<p>I don’t know what the ELA exam is. Since my S recently graduated from college, this was in about 1996, and the equipment was not fancy. His friends from that class subsequently attended schools like Harvard, Williams, Dartmouth, Sarah Lawrence, JHU, Cornell… It’s not a matter of the equipment, it’s a matter of what you do with it. (Which I realize was probably your point.)</p>
<p>Another thing about this particular teacher: at that time, our school system was implementing outcomes-based education, decried by ideologues as a socialist plot to make everyone move in lockstep. But in our school system, teachers at that time could choose how to meet the goals, and the administration supported them. Other teachers proposed and implemented multi-age classrooms, and looping. They had to get sufficient parents to agree to let their kids be placed in the class, first. (But of course EVERYONE knows that parents have no choice within the public school system…everything is simply imposed by that awful teacher’s union and those horrible, autocratic people with education degrees whose goal is simply to perpetuate their own bureaucracy.) There was an incredibly creative 5/6 multi-age program that was the jewel of our system, the glories of which I do not have time to describe. At the time, the state had self-imposed testing in third, eighth, and 11th grade. This testing was deliberately designed so that the average student would be designated as “partially” meeting goals, as a diagnostic tool for school systems, not to serve up a softball that would make everyone look good. The tests were not multiple choice, and covered science and social studies as well as reading, writing, and math. When NCLB came in, they had to scrap it, of course. And from what I’ve heard, the imposition of annual high-stakes testing has changed things drastically. Especially since the NCLB slicing and dicing of school populations means that in systems the size of ours, one special ed kid not taking the test or doing poorly can place the school on the “failing” list.</p>
<p>What a difference 40+ years make. I attended public school and graduated in 1968. In my ISD in my part of the country (Texas), pregant girls (when it became known) and married students were “gone.”</p>
<p>I read an article by the ACLU person handling this threatened suit in Lousiana who asserted it was violative of federal law and the 14th Amendment. </p>
<p>IS anyone aware of any constitutional challanges to these 1960’s rules back then, or was my ISD the only one who had these rules?</p>
<p>Zooser - I’m sorry I responded quicker then I should have and in a harsher tone then I would normally have taken. It’s a hot button of mine. Mea Culpa.</p>
<p>Thanks, much appreciated. I could never use ‘the method’ recipe for mashed potatoes again without feeling guilty if I didn’t properly apologize. :)</p>
<p>I happen to be a supporter of both public schools and the concept of charter schools. Both have their place. I also am bothered by manipulation of data and comparing apples to oranges.
Being the cynic I am though this is all about money. Public schools are the single largest cost for state and local governments. So charters are seen as a way to cut costs but IMHO it really is a way for the connected to get a big piece of that financial pie.</p>
<p>The debate regarding the use of taxpayer funds for charter, private (including religious), and online schools that do not operate according to the same rules as traditional public schools—as in the case that the OP mentions—seems about to ramp up even beyond its current levels. In Louisiana, starting in 2013, even high-income students will have access to “mini-vouchers” allowing their parents to direct in any number of different ways a portion of the funds normally at the disposition of their local traditional public schools. In Indiana, the parents of low and middle-income students may direct a portion of per-pupil funding (90% and 50%, respectively) to the private school of their choice; of the 301 private schools currently participating in the program, 8 are non-religious.
Here in Florida, this is the education topic du jour. All of our PECO (Public Education Capital Outlay) funds (for construction, maintenance, etc.) now go exclusively to charter schools, and there was a proposal last legislative session—narrowly rejected—that would have required school districts to share their property tax-generated capital revenues proportionally with charter schools as well. On the ballot this November will be a proposed constitutional amendment repealing the “Blaine Amendment” provision of the current Florida constitution; if passed, it will allow the use of taxpayer dollars for religious educational institutions. The “Parent Trigger” bill, which failed by a single vote this past May, will undoubtedly come up again next spring. That bill would have permitted a parent-prescribed conversion from a “failing” traditional public school to a charter school, with all public monies accruing to that charter school; an amendment that would have likewise allowed parents at a failing charter school to prescribe conversion to a traditional public school failed. By the way, per-pupil funding has traditionally been allocated only once a year, in October, so some charter schools have held on to potentially low-achieving or poorly-behaved students until that point, and then forced them out.</p>
Would you please explain this sloooowly for someone not too bright (me). Does this mean that traditional public schools aren’t built/maintained at all?</p>
<p>“IS anyone aware of any constitutional challanges to these 1960’s rules back then, or was my ISD the only one who had these rules?”</p>
<p>Yours was definitely not the only one. But unless they were made on the basis of STATE constitutions, I don’t see how there could have been constitutional challenges back then. The US 14th Amendment was not yet construed as applying to reproductive rights, and gender-based constitutional arguments were in their infancy. There might have been some suits with then-novel arguments, but they would probably have been tossed out.</p>
<p>I’m a substitute teacher in two different districts. It’s like night and day. </p>
<p>We have done both public and private schools in several states. I will be so glad to be out of the system after next year. Both of my kids have said that they won’t have kids until/unless they can afford private schools. Very sad state of affairs. FWIW, I never went to a private school and it was never on my radar. My DH mostly went to public schools except for a couple of years during segregation (his mom was, and still is an ass).</p>
<p>Hanna–Interesting. I wonder if the logic of Michael M. v. Superior Court (1981) that state statutory rape laws that only make it a crime for the male pass muster under the 14 Amendment would still be applied, but for the federal statute the ACLU has urged? Only girls get pregnant (an important fact in Michael M.) is still true.</p>
<p>Charter schools are a bad concept. They drag many of the smart, involved parents away from actually helping improve the public schooling. My Son went to one for a couple years here in DC, and very rarely was the education any better then he would have gotten in a public school. They pretty much follow their own rules and what might be the hot new thing in education. People (at least here in DC) like to claim that if rich, involved parents sent their kids to public schools, it would be fixed, but there are plenty of involved parents who are currently stuck in the smoke and mirrors of charter schools. For the two year my S was in one, even though they talked about how they wanted every parent to be involved and participate in the school, every time I came in to volunteer or be involved, I was turned away. I am not some nutcase, I am a normal parents who was drawn to the school partially because it advertised how easy it was to be involved. When we withdrew our kid, everyone acted like it was some sort of personal insult, or betrayal, that we would even think of leaving the school for a DCPS high school.</p>
<p>Our public schools are great. We don’t have charters in our area.</p>
<p>We did have two long-time presumably tenured teachers get fired a couple of years ago, however. The district needs a reason to fire a teacher and there are appeal processes in place, but it seems to work out as it should in the end.</p>