<p>I don’t think we’ve hit on what the right education is. Some will be inspired by a stretch in what they are exposed to and others need more functional skills. </p>
<p>The friend who teaches English at a troubled hs speaks of how they can get excited by Shakespeare. Another, who taught the modern-day version of home ec in a challenged hs (more of a family, life and community class than sewing and cooking; a pretty comprehensive responsibility,) spoke of how lost her students were, at the start, and how there is nothing to fill that void, now that funding has been stripped.</p>
<p>Actually not one court case is mentioned in the article. Executive’s positions. Yes. Acts of Congress. Yes. Can you provide cases where the Court has addressed the 10th Amendment in the context of federal laws concerning education?</p>
<p>The Court has applied substantive due process analysis to hold that a state cannot ban private schools as an alternative to public school attendance. Pierce v. Society of Sisters.</p>
<p>“There is nothing about education or prohibiting the states from providing it.”</p>
<p>There is nothing about prohibiting the federal gov’t from providing funding for education. Congress has found that under the General Welfare Clause they have that right, starting in the granting of land to support state schools along with monies in 1841. </p>
<p>Please let me know when the SC has declared federal funds for education unconstitutional.</p>
<p>If you had read the article, you would have seen this.</p>
<p>“Opponents of school choice often state that Catholic schools succeed because they can pick and choose students, they have more freedom to dismiss disruptive students, and their parents are more involved in their children’s education. The evidence, however, proves otherwise. According to Lydia Harris, principal of St. Adalbert, a leading Catholic school in Cleveland, “There’s no cream on my crop until we put it there. It’s a myth that we take discipline problems and throw them out of school. It’s the other way around. I get the kids the public schools can’t handle.” St. Adalbert is not alone. On average, Catholic high schools dismiss fewer than two students per year, and fewer than three students per year are suspended for any reason.”</p>
<p>"But it ISN’T the same demographic. It is a self-chosen group and they can throw trouble-makers and those who flunk a lot of classes out. "</p>
<p>Yes, and they don’t even need to get to the point of flunking “many” or causing much trouble. If the “fit” isn’t good, they are “counseled out”. D had some classmates who were counseled out and are thriving in public schools where they get the support and services they need. MOST such schools also don’t offer gifted or spec ed programs. They too, are not served.</p>
<p>My D goes to a public school that is as a close to perfect in serving low-income minority kids as I’ve seen. It has smaller classes, access to a counselor, serves spec ed kids, ESL kids, and yet offers a challenging curriculum. Success? Although it’s a small school every student in the two graduating classes so far has gotten into college. Many of them have parents who never even graduated HS. </p>
<p>However, they only do this because of support in both money and volunteer time from a private foundation. One of the things they try to do that I think is key, is to have at least some teachers and staff from the same minority populations they serve.</p>
<p>Edited to add-that Cleveland school is not typical. When we looked at putting D in a Catholic middle school, it was made clear to us that troublemakers were not welcome, that one reason we’d want her placed in any of them was the the kids were “not like” those in public school. When you can get detention for things like raising your hand the wrong way and suspended for doing it too many times in a row, I find it hard to believe there’s a low rate and discipline.</p>
<p>I googled the St. Adalbert Catholic school in Cleveland, Ohio. It is for students PK-8. I found results that indicate that the TOTAL enrollment is 174-210. The google result that listed an enrollment of 174 had a student teacher ratio of 15.6 to 1 and the maximum number of students in any one grade was 21.</p>
<p>The tuition for 2010 was $3000 and 20% received financial aid.</p>
<p>Why should ANY school, public or private, tolerate disruptive students who are impacting other students ability to learn? </p>
<p>My kids went to an inner city school with about 40% minority kids. There were very clear rules about behavior and consequences for breaking them. The school ran in a very orderly manner.</p>
<p>My wife visited a school in an affluent suburb that a friend’s child attended and she said that it was chaos - kids running around the hallway screaming, etc. That behavior would NOT be tolerated at my kids’ school. It was very clear who was in charge, and it wasn’t the kids.</p>
<p>Also, every Catholic school I’ve ever been in has been immaculate, although often old and dated. We used to swim at the public school in our town and were amazed by the filth.</p>
<p>The general welfare clause can, if people choose, be used to justify government intrusion into just about any aspect of our lives that we no longer wish to have any personal responsibility for. The 10th amendment was supposed to prevent that but it is ignored. Education, retirement, healthcare etc. were all aspects of our lives that the founders did not deem important enough to mention in our consititution. They did not consider them “general welfare” items, they considered them individual welfare items. If states so choose they can enact laws providing for or regulating those items for the people of their states. The 10th amendment was to prevent federal usurption of states and individual rights. </p>
<p>Done correctly we would have amendments to our consitution giving our federal government constitutional authority in those areas. Instead we ignore it.</p>
<p>Emiliebee, other than throwing more money at the problem, even though we spend more per student than any country in the world, what is your solution?</p>
<p>The teachers at private schools aren’t required to have teaching certificates and they don’t seem to suffer from it. What do you mean by better trained?</p>
<p>“The teachers at private schools aren’t required to have teaching certificates and they don’t seem to suffer from it.”</p>
<p>That would depend. At the Catholic school my D was at, the insufferable math/reading teacher was not certificated and had a degree in some liberal arts major. He did not believe in gifted education and was so stuck on following a specific order of reading and proper hand-raising and straight lining up that a kid who was capable of reading at a high school level in 6th grade stuck having to read at their assigned grade level instead of ability level, AND got a lower grade (along with most of the class) for not raising hands right or lining up perfectly. The “technology” teacher, also untrained, taught basic keyboarding and graded based on speed only, until the parents practically rioted and he began teaching actual program use.</p>
<p>At D’s PUBLIC school, kids can work at the highest level possible, up to and including going to the nearby CC. They are doing real programming, even in middle school, and the teachers are specialists. That’s far better, imo.</p>
<p>Kids don’t necessarily do well at private schools because the teachers are better. They do well because they either self-select or the schools selects kids who are likely to do well. My D went to an elite private school through 4th grade before moving to public school. Her public school teachers were consistently better.</p>
<p>I got pulled out of public school by my parents in the 3rd grade after father went to a parent teacher meeting at 3:00 pm and the teacher reaked of alcohol. He went to the principal and the principal said he couldn’t do anything about it.</p>
<p>We can swap stories all day long, but Catholic schools outperform public schools at a fraction of the cost.</p>
<p>If you are a free spirit and want to do as you please, Catholic school is probably not for you.</p>
<p>Elite is usually judged by the quality of the students and their results - not the teachers. Many motivated, self-directed kids could be well educated in a barn with a stack of books.</p>
<p>There isn’t any way to know if Catholic schools out perform public schools because you can’t put the same kids in different schools and measure the outcome. Any school that benefits from either self-selection or outright selection can out-perform others.</p>
<p>In general, the teachers at private schools aren’t educating the most at-risk students–those who are either academically, or socially, “fragile”. Many studies show that educators who get the best results with all students, but especially with high-needs students, are the most highly trained educators–those with master’s degrees and/or meaningful mentorships. However, our system is set up so that usually rookie teachers are the ones assigned to the worst schools or classes. </p>
<p>And, as I said upthread–we don’t expect much academically from teachers–at most universities the teacher ed program is the one with the easiest/lowest entrance requirements in terms of coursework, GPA, etc. Universities are cranking out hoardes of teachers who were average or below average students and we expect them to be the superstar educators who are going to craft the innovative reforms (both in the classroom and in the “system”) we demand?</p>