Public School Education System Thread

[Smitty-48]

This is why I'm so confused about you guys jumping all over the DoE...

Education is not the role of a federal government, federal states are not unitary states, by definition.

No Politburo of Education, Ministries of Truth therein, for the federated states of the free.

If you want a Chairman Meow, move to China.

Thanks for adding to the conversation.

Thanks for making all my points for me, by just being who you are, any American who would willingly submit to the doctrine of a Commie Cat Face Chairman Meow, is not worth his salt, heck, even the Canadian Socialists wouldn't kneel before a federal Department of Education, Confederation means what it says, thank God ours won the war and lived to tell the tale, lest we be stuck in a republic of nutjobs with the likes of you.

[Okeefenokee]

If anything, I think the risk in going to a full school voucher system derives from the fact that schools will all struggle to outperform the other schools, causing the average test scores to rise, which in turn could result in the federal government raising the minimum requirements for schools to receive voucher money. That could lead to significant barriers to entry for new schools to cater to specific needs of families.

The risk is that you'd have bullshit schools popping up all over the place presenting huge wastes of voucher funds, and if anyone said anything to them, the left would call you racist. Sorta like giving food stamps to people because you want to help them, but they're blowing money on dope.

[Mercury]

Part of the problem is the unions.

My public high-school had a biology teacher that didn't accept evolution and refused to teach it. There was another who was blatantly derelict and refused to teach anything at all. These issues were raised, in my presence, to school officials who shrugged it off and washed their hands of them because "tenure".

At least two of my classmates graduated without knowing how to read more than their own names. They were allowed to progress to the next grade at the end of each year because teachers didn't feel like it was their job to acknowledge it. Same shit, really.

[KerningChameleon]

Hey, if more school vouchers would result in more competition for non-religious private schools, I'd be all for it. The secular private market is so sparse, was really hard to find one for my cousin.

[Mercury]

We still need some kind of standardized testing with which to compare school performance, however. There exists no way around that fact. A national-level standardized testing system should be preferred in conjunction with school vouchers and school choice. For a school to get the vouchers, they have to meet minimum standards, among which include some basic threshold of average test scores by their graduates.

+1

This sounds like a good compromise. The testing would provide a floor to offset the possible shortfalls of startup schools, while still allowing for the potential benefits of competition.

[SuburbanFarmer]

The only reason those companies exist is because of the DoE.

Citation needed.

Alright, not exist outright, but the reason they are as big as they are is because of the federal standards that require such large companies. Plenty of states want to drop the federal testing, which would shrink those companies as their funding shrinks.

I know, but you're not tying that effect to the DoE itself. I believe (strongly) that those corporations have bloated out of control because of the NCLB act. I'm looking for someone to justify pointing the finger at the DoE instead, because it really seems like one of those simplistic ideas that is completely distracting from the real cause.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Education is not the role of a federal government, federal states are not unitary states, by definition.

No Politburo of Education, Ministries of Truth therein, for the federated states of the free.

If you want a Chairman Meow, move to China.

Thanks for adding to the conversation.

Thanks for making all my points for me, by just being who you are, any American who would willingly submit to the doctrine of a Commie Cat Face Chairman Meow, is not worth his salt, heck, even the Canadian Socialists wouldn't kneel before a federal Department of Education, Confederation means what it says, thank God ours won the war and lived to tell the tale, lest we be stuck in a republic of nutjobs with the likes of you.

We are not a confederation. We are a country, same as yours. I'm not against all state-run institutions, or in favor of all federal ones, despite your rancorous hyperbole.

[Smitty-48]

Canada is a Confederation, since 1 July 1867, not a unitary state and never was, anymore than the Republic of the United States of America is or was.

My hyperbole ain't rancorous, ain't nothing rancorous about the land of the free amongst the red and green maples, the rancour is all coming from Commie Cat Face, venting his rage at the Christians of America and their states rights to live free, of his Bolshevist Unitary Nanny State therein, ain't rancour to say that, that's just telling it like it is, no matter how much a Chairman Meow may want to make himself out to be the victim of something.

[Okeefenokee]

Citation needed.

Alright, not exist outright, but the reason they are as big as they are is because of the federal standards that require such large companies. Plenty of states want to drop the federal testing, which would shrink those companies as their funding shrinks.

I know, but you're not tying that effect to the DoE itself. I believe (strongly) that those corporations have bloated out of control because of the NCLB act. I'm looking for someone to justify pointing the finger at the DoE instead, because it really seems like one of those simplistic ideas that is completely distracting from the real cause.

I don't feel like splitting hairs between the two. They're both the product of the same mindset; that DC knows what's best for school kids in Juneau, Miami, and everywhere in between. One's an agency and the other is a policy, but if it wasn't NCLB, it would be another policy just as bad, because it would be coming from the same department with the same thinking. NCLB isn't the root, it's only the thorn. And I know it went through Congress, so it's a law, but it's still all in the same vein of thinking. The people who think DC needs to run every school are wrong, and everything they implement will fail until they realize that, because it all springs from the same misguided belief, that the feds need to be in charge, because we couldn't possibly run our own schools any better than bureaucrats in DC.

[Mercury]

The rise in health care costs over the years tracks with the cost line in the OP's graph. Public school employees get very generous health insurance plans as part of their compensation.

Also the laptops, as already mentioned, aren't free. It's very important, though, that kids learn to buy things on itunes and have google develop a profile on them. These are the paving stones on the road to success, after all.