End government schools

[Rick]

Any reasonable person will admit that the government school system overall has been a failure. The whole system should be privatized, with ideally parents paying their own education bills. The education costs of poor or handicapped children can be paid for with taxes.

[JavaBlack]

Any reasonable person will admit that the government school system overall has been a failure.
No. Any reasonable person would say the system has not been as good as we'd like it to be. "Complete failure" is a joke because it implies that we'd be a more educated population without it. Hogwash.

The whole system should be privatized, with ideally parents paying their own education bills. The education costs of poor or handicapped children can be paid for with taxes.
The last part of this makes the system government schooling, does it not?

[Rick]

No. Any reasonable person would say the system has not been as good as we'd like it to be. "Complete failure" is a joke because it implies that we'd be a more educated population without it. Hogwash.

Read any of the results of No Child Left Behind? We have publicly identified failed schools that continue on. Teachers to be tested to see if they know the subject they are teaching. Would the free market allow any of this? Absolutely not.


The last part of this makes the system government schooling, does it not?

No, it's just government spending - the school system itself should be dismantled.

[JavaBlack]

Read any of the results of No Child Left Behind? We have publicly identified failed schools that continue on. Teachers to be tested to see if they know the subject they are teaching. Would the free market allow any of this? Absolutely not.

Could the free market provide universal education?
Our school system will always be a "failure" to some extent so long as it is universal. However the lousy education some kids get is better than none.
I've yet to see anything suggesting that top students are in any way hindered by our education system.
The question is how to help those at the bottom better. I'm skeptical of privatization's ability to do that. I get the feeling it's more likely to simply shift school's focus further toward corporate interests and from civics and good citizenship.
Our schools will merely become a subsidy for the private sector's training programs... which is not the original purpose of the school system.

[Rick]

Could the free market provide universal education?

Yes.

Our school system will always be a "failure" to some extent so long as it is universal.

Universality has little to do with it. What has to do with it is inability to fire incompetent teachers, lack of competition, dumbed down PC curricula, imbecilic pedagogical methods du jour, top heavy administration, and politicization.

However the lousy education some kids get is better than none.
I've yet to see anything suggesting that top students are in any way hindered by our education system.

The best you can say about the government schools is that they don't hinder students?? :p

The question is how to help those at the bottom better. I'm skeptical of privatization's ability to do that. I get the feeling it's more likely to simply shift school's focus further toward corporate interests and from civics and good citizenship.

Corporate interests are served by satisfying the customer (parents), else the parents will go to a different school.

Our schools will merely become a subsidy for the private sector's training programs... which is not the original purpose of the school system.

What???? :confused: Like saying buying bread is just a subsidy for bakeries.

[9sublime]

If anything we should be redistributing the wealth between all schools by the government to give all kids an equal start, rather than purely making the money you are paying straight to the school the basis of the standard of your education thus giving all children a more equal start.

At the moment, you get good school and bad schools. Making people pay straight out of their own pocket, rather than through taxes, will just make the situation worse and more uneven.

[JavaBlack]

Universality has little to do with it. What has to do with it is inability to fire incompetent teachers, lack of competition, dumbed down PC curricula, imbecilic pedagogical methods du jour, top heavy administration, and politicization.
Considering that the best public schools do well... it seems universiality is the problem. Areas that are poor and have parents that are mostly not educated... tend to be lousy school districts. The variability is high.
I'll agree that the teacher unions are a problem, and to some extent top-heavy administration (eventually a universalized private system would encounter that). I think the rest of your problems are mostly politicized doom-and-gloom.
For one thing, competition will lead to niche schools... which will hinder universiality of education. It will only increase the variation between utility of education at various places. Being that this is not the kid's choice and yet the kid will be the one to ultimately pay... at the very least government must set standards...
Meaning that the system is not fully privatized.



The best you can say about the government schools is that they don't hinder students?? :p
That doesn't sound like much, but it suggests that we might not want to get to jumpy and scream "total failure!" The top public schools are still top notch. The problem is getting the bottom rung schools caught up.
Frankly I don't think privatization is the magic answer.



Corporate interests are served by satisfying the customer (parents), else the parents will go to a different school.
And by training their new recruits. If this becomes the staple for success, that is what parents will demand.
Say goodbye to civics and the hope of someday throwing entrepreneurialism into education... Say hello to workplace training as school's primary function.



What???? :confused: Like saying buying bread is just a subsidy for bakeries.
No. It's like saying that paying for yeast to cultivate it and giving it to the bread company so that you can later buy bread from them is a subsidy.
Before school became about preparing for jobs" rather than about preparing productive and responsible citizens with the intellect to make good decisions and open-mindedness to think about them, businesses trained people. Now school functions as a way for them to cut down the number of interviews and do as little training as possible.
In addition to being an individual good, education has always been a public one... thus the public pay. With schools going more corporate, they are an individual and a corporate good... paid for totally by the individual and the public.

[vyo476]

A little more than a year ago I graduated from public high school. I encountered a little of everything there - one of the history teachers there was one of the best teachers I've ever had, whereas one of the other history teachers just showed movies all class and assigned meaningless projects. We endured budget cuts to programs for the Arts (my principle area of interest) and we endured government micro-managing (we received bonus funding for teaching abstinence-only sex ed).

Out of 140 students about thirty or so decided not to go to college. I haven't caught up to any of them lately so I don't know exactly how they're doing. Most of my friends, myself included, went off to college. None of us got into an Ivy League school, a first for my high school.

Was the quality of our education substandard? At times. Most of the biggest problems amongst the teachers (including the inept history teacher who didn't know what I was talking about when I asked her about the Battle of Stalingrad) were weeded out quickly - she only had a year's contract and it was not renewed by the school. All the micro-managing was our biggest issue - from budget incentives to directives regarding what had to be taught in order to prepare us for the dreaded MCAS (a test which, in MA, must be passed in order to graduate).

The biggest thing to remember in regards to education is that the student will make of it whatever he/she makes of it. There's a gentleman who just graduated from my high school with a 4.23 GPA who is going to Harvard this fall. There's also a gentleman who just barely managed to graduate, isn't going to college because all of them laughed at his grades, and doesn't have a job or even the slightest inkling what he's going to be doing five, ten years down the line. They got the same education.

Remember, it's all subjective.

[JavaBlack]

The biggest thing to remember in regards to education is that the student will make of it whatever he/she makes of it.

Exactly. Though a lot of it has to do with parental upbringing and I think schools should have programs that attempt to make up for parental ignorance with tutoring and good admissions counseling.
But the most important function of our education system is to ensure that all kids are given the opportunity to work to their potential. All these "sky is falling" complaints about falling test scores are overlooking that point. The main reason other countries do better, especially Japan, at these arbitrary test scores is that they weed out the lousy students early.
We give up high scores by teaching even lousy students and by teaching innovation as well as basic competence. The more we focus on test scores the less this will happen.
But a private system is likely to be rated on the basis of such tests... How else would it be rated? There has to be some rating if there is competition. College programs are rated similarly (though mostly based on job-earning potential).
The strength of the public education system is that it is based on universal education on principle and it should focus more on helping all students of the nation than being absorbed in competition.

[SW85]

No. Any reasonable person would say the system has not been as good as we'd like it to be. "Complete failure" is a joke because it implies that we'd be a more educated population without it. Hogwash.

Saying that the public education system is a failure implies no such thing, merely that the public is generally no better educated with it then it would be without it.

The last part of this makes the system government schooling, does it not?

It does so de facto, if not de jure, but only because where government subsidizes it inevitably regulates.

The biggest thing to remember in regards to education is that the student will make of it whatever he/she makes of it. There's a gentleman who just graduated from my high school with a 4.23 GPA who is going to Harvard this fall. There's also a gentleman who just barely managed to graduate, isn't going to college because all of them laughed at his grades, and doesn't have a job or even the slightest inkling what he's going to be doing five, ten years down the line. They got the same education.

Well, first of all, the fact that one student did phenomenally while another failed utterly shows that public education did nothing for either of them -- the smart kid's still smart (though maybe not as smart as he could be), the dumb kid's still dumb. This rather suggests, as I said earlier, that the public is not particularly better off for having a public education system.

Second of all, what one student is willing to make of the educational resources available to him is not the only factor in the equation -- what other students are willing to make of theirs matters, as well. School violence, bullying, the demonization of academic achievement, etc., all contribute to the failure of otherwise promising students. This is precisely the reason why inner city schools fail to turn out as many achievers as suburban schools -- not because of low-quality top-tier students because of lower-quality bottom-tier students, a problem aggravated by poor administrative practices and lazy, uninterested parenting.


I don't know that ending public schools entirely is sound. I don't think it's a matter of public vs. private per se, in that public schools don't suck merely because they're public and private schools rock merely because they're private, but that because of the nature of the system the public schools are forced to accept the rabble that private schools wouldn't take. Private schools work because they have high standards of admission intended to weed out those ne'er-do-wells who don't try, waste educational resources, and make education hell for those who care about their own futures; those kinds of standards would never fly in public schools, partly because they would exclude large swaths of students, mostly poor and minorities, who would litigate the whole system into administrative oblivion.

But it goes without saying that dramatic reform is necessary. For starters, the collective back of the teachers' unions must be broken. They have frittered away our educational standards over the years by demanding financial accomodations (which must logically occur at the expense of the students on whom money would otherwise be spent), like payment merely on the basis of showing up for work rather than the quality of the education their students' receive. Expulsion guidelines should be relaxed dramatically and repeated troublemakers should be removed from public schools much sooner then they presently are; concordantly, some degree of legal protection needs to be provided to school administrators to shield them from the inevitable backlash of litigation from uninterested parents who view schools as a daycare system obligated to take care of their violent, disobedient kids. Curricula need a massive overhaul; I don't see anything wrong with a classical education, except the fact that most teachers (who, in turn, are failed by our top-heavy politicized universities) are too stupid to handle them.

[JavaBlack]

And I can accept all those as legitimate problems.
But I've yet to see any direct connection between these problems and the fact that the school system is public.
What I see happening is a big rush toward privatization... only to find that nothing really changes (with a slight possiblity of unexpected consequences) because the problem is misdiagnosed.
These problems all highlight that education is a PUBLIC GOOD. So I fail to see how it makes sense that privatization will do a better job. Rather privatization, if it changes anything, will make schools more a tool for individual success and take away the ability of government to ensure that the lowliest get good education.
Since the problem with the public schools is the failings to those who are the lousiest students or in the worst environments, I don't see where taking government's ability to do anything away and turning education into a private good will help.
It will take us back to the reasons we started a public education system in the first place.

[SW85]

But I've yet to see any direct connection between these problems and the fact that the school system is public.

Well, as I said, I don't think the problem is it's being public explicitly (which is why privatization won't solve all of them or even necessarily most of them), merely that it being public opens it to a swath of problems that private schools don't have to face -- namey that public schools are legally obligated to accept rabble-rousing dregs who lower educational quality across the board. Labor politics also prohibits them from dealing fairly and effectively with teachers.

[Castle]

I find the public school system to be a mess. I recently moved to South Florida from Northern Virginia. The school system in NVA required a much larger financial investment from parents but the children were getting a much better education overall by today's standards. Here in South Florida the schools have all the funding they need but the education is a joke. My son is getting straight A's without even breaking a sweat in middle school here which is the equivalent of grammar school where we're from. a 60 is a passing grade!!! In my day a 75 was a D-.

The standards are far too low in public education these days. Why is that?

-Castle

[vyo476]

The standards are far too low in public education these days. Why is that?

-Castle

In order to encourage individuality, the passing standards were lowered. That way, students who weren't as talented in things like math or English would still be able to pass while pursuing things that did interest them - like art or automotive studies.

That's why they were lowered here in MA anyway. There's still a standardized test that everyone has to pass in order to graduate from high school - that makes sure that everyone's at least got the basics.

[Castle]

In order to encourage individuality, the passing standards were lowered. That way, students who weren't as talented in things like math or English would still be able to pass while pursuing things that did interest them - like art or automotive studies.

That's why they were lowered here in MA anyway. There's still a standardized test that everyone has to pass in order to graduate from high school - that makes sure that everyone's at least got the basics.
Ah yes! Here in Florida it's called the FCAT. Students can take it over and over again until they pass and move to the next grade level. I remember either spending vacation in summer school or repeating the grade you failed. By today's standards, you are considered "talented" if you complete your homework and actually study for tests. I was always under the impression that it was a requirement if you wished to excel in your studies.

I'm not sure whether to be jealous or concerned that my son has it so easy.

-Castle

[vyo476]

Ah yes! Here in Florida it's called the FCAT. Students can take it over and over again until they pass and move to the next grade level. I remember either spending vacation in summer school or repeating the grade you failed. By today's standards, you are considered "talented" if you complete your homework and actually study for tests. I was always under the impression that it was a requirement if you wished to excel in your studies.

While I think all schools could do with being a bit more stringent about requiring students to complete all of their assignments, I also think teachers should reevaluate exactly what it is they're assigning - if it's unnecessary then it shouldn't be given out. When I was in high school it seemed like I was endlessly doing make-work (as a senior I had a Marine Biology class that consisted of coloring twice a week - and I was an Honors student).

There is still a distinction between excelling and passing, though.

I'm not sure whether to be jealous or concerned that my son has it so easy.

-Castle

If it were me, I'd only be truly concerned if I thought my son wasn't getting the basics - reading comprehension, writing, basic math, American and World History, Health/Wellness, and some science. The way the curriculum's were set up at my high school, a person could earn a bare 60 in the class and still get all the basics down pat.

[Burning Giraffe]

Any reasonable person will admit that the government school system overall has been a failure. The whole system should be privatized, with ideally parents paying their own education bills. The education costs of poor or handicapped children can be paid for with taxes.

You'd have to drastically cut taxes in order for Americans to afford their own education.

[Beetle Bailey]

Yeah. Great idea. Instead of fixing it, just give up. Just subscribe to some right wing nonsense about how schools can't possibly be fixed. Horse****. As if they don't have some other agenda. Like using our tax money to support religious schools under the guise of giving people more educational options.

[Burning Giraffe]

Yeah. Great idea. Instead of fixing it, just give up. Just subscribe to some right wing nonsense about how schools can't possibly be fixed. Horse****. As if they don't have some other agenda. Like using our tax money to support religious schools under the guise of giving people more educational options.

The Education system can't be fixed as long as the Teacher's Union and the myriad mini-bureaucracies are in charge, not to mention the Department of Education. We need an ambitious school system driven by competition, which is what private schools offer. The problem is, the average American can't afford private school and, without providing a way for that to happen, I don't see how we can get rid of public education. So, perhaps some wide overhaul or reform would do the trick. Give students more options by offering liberal arts and technical schools: High Schools designed to teach students how to work on machines, or computer technology, advanced mathematics, art, literature, journalism, video and audio technology, dance, business classes, advanced economics... Give students and families a wider choice and let the students be more involved in their own education.

[JavaBlack]

The Academy model is the modeal that shows the most promise, specifically because it has more individual teaching. Students' curriculi are more customized to their learning ability and the schools work early to figure out the kid's talents and interests. Problem in public schools now, which I can say have affected me heavily, is the fact that even a well ahead student can be without the necessary forethought to plan for a later curriculum in college or a career.
Problem is that academies require smaller class sizes, meaning that we need more teachers.

[mustardayonnaise]

Going to chime in here with my two cents and an outsider's perspective. While I don't have first-hand knowledge of the American public school system, I gather it's quite different to the system I went through in Ireland.
I gather that most people don't think very highly of the current system, the standard of teaching or department of education. What I don't get is how privatisation is supposed to solve this. Surely the public system can be fixed in order to continue to provide education to all - private schools will necessarily reject less capable students in order to keep standards up, but where will these students go to be educated? Is not the point of a public school system to ensure that everyone is given a certain standard of education, regardless of background or means? How would an entirely private system ensure this, and who would set the standards?

[ilikeboobs]

Any reasonable person will admit that the government school system overall has been a failure. The whole system should be privatized, with ideally parents paying their own education bills. The education costs of poor or handicapped children can be paid for with taxes.



I concur. No matter how much money they throw at it, student achievement has yet to increase. Also, show me in the constitution where the federal government has the responsibility to pay for schools. That's something each state should fund, not the feds.

And for you "progressives" out there - how is it progressive to want to leave the current system the way it is? What's progressive about that? Sounds regressive to me, not to mention wasteful.

What is wrong with vouchers? It solves two problems - reduces class sizes in public schools, and increases the number of children who actually learn things (private schools get better results).

[USMC the Almighty]

Going to chime in here with my two cents and an outsider's perspective. While I don't have first-hand knowledge of the American public school system, I gather it's quite different to the system I went through in Ireland.
I gather that most people don't think very highly of the current system, the standard of teaching or department of education. What I don't get is how privatisation is supposed to solve this. Surely the public system can be fixed in order to continue to provide education to all - private schools will necessarily reject less capable students in order to keep standards up, but where will these students go to be educated? Is not the point of a public school system to ensure that everyone is given a certain standard of education, regardless of background or means? How would an entirely private system ensure this, and who would set the standards?

I don't know anyone who wants privatization. What I am advocating is removing education from the federal gov't hands and putting it back into the states' hands.

[mustardayonnaise]

I don't know anyone who wants privatization. What I am advocating is removing education from the federal gov't hands and putting it back into the states' hands.

Eminently more sensible.

[USMC the Almighty]

Eminently more sensible.

Right. Federal bureacurats hundreds of miles away controlling anything is bound to become slow, inefficient, ineffective, and expensive.

and people want to have nationalized healthcare...

[9sublime]

How about localised healthcare in each state payed for by taxes for everyone?

[USMC the Almighty]

How about localised healthcare in each state payed for by taxes for everyone?

Taxes by everyone in that state or the whole country?

[Segep]

I don't know anyone who wants privatization. What I am advocating is removing education from the federal gov't hands and putting it back into the states' hands.

Here, here! Unfortunately, I think the feds consider this a matter of interstate commerce somehow. Actually, I'm not quite sure where they get the authority to control States' education policies. Does anyone know?

[9sublime]

Taxes by everyone in that state or the whole country?

People being taxed for their state by their state alone would be easier, but dividing it equally between each state from everyones taxes in the country is fairer, even if the healthcare itself remains localised state by state.

[invest07]

In most areas of the country, school systems are scramblig to build new schools to handle increasing population. A sizeable percentage of my local school system's budget goes to build new schools.

Growth costs the school system money each year. It is true that each new student brings in dollars to the school system but this does not cover the cost of new construction. If new construction could be eliminated from a local system's budget, there would be more dollars per student to spend on existing students.

My proposal is to freeze enrollment in public schools. New and old students would be offered vouchers to pay for private schools. The idea is to offer enough vouchers so that enrollement does not increase or decrease.

The amount of the voucher offered to parents would be 90% of the state's reimbursement to the local school system on a per student basis.

The local school system would get an immediate windfall of money by not having to build new schools. They would also get a gradual influx of new money by recieving a 10% override on the voucher students.

Parents would have choice of schools: Free public schools or partly paid private schools. The public schools would recieve more money per student.

It looks to me like everybody wins with growth vouchers.

[9sublime]

Private schools need to get their money from the students parents paying fees though, and so they would need the government to reimburse them what they have lost by not recieving full fees from the parents.

As a result, the state would have to pay the private school fees, probably cancelling out the money they would save from the schemes.

Also, more private schools would need to be built to accomidate this.

[invest07]

9sublime

The voucher student would receive 90% of the public school students cost. The voucher student could then chose any private school they wanted and would be responsible for paying the entire tuition.

Example - the public schools spend $10K/year/student. The voucher student would receive $9K and the public schools would receive $1K. If the private school tutition was $12K/year, the parent would have to come up with the $3K shortfall. No government funds here. If the private schjool tutition was $8K, the parent would pocket a windfall. This would provide a strong incentive to hold down costs.

Yes there would have to be a lot of private schools built. So what? They would be private and not a public obligation. No tax free bonds to sell and no extra taxes needed.

Why is the governemnt in the education business, anyway? The federal governemnt is the least efficient mechanism known to man. They don't do anything well and everything costs out the yingyang. Any private enterprise with even marginally competent management can beat the crap out of the government.

Turn the new students over to the private sector. They will do a much better job than the guvmint.

[9sublime]

But the government needs to give the student the 9K, and the private school 1k, and where does that come from? The tax payers pocket, and so they would still have to pay taxes for education despite the government not getting involved.

[invest07]

9sublime
My proposal for growth vouchers does not remove the governemnt entirely from the equation but it does partly withdraw the gov from schools.

1. The public school enrollment would stay about the same and would not grow over time. As population increases, a smaller percent of students would attend public schools. The Feds affect on education would be diminished.

2. No new public obligations such as construction bond issues or new taxes would be needed.

The full reimbursement per student would remain but the funds would be redistributed. The funds returned directly to the voucher student are actually a return to the parent of taxes they have already paid (sales tax, gas tax, property tax, auto tags, etc ad nauseum.)

In the long run growth vouchers would have the effect of lowering the cost of schools as new construction would not be needed, and the spending per piblic school student could rise. (It could also remain the same and taxes be lowered.)

The Feds have made a committment to Public Education. The only argument we can make is how to divvy up the pie and how to reduce the cost per capita in the future.

[dahermit]

Why is the government in the education business, anyway? The federal government is the least efficient mechanism known to man.Just in case you do not know, the education of public school students is the responsibility of state government not the federal government. The federal government has no responsibility according to constitutional interpretation. Any thing to federal government does is an add on program for the state system of public schools. Except for these add ons from the Fed. public schools are financed by each state and local school districts.

A former teacher.

[heyjude]

Part of the problem was the revolt against property taxes. That meant that other funds had to be provided for schools. Who ever pays will decide how the money is spent. If you don't want the federal government telling you how to run your local schools, the solution is simple. Don't take their money.

It has been part of the right-wing Republican agenda since day one to destroy the public school system. And vouchers is their solution. Most people, even with vouchers, could not afford private schools for their children. What they will be able to afford is religious schools. This is a recruiting tool for them. "Give me a child until he is eight, and he is mine forever." That is a Christian proverb.

I will never pay Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Shinto, or any other religion to brainwash a child. Pay for your own brainwashing.

[USMC the Almighty]

Pay for your own brainwashing.

You don't think that the public schools brainwash kids? I wasn't in school too long ago, and I still remember feeling compelled to regurgitate what the teachers would say in class on topics such as politics, religion, or history or else my grades would be penalized.

[9sublime]

Can't say I ever felt that, but I don't know how different the schools really are in the UK and the US.

In GCSE English Poetry, you get marks for making points that you would not hear in class from the teacher, or challenging interpretations that are taught.

[vyo476]

You don't think that the public schools brainwash kids? I wasn't in school too long ago, and I still remember feeling compelled to regurgitate what the teachers would say in class on topics such as politics, religion, or history or else my grades would be penalized.

Public schools these days do tend to lean towards brainwashing rather than teaching.

It hit me worst in English - I failed several papers simply because the teacher disagreed with my opinion.

[steveox]

I agree!!! End Public Schools and make the parents pay the school bill & Uniforms. NOT TAXPAYERS!! :mad:

[dahermit]

Public schools these days do tend to lean towards brainwashing rather than teaching.

It hit me worst in English - I failed several papers simply because the teacher disagreed with my opinion.Too bad your teacher is not on this board...we could hear the other side of the story.

[vyo476]

Too bad your teacher is not on this board...we could hear the other side of the story.

I had several very good teachers throughout high school. This one in particular was not one of them.

She taught a course in American Literature. Amongst the books we read was Kate Chopin's The Awakening. For my final essay, I wrote that the lead character need not have killed herself - there's always an alternative to suicide. I got the paper back with a big 'ole fifty at the top and a quick message underneath: "You're wrong. Write it again."

Another of my English teachers was quite fond of praising quantity over quality. We would have class discussions on Margaret Taylor's Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant. While the rest of my class would receive A's for sitting around making plenty of comments about how the abusive mother of the novel appeared "upset" and "a little unhinged," I and a few of my friends would receive lower grades for only throwing out one or two comments on such things as Taylor's usage of stream-of-consciousness or the psychological factors involved in becoming an abusive parent - comments that would be bowled over by the rest of the class, who didn't want to have to actually think and just wanted the grade.

My other two English teachers in high school were much better. Sadly, both of them left the school shortly after I had them - one on maternity leave, the other for retirement (he'd been teaching for well over thirty years).

I'm not saying that all education is brainwashing. Just that it is used quite often in public schools today. Once I got to college, I felt as though I was in the middle of my own personal intellectual revolution. I think the problem, at my high school anyway, is that high schools these days are trying to emphasize individuality while they're trying to teach the same thing to everyone. If they'd just stick to the basics and leave it to us to come up with who we are I think everyone would be a lot happier.

[numinus]

Any reasonable person will admit that the government school system overall has been a failure. The whole system should be privatized, with ideally parents paying their own education bills. The education costs of poor or handicapped children can be paid for with taxes.

If one subscribes to the adage that education is a RIGHT, not a privilege, then the most logical step for government is to provide it for free.

Understand that knowledge is the patrimony of mankind - not a commodity to be bartered with those who can afford it.

[r0beph]

I had several very good teachers throughout high school. This one in particular was not one of them.

She taught a course in American Literature. Amongst the books we read was Kate Chopin's The Awakening. For my final essay, I wrote that the lead character need not have killed herself - there's always an alternative to suicide. I got the paper back with a big 'ole fifty at the top and a quick message underneath: "You're wrong. Write it again."

Another of my English teachers was quite fond of praising quantity over quality. We would have class discussions on Margaret Taylor's Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant. While the rest of my class would receive A's for sitting around making plenty of comments about how the abusive mother of the novel appeared "upset" and "a little unhinged," I and a few of my friends would receive lower grades for only throwing out one or two comments on such things as Taylor's usage of stream-of-consciousness or the psychological factors involved in becoming an abusive parent - comments that would be bowled over by the rest of the class, who didn't want to have to actually think and just wanted the grade.

My other two English teachers in high school were much better. Sadly, both of them left the school shortly after I had them - one on maternity leave, the other for retirement (he'd been teaching for well over thirty years).

I'm not saying that all education is brainwashing. Just that it is used quite often in public schools today. Once I got to college, I felt as though I was in the middle of my own personal intellectual revolution. I think the problem, at my high school anyway, is that high schools these days are trying to emphasize individuality while they're trying to teach the same thing to everyone. If they'd just stick to the basics and leave it to us to come up with who we are I think everyone would be a lot happier.

Ah English, a favorite subject of mine. I once had a teacher who felt her opinion weighted in on the quality of my essays for her class. What I ended up doing while failing the class because I simply refused to submit papers that disagreed with my true opinion when the option of what we were to write was left up to us. I ended up seeing my assistant principle and luckily he had an English doctorate and on reading my papers he called the teacher in and had a nice talking to with her. That's one of the reason I actually liked public school, where I went grievances would often be handled in a decent manner. He told her that we were supposed to be learning how to write the essays, not be coached on how to think. I think the paper I'd submitted was about some short essay in which a woman's brush with cancer made her think differently about life. I found it somewhat egocentric and didn't really agree with a lot of what the lady had said, and I said so. I ended up with a 80 something on that essay from the 64 she gave me. Sometimes you win.

[vyo476]

Ah English, a favorite subject of mine. I once had a teacher who felt her opinion weighted in on the quality of my essays for her class. What I ended up doing while failing the class because I simply refused to submit papers that disagreed with my true opinion when the option of what we were to write was left up to us. I ended up seeing my assistant principle and luckily he had an English doctorate and on reading my papers he called the teacher in and had a nice talking to with her. That's one of the reason I actually liked public school, where I went grievances would often be handled in a decent manner. He told her that we were supposed to be learning how to write the essays, not be coached on how to think. I think the paper I'd submitted was about some short essay in which a woman's brush with cancer made her think differently about life. I found it somewhat egocentric and didn't really agree with a lot of what the lady had said, and I said so. I ended up with a 80 something on that essay from the 64 she gave me. Sometimes you win.

I wish I'd had your experience. The administration in my high school were too preoccupied with cracking down on drugs and not letting the football team get suspended to deal with such mundane things as students with problems.

I'm majoring in English now in college and I have to say, the experience here is one hundred million times better than the one I had in high school. I have more room to breathe academically. I guess that's just the nature of the beast.

[Mr.Dysfunctional]

I'm actually joined this site just to respond and aqquire a little insight to the "IMO" of others about teaching. I going thru community college this year moving towards an AAS geared towards education and eventually a BS in Mathamatics and or Science. While I do agree that the Teachers' Union does need to regulate and implement a better system to oust sub-par teachers... to say that they are being paid well is ultimately laughing at your children's provider for the most crucial years of their life. A large majority of students will not move on to college and will thus end most of the "across the board" education they will recieve. Raising pay will not only make it a more lucrative choice for would be college students,.. but the ensuing raise in teacher population would allow to better select qualified teachers while baring ones that do not reach the mark. Further more.. if anyone has ever gone to a crappy school in the heart of low-income district finds that teachers are actually hard to come by and are replaced by subs (( which in some cases make up to 40% of full-time teachers )). Has anyone here actually talked to the teachers they loved from there high-school years. Most will find that they give their heart and soul to teaching. Going above and beyond the norm to reach out to sub-par students. If we continue to not recongize the fact that teachers are an extremely important part of a young adults education, by not raising salaires and contuining to force memorization of tests, then we will see the trend that is affecting all of us today. Plain and simple,.. affecting the pocketbooks of teachers results in decayed moral for doing their job.

Thou I personally am not worried about the pay((wife is studying to be a lawyer WOOT WOOT)) we can't expect every teacher to be a Mother Teresa

[roger2008]

Failure of government run schools to attract students and to stop them from dropping out means that the government will never succeed in fulfilling its obligation under Article 45 and education to all children up to the age of 14 will always remain a dream as it has remained even after 55 years of attaining freedom. It happened due to government politics
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