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September 21, 2011 at 4:02 pm #600631
kootchmanMemberAs our TEA is out violating a court order… of course. I watched a Stoessel report on public schools. Dismal. But…this being a blue kinda city… critique of unionized government workers is generally ignored. JoB of course never wants parental choice or vouchers..thinks schools need more money. Despite the fact that the USA spends more on public schools than any country (major economy) in the world..most who are kicking our butts.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_spe_per_pri_sch_stu-spending-per-primary-school-student
It’s tough to sell ever higher taxes and fees to support higher ed..when the kids can’t do the work when they get there.
We need, must have, cannot do without a higher achieving young population. Without it.. our standard of living will continue in free fall. Sooo I refer you to a bona fide, credentialed liberal…. and PS 149. No excuses now for charter schools skimming off the choice kids.. this is a lottery based student body.
Record low SAT scores… worst in our recent history. I doubt anyone will acutaLLY READ the book… but maybe the “snippets” will entice some. There is a reason unions are gone from the private sector.. only being propped up vote hungry politicians keeps them breathing. Wonder when kids and education will become the agenda items?
http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/21/opinion/bennett-education/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
September 21, 2011 at 4:11 pm #734999
kootchmanMemberIn another illustrative case study, Brill compares Harlem Success I, a charter school, with P.S. 149, a traditional public school. Both schools happen to share the same building in New York City, with very similar students, parents, socioeconomic conditions and environments. But Harlem Success blows P.S. 149 out of the water. Eighty-six percent of its students were proficient in English in 2010, compared with 29% of P.S. 149’s.
See what happens when parents have choice?
Brill’s work represents a real tug-of-war inside the Democratic Party, between the teachers’ unions and modern reformers, for control of the nation’s education machine. The old guard of the Democratic Party, the AFT and NEA, believe that the blame for stagnant and falling test scores falls on anyone but them.
September 21, 2011 at 4:28 pm #735000
BostonmanMemberI have 3 kids, if I could send them to private school I would in a second. I am a product of public school and state universities and I turned out ok, make a good living and I am well adjusted member of society but my brother who went to a private school in Boston for 12 years received a full scholarship for his undergrad, went to a very nice college in Boston and has 2 Masters degrees. While I may make more money than him he is far more intelligent than me and has far better study habits.
Public schools from what I have seen with 3 kids are an utter failure and if you aren’t lucky enough to live in a school with good scores you are even worse off. The public schools are a disaster from what I can tell as a parent.
September 21, 2011 at 5:52 pm #735001
kootchmanMemberWe must demand at a minimum vouchers. As long as out politicians are committed to votes and union endorsements we are going to have more of the same. We had no choice after surveying the Seattle PS system. It cost dearly, took away many financial options we could have exploited.
September 28, 2011 at 1:34 pm #735002
redblackParticipantso now you want government money (vouchers) to educate your kids? interesting.
i’m wondering what a voucher would be worth to you. it costs $7,000 per year to educate a student in king county. that’s the lowest investment in the state, from the county that sends the most money to olympia.
what you pay into the system is based on the value of your property, right? so does your voucher system give folks in broadmoor a big, juicy voucher, while those who rent in the central district get nothing?
or would you redistribute that wealth?
September 28, 2011 at 6:42 pm #735003
kootchmanMemberno redblack..since we have a state constitutional mandate to educate k-12 education, and we just posted the lowest SAT scores since the founding of the Department of Education..it’s time to admit we are failing our kids. That “redistributed” wealth is MY tax money.. I want it to go to schools that actually perform. I want ALL those poor kids in the central district to be able to walk away from those schools… take those 7K away from the SPS and hand it to a school that will give them a halfway decent education. charter, private, I don’t care. We spend more on education than any major industrial country in the world… and we get the worst results. I already did my job dude.. I supported two school systems, SPS and private… I had the options and means to do it. Sadly, we don;t give the Central district parents the same. It’s SPS or nothing… that’s why our unions bargain for two year tenure. That;s why the best teachers can’t get merit pay, that’s why they fight to go from 6 hours 40 minutes to 6 hours 20 minutes..or violate back to work orders from judges, or flaunt state law and go on strike… It’s not an increase, not a wealth redistribution… it’s taking money away from an underperforming monopoly. Charter schools are fine with me…they are public. BTY Broadmoor and SPS get the same state stipend. Those 200 kids that ride the Ferry to Vashon every morning to flee SPS? Vashon gets the 7 grand… taken from SPS. A voucher goes to the school system the kid attends… too hard to figure out? Same 7K.. just going to a place that gets results. The tuition is attached to the kid….where he/she goes.that is where the tuition goes. If there was no Toyota or Honda..we’d still be driving Chrysler “K” cars…reform comes from external pressure.
September 28, 2011 at 7:48 pm #735004
kootchmanMemberTell ya what will do redblack…. take the challenge… you watch this video… the title is obnoxious…. granted. Network ratings and all that. Watch what the other 30 or so countries due… the ones that will hand or kiddies their asses in the global market. Then you tell me why we tolerate it? Schools are supposed to educate kids.. not become a Democratic Party campaign war chest. You watch it.. I’ll go down and pick some school supplies.. and you can deliver it to any public school of your choice… then you tell me… this is acceptable? I support private unionization because I know the owners are not monopolies… education is.
September 29, 2011 at 4:52 am #735005
redblackParticipanthold on there, perfesser.
while the u.s. spends more total dollars on education than any other country on earth, what is our education spending as a percentage of GDP when compared to other industrialized countries?
go ahead. i’ll wait. the answer is an important one.
September 29, 2011 at 5:50 am #735006
kootchmanMemberWhat the hell difference does that make? The spending PER PUPIL is the highest… here is one….
http://www.dailyplunge.com/tag/per-pupil-spending-by-country/
Geez… and IF you watched the video… gasp..what you will find amazingly … is there is no hard correlation to spending and achievement… see the Charter Schools in Oakland and Harlem…. getting twice the results for half the money…Belgium isn’t even on the list… yet .. an average HS in Belgium on the ISI test .. scored and average 78… and a US News and World Top Ten Public HS… averaged… 47. Random verses handpicked and they cleaned our clock…
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_spe_per_sec_sch_stu-spending-per-secondary-school-student
or that terribly hard occupation
weeks of classes
Russia 44
India 42
Australia 40
Brazil 40
Germany 39
USA? 36
September 29, 2011 at 5:56 am #735007
kootchmanMemberAnd from The Economist
‘American children also have one of the shortest school days, six-and-a-half hours, adding up to 32 hours a week. By contrast, the school week is 37 hours in Luxembourg, 44 in Belgium, 53 in Denmark and 60 in Sweden.
September 29, 2011 at 6:05 am #735008
kootchmanMemberAnd if you want to compare income of teachers…. adjusted for per capita income… Yes indeed… American teachers are the best paid in the industrial world… so in summary… they work the least, get paid the most, and have the worst outcomes. Watch the video dude
The average Teacher in the USA 4K per month (adjusted)
The average Teacher in Poland 1,013 per month (adjusted)
And Poland kicks the snot out of the USA in the ISI….
September 29, 2011 at 1:27 pm #735009
redblackParticipantspending as a percentage of GDP makes a huge difference, because things are more expensive here. brand new textbooks every year, paying for privatized testing companies, privatized food service, the cost of teachers’ health care… those things are added up before your kid even sits down in his class room.
also, how many students do those smaller countries educate? we’re a big country with a high literacy rate and high standards of living. of course we spend a lot on education.
again, your argument is, “damned thing’s broken. throw it away!” you want to lower someone’s standard of living to fix the problem?
no. take the profit motive out of public schools and spend that money on teachers, students, and classrooms. period. NCLB and teach-to-the-corporate-test are what is killing our education system and sucking the cash out of it.
by the way, your vaunted private schools are only 5.5% of the country’s education system. they couldn’t handle the added work load.
and no, i’m not taking your “challenge.” we’re having a discussion here, and i can argue my position without someone else’s help. you want to cite that video as your source, go right ahead.
looking at your last cite, though, canadian teachers only work 31 hours per week. in finland, teachers work slightly less than americans. what’s your point?
seems to me that all nations have varying degrees of difficulty in educating their kids.
September 29, 2011 at 2:49 pm #735010
JoBParticipantredblack
well stated.
Kootch…
the challenges facing our public educational system are far more complex than your stats indicate…
and you know it.
you neglect to mention the subsidies many of those private schools you put up as models enjoy…
or the fact that their test scores benefit from the fact that they can refuse admission to any student who has “special needs” including learning difficulties…
or that the teachers employed there often do not have any benefits at all…
which means that the public pays the cost of their catastrophic health care and retirement.
You fail to mention that public schools don’t have the flexibility of private schools to spend available dollars on current needs…
funding based on school bonds tied to capital improvements has fueled the largest expense in our public education system…
servicing the debt incurred by capital improvements.
As we speak, there are sports facilities being built on the lot where a junior high was recently torn down…
at the same time that textbooks are not being ordered because of a lack of available funds…
and people like you are clamoring to cut the teacher’s salaries and benefits.
Perhaps what needs to change is that “local control” part of public school funding that gives altogether too much control of our educational budget to special interests who have no interest in educating our children?
because bottom line
educating every kid is the purpose of public education
September 29, 2011 at 7:03 pm #735011
TDeParticipantNow help me understand this…
In the “We’re Heading Backwards” thread, Mr. K… you said “bty redblack…not to burst your bubble… but 60Kin Seattle? You can’t raise a 2 child family on 60K. No way.”
So what are you saying? Teachers don’t deserve to make enough to have children and families? I don’t know any elementary school teachers that make over $42K and most I know make in the $30K range, which is way too low to pay off student loans and live.
September 29, 2011 at 11:21 pm #735012
kootchmanMemberI didn’t say “privatize” the whole system. Although, that could happen in a heartbeat. Didn’t watch the video did ya? Go Charter schools… were there is NO upper limit to what a good teacher could make. It’s the unions that cap merit pay… refuse it consider it. The reason? Because there would be a measurable matrix and they don’t want that!
DID YOU see in any post where I suggested we LOWER anyones standard of iiving or cut salaries? JoB ..Charter schools teach them all..they ARE public schools…. you too did not see the video. I said..we have the highest pay, works the shortest hours, and get the worst results…. I didn’t say cut pay anywhere.
You proved my point though… if 95% of the kids are going to public schools and the SAT are the lowest in history…. a monopoly isn’t working. Is it?
It can get worse… and it will. As long as we have no structural reforms. Europe is laughing their asses off… they have no fear from us. BTY every Catholic school in this city has a pension plan, health care plan. They do pay SS..just like you do..is that your definition of a public paid retirement? . I don’t where you come up with this stuff. Why you can even watch a “special needs” Charter school… and their outcomes. IF PS are so great why are there lines around the block in the NYC and Oakland lottery for Charter school admissions? Why so many parents so desperate to get their kids OUT? Lottery does not mean selective ..it means random drawing. You have two models… both public, side by side, in the same building, with identical demographics … and the Charter school (with merit pay) kicks the PS ass and …for LESS money. Now there is as much a control experiment as you can get.
Germany kicks our ass… Japan does… the 3rd and 4th largest economies…as does France, Italy, Sweden..hell even Poland cleans our clock I said.. I want better results from the money we spend… because we ain’t cheap…the WEA song doesn’t fly in the face of actuarial evidence. When you unshackle good teachers..you get great results. See the teachers who work in Charter schools .. see what they say… it’s a better work environment. You would rather the trend line of failure at worst, and mediocrity at best survives and propagates. It’s the kids that live with the results… sadly. 23% per cent of our graduates are literate by world standards…. and you are ok with that?
It isn’t the taxpayer… it’s the system.
September 30, 2011 at 12:45 am #735013
MBarrettMillerMemberAh, money, money, money the endless argument.
If the education were relevant, interesting with measurable results you would see a different result.
There are good reasons for the results in many other countries that make a real effort to create a good product…..
September 30, 2011 at 1:40 am #735014
SmittyParticipant@RB “by the way, your vaunted private schools are only 5.5% of the country’s education system. they couldn’t handle the added work load.”
Looks like it’s closer to 10% and growing….
http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=65
@TD “I don’t know any elementary school teachers that make over $42K and most I know make in the $30K range, which is way too low to pay off student loans and live.”
You must know teachers in the their 20’s. Once they stick around awhile, it can get pretty lucrative – especially for 10/12ths of the year work.
Also, I’ve been hearing that teachers are underpaid since the early 80’s. Here’s a suggestion – if you know a particular profession is underpaid DON’T GO INTO IT AND THEN COMPLAIN ABOUT IT!
September 30, 2011 at 2:24 am #735015
Genesee HillParticipantCan you imagine if the k-man and smitty were your teachers in any grade? ROFL.
… and…furthermore…
September 30, 2011 at 2:35 am #735016
kootchmanMemberIt helps to argue your position with the most information.. or so I would think. We are RB, NOT a highly literate people. Not by the industrial world standards. 60% of the masters degrees in engineering, math, sciences, are conferred upon foreign students? At the Phd level, it gets worse. Isn’t it a bit vexing that we are being asked as taxpayers to fund more and more to UW, WSU.. so they can educate the foreign work force of tomorrow? Now that is some great visionary work on your part RB. Not only will we give away the low skill manufacturing trades…we will send the intellectual competitiveness offshore too. I hope your urban scrounge skills are up to the task… you will need them. All it takes is a recognition… we have a problem, and we have examples of successes… ones that can be duplicated. Actual progress…
September 30, 2011 at 2:55 am #735017
kootchmanMemberGH… all I would have to do is fake it for two years…. and then coast to an unassailable retirement courtesy of tenure. Heck that should be easy enough. Sadly though, I came through a tougher winnowing process… stay competitive, stay productive, and achieve or seek other employment.
September 30, 2011 at 3:05 am #735018
SmittyParticipant“Can you imagine if the k-man and smitty were your teachers in any grade? ROFL.”
You more than likely wouldn’t be on this board with all the other liberal sheeple. You might be out making money, paying taxes and not bitching about the job creators.
It’s amazing how many conservatives there actually are after 17 years (13 in your case?) of liberal indoctrination……
September 30, 2011 at 3:27 am #735019
socamrParticipantComparisons to Europe are useless – they have a completely different educational system that ‘tracks’ kids and essentially doesn’t make the same attempt to educate everyone.
Plus their much derided social welfare system provides a better chance for every student. Study after study has shown that healthy kids with food in their bellies and parents with time to focus on their kids’ education is perhaps THE primary factor in how kids learn. Imagine trying to learn algebra with an untreated toothache.
So kootch, once you’re willing to pay into a system that provides basic health benefits to kids, then you can complain if student performance doesn’t improve.
September 30, 2011 at 3:36 am #735020
kootchmanMemberJoB
“because bottom line
educating every kid is the purpose of public education”
But bottom line is … they aren’t. See the Belgian teacher… who speaks so profoundly…about American educating “every kid”… she laughs at how outrageous the presumption is. See the SC Governer and his wife… and their kids. Then listen to the State Education Director justify the SC position of being last in the nation in SAT scores… your jaw will drop with shock.. talk about “teacher speak”….. watch the five year odyssey to get a convicted child molester terminated from the NYC school system… or the four buildings called “rubber rooms” where teachers deemed to be a threat to students are warehoused at FULL pay because they cannot be permitted in the classroom… HUNDREDS of them. Good grief… ignorance should not be bliss… Give ya the same challenge I gave RB…. watch the video… then we can hit OfficeMax and make a school supplies donation… some coloring books and reading material to N’Ville kids too…
September 30, 2011 at 3:44 am #735021
kootchmanMemberhttp://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9069323583494421392
start at 7:30in the tape….. nuff said’?
September 30, 2011 at 4:07 am #735022
kootchmanMemberAnd worse…. because of the depth and death grip of public schools…. the OUTRAGE of residency inspectors, trampling over civil rights, unreasonable search…. to protect teacher unions… this is the horror of hooror…and you don’t think liberalism is the kissing cousin of fascism? 15:18 second into the tape. Funny thing is… 57% of American parents rate the PS systems as good…. and only 23 % of their kids are proficient in literacy…
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