<p>just want to “like” Hunt and Agentninetynine’s great posts!</p>
<p>Bay, I agree that’s number one, but there are social issues going on in public school today that cannot be ignored. And I don’t care how WONDERFUL the teacher is, there are some situations that will leave her powerless.</p>
<p>How many of you have stepped in a classroom that past few years? Even a good teacher can be overwhelmed with huge classes, high need children (such as those who are tube fed), yearly curriculum changes, data reporting and all the other nonsense that takes away from the job of teaching.</p>
<p>Exactly, Agentninetynine.</p>
<p>As the child of 2 teachers, and the sister of another and the mom of a daycare worker, I hear you!</p>
<p>“closing the “bad” schools will not dismantle the whole system”</p>
<p>I don’t have a problem if a district chooses to close a bad school (or any school for that matter) as long as tax payer funded vouchers are not used to go to a private school or in another school district. What districts decide to do about their individual schools or which schools a student can attend I leave to the desecration of the district. </p>
<p>My district just closed one of our elementary school last year and then redrew all the elementary schools boundaries. No complaint from me.</p>
<p>
It may be a bit un-PC to put it this way, but it’s pretty obvious to me that students with major problems (academic and/or behavioral) need to be separated from students who don’t have those problems. And those populations of students have very different needs. To separate them and meet their needs in the public school, there has to be enough staffing (and good staffing) to do it. It requires a lot of money–and that’s hard, since some of these failing schools are already sucking up a lot of money. I just think that achieving this kind of separation by getting the less problematic kids out of the public schools is likely to weaken efforts to help those kids with big problems. That is, if they didn’t “choose” to leave, their problems are their own problems. But their problems are going to be our problems, whether we like it or not.</p>
<p>Schools are not failing. Communities are troubled. Some students in troubled communities will thrive elsewhere, others will not because elsewhere does not want them. Anyone who thinks that privates and charters will accept, and keep, the students with behavior problems, the non-English speaking, the ones in need of special ed services, the children of apathetic or absent parents, etc, etc, needs to learn the reality of what happens to them. </p>
<p>First of all, students who get to charters and privates are children of parents who make that effort and want that. So that’s self-choosing right there.</p>
<p>Secondly, if those students fail to be up to snuff, they are kicked out of the private or the charter or the magnet school. Where do they go? Not to some other magic “choice” but back to the public.</p>
<p>Which then gets a failing grade because its students, “surprisingly” /sarcasm, don’t average as high in testing as the self-selecting, vetted, allowed-to-stay students in the private or charter.</p>
<p>What part of that is not clear?</p>
<p>(to add–in NJ, there are numerous cases already of charter abuse, with founders and their families collecting hundreds of thousands while giving substandard educations. Not where I want my money to go.)</p>
<p>garland, some schools are failing. Which doesn’t mean that the system as a whole is failing, but there are some (and more than a few) schools in which circumstances have created a situation where they can’t succeed in their current incarnations. I am not a fan of MIchael Bloomberg by any stretch of the imagination, but he is right in some cases in splitting up the giant, behemoth schools that are cauldrons of dysfunction. I think it really is ok to look at individual schools and see where they are. Some of them should be put out of their students’ misery.</p>
<p>Back to the original question:</p>
<p>Matt Damon advocates for higher pay for public school teachers, and against standardized testing that will be used to evaluate teacher effectiveness.</p>
<p>He then chooses to send his kids to private schools, where generally teachers are paid less than public school teachers, and teachers can be fired at whim.</p>
<p>Is he a hypocrite?</p>
<p>I don’t really care what Matt Damon does.</p>
<p>In general I am a big fan of community schools. It has been wonderful having my kids in school with classmates from the surrounding neighborhoods–they have walked/biked/bused together since kindergarten. I feel strongly that it strengthens the social fabric of a community to be connected through multiple “touchpoints”–schools, residential neighborhoods, youth sports, shops/restaurants and so on. Any time people flee the community for other schools–whether private or charter/voucher institutions–that fabric erodes a little bit. Perhaps in the places where there is an extreme divide between the haves and have-nots there isn’t that connection anyway. But still.</p>
<p>I also feel very strongly that not one penny of public money should be used to support religious schools. If it were up to me I would get rid of the tax-exempt status for churches/synagogues/mosques as well.</p>
<p>Bay–I am going to guess that at the school Damon sends his kids to, teachers are paid well and not fired at whim.</p>
<p>SEnding his kids to a private does not mean he supports what privates do in general. It does not mean he thinks teachers should be paid less and fired at whim. I would presume he chose a school that fits his standards.</p>
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</p>
<p>No. Typically, the kids that are taken out of public school and sent to privates are kids who are either middle-of-the-road whose parents think they need more attention, or kids with significant issues. </p>
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</p>
<p>Part of the myth of vouchers is that it is possible for private schools to provide a “better” education for the same or less money than publics spend. Giving a family $10K as a voucher serves only one of two purposes: it funnels public money to religious schools, which are generally cheaper than other privates, or it gives a tuition break to families who are able to pay $20K per year or more for private education. The goal of vouchers is to dismantle public education and ensure an ignorant and malleable populace that will provide cheap labor for the plutocrats. It is not a serious suggestion for improving public education or even education in general.</p>
<p>*The goal of vouchers is to dismantle public education and ensure an ignorant and malleable populace that will provide cheap labor for the plutocrats. It is not a serious suggestion for improving public education or even education in general. *</p>
<p>^This!! After many years of covering education, reading budgets and watching state politics, I have concluded that the defunding of America’s schools has been a systematic process supported by one political party aimed at creating a barely literal populace to work at Walmart & McDonalds.</p>
<p>Wait, I thought the purpose was to force me to pay the salaries of private school teachers who explain that evolution is a hoax. Perhaps these are consistent…</p>
<p>Yes. </p>
<p>Yes. </p>
<p>Yes. ;)</p>
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</p>
<p>I haven’t. I’ve not been involved in improving the public schools in my area, beyond what I pay in my taxes. I’ve been concerned with my own children’s education, but I have neither the time nor the inclination to sit on the school board, engage with the PTA, and so forth. If I were to donate my time to charity, there are a lot of other charities and worthy causes I’d personally choose over improving the public schools. Why, am I under some obligation to do so? Matt Damon has no greater obligation than I to do anything for public schools beyond pay his taxes. I don’t get why he’s being crucified here.</p>
<p>
I disagree with this. Here, anyway, many private schools absolutely will not deal with kids with significant issues. It’s also not true that the kids in private schools are typically middle-of-the road, either. At least not here. Of course, in my small corner of the world, the high schools, particularly, are not neighborhoody at all, and the private high schools tend to take only the high achievers and those with a particular talent. It is not an accident that some private schools are athletic powerhouses year after year.</p>
<p>
The schools have not been defunded by any stretch of the imagination. </p>
<p>And it is the other party who has systematically destroyed the school system for purposes of its own.</p>
<p>Zoos, I should have qualified that statement with “around here.” (Although according to what I read a number of years ago it holds true across the nation in general.) Around here, one sees it a lot within families: the high-performing kid goes to the public HS, the kid who gets lost in the crowd goes private. Regional conditions vary. :)</p>
<p>
I find that very surprising. Is it a myth that universally private schools won’t do special services? I know that they don’t do so here in many cases because, believe it or not, demand is so high that the private schools can cherrypick and do.</p>
<p>I’ve had three kids in three different school settings. One was placed in private school because she was very bright, but incredibly easy to push around. Did very well. The next went to a public school IB program and had the experience of a lifetime. The other is going to an elite prep school and, let me tell you, the prep school is just packed with amenities. It is a whole different world. If I didn’t already think so, I would have come to believe that rich really is better.</p>