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The Myth Behind Public School Failure

WFFaithful said:
This is a growing problem, and I think the Fox News narrative that schools suck, teachers are lazy, yet they are brainwashing our kids with liberal BS is a big reason the problem is growing. You can also look at the criminalization of kids in schools as Ph mentioned.
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this is such a good post.

why has the right become so fucking stupid?
 
Milhouse said:
this is such a good post.

why has the right become so fucking stupid?
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Not stupid. Sneaky. They had to devalue education in order to buy it cheap and make money off it. They're breeding discontent with public education in order to justify shifting public resources to private sources of education.
 
PhDeac said:
We could also make the schools less shitty, pay teachers as professionals who work a 9-5, 12 months a year, etc.
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Of course, and if we were going to move to a year-round 9-5 school calendar, then ideally we would implement those changes first. But, we all know that isn't going to happen. We would change the calendar first, without addresing any of the other underlying problems.
 
PhDeac said:
Not stupid. Sneaky. They had to devalue education in order to buy it cheap and make money off it. They're breeding discontent with public education in order to justify shifting public resources to private sources of education.
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Out of curiousity, who are these people? Where are these rich private school teachers and administrators who single-handledly duped the national populace (who were of course educated by the public school system before allowing themselves to be duped) and took down the U.S. public school eductional system?
 
Conservatives and the private sector. The people who make and grade all the standardized tests, the businesses who run charter schools, online education companies, etc.

Follow the money.
 
2&2 Slider To Leyritz said:
Good for who? Kids who aren't leaning much? Doubtful. Taxpayers who would have to pay more? Doubtful. Teachers who already complain that they work too much for too little and surely would not be happy with whatever additional amounts were tacked on for the extra required time? Doubtful. Working parents who would pay less in afterschool care? Perhaps, but depends on how much their taxes increase to cover the increased school. Parents who simply don't want to be around their kids? Okay, you got me on that one.

Simply saying kids spending more time in shitty schools will result in better education is an awful position to take.
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We are coming at this from such different directions it is difficult to converse.

"Simply saying kids spending more time in shitty schools will result in better education is an awful position to take" is first of all a strawman, because nobody suggested that spending more time in "shitty" schools is good. Second, as long as SOME learning is going on, for poor kids even spending more time in a low-performing school is better than spending that time unsupervised doing drugs or sitting in front of a TV. Third, longer school years decrease the gap between poor kids and their wealthy cohorts who are in high-quality summer learning experiences. That matters if you think that society should have a goal of raising people out of poverty instead of letting the "natural linear stratification" take its course, whatever that means, which I believe and apparently you don't . Fourth, the whole conservative narrative of "shitty schools" is greatly overblown for political purposes, because it gives conservatives something to blame other than the true culprit, poverty. Can't blame poverty because then you might have to do something about it, and that would mean giving money to poor people. Great to blame the schools because it gives you an opportunity to demonize a Democrat voting bloc (teachers) and rob public schools of funds to give to for-profit charter businesses and churches.

But whatever, dude. Just keep on believing in your survival of the fittest, cream will rise to the top narrative. I'm sure you would have willed yourself out of the bottom 25% income bracket had you been born there.
 
In almost every state, charter schools are run by the local school district, a university, or a non-profit organization. Most receive public funding, but less then a traditional public school. The chartering organizations are local school districts, State Boards of Ed, State commissions, universities, and cities. Hardly bastions of conservatism engaged in some covert plot to destroy public education as we know it.
 
2&2 Slider To Leyritz said:
More importantly, it is not anyone's duty to level the playing field. Life is not a level playing field (which should be right up the alley of the anti-religion, pro-science agenda). We've been trying to level the playing field now for several generations, and the problem with leveling anything this that when one side goes up, the other side comes down. So instead of having a natural linear stratification, you get a whole lot of shit clumped together in the middle. Which is exactly what we have now.

When we focus solely on dragging up the bottom, it stagnates the top. It is the same LCD attitudes that have us headed in the general direction we have been spiraling for the past ~30 years.
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Holy shit! What bizarro world do you live in where the "top" has stagnated and everyone is now clumped in the middle?

Just because you want to believe that Obama is some commie socialist pinko and liberals are running America doesn't mean you get to spew ignorance as fact.
 
Shorty said:
In almost every state, charter schools are run by the local school district, a university, or a non-profit organization. Most receive public funding, but less then a traditional public school. The chartering organizations are local school districts, State Boards of Ed, State commissions, universities, and cities. Hardly bastions of conservatism engaged in some covert plot to destroy public education as we know it.
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The schools might have been charted by a non-profit, but these non-profits then hire a for profit to run the school.
 
There is a mix of for profit and nonprofit charter schools. The line between the two can get a little blurry. If enough taxpayer money is coming in It's pretty easy for the founder and president of a nonprofit to make plenty of bank.

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Deacon923 said:
There is a mix of for profit and nonprofit charter schools. The line between the two can get a little blurry. If enough taxpayer money is coming in It's pretty easy for the founder and president of a nonprofit to make plenty of bank.

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Basically. There are also plenty of charters than close when the backer runs out of money. There is a very profitable charter school industry that benefits from discontent with public education stoked by conservatives.

Follow the money.
 
PhDeac said:
Basically. There are also plenty of charters than close when the backer runs out of money. There is a very profitable charter school industry that benefits from discontent with public education stoked by conservatives.

Follow the money.
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This could be said of school admins as well. Follow the money. People protect money, it doesn't matter if you are a liberal or conservative. It is a two way street. Both sides want more power, more money. We waste an inordinate amount of money managing our educational system, when it could be spent on students and teachers. Follow the money is right.
 
I don't disagree with that. We need to deprivatize public education and reduce administrative bloat.
 
Explain 'deprivatize'. Do you mean make it illegal to have a private school?
 
No. I said deprivatize public education, not deprivatize education. If people want to pay for private schools, that's fine. Don't expect taxpayers to foot the bill.

Stop shifting resources away from students and teachers and toward private education companies in the name of accountability.
 
I agree. I don't think we need much accountability outside the state level. We waste way too much money on federal standards. A state will always have its best interests at heart with regards to education. A local community even more than the state. Without a thriving public school system businesses won't thrive, and without a healthy business sector, communities die. The federal government needs to be the educational system's sugar daddy. Give a bunch of money and get out of the way. Let the state and local communities decide how to best educate.
 
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