Thinking Right

By Paul

July 13, 2006 08:04 AM | Link to this

Money is definitely not the answer. It, however, could be the problem. When I went to school, 30 student classrooms were the norm. Since that time the trend is to reduce the classroom size and pay teachers more. An end result of reduced classroom size is the need for more teachers and more administrators. It also means teachers can work less for more money. If teachers are not working less and less then you have to assume students are getting dumber and dumber. I say that because now a third of college freshmen spend their first time in college doing remedial work that should have been done in high school. It now often takes students 5 or 6 years to do 4 year work. Students are even complaining that the HOPE Scholarship is not adequately funding them because of the extra time they have to spend in college. Perhaps we should go back to 30 student classrooms. It could weed out ineffective teachers and ineffective administrators. Why do we think small classrooms with less qualified teachers is the answer.

The Department of Education is at best the worst thing to happen to education. We now have bureaucrats in Washington dictating how our children are educated and what books to read. This to the extent of ignoring input from local parents. I remember how we condemned dictatorships that burned the books and controlled education. It happened in Germany in the thirties and later in China for example. Cutting out parent input in book selection may take a little longer, but it will have the same effect. Parents are allowing the Federal Government to control their children’s minds. If this is not scary, then what is? It may be called “No Child Left Behind,” but is it leading them down the right path? I don’t think so.

By seeing through the smoke

July 13, 2006 08:19 AM | Link to this

First thing — I firmly believe a free, public education should be a sacrosanct right of all American children and the best hope of a child to make his/her life better than the life of their parents. The stipulation here is that is must also be an excellent education.

We do not currently have an excellent education system. The system is quite broken and in desperate need of repair. Throwing money at the system is part of how it got broken. Every half-baked, never tried idea that some half-witted education major writes a paper about does not need to be “tried” on my kids. It is a classroom, not an education lab. There are real children being hurt when your theories fail.

Cut the crap, teach math, science, English, history and some foreign languages. Have a good vocational program, because not every child is college material, but every child deserves to be prepared and educated. Return discipline to the classroom, teach children the value of competition and quit whining about “self-esteem”. Your feel-good edu-tainment isn’t working because when that kid gets out into the real workplace, I’ll fire him/her if he/she cannot do the job. And I won’t care about if it hurts his/her feelings.

Parents should be screaming mad about our current education system and everyone (whether or not you are a parent) should be working to fix it.

No Child Left Behind is a joke and should be scrapped. How about let’s try a return to traditional education, with the emphasis on the basics?

By jbmlaw

July 13, 2006 08:32 AM | Link to this

This is one of the few issues where both sides agree that there is a problem with results, but disagree over causation and cure.

One side is unwilling to try any meaningful potential remedy other than throwing more money at the system in place. (Perhaps that is hyperbole: they will agree to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic.) They will change administrators and positions within the organization, but are unwilling to open up education to any provider other than the current entity.

The other side is unwilling to underwrite more money, and wants to try anything else, to get a bit more bang for the buck. Charter schools and vouchers seem to be the most talked-about vehicles.

Paul @ 8:04 is singing my song: government - both as administrator of the school, and in the form of Federal dictates - is the problem, not the cure. The current operating theory, that every school must be all things to all people, is inherently and irredeemably flawed. Any personal service delivery system has limitations, and that will remain true until the art of teaching is converted into a hard and predictable science.

I have previously argued for vouchers in this space, so I plan to stay out of the way today, to see if I can learn something from others.

By mc

July 13, 2006 08:35 AM | Link to this

Yes, there are multitudes of problems. Parents being one of them. On top of our poorly educated kids, parents try to turn school into an ideological battleground, or see it as nothing more than a cheap baby sitting service as evidenced by school years that get longer and longer while the kids get dumber and dumber. Jim wants the gov to give parents a stipend, and wonder of wonders, wants the “free market” to create new “choices”, which is nothing more than code for ideology based schools created not to better educate students, but to better indoctrinate them. The present system needs fixing, and creating a hodgepodge of ideologically based schools with curriculums tailored to suit different ideologies is not the fix. And only the most naive could believe that this is not exactly what it would turn into.

By Cindy

July 13, 2006 08:37 AM | Link to this

I cannot agree with you more. It’s a common sense solution, but unfortunately lawmakers do not seem to have the common sense. The school system, as it stands, is simply archaic. There are different needs for every child and even a variety of learning needs. A catch all school just doesn’t work and the fact that so many schools are having such trouble educating their children is absolute proof of that.

By Mid-South Philosopher

July 13, 2006 08:39 AM | Link to this

Let’s really “reform” public education.

First, let’s yield to the desire of the “educational reformists” and the “educational elitists” for vouchers. Let’s implement them. Let’s come up with a universal amount that the government should spend on each child in school and make that amount available to the parents in the form the voucher.

But,let’s not stop there.

Let’s “privatize” all schools!

We can maintain the mandatory attendance law. Every student must go to school somewhere, but no student would be “required” to go to any “specific” school. At the same time no school would be “required” to accept any “specific” student.

Let’s allow the parents and the school operators to negotiate the cost of educating each child and the terms and conditions under which that child will be educated.

Under that scenario, everyone has a say and everyone knows what the ground rules, and everyone has CHOICE.

This would be REAL reform

Do I think this will ever happen?

Sure! Right after the Washington Capitol Police hold an “appreciation dinner” in honor of Representative Cynthia McKinney!

By Harold

July 13, 2006 08:41 AM | Link to this

Our education system is an accurate reflection of our failed nation. Ain’t nothin’ nobody can do about it anymore. You just cain’t make smart folks come out of the stupid bucket.

By Political Foreskin

July 13, 2006 08:43 AM | Link to this

I have lived in Newt Gingrich’s old district of E. Cobb for 23 years. My daughter has just completed the entire journey of preK-12 + UGA. I am impressed with the teachers I met, and they all raved about my little girl.

I only actually questioned one - a pretty female 6th grade biology teacher. It was 1996, and there was news about a rock from Mars that contained possible organic fossils of ancient life. In a classroom filled with oversized parents crammed into those mini-desks, I asked if the scientific process which led to the deduction of life on mars would be covered.

There was an audible gasp from the assembly of spandex, bumper stickers, and family values. The young woman stopped cold, and stared at me as if I were Gallileo himself. My wife’s jaw dropped in horror as she gave me the slow head turn of disbelief. “Ixnay on the eresyhay”, she ventriloquized.

This was Newt Ginrich’s legacy: religion in the schools preventing scientific inquiry. There is an extreme amount of educational value in the way scientists deduced that a rock found in Antarctica could be from mars, and ditto (pun intended) the analysis of the fossil formation. The entire subject addresses one of the most profound questions facing mankind today.

Yet, this was the Bible Belt, (and I was lucky I didn’t get strapped). The potential (quantum derived) welts om me bum are still visible from space. I could feel the collective abhorrence swirling around that canonic gaggle of future Bushbots.

Educational reform will take nothing less than a tectonic shift in the Zeitgeist itself. Throw money at it if you will, I think 10% of the GNP would be an appropriate tithe.

By seeing through the smoke

July 13, 2006 08:56 AM | Link to this

Foreskin makes an excellent point… part of the problem is that we don’t allow teachers to teach, we expect them to never offend anyone, to coddle the little ones and avoid anything like challenging material for fear of reprisal. Let them teach — even the hard stuff. No student ever dies from thinking about something… I’m pretty sure that’s how we got stuff like light bulbs, automobiles, nuclear reactors, brain surgery, useful stuff — because someone thought about it first.

By Political Foreskin

July 13, 2006 09:05 AM | Link to this

Seeing thru smoke makes an excellent point about me making an excellent point……nevermind… (voteforralphreedhehadmeat’halo’)

By Van

July 13, 2006 09:08 AM | Link to this

Mid-South Philosopher,

I agree completely. We must break this monopoly we call “public education”. Allowing parents to choose a public, privately run school or religious affiliated school will give us better results.

While I agree that a free education is the base rock of our country and dreams, we must realize that the education is not free. It has been taken over by the teacher unions, and they have lobbied and received their own cabinet position.

And yes, Ted Kennedy’s No Child Left Behind is a total failure. It should be scraped and dismantled.

Returning control of the schools to the local school boards, removing federal oversite and control will boost education posibilities.

Once the parents see the schools trying to improve, then maybe the parents will start taking an interest in education. Knowing that this will cause a great knashing of teeth, we need to put sports in the proper perspective, and push education to the forefront in high school.

By mc

July 13, 2006 09:23 AM | Link to this

Anybody attended a PTA meeting lately, if there still is such a thing. Everyone on this blog acts as if parents are truly interested in their childs education. Truth be told, most parents don’t give it a second thought until little Buffy or little Biff mysteriously can’t get in the college that mommy and daddy think they should because they made 700 on the SAT. But where were the parents while little Buffy or Biff were getting dumbed down. Spending all of their time everywhere but with the child and expecting the school system to mysteriously turn little Buffy and little Biff into Ivey League material without the aforementioned parents ever playing a role.

By Th

July 13, 2006 09:41 AM | Link to this

A word of advice to Van: Don’t stand up at a school parents meeting and say your last sentence out loud. You will not make it to the door. People take their sports seriously around here.

After our conversation yesterday, I did some quick research and found a study by the Manhatten Institute done for the Gates Foundation. Guess which state had the highest graduation rate. New Jersey led the nation by graduating 89% of their students while we graduate 56% in Georgia (figures through 2002). Their student/teacher ratio was 3 less than ours, and they spend $5 billion more on 140,000 fewer students. I checked another study because I did not believe NJ topped the nation in graduating rates. Yep, they said it was true.

The Gates study also said national graduation rates have been flat since 1991 (the first year of the study) at 71% while Georgia’s went from 68% in 1991 to a low of 53% in the late 1990’s and rebounded slightly since then. Why did the wheels fall off in the 90’s? Zell is usually given high marks on education.

By xteach

July 13, 2006 09:41 AM | Link to this

mc makes a good point. Parents expect the school do all the work for them. They create an environment in the home that contributes to many of the problems we have today. You will see XBoxes, Gameboys, Playstations, DVDs,CDs, Ipods, etc, and there won’t be a book in sight. And the only time you see them take any interest whatsoever is when they are in the principles office demanding to know how some teacher had the gall to give their kid an F for F work. Parents are a huge part of the problems that we have today. And believe me folks, parents with money are the worst offenders. They seem to think that their money entitles their kid to grades they don’t earn through hard work. But it is natural to take the path of least resistance. Blame the school and the teachers.

By Larry

July 13, 2006 09:47 AM | Link to this

“…I’m not any more desirous of conservative judicial activism than I am of liberal judicial activism” THANK YOU, Jim!!!

By lynn d

July 13, 2006 09:48 AM | Link to this

In Metro Atlanta, what the top (and frankly the best) private schools charge is more than any system (other than Atlanta) pays per pupil. Before you start arguing about capital spending, remember that most private schools constantly are having capital fund drives, which parents are expected to contibute to in addition to tuition. Given what private schools cost in NYC and the general metro area, I wonder what you get for say $14,000. No doubt the Newark schools are horrific. Just not sure what you can buy will be better.

Part of the problem is in the culture of families that expect schools to do it all. They don’t read to their children, get extra help if needed, drill their kid’s math facts or even check the homework.

Research shows that students who get vouchers do no better than those who applied and didn’t. While it says that small scale voucher programs may be valuable, large programs probably won’t work. It is my experience, as a parent in a system with lots of choices and administrative transfers given, that most parents who seek a different choice than their neighborhood school do it for educational reasons but also to get their kids away from their community. If these parents are succesful in Newark, then the schools they send their kids to will mostly be full of the same kids they go to school with. http://www.ingentaconnect.com/search/expand?pub=infobike://aea/jep/2002/00000016/00000004/art00001&unc=

Recently a report was released that showed that public school students outscored all other students (charter, private, etc) in math on the NAEP.

http://www.news.uiuc.edu/NEWS/06/0123lubienski.html

By Truth

July 13, 2006 09:49 AM | Link to this

Education will remain a joke until lawmakers are forced to send their kids to public schools. I bet things will get better a whole lot faster then!

Teachers are expected to be magicians. I cannot magically help a child pass a test if they do not speak the language. Nor can I help a child pass a test whose IQ simply does not allow it. But that’s No Child Left Behind for ya.

More money spent appropriately would help. Help is truly needed in high schools. It is almost as if high schools are the step children of public education. They don’t get nearly as much help as elementary schools (hello….dropout rate anyone?), but we carry the brunt of what is wrong with education.

I don’t believe that politicians really care because it’s not their kids being affected.

By Political Foreskin

July 13, 2006 09:53 AM | Link to this

Harold, a slight correction is in order concerning your sentence, “Aint nothin’ nobody can do about it anymore”.

It should read, “Aints nuthin’ nobody can do ‘bouts it no more, no how.”

If you’re going to use the inflective country-fried ebonically derived vernacular of emerging dittoheadwounds who were apparently dropped on their heads at birth by midwives and, it is theorized, there would have had to be a bobcat or a wolverine in the room maybe under the bed where it got a couple of free swings at the newborn before the midwife could retrieve it, and oh the humanity sir, and now we must allow these same people to teach our young the biblically consistent facts of science, which has become even more dogmatic since the theological backlash that occured when the redstates realized that the giant sucking sound was NOT coming from Mexico via NAFTA which has had the effect of inducing a religious stupor into the pool of teacher candidates easily identified by their photo ID’s…….yahoo regrets that this blogger has gone insane and will no longer be commenting, we will now play some hymns arranged by the osmonds….

By SamX

July 13, 2006 10:09 AM | Link to this

What we must not do is give religion more special rights. We already give religion special rights by not taxing them. Now some want to give religion more special rights to access public money for schools.

You think schools are a disaster now, just wait and see what happens when we start teaching our kids that the sun revolves around the earth, and that God hates f-ags.

By time for the truth

July 13, 2006 10:11 AM | Link to this

The imposition of superstitious religious dogma in schools is unacceptable and hardly assists with honing the critical (scientific and logical) thinking skills of kiddies. But liberal education theory and practice and the dumbing down of tests to the point of being almost meaningless compared to recent generations faciliates the “graduation” of often little more than functioning illiterates, which is a shameless betrayal of all kiddies. The moronic mindless cult of self esteem needs to be dumped, along with the constant repeated attempts at passing the joke exit exams.

In England you either pass or fail secondary subject exams and then resit the exams you fail or get a poor grade for in the next academic cycle. Its the leftist/racial pandering crowd in the US that’s in good part responsible for this!! Which completely undermines the remaining integrity of the graduation exam. You can either pass or fail the exam - NOT get six or more attempts to do it. And I understand at least in some states the exam is essentially only 14 year old maths and 16 year old English. WHich is unbelievable!!

Liberal teachers and administrators push their politically correct agendas/curriculum. Ensuring that critical thought is often pushed out of the classroom in favour of the dogma of ‘anti-racism’ which informs the tone of every school. I did teacher training in England and this poisonous drivel is extremely divisive. Some schools have an overtly anti-military attitude, others refuse to allow kids to wear inoffensive t-shirts because of hyper racial sensitivity which is little more than political point scoring. The ‘rebel’ flag in this day and age is not in the least racist! It is a perfectly legitimate representation of southern culture, given its not associated with the odious neanderthal klan.

Teacher tenure needs fundamental revision so the deadwood can be removed, not kept on the job for life. Self absorbed parents need to be challenged and explicitly told that their spoiled brats can and do indulge in disuptive behaviour, take drugs/alcohol or are bullies or whatever the problem is. The desperately pathetic culture of having to have a car at 16 needs to go. Riding the school bus is not that big a deal. Clearly the stats show that this is much too young an age to be given acces to such lethal weapons.

TRaditional educational practice far better educated kids than all the liberal trendy bollocks of today. Look at a 19th century school exam and see the difference, in maths for example its at least junior college level compared with today.

AS discussed yesterday kids’ attitude to education needs changing. That only comes from competent teachers instilling a willingness and desire and a ‘personal’ discipline focused on learning , not forcing teachers to become hapless child minders for x hours a day. Clearly parental responsibility is crucial here too, unfortunately looking around at how many adults indulge/spoil their kids and fail to even gently correct obnoxiuous behaviour this sea change in attitude is unlikely to occur any time soon. Too many parents want to be ‘friends’ with their kids, and dont parent them properly!!

Its a cultural as well as an intellectual/pedagogical issue. The schools simply reflect what is out there. The play station generation will increasingly reap the rewards of their cerebral laxity and the rest of us will pay, literally, for more jail cells, increased underclass/gang behaviour, drug rehab etc.

Just a few - somewhat incomplete thoughts on the topic!!

As ever its all liberals’ fault - perhaps not completely, but look who has historically (mainly) controlled the teahcer training, the schools and the media/culture etc.

By JK

July 13, 2006 10:16 AM | Link to this

“Throwing money at it” is a bad, overused cliche. (Sorry Mr. Wooten, but it is.) I have a house with a mortgage. I “throw money at” it every month. It seems to be working. The bank hasn’t asked me to leave my house, and the roof doesn’t leak anymore since I had it fixed.

If students should not all be lumped together, then they need more teachers. If smaller class sizes and more personal attention will help children learn to READ AND FUNCTION IN THE WORLD, then we need more teachers. If the school in your neighborhood has nine little trailers crammed all around it, each filled with 30 kids every hour, then we need more schools AND more teachers. If kids in anywhere are using outdated textbooks, or don’t they have enough for everybody in the class, then we need to buy more books. This requires MONEY, unless you know people who are willing to make it all happen for free. Don’t be such a tightwad! What’s more important than educating American children so American adults won’t be freaking STOOOOOOOOOPID! HELLO! BTW, “tightwad” is a polite term for “CHEAPA—!”

By Nancy Girl

July 13, 2006 10:28 AM | Link to this

I’m glad Jim Wooten doesn’t see money as the answer because I’m tired of my property taxes going through the roof to educate all the brats you breeders are spitting out. As a member of a marginalized population here in “Gawga” I couldn’t care less how dumb your kids are becoming, but I’m really tired of shelling out the cash for them. Gays and Lesbian and childless-by-choice straight couples should get a tax break for not “burdening” the already failed educational systems in this country.

By JK

July 13, 2006 10:37 AM | Link to this

Nancy Girl,

I have a question for you. When you’re 60 or 70 years old, will you be living on your own land, growing or killing all your own food, making all your own clothes, building your own transporation, producing your own fuel, filtering your own drinking water, and tending to your own medical care? Or do think that perhaps you might be utilizing GOODS and SERVICES produced and delivered by other human beings? And if you go the goods and services route, who do you think will be producing and delivering them? Just wondering.

By Van

July 13, 2006 10:37 AM | Link to this

Question to the bloggers -

If we were to let competitive bids out to private companies to teach our youth, I wonder what the cost per student would be?

Why should public education be only conducted by the government(city, county, state and federal)?

By mc

July 13, 2006 10:48 AM | Link to this

As long as we have outsourcing and the H1B visa programs JK, we don’t have to worry about that now do we. The best you can hope for is that all the illegal immigrants leave so that our dumbed down kids will have unskilled labor to perform. Profits are not the only reason employers lobby congress every year to increase the number of H1Bs. Countries like India are actually educating their kids to do the skilled jobs that our economy needs.

Also, I keep seeing liberalism blamed for all of the problems that we have today, not just education. I find it interesting that since 1970 we have had 5 conservative administrations and 2 liberal, if you classify Cons and Rats like that.

By rarringt

July 13, 2006 10:52 AM | Link to this

This is an interesting topic, Jim. What’s really piqued my interest is how people can say “money isn’t the problem,” then advocate a voucher system (whereby money is reallocated to the school of your choice), all in the same breath.

It’s as nobody gets the overt hypocrisy of that. But whatever. Believe it or not, we have had a de facto voucher system in this country since integration. Affluent neighborhoods, along with their higher property taxes funneled into local schools, constitute constructive voucher systems in largely economically (and to an increased extent, racially) segregated neighborhoods.

I agree with Political Foreskin, that the notion of religious and ideological dogma has no place in the schools, especially when children of 3rd world countries constantly outscore our kids in the three Rs, and Georgia schools are perpetually near or at the bottom in terms of national performance.

By Th

July 13, 2006 10:53 AM | Link to this

According to the APS website, they spend about $10,250 per student in their operating budget. That may be the highest in the state. What private school spends less than this per student for k-12? I know there are schools with lower tuition, but I’m talking operating budgets. Remember to add in for transportation and books if they are not covered in the budget.

By exteach

July 13, 2006 10:53 AM | Link to this

Van you can bet that if we did that our schools would be like those McMansions that fall apart after 6 months because of shoddy materials and construction and cut corners. I shudder to think what the “ketchup is a vegetable” crowd would do to our schools.

By frank123

July 13, 2006 11:03 AM | Link to this

Money is not the answer. It is involved parents who are turning off the TV and reading to their kids, checking homework and taking their kids to museums.

Agree with Paul. Smaller class size means the teachers should get less pay.

Another problem is the illegal alien kids taking up space and resources in the school. Too bad the US Supreme Court requires illegals to be given a space.

By seeing through the smoke

July 13, 2006 11:04 AM | Link to this

Van — I have no idea how much the cost would be per student, the question that pops first into my mind is how do we assure that all children are getting an excellent education. The variables are great: urban, suburban, “inner city”, rural, wealthy vs poor areas, immigration patterns, # of students with disabilities, the list goes on and on….

How many companies are we going to find to provide this education? how will we pay for it? how would it be overseen to ensure good quality (charter schools instantly come to mind on that issue)? How do we ensure that less profitable (i.e.: harder to teach/discipline) students are also being served?

We do a horrible job now… with some centralized authorities (such as they are) to provide some oversight. I suppose the reason government at all levels is providing education is to ensure equal representation and accountability to the community.

Back home (TX), the leglislature financed the creation of charter schools. at first, it seemed like a wonderful thing… then in a year or so, the cheats started being revealed (by investigative reporters)…. schools with no cirriculum, teachers who had never finished high school, no classes being held, no attendence records, no accountiblity. the people who created these schools just took the money and ran. As I recall, there were no criminal charges and no consequences for those unethical types who stole the money and didn’t educate any students. (although I do believe a few politicans learned something). Everytime someone talks about privatizing education, those charter schools come to mind. There are no easy answers when talking about education reform.

By Hillary

July 13, 2006 11:06 AM | Link to this

5 republican administrations is enough to fu#@ up anything.

By rarringt

July 13, 2006 11:09 AM | Link to this

Part of the operational budget argument that seldom gets discussed is that the majority of the higher costs of poorer schools occurs in large part because the school is older. An old school is invariably in an old building. Old buildings, be they for homes, business or education, have old pipes, old electrical system, old HVAC systems, etc., and cost substantially more to repair. All you “bootstrappers” out there know that.

On the other hand, desks, paper, A/V equipment and labor are roughly the same, regardless of whether your kid lives in Cobb or Clayton.

The problem with private for-profit entities is that, well, they’re purpose is not to maximize education, but to maximize profits. I shudder to think of the kut korners our children would be subjected to at Ken Lay Elementary.

My point: privatization may make sense for garbage collection, but has no place in the education of our children. That’s our responsibility.

By rarringt

July 13, 2006 11:13 AM | Link to this

“they’re” should be “their.” This is, after all, a blog about ‘ritin. :^)

By DeadeyeDick

July 13, 2006 11:18 AM | Link to this

Let me put in a call to Halliburton.

By pete

July 13, 2006 11:22 AM | Link to this

The real reason behind proponents of school choice is to undermine the public school system, and segregate the varied socioeconomic groups of students into homogeneous private schools, funded by public tax dollars. We already have school choice; it’s called pay for your own kid’s private school. The right wingers say they want less government until it suites their purpose. School choice would suite their purpose just fine. If you underfund education or make the cuts like we continue to see in Georgia & NCLB then we’ll pay later with crime, unskilled population, and off shore jobs. Pay now or pay later.

By Van

July 13, 2006 11:30 AM | Link to this

seeing through the smoke

Regarding corporate schools, and their quality.

I have attended many classes(various subjects from technical to how to manage) at corporate training centers, they are efficient and give no quarter to whether you are upper management or of the working class.

These classes usually have a wide cross section of the work force and do a good job.

There are many companies that offer training, usually the training is for customers and internal employees.

By using a basic framework of subject matter, private companies might be in a better position to teach without the mandatory political correctness.

By Van

July 13, 2006 11:34 AM | Link to this

Th,

I agree, I would be tackled before I could sit down.

It seems that, i hate to say this in public, that some schools place too high a priority on the sport end of high school and not that much on the educational end.

By rarringt

July 13, 2006 11:36 AM | Link to this

Van,

Those are adult schools, which are entirely different animals and therefore not analogous to schools for young children. You can’t compare DeVry to DeKalb.

By ByteMan

July 13, 2006 11:36 AM | Link to this

What a wonderful idea vouchers are: instead of fixing a problem, let’s create a whole new set of problems!

Follow along with me on a story of Biff and Betty and the wonderland of vouchers.

All children are required to be in an accredited school. Biff a little slow, so he can’t find one that will take him. What? How can that be, you ask, since he has a voucher? Well, private schools don’t have to take everyone or anyone for that matter. In fact, they love to cherry-pick the best and brightest, leaving the rest to look bad in public schools. Oh, my! But Biff has to go to school, so where will he go? Oh, right, back to public school.

Now, Betty, she’s really bright, so she finds several schools who want her to attend. After considering all our options (which, thankfully, aren’t as complicated as Medicare Part D), we choose “Best and Brightest Academy” for her. All is hunky-dory, we hand over our voucher, her tuition is paid and the school year begins. However, around the Christmas break, the school announces that the corporation that owns it had a problem with its books and has run out of cash and is liquidating everything. The rest of the school year at Best and Brightest is cancelled. Oopsy! Now, without a voucher, where is little Betty going to go to school for the remainder of the year?

Compound either of the above scenarios with the possibility that mid-year your school of choice loses its accreditation and no college will accept your child now. Right now, schools are accredited on a school system-by-system basis. In the wonderland of vouchers, that will need to be on a school by school (or corporation by corporation?) basis. Oh, that means more government bureaucracy… What fun!

Ok, back to reality: not everyone wants to trek 20 miles through traffic to take their darling precious to school. Some do, but most do not. Private schools mostly don’t provide busing services and some don’t even help with organizing carpools. Do we want to spend more on roads to hold more parents who have to spend more time in traffic taking their kids to school(s)?

Public schools can and have worked. Many of us are products of public school systems that worked just fine. But most of us recognize that the system is less of a problem if parents get involved in a positive way [Note: by positive, I don’t mean trying to prevent little Biff from being tossed out of school for his habit of cussing out his teachers].

As pointed out earlier: private schools do a better job because private schools do more with more money. I spend about $1500 each year on school taxes; no way is that going to get my kids into a private school.

Perhaps instead of vouchers, what’s needed is for all taxpayers to take their tax check down to the local school and hand it to the administrators. Perhaps that will make people more aware of where their tax check is going and make parents more involved in the outcome before the fact.

By Van

July 13, 2006 11:36 AM | Link to this

Hillary,

What did Billy boy do during his 8 years, for education I mean???

Remember, the “No Child Left Behind” was a democratic proposal, authored by Ted Kennedy, the great rich, socialist recovering drunk.

By peter

July 13, 2006 11:37 AM | Link to this

Correction for Van. NCLB was hatched by Bush with a Republican Administration and Republican Congress. All Ted Kennedy did was try to broker the negative impact that it would have on schools i.e. unfunded mandates, the testing myth. When will policitians on all sides stop using Education as the perpetual whipping boy of campaign rhetoric. Try this; would your business try to improve by cutting the money it put into those improvements. The biggest fallacy about education know it alls is that education can be run on a business model. Businesses can choose their clientele, cut programs. Educators are responsible for teaching young minds of human beings; not something businesses really have to do.

By seeing through the smoke

July 13, 2006 11:43 AM | Link to this

No Child Left Behind is just the national version of Bush’s failed testing system in Texas, y’all. the schools in Texas spend more than 3/4 of the school year teaching the kids to take the test after that’s all done, they try to squeeze in some other stuff like science, if they can get the kiddos to pay attention. After all, they just spent the last 6 months or so telling the kids the test is the MOST IMPORTANT THING, so the little darlings know there rest of the year is just fluff.

By Van's #1 fan

July 13, 2006 11:46 AM | Link to this

Van, what GREAT questions! We can count on you to take a forward-moving discussion backwards to your favorite subject: The Clintons. Not that your Kennedy hatred isn’t worthy of noting, but omygoodness, nothing is more fun than turning any conversation to the topic of your personal loathing (jealousy maybe) for the He-Clinton for having both a brain AND a p-nis, and the She-Clinton for being a good enough wife to stand by her man, but not so virtuous that she shut her lil’ ol’ mouth and went back to the kitchen. Way to go VAN! Woo-HOOOO!

By peter

July 13, 2006 11:46 AM | Link to this

by the time for truth. you excoriate schools for being anti-racist while your opinion reveals you as a proponent of teaching racism in schools. If you think that the rebel flag isn’t racist just look at any skinhead, neo-nazi, KKK rally. In your school system these groups would get full coverage in social studies texts. Your NCLB would be NWLB No Whites Left Behind. Very sad.

By Rednecks - America's Al Qaeda

July 13, 2006 11:51 AM | Link to this

The problem with our schools is simple - garbage in, garbage out. Trying to teach the children of rednecks is like throwing pearls before swine. Redneck culture - with it’s emphasis on laziness, stupidity, ignorance, superstition, and hate - produces children ill-equipped to handle life’s challenges, let alone the challenges of even the most elementary of educations.

Note, Georgians, how many All-American football players this state produces, compared to the number of NMS winners.

Rednecks like to blame a permissive liberal environment for the poor performance of Georgia’s schools, but Georgia schools have always been horrific, even before there were liberals.

A culture of willful ignorance and stupidity plagues the South and its children. Read W.J. Cash’s The Mind of the South for a powerful analysis of how southern culture cripples southern minds.

By rarringt

July 13, 2006 11:57 AM | Link to this

Actually Van, as you’re resorting to name-calling, NCLB was proposed by Bush, the cocaine-snorting, recovering alcoholic-c*m-holier-than-thou plutocrat. Ted, in an attempt at bi-partisanship co-sponsored the bill.

It’s going to be mighty hard to make a statement that contains made up facts on this blog. You might fare better by calling up the Sean Hannity show.

By pete

July 13, 2006 12:02 PM | Link to this

Ok Van, with all due respect. Exhibit A:
Bill Clinton, Rhodes Scholar. Exhibit B: Dubya, Not! We should be advocating NPLB No President Left Behind!!!! I digress. Another thought I had was where is the America that pulled together to make public education the pride of the world. The right/left division seems to have opened up a whole new realm of class warfare. Why aren’t we all pulling together to take responsibility for making our society as a whole better, whatever the cost?

By Harold

July 13, 2006 12:07 PM | Link to this

Harold was public educated in Georgia.

Harold reiterates- As long as the bucket be full a stupid, aint nothin’ but stupid gonna come outta the bucket.

By Rednecks - America's Al Qaeda

July 13, 2006 12:09 PM | Link to this

Dumbya is not a recovering alcoholic, he still drinks. Regardless, he is a pitiful worthless excuse for a primate, let alone human being.

Let’s start with the truth about our leadership. We need to be very clear about how far this nation has fallen. That this nation allowed such a broken excuse for a human being to be President should sober us all up.

By Rednecks - America's Al Qaeda

July 13, 2006 12:12 PM | Link to this

Harold, you poor thing. But rest assured, the private schools in Georgia ain’t much either. Most of them were started by stupid rednecks afraid that their kids would get cooties from black kids.

By Harold

July 13, 2006 12:13 PM | Link to this

Harold says anyone constitutionally prevented from marriage should be constitutionally exempted from paying school taxes. Like the old people don’t have to pay school taxes.

By Harold

July 13, 2006 12:19 PM | Link to this

Harold says no to vouchers. Vouchers are the plan to dumb down private schools by allowing the children of the poor to attend. In comparison public schools will no longer look as bad. No way.

By Brandon

July 13, 2006 12:24 PM | Link to this

Brandon says those who don’t own homes should be exempt from any sales tax “holiday” which is a “refund” of overpayment of mostly property taxes.

By Brandon

July 13, 2006 12:30 PM | Link to this

@Rednecks:

“But rest assured, the private schools in Georgia ain’t much either. Most of them were started by stupid rednecks afraid that their kids would get cooties from black kids.”

You are either completely ignorant or just so full of racist hate that you can’t see through the fog. Georgia’s private school students constistently outperform and gete accepted to higher institutions per student capita than many other public schools combined.

For example, two of the Navy’s current Blue Angel’s pilots (who were just here this past spring at Dobbins) graduated from Dunwoody area private schools and went on to the US Naval Academy.

You won’t see many city school kids heading for MIT or Yale. But keep your pre-1964 mentality up (Al Gore’s father voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, remember clown?) because it makes for great entertainment.

By James

July 13, 2006 12:31 PM | Link to this

Lyn D - the story you tell has two sides to it.

You cite that public schools do better on some tests that private schools in a national average. However, the study you quote is 1) paid for by the US Department of Education [no bias there huh? yeah. right] and 2) used a LOT of statistical tricks to generate those results.

I quote: As in the previous study, the researchers found what everyone expects when looking just at test scores: Private schools did better than regular (non-charter) publics. “Private schools are always going to do better if you’re not controlling for demographic differences,” Sarah Lubienski said.

Charter schools scored lower than regular publics in the fourth-grade sample, when looking just at test scores, and about even with regular publics in the eighth grade.

However, when they compared schools with similar student populations, based on students’ backgrounds – a kind of apples-to-apples demographic comparison – the private schools’ advantage disappeared, and even reversed in most cases.

Using a statistical analysis known as hierarchical linear modeling….

So in effect what the researchers did was play with numbers and groups and statistics until they found the number they wanted, published it and called it a study.

Then you tell us that private schools cost more than public schools. Which again - is partly true.

“In Metro Atlanta, what the top (and frankly the best) private schools charge is more than any system (other than Atlanta) pays per pupil.” - why yes - you’re right.

The Westminster Schools in BuckHead do charge more in tuition than the City of Atlanta. Surprise surprise! I’ll bet Harvard costs more in tuition than say Clayton State College as well. Surprised? I’m not.

What we are comparing is not what the best private schools charge vs Average Public School spending but rather what the Average Private School charges. In my own personal experience I have found that on average Private schools cost anywhere in the neighborhood of $4k-8K per year. The Westminster Schools in Atlanta charges some $14,360 - $16,820 for obvious reasons.

A pretty good private school that knocks the socks off of the average public school costs around $7-8,000 per year. According to the most recent Georgia Public School Report Card the statewide average of spending per pupil is $9,483.00. And you are correct - I can’t send my kids to an Ivy League private school in Buckhead for that kind of money but I can send them to a damn good private school for that. That fact is insane. But it’s not unusal.

FACT: Public Schools in Georgia on average are awful is not news. Yes - there are many public schools in Georgia that are fantastic. They are in the extreme minority.

FACT: We are spending a LOT of money on education in Georgia and nationally.

We are simply not getting our money’s worth on education and I cannot see continuing to increase the education budget and getting the same or worse results out of it.

As for “No Child Left Behind” - before you criticize it tell us exactly which part of it do you not like. Is it the fact that it requires testing children? It appears that most states already did that. How about the fact that it required schools to report various statistics about student performance? Schools should have already been doing that so that we [the taxpayers and parents] know how well our schools are teaching. Another part of NCLB is that it requires that some 80% of children actually TAKE the test. Whoa! How hard is that? Seriously - NCLB is a very very basic minimal guideline that every school should be meeting.

By Jim's a Dummy

July 13, 2006 12:41 PM | Link to this

Of course money is the problem. It’s economics 101.

In a free market, the most qualified people will gravitate to the jobs that pay the best and the least qualified people will get the rest.

The public sector, including teachers, is rife with people who could not work elsewhere. This is based on the fact that there is not sufficient competition for those jobs from well qualified individuals. Accordingly, the individuals with those jobs feel safe and are unmotivated to be better. Not only that, public sector systems designed to provide perks to those employees as a way of compensating them for the low pay actually serve to protect the least qualified individuals.

The problem is analgous to Rummy’s problem getting grunts into the Military: entry level positions pay like crap relative to the effort one must put in to do the job.

Solution? Spend less on massive administrative black holes(e.g., missile defense and no child left behind) and more on entrly-level and career salaries.

Good people are attracted by good salaries. That’s as free market as it gets Jim.

Oh…and one more thing…the private sector cannot possibly support education at the level that the public sector does because how would the results be measured? Do the parents of children who fail get their money back? Because that’s what they’re going to want for services that they pay for directly but feel they don’t receive.

By Harold

July 13, 2006 12:43 PM | Link to this

Somebody said “Private schools are always going to do better if you’re not controlling for demographic differences…”

Harold says controlling for demographic differences would mean putting a bunch of idiot children of poor people in the private schools (aka VOUCHERS), so of course the private schools would be expected to do worse.

By Van

July 13, 2006 12:54 PM | Link to this

Pete,

Billy Boy - Clinton was graduated from Georgetown University and in 1968 won a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University. He received a law degree from Yale University in 1973, and entered politics in Arkansas.

W. - He received a bachelor’s degree in history from Yale University in 1968, and then served as an F-102 fighter pilot in the Texas Air National Guard. President Bush received a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School in 1975.

I rest my case.

By Play that funky music white boy

July 13, 2006 12:56 PM | Link to this

Redneck - you use unfortunate language, but behind the bombast there is a kernel of truth. How can you expect the children of people who didn’t really receive a top-flight education to succeed without tremendous intervention from the outside (it can be done, but no leader we have now could pull it off.) Let me say that is probably true for the “other Georgia”…What I don’t understand is, how the test scores remain so low when 52% of the population of Metro Atlanta weren’t even born in the State of Georgia. With the constant influx of people from other parts of the country, why haven’t the scores gotten better? Now, I am a Georgia native and a product of both public and private schools in Metro Atlanta.

By Play that funky music white boy

July 13, 2006 01:02 PM | Link to this

Van, could I also add that “W” was a third generation legacy at Yale (his grandfather and father attended)… I doubt Bill Clinton’s real father who was a truck mechanic or adoptive father, who was a pretty mean drunk and dabbled in the car sales business went to Georgetown, Oxford or Yale.

No one doubts ‘W’s physical fitness and eyesight - tremendous assets for a fighter pilot, but hey let’s not try and equate the two men on their achievements “sans daddy intervention”. It isn’t close.

By James

July 13, 2006 01:08 PM | Link to this

“Of course money is the problem. It’s economics 101.

In a free market, the most qualified people will gravitate to the jobs that pay the best and the least qualified people will get the rest.

Good people are attracted by good salaries. That’s as free market as it gets Jim.”

The problem is NOT teacher pay. Go check out what the average teacher pay it. It’s pretty darn decent considering that they are paid for working 9 months out of the year. If teacher pay were the problem then

I would expect that Private School teachers would make quite a bit more than Public School teachers. As it turns out, that is not the case. In general private schools have more qualified and lower paid teachers than public schools.

Private schools generally do a much better job of educating children than public schools and there are many reasons for this. Money is NOT one of the reasons.

Among the reasons is that generally we see a much higher level of parental involvement in the education process.

By Big John

July 13, 2006 01:12 PM | Link to this

Mr. Wooten, why do you and the powers-that-be at the AJC allow people like “Rednecks: America’s Al Qaeda” to post? Debate is one thing, but the outright hatred that this person spews here on a daily basis is beyond the pale.

I doubt very seriously that you would allow blatantly bigoted comments to be made about blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Muslims, gays, etc. And yet you let “Rednecks” say pretty much whatever he/she wants to say about some of our fellow citizens.

Please explain.

By Th

July 13, 2006 01:13 PM | Link to this

You can not look at tuition alone to tell what a school is spending per pupil. You have to look at the total budget. Many private schools receive money from religious organizations and/or have full-time fund raisers. I’m sure those kids from Grady who are on summer break from harvard, yale , MIT, etc. would be pretty surprised to find out they couldn’t get into a good college from a public school.

By Nick

July 13, 2006 01:17 PM | Link to this

You can’t dump society’s problems at the schoolhouse door, blending classes that include the gifted, slow-learners, the daddy-deprived, discipline problems, the disabled, and those who barely speak English, while expecting success. It’s unrealistic. Give parents choice and the grants to make choice real.

Mr. Wooten,

School is the primary form of socialization in a child’s life. Next to education, this is the most important function of a school. Shouldn’t children be exposed to people from all walks of life? I don’t think that because I child was unfortunate enough to be raised without a father he or she should therefore be kicked out of our educational system.

Nor should we group all “like-needs” children together. This sounds good in an assembly line, efficiency rules in education kind of way, but … it sounds awfully Brave New World esque to me.

I also think this system would only reinforce the class system we have now. Kids will be branded from an early age depending on what type of “need” school they go to. And certainly this will create a hiearchy of schools, from the “gifted” all the way down to the “slow-learner.”

I don’t see our system as broken, personally. Only a few years removed from high school myself, I think what’s broken are the teachers. I had some great ones, but I also had some bad ones. Sadly, the best teachers gravitate toward the gifted classes, often leaving the students in on-level courses who truly need a good teacher without one.

Money is the answer for me. Give it to the teachers. Increase their pay. A lot. If that is what it takes to keep the good teachers in the system and encourage others to rethink their career path, then so be it. But artificially segregating and categorizing children into different schools is not the answer.

By Jim Wooten

July 13, 2006 01:39 PM | Link to this

Big John, my experience, limited though it be, is that other contributors are pretty good at detecting when they are being gamed and when they’re being challenged on the quality of their ideas and opinions, or both.

It’s just my opinion, since I don’t write the checks for the AJC and set overall newspaper/blog policy, but my view is that the more traditional media organizations set a threshold for comment that discounts some unpopular opinion, largely because it strikes those who edit or sort letters much the way you say America’s al Qaeda strikes you. That is, it’s deemed to be unrepresentative, or unworthy of precious space. It gets crowded out by opinion that is more “suitably” presented.

That natural, reasonably unbiased selection process, is sometimes interpreted as a barrier to entry. Conservatives think that often, I believe. They think that if my opinion doesn’t fit your definition of what’s acceptable, I’m shut out of the debate.

So my standard here is to give contributors the widest possible latitude to speak as they see fit, unless it crosses some clear line on taste, profanity or animus based on somebody’s sex, race, religion or nationality.

I will say again, though, that while the contributors often dance on the edge, and say things I wouldn’t want said at my dinner table, the blog “community” is pretty good about righting the conversation. My further sense is that even without posted rules, you all have set parameters that I’m not uncomfortable with.

By Susan

July 13, 2006 01:40 PM | Link to this

Back to the topic at hand: more money for schools. For once in my life, I agree with Jim Wooten. More money for public schools is not the answer.

However, I believe that the problem of children and public schools begins in the formative years at home.

How many more children today spend most of the day in a daycare facility while one or both parents work?

How much time do parents spend educating their child BEFORE they enter kindergarden?

If both parents or a single parent have full-time employment outside of the home, how is it possible such parents spend the majority of their free time preparing their children to be educated?

How many parents teach discipline in the home and respect for authority, so that when their child enters kindergarden, the child knows it is time to learn and not time to play?

I have a sneaking suspicion that in the rush to fulfill their needs as consumers, there are no sacrifices of time or money being made for parents to do their job properly.

The very idea that a parent would go to a school and argue with a teacher over poor grades is abhorrent. And it does not stop with teachers and grades-recently I learned that over 20 years ago, a parent in my high school insisted the cheerleading squad be increased by another member and that member had to be her daughter, who was not chosen in initial tryouts.

My contempt for the parents of today grows every time we go out to eat and watch hapless children run around, scream and cry. The parents have this sort of dazed expression that says they have inured themselves to the noise of their children.

I have had to end any social contact with a friend whose children at 8 years of age-two twin boys-could not eat with untensils nor remain seated for a brief meal in a restaurant. It required an apology every time we ate out to the restauranteur.

In her case, the root of the problem is both parents work full-time outside of the home and are more concerned about money than parenting. Their youngest child was kicked out of daycare for being poorly behaved. But instead of taking these problems seriously, they blindly go on.

I think the parents are to blame for the poor state of education. It’s not the schools, the teachers, the curriculum or the bureacracy.

No school burdened with an overwhelming preponderance of children born to inept parents can possibly undo the damage or absence of competent parenting.

And I could not agree more with xteach, who posted earlier. There is nothing to be gained academically from being plugged into electronic toys all day long. Children whose attention span is geared to the fast pace of TV, video games, Xboxes and so on are not going to find any private or public school that will meet their insatiable need to be entertained.

If parents would go home and remove the TV, DVD players, electronic games, IPods and such, and instead substitute a computer that is NOT connected to the Internet and as many library books as the library will allow at one time, they’d be amazed how much their children would learn.

There are so many arguments around TV, its content and how many hours are okay. Parents spend an amazing amount of time arguing over when to turn the TV off, and then have the temerity to put a TV in their child’s room. You’d be amazed how much you might save by getting rid of TV’s, DVD players and expensive cable tv subscriptions. Parents could spent that money saving for their children’s college education.

Aren’t children worth their parents’ highest and best efforts?

What if parents made it their goal to send the brightest and most motivated children to school?

By mc

July 13, 2006 01:47 PM | Link to this

No ones tax dollars should subsidize private schooling. If privatization of school is what people want, let them privately come up with the financing. And then come the question of who regulates these private schools. What guidelines will apply? What would constitute a school? Would we see a proliferation of diploma mills designed to allow parents to buy inflated grades for so their kid gets in the best colleges? And when does a school become something else. Can you imagine a school created by the Aryan Nation?

By Van

July 13, 2006 01:48 PM | Link to this

Play that funky music white boy

W may have been a third generation lagacy, but that does not get him a diploma, he earned it.

It still tallies up at 2 for W and 1 for Billy Boy. George was a minor owner of a Ball Team and Bill had a ball in the Oval Office - advantage W

By Curious Observer

July 13, 2006 01:52 PM | Link to this

I’m partly with Redneck on this issue. Somehow, we expect teachers to perform alchemy on kids with no interest or business in attending school. I know too many families consisting of a father who dropped out of school at 16 “because I wadnt no good at learnin’” and a mother who is both a drop-out and equally obtuse—but she’s dead certain that her religion is the only correct one. Mom and Pop have three or four kids, all—surprise!—as dumb as rocks and waiting till age 16 to drop out. And our teachers are supposed to turn these kids into little Einsteins? It’s absolutely correct that W.J. Cash’s The Mind of the South elucidates our cultural problem.

And as for the assertion that private school graduates are better educated than public school grads? Well, I’ve taught lots of both categories as a college teacher, and my experience was that the private school graduates were even less prepared academically.

Stop looking for the pony when you find a big bag of manure under the Christmas tree. Abandon the myth that we can take care of Georgia’s educational deficiencies by using vouchers, altering class loads, or using the customer-provider model. We need to stop using pressure to force students to stay in school. Let them drop out early and often, so that our teaching resources can be focused on the kids who want to learn.

By GOB

July 13, 2006 01:53 PM | Link to this

George was a minor owner of a Ball Team and Bill had a ball in the Oval Office - advantage W

I guess that depends on which of those things you enjoy more…I’d side with Clinton…

By Amelia

July 13, 2006 01:54 PM | Link to this

Susan just hit nothing but net!

By Van's #1 fan

July 13, 2006 01:57 PM | Link to this

Awwww… there there, now Van. Breathe. I know this will come as an extreme shock to you, but most of us have moved on from obssessing over the dalliances of the Presidential member. (There are FAR worse things a man can be than a skirt chaser, and FAR FAR worse things a man can DO than share a special moment.) In fact - maybe you’d better sit down old man — many of us didn’t give a darn THEN, what with the girl being a consenting adult and all, and honestly felt it was none of our beeswax. You know, those of us who actually have our OWN love lives, that is. There there….. Go take a bromo.

By Jim Wooten

July 13, 2006 01:59 PM | Link to this

Nick, the first obligation of a school, as you say, is to prepare children to be financially self-sufficient for themselves and their families. Socialization is way down my list, probably somewhere below balancing a checkbook.

Where did we get this notion that children are born bigots and that it’s up to the schools to cleanse them, lest they be unable to live in a “diverse” world? I think that’s a license to substitute somebody’s unexamined values for those of the parents. If we can treat their medical needs, surely we can introduce them to a diverse world. And if we don’t, ample other opportunities exist before adulthood. If by adulthood