At least it sounded like the state is moving in the right direction...if however slowly.
JxGx78 Wrote:At least it sounded like the state is moving in the right direction...if however slowly.
The right directions begins with school vouchers and ultimately a removal of the public school system.
TenaciousBoy Wrote:JxGx78 Wrote:At least it sounded like the state is moving in the right direction...if however slowly.
The right directions begins with school vouchers and ultimately a removal of the public school system.
The public school system can work, and does very well, in some regions of the country, including some pockets of Alabama. However, it takes money, excellent administration and quality teachers for it to work. Most of the state's public schools are underfunded, pay their teachers crap, so only crappy teachers apply and spend far too much money on incompetent administrators who are too corrupt to solve the problems, which start with themselves.
I do not now, nor will I ever, favor school vouchers for private education. Too many private schools eschew actual education for extreme religious indoctrination for me to support them. And, if you wish, I can provide you at least two specific examples, including a school in Missouri that taught absolutely NO science because it was the devil's work. It also didn't teach any literature other than the Bible. It touted its educational instruction as "second-to-none," and even said it had a 100 percent placement rate of its students in college. What they didn't say in their literature is that every graduate of that high school went to a Bible college run by the same religious organization.
That Bible college, and the high school and elementary school, closed three years ago when they were exposed as frauds. And after several students at the Bible college were arrested for stalking when they were ambushing students at two nearby traditional colleges and calling them sinners and telling them they would burn in hell. It turned out the Bible college actually taught a course in "Ambush Salvation."
I know this is an extreme example, but if there's one of them out there, there's probably two.
As long as they beat Auburn.
TenaciousBoy Wrote:JxGx78 Wrote:At least it sounded like the state is moving in the right direction...if however slowly.
The right directions begins with school vouchers and ultimately a removal of the public school system.
Privatize the school system yes, but most vouchers programs will not solve anything.
http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?control=1399
Public education needs revolutionary revamping, I can agree to that.
Abolishing public education outright is absurd, and a pipe dream for libertarians and conservatives on the goof juice.
Grammar-Nazi Wrote:TenaciousBoy Wrote:JxGx78 Wrote:At least it sounded like the state is moving in the right direction...if however slowly.
The right directions begins with school vouchers and ultimately a removal of the public school system.
The public school system can work, and does very well, in some regions of the country, including some pockets of Alabama. However, it takes money, excellent administration and quality teachers for it to work. Most of the state's public schools are underfunded, pay their teachers crap, so only crappy teachers apply and spend far too much money on incompetent administrators who are too corrupt to solve the problems, which start with themselves.
I do not now, nor will I ever, favor school vouchers for private education. Too many private schools eschew actual education for extreme religious indoctrination for me to support them. And, if you wish, I can provide you at least two specific examples, including a school in Missouri that taught absolutely NO science because it was the devil's work. It also didn't teach any literature other than the Bible. It touted its educational instruction as "second-to-none," and even said it had a 100 percent placement rate of its students in college. What they didn't say in their literature is that every graduate of that high school went to a Bible college run by the same religious organization.
That Bible college, and the high school and elementary school, closed three years ago when they were exposed as frauds. And after several students at the Bible college were arrested for stalking when they were ambushing students at two nearby traditional colleges and calling them sinners and telling them they would burn in hell. It turned out the Bible college actually taught a course in "Ambush Salvation."
I know this is an extreme example, but if there's one of them out there, there's probably two.
Sorry GN, you shouldn't use one extreme case as a way to generalize private religious schools. Some of the best schools around are private religious schools. There are plenty of Christian schools and home school curriculum that are not over the edge and do not teach algebra using the animals on Noah's Ark. ;-)
I agree that there are nut jobs out there but there are also excellent private religious schools. We home school. So, we are probably looked at like we are some sort of freak of nature also but my kids bust the tops out of all of the standardized tests they take (we test them each year). Oldest was 99% percentile. My kids love to read and are more well rounded than 90% of students in the public schools in the US. It does help that they are extremely multicultural, speak two languages, and have lived in four countries.
Public schools in general are a bomb. Are there some good ones? Yes but at what price tag? The amount of money spent per child is quite sickening when you compare it to how inexpensively it is for me to educate my own kids. No, not everyone is cut out for homeschooling. It is a huge sacrifice for the parents but we look at it as a huge investment in their future.
BTR Wrote:Grammar-Nazi Wrote:TenaciousBoy Wrote:JxGx78 Wrote:At least it sounded like the state is moving in the right direction...if however slowly.
The right directions begins with school vouchers and ultimately a removal of the public school system.
The public school system can work, and does very well, in some regions of the country, including some pockets of Alabama. However, it takes money, excellent administration and quality teachers for it to work. Most of the state's public schools are underfunded, pay their teachers crap, so only crappy teachers apply and spend far too much money on incompetent administrators who are too corrupt to solve the problems, which start with themselves.
I do not now, nor will I ever, favor school vouchers for private education. Too many private schools eschew actual education for extreme religious indoctrination for me to support them. And, if you wish, I can provide you at least two specific examples, including a school in Missouri that taught absolutely NO science because it was the devil's work. It also didn't teach any literature other than the Bible. It touted its educational instruction as "second-to-none," and even said it had a 100 percent placement rate of its students in college. What they didn't say in their literature is that every graduate of that high school went to a Bible college run by the same religious organization.
That Bible college, and the high school and elementary school, closed three years ago when they were exposed as frauds. And after several students at the Bible college were arrested for stalking when they were ambushing students at two nearby traditional colleges and calling them sinners and telling them they would burn in hell. It turned out the Bible college actually taught a course in "Ambush Salvation."
I know this is an extreme example, but if there's one of them out there, there's probably two.
Sorry GN, you shouldn't use one extreme case as a way to generalize private religious schools. Some of the best schools around are private religious schools. There are plenty of Christian schools and home school curriculum that are not over the edge and do not teach algebra using the animals on Noah's Ark. ;-)
I agree that there are nut jobs out there but there are also excellent private religious schools. We home school. So, we are probably looked at like we are some sort of freak of nature also but my kids bust the tops out of all of the standardized tests they take (we test them each year). Oldest was 99% percentile. My kids love to read and are more well rounded than 90% of students in the public schools in the US. It does help that they are extremely multicultural, speak two languages, and have lived in four countries.
Public schools in general are a bomb. Are there some good ones? Yes but at what price tag? The amount of money spent per child is quite sickening when you compare it to how inexpensively it is for me to educate my own kids. No, not everyone is cut out for homeschooling. It is a huge sacrifice for the parents but we look at it as a huge investment in their future.
I have absolutely no problem with private religious schooling, when it's done right. I just have a problem with public tax dollars paying for it. I am a huge supporter of home schooling. While we don't do it with our son, we certainly supplement what he gets at school with things at home.
One of the biggest problems with public education today isn't just the lack of quality in the schools, it's the lack of parental involvement in the child's education. When we moved to Murfreesboro this summer, we spent more time researching the schools here than any other facet of the move. We interviewed principals, we interviewed parents, and we visited six schools we felt were appropriate for our son before deciding there were three we could be happy with. We have been extremely happy with the second grade teacher our son has. However, we are also very involved in knowing what he does, what he's supposed to do, and in making certain he does it. There are students in his class whose parents have no idea what's going on in their children's lives. I know that for a fact, because my wife and I both volunteer in our son's classroom at least once a week. We see the evidence, and hear it from the kids.
We have, in general, gone from a society that 50 years ago saw children as an investment in the future who deserved the attention of their parents to succeed, to today often being an inconvenience to our personal desires. At least, that's what I see with some of the children in my son's school. It's sad.
Grammar-Nazi Wrote:BTR Wrote:Grammar-Nazi Wrote:TenaciousBoy Wrote:JxGx78 Wrote:At least it sounded like the state is moving in the right direction...if however slowly.
The right directions begins with school vouchers and ultimately a removal of the public school system.
The public school system can work, and does very well, in some regions of the country, including some pockets of Alabama. However, it takes money, excellent administration and quality teachers for it to work. Most of the state's public schools are underfunded, pay their teachers crap, so only crappy teachers apply and spend far too much money on incompetent administrators who are too corrupt to solve the problems, which start with themselves.
I do not now, nor will I ever, favor school vouchers for private education. Too many private schools eschew actual education for extreme religious indoctrination for me to support them. And, if you wish, I can provide you at least two specific examples, including a school in Missouri that taught absolutely NO science because it was the devil's work. It also didn't teach any literature other than the Bible. It touted its educational instruction as "second-to-none," and even said it had a 100 percent placement rate of its students in college. What they didn't say in their literature is that every graduate of that high school went to a Bible college run by the same religious organization.
That Bible college, and the high school and elementary school, closed three years ago when they were exposed as frauds. And after several students at the Bible college were arrested for stalking when they were ambushing students at two nearby traditional colleges and calling them sinners and telling them they would burn in hell. It turned out the Bible college actually taught a course in "Ambush Salvation."
I know this is an extreme example, but if there's one of them out there, there's probably two.
Sorry GN, you shouldn't use one extreme case as a way to generalize private religious schools. Some of the best schools around are private religious schools. There are plenty of Christian schools and home school curriculum that are not over the edge and do not teach algebra using the animals on Noah's Ark. ;-)
I agree that there are nut jobs out there but there are also excellent private religious schools. We home school. So, we are probably looked at like we are some sort of freak of nature also but my kids bust the tops out of all of the standardized tests they take (we test them each year). Oldest was 99% percentile. My kids love to read and are more well rounded than 90% of students in the public schools in the US. It does help that they are extremely multicultural, speak two languages, and have lived in four countries.
Public schools in general are a bomb. Are there some good ones? Yes but at what price tag? The amount of money spent per child is quite sickening when you compare it to how inexpensively it is for me to educate my own kids. No, not everyone is cut out for homeschooling. It is a huge sacrifice for the parents but we look at it as a huge investment in their future.
I have absolutely no problem with private religious schooling, when it's done right. I just have a problem with public tax dollars paying for it. I am a huge supporter of home schooling. While we don't do it with our son, we certainly supplement what he gets at school with things at home.
One of the biggest problems with public education today isn't just the lack of quality in the schools, it's the lack of parental involvement in the child's education. When we moved to Murfreesboro this summer, we spent more time researching the schools here than any other facet of the move. We interviewed principals, we interviewed parents, and we visited six schools we felt were appropriate for our son before deciding there were three we could be happy with. We have been extremely happy with the second grade teacher our son has. However, we are also very involved in knowing what he does, what he's supposed to do, and in making certain he does it. There are students in his class whose parents have no idea what's going on in their children's lives. I know that for a fact, because my wife and I both volunteer in our son's classroom at least once a week. We see the evidence, and hear it from the kids.
We have, in general, gone from a society that 50 years ago saw children as an investment in the future who deserved the attention of their parents to succeed, to today often being an inconvenience to our personal desires. At least, that's what I see with some of the children in my son's school. It's sad.
You hit the nail on the head when you started talking about parental involvement. If you look at kids who succeed in high school, I bet that there's an overwhelming majority who had at least one, if not both parents riding their butts about school and encouraging them to learn more. There are some who are just mature enough to do it on their own, no matter how apathetic their parents are, but those are few & far between. I went to public school my whole life, one of which would probably be considered inner city. From K-6th I was in perhaps one of the state's worst school systems in Montgomery. Didn't affect me because my parents were there to make sure I was learning and doing what I was supposed to in school.
Throwing more money at public education isn't going to solve the problem. It'll just put a new coat of paint on it and give it newer toys & gadgets to fail with. We already spend more per student then just about every country in the world, yet fall far behind.
I think it all began during the 60's era of "free love" and government handouts. That's when the percentage of people having kids out of wedlock started to grow drastically and the nuclear family began to diminish.
Grammar-Nazi Wrote:We have, in general, gone from a society that 50 years ago saw children as an investment in the future who deserved the attention of their parents to succeed, to today often being an inconvenience to our personal desires. At least, that's what I see with some of the children in my son's school. It's sad.
School has turned into the place to keep your kids while you go on with your life. When I started, K was optional. Now I believe that some would have you putting your kids in school as soon as the umbilical cord is cut. You are 100% correct in the involvement in child's education. I look back and my parents were always at the school. At the time, it was a pain but that contributed to my being a good student.
I am just blown away with young married couples today. I have spoken to two couples in the past few weeks and both say that they have no plans to have kids. They say that they hate other people's kids so why would they want to have their own.
We all know about the Baby Boomers, Baby Busters, Gen X, etc... I believe that the next generation was the all about me entitlement generation. It is a generation who grew up with lots of stuff and lots of wealth. They feel that they are entitled to everything and should not have to work much to get it. They also are self-centered, thus have no time for kids.
We just had a surprise and are now expecting our FOURTH child. It was quite a surprise but looking at our kids, I can't wait for the next one. Each one has so much character and I can't imagine not having them. What more important thing can we do but bring up great kids? Who cares about the BMW's and big houses if you haven't taken the time to create another person. Is it a sacrifice? Maybe making a sacrifice is actually a good thing.
Also, without any kids at home... you don't have an excuse to buy all of those UAB cheerleader outfits and little football outfits!
GN, like others have said there numerous public schools that do a very fine job many times better than neighboring private schools. However, just because some succeed doesnt mean that the system is the best system.
With regards to vouchers. Do I like vouchers? No. They are still a form of public education, but they are a necessary temporary phase that society must go through to reach school privatization.
As far as religious schools are concerned. I could care less what they are teaching in their schools. I would never send my child to a religous school. If some nutjob wants to teach creationism and the belief that there is some omnipotent peeping tom, then be my guest just dont try and force my child to sit there and listen to it. While their children will be learning at Jerry Falwell High how to correctly throw a stone at a sodomite, my child at Thomas Paine High will be learning calculus, economics, physics, and reading philosophy. So 15 years later, while the nutjob's kid can't find suitable employment my kid will be using his knowledge and good education to better himself and hopefully his world.
As for parental involvment. Of course that is the biggest problem. 99% of children are not able to get a full education with parental involvment. If schools are privatized, parents will be forced to be more involved in their childs education. Jr. skipping class or not turning in homework, well guess what he has to repeat the grade which means another tuition check is coming out of your wallet. Pretty sure more parents will be more concerned about their kids education when they have to write that check every few months. On the flipside if a parent really helps their kid and makes the kid want to excel at school, the parent might get a chance to have their child skip a grade or two which saves some tuition money. With public education, parents get the impression that the education is free and tend to be more lax. They forget to factor in the sales tax they pay evertime they purchase anything or the property tax.
Before anyone retorts with "what about the parents that can't afford to send their kid to school?" Obviously, most if not all schools will set up scholarships to provide aid to less fortunate students. If this wasnt the case, then Ivies, UChicago, Stanford, etc. would be filled with only the wealthy. Furthermore, I am sure there would be millions of dollars in private scholarships just looking to help poor children have a proper education. Also, if the entire education system goes private then competition will drive prices down and will also make schools accountable for how well they are educating. If you think your child isnt getting a good education at School X then you can take him out and spend your tuition dollars at School Y.
TenaciousBoy Wrote:Also, if the entire education system goes private then competition will drive prices down
...only until the privatized ed industry stops being profitable, and it starts consolidating itself--reducing choice and driving prices back up. I've seen this movie before, and several times.
I just think that it is funny the attack against religious schools. Some of the best schools out there are religious. The vast majority of the religious schools are not the fanatical throw a stone at a sodomite type.
Our homeschool curriculum is a Christian based curriculum but it isn't fanatical. I think that if you look at Christian schools and homeschool curriculum as a whole, you will find that the vast majority are very solid. There are some fanatical nuts out there but they are few.
My daughter was reading Tom Sawyer in first grade (by herself) so I think that it is a little more advanced than most of the curriculum out there. In fourth grade she has already finished 30 novels for this year. Just because we also teach a Bible class to our kids doesn't mean that it should be written off. Maybe this is the reason for the ethics scandals in the past few years.
I will go the other way. If parents don't care enough to get involved in their child's education, then 15 years later while their child is still living in their parents house on their 10th part time job, my kids will hopefully be using his knowledge and great education to better himself and hopefully his world.
The key element in the education equation (whether private, public, religious or home school) is parental involvement. Some parents need to realize that if they want their children to advance, the parents are going to have to sacrifice in order to invest in their life. Unfortunately too many parents are too self-centered to spend time with their kids. They would rather be able to give their kids a Playstation than actually spend hours with them each week. Most kids would rather spend time with mom or dad than sit in a day care and play a Gameboy.
BTR Wrote:The key element in the education equation (whether private, public, religious or home school) is parental involvement. Some parents need to realize that if they want their children to advance, the parents are going to have to sacrifice in order to invest in their life. Unfortunately too many parents are too self-centered to spend time with their kids. They would rather be able to give their kids a Playstation than actually spend hours with them each week. Most kids would rather spend time with mom or dad than sit in a day care and play a Gameboy.
I absolutely agree. But then, I said some of this earlier.
We gave our son a Gameboy for Christmas. However, he's limited to 30 minutes a day on it. He also has to spend at least 30 minutes a day reading (in addition to any homework he has), and 30 minutes a day minimum of what we call "creative play." Yesterday, his creative play resulted in the construction of one of the most elaborate Leggo skyscrapers I have ever seen. The day before, he spent three hours, not 30 minutes, in the yard with an archeology book he got for Christmas, digging holes in the yard looking for artifacts. Fortunately, we're renting, so I don't care about the yard damage. LOL.
Vouchers, privatization and the like are just as useless as throwing more money at education (though I do think some school systems, especially inner-city schools, are woefully underfunded) because it all comes down to parental involvement. Yes, schools in the U.S. are better funded than many around the world (though some in Asia top ours tremendously), and those schools' students perform better, but I bet you'll find greater parental involvement in those schools as well. Those of us who actually involve ourselves in our children's education know this, because our children perform far above what other children in school perform. If it's not parental involvement, then explain why my second-grader goes to a sixth-grade classroom every day for math, a fifth-grade classroom for science and English, and has books delivered to him from the high school library for his reading assignments, because he reads at the ninth grade level. It's because we started his education at home, early, and have worked on it with him ever since. He's not a genius, he's just better educated, because his parents care.
BTR, don't you know that Tom Sawyer is a racist book and should never be read in school?
BlazerUnit Wrote:TenaciousBoy Wrote:Also, if the entire education system goes private then competition will drive prices down
...only until the privatized ed industry stops being profitable, and it starts consolidating itself--reducing choice and driving prices back up. I've seen this movie before, and several times.
Consolidation that ultimately raises real prices will only occur in markets where there is an artificially high entry cost or government enforced consolidation. The free market may see moments of real price increases, but in the long run open markets will cause prices to drop to a reasonable level. Furthermore, if consolidation does occur in the schools, then many parents will be forced to either move to another district to find cheaper/better schools or will remove their children into homeschool.
JxGx78 Wrote:At least it sounded like the state is moving in the right direction...if however slowly.
True. In 45 years, we should be #1 in education.
BlazerUnit Wrote:TenaciousBoy Wrote:Also, if the entire education system goes private then competition will drive prices down
...only until the privatized ed industry stops being profitable, and it starts consolidating itself--reducing choice and driving prices back up. I've seen this movie before, and several times.
I don't think that education will really stop being profitable, especially K-12 education. It's such a different commodity that typical laws of economics might not be followed completely.
