<p>The poorer schools here operate on almost DOUBLE what our per pupil spending is in our district—and they still have a 45% graduation rate…</p>
<p>Which is why I think encouraging economic diversity in our schools rather than paying legal fees to plead the case of racial assignment before the Supreme Court was a better idea.</p>
<p>Some schools have all sorts of extra funding ( although the previous Seattle superintendent raised the FRL rate in order to receive Title 1 money from 40% to 55%)- however a school that receives extra dollars, still doesn’t have enough volunteers in the classroom, or experienced teachers who know how to fund field trips & supplies on a limited budget.</p>
<p>In a school that has a mix of families- they have parents to run a PTA and to fight the district when they want to hide poor principals there. The kids are going to be at the same high schools, & everyone will have a better high school experience without encouraging disparity in elementary.</p>
<p>The real problem is treating standardized test scores as if they’re the Holy Grail of education.</p>
<p>We’re spending years of kids’ educational lives teaching them how to fill in bubbles - when, in the real world, they will never do that again for the rest of their days. We’re not teaching the myriad of skills that aren’t on those tests - creativity, critical thinking, interpersonal/work skills, cooperation and team-building, project management… it’s just shoving a piece of paper and a pencil in front of them and telling them to fill in bubbles. Useless.</p>
<p>In Texas, many schools, including my S’s HS, because of budget cuts had to stop providing any foreign language except for Spanish and had to eliminate many other academic courses and programs.</p>
<p>It’s funny that conservatives will always throw up “More money won’t solve the problem” when it comes to education, but that idea never occurs to them when it comes to military defense, even though the phrase seems far more true with regard to the latter than the former. Of course, money stupidly spent never solved any problem and sometimes money is stupidly spent and wasted, but very often money is being wisely spent but there just is not enough of it. The devil is in the details.</p>
<p>The majority of my teachers growing up were professionals in their fields. They did not go to school to be a “teacher”. They were professionals in other fields who had an expertise and wished to pass it on. Private schools take advantage of the expertise of others on a regular basis and the public schools should follow suit. Actually, since there is such a dearth of math and science educators, our local schools have changed their policies to accept professionals who want to teach. And it’s great!</p>
<p>What wrong with the “bare minimum”? Hasn’t this concept work for centuries? Should we consider offering advanced/unique courses via video/internet? What about utlizing Khan Academy?</p>
<p>Are we saying that anyone who was educated in a one room school house is…uneducated? How do all those parochial school kids succeed coming out of K-8’s having double grades in each room? </p>
<p>The difference between highly funded schools and those lacking funds is not always the quality of education, but maybe self discipline, attitude and respect for adults. I don’t think the problem is the lower income parents lack of education - did all the college kids from the 60’s and 70’s have parents who were college educated? Were all the immigrants from the 18 & 1900’s college educated? I also don’t think the main problem is because parents are too busy trying to make ends meet. So were farmers and our immigrant ancestors. The issue is that in the not so recent past when your parents told you to do your homework - you did it. When the teacher told you to sit up straight, tuck in your shirt, tie your shoes - you did it. If you messed up, there was always a consequence. </p>
<p>At some point we stopped focusing on educating the kids and went in the direction of keeping them busy by throwing every conceivable topic their way. </p>
<p>Yes, yes, yes to the Target Visa. It amazes me how much cash is directed to local schools. Next time you leave a Target store, take a quick glance at the education wall.</p>
<p>emeraldkity4–our state has had statewide open enrollment for almost 20 years. Any student can go to any school in the state, for free, as long as they complete the application process and the accepting school has room. There is no reason for the disparity in school reports from a strict educational standpoint, except the elephant in the room, the parents of those students. The inner city schools even provide busing, for free, for those that want to go to better schools. It still doesn’t help. The issue has nothing to do with the actual schools and everything to do with the problems the schools can’t control—the families of the students.</p>
<p>“The real problem is treating standardized test scores as if they’re the Holy Grail of education.”</p>
<p>The Holy Grail? No. But something that was ignored in too many high poverty schools for many, many years? Absolutely. I don’t know many educators who don’t admit – now – that our urban youth generally have very low achievement levels. You can assign whatever cause(s) you like to that, and whatever remedies, but at least now it is being acknowledged. It is, imo, one of the few good things to come out of NCLB. </p>
<p>I’ve been working in depth with K-12 education policy since 1993, and I have to say that the ability of educators in the '90s and early 200’s to insist that test scores didn’t matter was astonishing. Even when the problem was acknowledged, the first solution - money - was more often than not tossed into pasted-on programs rather than fundamental instructional improvements. In a number of cases, studies showing that schools that got Title I money (for high poverty schools) implemented pull-out programs that ended with students in the pull-outs getting little incremental minutes of reading instruction despite all the added spending.</p>
<p>I’m not a fan of the Robin Hood approach, but setting limits on school funding is reasonable. In our state, districts may seek taxpayer overrides for a certain percentage above the state mandated amount, but no more. </p>
<p>And it would also seem unreasonable to expect that all high schools should be able to offer multiple foreign languages. There’s a reason that our community’s 2000 student high schools each offer four or five languages, and our community’s 400 student high school only offers Spanish. Size matters. Offering multiple foreign language classes is expensive unless you have enough students to spread them out across several languages. Thats why our large high schools dropped German. It simply wasn’t reasonable to have German classes with 6-10 students while Spanish classes had 34 kids. More of our rural schools are exploiting distance learning in the high schools, and that might be a viable option for other schools; I’m not sure. I am sure that simply insisting that all high schools offer multiple foreign languages, or that class sizes be capped at 32 students leads to some pretty terrible problems. (For example, if 34 students want to take AP Calc AB, but the limit is 32 students, what do you think a school is going to do? Have two classes of 17 students? Or tell two students that they’re not allowed to take AP Calculus?)</p>
<p>GMTplus7–I don’t think there is anything wrong with fundraising for your school. I think there is a LOT wrong with a portion of what YOU raised being sent to other schools to make it “fair”. “Fair” would be if THOSE parents got out and raised more money for THEIR schools.</p>
<p>We had a situation in our kids’ old school (Catholic elementary school) where they did a fundraising drive (monetary donations only). It was assumed by all parties that the money went to support the school since ALL of the volunteers collecting the money were parents of current students calling current and past parents of students as well as past students of the school. New principal steps in, find out that only a small portion of that money went to the school, the rest went to the general fund at the church. The parents at the school flat out refused to do the drive until either other parish members stepped up and raised “their” portion of the funds or ALL of the money went to the school. It’s just “truth in advertising”.</p>
<p>Schools do need enough money to operate. Overfunding schools is not the answer but they do need ENOUGH to fund programs, pay salaries, etc. Once you see cuts to advanced classes, that is when it dips into being not enough money.</p>
<p>It’s not always that simple. There are public schools in my area where the average family donation per year is thousands of dollars. That’s just writing a check, not selling cookie dough or gift wrap. There are many more public schools hereabouts where collecting that kind of average contribution is impossible.</p>
<p>^And my answer would be So…not to be snarky but so. I am sure if those parents writing those big checks knew a portion of that money was going to some other school across the state, they would take issue with that and the funds would stop. People always have choices, many of those choices are not easy but the first choice we all have is to get an education–it’s free-take advantage of it, do something with your life, encourage your children to get ahead in life. Sitting back and taking handouts is just not right. This kind of “donation” system that feeds other schools just encourages the 'handout mentality". If XYZ school is going to do all the work and raise lots of money, why should we??</p>
<p>In my son’s school and in our church, some donate cash and some donate time. Both are needed and both are valuable to fundraising, volunteering and educating a child. It takes a village …</p>
<p>Several things are going on here . . . Seattle recently shifted school assignment back to a neighborhood based model. Anyone who has been to Seattle and surrounding communities knows that the city has waterfront, mountain views and a distinct north and south. Minorities traditionally lived in the central district and international district due to mortgage redlining. Those communities have since spread out mainly to the south - Rainier Beach, etc. Property values are very different from neighborhood to neighborhood. Schools in some areas can raise money for tech support, additional computers, music and art education, enrichment field trips and the like. Those most common fund raisers like auctions, however, require a base population with the resources to actually buy what is for sale. I have been to those auctions where a 2nd grade classroom keepsake project sells for $8,000! Bellevue, across the lake, also has this issue, but mitigates it to some degree by disallowing certified teachers paid from PTA funds and supporting the Bellevue Schools Foundation which provides grants for many of those “add-ons” that some schools can’t pay for. Still, however, the differential in auction revenue between the low earners and high earners was in the 100s of thousands of dollars at the elementary level. Bellevue, and Seattle to a degree, have tried to put magnate programs to draw kids to the schools which are perceived as less desirable. This has been a fairly effective way to attract active parents to a school. It does take a critical mass of parental resources, both time and money, to get fundraising and school improvement programs off the ground.
I strongly disagree that Schools Foundation money creates a “handout mentality” per post #31. Also, in terms of who has the resources, much of it depends on where they draw the attendance boundaries. This is a hot button issue in our community. We happen to be several blocks inside the boundary of the elementary with the lakefront property and golf course neighborhood. When my kids were feeling left out that everyone else they knew had been to Hawaii I had to remind them that if we lived 4 blocs further south they would feel really special for having a house and 2 cars that run.</p>
<p>Multiple foreign languages is a nice-to-have for a high school. Science taught by competent and qualified teachers should be a must-have. Enough English teachers to allow multiple levels of instruction should be a must-have. Honors courses should be a must-have.</p>
<p>Seattle and Bellevue both use magnate programs, both academic and arts to draw kids to high schools which are lower on the economic totem pole. This also works to a degree with middle school. The real problem is with elementary schools. As emeraldkitty said, when 3-5 elementary schools eventually merge into one high school wouldn’t you want the other kids who weren’t at the more advantaged school and will eventually be learning along side your kids to have had similar opportunities to stay even?</p>
<p>Saintfan–you just described the layout of every major city in the country. There are always going to be affluent areas and poor areas, good schools and bad schools. It’s been that way since the dawn of time. You can play Robin Hood all you want but your money isn’t going to help the school across town get better and it does reinforce the handout mentality that already exists because that is exactly what you are doing. </p>
<p>Our tiny, 350 pupil elementary school raises over $90,000 in one fundraiser year after year. This is a middle class school, which a smattering of pretty wealthy families but for the most part everyone pulls their wight and gets the job done. It can be done if people WANT to do it.</p>
<p>In our district we have a number of elementary schools with free and reduced lunch numbers in the 4-8% range. We also have one at 69%, one at 51%,one at 35%. My kids went to a 7% free and reduced schools and we were not in that category, but not all that far away at times. I was fortunate to be able to donate time, but not money. My kids had all the advantages of the donated resources of those lake dwellers. Again 4 blocks south and they would have been at the 35% free and reduced school. This is a pretty small geographical area we’re talking about. So imagine, a total enrollment of 319 students with 35% of the families qualifying for assistance. Who, exactly, is going to buy all the wrapping paper and cookie dough? On the flip side, there is a school with 546 enrollment and 5% free and reduced. Imagine how much money they can get together in one evening.</p>
<p>They walk 4 blocks north to sell the wrapping paper from your example. What if those kids in the 5% school are in the same situation you are, JUST above the line? Using the “big” city here, their per pupil spending is almost double what our district spends, yet we are expected to help fund that district? They have 45% graduation rate, we have a 99% rate, and of those 99%, 94% go on to 4 year colleges…yet we spend how much compared to them. The point is, you can throw all the money you want at the problem, it still isn’t going to help until you address the underlying issues. All you will end up doing is marginalizing ALL of the schools in your area–that is not a good thing.</p>