<p>I think it’s about time the Business Roundtable kept their seats at their own tables, rather than controlling the past, present, and future of American education. </p>
<p>(and, yes, I homeschooled mine, because I don’t think the corporate socialists should be entrusted with the souls of my children.)</p>
<p>xiggi,</p>
<p>isn’t there something about separation of church and state? Or should that not apply in this case? </p>
<p>Besides xig if you can run a 4.3 and average 7 yards a carry, you’ll get a scholarship for our local catholic schools… even if you’re not catholic…
Happens here quite a bit. </p>
<p>xig, if you have a voucher system, would you support the Wiccan schools of magic on equal footing as our blessed st. anthony’s? </p>
<p>I understand why your mad now a bit more.</p>
<p>You are defending your self interests, just like the unions defend theirs.
You don’t like them and they probably don’t like you. Because you want different things. I would say however, their focus is a bit broader than yours. </p>
<p>You want to help kids get into Catholic schools, that’s good for you. You should have probably stated that many posts ago.</p>
<p>why did this thread turn into the rights of a union to advocate for their workers rather than what the hell are we going to do about the education of our children?</p>
<p>^^^I’m still waiting for ideas from those who think current school reform ideas are “simplistic” and “silly”.</p>
<p>I guess it is a lot easier to dismiss suggestions than come up with some of your own.</p>
<p>“what the hell are we going to do about the education of our children?”</p>
<p>We are going to continue to do what we do now. Because it works. We are going to provide fodder for the military, low-income service workers for Wal-Mart and Burger King, ship skilled jobs abroad, buy talent wherever it is to be found, ship health care to Thailand and Mexico and India and Brazil and the Dominican Republic, build schools where it will raise real estate values, don’t fix schools where it won’t. This formula has worked for a very long time, producing a docile, malleable workforce that will not rebel, and which will find its satisfactions in the production and consumption of material goods.</p>
<p>Why change something which has proven to be so successful? If it ain’t broke, why fix it? (And remember, we don’t spend one penny in educating dropouts, so they aren’t “education’s problem”.)</p>
<p>Barney, I was afraid you’d take one example and run with it. The issue is not about getting more students into catholic schools, or any other school for that matter. The issue is about monopolies that preclude true competition to surface and compete on a level playing field. It is about rewarding systems that function well.</p>
<p>In the case of catholic schools, I lament the struggles of an organization that is delivering great services in areas that need our pressing attention and is saving the taxpayers huge sums of money. The debate about private versus public school is often misrepresented as David versus Goliath or rich versus poor. The reality is that most private schools operate with budgets that would cause histerical laughs among the “poor” public schools.</p>
<p>Look back the original post and then decide if we would better off without the religious schools that have served the inner-cities and are forced to close because of financial pressures. </p>
<p>In a system that is 90% public, it seems that we could afford to support all types of schools.</p>
<p>but are dropouts really working at Walmart?
For one- I don’t even know where there is a walmart in this area.
I realize a store like that probably doesn’t pay a lot, but showing up on time, appropriate behavior etc. are skills that some of these students ( loosely, used because you would have to be involved with education to be a student), don’t understand the importance of.
I doubt they are working for walmart.
They probably get tired of jobs that don’t want a diploma, take their GED and enter a training school or community college- or they are mooching off grandma.</p>
<p>So if most people have a high school diploma or above- 84% of those 25 years and older- is this a new phenomenon?</p>
<p>xiggi, when you hit the real world of educational politics, you may well find that choosing sides between the teachers’ unions and the Catholic education lobby is about as appetizing as choosing between the Crips and the Bloods. I know beyond doubt that the individuals in both camps – the leaders and the followers – care deeply about children and about education, and that NONE of them would be doing what they are doing if they didn’t. Sometimes they even act like it in an institutional context. But if you wanted to predict the behavior of either group, the principle “It’s all about the Benjamins” would be sufficient about 90% of the time.</p>
<p>After evaluating our local public high schools, We decided that the local charter school was the best choice for our daughters. It has turned out to be the best decision we’ve ever made. Our charter school streeses the importance of parent involvement. Here lies the secret to improving educational standards. Teachers can not and should not be the end all to educating our children</p>
<p>“but are dropouts really working at Walmart?”</p>
<p>If not now, then eventually. The important thing was them getting the message that failing 10th grade math means they don’t deserve health insurance, or a living wage, or whatever. And just having them around helps depress wages for everyone. And if they don’t work out at Wal-Mart, they can always make good cannon fodder, “sacrificing to defend our national interests.”</p>
<p>All in all, a good thing. AND, once they dropped out, we didn’t have to spend a penny on their education.</p>
<p>Looking at schools as failing institutions has virtually no explanatory power. Turn the proposition on its head, and all of a sudden things come into powerful focus.</p>
<p>“Our charter school streeses the importance of parent involvement. Here lies the secret to improving educational standards. Teachers can not and should not be the end all to educating our children”</p>
<p>I would agree with this statement in alot of ways. The problem is you cannot kick a student out of public school for lack of parent involvement as you can in other situations (say like private school). </p>
<p>Families have the “right” not to be educated. </p>
<p>We cannot force a parent to care about their kid cutting classes or failing their education. I wasn’t really joking about the charge back concept for parents whose kids drop out or flunk out of school. </p>
<p>midmo, I don’t think your ideas are silly, but if a child chooses not to come to school, how does merit or charters or anything suggested so far… work? What have those ideas done to change the mindset of a kid who is “bored” with school? That’s what more than 50% of the WA dropouts stated as their reason for dropping out. </p>
<p>What rights do we take away from a child who simply does not want to learn? Can we legally force someone to educate themselves? </p>
<p>What do you do for those who simply don’t want to? that 15-20% of the kids who find school boring? </p>
<p>would a voucher or charter school change their minds? if so, for how long?</p>
<p>Barney, you are letting your rhetoric get away with you. It’s pretty simple to see how merit pay and charter schools are supposed to work. Merit pay, ideally, would reward teachers who make kids choose TO come to school and to learn something as well, and merit pay would encourage other teachers to emulate those teachers. And charters can and do work in two ways, regardless of the union issue: First, parents and kids choose them, and so are more invested in them, and they are often configured to appeal to specific types of students who might have felt marginalized in traditional public schools. Second, they are generally much smaller than conventional high schools, and thus teachers and administrators are much more able to keep tabs on each of the students and to recognize and respond to issues long becore they turn into failures.</p>
<p>*We cannot force a parent to care about their kid cutting classes or failing their education. *
Truancy is against the law- and schools must contact parents and formulate a plan of action with missed absences.
<a href=“http://www.nwrel.org/request/2004june/incontext.html[/url]”>http://www.nwrel.org/request/2004june/incontext.html</a>
They can’t learn if they are not in school & this goes for teachers as well.
Schools with high absence rates, have lower performance rates.
no duh.
<a href=“http://www.seattleweekly.com/2007-05-09/news/should-kids-serve-time-for-skipping-school.php?page=full[/url]”>http://www.seattleweekly.com/2007-05-09/news/should-kids-serve-time-for-skipping-school.php?page=full</a></p>
<p>But it begs the question as to why one would want any of this? Don’t we want, no, NEED, some students to feel marginalized (because they ARE?) Can’t this all be fixed by establishing the proper “leaver codes”? Won’t cost anything except a little bit of programming, and hundreds of school districts have already found that it works.</p>
<p>Most recent from Gerald Bracey:</p>
<p>The Degeneration of American Education</p>
<p>[If readers have other examples of absurdities, Gerald Bracey would
love to hear about them. You can write to the blog or to him directly
at <a href="mailto:gbracey1@verizon.net">gbracey1@verizon.net</a>]</p>
<p>by Gerald Bracey</p>
<p>The high-stakes testing mania in general and No Child Left Behind in
particular have reduced too much of public education to a system to be
gamed. Some people play the game sincerely and seriously. The teachers
and principal in Linda Perlstein’s Tested are such players. They have
doubts about the value of the state test, but they strive mightily to
get their impoverished students over that barrier. After the test is
given in late spring, they start acting like real teachers in a real
school–they take the kids to museums and aquariums and to watch the
Blue Angels perform. They make art and write poetry. But only in the
short time between the state test and the end of the school year.</p>
<p>Some people play it cynically, doing whatever it takes to get children
close to the passing score–the bubble kids–off the bubble and into
the magic kingdom of “proficient.” The “sure things” and “hopeless
cases” are ignored. Or emphasizing the increasing passing rates on a
required test as students enter their senior year, not taking into
account the massive dropouts that have occurred along the way. Or
establishing “leaver codes” in sufficient number that a school can
have over 1000 9th-graders, fewer than 300 12th-graders and zero
dropouts.</p>
<p>Some play it as if they have lost all sense of proportion and common
sense. The Texas Education Agency refused to grant a waiver from the
state test for a young woman hospitalized after a serious automobile
accident that killed her brother and left her memory impaired. Her
school dispatched an assistant principal to administer the test in the
hospital. Fortunately, one of the girl’s teachers overheard what was
up, got to the hospital first and told her to refuse to take it. In
Colorado, a father, a teacher himself, sought to opt his daughter out
of the state fifth grade test. Fine, said the superintendent, but she
won’t be promoted to sixth grade.</p>
<p>In Washington, a willing testee who simply couldn’t think of how to
respond to a writing prompt was harangued by his teacher, then by his
principal and then by his mother. Unable to respond, he was forbidden
to attend a post-test party at which pancakes were served and the
movie Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events shown. He was
told he had ruined everything for everyone else at the school and
suspended for a week.</p>
<p>And some play it desperately. On March, 27, 2008, the Houston
Chronicle reported that a middle school principal told a group of
teachers that he would kill them and kill himself if the school’s
science scores did not improve. He was not, the teachers said, joking.
“You don’t know how ruthless I can be,” he is alleged to have said.
The incident is being investigated as a “terroristic threat.”</p>
<p>At this point we should be asking HAVE WE GONE COLLECTIVELY MAD?</p>
<p>“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit
atrocities,” said Voltaire. In a world that contains Clear Skies,
Clean Waters, Healthy Forests, an Axis of Evil, Iraqi Freedom, Family
Values, Patriot Act, and No Child Left Behind, it is a good reminder
for our time.</p>
<p>— Gerald Bracey</p>
<p>When you consider the cost economically to society for high school drop outs, and the devaluation of society because of these students, we as a society need to make some decisions.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>If a parent won’t/can’t “parent” their child and ensure they attend school and put forth effort, can be consider this a form of “Child Abuse”? I would</p></li>
<li><p>If truancy is against the law and the parent can’t control the child, should the state take the child out of that environment and place them in “Reform School”? I think they should.</p></li>
<li><p>Would the cost of building and/or expanding “Reform Schools” to handle these truant students be cost affective compared to allowing the alternative of an uneducated and low productive member of society? I think it is cost affective. It’s better to pay for it while they are children and still have a chance, instead of paying later while they are in prison, rehab, welfare, etc…</p></li>
<li><p>Would this motivate the parents; many whom probably didn’t want to have a child anyway; to be more proactive in their child’s education? That is a hard question. Technically, the parent would have an easier time with bettering their life without raising the child. Some parents would be motivated. Some won’t.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>At one time, if a child was truant and didn’t respect their parents and their responsibilities, reform school was an option. Unfortunately, it isn’t so much an option any longer. It’s considered inhumane to take the child away from the parent(s). But is allowing the child to stay in that house and environment equal to being considered child abuse?</p>
<p>Sorry, but the cost to society is more than made up by the impact dropouts have on depressing wages for everyone, their lack of demand for living wages or health care benefits, their low life expectancy and hence lack of demand upon Social Security and Medicare, and the positive impacts prison construction, prison employment, and prison industries have on entire communities.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.newsargus.com/news/archives/2007/07/31/emergency_room_visits_helping_drive_up_health_care_expenses/index.shtml[/url]”>http://www.newsargus.com/news/archives/2007/07/31/emergency_room_visits_helping_drive_up_health_care_expenses/index.shtml</a></p>
<p><a href=“Wicked Local | Transcript Bulletin”>Wicked Local | Transcript Bulletin;
<p><a href=“http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004298810_hospitals22m.html[/url]”>http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004298810_hospitals22m.html</a></p>
<p>um yeah the system is working real well.</p>
<p>Society lost its’ way long ago. So many of the ills that we suffer today can be attributed to the lack of parental guidance. Finance education should be required before graduating high school. Credit card debt being at an all time high. Americans buying things they can’t afford. No financial planning whatsoever! Whatever happened to a penny saved is a penny earned or nothing’s worth owning unless you worked and sweated for it. The only one you can depend on is yourself. Try and true phrases taught to us by our parents passed down through the generations.</p>
<p>"<a href=“http://www.newsargus.com/news/archiv...es/index.shtml”>http://www.newsargus.com/news/archiv...es/index.shtml</a></p>
<p><a href=“Wicked Local | Transcript Bulletin”>Wicked Local | Transcript Bulletin;
<p><a href=“http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...pitals22m.html[/url]”>http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...pitals22m.html</a></p>
<p>um yeah the system is working real well."</p>
<p>Yup. World’s best health care system, and no waiting! But then, if you failed 10th grade math, what right do you have to health care anyway?</p>
<p>from what I read uninsured visits to emergency rooms drives up health care costs for everyone.</p>
<p>Of course even those who pay for medicare supplement and live in Bellevue can get crappy health care.</p>
<p>My mother who has had pretty bad asthma for years in august of 2007, went to a speciaist for complete xrays to see if there was a reason why asthma treatment wasn’t helping.
Just a few days ago the specialist called her primary to say that he just reviewed the films ( 7 months later)and that she has a spot on her lungs and needs treatment ASAP.</p>
<p>so perhaps those who dont have ins , have the right idea. You are gonna get crappy care anyway, why pay extra?</p>
<p>School districts with high rates of staff pay don’t seem to have any better results, why pay extra?</p>