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Administrator Bionic Scribe
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Issodhos, all models have been given to us, so that the public school system looked to a model in another country hardly seems relevant. The system will always have supporters and detractors, that is true of any entity that has so much to do with shaping our children.
I readily admit my own concern over our schools. All I really know about the subject came through my own experience and what seems to be common sense. That being said, I think doing away with the public school system is too extreme.
As a nation, we are in need of consciousness raising on a wide range of issues regarding the state of our nation. We are in an era where people are as isolated from each other as any time since the extreme frontier. This combined with the extension of the vote to more than ever, we are in need of opportunities to speak with one another, share experiences and just time with a person different from themselves.
It may sound corny, but maybe we need a whole lot of town halls with our Congress person on a range of issues, one at a time. It could be and will be misused, but it would also have some good effects. No voting, no decisions, just people speaking with each other.
Life is a banquet -- and most poor suckers are starving to death -- Auntie Mame
You are born naked and everything else is drag - RuPaul
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veteran
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Please note that I never wrote that the "state" would be responsible or have the authority for 'teaching' anything. I said it would be reasonable for the community to provide an annual test in the three areas I mentioned. I have already explained why. See, there's our disconnect, Issodhos. I went to one of those old-fashioned rural three-room (in our case) schoolhouses, Palmer method, multiplication tables, George Washington on the wall. My civics teachers there taught me that in the United States, the "state" and the "community" (sometimes referred to as "the people") are all the same. They made a Very Big Deal out of "We, the People." I wish the multiplication tables had stuck with me as well. I know you don't see it that way, and I'm not going to try to talk you into changing your view; the sun is shining and it's not snowing, so I'm going to take a walk. But it seems to me that we see things from very different angles, and that's unlikely to change.' I agree with Phil - our educational system needs work. But to throw it out and start over seems extreme, expensive, and unlikely.
Julia
A 45’s quicker than 409
Betty’s cleaning’ house for the very last time
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For those of you that would like to investigate one of the more interesting concepts in educating a child, you can go to this link and read about the Unschooling approach. "Unschooling" seems like a pretty radical idea. I'm not against the idea per se, but I agree that parents need to be more involved in their children's lives and have the financial burden placed on them for educating their own children. As a future property owner, any day now, I'm already dreading property tax increases for education - and I can almost guarantee I'll vote against any tax increases - I don't relish the idea of having to pay for a child's education simply because two people decided, or found out by accident, that they could breed. Let the parents have the majority financial burden of educating their off-spring. I do not argue that the community should not contribute to education, but not to the extent that it does now through taxes. I feel it's simply unfair for society to place the burden on people simply because they own property. Having worked in the public school system for seven years from 1995 - 2002, I know that the bulk of the district funds goes to Administrators salaries who push the burden of running the district on much lower-paid underlings.
Contrarian, extraordinaire
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As a renter, I already pay school taxes - I guarantee that whenever property taxes increase, so does my rent. The same is probably true for you, Rick, if you've been renting.
I have different attitudes about different taxes, and my attitude towards school taxes is this: the people my taxes educate are the people who will be voting in elections that are important to me. They will also be making - and breaking - laws as they move into positions of responsibility. They will be in charge of food safety at markets and restaurants; they will do the repairs on the planes I fly in, they will fill my prescriptions at my pharmacy, and they will provide many of the goods and services I will use for the rest of my life.
If things go well, they will discover cures for illnesses I may develop, or come up with negotiating strategies that prevent war.
If my school tax dollars help with that -- I'll pay them and gladly.
I do understand that others don't see it that way, and I don't expect them to change. But this view saves me a lot of grief, so it works for me.
Julia
A 45’s quicker than 409
Betty’s cleaning’ house for the very last time
Betty’s bein’ bad
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Pooh-Bah
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Please note that I never wrote that the "state" would be responsible or have the authority for 'teaching' anything. I said it would be reasonable for the community to provide an annual test in the three areas I mentioned. I have already explained why. My civics teachers there taught me that in the United States, the "state" and the "community" (sometimes referred to as "the people") are all the same. They made a Very Big Deal out of "We, the People." I wish the multiplication tables had stuck with me as well. I would hope that if that is what the teacher said, then the teacher meant that, ideally, the government is the product of the People and as such, a government's actions are directed by the People, demonstrating, by the way, that the pot usually cannot also be the potter (an aside: surely the teacher did not use the words "community" or "state"?:-)). And surely the teacher went on to complete the concept by explaining that both government and "the People" are Constitutionally restrained in actions taht can be directed toward the individual. but, as I have 12 years experience in and am now a recovering product of the public school industry, I suspect the teacher -- being in the employee of Big Ed -- may have forgotten to mention that bit, preferring to leave the image of the well-ordered beehive concept so popular with governments and their subordinate school systems. Yours, Issodhos
"When all has been said that can be said, and all has been done that can be done, there will be poetry";-) -- Issodhos
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Pooh-Bah
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I have different attitudes about different taxes, and my attitude towards school taxes is this: the people my taxes educate are the people who will be voting in elections that are important to me. They will also be making - and breaking - laws as they move into positions of responsibility. They will be in charge of food safety at markets and restaurants; they will do the repairs on the planes I fly in, they will fill my prescriptions at my pharmacy, and they will provide many of the goods and services I will use for the rest of my life.
If things go well, they will discover cures for illnesses I may develop, or come up with negotiating strategies that prevent war.
If my school tax dollars help with that -- I'll pay them and gladly. I think this argument is based on a flawed premise, Mellowiscious. It assumes that the current system you are defending is providing the results you desire. From my original post: The national graduation rate for the class of 1998 was 71%. For white students the rate was 78%, while it was 56% for African-American students and 54% for Latino students.
Georgia had the lowest overall graduation rate in the nation with 54% of students graduating, followed by Nevada, Florida, and Washington, D.C.
Iowa had the highest overall graduation rate with 93%, followed by North Dakota, Wisconsin, and Nebraska.
Wisconsin had the lowest graduation rate among African-American students with 40%, followed by Minnesota, Georgia, and Tennessee. Georgia had the lowest graduation rate among Latino students with 32%, followed by Alabama, Tennessee, and North Carolina. Less than 50% of African-American students graduated in seven states and less than 50% of Latino students graduated in eight states for which data were available.
The highest rate of graduation among African-American students was 71% in West Virginia, followed by Massachusetts, Arkansas, and New Jersey. The highest rate of graduation among Latino students was 82% in Montana, followed by Louisiana, Maryland, and Hawaii.
Among the fifty largest school districts in the country, Cleveland City had the lowest overall graduation rate with 28%, followed by Memphis, Milwaukee, and Columbus.
Fairfax County, VA had the highest overall graduation rate among the districts with 87%, followed by Montgomery County, MD, Albuquerque and Boston.
Cleveland City had the lowest graduation rate among African-American students with 29%, followed by Milwaukee, Memphis, and Gwinett County, Georgia. Cleveland City also had the lowest graduation rate among Latino students, followed by Georgia’s Dekalb, Gwinnett, and Cobb counties. Less than 50% of African-American students graduated in fifteen of forty-five districts for which there was sufficient data, and less than 50% of Latino students graduated in twenty-one of thirty-six districts for which there was sufficient data.
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) finds a national high school completion rate of 86% for the class of 1998. The discrepancy between the NCES’ finding and this report’s finding of a 71% rate is largely caused by NCES’ counting of General Educational Development (GED) graduates and others with alternative credentials as high school graduates, and by its reliance on a methodology that is likely to undercount dropouts. I would suggest that this is not a track record of success -- if, indeed, an educated child is considered the measure of success (plenty of cannon fodder for the state, and plenty of grunt labor for the economy, though). Might I also mention that in conjunction with an America subjected to the the Public School industry, we have engaged in a Korea war, a Southeast Asian war, middle east wars, George Bush was elected to the White House twice, Hillary Clinton may actually ascend to that seat of power, and the antics of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton are considered top news stories. I think the Public School industry may has a lot to answer for.;-)) Yours, Issodhos
"When all has been said that can be said, and all has been done that can be done, there will be poetry";-) -- Issodhos
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Pooh-Bah
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For those of you that would like to investigate one of the more interesting concepts in educating a child, you can go to this link and read about the Unschooling approach. "Unschooling" seems like a pretty radical idea. Radical? Compared to what? Today's prison-structured environment? What a wonderful basis we currently have for developing a literate, freedom-loving, and responsible populus. Yours, Issodhos
"When all has been said that can be said, and all has been done that can be done, there will be poetry";-) -- Issodhos
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journeyman
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journeyman
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Unschooling is an unusual term for what most of us who choose to school our own children do.
Mine are 'schooled' in the sense that we cover fundamentals, reading writing, math and history. A foundation I personally feel is very important.
Then we do a lot of other learning through less 'structured' methods. Lots of hands on, real world experience in problem solving, biology, animal husbandry, art,how to run a home and business,my youngest son loves to cook, so with him, we do a lot of cooking, how to read recipes, how to design new dishes using staples found in the cupboard etc, the eldest loves art, so he does a lot of drawing, with some input from a very free sptirited artist friend<G> I don't consider mine 'unchooled' but certainly the principles outlined in the article apply.
Taxes. As a homeowner, I pay my taxes annually, and do it without problem. An uneducated populace is not desireable, and if the education needs to be provided through my taxes? Then so be it, the alternative doesn't bear thinking of. Too many families simply cannot afford to school their own children, the materials alone would be an overwhelming financial burden, many parents themselves lack education, and are in no way prepared to offer their children a useful learning environment, to do away with public education altogether would certainly result in severe class distinctions, and this is not something I think any of us want to see come about.
Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels -- men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, we may never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
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veteran
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Iss, I told you that our outlook on life varies. I can't change your experience, and I won't deny mine. I know a number of young people educated in the public school system (with the exception of the minister; I don't think there ARE any private seminaries.) Two are math majors; one works in international business, another works in retail management (they're not all perfect, but they pay their own way.) Still another is working cashier-end retail to pay her art school fees.
They don't seem like parolees to me. So I don't have quite the argument with the school system as a whole as you do. But I told you that at the beginning of my post.
I hated the school environment, because I was a social misfit. But academically I was a good student, I enjoyed learning, and my parents offered no alternative - neither of them got all the education they wanted, so it was valued very highly in my family. That makes a difference - a huge difference. I also attended small schools -- another huge advantage. I also lived in a rural area, not the barrio or the ghetto - yet another huge advantage.
We can't make parents respect education, and we can't move poor city kids to the country. But yes, I think if the public schools had enough money to build enough schools and equip them, and have the teacher-student ration down to about 1-15, then I think that would help tremendously.
Does education need to improve? Of course it does. Pretty much everything does, after all. But you see dismantling and starting over as improving, and I see it as increasing the problems by huge quantities. That's a fundamental difference between us, and it's not likely to change.
Julia
A 45’s quicker than 409
Betty’s cleaning’ house for the very last time
Betty’s bein’ bad
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Too many families simply cannot afford to school their own children, the materials alone would be an overwhelming financial burden, many parents themselves lack education, and are in no way prepared to offer their children a useful learning environment, to do away with public education altogether would certainly result in severe class distinctions, and this is not something I think any of us want to see come about. In my "perfect world" a community would build the infrastructure for a school system. Then a school board would take over to operate the buildings, fill the buildings with teachers, staff, students, and learning materials. At this point, parents who would like their kids educated would directly pay the school board - like we do with colleges. When we purchase cars, we plan on paying for monthly car payments, fuel, and insurance. When we purchase homes, we plan on paying monthly mortgages, home owners insurance, and property taxes. Yet, when most people have kids - they just have 'em. If people understood that they'd have to pay to literally pay for their kids schooling, and rearing, I'm sure we'd have a better society and less unwanted kids and a lot less social problems that we have today, ie. gangs
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