Zuckerberg throws $100M at Newark public ed

[WFFaithful]

1) Republicans tend to be right on 1 with huge opposition from Democrats.
3) Testing = feedback. I hear a lot of complaints that Republicans are pushing too much testing. Testing during the year gives feedback teachers can, but often don't, use, to help individual students. Testing at the end of the year is a good way to get data on a teacher's performance.
4) I think both parties are against this. It would require more money, ruling out Republicans. It would require more of the teachers, ruling out the Democrats.

At least 10% of school days are spent administering state or district mandatory tests. This is an absurd waste of resources. There are many flaws in the current testing model which by its very nature place students at a disadvantage in demonstrating their true knowledge.

This is a straw man. The issue isn't the testing, but creating a testing system that better accounts for how teaching, learning, and curricula actually work on a local level while accounting for variation in school funding, parent participation, and student ses.

A significant issue, IMO, is that the firms that receive government funding and state grants have little experience in an average American public school classroom. Their models, I believe, reflect this.

Testing, as it is now, would better quantify the effectiveness of an assembly line than it does a classroom or teacher.

This.

You need to know what your students know and don't know to help them. Testing can show you on which types of questions mistakes were made. It, at least in mathematics, can also show you what the specific mistakes were. Having that information can definitely make you a more effective teacher.

If you require a state or district required test for you as a teacher to know what your students know and don't know, then you are extremely out of touch with your students. Also, we shouldn't be testing students' ability to navigate through the various "types of questions" that testing companies use to trick students. We need to know what the student knows, and a good teacher is well aware of this without broad standardized testing.

The thing that is setting them up to be behind is not the testing, it is the circumstances in which they are living. The testing just lets us see how far behind they are which hopefully allows us to do something about it. It lets us know when we are making progress in closing the gap and when the gap is increasing. If you have different standards for kids in tough environments you are lowering expectations for them and their teachers.

Once again, each child is different. As a teacher you should recognize this. Differentiation to meet the various needs of all students is not lowering expectations, but it is setting up each student to succeed. The bootstraps method works for some kids, but not most.

 

[The Mangler]

I agree on the 10 days of testing at the end of the year. I don't see any reason why you couldn't test multiple subject areas on one test. You'd have to have fewer questions in each area which in theory reduces reliability of the test. I have to believe that the test on days 8, 9 and 10 are not particularly reliable so I don't see any real cost in consolidating some test.

In large classrooms I think teachers are frequently mistaken in their impression of where their kids stand along the mastery spectrum. I don't require a standardized test to determine where my students are but there is no reason I can't use the information gathered from it.

No argument from me that each child is different. Differentiation of instruction to meet the various needs children is a good thing; but, lowering expectations for the purpose of "success" is not. Nice use of bootstraps although it has zero applicability here.

 

[Liquid Karma]

4) I think both parties are against this. It would require more money, ruling out Republicans.

I am LOLlering at the premise that something that costs more money instantly rules out Republicans.

 

[PhDeac]

Well more money for education does.

 

[bigdoublezero]

I am LOLlering at the premise that something that costs more money instantly rules out Republicans.

Should just rename the Department of Education something that sounds like it'd be part of the military. Or providing drugs to seniors.

 

[PhDeac]

Department of Future Domestic Citizenship, Stability, and Freedom

 

[TownieDeac]

Republicans who hate funding education should at least see it as way cheaper than putting kids straight into welfare, prison, etc. On a macro scale, it fits so much better into their ideology to spend while there's still bootstrap potential.

 

[bigdoublezero]

Republicans who hate funding education should at least see it as way cheaper than putting kids straight into welfare, prison, etc. On a macro scale, it fits so much better into their ideology to spend while there's still bootstrap potential.

Republicans' kids are getting a fine education. What's the problem here?

 

[Deacfreak07]

Republicans' kids are getting a fine education. What's the problem here?

That's just not true though.

 

[TownieDeac]

That's just not true though.

Yea there are two types of pubs here, one voting with their best interests as regards education (rich) and one voting against their best interests as regards basically every social endeavor, especially education (poor).

 

[PhDeac]

Politico has a few articles up today on private education firms and data mining with respect to child privacy.

 

[bigdoublezero]

Yea there are two types of pubs here, one voting with their best interests as regards education (rich) and one voting against their best interests as regards basically every social endeavor, especially education (poor).

I've always made a distinction between Republicans and people who vote Republican. They're not the same.

 

[Deacon923]

The front page, above the fold headline in the News & Record this morning was PROPOSED RAISES: TEACHERS 7%, SCHOOL BOARD 82%

What a bunch of numbskulls. It is hard for me to believe they voted for that in this funding environment. to their credit the chair and three others voted against. My district's representative voted for it, though. now that's #dense.

 

[2&2 Slider To Leyritz]

They've been doing that for a long time. It's called "white flight". Now they want to take white flight to the next level. It's not good enough that they've managed to almost completely re-segregate the schools, now they want to take the best remaining students and cash out of the poor, minority schools and give it to private schools in the form of vouchers. I have a huge problem with that.

Plus, it is incredibly short-sighted, penny-wise and pound foolish. A large percentage of these kids that are being left behind in under-resourced schools are going to be net drains on the taxpayer their whole lives, from safety net programs at best and incarceration at worst. Far, far cheaper to educate a kid at the highest per-pupil cost you can find than to house an offender for one year in a prison. That doesn't even count the lost opportunity cost to society of losing a productive, taxpaying citizen.

In sum: fix the broken schools, don't leave kids to rot. Use proven techniques often pioneered by the charters, or just bring in proven charters to run the schools. There is no union to oppose this in NC, so nothing is stopping us except political willpower.

That's great for a theoretical post on a message board, but the practical ability to implement that ship sailed years ago. This isn't the military or infrastrucure or the EPA where everyone can collectively look at something and say okay, I see how that benefits me in an overall, indirect way, so I'm going to go along with whatever the government wants to do with it. Education directly affects people's own kids, which is a completely different mindset. In general, nobody wants their kid to be the guinea pig who gets a worse foothold for life because of some theoretcial position or moral stance. That is not the way humans are wired. Everyone knows that the public school system in a lot of areas sucks, and they also know that they can't change it themselves. So while it would be great if everyone went to the same school and there was full uniformity, that simply is not going to happen. Just like, as you mention, you can't stop people (other than the lib-guilt folks) from leaving shitty neighborhoods if they have the ability, you're not going to stop people from moving their kids to better schools if they have the ability.
So when it comes to the money, somebody looking at having to pay private school or out-of-district tuition is sure as hell going to fight higher taxes on top of that tuition that are going to get flushed down the drain of a system that is not improving in any way. Any governmental goodwill of "we can fix this" got burned years ago as plan after plan failed. It's like the war on drugs. Liberals love to point out how we just keep throwing money at a failed system that is never going to win; the same can be said for our public school system as a whole at this point in time.
And the Jesus/dinosaur thing is just a complete non-starter. The vast majority of private schools are perfectly "normal" in their teachings, and end up putting out a much better product than public schools for a variety of reasons.

 

[Deacfreak07]

That's great for a theoretical post on a message board, but the practical ability to implement that ship sailed years ago. This isn't the military or infrastrucure or the EPA where everyone can collectively look at something and say okay, I see how that benefits me in an overall, indirect way, so I'm going to go along with whatever the government wants to do with it. Education directly affects people's own kids, which is a completely different mindset. In general, nobody wants their kid to be the guinea pig who gets a worse foothold for life because of some theoretcial position or moral stance. That is not the way humans are wired. Everyone knows that the public school system in a lot of areas sucks, and they also know that they can't change it themselves. So while it would be great if everyone went to the same school and there was full uniformity, that simply is not going to happen. Just like, as you mention, you can't stop people (other than the lib-guilt folks) from leaving shitty neighborhoods if they have the ability, you're not going to stop people from moving their kids to better schools if they have the ability.
So when it comes to the money, somebody looking at having to pay private school or out-of-district tuition is sure as hell going to fight higher taxes on top of that tuition that are going to get flushed down the drain of a system that is not improving in any way. Any governmental goodwill of "we can fix this" got burned years ago as plan after plan failed. It's like the war on drugs. Liberals love to point out how we just keep throwing money at a failed system that is never going to win; the same can be said for our public school system as a whole at this point in time.
And the Jesus/dinosaur thing is just a complete non-starter. The vast majority of private schools are perfectly "normal" in their teachings, and end up putting out a much better product than public schools for a variety of reasons.

Military policy and environmental protections don't impact people's kids?

 

[Deacon923]

2&2, what is your evidence for your belief that our public school system is a failed system at this point in time "as a whole"? Because I don't think that belief is grounded in any kind of understanding of the facts. For example, the high school graduation rate just hit a 40-year peak, and at least 90% of all Americans attend public schools. I have already pointed out in this thread that US public school test scores beat the world if high-poverty schools are excluded. Many urban school districts, including Guilford, have graduation rates higher than the national average. How do these numbers square with your belief that the public school system has "failed"?

I would also like to know your evidence for the assertion that "the vast majority" of private schools "end up putting out a much better product than public schools". These are quite dramatic claims and I again do not think your beliefs in this matter are backed up by any actual facts. After adjusting for the demographics of students attending private vs. public schools, the premium of a private school education is in fact very small. There are some studies indicating that while church-based schools, especially Catholic, consistently achieve a premium even when adjusting for demographics, other kinds of private schools underperform public schools.

There is a lot of rhetoric about "failing schools". Very little of it is based in fact, and very much of it is a subterfuge for the overall movement to get more taxpayer dollars into private school hands.

 

[PhDeac]

Diane Rehm today is devoting both hours to the 60th anniversary of Brown v. Board.

 

[2&2 Slider To Leyritz]

Military policy and environmental protections don't impact people's kids?

Indirectly, of course. Directly, as compared to where the kid goes to school? No way in hell.

 

[2&2 Slider To Leyritz]

2&2, what is your evidence for your belief that our public school system is a failed system at this point in time "as a whole"? Because I don't think that belief is grounded in any kind of understanding of the facts. For example, the high school graduation rate just hit a 40-year peak, and at least 90% of all Americans attend public schools. I have already pointed out in this thread that US public school test scores beat the world if high-poverty schools are excluded. Many urban school districts, including Guilford, have graduation rates higher than the national average. How do these numbers square with your belief that the public school system has "failed"?

I would also like to know your evidence for the assertion that "the vast majority" of private schools "end up putting out a much better product than public schools". These are quite dramatic claims and I again do not think your beliefs in this matter are backed up by any actual facts. After adjusting for the demographics of students attending private vs. public schools, the premium of a private school education is in fact very small. There are some studies indicating that while church-based schools, especially Catholic, consistently achieve a premium even when adjusting for demographics, other kinds of private schools underperform public schools.

There is a lot of rhetoric about "failing schools". Very little of it is based in fact, and very much of it is a subterfuge for the overall movement to get more taxpayer dollars into private school hands.

Using high school graduation rates as a measure of success is like the NCAA using college graduation rates at Cincinatti as a basis for that school's APR - it is completely meaningless. What does it matter if the kid gets a piece of paper if there is no substantive learning behind that piece of paper? So they got passed along from grade to grade and finally spit out at the end because they didn't fuck up. Whoopdeedamndoo. The key question is does our current system prepare our kids to effectively compete in a global economy beyond high school? My answer to that would be no (absent additional eduction). If your answer is yes, then why the need for overhauls? You're talking out of both sides of your mouth. On one hand you say the rhetoric about failing schools is based in minimal fact, and on the other you are proposing rather intense strategies to fix something that you apparently don't think is a problem.

 

[BeachBumDeac]

Using high school graduation rates as a measure of success is like the NCAA using college graduation rates at Cincinatti as a basis for that school's APR - it is completely meaningless. What does it matter if the kid gets a piece of paper if there is no substantive learning behind that piece of paper? So they got passed along from grade to grade and finally spit out at the end because they didn't fuck up. Whoopdeedamndoo. The key question is does our current system prepare our kids to effectively compete in a global economy beyond high school? My answer to that would be no (absent additional eduction). If your answer is yes, then why the need for overhauls? You're talking out of both sides of your mouth. On one hand you say the rhetoric about failing schools is based in minimal fact, and on the other you are proposing rather intense strategies to fix something that you apparently don't think is a problem.

Does any public school system in any developed country adequately prepare students to compete in a global economy, with no additional education (i.e., university) whatsoever?