expect something to change. Any idea that only messes with one aspect of multi-piece puzzle is doomed to fail, possibly creating more damage in the process.
School choice does not have to mean a voucher program. The fact that you’re stuck on that shows how close minded you’ve become to the topic. There are several different programs throughout the public system that foster choice and freedom. IVY and Magnet schools, and open enrollment, are two such ideas that have already been brought up, and thus far ignored by you. I have yet to make a claim that every community of a certain standing has to either have a bad or good school, but there are trends, and simply pointing out 1 community that’s an exception isn’t going to magically make that trend disappear. Can a rough neighborhood have a good school? Sure. Is that the expected norm? Fuck no. Does a good school existing in a bad part of town somehow justify the clam that charter schools are more successful? Fuck no again. The mere existence of an event doesn’t make it successful, otherwise I’d be able to sit here all week and report on the status of public schools to show how successful they are.
You want to cherry pick your results and ignore what counters your claim by hiding behind that fact that you can’t account for all. Yet that’s what a student’s education needs to come from. We need a system that doesn’t ignore that poor families can’t afford transportation costs. We need a system that doesn’t try to force the unduplicated success of a certain community onto other communities.
Hey, whats this, more unrelated bullshit. What are you even trying to do here? Is this some sort of penis sizing competition? Congratulations, you understand how to use a google news feed. Where do you get off even suggesting that I don’t have an as large or larger understanding, commitment, or stake in following this subject? Why should it even matter that I have to point out I spent 4 years in college studying the education system, wrote fuck knows how many papers on it, and now have 3 children whom’s educational career is now my responsibility. You are a seriously shallow asshole.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
There is a reason I’ve tried not to mention urban and inner schooling. You applied those terms first. I’m using community, because sometimes it’s not an issue of being an urban school, or a rural school. You claim inner city charter schools are a growing success, I ask for proof, and you took 2 fucking pages to admit you didn’t have it, and even then you didn’t actually admit it. You claimed it’s just not here yet. PROTIP: One organization of schools is not proof of the success of charter schools, or vouchers, for a nation that is so much god damn bigger than that. Now if you wanted to claim that one very specific community has shown success with a certain program, then by all means do so. But do not attempt your usual "example a is true, thus b will be true" bullshit.
Paragraphs may be how people write in correspondence, but I’d like to welcome you to the AIM generation. Simply because you write in paragraphs and ramble on mixing your points and ignoring rebuttals doesn’t mean that’s how all people do it. Writing styles change depending on means and location. The forums should be a good example of that, as well as chatrooms, text messages, and IMing. We’re no longer dependent on snail mail. People are fully capable of responding in short bursts to specific points. The internet for a lot of people revolves around their lives. I have work, a family, and a well known hobby. I don’t consider it worth my time to type out drawn out paragraphs so you can ignore half of it and continue on as if you’ve contributed anything.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
Now why did I type out a full paragraph describing why its stupid to make a claim like that’s “how people write”? Because it’s a perfect example of you not understanding something outside your own bubble, which is exactly what is happening in this thread.
Now, as for the classism/racism fears you have a hard on for. I’m basing that off of the white flight this nation already experienced(s). Private schools compete against each other as well as public schools. Lower performing private schools are currently at least able to make some bullshit claim of “at least we’re not an evil public school”. If vouchers take off, the public school is removed from the equation. The private schools are now competing against themselves, and that gives them the only sort of incentive they would need to find whatever means they have to make themselves looks good. Why would you send your bright student to a school that’s showing a trend of lower performers? Why would you send your money and your student to a school that you know is going to provide a disproportionate amount of time and money on the lowest performers. Isn't that why people want out of public schooling to begind with? Why would you not send your student to a school that flipped that funding so that it spends the most on the students that will give the best results?
Racism works in the same way. A private school that’s managed to exist before vouchers isn’t going to risk tarnishing its image with a bunch of hoodrats running around with pants around their ankles. Parents that paid to have their students taught outside of that sphere aren’t going to just sit there and go “oh well, can’t hide anymore”. They aren't going to continue to allow their perfect angel of a daughter be taught beside such scum and lower class citizens. Those parents are going to find schools that have a disproportionate population of students that favor what they want their children to be around.
The above paragraph also ties into the curriculum remark. You complain about public school testing, but then go on to say that private schools should be able to do whatever they want as long as they pass the same benchmarks. Yet you somehow think that the private schools aren’t going to end up teaching in a similar fashion to ensure that said benchmarks are passed in similar percentages of the public system. Why?
One of the biggest benefits I find in public schools is that they force students into a collective of ideas and individuals that may not have known existed before hand. It goes far beyond whats taught out of a book. Its about experiences and understanding. Or are you going to try and claim that the Westboro Baptist Academy or the Klan Kenter for Learning are going to be producing individuals that are as socially adjusted as a public school? To extreme? Then how about a religious school that leaves about huge portions of science, anatomy, biology, because evolution is a trick of the devil? You may write this off as extremes and specific examples that won’t reflect on the whole, but in context even one school that’s able to operate like this with a voucher, or any other program that takes funds from the public system, is a school full of students this nation failed.
Alright, I think I caught myself up now, hell of a wall of text. Another reason I reply in short quick digestible bursts. Banged this out in under an hour, so its likely full of typographical errors.
See, that's much better. A bit long to respond to entirely, but this is discourse. This is good. This is how people exchange ideas and learn a new perspective. You're good at this. It's also why Wiggin is a great poster.
If I were to sum-up what seems to be the most clear contrast between us, it's that we fundamentally disagree about the value private schooling (and a decentralized schooling system in general) can provide. As someone who is a product of religious private schooling, I predictably happen to think private schooling brings a lot of value to the table. It took me until I had been out of those schools for a while and saw other places before I saw the value, but I've come to really appreciate it
I also get the sense you don't have a ton of experience with private schooling and, in the absence of seeing it really work, are falling back on what is essentially a class-centric argument: that public schools protect opportunity for those of every income status, while private schools are created to cater to a financial elite.
Private Schools
I argue this class-centric view is a very shallow reading of private schools, especially because so many of them are created around strong personalities with certain beliefs (religious and otherwise).
For example, one of the schools I attended charges tuition that is less than their actual per-student costs. They use fundraising to make up the rest. Furthermore, they spend 13% of their budget on financial aid. The explicit goal is to encourage economic and racial diversity in the student body, because the school and the parents believe no one should live in the bubble. Over the years this has left the school a bit financially vulnerable as costs have gone up. This is why fundraising for the school is my most significant out-of-work activity besides drinking, whoring and plotting Zionist conspiracies.
That said, it's not like private schools end the effective social/economic/regional separations in our society that start from the day we're born. But it's really obvious public schools don't do that either. If anything public schools they mirror the divisions in our society (hasn't that been GGTs point all along?). But we've spent a generation bussing kids and trying to end that, and it doesn't really do much, does it? At the very least school vouchers would inevitably lead to the creation of new private schools. Some will have a very diverse student population, others won't. But at least some of the rigid divisions will have a better opportunity of breaking down than in our ossified system.
Centralization
Another area of clear contrast is our views on centralization. I don't see much value in centralizing education to the extent you seem to. It seems like a good thing to have a plethora of types and styles of education. That kind of diversity is what creates a more nimble educational system.
Furthermore, we've also seen some pretty heinous examples of centralization gone amok. The Texas state school board is pushing its students into a horrible corner of US educational history. In a system dominated by vouchers, [sane] parents could send their kids to schools that don't place the same emphasis on retarded things like creationism. And parents who do believe in creationism can send their kids to creation-focused schools and see how their kids do on SAT Bio tests.
Which brings me to the final issue...
Testing and Flexibility
You're right that I haven't been totally clear about testing, because I think it's a very fuzzy issue. Nonetheless, I feel that tests can be valuable, especially in rigid schools with teachers who effectively can't be fired and thus aren't being evaluated by any real standard. But I also don't think tests should not be a final benchmark of a school's performance. Private schooling has done reasonably well for itself with regional and national accreditation processes, which take a much deeper view of the school than simply testing students.
More generally, I think focusing on testing has the same flaws as believing in the primacy of state-controlled public education. The reality is that some schools will be bad at some time. And then they may turn around. Or not. The point is we should stop pretending that we can create a powerhouse of consistently great public schools. Nor will all private schools be consistently awesome. It's never going to happen. But vouchers acknowledge that ever-changing reality by allowing parents to pick winners and losers as they see fit.
And I'll conclude this long, tired-after-work post by making a oblique comparison of vouchers to food stamps. With SNAP, we just give people a card that has to be spent on food. The nutritional choices people make aren't perfect, but they are their own choices and on the balance I think we're better with SNAP than if the government sat around deciding the right amount/type of food that the average family should get.
So you're aware that parents can make poor decisions which will cripple their children's' futures, but go on to say that "vouchers acknowledge that ever-changing reality by allowing parents to pick winners and losers as they see fit"? I don't want a school system where its possible for parents to fuck up that bad when it comes to choosing something for their children, especially their education, and I don't know why you'd want it either.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
Because faceless bureaucrats are just plain better at making decisions compared to parents right?Quote:
Originally Posted by Illusions