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

I want to finish the discussion we were having before moving on to vouchers. Is that so weird?

Especially because any discussion of vouchers will need those questions answered anyway. Logically speaking, you want to put the cart before the house: start talking about vouchers, before we've agreed on the differences between public and private schools. We have to acknowledge those differences in order to talk intelligently about vouchers.

No problem; I can wait. Not in a hurry.

I am only asking you to do what I have already done: provide evidence to back up your argument. That is the only way to conduct an informed discussion. You will find I am always willing to back up my assertions with evidence -- and will respond to reasonable requests for more.

Yes, there are tedious people that demand endless evidence and are never satisified with it. But that doesn't make the requirement for evidence invalid.

It is my experience that getting too far ahead in a discussion tends to derail it. IMO, weighing the pros/cons of vouchers requires understanding the similarities and differences between public and private schools. I'd like to see if we can agree on those basic facts before venturing into the realm of opinion.

 

There isn't anything wrong with your schools, there's something wrong with your parents.

Teachers in the public system are just as dedicated as they've always been, funding has kept up, and the standard of teaching has gone up. The only thing in the equation which is different is parental attitudes.

 

Whatever. Yes, it's completely bizarre behavior you are engaging in. You are just being obtuse and playing games. We already are having a discussion about vouchers, you just foolishly did not know it. It doesn't seem like you have anything to offer the discussion. And that's fine. Not everyone is capable of original thought. I just don't really care to spit back the ideas of others at each other; I was interested in your thoughts. I no longer am, given your ridiculous hoops one must jump through before you will utter a modicum of your thoughts on the matter.

 

Common Core is defective at the Primary level. K - 2 children are being turned off to school in droves.

Seems like the Progressives want their rubes to be dependent on the system. Should we be surprised?

 

*Shakes head.* I feel like you are trying to dodge my question.

Asking you to provide facts to back up your assertions is not "playing games." It's basic logic. It's how to get your assertions taken seriously.

Further, asking you to do WHAT I MYSELF HAVE ALREADY DONE is not "playing games."

I've explained that I'm willing to discuss vouchers. I've explained that I would like some questions answered first, and why. It's not complicated or tricky. Just answer the questions.

 

The game playing is your denial of what were already discussing, when you joined in by quoting me. The game playing is your completely strange position that you will not give your own opinion.

You are not worth the effort. You are behaving in a bizarre manner, and you are bringing nothing to the discussion.

 

Okay, then. From here it looks like you don't like being asked to back up your assertions with evidence.

If you change your mind, feel free to provide the evidence, and we can get on to discussing vouchers.

 

LOL @ the notion that I want to keep having a discussion with a person who has refused to give their own opinion. You are talking in circles dude....

 

I'm curious what comments of mine made you think I was advocating any particular schooling, whether public or private? I realize in this thread you seem to prefer being disagreeable rather than discuss things, and you apparently are under the delusion that I've made some sort of public school/private school argument in this thread. I haven't. So no...I'll not be promising an Exeter Academy experience to every bright eyed tyke.

If I had a point in this thread, is that school reform seems to mostly consist of worthless platitudes, and you've demonstrated that when I asked for actionable details on the platitudes you've suggested.

 

Quite possible, but I don't think there will be public support for it.

 

School buildings are made in great fashion, with all kinds of learning tools furnished. What is the most basic factor in teaching? It is the teacher. If teachers are paid so there is a competition to get in, then the teachers would feel financially secure, and will be proud to be teachers. I am naturalized from a country, that was then very poor. Our primary school had only 3 masonry walls, and bamboo mesh for the fourth. But the teachers really cared. The education level was high.

On the other side, a country coming out of poverty puts high impetus on education. Our parents took constant, keen interest in our progress. And the society had high respect for the teachers. It was not the punishment or a too much home work, that made for good education. Our holidays and vacations were not trimmed. But the time we spent in learning was of high quality. Most of the high school graduates went to college. By now, very high percentage of population is college graduate.

Our culture here, is after becoming affluent. Our budgets are stretched by cravings for luxury items. That robs parents of time with the children, and of the focus on raising the children. Providing your family is not enough. It takes an immense amount of emotional energy to raise a good family. You have to participate in their life constantly.

 

You asked for specifics, I gave you one. One you never actually discussed except to dismiss because, in YOUR opinion, the public wouldn't like it.

So, on what do you base that opinion? Show me the public polling on the subject or withdraw the claim and discuss the idea.

You're arguing against fixing the issues in public schools. ANY intelligent reader will infer that your unwillingness to discuss fixing the public schools implies your favoring an alternative to public schools. That would be private or none. Either choice is bad.

 

Non existent public opinion aside, you've not discussed the actual idea.

 

Clearly "not spending enough" is not the problem.

 

Just glancing at the graph, I see a whole bunch of potential "apples-to-oranges" problem.

First, back in the 1970s, we weren't mainstreaming kids with developmental and behavioral disorders. Those kids are super expensive to educate. If the "total cost" of a person's education is an average, then it is a bad comparison. A good comparison would look only at the cost of non-special-needs kids.

Also back in the 1970s, we weren't regularly doing achievement testing. So what are the tests they used to make this graph, and are they comparable? Have the tests themselves changed over time?

Also, ESL wasn't a big thing back in the 1970s. It is now. That is another expensive part of K-12 education that not only doesn't show up in higher test scores, it actually DEPRESSES them, because ESL kids perform worse on achievement tests until they get their English skills up to par.

That raises the general point of demographics. Are the demographics of today's kids more or less similar to the demographics of students in the 1970s? Or are there big differences in things like poverty levels?

Also, the graph doesn't appear to account for qualitative changes in what kids have to learn, and the expense associated with it. Back when all the average student needed to learn was readin', ritin' and eight-grade 'rithmetic, it was fairly cheap to educate people. But such graduates aren't competitive in today's economy. Now kids have to learn foreign languages, technology, science, etc. That takes money, both to hire the teaching expertise, and for facilities, equipment, etc. That sort of thing doesn't necessarily show up on test scores -- the SAT and ACT, for example, still only test up through beginning algebra, with a little bit of geometry thrown in. Took advanced calculus? Great, but don't expect it to show up on achievement tests, since they don't ask calculus questions on such tests.

I'll see if I can dig up some details on the Cato numbers. Maybe they accounted for all that, and it's valid. But at face value, the graph raises a lot of questions about its validity.

 

Okay, here's the study.
https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa746.pdf

Right off the bat, they acknowledge that there is basically no comparable data before 1990. Good.

Here's how they solve it: They look at SAT scores, and adjust for demographic differences.

That's great, as far as it goes. But there is a huge comparability problem. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, students only generally took the SAT if they were college-bound. So if (for instance) schools have made a huge investment to help the lowest-performing students, it wouldn't show up on SAT scores, because those students don't take the SAT.

But it's worse than that. These days, schools tend to encourage (and even pay for) ALL students to take either the SAT or ACT. So it's not just that low-performing students aren't measured: they are DEPRESSING modern scores.

So the Cato graph is basically comparing the test scores of college-bound students from the 1970s with the test scores of ALL students today. That's invalid.

Indeed, another and more consistent measure of academic achievement is the NAEP test, which was first administered in 1971. And scores on it have been steadily improving:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...dafd96295f0_story.html?utm_term=.c02a8f9db515

Other measures -- such as lower dropout rates, and the percentage of students taking advanced courses -- indicate significant improvement, too -- but again, in ways that won't show up on the SAT.

Further, as I suspected, it shows fewer gains at the top (where the SAT would notice it), but HUGE gains in the middle. Translation: schools have worked hard to help our worst-performing students, and have succeeded. But that doesn't show up on SAT scores.

Shockingly, it appears that Cato has used a misleading comparison to push a political agenda. Who would have guessed?

 

All good observations. I have seen similar graphs that depict spending vs graduation rate as well. And one, in particular, that I seem to remember is the spending vs administrative (non-teacher) staffing. The number of administrative staff increased along with the spending trend line, whereas teachers stayed relatively flat.

 

More than likely. My wife used to be a parochial school principal. She wouldn't take students who had been expelled from other parochial schools (or public schools or other private schools). There are a subset of private schools that specialize in students who have been expelled, though.

 

I'd like to see that graph and its source. It's possible that school districts are all feather-bedding. But it's also possible that the administrative staff is necessary for some of the things we discussed, or that the support of the administrative staff makes the teachers more efficient, which is why the teacher-student ratio hasn't had to increase. Or any of a lot of other possibilities. We need to know WHY administrative staff has increased before judging whether it is wasteful or not. Having too little administrative staff can be just as much of a problem as having too much.

 

I don't think many people reading this thread or talking about this issue have actually experienced public education recently like you have. I have been out of highschool longer than you but what you have said is much like how school was for me in the later grades. I like that you added about how teachers should be held more accountable as with unions it just doesn't happen. I think that needs to change but I don't think it will.

I can think of 3 teachers that were great one got fired for talking about his religion at school and one wasn't really a teacher but a sub for a teacher that got deployed to Iraq thanks to bush. Most of them hated me because my parents actually cared how I did in school. Those teachers didn't want any parent feedback and wanted to just teach to the test in peace. I have no idea how many overall are good and how many are bad but it's clear to me that the number of bad teachers that exist is a big issue that needs to be dealt with.

One thing I know for sure is that throwing money at it isn't going to change the broken legal structure or culture in the public school system. Only a total rebuild will really get the job done.

I remember the big deal the school made out of me wearing sandals to school one day because my only pair of shoes had to be washed. They are total Nazi's with some of the dress code mostly on kids they don't like. So I know the feeling on that one.

I wish if the school was going to treat anyone like a criminal it would be the kids beating the other kids up but nope teachers like being bullies too much themselves to do that so they pick on the weakest like those in special ed.

I agree much of the system is dated, though I was in the system a bit earlier than you as I got out of high school a few years ago and my internet at home really sucked. Most of the US is worse than a 3rd world dump when it comes to the internet though the city's now have finally gotten better it still look quite a while.

I had to teach myself when I went to school due to the points you made. This nothing but teaching to the test stuff needs to be thrown out now. I also agree that I don't expect anyone to fix it.

 

To me, that's some crazy train logic. But not so crazy that I don't see where you're coming from. I'm skeptical of public school reform based on decades of public school reform that have done little to move the needle. You somehow interpret that as an advocacy of private schools, as if some mix of private/charter schools is a real solution. For the record, I don't think that. But if you are particularly ideological minded, as you seem to be, that may be an obvious inference for you to draw since apparently to you this is really not about reforming schools but which side of the left/right divide you are on.

As to your specific idea, I don't feel the need to Google hunt for polling because I can already see that it's not being done, and holding parents more accountable isn't a particularly new idea, but that's something that won't really go anywhere because...parents are voters, and they're not going to support school boards that go after them directly.

That should be obvious.

 

See above

 

Do people, in general, like red lights? Speed limits? Crosswalks?
Do people, in general, like taxes? Highway construction?

Yet, these things exist and people, in general, agree to their necessity.

But, still, you haven't discussed the idea itself. Why is that?

It would be impossible to implement, of course, as an all at once global solution. It would need to be started at the K level then carried forward so parents and students grow accustomed to the rules and consequences.

But, don't like that one, how's this one...Eliminate "Mainstreaming"

Surely "mainstreaming" is a very egalitarian idea but in practice it harms many more students than it purports to help. Take a fifth grade class of 20 kids and put 5 kids in there operating at the 3rd grade level. The teacher will be forced to spend an inordinate amount of time working with and helping those five students to the detriment of the remaining fifteen. When I was a kid in fifth grade there were three classes. Each district had their own name for the classes but in simplest terms they were smart, average and dumb (as in "sweathogs"). Mainstreaming just divides these kids up equally. In my opinion, this ends up serving nothing except "good feelings." Progress for the "smart" and "average" kids is slowed while the "dumb" kids do not get the attention they need.

Get rid of "mainstreaming" and allow those who can succeed to succeed while allowing the rest to do as well as they can.

 

I think the only way to get rid of "mainstreaming" is to decentralize the public school system. I also would like to add that the public school system has only two bucket's the standard mainstream and special ed with quite the wide gap between those and nothing for those gifted is really provided. I would like to see a system that doesn't shove every kid they can into special ed just to suck the feds dry but the only way I see that happening is to get the federal government out of the funding public schools business. Though I think it's a good idea to get the feds out of it there are many local government's that will really let things go into the 1800's if allowed to do what ever they want.

P.S I don't like speed limit's on highways and people have told me there used to be none in the western US and how fun it was to go 100+ mph down a open road with just you the car and miles of nothing ahead. So yeah get the government out of setting speed limit's on highways would be good. In city's I agree there needs to be speed limit's but 70-80 is too darn slow for interstates.

 

Other: Separate school from state.