Lets talk public schooling

[Nuka-sama]

I'm in a boarding school, were my mum pays some # thousand to make me learn stupid British stuff.

 

[Desmond Hawkins]

I doubt that. Many homeschooled children are smarter than average.

Now this isn't to say that homeschooling is superior. Some parents make horrible teachers and I know by experience. However, parents who are patient and knowledgable, together with kids self-motivated to learn, make homeschooling a far better choice than public school for some.

My anecdotal experience is that homeschool kids usually struggle to keep up when they transfer into public schools. They seem to take a good year to catch up.

This is largely because the vast majority of parents are not qualified to teach Senior-level math, physics, chemistry, biology, english, AND social studies. It takes a decent amount of expertise in a subject to teach it to another person. To have that expertise over 6 subjects is very rare.

Maybe this isn't as important at the elementary or even junior high levels, but in high school you see the difference.

 

[Old Spice]

Most of the Teachers in public schools are not qualified to teach Senior-level math,physics,chemistry,biology, ect.

 

[amadeus]

Kids do not get an equal shot, because public school options are not close to equal.

I'd say that the students, parents, and schools are unequal; no number of microscopes and midnight basketball programs is going to stop lousy students from being lousy and awful parents from being awful.

Why? Well, public districts are mostly paid for via the district's property taxes. Naturally, if the district is a poor area (and thus, has low property value), the district gets less money, even if it takes in more students than a more affluent district.

We had this dicussion about Washington D.C., which (again) receives more per capita funding than any U.S. state.

North Dakota, on the other hand, spends the lowest per capita ($4,612 - one third of Washington D.C.) yet has a graduation rate of 88%, second highest in the nation.

Why I don't pretend to paint the issue of educational disparity as just a "pump more money into it" sort of thing, (I know it isn't that simple), its obvious that poorer districts are at a big disadvantage, and students lose because of that.

There are a few purposed solutions. One is to increase the involvement of the state and federal governments (grants to poor districts). They do this to some extent already, but some groups would like more involvement to close the gap. I'm not really a fan of this, because I think its dangerous to get administrators hooked on free money. Plus, the state/feds will then want more control over what goes on in each district, which most people don't want.

You failed to mention the money that is wasted. So a school in Minneapolis hires new teachers and buys new computers, so what? That doesn't mean the kids get any smarter.

Another solution are school vouchers, which allow children to attend private school. I'm really not a fan of this either. First, its using taxpayer money to support religious education (if I wanted to support catholic schools...I'd send my kids to one). Also, private schools have no oversight from the state, so basically anybody can work there, which leads to subpar administrators.

The private schools would have no interest in keeping a poor administrator on staff. Public schools, on the other hand, have their hands tied by threats of strikes by teacher's unions, wrongful termination lawsuits, and anti-"discrimination" legislation.

 

[cegman]

Ahh but most Teachers don't have to teach those classes only the math physics chemistry biology, ect teacher that teaches them.

 

[Old Spice]

That doesn't mean they are qualified, it just means they claim that they know what they are talking about.

 

[Desmond Hawkins]

Most of the Teachers in public schools are not qualified to teach Senior-level math,physics,chemistry,biology, ect.

Ya, ya, ya, teachers are dumb and all those critical parents out there know exactly how their kids should be taught. I have no doubt there are a lot of subpar teachers out there, but on the whole, I would trust them to teach their very specific specialty more than a parent who tries to teach six different senior level subjects (which high school teachers do not do).

It is one thing to get by high school math and even introductory university calculus with a passing grade, and a whole other thing to have to coherently teach that subject to another human being. This is why home-schooled high school students seem to stick to the lower level math and science courses. (That and lots of them are religious and won't properly touch on evolution with a 40 foot pole )

 

[Old Spice]

I have only ever met one high school teacher that made any sense, parents teaching might be the worse thing ever but teachers at public schools are not much better.

 

[Desmond Hawkins]

Look, I understand there is a shortage of qualified teachers to properly staff all public schools. However, a lot of that has to do with long-term neglect. If you create a work environment where class sizes are huge, and on top of it, the teacher is expected to deal with 8 special needs students (who use 60% of the time), and then only moderately compensate them, you will not get the best of quality.

If you created a good work environment, perhaps you could attract that math graduate who has just completed a master's and wants a fulfilling job. Perhaps a class of 23 students that doesn't include 8 emotionally disfunctional "special" cases will encourage them.

Now, it could take many years to build up that work environment, and it could cost a lot of money. You know what? You shouldn't have let it get so damned bad in the first place.

Anyway, a lot of people who seem to complain about the quality of teachers largely just lack the work ethic and intelligence to do well. The student has to input into the process as well. The teacher can't help the student who is too lazy to study consistently on his/her own time.

 

[ShannonCT]

This is largely because the vast majority of parents are not qualified to teach Senior-level math, physics, chemistry, biology, english, AND social studies. It takes a decent amount of expertise in a subject to teach it to another person. To have that expertise over 6 subjects is very rare.

This is where homeschooling networks and tutors come in. Most homeschooling parents are qualified to teach 1-2 topics at a senior level and seek outside help for topics they aren't qualified for. This in combination with individual attention and flexibility of curriculum results in homeschooled children consistently outperforming both public and private school students. Teachers in classrooms have to waste so much time teaching down to the lowest common denominator that they will rarely outperform a less-qualified parent teaching a kid one-on-one.

 

[Old Spice]

I don't think this is about teachers anyway. We shouldn't spend the money because the students are not going to improve. Most of them are hopeless because like there teachers they have no ethics, morals or drive to do better for themselves. Why do people think that throwing money at things will fix it?

 

[Desmond Hawkins]

Tutors aren't exactly the parents though, are they. Tutors are often/usually professional teachers working part-time; sometimes retired from the school system (or drawn away from the big class sizes and low pay; so basically wealthy people sapping away the human resources of the public system).

I would still classify that as a private, for-hire school system, rather than pure "in-the-family" homeschooling. This is more what I was referring to as my anecdotal experience, and I was arguing against the contention that a parent themself could provide a better education for their kids than the inept public school, which seemed to be a line of argument by some.

The strawman I was creating was basically, "stupid teachers, I could educate my kids so much better myself. What do we pay these people for?"

 

[ShannonCT]

If you created a good work environment, perhaps you could attract that math graduate who has just completed a master's and wants a fulfilling job. Perhaps a class of 23 students that doesn't include 8 emotionally disfunctional "special" cases will encourage them.

To do this, you would have to eliminate a lot of the bureaucracy and break the strangle-hold that the unions have on hiring and firing. You can't attract top talent into a profession where lazy, apathetic old teachers make more than more than brilliant young teachers performing the same task much better. Public school compensation is not a merit-based system. Things only change where parents decide that they are willing to pay more for top talent, and even then, the unions rule.

 

[downtown]

I'd say that the students, parents, and schools are unequal; no number of microscopes and midnight basketball programs is going to stop lousy students from being lousy and awful parents from being awful.

I'll agree that parents and schools are unequal. Students, when you start at the 1st grade level though, I think, are more or less equal...by the time you get to high school, family situations/quality of the school will have changed that. However, I do think that quality programs and resources to help keep kids motivated and involved can make lousy students less lousy. If that wasnt the case, as soon as we find out they're lousy, why not just kick 'em out of school and save the money? Have kids drop out in 7th grade?

We had this dicussion about Washington D.C., which (again) receives more per capita funding than any U.S. state.

North Dakota, on the other hand, spends the lowest per capita ($4,612 - one third of Washington D.C.) yet has a graduation rate of 88%, second highest in the nation.

And I reminded you about costs of living. What states spend the most? DC, NY, NJ, CA and Alaska. The states where cost of living (and wages) are the highest. You spend more when rent is 2000/mo, instead of 280/mo. I think its a little unfair to compare ND to DC, when North Dakota has almost none of the other problems that poor urban districts have. The two states are really apples and oranges.

You failed to mention the money that is wasted. So a school in Minneapolis hires new teachers and buys new computers, so what? That doesn't mean the kids get any smarter.

No, I agree. Free money from the state/feds is often wasted. I'd like a solution that raises money locally in a different way, to increase accountibility. Its easier to waste federal money than it is to waste money from your town's taxpayers.

The private schools would have no interest in keeping a poor administrator on staff. Public schools, on the other hand, have their hands tied by threats of strikes by teacher's unions, wrongful termination lawsuits, and anti-"discrimination" legislation.

While you are correct in teacher's unions making things difficult, private schools do keep poor teachers/administrators on staff. Its a lot cheaper to higher a guy was a BA for 55,000-60,000 to run your school, and then control enrolement to keep special needs and other kids out, than it is to pay 100,000 for a real principle. You can mask all sorts of problems with selective enrolement.

 

[Stolen Rutters]

Detroit is our worst local example of a school system gone bad. The system was developed for a city of 2 million people and their kids... well, there are about 850,000 to 900,000 left. The city is closing school buildings as fast as it can (finally), but it hasn't been able to afford much in the way of books for a few decades.

My sister lives in the city and has three kids in school. What they have to work with in the city is unreal. At least one third of the class they are in would be considered special needs, and more than two thirds qualify for free lunch in the school. My sister's kids have each been on top of their classes since they were at the school. She volunteers as a parent helper in the classes and refuses to consider moving to a better school district.

She has this odd principle that you need to delve right into the worst of the problem to fix it, and actually feels that putting HER kids in the school will help the school. (I wish she were a bit more selfish and put them into a better school system. It's possible with the school choice system in place now.) We are all making a special effort to help the kids stay up to snuff academically to help overcome the the environment (yes, even me the Engineer uncle). The stakes are too high to let them grow up with only a "ghetto worldview".

I agree that selective enrollment is helping the suburbs perform much better than the city, since they can actually afford to set up special schools and classes for special needs children (and separate out their lower test scores from the state test records of given schools). You aren't allowed to do that if you keep them in the regular classroom.

And
I think all schools should be run like D.O.D.D.S. shools (department of defence dependant schooling).

I disagree about the DoDDS way of education, making all schools like DoDDS schools. Sure, they massively outperform regular schools but they spend over $14,000 per student in funding (DoDEA for example has a $1.44B budget for just over 100,000 students in 2003 and that is the MOST EFFICIENT of the programs). Michigan school districts spend between $3500 and $11000 per pupil. This program spends way more per pupil than even the richest school district in the state. We are talking about a massive tax increase if we go this route.

 

[Desmond Hawkins]

To do this, you would have to eliminate a lot of the bureaucracy and break the strangle-hold that the unions have on hiring and firing. You can't attract top talent into a profession where lazy, apathetic old teachers make more than more than brilliant young teachers performing the same task much better. Public school compensation is not a merit-based system. Things only change where parents decide that they are willing to pay more for top talent, and even then, the unions rule.

I have spent my whole life around teachers (outside of school), and I would have to say you exaggerate the union problem. In my experience, qualified, quality, older teachers are pushed out of their job in favour of less qualified and inexperienced younger teachers - at least in Alberta. This is because they didn't have to pay these young ones as much. Here, they tried to save money by forcing the older ones into early retirement and flooding the system with less-competent, fresh outta school ones.

The unions have their faults, but they are a relatively minor factor compared to the general lack of funds to attract top quality talent, while maintaining quality people already in the system (without working them to death in 33 student classes).

Anyway, I don't have a problem with parents privately seeking teachers/tutors to educate their children. I have a problem with people saying, "I could teach my kid all of these high school subjects to my child better than some stupid teacher", when this is very rarely the case.

 

[happy_Alex]

This is an excellent thread, Matt and I'm sorry I missed it right from the start, you've bought up some interesting points. In response to your OP, Education cubed (jerrico Hill) thats OK but actually by itself dosen't shift hereditary poverty or disenfranchisment or social exclusion. I believe that education needs to be placed in a broader social (and historical) context when discussing it's impact on poverty. Children from poorer backgrounds tend to do worse at school, but unless we examine root inequalities in society which perpetuates poverty.

Working class families have less resources in terms of parental time and material resources to dedicate to investing in prolonged education for thier children. Often, the curriculum is not perceived by them to be very usefull or practical in providing the skills which are needed for day to day existance. The designers of education curricular are primarily drawn from the middle classses and it is their type of professions which are perpetuated in the curricular.

After all, in a true meritocracy, space must exist for people to move 'down' a class as well as up ie, maybe not to become professionals like their folks but plumbers or carpenters instead. The problem is, who is going to allow a curriculum that allows that?

So we end up with an curriculum that cannot provide for the skill requirements of society, perpetuating a shortage of skilled labour. At least, that's the way I see it in the UK.

"Equality of opportunity" is a particuallarly vacuous mantra, designed to let hardcore free-marketeers of the social responsibility hook. IE "well they all got a chance, so if they don't take it f*** 'em" . But it does not pan out when attempting to challenge inequality and prejudice. We all have an equal opportunity to play the lottery, but only few will win. We need to measure equality of outcome to see how efective planning is.

I'm in a boarding school, were my mum pays some # thousand to make me learn stupid British stuff.

Good for you, nuclear kid. Go and tell your mum to stop wasting her hard earned cash to turn you into an elitist. How useful will all that british stuff aactually be in a 21st century economy anyway? What's on your curriculum?

 

[Desmond Hawkins]

After all, in a true meritocracy, space must exist for people to move 'down' a class as well as up ie, maybe not to become professionals like their folks but plumbers or carpenters instead. The problem is, who is going to allow a curriculum that allows that?

Are you kidding? Do you know how much money plumbers make? And in Alberta, master carpenters are in huge demand. Tradespeople make a pretty penny, even if it looks like they are poor suckers who wear ratty clothes to work. Odds are that sucker makes 50+ bucks an hour.