Public Schools - Bad for American Students?

[devonin]

Originally Posted by GuidoHunter

Methinks it's a straw man.

--Guido

http://andy.mikee385.com

Well in his defense, scarecrows are often men made of straw, and by his username, he seems inclined to see that pattern. I wonder if there's a way to connect scarecrows to the actual strawman concept...

[slipstrike0159]

Ok so i have been reading over this whole thing for quite some time and i think i may have a few things to add that might put a new perspective.

Even though the amount of work put in does not ALWAYS equal the amount of money earned, the concept still does not prove him wrong, at least not completely. The thing about the USA vs. another country without a democracy (just for sake of example) is that even a child born into a lower class of society has the chance to make a substantial amount of money in their profession. As opposed to any other family, if a child is born into a family that has a lot of money it is because the provider of that family worked hard to get that money, and if not them then their predecessor. So even though its luck of the draw, children of poor households still have the chance (regardless of how little) through scholarships and other such "opportunities" to receive well paying jobs. Its not fair and it may not be true 100% or even 50% of the time, but thats how it is.

The reason why schooling cannot, scratch that, WILL NOT teach more life essential subjects than it is already is because the government figures that it is the duty of the parents or guardians to teach that and it would otherwise be a waste of money, time, and resources when the economy is functioning just fine.

I would also like to touch on the idea of transportation with this voucher idea a little bit more than was previously said about "teleportation". Realistically, if all the local schools fizzle out because they lack the money to operate due to lack of students then the schools they will have to be sent to have to be located somewhere, and they most likely be anywhere close. Transportation costs alone provide enough of a reason not to go through with the idea. Also you have to take into consideration the time it takes to be bussed to the school, which means some students would have to wake up at 3AM (just for example sake) sit on the bus for several hours just to make it to school on time, go through school and then have the return trip to which they only have a few hours before they have to leave again. So the logical thinking path of most parents go, "hmmm.... send them to a school that is teaching math better in another county or, send them to a school down the street that i can easily get to in case of any problems or concerns". Then there goes the rise of local high schools. The idea might work for a little bit of time, however it is almost inevitable for things to slip back into the way they are now if not slightly better.

The whole concept of paying teachers more or less to motivate them brings into play a whole new view. It is indeed a conflict of having teachers come into the profession for the money or having teachers come into it for the sure love of teaching. To this i will say that as soon as money-grabbing teachers teach SPECIFICALLY for the reason of gaining money and keeping it that way come into our schools, strictness will go up and moral will go down. Everyone hates those teachers who, even though they get their message across well, are bent out of shape and teach for the wrong reason. Now, granted, there are some people who have the skill and the ability to be fantastic teachers but do not go into the profession because of the salary, but you have to realize that once we raise their salary, inflation brings up the cost of everything else.

I guess what i am mainly trying to get across at this late hour of half thought out ideas and poorly worded paragraphs is that there is a reason the schooling system is the way it is. The main basis of which is because idea after idea was tested, broken down, reworked, and tried again until a foundation was built to make the education system better than it was say 50 years ago. Progress has brought it to this point, an idea with so many flaws would never make it long enough and would hardly help, if at all.

eh... i know i will most likely have to explain myself A LOT tomorrow when i have a better collection of thoughts...

[Lucky11]

Hmm, I think I would have to disagree and agree. Yes, money is a factor in the American school system, its a factor everywhere, but so is population growth. Do you realize that the ratio for students to teachers has drastically increased. Personally I have been to both private and public schools and am in college now, I can tell you that just in my years, my class sizes have increased from 15-20 students per class to 35-60 per class. Luckily I'm attending a smaller college and the difference it makes is huge. Yes, there are bad teachers, yes, there are bad students, but I have to admit its obvious that a student in a smaller class will learn more just as a teachers with a small class can teach more.

Now I personally have experience in dealing with children in a learning environment. One thing i can positively tell you is that the ability to digest information or learn is set at and early age. Some of the most important years for school is between the ages of 4-10. Students who have been taught to assimilate information rapidly with a good understanding of the information will continue to be able to grasp concepts easier and have a better standard for learning. No student left behind is admirable, but it also forces a lag between when new information is taught to students. Take Geometry for example because of need for teachers to have all their students pass a subject it could and has taken up to two weeks for teachers to introduce a new formula . This wouldn't be such a great issue but for the students who catch on quickly this posses a problem. Students become inattentive to the teacher because they are not teaching and are more apt to misbehave in class causing the teacher to spend time disciplining further slowing the process.

Now before you jump on me I do know some students learn at a faster or slower pace then others, but thats why I said younger kids should be taught in a more upbeat tempo. Thus preparing ahead of time so that they will be ready to learn when they reach the subject that have more to do with living than just the basics. Every child can learn its not debatable but when we scoot them along in primary then force them to run in middle and high school of course there will be problems.

Before I finish i must also say that at least in Florida teachers have it tough they can and have been fired if to many of their students fail. You can see where this is an issue because who wants to lose there livelihood because their students either aren't able to or refuse to learn and pass. These kids are then shuffled along because the teacher doesn't want the hassle of A, having them again, or B, getting punished themselves.

I would have to say that not all schools are the same, not all schools have the same problems. So regardless of where you come from, or how much money you have, it is the job of the parent or guardian to provide the best education he or she is able to provide. And to encourage your child to do the best that they can and not to not settle for just getting through a class. Whether that mean rewarding them for their successes or shutting of the TV and computer and forcing them to do their homework, because in the end the parent not the school, not the teacher is responsible for making their child an able and responsible adult.

[Cavernio]

Originally Posted by Kilroy_x

Doesn't matter, if removing discrete units of income ensures only people with above a certain marginal level of dedication remain, then removing all income logically would have the best outcome in this sense.

You know, I am a communist at heart.

My point was, which I think Slipstrike addressed (as well as most of my others), is that you generally don't want to attract teachers through money. I never said it as a truthful suggestion to 'fix' what's wrong with our teachers, although if I did research into it, and found that something absurd like 70% of teachers were in it solely for the money, and then found that these teachers are the ones who're worst, I might. Clearly not paying anyone anything in a capitalist society is a very bad idea.

Originally Posted by Kilroy_x

It also means that the government has a monopoly on the single most valuable resource in existence. The resource that determines your future more than almost any other single factor.
I don't care whether or not some school teaches creationism. Let the students try to capitalize on their knowledge. There are plenty of subjects which interest people even though they have no pragmatic value. At any rate, people should be able to do what they want with their time, money, and brains.

We're down to differences in ideology again. I don't mind that the government has some control over what I learn and what I don't.
First of all, the government is elected, and ideally, takes people's best interests to heart. Secondly, creationism has less than just pragmatic value, it has no scientific value, and I'd hate to see science mocked. Thirdly, for those subjects which public schools don't teach, there's still a lot of hours left in a day, and a lot of fairly inexpensive institutions which offer such things like sports and music lessons. Actually, now that I think about it, public schools themselves offer extracurricular activities which are NOT dictated by the government, but are dictated by what teachers decide they want to do extra. I don't know about the States, but where I come from, as soon as I hit highschool, not only did I have a choice of what courses to take, I also had a choice of what difficulty to take them at. In grade 12, the only requirements were Math and English. I *think* I had 10 courses (maybe 8) to take that year in all, and the rest were all of my own choosing.

As far as having someone be able to choose for themselves what they want to do, I'm assuming you mean the parents for the kids, hopefully in conjunction with where a kid's interest lies. Children who're 6 shouldn't have the final say about what they learn.

Again, I will also say that where I've lived in Canada, there's never been someone saying you HAVE to go to such and such a school. In fact, once highschool was reached, kids did have CHOICE in where they went, with different highschools excelling in different fields. One of the cities I've lived in had one geared for trades, one for sciences, and another for arts. And I think you could actually get bussed to anyone of these schools as long as you lived in the city.

And I should address Skare Krow here, in his want to learn basic domestic skills out of school. Why don't we build a house on school grounds, install washing machines, toilets, the whole she-bang, and then get students to clean it and their uniforms as a class? Because that doesn't already exist in most people's homes, where they've lived for many, many years. If you've learned how to read in school, then you'll be able to teach yourself how to do laundry by reading the users manual.

And I know I'm siding with Kilroy now, but the government should not tell me everything I must learn, and I think things like mandatory laundry classes are going a little bit too far. Just because I like the way things are now, doesn't mean that they might not change for the worse.

I don't feel like I've been shoved into learning what I have from the public school system, and I don't feel like I've been restricted by government in what I've learned. But I've also been lucky enough to have well-off parents who let me have plenty of opportunities beyond the schoolsystem. Anyways, the public school system isn't mandatory.

Originally Posted by Kilroy_x

Small town education also generally suffers from fewer problems than big city education, and requires less of a budget in any event. A voucher program might offer limited choice to people with limited means, but it would still offer them improved choice and better value. All Schools would increase in absolute educational value even if some schools would end up being superior to others.

I'm still not seeing how.

Originally Posted by Skare Krow

My main point is that we live once and only once. All we need to do is survive and what we do while we survive is up to us. Why can't we learn what we need to know to survive, study on a profession that you would like to be, get that job, and take care of your family and have a fun.

I actually sort of agree with you here Skare Krow. I remember when in Canada they changed the legal year of dropping out of school from 16 to 18. I guess what I'm saying is that at some point, a person is old enough to make their own choices about their life, and I think 16 is old enough. There are lots of careers that really don't need a grade 12 education, (although they say you need one anyways) and its silly to shove someone into learning when they don't want to when they're basically an adult.

[devonin]

Originally Posted by Cavernio

You know, I am a communist at heart.

My point was, which I think Slipstrike addressed (as well as most of my others), is that you generally don't want to attract teachers through money. I never said it as a truthful suggestion to 'fix' what's wrong with our teachers, although if I did research into it, and found that something absurd like 70% of teachers were in it solely for the money, and then found that these teachers are the ones who're worst, I might. Clearly not paying anyone anything in a capitalist society is a very bad idea.

Here's the issue though, the ones who are in it for the love of teaching ought to be rewarded for their dedication...perhaps by higher wages? Teaching is arguably one of the most important services to be provided to society, and at some point you need to strike a balance between "High wage to entice you to be a tacher" and "High wage to reward you for providing the service of education"

I strongly suspect this is why the teaching payscale inscreases so dramatically the longer you teach. 36k->71k for doing the same job is a pretty wide swing of salary.

Again, I will also say that where I've lived in Canada, there's never been someone saying you HAVE to go to such and such a school. In fact, once highschool was reached, kids did have CHOICE in where they went, with different highschools excelling in different fields. One of the cities I've lived in had one geared for trades, one for sciences, and another for arts. And I think you could actually get bussed to anyone of these schools as long as you lived in the city.

Canada also has the benefit of being made up mostly of "small" cities. I grew up in a town of 15,000. We had three highschools, two public, one catholic. And you could go to whichever one you wanted because it was generally just as easy to get kids to one as the other. While possible, you don't see too many people who live in Oakville, going to school in North York. The US has a lot more very large cities where it would become more expensive to shuffle kids around to far schools, and in order to determine where and when to build schools, it is advantageous to have all the kids in an area attend one school.

I actually sort of agree with you here Skare Krow. I remember when in Canada they changed the legal year of dropping out of school from 16 to 18. I guess what I'm saying is that at some point, a person is old enough to make their own choices about their life, and I think 16 is old enough. There are lots of careers that really don't need a grade 12 education, (although they say you need one anyways) and its silly to shove someone into learning when they don't want to when they're basically an adult.

Instead of dealing with the murky nature of the phrase "basically an adult" they changed it to "actually an adult" this doesn't seem like a huge issue. Also...are you positive the age was changed to 18? Here in Ontario, since we've dropped OAC, there are plenty of people -graduating- at 17. This must have been a fairly recent Harper initiative, since it was 16 the entire time I was in highschool.

[carlin]

As someone going into high school for the first time at the end of summer, I would agree with most of this. There are a lot of really bad schools out there. However I've never seen them because all the schools I go to are very good. The public school I went to for 6th grade had very high test scores and the teachers taught the subjects very well. Then in my 7th and 8th grade year I went to a school that had the California Distinguished School award and had gotten the National Blue Ribbon School award multiple times. So in all this good I never got to see the bad, I knew there were schools out there that weren't as good as what I was getting, but after watching the video I finally understand what it's like in other schools around the world.

[Cavernio]

Err, must remain in school until they graduate or until they turn 18. I think this happened a decade ago now. Damn I'm old.

[devonin]

A decade ago? Can't be, it was 16 in highschool in Ontario more recently than that...hmm...going to have to check up on this. I've had good luck getting answers from contacting the .gov.on.ca

Edit: Ontario Ministry of Education Website says, in a document detailing future goals for the ministry:

Retaining 16- and 17-Year-Olds and Reducing the Drop-out Rate
Retaining more 16- and 17-year-old learners has direct space implications, and the ministry is currently working with the sector to develop specific programs and targets in anticipation of raising the drop out age.

This appears to be a long-term planning document from about 2004.

[Kilroy_x]

Originally Posted by Cavernio

You know, I am a communist at heart.

Your heart is defective then. The only way wealth equality or any equality for that matter can be achieved is if you destroy the playing field, permanently.

My point was, which I think Slipstrike addressed (as well as most of my others), is that you generally don't want to attract teachers through money.

I don't see why not. Unless you think that every job which pays more than a teachers salary is also full of greedy, inept employees. Just because "be nice" is part of the teachers job description doesn't mean people won't be motivated to attain that skill-set like any other by way of prices.

I never said it as a truthful suggestion to 'fix' what's wrong with our teachers, although if I did research into it, and found that something absurd like 70% of teachers were in it solely for the money, and then found that these teachers are the ones who're worst, I might. Clearly not paying anyone anything in a capitalist society is a very bad idea.

That's the thing, teaching positions today are practically a sinecure because they are regulated by government. As has already been pointed out, it's almost impossible to get a teacher fired even when they completely fail their duties. Even if you did find that statistic to be true, it would be a faulty comparison.

We're down to differences in ideology again.

Perhaps, but my ideology is based on fact, not more ideology.

I don't mind that the government has some control over what I learn and what I don't.
First of all, the government is elected, and ideally, takes people's best interests to heart.

Not all of the government is elected. Also less than half the population votes. Lastly preventing 49.9% of the population from doing something because 50.1% of the population wants to do something else is baseless 9 times out of 10, and an infringement of liberty in all cases.

Does the government choose what foods you eat or what cars you drive? Well to an extent it does by regulation, but in general no it does not because these are a matter of preference. Why should education be any different?

Secondly, creationism has less than just pragmatic value, it has no scientific value, and I'd hate to see science mocked.

Science doesn't have any feelings to hurt. Also Science is a method, not an object. Refuting nonsense like creationism fits in perfectly with the task of the scientific method.

Thirdly, for those subjects which public schools don't teach, there's still a lot of hours left in a day, and a lot of fairly inexpensive institutions which offer such things like sports and music lessons. Actually, now that I think about it, public schools themselves offer extracurricular activities which are NOT dictated by the government, but are dictated by what teachers decide they want to do extra.

Right, well the market will pick up whatever it can. Sometimes it will even do so illegally. There is a black market in education in India right now, you know.

As far as having someone be able to choose for themselves what they want to do, I'm assuming you mean the parents for the kids, hopefully in conjunction with where a kid's interest lies. Children who're 6 shouldn't have the final say about what they learn.

Custody is a seperate issue. Important, but seperate.

Again, I will also say that where I've lived in Canada, there's never been someone saying you HAVE to go to such and such a school. In fact, once highschool was reached, kids did have CHOICE in where they went, with different highschools excelling in different fields. One of the cities I've lived in had one geared for trades, one for sciences, and another for arts. And I think you could actually get bussed to anyone of these schools as long as you lived in the city.

Does Canada prevent private groups and individuals from opening their own school? Does Canada finance education by means of tax or Government?

Point made.

I'm still not seeing how.

Because prices perform three functions. They provide information about goods and services, they allocate resources to their optimum uses, and they provide the means and incentive to do so.

[devonin]

Does Canada prevent private groups and individuals from opening their own school? Does Canada finance education by means of tax or Government?

Private groups and individuals can own and operate schools, but unless they comply with various standards, it is likely that people graduating from such schools may be prevented from carrying on in formal education in the same way that homeschooled kids are (I assume there are overall tests that can be written to prove proficiency etc)

The government funds the public school board through taxation, and as part of earlier documents, funds the catholic board in ontario, and a protestant board in quebec, though there has been agitation over the past 6 or 8 years to start discontinuing that practice.

[Relambrien]

Originally Posted by Cavernio

Again, I will also say that where I've lived in Canada, there's never been someone saying you HAVE to go to such and such a school. In fact, once highschool was reached, kids did have CHOICE in where they went, with different highschools excelling in different fields. One of the cities I've lived in had one geared for trades, one for sciences, and another for arts. And I think you could actually get bussed to anyone of these schools as long as you lived in the city.

That's the thing. In America, you can't choose where you want to go, unless you want to pay yourself for a private school, or you get very lucky and there's a decent charter school in the area. You're assigned the school you go to based on where you live. The only way you can get out of that is to go to a private school, which costs a lot of money, or a charter school. Charter schools, however, tend to receive a heck of a lot less in the way of funding than normal public schools, to the point where you have to pay for almost everything you do anyway (since the school itself can't).

And if you can't afford those options, you have to go to the local public school regardless of how good or bad it is.

Anyway, there's some other stuff I'd like to respond to, but I'm pretty tired right now and I don't want to risk misunderstanding because of it.

[tricky77puzzle]

I wouldn't know about these problems...our school is (slightly) poorly funded and I'm getting an A- (84%) average...but anyways, I think Toronto is the place where funding is a real problem. (only about $2500 per pupil, $2400 US.) We're cutting like mad (upwards of $100 million). We don't even have a lot of instruments anymore...

Anyway, I think the money issue holds true in most cases.

...anyway, our school is probably one of the best in Toronto, even though poorly funded. I guess we just make more of an effort (Although probably not me... I barely made the honour roll with 84%. Most people in my class get high 80's and 90's and stuff.)

[tricky77puzzle]

Originally Posted by Relambrien

That's the thing. In America, you can't choose where you want to go, unless you want to pay yourself for a private school, or you get very lucky and there's a decent charter school in the area. You're assigned the school you go to based on where you live. The only way you can get out of that is to go to a private school, which costs a lot of money, or a charter school. Charter schools, however, tend to receive a heck of a lot less in the way of funding than normal public schools, to the point where you have to pay for almost everything you do anyway (since the school itself can't).

And if you can't afford those options, you have to go to the local public school regardless of how good or bad it is.

Anyway, there's some other stuff I'd like to respond to, but I'm pretty tired right now and I don't want to risk misunderstanding because of it.

Sorry for double posting, but this holds true as well. In Canada, you can choose where you want to go. Actually, I think this is because there are just too many schools to choose from. Where I live, there are 2 schools about 2 km away from each other - a 20-minute walk!

[Cavernio]

Originally Posted by Kilroy_x

Your heart is defective then. The only way wealth equality or any equality for that matter can be achieved is if you destroy the playing field, permanently.

I don't see anything wrong with destroying 'wealth'. I'm not talking about destroying the playing field, I'm talking about levelling the playing field by only 1 factor, not all of them.

Originally Posted by Kilroy_x

I don't see why not. Unless you think that every job which pays more than a teachers salary is also full of greedy, inept employees. Just because "be nice" is part of the teachers job description doesn't mean people won't be motivated to attain that skill-set like any other by way of prices.

Because knowledge and education to me are extremely high value, and should be high value in and of themselves. But I suppose you're right, and that's no different than what I think pretty much everything should be.

Originally Posted by Kilroy_x

That's the thing, teaching positions today are practically a sinecure because they are regulated by government. As has already been pointed out, it's almost impossible to get a teacher fired even when they completely fail their duties. Even if you did find that statistic to be true, it would be a faulty comparison.

Originally Posted by Kilroy_x

Perhaps, but my ideology is based on fact, not more ideology.

There's a difference between poor regulation and no regulation. What we have is a flaw in the system, and you're using that to say we should get rid of the entire system. It makes more sense to try and fix this flaw. You're still basing the rest of your argument, as follows, on ideology.

Originally Posted by Kilroy_x

Not all of the government is elected. Also less than half the population votes. Lastly preventing 49.9% of the population from doing something because 50.1% of the population wants to do something else is baseless 9 times out of 10, and an infringement of liberty in all cases.

People who don't vote have no right to complain about what their government does, unless they're in outright revolt of the entire system or something, in which case, they should also offer an alternative of some type.

Originally Posted by Kilroy_x

Does the government choose what foods you eat or what cars you drive? Well to an extent it does by regulation, but in general no it does not because these are a matter of preference. Why should education be any different?

I'm glad you acknowledge that the government has regulation on these other things, because I think you've made a poor comparison. Education isn't that different. There's a lot of control the government has on things like transportation and food. The biggest thing I can think of for cars is that they have to be able to drive on roads (roads are government regulated), and must be safe while doing so. Food, likewise, must be safe. Further up the chain though, are the prices of products that prepared food is made of, and if government offers subsidies on certain foods, and if foreign governments do so. There are countless ways in which both food and transportation are government regulated.
The main difference between these 2 things and education, is that you generally buy food and transportation for yourself, and you don't have to buy yourself education. You CAN buy yourself education though, and that'll open up the options. You CAN also get your food from the soup kitchen, and you can also rely solely on public transportation, and that doesn't leave you a lot of choice.
It's a weakness of centrally controlled things, that they can't offer everything. They do, however, offer everyone, not just the wealthy, AN education.

Again, I really think we're refuting ideologies. As soon as you regulate something, you restrict it. However, if it's not regulated, then things tend to get extremely unfair, and end up becoming regulated by someone in some other way anways.

The problem right now, apparently, with schools in the US is that it's largely dependent on where you live, and not just an issue of wealth. That and bad teachers don't seem to get fired quickly enough.

Originally Posted by Kilroy_x

Science doesn't have any feelings to hurt. Also Science is a method, not an object. Refuting nonsense like creationism fits in perfectly with the task of the scientific method.

No, but I have feelings, and I hate seeing people believing nonsense, especially when that nonsense says to use science as its evidence. Just because science may be right, doesn't mean that people will believe that it's right. Science itself refutes nothing, people refute.

[Cavernio]

Oh, and about not being able to drop-out before age 18, it must've been a New Brunswick thing then.

[lord_carbo]

Originally Posted by Cavernio

People who don't vote have no right to complain about what their government does, unless they're in outright revolt of the entire system or something, in which case, they should also offer an alternative of some type.

Or rather, they'd hate whoever they are able to vote for. That's a possibility. I loath Bush and Kerry and especially Gore. I'd only vote for, perhaps, the green party, in the '00 and '04 elections to get my point across that I hate both of them and I would never vote for any of them (which is why assuming that the green party "broke" the election in '00 is wrong, it assumes the people who voted for the green party would have voted at all if any third parties didn't exist).

[Kilgamayan]

That's only an excuse if there's no write-in option.

[devonin]

Theoretically, the proper way to "vote" without supporting all sides you disagree with is to spoil your ballot with a "None of these" write in.

[Cavernio]

I'm very ignorant about the US political system, but don't you get to vote for more than just Republican or Democrat? Don't you elect officials for your State? Aren't you actually voting for a person who's a party of the Republican or Democrat party, as well as the overall leader?

This is really off-topic.

[devonin]

The way American federal elections work is a little wonky. Technically, each person is voting for "electors" in their state, who will in turn vote for the presidential candiates. The electors functionally promise beforehand to vote for the president of the party they represent, such that generally it is actually the presidential candidate who appears on the ballot (I wouldn't be surprised if many people aren't aware that they aren't as such voting directly for the president.

So you go to the polls, and you pick which pres/vp duo you would like to see elected. Each state has, based on relative population, a number of "electoral college" votes to direct towards the presidency. If your state votes in the majority for candidate X, all of the electoral college votes for your state go to candidate X. Whichever candidate recieves over 270 electoral college votes becomes the president.

The federal election is entirely seperate from gubernatorial elections, congressional elections, or senate elections. Congressional elections happen every two years, with each congressperson serving two year terms. Senate elections happen every two years, with senators serving six year terms (1/3 get reelected every two years) and Gubernatorial elections happening every two years, but not all state re-elect governers each time (State law presumably specifies term length and election frequency for governors.)