Real Issues: Education
On a thread about McCain’s houses a plea arose for a discussion on “Real Issues”. Fine with me.
Read both candidates’ plans and vision when it comes to Education, and tell us what you think.
Ready, set… GO!
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I think guns are more important than education. If you are really smart and you get robbed by a dumb guy with a gun, well then education doesn’t matter.
guns…
Well obama wants pre-K schooling and government funded daycare. Typical liberal idea promoting the idea that parents should cede even more responsibility over to the government.
And BTW – government funded daycare is NOT something taxpayers should be footing the bill for.
Also, you can have the best education system in the world, but if the culture of a community is one where education isn’t important and where parents don’t instill the importance of education in their children no government solution can fix things.
It ultimately falls on the parents and the kids.
DBB – if you want to discuss guns start another topic so I can tear you apart again.
Um, I agree with Mike W’s 3 post. Um, um, um, I need to take a shower. 🙂
Absolutely Mike W . . . parents need to take responsibility. Parent participation in their child’s education needs to increase.
How do we foster that?….(talk about a difficult question)
It ultimately falls on the parents and the kids.
No, I don’t agree. The responsibility to educate the citizenry is ultimately a public responsibility. It is in the public interest that everyone should be educated.
It is immoral for the government to passively observe educational failures and wash its hands of it.
There are lots of reasons why a family may not value education or be able to provide appropriate support. Not all of those reasons are due to their own defects.
education is too touchy an issue since so much of it is decided locally. our state needs to find better ways to fund, run and staff our schools. federal legislation only muddles the waters and provides administrations too much room to complain of the ‘federal mandates’ that tie their hands.
DAMN Mike, poor choice of words.
Govt is not incharge of daycare.
How do we “FOSTER” that?
We FOSTER nothing.
Govt is not “Foster” parents.
We encourage, we reward, we support, LOL
=====
ONE solution, not discussed publicly, but should be, IS G.E.D. ADULT education.
educate the parents, along side if necessary of the children.
A good example of raising ALL BOATS.
A parent, afraid of a knowledgeable kid will undermine the kids progress.
Historically this is called the ‘Crab Mentality’.
Make sure you understand what your word “ultimately” means. Education is first a parental responsibility, but ultimately a public responsibility.
Obviously more parental support is better. But if the parents fail, we cannot afford to wash our hands of the children.
And if children are failing at school because adults have failed them at home… in the stewardship of the economy… in their neighborhoods… we cannot wash our hands of the children in the name of “personal responsibility.” Children cannot be held to that standard.
“It is immoral for the government to passively observe educational failures and wash its hands of it.”
What if the Fed. government IS the problem? (I know, impossible question for a liberal unless it involves Bush)
anon,
well said. either you take care of the kids now or you incarcerate them later and spend way more money.
government funded daycare is NOT something taxpayers should be footing the bill for.
What alternative are you offering?
A hell of a lot of them NEED to be incarcerated, but instead go through our revolving door justice system, especially when they’re juveniles.
“government funded daycare is NOT something taxpayers should be footing the bill for.
What alternative are you offering?”
Parents raise their kids, you know, as they have forever.
Parents raise their kids, you know, as they have forever.
I guess moms can just stay home with the kids and pay the bills with her capital gains tax cuts?
A hell of a lot of them NEED to be incarcerated, but instead go through our revolving door justice system, especially when they’re juveniles.
I have some suggestions on who to throw in jail. 🙂
I think you all are missing the point here. The debate is not whether or not it is the parents responsibility to instill a value of education in their children. No, that is an entirely different debate altogether.
The real debate is who can better fix the education system that is currently failing America’s youth.
Obama’s plan centers greatly on things outside of the classroom. After school programs, summer programs, and reforming NCLB. While these are all programs that I personally believe will help keep kids focused on the task at hand, the question is how do we pay for them? And to me, it isn’t the extra stuff that will raise the education level of the public, it is the actual learning in the classroom that will do that. We need to hold not only teachers accountable, but students as well. We need to make a bold stance on whether school vouchers will work or not. These are programs that I believe will cost far less and be far more effective than talking about out-of-school programs.
If we are currently underfunding our teachers and students in the classroom, how can we fun programs outside of the classroom?
John McCain n the other hand has one glaring flaw and one surprisingly positive message in his stance on Public Education. First off, he supports NCLB. One can walk into any classroom in America and ask the teacher if this is an effective policy. The resounding answer is “No.” How he can continue to support this utter failure of a policy? On the other side of the ball, he is dead on when his website says “John McCain believes our schools can and should compete to be the most innovative, flexible and student-centered – not safe havens for the uninspired and unaccountable. He believes we should let them compete for the most effective, character-building teachers, hire them, and reward them.”
So what do you all think about THEIR POLICIES?
If I had to vote based solely on the education platform, McCain would get my vote. Sounds more realistic.
guess you don’t have kids getting ready to go to college or have an idea of how much college costs. at least you are being honest.
thanks for commenting
Why? Both candidates higher education platforms sound pretty similar.
No. I have two more elections before I start worrying about college.
I’m basing my decision on how it would affect my family today.
I look at Education as an investment in “Infrastructure”. The better educated (be it science, math, trade); the better our country will be, for all of us.
Ask yourself this: What replaces education for the uneducated?
I’ll say superstition, bias, fear, and loathing.
I always like to look ahead h. I guess because anything these guys say they are going to do right away can’t happen or usually doesn’t. It’s the long term ideas that have more of a chance to take hold.
I couldn’t agree more. But which candidate has a policy that is going to move us towards achieving educational greatness. Which candidate is going to provide that infrastructure that this nation so desperately needs?
vc,
prison
Eventually, DV, eventually….
It’s a systematic way of dealing with the least fortunate – just get them out of sight and out of the way….
Health care is at least one of the top three issues. ONLY Jack Markell has a universal plan. Carney will stick with the Del. State Chamber of Commerce styled insurance. Get ready by this time next year you will be paying as much as a mortgage payment for health care.
Education: If we are a global economy and whites are about to outnumbered, shouldn’t we be teaching the children a 2nd language! We will have to expand education from nursery to college to begin to catch up with other countries.
Green Schools people must be in the mix.
Liz, the thread was a debate about the presidential candidates policies on education…
Obama’s plan is definitely more detailed. One thing that makes me wary of McCain’s is the school choice thing.
They’ve tried to push that through in FL to make the taxpayers pay for people to send their kids to religious schools. I don’t think I’d be a big fan of paying for another parent to indoctrinate their kids.
Of course, there isn’t enough infor on McCain’s site to be sure of what he means about school choice, so I’ll simply be cautious for now and wait for more info to become available.
The voucher system is used to create competition amongst schools, not to “indoctrinate” students. That being said, I personally believe it is a great idea, a cheaper and more effective way of holding schools and teachers accountable.
You are absolutely right though when you say that we need to be “cautious for now and wait for more info to become available.”
DV-
“guess you don’t have kids getting ready to go to college or have an idea of how much college costs. at least you are being honest.”
So who has the better plan for reducing college costs? Why?
Choice, Vouchers and Charters cannot stand alone as a solution. First, there’s simply not enough space. Somebody’s kids are going to be stuck in a failing school… unless you want to fund capital improvements for successful schools.
What’s happening now in Red Clay is a prime example. The “good” schools are facing over-crowding issues because there simply isn’t enough room. How long before large class sizes affect educational quality. Meanwhile failing schools still have students, a lot due to limited “choice” and transportation issues.
Joe’s also correct. McCain’s is slim on details.
Answering Mike W.’s difficult question.
“How do we motivate parents to instill the importance of education in their kids?”
Well a first step would be to stop discouraging them!
Because government schools are the only government-protected monopoly that we are familiar dealing with, it’s hard to come up with good analogies to explain the problem and solution.
The best analogy to use is an industry that used to be a government monopoly, but is now governed by market competition. That is the telecommunications industry. We old-timers remember when AT&T was a telephone monopoly. We all had black phones. We didn’t own our phones; we leased them from AT&T. It was illegal to install an answering machine to your phone line because it was a “foreign device”. Long distance rates were in the range of $.60 per minute. In current dollars it would be well over $1.00 per minute.
OK, imagine you are a phone user back then. You want to have a green phone instead of a black phone. You only have 24 hours in your day, so what are you going to do?
Option 1: Go to the nearest ATT office and demand a green phone. Offer to pay a premium for green. Threaten to sue them if they don’t give you green. Picket outside of ATT with a green sign.
Option 2: Upholster a green covering for your phone and zipper or Velcro it on.
Clearly option 2 is a better use of your time.
Now let’s carry that analogy back to the government school system. Let’s say that you are a government school user (for your kid). You are an engineer, and you don’t like the fuzzy math book your kid is using. Or you are a profession journalist, and you don’t like the fact that they are not teaching the kids to diagram sentences. You name your problem.
So do you pick Option 1 or Option 2? Unfortunately Option 2 isn’t open since you can’t Velcro an education on your kid. You are stuck because of your zip code.
You want me to be involved in my child’s education. Why be involved? I am powerless to help. So I get discouraged and give up, and my kid gets the message. Dad has given up on his kid’s education.
Now let’s go back to the phone company. Suddenly competitors are allowed into the industry. Now we have answering machines, fax machines, and cell phones. Cell phones are so cheap that kids start getting them in elementary school in any color that they want. Cheap telephone lines allow us to logon to something called the “world wide web”. You get the idea.
Back to schools, suddenly the parent has economic power in the form of a school voucher. So now I can get rid of the fuzzy math book. I just log on (an option brought to you by phone competition) to find a school anywhere in driving distance that doesn’t use the fuzzy math book.
Notice that Dad is now involved in his kid’s education because he has POWER to make a decision. The school he chooses treats him like a customer.
Yes, Mr. Jones, how can we help you? You say you have an engineering degree and you don’t like the math textbook? Well we were waiting from someone with your expertise to help us find the right math textbook for the school. Would you shop around an counsel with our math teacher on picking a better textbook?
Dad ends up being a math tutor at the school, and his kid can see how important education is to his Dad.
You want parents to be involved in their child’s education. Give them power to make a difference through vouchers and/or tuition tax credits.
That is the answer to the difficult question.
Visit my blog at http://letschooseschools.com/
Not entirely… Oh, choice and vouchers sound great, but the devil’s in the details.
Let’s put it this way. I have one shot to get my child through 3rd grade. I don’t like my public school and would love to send my kid elsewhere.
Okay, there are two really great public schools 10 miles from my house. The first school turns down my choice/voucher application because they are filled to capacity. (Darn Fire Marshall!)
The second school accepts my child but does not supply transportation (as is the case for choice students in DE). It is my responsibility to get my child to and from school. I am a single parent, don’t own a car and work shift work with zero flexibility. What is my choice?
“Choice, Vouchers and Charters cannot stand alone as a solution.”
I agree wholeheartedly.
Funding is the central problem. We are spending (I don’t have the exact number off hand) about $10,000 per student per year on education. If we give $10,000 vouchers to every student to be used on education I believe it will create a market system that will help improve the quality of education for everyone. If a school wants to survive, it HAS to perform well. As we stand, there are no repercussions.
“Joe’s also correct. McCain’s is slim on details.”
Again, I agree completely. That’s the problem though, there is no discussion about this between the candidates.
Call It, don’t forget there is only so much space in schools (public and private). Failing schools will not close – some may consolidate trapping a certain percentage of children within their walls.
Pandora, here are some answers for you.
1. “Somebody’s kids are going to be stuck in a failing school.”
In the short run, that is true. Why? Because the current monopoly public education system allows so many failing schools to survive. It took us a long time to get into this mess, it might take 2-3 years to undo the mess.
But when parents are standing in line with $5,000-$10,000 in their hands, the new private schools will be sprouting like bluebonnets in April.
2. You keep using examples of “public school choice”.
Public school choice is not mutual choice. The parent gets to choose, but the public school doesn’t. If the public school is mandated by the government to take the out-of-district kid, the school has no choice in the matter. If the public school is not mandated, then they won’t take the out-of-district kid. They won’t make the effort to expand their program. What’s in it for them, the government employees. There’s no “profit sharing plan” at the public school. Either they are forced to take the kid, or they won’t take him.
Private school choice is true mutual choice. The parent and the school choose each other. Only mutually voluntary choices create value in an economy.
3. “It is my responsibility to get my child to and from school?”
When I read this question the first time, I thought you were joking. A parent is responsible the raise their child! That includes feeding them, clothing them, giving them shelter, teaching them what is safe and what is dangerous, and most of all LOVING them. Oh, yes. And getting them to and from school. That doesn’t mean that she has to drive them. She just needs to find a safe and trustworthy driver to do that for her. If she doesn’t know anyone who is trustworthy, she needs to change friends. Maybe she could go to church and find someone trustworthy.
Let’s say the voucher is worth $5,000. Can’t you squeeze some bus fare or car pooling funds out of that $5,000?
I’m sorry you’ll have to come up with a more bizarre special circumstance.
“McCain’s is slim on details.”
That’s because the president can do little to change the public education funding laws. Education funding decisions occur at the state level, not the federal level.
The president can effect the DC school systems, but that’s about all.
Education talk in the presidential election is just campaign rhetoric to attract votes. That doesn’t mean that it is useless. It gets us to start thinking about how to fix the education mess, like this blog.
No details are necessary because it’s just rhetoric. The two sides are school choice or more of the status quo.
Maybe things are cheaper in Texas. 5000.00 ain’t getting you into ANY private school in DE. They range from 10,000 to 24,000 a year.
Also, Parents don’t have time to wait for schools to get their act together. I have one shot to get my kid through 3rd grade. Schools are not restaurants.
Also, choice is controlled. One school district (in DE) does NOT have to take a “choice” student. It’s at the district’s discretion and they take into account behavior, grades, etc.
And transportation IS an issue and it does limit choice.
Try again. Sorry I have to go out to dinner, I’ll check back later.
Bob said: “That’s because the president can do little to change the public education funding laws. Education funding decisions occur at the state level, not the federal level.”
Umm… NCLB.
hummmm: thinking the National Board of Education has something to say. Also, all laws re: disabled/developmentally challenged children, and their education come from the feds.
That is a fact. I have had to use them against this State for decades. The State must comply with those regulations or loose their federal funding. Its a 50/50 match.
1972: Education for All Handicapped Act (thank Dr. Floyd McDowell for his work on it). Getting our kids out of state insitutions and into schools and community group homes. Developmental Disabilities Act is the mandate to states to comply or not be funded.
I just read through Obama’s plan and it sounds like more pablum and more of my tax money going to God knows where.
Also, WTH does this stuff mean:
A full third of high school graduates do not immediately go on to college.
This reads like it is some sort of national crisis. Does he mean 2/3 of kids immediately go to college? I’d say that was a pretty good average, personally. And of the 1/3 not going immediately to college, many go into the military to earn money for college, then go when they are more mature.
Ok, enough of that.
Obama is for universal preschool, a complete rathole to pour our money into (I won’t call it a “black hole” because we all know what trouble that could cause). Even programs like Head Start which show some progress in the early years end up giving students nothing over their non-Head Start peers by about fifth grade.
Personally, I want my kids’ teachers teaching to the test because the test is supposed to cover the information students should know. I can’t understand why “teaching to the test” is considered such a travesty.
Pandora, you are right.
Down here in Texas we don’t spend as much on schools. Maybe it’s the difference in the cost of living. In 2006-07, average per pupil tax revenue was $8,785. An 80% voucher is $7,028 and that will get you into a lot of schools.
In Delaware for 2006-07, average per pupil tax revenue was $14,000. An 80% voucher is $11,200.
With that voucher you can pay for tuition at these high schools:
Caravel Academy, 2801 Del Laws Road, Bear, DE
Red Lion Christian Academy, 1390 Red Lion Road, Bear, DE
Wilmington Christian School, 825 Loveville Road, Hockessin, DE
Concord Christian Academy, 2510 Marsh Road, Wilmington, DE
St. Mark’s High School, 2501 Pike Creek Road, Wilmington, DE
There are a lot more elementary schools and on average they tend to be cheaper.
Also, you are right that “Parents don’t have time to wait for schools to get their act together. ”
Unfortunately they are forced to wait by the legislature.
1. If the State House passes school choice, they will have to wait 2-3 years.
2. If the State House does nothing, they will have to wait forever!
On transportation: If a private school wants to teach my kid and wants the $11,000, they will figure out a way to get the kid transported to the school.
We had that situation at the private school that I am involved with. A teacher picked up the kid as she was driving to school. Problem solved.
I don’t hate the test, but let me give you an example of how it is flawed. In 3rd grade students are tested on their writing. In 2nd grade they begin writing papers. They aren’t taught basic sentence structure but they’re supposed to write a complete paper.
Guess what… the sentence and its structure is the foundation of a paper.
Also, has anyone realized we’re raising an entire generation unable to sign their name?
Bob, we have choice, but again, transportation is not supplied. So the more money, cars, flexible job schedule, one parent at home, the more choices you have.
We also have “Neighborhood Schools” which has successfully re-segregated our schools along socio-economic lines and vastly limited everyone’s choice.
This is a complex situation. The answer will not be found in one ideology. Time to bend people.
Look guys, our education system has been failing for years, and the solution (or one of them) is always “we need MORE funding.” Funding is NOT the problem, and throwing more money into the Dept. of Education, failing districts, and failing schools is not going to solve anything. In fact, it only perpetuates the problems.
Federal funding is tied to school/district performance. The bad schools / districts get MORE funding to “fix” them. But what is a school administration? It’s a bureacracy. If they continue to perform poorly or at best mediocre the funding keeps rolling in, but if they actually turn things around it’s goodbye funding. The whole mess creates a huge disincentive, in the same way that creating large Federal bureacracies actually perpetuates the problems they were created to eliminate. After all, if said program actually eliminated the problem, it would no longer be needed, which means no more jobs for those folks, no more pork, and no more funding.
Joe M, “I don’t think I’d be a big fan of paying for another parent to indoctrinate their kids.”
Regarding indoctrination: One man’s indoctrination is another man’s education.
If you believe in atheistic evolution, then
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” = Propaganda
“The cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be.” = Education
If you believe in a Creator God, then
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” = Education
“The cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be.” = Propaganda
For a particular child, who has the authority to decided what is education and what is propaganda. Is it you, Oh Sovereign Taxpayer? Or is it the legal guardian of the child? The parent has the right to choose what is education.
I laugh at the thought of “my tax dollars”. When the government cashes your check, that money is no longer yours. You are not consulted on how to spend the money. “My tax dollars” is an oxymoron.
Unless of course, you are the president.
I suggest reading “The George Orwell Daycare Center.” It’s a long and excellent read, though I fear some of you may not be able to stomach it, or stomach Kevin’s site.
http://smallestminority.blogspot.com/2008/06/george-orwell-daycare-center.html
“Regarding indoctrination: One man’s indoctrination is another man’s education.”
Thank you. Personally I’m not a fan of the liberal indoctrination that goes on in our public schools and even more so in our Universities.
Pandora, “Time to bend?”
Whose not bending? We have been trying to pass some form of school choice in Texas for 20 years.
The public school system and teachers unions haven’t bended one inch in 20 years.
does not bending include not allowing sex education to include contraceptives? who is not allowing that ?
This is a complex situation. The answer will not be found in one ideology. Time to bend people.
Pandora, I think most of them missed that you were saying it’s time for everybody on all sides to bend.
The problem with almost all education reformers who have “the right answer” whether that answer is vouchers or a different tax system to put more money into existing schools is that they’re always promising soup tomorrow and leaving out the kids in school today.
Vision 2015 is a case in point: gives us millions and we’ll give you a world-class school system sometime next decade.
Which is too late for my grandson in Kindergarten, your child in 3rd grade, or Dana Garrett’s special needs son.
That’s why I consistently refuse to engage with so-called reformers from any perspective who promise that their plan will change the future for the better, but show an amazing willingness to write off at least one more generation of American children while instituting their grand plan.
Here’s the brutal educational reality, folks: if a child is two months behind, developmentally, in reading mid-way through First Grade, and gets noticed, gets diagnosed, and sees a reading specialist for about 2-3 months, that child will be back on grade level by the end of the year.
If not noticed, by mid-year second grade that child will be 4-6 months behind, a difference that will require a full year to remediate.
If left unnoticed until third grade, the child’s reading problems will heavily compromise all other subjects, and the child will effectively be 1-2 YEARS in making up the difference, even with outstanding programmatic support.
The best ed research suggests that between 18-30% of American school children fall into that category of being a couple of months off target grade level for reading in first grade, but that–of them–only about 15-20% are getting diagnosed and getting help.
So when you come to me to talk about reform, talk to me first about how your reform will insure that over the next 2-5 years while we’re waiting on the miracle that you’ll keep any more children from falling through just that particular crack.
That’s what Pandora is talking about.
Aha, DMUW. You bring up an excellent example regarding my comment #47.
You believe that sex ed with contraceptives = Education
Another parent considers it Propaganda.
Since we have a monolithic monopoly school system, we have to fight about whether sex ed in the monolithic system will include contraceptives.
Enter school choice. Now we have different schools that have different attitudes about what is correct sex ed. Now we can let the parents decide (since they are the ones with the authority to make the decision) if they want pro-contraceptives or anti-contraceptives education.
Let the parents decided. We don’t have to fight over what the monolith is going to do.
Uh Oh, we might lessen the traffic at political blogs like this!
Another excellent example, Steve.
Yes, education based on individual development rather than chronological age. That is our philosophy at our private school in Texas. We handle all the kids that the “cookie cutter” schools can’t handle.
Enter school choice. Instead of being on the verge of financial failure all the time, we could replicate our school 100 fold.
We handle all the kids that the “cookie cutter” schools can’t handle.
I doubt that seriously, Bob. Do you handle educably and/or trainably mentally retarded children? Children with severe physical handicaps? Deaf children?
Explain to me how the school choice approach is going to create schools to deal with profoundly special needs children who almost all share the following common characteristics: (A) a need for educational services that annually reach the hundreds of thousands of dollars instead of the 10-11 K we spend on mainstream students; and who (B) generally don’t come with parents who have that kind of money.
Explain how school choice takes care of them, this year. Explain why even in Texas few if any charter schools tackle that kind of student now?
Yes Steve you are right. We don’t handle all kids, but we do handle the type of kid that you described in your first post.
Now you are asking about kids with severe medical problems. I would consider that the type of help needed here includes both medical and educational. It is obviously very expensive help.
Helping these kids is very difficult. The reasons are that not only are we dealing with a messed up education system in the US. We are also dealing with a messed up medical system.
From an economic point of view, the medical and educational industries have the same type of flaw. It is called the third party in the transaction.
Free market systems work well when there are only two parties to a transaction. Joe has decided he would rather have a new T-shirt than the $20 in his wallet. Target has decided that they would rather have Joe’s $20, than the T-shirt that is sitting on their rack. They make the transaction and both sides are satisfied. Joe says thank you for the T-shirt, and the salesman says thank you for the $20. This is a two party transaction.
Now for a three party transaction. Paul, the employer hires Bill, the employee and buys medical insurance for Bill. Why doesn’t he just pay Bill the cost of the insurance, and let Bill buy his own medical insurance. He does this strange thing because Paul and Bill don’t have to pay payroll tax on the benefit and Bill doesn’t have to pay income tax on it either.
So enter David the doctor, and Bill gets a headache. David is concerned about Bill so he suggests running an MRI, just in case. Bill says, “Sure, I’ve got to pay my deductible anyway, so I’ll opt for the free (to Bill) MRI.” So they do the MRI and Bill and David are happy.
But Paul is not happy. He is the one paying the bill. He sees his medical insurance bills go higher and higher. He has to cut his costs, so he goes for an HMO. Now Bill can’t go to the doctor he wants to, and David can’t do the tests that he want to do. So Bill’s angry, David’s angry, and Paul’s angry.
If Paul could pay to Bill the cost of the insurance in cash (without the tax penalty), Paul would be out of the deal. Now we are back to a two party transaction. David suggests the MRI, but Bill asks, “How much does it cost?” David tells him and Bill says, “I don’t think my headache is that bad. I think I’ll opt out.” Bill’s happy. David has to accept the fact that the guy with the money makes the final decision.
In the public school example, Paul is the taxpayer, David is the public school teacher, and Bill is the parent. Except it’s worse. Paul can’t choose to pay for an HMO. Bill doesn’t even have a deductible to pay. David is the only doctor assigned to the neighborhood. Paul’s the angry taxpayer. Bill’s the angry parent that has only one doctor (school) in his group. David’s angry because Paul and Bill are blaming David for the mess.
So enter school choice. Paul still has to pay the bill, but he gives the money to Bill, the customer. Now he’s out of the transaction. Bill’s happy, because he can go to any school in the city. If David is a good teacher, he’s happy because he can negotiate with Bill and be paid the true market value of his services. If David is not a good teacher, he has to go find something that he is good at doing. He loses the opportunity to mess up any more students lives.
In summary, I agree that society should help those that are the most helpless medically. If society doesn’t do this voluntarily, let the government redistribute money to help. But none of that means that the government has to be in the school business or the medical business. The GI Bill (a voucher system) doesn’t put the government in the higher education business. Food Stamps (a voucher system) doesn’t put the government in the grocery business.
Give the money to Bill, and let him shop for the best David he can find. And get the government out of the school business!
Ah, Bob… doesn’t choice sound dandy. So simple.
Here’s the reality (and one you might be okay with). Choice creates failing public schools and superior, racially and socio-economically identifiable public/private schools. Yes, it’s the good old days, and once again separate isn’t equal.
And the idea that the District is going to put real time and money into these schools is laughable. They are dumping grounds. And before you start touting Charter schools go look at DE DSTP scores for all our Charters… take a guess which ones serve which population. Come on, it’s ridiculously easy.
BTW, Steve, thanks for clarifying my point… I thought I was clear…
Bob
While I appreciate your explanation of two- and three-party transactions, as well as the externalities of the various arguments, your examples are in fact the same kind of overly simplistic, self-serving propositions that have gotten Libertarians bad press for failing to deal seriously with public policy issues.
That’s exactly the kind of reductionist argument that I, as a Libertarian, am trying to get people to stop offering as legitimate policy prescriptions.
You say, “Now you are asking about kids with severe medical problems. I would consider that the type of help needed here includes both medical and educational. It is obviously very expensive help.
Helping these kids is very difficult. The reasons are that not only are we dealing with a messed up education system in the US. We are also dealing with a messed up medical system.”
That’s disingenuous. The US medical system did not create the EMR or TMR students in our schools, and retreating into an argument on health care is not responsive.
The reality is that under the current system the US has undertaken the obligation to provide public K-12 education for all students. The other reality is that, depending on the state, 8-14% of the student population is composed of special needs kids.
Nationwide, about another 8% of kids are ESL, and roughly 15-20% are highly migratory: children in broken homes (or for other reasons) who move around a lot and may attend as many as three or four different schools in a given year.
There is some overlap; so call the entire population of students in these difficult categories about 20% of the total population.
Any policy prescription that deals with mainstream kids has also got to show how it will deal with these children at least as effectively as the present system. Embarrassingly, I have yet to see a Libertarian or conservative school choice solution that even takes this one-fifth of the population into account.
Vouchers don’t do it: it does little or nothing to give a parent a $10-12k voucher if educational services for their child hit five to ten times that amount on an annual basis.
The market is–at least in its current configuration–not equipped to handle the problem, because there is no way to bridge the cost of providing those services and the ability of those who need them to pay for them.
Instead of attempting to deal with these very real issues, most “pure” choice/voucher/charter advocates prefer to ignore them….
Like I said… the devil’s in the details.
Hey Pandora and Steve,
I had to work today because I indulged my blog addiction too much yesterday.
I just have about 10 minutes before I hit the hay.
School choice is not a perfect system because we live in an imperfect world. The question is, “Is it better than what we have now? Not perfect, just better.”
“Choice creates failing public schools.” I thought we already have our share of failing public schools under the status quo.
What I want choice to bring is FAILED public schools that shut their doors. Why? So that they can be reopened under proven successful school managers. The only way that success can be PROVEN is when customers are standing in line trying to get some of whatever you are selling.
“Any policy prescription that deals with mainstream kids has also got to show how it will deal with these (non-mainstream) children at least as effectively as the present system.” Clearly choice deals with the non-mainstream kids at least as effectively as the present system, because they can choose to stay where they currently are which is “at least as effective” as where they currently are.
Good night. Hopefully I can put in more time tomorrow. If you didn’t get enough of my propaganda today. Visit my blog. There’s a whole lot more there.
Bob
Hey Steve
“I, as a Libertarian”
Before you identify yourself as a Libertarian, you might want to check out Article 2.8 of the Libertarian Platform.
http://www.lp.org/platform
“Here’s the reality (and one you might be okay with). Choice creates failing public schools and superior, racially and socio-economically identifiable public/private schools. Yes, it’s the good old days, and once again separate isn’t equal.”
Pandora – Many schools end up de-facto segregated along racial lines anyway. My highschool had a fairly large black/hispanic population (mostly from Wilmington) I took mostly honors-level classes and they were probably 98% white. Furthermore, the proportion of racial minorities in my graduating class was not even close to representative of the proportions of the school as a whole.
And I agree with Bob that we need to let failing schools fail rather than continuing to pump more money into them.
If you want to know the truth about Thanks Mike. I needed a little encouragement.
If you want to know the truth about racial segregation in private vs. public schools, and many other myths perpetrated by the teacher union leaders (not the teachers), read Dr. Jay P. Greene’s book, Education Myths. http://www.manhattan-institute.org/educationmyths/
In my humble opinion, he is by far the best researcher on the topic of school choice in the country. You can also read some of his free stuff at http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/greene.htm and his blog at http://jaypgreene.com/.
The most fascinating research that he wrote about is this.
“A study of seating patterns at lunchroom tables confirms these survey findings that integration in private school classrooms leads to greater cross-racial friendship.
Private schools’ students are almost twice as likely to sit in racially mixed groups in the lunchroom as are public school students.
Private schools’ students are almost twice as likely to sit in racially mixed groups in the lunchroom as are public school students. The evidence, in short, indicates that private schools not only produce more racial mixing but also greater racial tolerance and harmony.” http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/_edweek-why_school_choice.htm
All I can say to Pandora is… Booyah!
Thanks Mike. I needed a little encouragement.
If you want to know the truth about racial segregation in private vs. public schools, and many other myths perpetrated by the teacher union leaders (not the teachers), read Dr. Jay P. Greene’s book, Education Myths. http://www.manhattan-institute.org/educationmyths/
In my humble opinion, he is by far the best researcher on the topic of school choice in the country. You can also read some of his free stuff at http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/greene.htm and his blog at http://jaypgreene.com/.
The most fascinating research that he wrote about is this.
“A study of seating patterns at lunchroom tables confirms these survey findings that integration in private school classrooms leads to greater cross-racial friendship.
Private schools’ students are almost twice as likely to sit in racially mixed groups in the lunchroom as are public school students.
Private schools’ students are almost twice as likely to sit in racially mixed groups in the lunchroom as are public school students. The evidence, in short, indicates that private schools not only produce more racial mixing but also greater racial tolerance and harmony.” http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/_edweek-why_school_choice.htm
All I can say to Pandora is… Booyah!
So off the mark…but I’ll be quick:vouchers fail..you only raise the tuition at the private schools, the feds DO NOT contribute all this money you speak of–Appoquinimink receives 2 percent—YES–that’s 2 percent in federal funding–to go thru hoops of NCLB!!!!
Early Childhood Education is a black hole of funding that educators and private industry are lickin’ their chops over to get involved with for funding. And the obscene complement to that are the parents who jump on board knowing full well it’s free day care..but hide behind the socially acceptable answer of “it benefits my child”, w/ a wink-wink to each other about the “real reason”.
To clarify…A free public education is to be provided to ALL special needs children age 3-20–NOT K-12 as some have said in this post. Do you know how expensive this is???
Delaware commissioned an early ed study–and it was UNFOUNDED in contributing to student success unless it was a child w/ delays anyway. Because that was the unpopular answer, another study was commissioned to push for the “right” answer, and get full-day K paid for etc.. The Phi Delta Kappa study also agreed that ECE is unremarkable except in delayed developmental situations. So there you have it..but I have more..and don’t need to spend money. You won’t like the answers, and parents may have to parent their own children, or provide their own day care…but the tax payer doesn’t have to get the bill and the blame..That’s enough for now..I’m still catching up.
Joanne… is full-day kindergarten “free day care,” or is it too costly? It can’t be both.
The taxpayers and those freeloading parents are the same people. We are willing to tax ourselves for full day kindergarten. What don’t you get about that?
parents may have to parent their own children
Whiff of snobbism/elitism here. People who put their kids in day care or full day kindergarten ARE parenting their children.
A free public education is to be provided to ALL special needs children age 3-20–NOT K-12 as some have said in this post. Do you know how expensive this is???
Compared to what? What is the cost of doing nothing for these kids?
And again, it is not “free.” The taxpayers see it as a public good and are willing to pay the freight.
Sorry I couldn’t find the studies you barely alluded to – maybe this?, but I bet when I do find them they will contain much to contradict your points.
Bob
Re: the Libertarian thing; when you can find me a Libertarian who agrees with every plank in the platform of the party, get back to me.
Just because I think we need to actually discuss seriously the question of obligations in public policy and deal with the real issues of students with special needs and whether or to what extent there is an obligation to them doesn’t give you any license to quote the platform as the decider of my status.
I don’t object to trying lots of things: private schools, charters, choice, vouchers, etc. Hell, in DE we try a lot more than most places.
What I do object to is people who wave the magic wand of ideology (whatever ideology–progressive, social con, libertarian) and announce that it will all be better under their magic utopian system, but never quite have the answers as to what happens to a lot of people right now.
The market works, but it is Darwinian. It doesn’t give a crap about my child or yours in particular because it is a mindless force in a dynamic non-linear system.
So Mike w.’s “let failing schools fail”mantra begs the question: in market terms that’s all well and good, but what about in terms of the students and parents inside those schools who have few if any options as those schools fail?
The system exists now and it sucks. But if you want to get to another location then you have to show people a reasonable road map of how to get from HERE to THERE without creating more harm for a lot of people than would have existed anyway.
Which is why most Libertarian candidates and advocates start losing votes the moment they open their mouths.
Anon–thank you for your link…
Taxpayers had no say in this “freight”, as you allude. Without a referendum system of deciding programatically where residents wanted their education tax dollars spent…FDK was the winner! Not, middle school support of the most “at risk” population of students, not funding for the exceptional child, not funding for the rigor and expansion of the high school career. FDK is a new Delaware concept–that DOUBLED the fiscal outlay for building space, and per pupil expenditure. Why? Yes, it is a nicer pace the teachers can teach–but are we seeing dramatic (and I’m not even suggesting “doubled” results)? Heck no….but you know where your 5 y.o. is 9-3, and it’s not costing extra!! And guess what anon? I had a kid in FDK last year, and enjoyed that cost savings myself!!!
As to special needs–I detect a tone of attack here. Please don’t…I fully advocate the very best we can do for children under those parameters–my comment was to illustrate that many people are not aware of the mandate of age 3-20, hence alot are shocked and ask “Why are we paying for a 3 y.o?”
In closing–there is only so many education dollars….was FDK the best place to put it? I don’t think so. That’s all….