In Left Behind, Way Behind, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert quotes a task force report:
First the bad news: Only about two-thirds of American teenagers (and just half of all black, Latino and Native American teens) graduate with a regular diploma four years after they enter high school.Now the worse news: Of those who graduate, only about half read well enough to succeed in college.
Herbert calls for something much stronger than No Child Left Behind. But what?
The report makes several recommendations. It says the amount of time that children spend in school should be substantially increased by lengthening the school day and, in some cases, the school year. It calls for the development of voluntary, rigorous national curriculum standards in core subject areas and a consensus on what students should know and be able to do by the time they graduate from high school.The report also urges, as many have before, that the nation take seriously the daunting (and expensive) task of getting highly qualified teachers into all classrooms. And it suggests that an effort be made to connect schools in low-income areas more closely with the surrounding communities. (Where necessary, the missions of such schools would be extended to provide additional services for children whose schooling is affected by such problems as inadequate health care, poor housing, or a lack of parental support.)
But Herbert doesn’t analyze or endorse any of these ideas. They’re just “points of departure.”
I see lots of evidence that disadvantaged children benefit from a longer school day, a structured curriculum and high expectations. They also benefit from good teachers, though I don’t know it means to “take seriously” the problem of teacher quality. The idea of turning schools into service centers is decades old. It’s fine if there’s extra space and the services can be contracted out, but I don’t think it does much for student achievement. Schools do best when they focus on education and leave social work to social workers.
Joanne –
How does one balance the need for a longer school day for one group of chidren but not for another in the same urban school district? My kids need time out of school (more than they get) to pursue their true interests which are not met in the classroom. Yet, many more students needs the longer day in school to master the subject at hand.
Also, do you know of any evidence (scientific evidence using control groups and the experimental groups) showing if a balanced calendar is effective or not? A balance calandar is being discussed in our district. I think it means kids will go to school nine weeks, off one or two weeks, back for nine weeks, etc. They will have roughly 8 weeks vs the normal 10 off for the summer. I will serve on a task force to discuss this idea and any ideas/info would be welcomed.
Also, I thoroughly agree with your last sentence — “schools do best wehn they focus on education and leave social work to social workers”. The challenge is to get education to stop taking on the role of the social worker and family.
Have a great day –
Elizabeth
“Schools do best when they focus on education and leave social work to social workers.”
Any time the government takes over the role of the family it is extremely costly and the results are mediocre. Who is going to pay for this? Families that are already under stress.
The parents, not the schools, are the primary educators of children and the normative married-2-parent family with the mother primarily engaged in raising the children is collapsing under the cultural changes of the last 40 years.
Until we deal with this, only marginal improvements in the schools are possible. Until we give up our own self-centered preocupations and put our obligations to our spouses, our children, our neighborhoods and the common culture at the head of the list, nothing will change.
Yet more analysis and no real action. Similar studies have been going on for years, and except for a few instances, none of the research will amount to anything. Education philosophy, ranging from educational methods, training, hiring practices, retention policies, and union oversight (or lack thereof) is too entrenched for anything new to progress on a large (and needed) scale.
Let’s take this apart:
Kids graduate without knowledge and skills.
The way to get more knowledge and skills to students is to:
Have them spend more time in the place that is failing to give them knowledge and skills.
Huh?
Before we lengthen the school day, how about we indentify what teaching practices actually work, and then help teachers enact these practices?
Otherwise, these solutions are like demanding that sick people spend more time in hospitals that fail to cure them. That’s not smart. The patients need “better” healthcare. Likewise, students need “better” teaching.
And this isn’t about credentialing, it’s about PRACTICE. For example, what should a fourth grade teacher do when a student uses the write process to get the wrong answer in a two-digit multiplication problem? Or, what should a teacher do to help students makes links between economic events and other historical events? How should teachers get high school students to see and understand figurative language in complex novels?
These are the questions that need answering. I wish people would put the arguments about community outreach and such on the back burner. We have far more immediate problems in teaching than that.
Before we change anything, how about we give the power back to the parents so they can choose whatever type of school works best for their child and them? There is not one right method for educating every child. Break the cookie cutter.
Mr. Davis: School choice is swell–and irrelevant.
In fact, schools resemble each other quite a bit. There are variations between classrooms. There are bigger variations between schools in different neighborhoods depending on the wealth of the neighborhood.
But the idea that there are a dozen different ways that students are taught is not true.
And the idea that your child is somehow vastly different from all other children is also not true.
There are boatloads of studies on this–look for example for any study based of ECLS data, a longitudinal study of 20,000 kids nationwide from K-5, that is up to the third grade data.
The idea that choice will solve everything is like assuming that teaching is like snake oil–someone else has a better one, or some other potion might work better. But there’s no evidence to prove any of it except hunches, intuition, and emotion.
So I would say, give everyone choice. It won’t mean a thing in terms of improving education. But it will make some people feel better. Look at parents of private school kids–have you ever heard any criticize the school? Of course not. They chose it (and they’re paying for it) so regardless of the quality, they stand up for it. Because otherwise they make a mistake.
One of the benefits of choice is that parents could choose between a school with a long or traditional school day, depending on what they think would work best for their child.
I agree that a bad school teaching for more hours will be a bad and very boring school. But all the schools significantly raising achievement for poor kids have longer school days, and usually a longer year or mandatory summer school. They figure out how to teach and give the kids more instruction. And I think they all use a structured curriculum.
As for the “balanced” school year, parents tend to resist more non-summer vacations because of child-care problems. Most parents dislike year-round schools for this reason. (And because kids can’t get into traditional summer programs.) Educationally, I think it would be better than putting 90 percent of vacation into a long summer, but it will be unpopular unless the school can work with a child-care provider to offer some sort of low-cost “camp” during the breaks.
I agree that successful schools for disadvantaged kids generally have longer school days. But that may or may not be what causes success. Those schools also have more uniform teaching practices, tighter curriculum, and other resources. So which is it? Longer day, year, or better teaching? I’d like to see some study that partitioned the variance and relative significance of all these.
As for parental choice, again, I don’t think anyone knows what would work best for their child educationally. I mean, I have a sense as a parent, or so I think. But how many times have you gone to back-to-school night and heard parents yammering away about what’s best for their child, when you know the parents are clueless about what their child is actually like, and what school is like.
JennyD wrote:
Mr. Davis: School choice is swell–and irrelevant.
Oh no, absolutely wrong. School choice, parental choice, is important, maybe central.
You can see the importance of choice in the level of choice allowed by the public education system: deciding where to live. The precieved quality of the district can have a significant effect on housing prices. So much so that in another posting in this blog a builder decided to build a school just to cover that particular aspect of marketing his houses.
Another example of the importance of choice is the growth of the entire charter school movement. Parents line up to get their kids in and they don’t do that because the charters are more convenient.
It’s the lack of choice that’s central to most of the problems of public education. The lack of choice removes the threat of organizational dissolution.
The lousiest school in the district will be assigned kids on the basis of organizational need as much or more then on the basis of parental desire. Where’s the motivation to educational excellence supposed to come from under those conditions? Professional pride? It better had because there isn’t going to be much encouragement to do a good job when hitting head-count is more important then educational outcome.
The problem with exercising school choice by selecting the district you want to live in is that it’s the wrong level of granularity. You choose the district but what you really want, as a parent, is the school. But you have to accept the district to get the school. Why? The school’s the organization that’s going to educate your kid, not the district.
So, what does the district bring to the party? Answer: nothing. The district doesn’t exist to educate, it exists to fund education and that distinction is crucial. School districts are pretty good at their core task, raising money. Evidence the rise in education spending that has significantly out-paced the inflation rate for the past couple of decades.
The reason for the competence at fund-raising is pretty clear - there’s hell to pay, and right damned quick, when the funds aren’t there. Where’s the similar hue-and-cry when educational performance drops? Which one is going to direct the actions of the organization then, education or funding?
Jenny,
“Look at parents of private school kids–have you ever heard any criticize the school? Of course not. They chose it (and they’re paying for it) so regardless of the quality, they stand up for it. Because otherwise they make a mistake.”
I’m afraid I have to disagree on both empirical and logical grounds. We moved my son from one private school to another because we didn’t like what was happening there, and many other parents have done the same. We routinely discuss his current school’s good and bad points with other parents, and we’re not shy about telling people who’re considering the school what we think. Same for the school authorities.
Note too that unless your ego is more important than the welfare of your child, you’re going to admit to your mistakes.
Rag and Allen, you both are right. And I’m right too.
Making claims based on single anecdotes is never good, but I’m doing it too.
Here are some counter anecdotes: The local, fancy private school isn’t very good, but it costs a bundle and has small classes. In fact, there were some financial problems, and the school had to layoff people, and it was problematic. BUT…several neighbors wouldn’t dream of sending their kids to public school despite this. One guy even said he didn’t think the public schools were “white and rich enough” to adequately educated his daughter.
This has nothing to do with school quality…but lots to do with snobbery. And interestingly, the public schools where I live are quite good (relatively). This father has made a mistake in choosing the best school for his daughter, but his pride and arrogance blind him to that.
Second, Socioeconomic status is the key predictor of school success. Thus people choose to live in the highest SES neighborhood they can afford so they can be with successful kids. None of this has anything to do with the teaching inside a school. In fact, the superintendent of a very high SES school district in suburban NYC told me once that you make every fourth grader sit in a cornfield for every school day during the entire year, and at the end, the kids would still score above grade level on tests. “There’s nothing we’re doing in the school that has an effect as great as their home lives,” he told me.
Thus, I have to conclude that his district could have lousy teachers and worse teaching practices. And we’d never know. And parents would still choose the school.
Jenny,
“Making claims based on single anecdotes is never good, but I’m doing it too.”
More precisely, one can disprove a theory with a single counter-example, but you can never prove its correctness, no matter how many corroborating data-points you have.
It might be interesting to find out what percentage of private-school parents are dissatisfied with the school, and what they do about it. What I’ve seen is a tendency to say, “I’m paying for this, and I want such-and-so.” If they don’t get it, they are quite willing to step up the pressure.
As for school choice, although I think the family plays a very important role, it’s only part of the equation. In the lower grades the parents can make up for bad teachers; in the upper grades, it’s much harder. I think the school superintendent was exaggerating when he claimed that “you make every fourth grader sit in a cornfield for every school day during the entire year, and at the end, the kids would still score above grade level on tests.” In 12th grade, how many parents would be able to explain the Maclaurin series to their kids? You need a good math teacher for that.
Lastly, your example of the bad private school and the good public schools - all it shows is that parents can make bad choices. Unless you can also show that parents’ choices have no positive correlation with results, choice is a good thing.
Jenny — I am very disappointed in your comment about school choice. School choice is very important. Why? Because if parents feel good about the decision they made for their children they will be involved with their schools. Children will see the parents are involved and will work a little (maybe a lot) harder. School choice generally means parents have to provide their own transportation to get the children to school. This is definitely true for private schools but it is also true for all 30 + choice schools in my city. (The one draw back to parents providing their own transportation is there are countless people in my district who do not have convenient/affordable transportation available to them that would love to have their children in choice schools.)
Jenny — one of the things wrong with our public schools today is the arrogance that they think they are right and everyone else is wrong. One of best things that could happen to our public schools is that they all become schools of choice. The bar should be raised for all teachers and staffs. The academic programs will become high quality programs. This has happened in my district in many schools.
For those schools that cannot compete they should be shuttered. Those that do compete will be expanded.
Parental involvement in our schools makes all the difference in the world. I have seen it take underperforming, potentially unsafe schools and turn them around to top performing schools where the parents in the neighborhoods are putting there children in the schools rather than send them to magnet schools. It works and it can work in more schools.
Choice and parental involvement go hand in hand. This will lead to public schools improving dramatically and get to the business of education and get out of the social work business.
Allen — I like your points about the superintendent. I have drafted a plan on a back of an envelope where the schools would control the budget, hire and fire the teachers and staff, pay the rent and utilities, and pay the “central office” a management fee to provide payroll services, contract for group insurance and benefit programs, ground maintenance, etc. but not much else. I haven’t figured out the curriculum piece yet. The schools would get money based upon the number of students enrolled. The higher quality the programs in the schools, the better the performance, the more parents will want their children to come to the school. The schools and staff would be held accountable for results. Parents will be free to “vote with their feet”.
Thanks –
Elizabeth
I have to conclude that his district could have lousy teachers and worse teaching practices. And we’d never know. And parents would still choose the school.
And they might even be making a good decision.
Jenny wrote:
Here are some counter anecdotes:
Patek Phillipe sells watchs, oh, several thousand times more expensive then the one I’m wearing. I’m reasonably sure of two things, A) a Patek Phillipe doesn’t tell time thousands of times better then my watch and, B) they don’t sell too many watches.
Point is, there’ll always be a market for people more interested in making a statement then telling time just as there’ll always be a market for parents more anxious to make a statement then to educate their kids. So what? Their money, their kids, their choice. Most people however, will opt for a somewhat more cost-effective choice either out of self-assurance, intelligence, a regard for their children’s futures or some combination of all three.
Second, Socioeconomic status is the key predictor of school success.
Yeah, we’ve been down this road with Mike from Texas.
There are enough in the way of exceptions to this “key indicator” to take it with, oh, a mountain of salt.
To the extent that it’s true at all, I think it’s due to the fact that as socioeconomic status correlates negatively with parental resigned acceptance. In other words, the richer you are the less likely you are to accept excuses and the more likely you are to seek resignations. As for the superintendent you quote, he sounds like a jerk.
Thus, I have to conclude that his district could have lousy teachers and worse teaching practices. And we’d never know. And parents would still choose the school.
If he can deliver an education that pleases parents and do it with chimpanzees running the classes then hooray for him. I’m sure the planet Krypton misses him. For the more earth-bound schools teacher quality and teacher practice matter where they’re valued. Obviously, that’s not the case in the district run by your suburban NYC superintendent.
ragnarok wrote:
I think the school superintendent was exaggerating when he claimed that “you make every fourth grader sit in a cornfield…
Probably indulging in wishful thinking.
Imagine how easy it would be to run a school district if it wasn’t beset by all those kids. Scheduling’s a breeze, labor problems disappear, budgets get a lot simpler, no threats of lawsuits, no parents complaining to the school board.
It’s got to be a slice of heaven to a school administrator.
Elizabeth
If your description of school choice there will be many kids without any school. If all schools only have to accept children they want, then many children will not be accepted anywhere.
The unstated assumption in the voucher, school choice argument is that there will still be public schools that have to accept everyone. Thus, the private schools/charter schools can a place to dump their undesirables.
If school choice/private schools were the god-send most people claim it they are then Honolulu with 50% private school attendence should be an educational haven with tremendous educationa success. However, if you look at the actual results, Honolulu is an educational failure because a couple of private schools skim the best students or the children of the richest parents.
“you make every fourth grader sit in a cornfield”, and I’d ahve learned quite a lot about corn and the insects that feed on it - much more than I actually did learn about anything in 4th grade. Fortunately, I was in better schools for K-3 and 5-12, but I still think they were wasting four or five hours of my time out of the six or seven hours of class time. Homeschooling parents get better results from only about two hours a day of actual instruction time.
Where longer school days are effective, it’s because the kids have home environments where study is impossible. So you lengthen the school day and they study in class. It’s far from the optimal solution; you have teachers serving as high-priced babysitters, a room with 30+ kids in it is hardly the ideal study environment either, and you are inadvertently teaching the kids a great falsehood - that they can only learn in school. But what else can you do if home has a TV blaring in every room until midnight and no one telling the kid to sit down and do his homework.
superdestroyer wrote:
The unstated assumption in the voucher, school choice argument is that there will still be public schools that have to accept everyone. Thus, the private schools/charter schools can a place to dump their undesirables.
See, here’s the problem with that bit of revealed truth: it’s not supported by the facts.
Turns out that charters, and schools that accept voucers, are the “dumping ground” for the district-based public education system. After all, it’s only parents who are unhappy with the district schools that’ll put themselves to the trouble of sending their kids to a charter.
If school choice/private schools were the god-send most people claim it they are then Honolulu with 50% private school attendence should be an educational haven with tremendous educationa success.
Sources?
“In fact, the superintendent of a very high SES school district in suburban NYC told me once that you make every fourth grader sit in a cornfield for every school day during the entire year, and at the end, the kids would still score above grade level on tests. “There’s nothing we’re doing in the school that has an effect as great as their home lives,” he told me.”
Wow… a superintendent has just come right out and stated that his whole organization is useless.
So why do we have a public school system again?
“First the bad news: Only about two-thirds of American teenagers (and just half of all black, Latino and Native American teens) graduate with a regular diploma four years after they enter high school.
Now the worse news: Of those who graduate, only about half read well enough to succeed in college.”
How about as a first step recognizing that in view of the “worse news”, the real bad news isn’t that “only” 2/3 of teenagers get a diploma, but that a full 1/3 of teenagers are getting diplomas who should have flunked out. If a diploma is something valuable and something you have to earn, the teenagers in question are going to do what it takes to learn the material and earn one. Otherwise they’ll go through the motions, since the diploma is worthless and easy to get, and we’ll wait till Hell freezes for someone to come up with a magic formula to get knowledge into the brains of students that aren’t actually trying to learn anything.
The unstated assumption in the voucher, school choice argument is that there will still be public schools that have to accept everyone. Thus, the private schools/charter schools can a place to dump their undesirables.
Define “undesirables”. Do we mean violent, criminal gangsters - or brilliant freethinkers who constantly embarass the school - or others?
If school choice/private schools were the god-send most people claim it they are then Honolulu with 50% private school attendence should be an educational haven with tremendous educationa success.
What else do we know about Honolulu? It is a very atypical city, in an atypical state - an isolated island whose economy is based on tourism and agriculture. Neither Honolulu nor Hawaii in general strike me as places with a strong drive for education or knowledge. That explains the failing private schools there, more than anything else.
However, if you look at the actual results, Honolulu is an educational failure because a couple of private schools skim the best students or the children of the richest parents.
The best students belong in the best schools. What use is there to put them in ordinary schools that cannot meet their educational needs, and may put them in danger? And as for rich kids, it can be a good thing if they segregate themselves rather than push around the poor kids.
Allen wrote:
Sources?
Try http://www.heartland.org/archives/education/jan02/roundup.htm
Beeman wrote :
Define “undesirables”. Do we mean violent, criminal gangsters - or brilliant freethinkers who constantly embarrass the school - or others?
I believe the schools get to define the term themselves. Private schools wield a tremendous amount of control by being able to show a student the door for any reason. Yet, that only works because there is always a public school to “dump” the student back to. In a world of vouchers for everyone, do you propose to allow public schools to show the door to anyone they do not want. How do you propose having schools compete for students if the public cannot limit admission as much as privates.
What else do we know about Honolulu? It is a very atypical city, in an atypical state - an isolated island whose economy is based on tourism and agriculture. Neither Honolulu nor Hawaii in general strike me as places with a strong drive for education or knowledge. That explains the failing private schools there, more than anything else.
Ok, them show me a entire country that has privatized their school systems. Or if not, then under a total voucher system what percentage of students are you willing to not having attending school at all? If we can agree on a number, then anyone can make counter education proposal.
However, if you look at the actual results, Honolulu is an educational failure because a couple of private schools skim the best students or the children of the richest parents.
The best students belong in the best schools. What use is there to put them in ordinary schools that cannot meet their educational needs, and may put them in danger? And as for rich kids, it can be a good thing if they segregate themselves rather than push around the poor kids.
Try running for public office with that argument. If private schools competing for students and achieving a high academic level, one should expect the national merit finalist spread across a number of schools instead of being concentrated in two schools. Yet, the example in Hawaii proves the opposite.
superdestroyer said:
“If school choice/private schools were the god-send most people claim it they are then Honolulu with 50% private school attendence…”
And you quoted http://www.heartland.org/archives/education/jan02/roundup.htm as the source, but what it says is:
“Honolulu, Hawaii, has the next highest rate, with 27.3 percent of students there attending non-public schools.
So, superdestroyer, I take it you rounded 27.3% up to 50%? Nice going!
BTW, try posting links instead of the URL, easier to follow.
superdestroyer wrote:
Try http://www.heartland.org/archives/education/jan02/roundup.htm
I did. Here’s the only mention of Hawaii:
Honolulu, Hawaii, has the next highest rate, with 27.3 percent of students there attending non-public schools.
Nothing about how rotten the private schools are even though the stupid rich people keep sending their kids to them and, oh by the way, 27.3% is a pretty far stretch from 50%.
Which brings us back to my original question: source?
However, if you look at the actual results, Honolulu is an educational failure
Yes, let’s do look at the actual results. You wouldn’t care to point them out would you?
Yet, the example in Hawaii proves the opposite.
What example? All you’ve done is repeat your unsupport complaints about the lousy private schools that stupid rich people insist on send their stupid rich kids too.
And this little assertion jumped out at me as well:
Yet, that only works because there is always a public school to “dump” the student back to.
You mean a private school couldn’t throw out an undesireable student if there weren’t a public school to “dump” them in to? Got any handy examples to prove that?
Off hand I’d say that there’s not a whole lot of reason a private school would concern themselves with a student they expelled and if they were going to expell the student they certainly wouldn’t hesitate if there weren’t a handy public school to dump that kid into. Why would they?
“How do you propose having schools compete for students if the public cannot limit admission as much as privates.”
What exactly don’t you understand about schools competing for students? I must admit I’m having a tough time deciphering your questions. The best schools will generally attract the best students, and the weaker students will go to the weaker schools, which is entirely reasonable.
Public schools can expel students, and they probably should do so more frequently than they do now. What’ll happen to those kicked out of schools? Well, they’ll try to get into other schools.
“Ok, them [sic] show me a [sic] entire country that has privatized their [sic] school systems.”
We’ve been over this before. I pointed out that vouchers imply choice, not privatization. You responded by redefining “privatization” to suit your purposes. For the record, if vouchers came to pass I’d expect a mixed system, some private, some public.
“Try running for public office with that argument.”
And this has exactly what to do with the merits of vouchers?
“If private schools competing for students and achieving a high academic level, one should expect the national merit finalist spread across a number of schools instead of being concentrated in two schools. [sic]”
Why? If these two schools have managed to attract the best students, why?
“superdestroyer” replied to me thusly:
me: Define “undesirables”. Do we mean violent, criminal gangsters - or brilliant freethinkers who constantly embarrass the school - or others?
SD: I believe the schools get to define the term themselves. Private schools wield a tremendous amount of control by being able to show a student the door for any reason.
Which by itself is not bad. At least private schools don’t constantly harass certain students for being “undesirable”, “bad”, “impolitic”, “bourgeois”, etc. but attempt to bar these students from seeking alternatives.
I don’t have any qualms about schools having the power to reject “undesirable” students, as long as they are backed by a consistent set of rules, and done in fairness. Abuses are more likely to happen in a hodgepodge public system, than in a private school with a solid purpose.
SD: Yet, that only works because there is always a public school to “dump” the student back to. In a world of vouchers for everyone, do you propose to allow public schools to show the door to anyone they do not want. How do you propose having schools compete for students if the public cannot limit admission as much as privates.
In a world of vouchers and private/charter schools, there will be a market for all types of schools for all types of students. I’m talking real diversity. Schools such as Milwaukee’s pro-freethinker Alliance School may flourish.
Ok, them show me a entire country that has privatized their school systems. Or if not, then under a total voucher system what percentage of students are you willing to not having attending school at all?
The ones who show no interest, and who cannot benefit at all from formal education.
However, if you look at the actual results, Honolulu is an educational failure because a couple of private schools skim the best students or the children of the richest parents.
You still haven’t answered the question, of how private schools skimming the best students lead to poor overall education.
me: The best students belong in the best schools. What use is there to put them in ordinary schools that cannot meet their educational needs, and may put them in danger? And as for rich kids, it can be a good thing if they segregate themselves rather than push around the poor kids.
Try running for public office with that argument.
That argument worked well enough in the 1960s. I could rephrase it as, “students belong, and do their best, in schools suited to them on the basis of individual need.”
If private schools competing for students and achieving a high academic level, one should expect the national merit finalist spread across a number of schools instead of being concentrated in two schools. Yet, the example in Hawaii proves the opposite.
So what? You might as well say that because vocational schools have lower test scores than academic ones, they are being sabotaged by the academic schools. It may not be obvious that different schools fit different students, and some might do better in a vocational (or athletic, religious, military, etc.) school.
I think I understand now what “superdestroyer” is trying to say. He (assuming SD is male) believes that overall average scores and number of high performers mark the goodness of a school - and resents non-public schools for draining them away. He’s entitled to his opinion - which is a very common one among public educators.
I say: If public schools really need and want the better students, they have to offer something in return, that such students want and need, and public schools have the power to give. After all, public schools bend over backwards for athletes. But first of all, never assume that the good students want the same things, or even such universal primate status symbols as money and power. Ask them what they want.
In many cases, it will be something academic, like a particle accelerator, or authentic Renaissance costumes for the play. Or it could be intangible, such as simple respect and goodwill.
Beeman said:
“I think I understand now what “superdestroyer” is trying to say.”
You’re a better man than I, Beeman. I’ve had quite a bit of trouble understanding superdestroyer. Sometimes I think he’s upset that vouchers wouldn’t get his (metaphorical?) kid into St. Albans, sometimes that Catholic schools might get a bunch of kids, but I’m never sure.
IIRC, I’ve seen superdestroyer far afield, telling public school zealots that kids would get a better education in “Christain [sic]” schools.
As the King of Siam said, “Is a puzzlement”.
My personal objections to vouchers is that they are described with a very broad brush using a simplistic economic model with very little thought to workability issues. I also like Jenny’s idea that the lanes that schools can function is is really fairly limited. Does St Alban’s in DC actually function very differently than T.C. Williams in Alexandria, Virginia? How far away can any school get from the model that both of then operate under?
The argument for vouchers is that with vouchers there will a multitude of private schools and those schools will, in a variety of mysterious and never described methods, boost average educational achievement and create a huge number of new seats in private schools.
Yet, in the real world, the U.S. cities where the largest number of students are in private schools, and the private schools have waiting list, no nre private schools are opening, exisiting private schools are not adding seats, and educational achievement is not rising. Using your simplistic free market argument, the private schools in Hawaii should be performing at such a level that the SAT scores in Hawaii should be above the mean, yet they are not (http://www.enterprisehonolulu.com/html/display.cfm?sid=111)
They are laos not really adding seats.
I also liked the non-answers on the workability of vouchers.
1. Do public schools get to adapt an admission policy such as private schools? If they have to accept everyone, then how can the “compete” in the market of schoos?
2. Can public schools under a voucher program expel students as easily as private schools?
3. Are private schools going to have report the same data as public schools (such as graduate rates, mean SAT scores, percentage of free lunch)?
3. Does vouchers raise mean educational performance or does it raise it for high performing students or does it raise it for low end students? I personally believe that vouchers would work best for students on the low end because inner city public schools are so bad that having those kids escaping to Christian Academies or small do-it-yourself schools is a benefit. I believe that vouchers would have no affect on the top students who go to the best private schools but I believe vouchers will hurt the middle because vouchers will destroy the goo suburban public schools and replace them with inferior private schools that will not offer the same program. (Yes, I know you are going to ask how voucher do this. The answer is vouchers send a clear signal to parents to abandon the suburban schools and that the local Christain Academy can do a better job).
Also, if you are willing to have a large number of school aged children not in school, then I can propose a multitude of reforms to improve public schools that have nothing to do with vouchers to include: tracking for all starting in kindergarten, high stakes testing very year, and making junior high and high school voluntary.
Again, I would love anyone here to go to the media and say that they best way to improve schools is to stop teaching 1/3 of the children and send the other 2/3 to private schools.
First things first, Superdestroyer. You claimed that 50% of Honolulu kids attend non-public schools, but the source you cited says the figure is 27.3%. Please explain the difference or retract your claim and admit that you were wrong. Without intellectual honesty it’s very hard to have a worthwhile discussion.
“Yet, in the real world, the U.S. cities where the largest number of students are in private schools, and the private schools have waiting list [sic], no nre [sic] private schools are opening, exisiting [sic] private schools are not adding seats, and educational achievement is not rising.”
Proof? Assuming for the moment that you’re right in claiming that these private schools have waiting lists, have you considered the possibility that the waiting lists aren’t long enough to make it worthwhile to open more private schools?
“…the private schools in Hawaii should be performing at such a level that the SAT scores in Hawaii should be above the mean, yet they are not (http://www.enterprisehonolulu.com/html/display.cfm?sid=111)
They are laos [sic] not really adding seats.”
Above the mean of what? The only valid comparison would be a longitudinal (despise the word!) study of Hawaii SAT scores before and after the private schools came into existence. And by the way, since you seem to have missed it, your own reference says “Hawaii has consistently outperformed the nation in the Math section of the SAT score.”. Just like you missed the fact the 27.3% isn’t the same as 50%!
“1. Do public schools get to adapt [sic] an admission policy such as private schools? If they have to accept everyone, then how can the [sic] “compete” in the market of schoos [sic]?”
Asked and answered.
“2. Can public schools under a voucher program expel students as easily as private schools?”
Asked and answered.
“3. Are private schools going to have [to] report the same data as public schools (such as graduate [sic] rates, mean SAT scores, percentage of free lunch)?”
Sure, if they take public money, you can attach conditions to it; but equally they’re free to reject the vouchers.
“3 [4, I think]. Does [sic] vouchers raise mean educational performance or does it raise it for high performing students or does it raise it for low end students? I personally believe that vouchers would work best for students on the low end because inner city public schools are so bad that having those kids escaping to Christian Academies or small do-it-yourself schools is a benefit. I believe that vouchers would have no affect [sic] on the top students who go to the best private schools but I believe vouchers will hurt the middle because vouchers will destroy the goo [sic] suburban public schools and replace them with inferior private schools that will not offer the same program. (Yes, I know you are going to ask how voucher [sic] do this. The answer is vouchers send a clear signal to parents to abandon the suburban schools and that the local Christain [sic] Academy can do a better job).”
Ah, those dumb parents, sitting around and thinking, yes, let’s abandon our good public schools and embrace the bad Christian Academies.
ragnarok
I will concede the 50% on Honolulu if you can produce an example of a country in the World that operates on the system that you propose.
Of if can produce data from any metropolitan area in the US where the private schools out perform public schools after correcting for parental education and socio-economic status of the students. If your model, there are a multitude of private schools are producing tremendous educational achievement, please produce the data to back up your claim.
Now,
Yes/no. Under a voucher system will the public schools have to create some sort of school for all students not admitted to private ? You have had waved this twice and I bet you try a third time.
Yes/no. Under a voucher system some children will be left without a seat in any school? Also, expecting another hand wave.
And last, does every parent you know make rational decisions for their children all of the time? I guess I live in a different world because I see parents and families being very irrational when making decisions about their children.
superdestroyer said:
“I will concede the 50% on Honolulu if …”
No, no, Superdestroyer, you’ve been caught fudging the numbers twice, once with the 50% claim and again with the Hawaii SAT scores. This isn’t a K-Mart blue-light special, 2 falsehoods for the price of none. Retractions are in order.
What I can’t understand is this: Did you honestly think that we wouldn’t examine your claim, or did you fail to understand your own sources? Either way, it’s pretty bad.
“Yes/no. Under a voucher system will the public schools have to create some sort of school for all students not admitted to private ? You have had [sic] waved this twice and I bet you try a third time.”
Don’t you read the posts? Allen pointed out that the charters function as dumping grounds for the public schools.
“Yes/no. Under a voucher system some children will be left without a seat in any school? Also, expecting another hand wave.”
See above.
“And last, does every parent you know make rational decisions for their children all of the time? I guess I live in a different world because I see parents and families being very irrational when making decisions about their children.”
Anyone make this claim? Can you point me at it? But in those cases where they make bad decisions, I’m sure you’ll be there to correct them, won’t you?
BTW, just curious, you indicated that you’d been a TA in grad school. What major? Not education, I presume?