Zuckerberg throws $100M at Newark public ed

[FuckmouthedRube]

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.

Cory Booker and Kevin Johnson should be rising Dem stars, but both have relatively low ceilings because of their ties to school reform. Thanks to an assist from Chris Paul, KJ looked great during the Sterling mess, but his marriage to former DC Chancellor Michele Rhee will make it difficult for him to be elected Senator or Governor in California.

 

[PhDeac]

KJ can do so much better than Michele Rhee. I just don't understand it.

 

[jhmd2000]

Exactly. Spend $100M just on teachers, material, and support and watch the magic happen.

Detroit spends $685M dollars on their public school system annually. The magic must be buffering.

 

[PhDeac]

Detroit spends $685M dollars on their public school system annually. The magic must be buffering.

Weird how you quoted my post yet completely missed the point and context.

It's almost like you did it on purpose.

Conservative strategy is to burden public schools with endless regulations, then hold up spending on those regulations as evidence that school spending doesn't work.

 

[jhmd2000]

Weird how you quoted my post yet completely missed the point and context.

It's almost like you did it on purpose.

Conservative strategy is to burden public schools with endless regulations, then hold up spending on those regulations as evidence that school spending doesn't work.

Good one. If this was YLYL, I'd be D-Q'd.

 

[WFFaithful]

Good one. If this was YLYL, I'd be D-Q'd.

You must lack all understanding of conservative education policy.

 

[PhDeac]

jhmd, what do you think "accountability" is?

 

[jhmd2000]

You must lack all understanding of conservative education policy.

It never ceases to amaze me how dishonest you guys are in these arguments.

School choice, charters, and vouchers are the antithesis of burdensome, centralized regulation. They are expressly designed to push control to the most local level possible: the family of the student.

Carry on.

 

[Deacfreak07]

It never ceases to amaze me how dishonest you guys are in these arguments.

School choice, charters, and vouchers are the antithesis of burdensome, centralized regulation. They are expressly designed to push control to the most local level possible: the family of the student.

Carry on.

That's actually not true. They all give parents more choice, but require increased centralized bureaucracy to administer.

 

[WFFaithful]

It never ceases to amaze me how dishonest you guys are in these arguments.

School choice, charters, and vouchers are the antithesis of burdensome, centralized regulation. They are expressly designed to push control to the most local level possible: the family of the student.

Carry on.

Pubs impose regulations on public schools to push public money to charter and private schools.

 

[RJKarl]

Vouchers are the biggest scam ever given to the American public.

What makes anyone think that private schools won't simply the value of the local school voucher to their current tuition? It will be a multi-billion dollar giveaway to private schools.

Also if government money goes to XYZ Academy why wouldn't there be government oversight on those schools. It would be irrational to give hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars each to private schools without them having to live up to standards. This would be a huge new bureaucracy that would create a new waste of money.

Also why would anything think a voucher from a poor school district would ever be accepted at a wealthy or even middle class district?

Like many RW concepts, they sound good...well until you actually think about how they would work.

Vouchers are the worst thing that could ever happen to the US public school system.

 

[PhDeac]

It never ceases to amaze me how dishonest you guys are in these arguments.

School choice, charters, and vouchers are the antithesis of burdensome, centralized regulation. They are expressly designed to push control to the most local level possible: the family of the student.

Carry on.

Charters and vouchers are for select students. School "choice" requires more bureaucracy to administer than neighborhood schools. And public schools are subject to layers upon layers of regulation in order to meet accountability standards.

The antithesis of burdensome regulation would be letting teachers teach.

 

[The Mangler]

Vouchers are the biggest scam ever given to the American public.

What makes anyone think that private schools won't simply the value of the local school voucher to their current tuition? It will be a multi-billion dollar giveaway to private schools.

Also if government money goes to XYZ Academy why wouldn't there be government oversight on those schools. It would be irrational to give hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars each to private schools without them having to live up to standards. This would be a huge new bureaucracy that would create a new waste of money.

Also why would anything think a voucher from a poor school district would ever be accepted at a wealthy or even middle class district?

Like many RW concepts, they sound good...well until you actually think about how they would work.

Vouchers are the worst thing that could ever happen to the US public school system.

I used to believe in vouchers but I'm now with RJ on this one. I see what has happened with the Federal government pumping in billions to higher education. Tuition has simply risen much faster than the rate of inflation. I see no reason to believe this wouldn't happen with K12 as well.

I do like charters though. I want lots of small schools trying out different approaches.

 

[PhDeac]

Why should that only be for a few schools? Why not run all public schools like charters are ideally run?

 

[The Mangler]

Why should that only be for a few schools? Why not run all public schools like charters are ideally run?

One other benefit a charter has is the ability to get rid of roadblock teachers.
That said, I'd be ok running all schools with that kind of freedom as long as we have a national curriculum coupled with accountability.

PH are you in favor of neighborhood schools?

 

[Strickland33]

One other benefit a charter has is the ability to get rid of roadblock teachers.
That said, I'd be ok running all schools with that kind of freedom as long as we have a national curriculum coupled with accountability.

PH are you in favor of neighborhood schools?

What exactly are roadblock teachers?

Freedom and accountability are odd bedfellows (albeit popular [populist] rhetoric). How exactly do you see freedom at the local level with nationally imposed curricula and measures of accountability?

Is your post an example of paradox, irony or oxymoron?

 

[PhDeac]

Increase teacher pay and "roadblock teachers" will work out of the system naturally as there will be more suitable replacements.

I'm in favor of neighborhood schools because I see no reason to set up a system that encourages people to abandon their local schools as well as sowing discontent among people who can't get into their choice.

I live in a well to do area of suburban Tampa. We have 3 elementary schools and the district is under choice. One school is an A school. The two others are lower rated despite being right next to well to do rich neighborhoods. Residents in those neighborhoods have worked to draw the zones to get their kids in the A school to avoid the one school across the street that has kids from apartments. The A school has no choice option (officially). Parents started choicing out of the 3rd school to go outside the neighborhood so now the district busses in kids from the poorest neighborhood because there is space. It's on the verge of being a Title 1 school despite being in a wealthy country club neighborhood.

If everybody went to their neighborhood school and supported it, we'd have 3 high SES schools with supporting PTAs. Unfortunately we have competition, stigmatization, and discontent.

 

[The Mangler]

What exactly are roadblock teachers?

From 923's post on page 4...

Zuckerberg should have talked to M. Night Shyamalan. Reposting this since it is somewhat relevant to the topic at hand:

I just finished this book by M. Night Shyamalan (yeah the guy that makes bad movies). http://www.npr.org/books/titles/2214...r-learned-the-

It's a very interesting read. He has a private foundation and wanted to improve education, but nobody could tell him - with real data - what actually works. So the first thing he did was hire a full time researcher to review all the education research and tell him what education interventions have the biggest impact on the achievement gap between poor and wealthy kids. The conclusions are interesting and they cut against a lot of common wisdom. The research shows five things that really work, but the research also shows that you really have to do all of them, and none of them are a silver bullet by themselves:

1. Get rid of "Roadblock Teachers" (because a bad teacher hurts a kid's education more than a superhero teacher can help it)

Freedom and accountability are odd bedfellows (albeit popular [populist] rhetoric). How exactly do you see freedom at the local level with nationally imposed curricula and measures of accountability?

Is your post an example of paradox, irony or oxymoron?

Not too difficult to figure out from my post above.
National curriculum is rather straightforward and we've essentially got it with common core. This is what we want students to learn.
Freedom for teachers to use the methods they feel will best serve their students in learning the established curriculum.
Accountability regarding the level of success the teacher has had in teaching their students the curriculum.

 

[PhDeac]

Not too difficult to figure out from my post above.
National curriculum is rather straightforward and we've essentially got it with common core. This is what we want students to learn.
Freedom for teachers to use the methods they feel will best serve their students in learning the established curriculum.
Accountability regarding the level of success the teacher has had in teaching their students the curriculum.

I'm fine with that as long as accountability is a mix instead of testing, testing, testing.


Much of common core is the how to teach that robs teachers of their freedom to cater to the students' learning styles.

 

[The Mangler]

Increase teacher pay and "roadblock teachers" will work out of the system naturally as there will be more suitable replacements.

I agree that increasing pay will make it more likely that teaching will be attractive to more young college grads. A larger pool of candidates should bring a higher caliber of teacher in the long run by allowing more people to stay in the profession without negatively impacting their families finances. Mistakes will still be made however and poor teachers will be hired. The system has to be able to remove those teachers or you're damaging 80-120 kids per teacher per year for decades. Even if you assume that there will be no mistakes in hiring going forward, raising pay across the board will make it more likely that teachers who shouldn't be in the profession remain in the profession. Counting on attrition to correct the problem has the effect on children that I described above.

If everybody went to their neighborhood school and supported it, we'd have 3 high SES schools with supporting PTAs. Unfortunately we have competition, stigmatization, and discontent.

I agree in your neighborhood you would have three high SES schools with supporting PTA's; but, other parts of town would have only low SES schools with extremely limited support from PTA's.

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