Is the public school system in the United states fundamentally broken?

Not at all.

They are not required to admit anyone they don't want to. Public schools must admit everyone in their district.

True sometimes, not always. And when it IS cheaper, it is generally for two reasons: they pay teachers less, and they are not required to educate the most-expensive kids.
-- Developmentally and behaviorally disabled kids? Nope.
-- Kids in need of a ton of remedial education? Nope.

Public schools, by contrast, must educate those kids. And that is hugely expensive.

Because, again, they get to cherry-pick their students.

#1, parochial schools are not required to admit all students. Here are the rules for the Brooklyn archdiocese:
http://dioceseofbrooklyn.org/schools/admissions/

I picked Holy Angels Academy at random to check its admission policy. Here it is:
http://www.holyangelsbayridge.org/2...tant-information/40-registration-requirements

Students must submit a transcript, do an interview with the principal, and take an entrance exam. Then the school decides whether to admit them or not.

A public school does NONE of those things. They must take you if you live in the district.

So no, parochial schools do NOT admit everyone who applies.

#2, you ignore the point I first raised: self-selection bias. A parent willing to pay an extra $4,000 a year to enroll their child in private school is by definition more involved and committed than the average.

You are wrong on quite a few levels.

#1, public schools are accountable to the public. Parents have a lot of power in public schools, if they choose to exercise it: from electing and communicating with school-board members, to approving school funding, to joining the PTO, to volunteering in their child's school, to speaking directly with their child's teachers and principal.

#2, most school districts have "opt-out" policies that let you send your student to a different school in the district, if you prefer. You may lose out on busing if you don't send them to their neighborhood school, but that's the only downside. Some school districts partner together so you can send your kid to any school in any of the partner districts.

And then there are private and charter schools. I don't have anything against them. But don't pretend they are magical, or that they are a replacement for, rather than a supplement to, the public system.

This literally has NOTHING to do with anything I've written.

I think this is the part where I suggest you have a go at reading comprehension. Please re-read my posts and think about whether your last three sentences have anything to do with what I wrote.

 

asdgasdgasdgasdgasdg

 

Consider, the Greatest State of California did at better job at Public Education before the Federals and their CORE curriculum, testing, oversight. Tax money for education should not be sent to the Federals to be parceled back with bonuses for good testmanship.
As the Constitution does not mention Education as a Federal power, it is reserved for the States per the 10th.
If some State is grotesquely failing to provide education, then let the Federals go after that State's Rights & Powers regarding education.

The solution starts with the States managing education and not the Federals.
Sadly, States' Rights and Powers have gotten confused with the Black Civil Rights era of the sixties.
There are somethings the States can do better.
The Greatest State of California had better Indigent Medical Care before '64 MediCaid.


Moi
I voted "other".
I wonder what all those other, "others" meant?
Y'know why I voted "other".

r > g

Across an immense, unguarded, ethereal border, Canadians, cool and unsympathetic,
regard our America with envious eyes and slowly and surely draw their plans against us.​

 

I'm a big supporter of quality education. The public/private aspect is secondary in my opinion, although apparently not in yours.

 

I'm interested in if that particular opinion has any nationwide support. I suspect most people would view that as punishing the child and denying him or her an education.

 

Cherry picking one parochial school that has an entrance exam doesn't mean they all do. In fact, the overwhelming majority of parochial schools do NOT have any entrance requirements, including faith. And of those who do not have entrance exams, they are cheaper and perform better than their public school counterparts, operating in the same neighborhoods.

I attended both public and private schools, and I never had to take an exam for either. What you describe is not an actual thing where I live, except among the elite schools that charge a fortune. I'm speaking about your basic parochial schools competing against public schools. What you are doing, is akin to bringing up Harvard in a discussion of state colleges.

If there were a requirement of initial acceptance for private schools as part of a voucher bill, that would not bother me in the slightest. I seriously doubt that would be a deal breaker to anyone who supports vouchers.

Nobody is talking about taking the public funding away. They are talking about giving that money to the parents, instead of the school. If the public schools are better in an an area, then nothing changes.

If the parent has a special needs kid, then they of course should be given a bigger voucher. If this leads to special needs kids having their own schools, this is a GOOD thing. They would be far better off in an environment more accustomed to and prepared for their needs.

The accountability of public schools to the public is ineffectual, clearly. If public schools are so great, why do they fail so hard, in the same neighborhoods where private schools who accept all students (apples to apples), have success? When is the magic that public schools promise going to kick in? After 100 years, or 200 years, or....when exactly?

Why do you want wealthy parents to be able to have school choice, but not poor parents? You said you never said this. I agree. I said it. Or rather, I'm asking it. Do you agree that it's unfair that wealthy parents get school choice, but not poor parents?

What is it about education, that is unique to the industry, that requires Socialism to work?

Let me explain by using another industry as an example. Bear with me, it's a lengthy argument.

I personally support single provider health care. Capitalism works because it provides incentives, via competition, to provide higher quality products for less money. In health care you have a lack of market participants to create the needed competition. This leads to crony capitalism, which is worse than Socialism. In healthcare, you already have an incentive to innovate: saving lives. In healthcare, the customer does not care about costs, because their life is worth more than anything they have, and they will gladly make the trade. In healthcare, the cost of entry in to the marketplace is MASSIVE. For these reasons, the magic of Capitalism cannot occur. Therefore, the next best thing, Socialism makes sense to me.

Given the argument above, what is it about education that creates problems similar to healthcare, making Socialism a better way to handle it? If all you need to educate youth, is teachers, books, and a quiet room, how does Socialism benefit this? What is about the benefits of Capitalism, that cannot occur in education?

Nearly all of your problems with the current private school system, would be solved by the market. If your little bratty kid gets kicked out of a few private schools, perhaps he would only be able to go to a special school for little jerks. We already have these in the public school system, via behavior disorder schools, or alternative education programs. We are already taking bad kids and putting them in a different school. There is no reason to think this cannot continue in a private school system, via different schools that perhaps charge more, or home schooling. In fact, in my city, there already is a private school that takes kids kicked out of the others. It's not cheap.

Nothing about the voucher system is of any harm to public schools. If parents like the public option, they can stay there. Under current law, public schools only receive funding if the student was at school that day. They literally track daily attendance to submit for payment. This is why out of school suspensions are becoming a thing of the past. So, they are already getting funding based on how many students are there. Why would vouchers be any different?

I suspect I won't change your mind about any of this. However, I think if you actually read everything I wrote, you will perhaps merely consider the logic of what I say, and I can't ask for any more than that.

 

Please provide an example from the Brooklyn Catholic schools of a school that does not have any entrance requirements. It would also be helpful if you could provide evidence that, entrance requirements or not, there is any Catholic school that accepts every student that applies.

I'll point out that you haven't actually demonstrated this point, just asserted it. But for the sake of argument, let's say this is true. Why are they cheaper and better? BECAUSE THEY GET TO CHERRY-PICK THEIR STUDENTS.

Now you're resorting to anecdotal evidence that is neither a) shown to be representative nor b) provable.

Great. Then find me a private school in your area that takes all comers and doesn't have entrance requirements. At least then you'll have one example of your claim. Ideally, you would give me multiple examples, to show that it is the norm and not the exception.

??? I chose a random ELEMENTARY school from the Catholic diocese YOU brought up as your preferred example. Please show me that I managed to pick the exception, not the rule.

Why are you talking about vouchers? I've never once mentioned vouchers.

Why are you talking about vouchers? I've never once mentioned vouchers.

Why are you talking about vouchers? I've never once mentioned vouchers.

And you base this assertion on ...what?

BECAUSE THE PRIVATE SCHOOLS GET TO CHERRY-PICK THEIR STUDENTS.

You keep asserting the private schools accept all students, and have so far provided ZERO evidence to support that claim, while I, with minimal effort, found evidence to cast doubt on that claim. Please stop making the assertion until you back it up.

You also assert that public schools "fail so hard", with no evidence to back that up, either. There are thousands of school districts in this country, containing tens of thousands of schools. Like any human institution, some are well-run; some aren't. Some are well-funded; some aren't. The fact that some districts may perform poorly does not mean public education IN GENERAL is performing poorly, just like the fact that some private schools perform poorly does not mean private schools IN GENERAL perform poorly.

Before we get into a discussion about vouchers (which I'm willing to have), let's settle the points that brought me into this thread in the first place. Once we have agreement (or agree to disagree) on that baseline, we can talk about vouchers.

 

I never said you brought up vouchers. I'M bringing up vouchers. I thought we were having a discussion, sorry. I did not know that only you gets to say things that are not direct rebuttals. Pardon me.

Vouchers are the entire point of my assertions. How could anyone not see that? What in the world did you think my point was, if not vouchers?

 

I thought your point was that private schools were better than public schools.

Maybe if you wanted to discuss vouchers, you should have mentioned vouchers.

Regardless, I am happy to discuss vouchers. But first I would like to finish the discussion we were having, which was to establish that your private-public school comparison is (or is not) an apples-to-apples comparison.

So please point me to a Brooklyn Catholic School that doesn't have any entrance requirements. Also point me to the same or different Catholic school that accepts all students that apply.

 

Why would anyone care about private vs public schools, if not when discussing vouchers? Did you think my point was to just bash public schools for "reasons"?

 

As someone who has experienced public education very recently (graduated just a year ago), these would be my observations:
-Standardized tests are a lesson in futility. When I was in high school, every core class was centered around these tests for the entire year. If you scored higher on the second test, the first grade would be replaced. On top of that, less than ten completely new questions/concepts would be on the last test of the year. So let that sink in. That means that if a student (like me) aced the first test, then that student would be wasting his or her time for the ENTIRE YEAR answering the same questions over and over. Conversely, a student who would get progressively better scores on the tests may not be learning anything either-- as in my opinion I do not believe these repetitive questions teach anything other than how to possibly do better on the next test; standardized tests do not further any skills or knowledge other than test-taking itself. FURTHER, it should be noted that in my experiences, in any class centered around standardized tests, it would literally be all we do every single day in class. Take a test, go over the test, prepare the next test, and repeat. I'm not kidding or exaggerating.

-We talk a lot about paying teachers as much as doctors and lawyers in this country, but we do not talk about holding them as accountable. In any other setting, your job is to provide a service. But if you are a teacher, you are like a second parent. You have the authority to say or do almost anything you want to children and adolescents, and at the snap of your fingers you can have students locked up in "alternative school" for whatever reason you like. I witnessed teachers who skipped their classes, wandered the halls, made circus acts out of the special ed students, and then have the gall to send teenagers away for months for "having an attitude." There are, quite frankly, many who work in public education who work there because they get a kick out of having power over children and adolescents, and many cases do not have to teach a thing at all. Standardized tests have made this even more apparent. I am not speaking ill of all teachers, but rather from my experience. I had amazing teachers...a whopping two of them. While I think my high school was worse than the average in hindsight, my point is that we give the power to teachers and other school faculty to do practically whatever they please. A good teacher would never abuse such power in the first place, but would you rather have better rules and policy, or go around rounding up every inadequate teacher in the country?

-As the poll reflects, we think that throwing money at education magically fixes it. It's just more complicated than that.

-We've got to stop treating students like criminals. In my senior year, I was taking so many dual enrollment courses that I was only at the high school for two or three hours out of the day. But you would have thought I committed a felony every time I left the building to go to those classes because they would constantly question where I was going, why, etc. The culture of public education is one in which teachers and faculty are on a constant witch hunt, trying to find some excuse to punish students. Education isn't their priority, punishment is.

-Dress codes. Forget to put on your belt and they want you to leave, get your parent to leave work and come to the school, hold an inquiry-- this is complete and utter nonsense! At long as a kid isn't naked or walking around with a t-shirt covered in obscenities, who cares?

-"PDA." All over the country, we gather every Friday night to watch teenage boys give each other brain damage while half the people in the stadium puff smoke in everyone's faces. But god forbid you see two teenagers hold hands or give a peck on the cheek in the hallway. The irony here is that I know for a fact that my high school's administrators ignored a huge case of sexual assault, but were constantly on the prowl for locking consenting couples up in alternative school.

-Finally, to speak more broadly, I'm not sure even five days is worth it. Granted, standardized tests are largely to blame for my lack of formal education (everything I know, I learned on my own), but the structure of putting kids in desks while a teacher talks at the front of a room all day every day might just be dated. I learned math better from computers, I learned English better from reading, I learned storytelling not only from books but also quality television, and I learned history and science from my own research. I'm generally a cynical person, but I can't be alone in thinking that textbooks are incredibly untrustworthy anyway, right? My point is that education may be in need of an overhaul of such magnitude that it would require an extreme amount of work and thought across the country and from intelligent local, state, and federal administrations-- which we don't have.

In summary, the system is broken, it's getting worse every year, and I don't expect anyone to fix it.

 

I don't know. I answer the posts in front of me; I don't speculate on motive.

Anyway, the answers to my questions are relevant to the voucher discussion. So please answer them, and we can proceed.

 

Well, it takes several hearings and a month of time to expel a student in a public school, and unless guns or drugs are involved, it's not automatic. It takes about 5 minutes between a Catholic School Principal and the local priest to expel a student from Catholic Schools....

 

If you are not able to spot what a topic is, it doesn't sound like it will be a very entertaining discussion. If you refuse to give your own thoughts on the subject, that also doesn't sound like a very entertaining discussion.

The fact of the matter is, there is no source I can link that will explain free market Capitalism to you, in any kind of brief manner. You either get it, or you don't.

Sitting here googling up sources that prove commonly accepted truths isn't an actual discussion.

 

When that student is expelled from a parochial school, is he then also expelled from every other private school?

 

You have got to be kidding me. I have given you very detailed replies, including linking to evidence, to support my argument that you are trying to make an apples-to-oranges comparison between public and private schools.

You have made repeated assertions, and not supplied any evidence to back them up.

I ask you only to do what I have done: link to a Catholic school in the Brooklyn diocese that does what you says.

You refuse.

The only conclusion we can draw is that you CANNOT provide such evidence, and that your evidence-less assertions have no merit.

 

Show me where I've said either of those things is true.

Starting off a response with a falsehood is a sure way to have anything you ignored.

At least I've given you the prestige of an ellipsis.

 

After our brief exchange, I see no way to avoid you ignoring what I say. /shrug

 

And, in your search for "excellence" are you willing to guarantee every kid a Phillips Exeter Academy experience? No matter the cost? Even $47,000 per student per year?

No, let's face it, you're not.

And in your search for "excellence" what you WILL guarantee is that those who cannot afford more will get nothing. By turning over education to for profit entities all you will be ensuring is the profitability of those entities, of course, at the public expense.

 

Really? Or would they view it as elevating the academic environment by ensuring the students in the classroom have the full support of their parents?

Removing the disruptive influences will make the education experience more beneficial for everyone.

 

You factually told me you would not give me your opinion on vouchers, until I could provide you with a link refuting your stated facts. What are you on about?

The source for my claim is from a book I do not have at work; I will have to check the footnote of their source when I get home. It's written by the economist Thomas Sowell. I will admit upfront that his source may be out dated. However, as my point is one of human nature, I doubt humans have changed all that much in the interim.

In my experience, people on the internet that are obsessed with linking sources can never be placated. They want you to do a lot of work looking stuff up, and when you present it, they will just discredit it, no matter how accurate it is. Often they will admit to not even reading it. To me, this is a form of trolling, and a waste of my time. I'm not saying you are doing this, but merely that it's a common thing that goes on, and one I have little patience for.

I am seeking YOUR opinion on the matter, quite frankly. That is my point. I want to discuss the pros and cons, because I find what other people think to be interesting. I'm not here to "win". In fact, when people do succeed in changing my mind, I consider that a win to me, not a loss. Anytime I can improve my personal knowledge, to be more accurate, I will consider this a good thing. If being right is all that concerns me, I certainly don't need others to participate, now do I?

Yet, you refuse to even give your most basic opinion about our discussion: vouchers. Therefore, I see little reason to jump through the hoops of someone who I don't even know if they have anything interesting to say or not, on the subject matter.

 

"The Mote in God's Eye"

“What have they said to us?"
"I could translate, but it would be meaningless. They have welcomed us in the name of their Emperor, who appears to be an over-Master. The short, round one is Mediator to this Emperor."
"Ah. We have at last found one who can communicate. Speak to her."
"But he has said nothing!"
"Say nothing in return.”

I have answered you in your terms.

 

/yawn

You made your "point", whatever it was. Now shoo!

 

The worst possible criteria would be to select one over the other when both are failing. For example in the Detroit school system about 40% of the students attend private charter schools and a comparison was made based upon math and reading proficiency.

https://thinkprogress.org/trump-education-secretary-public-schools-3eb20d886c49

The problem would be to "back" private charter schools over the traditional public schools because both are failing in both categories. The goal ins not 13%, 17%,39% or 53% proficiency. Ideally it 100% while pragmatically 90% would probably be an acceptable proficiency rating Of note it's actually easier to improve the public schools proficiency because it's lower and provides more opportunities for improvement.

The problem increases when we measure schools based upon "growth" and then use "proficiency" in measuring student achievement.. Debates in education policy continue over whether test-based accountability for schools should measure students’ proficiency levels or growth in learning over time.

 

Personally, I think that government schools should be eliminated entirely. I don't think the government should operate farms, factories, or schools. It sucks at doing all of those things.