Fred Hiatt, editorial page editor of the Washington Post, wrote an uninformed opinion piece urging Trump to invite cities to become “laboratories of choice,” where every student could go to the school of his or her choice. He says this would be “the right kind of choice.” “Uninformed” is the polite term. I was tempted to say “absurd” or idiotic,” but decided to be polite.
He begins his article by reciting the specious claims of the right wingers that everyone exercises choice except the poor. I know these claims because I was part of three rightwing think tanks where they were repeated again and again. Some people choose parochial schools; some choose private schools; others choose safe suburbs and neighborhoods. Only the poor are “stuck” in “failing schools.”
The assumption behind these assertions is that choosing schools will improve education. But there is no evidence for this claim.
Here is some news for Mr. Hiatt.
We already have laboratories of choice. First, there is New Orleans, which has no public schools. The scores are up, but most of the charter schools continue to be low-performing, probably because they have the poor kids who were not accepted in the top-performing charters. The district as a whole is low-performing in relation to the state, which is one of the lowest-performing in the nation.
Then there is Milwaukee, which has had vouchers and charters for 25 years. Three sectors compete, and all are low-performing. How is that for a “laboratory of choice,” Mr. Hiatt?
Then there is Detroit, in Betsy DeVos’ home state of Michigan. Detroit is the lowest-performing urban district tested by the National Assessment of Educational Progress. It is overrun by charters, many of them operating for profit. Now there is another fine example of a failing “laboratory of choice.”
Mr. Hiatt, why don’t you take a look at other nations’ school system. The one that most people admire, Finland, has well-resourced schools, highly educated teachers, professional autonomy, a strong professional union, and excellent results. What it does not have is standardized testing, competition, or choice.
Please, Fred, read my last two books Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education and Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools. Read Samuel Abrams’ Education and the Commercial Mindset. Read Mercedes Schneider’s School Choice. Pay attention. Be informed before you write.
“Be informed before you write.”
Not sure that’s how “journalism” works these days. Wish it did.
To your point the first paragraph of my letter to Newsday LI that was published but butchered by their editor . The point was this is not Journalism.
“Lane Filler tells us on Saturday that science is out pacing
NY education. In a piece on NY’s new Science Standards, he demonstrates what has become a major problem in American journalism. Journalists make comments on many subjects of which they have little knowledge and have done almost no
research. They shape a public narrative repeating memes that have become popular in their limited circles. Sometimes it is material fed to them by lobbyists and think tanks that were created for the sole purpose of distributing information on behalf of those people paying their salaries.
We see this in articles on the economy in particular. As in example we see this in discussions on trade, skills shortages and educations role in society… “
Better not pick my city as a laboratory. I am not a lab rat.
My district has served as a lab rat for twenty years of state control.
Do you realize how cheap all of this is compared to taking the steps necessary to eliminate poverty . . If one were to assume that a living wage would be well over 20 an hour in most of the nation and closer to 30-40 an hour in our more costly urban centers. In addition eliminating poverty would fall on a different segment of the population than the majority of the education tab. You than understand why the push to portray our schools as failing rather than the political system that distributes goods and services. .
All that will do is move the poverty line. Because when McDonald’s has to pay someone 15 an hour, that money has to come from somewhere. At that is my pocket. That means I have to ask my boss for more money to pay that happy meal for my grandchildren. That means that my employer, a school district, will have to raise taxes in order pay my pay raise. That means that you will have to ask your employer for more money to pay your increase in taxes.
Obviously, raising minimum wage to a “living wage” sets a whole line of events in motion not too many people think about.
The question also unanswered is, “is working for McDonald etc intended to become a living wage job?”
When I was in college, quite a few students worked for the local fast food places to get some spending money. My kids worked at places as high school students, none of which were intended to “pay the rent and grocery bills.”
Will there be other “entry” jobs for high school and college kids?
I was 40, made 25k a year, bought a house, helped two kids through college. It took me almost ten years to get to 18 per hour. Now, after 20 years and a job title change, I have doubled my starting pay. But that took a long time, hard work, added education to keep up with the job demands.
I get it Joel. I have repeatedly commented on how poverty affects the lives of my students. Readers here nod their heads and mumble to themselves, “Yeah, I know that already.” People living their lives outside of the education bubble, generally view me as perhaps a well meaning old lady who constantly shares her jaundiced view of the world. A member of my own family considers Rhee to have done a wonderful job in DC. No, I am not making that up. How do we move from continuously debating amongst ourselves in the blogosphere to having an impact on the outside world?
Abigail, first we must convince ourselves, inform ourselves, and be armed with knowledge to persuade others (and our leaders).
Mass mobilization that leads to new political leadership. Education in particular has to be seen as part of a greater economic struggle.
It is a target precisely because it is . IMHO the assault on k-12 is part of a more general assault on the University system,aimed at eliminating the threat of public intellectuals infecting our youth with nonconformity to a corporate agenda.
It may be cheaper for the state to abrogate its public responsibility in the beginning. In the long run we will all pay more dearly for a less educated public. Privatization often winds up costing the public more for less value than public education as it shift public money into private pockets. Poverty itself winds up costing us more in healthcare and higher crime rates. Look at the mess in Chicago. http://projectcensored.org/privatization-of-free-market-industry-costs-billions-more-than-public-services/
Joel,
You will get no argument from me. Over the past ten years, I have witnessed the homogenization of the community college where I adjunct.
Sometimes our little blogosphere jumps into the op-ed-osphere, the bookstoreosphere, or the television-osphere. I reluctantly include social media on the list. We don’t compete with billionaire funded mass media campaigns or lobbying, but we’re not cloistered.
Do not forget our victories as well as our victimizations. Massachusetts defeated Question 2. California approved a great deal of funding and defeated Vergara. OptOut gained national attention. I’m leaving some out… This fight’s not over. This play has not reached its final act. This blog is the hub.
Rudy Schellekens
Is it OK if I call you Rudy Wrong. Its shorter.
https://www.dol.gov/featured/minimum-wage/mythbuster
Ask the Australians about that, theirs is in the 20’s, less 20% on the US Dollar exchange rate. So 18+ – and their cost of living is lower. It is a living wage .
The other counter factual in you fallacious argument is that median wages and all wages have dropped, for all but the top earners. As income inequality has increased . So by by your logic this is good because it just moved the the poverty line down .
Happy new year Diane. I am doing my part, insofar as, for the second semester in a row, “Reign of Error” is required reading in my “Issues in American Education” class at Penn State Abington.
It’s always been possible to construct a system where every student could go to the school of his or her choice. Many advanced countries in Europe already provide as much at the university level. And it does not require the Private Raiding Of Public Education Dollars or vouchers or anything like that. We simply fund a system that provides free transportation to free public schools, all of which are funded equally and at the level that the public demands. Simple, No?
Why do these folks believe that people who are ripped off when buying a toaster will be better informed and make wiser choices when choosing a school???
To call the schools in urban areas and the central cities “failure factories” is a smear and slander against the overwhelming majority of the teachers. The teachers in those struggling schools are working their butts off to help and educate the children. It amounts to demonization in service of an ideology to privatize the schools. It has nothing to do with facts or reality but with this insidious and corrosive free market phony choice garbage. The so called reformers are not only going after the supposedly failing schools but also the excellent schools in the suburbs. They want to impose their version of choice on the high performing schools of the suburbs. Imposing choice, sounds like an oxymoron to me. But “choice” is indeed imposed on school districts without the consent of the taxpayers or residents.
Fred Hiatt should also educated himself about poverty and what it does to the ability of children to learn. No matter how many school choices parents and children have, those choices will do nothing to deal with challenged created by living in poverty. All those choices do is segregate society and enrich the few who own and control the publicly funded, private sector, opaque/secretive, autocratic, often fraulent and inferior, child abusing, for profit, corporate charter school sector.
“There is an achievement gap between more and less disadvantaged students in every country …”
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2013/january/test-scores-ranking-011513.html
10 Facts About How Poverty Impacts Education
#6. Comparisons are misleading
“Education reformers often point to the disparity in test scores and grades between the US and other industrialized countries as a sign that difference in education approaches are the deciding factor. … What drags down the US average is the fact that its poverty rate is higher than in many other wealthy nations, and more firmly entrenched.”
http://www.scilearn.com/blog/ten-facts-about-how-poverty-impacts-education
The impact of poverty on educational outcomes for children (a study from Canada), a report found at the US National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2528798/
Mr. Hiatt, it is despicable and a disgrace to journalism when an ignorant journalist with a national editorial pulpit spouts off and he’s misleading the public with his obvious bias. Shame! Double shame! Triple Shame for being a fool!
So which billionaire is writing him a check? Broad? Gates? The Waltons? The Kochs? This smell of pure manipulation, if we slander the product then we can take it over and make a profit from it.
We must stop the approval of DeVos, she will only make the situation worse.
It’s probably his boss, Jeff Bezos.
Bingo
Bingo too. From the nation:
• The Bezos Foundation has donated to Education Reform Now, a nonprofit organization that funds attack advertisements against teachers’ unions and other advocacy efforts to promote test-based evaluations of teachers. Education Reform Now also sponsors Democrats for Education Reform.
• The Bezos Foundation provided $500,000 to NBC Universal to sponsor the Education Nation, a media series devoted to debating high-stakes testing, charter schools and other education reforms.
• The Bezos Foundation provided over $100,000 worth of Amazon stock to the League of Education Voters Foundation to help pass the education reform in Washington State. Last year, the group helped pass I-1240, a ballot measure that created a charter school system in Washington State. In many states, charter schools open the door for privatization by inviting for-profit charter management companies to take over public schools that are ostensibly run by nonprofits.
https://www.thenation.com/article/jeff-bezoss-other-endeavor-charter-schools-neoliberal-education-reforms/
The evolution of ed reform is interesting. This started with charters sold as “the innovation arm of public schools”. Then it was expanded to charters as a separate and competing sector, but no vouchers for private schools. Then it was expanded to include private schools. Now they’re promoting a 100% voucher, privatized system.
They really misled the public. I have more respect for the ed reformers who admit the goal is eradicating public schools. These “middle ground” people get to the same place but in a much more dishonest way. For God’s sake just admit you’re promoting privatized systems and get on with it. We can’t have a debate if ed reformers won’t come clean on what the goal is.
what I said to Fred.
Fred, You are so ill informed that it is hard to know where to begin. You have no moral compass. You think it is perfectly OK to enlist parents and their children as guinea pigs for another federally funded education experiment.
Been there. Done that. Over the last 25 years, US taxpayers have poured nearly $4 billion into charters through Department of Education grants (in both Democratic and Republican administrations). I suggest you become informed about the federal funds that have already been poured into charter schools and charter school facilities and the absence of any peer reviewed proofs of their superior performance over public schools.
Charter schools are not really public schools. They are privately operated, a fact that shows up as soon as there is court action or a public records request. The charter school is an industry awash in funds. Billionaires who know nothing about education and plenty of excess money are spending fortunes on charters. For example, since 1992 the Walton family foundation has invested more than $1.3 billion in charter schools. They have a plan to spend another billion by 2020.
If you want to learn about charter schools, there are plenty of cities where this “experiment” has been performed. Your ignorance may entitle you to an opinion, but the opinion is nothing more than hot air.
For your edification, See http://www.epi.org/publication/exploring-the-consequences-of-charter-school-expansion-in-u-s-cities/ and
http://www.prwatch.org/news/2015/04/12799/new-documents-show-how-federal-taxpayer-money-wasted-charter-schools
So are you advocating for a change in teacher education as well? To me, that would be a first place
Good education starts with well educated teachers. And if you want to keep using Finland as a model, there is a lot of work that has to start in the colleges.
Rudy, teacher education is all over the place in the United States, because the 15,000 public school districts in the U.S. are divided up among 50 states, each state with its own education code. Education is mostly a state responsibility and not the federal government’s.
In the U.S., the worst teacher training is through TFA and the best through urban residencies but the corporate charter school industry and the federal department of education under Obama promoted TFA and ignored urban resident teacher training programs.
Read chapter 10 in Dana Goldstein’s “The Teacher Wars: A History of Americans Most Embattled Profession” to learn more.
And even in states, there are differences in teacher education. I know that – remember, I work for a k-12 district.
But even in some of the nation’s best schools, there still is a big difference between the European model and the US.
THEN AGAIN, I wonder how big a difference there would be in the day to day teaching if all the meetings and paperwork demands would lessen?
How I hated meetings unless they were a department meeting without an administrator in attendance. Then we might actually get something done or at least have an interesting conversation where we complained about administration.
Sounds like a good idea to me. But keep in mind that university education is free in Finland. The chances of having tuition free university education in the US? Ha, ha, ha, surely I jest. We can’t even get true universal health care in this country and it’s 2017.
Joe,
All education in Finland is tuition free, including college and grad school. It is an investment in the future.
“Free” is such a strange term in this context. NOTHING is free. Yes, the Scandinavian countries see continued education as a right.
But, “The Personal Income Tax Rate in Finland stands at 51.60 percent. Personal Income Tax Rate in Finland averaged 52.96 percent from 1995 until 2016, reaching an all time high of 62.20 percent in 1995 and a record low of 49.00 percent in 2010…”
So, how “free” is “free?”
It was easy for both Sanders and Clinton to talk about “free” education. Taxing the 1% is not raising enough money even close to pay for that – and all the other “free” things.
I paid for my own education, for my wife’s education and helped two kids with theirs.
But then, I never owned a new car, (currently own my first car that is less than 10 yrs old), bought a 100+ yr old house.
A lot of it depends on choices.
I would gladly pay more taxes for a Finnish style education for all
How MUCH more? Twice as much? Not sure about you, but there are lots of people who honestly cannot afford to be so generous.
Unless of course, your house is paid for, you have no loans to pay off, you have reached your summit in personal education – in short, you have “arrived.”
But as long as you are still in that road, you could not afford to pay twice as much.
If everyone paid more taxes, we could afford better schools and public services. Instead, billionaires like Trump dodge paying any taxes
Have you done the math, dr?
Apart from that, how MUCH education do you want to make “free?”
K-16? Master’s? Doctorate? Post?
How “free” do you want to make it? Tuition only? Tuition and textbooks? Tuition, textbooks and r/b?
Or are you planing a “basic income” while studying? If so, starting at what level?
We can afford it, Rudy. All public education should be tuition-free. Think of the trillions we squandered on wars in the mid=east, with nothing to show for it but body bags and a complete disruption of the region. What if that money had been invested in educating children and adults? I can dream, can’t I?
You will notice that when politicians want to go to war, no one ever says, “but we can’t afford it.”
Wasn’t my question. My question(s) ask for actual answers.
So, please, give actual answers to the questions, rather than “a dream.” Dreams are nice – but impractical.
You asked what I believe, and I said I believe that all public education–including higher education at public institutions–should be tuition free. I didn’t ask whether you were willing to pay for it.
You want free. I did not say whether or not was willing to pay. My questions were practical, and since you are the one who wants it free, I would expect you to have suggestions, other than “tax the rich…”
Not have you given any suggestions as to where free begins or ends.
My work style, and pretty much everything I do, is based on finding solutions for problems. I diagnose a problem, I find a series of possible solutions.
Looking for the same from you. You have declared time and again that education is in trouble. But every time I asked you for a solution, I get impractical answers, and a standard democratic answer: let someone else pay for it.
I hear nothing about assuming personal responsibilities (who knows: save money?) along with other options.
Rudy,
Tax the rich.
And, BTW, the question was not what you BELIEVE. I know that. My question was, what are some ways you see this actually happening?
Rudy, it won’t happen during Trump’s reign of ignorance and greed, but in four years the public will understand that our future as a nation requires a greater investment in educational opportunity.
Rudy,
I didn’t say education was free. I said it was tuition free. Finns say education is a human right and people should not pay for human rights.
The Swedish and danish government have changed their view on that. It is a “civil” right if you are born and raised in those Nordic countries.
In the Netherlands education is “free” until age 17. Of course, your parents spend hundreds of euros on textbooks each year, a little less if they rent those.
University level cost has raised dramatically over the years (for parents and students).
Finland, by the way, has some completion rules etc., so there is a limit to how much of a “civil right” it is.
But this is a wandering off subject.
If you want to change education in the US closer to the Finnish model, you HAVE to start at the beginning – and that is the training of teachers.
Rudy Schellekens
The average middle class tax payer pays on average a 30% effective tax,15% Federal + 6% with holding + all state and local taxes after deduction. Now I do not know how your 51 % figure breaks down. However what is not in our tax rate is Medical insurance at a cost for my family Cadillac plan of 28,000, extrapolate from there, if you have to buy your own. I assure you when Obamacare is gone Employer provided health care resumes its slide to oblivion. As owners of small companies 50 or more employees are no longer required to provide it. .
(“ObamaCare means that small employers with less than 50 full-time equivalent employees won’t pay a fine if they do not provide health insurance and those with less than 25 full-time equivalent employees can get tax breaks of up to 50% of the cost of their employees’ premium costs via their State’s Health Insurance …”)
OOPS .
Add the cost of tuition forget, the books room and board . Add the cost of retirement plans far more generous than social security.
Yes as Jeffery Sachs says “we can not expect wealthy nations with bennifits to keep taking in the poor of the world and not see Trumpism and Brexit . We have to stop wasting money on Wars and spend it on development ” So I would imagine Finland is starting to limit benefits to native Fins . Now Even when the CUNY system was free there were entrance requirements . However the Community College system was also free and provided a back door to a 4 yr degree for late bloomers.
Now I don’t need any of these things, I have been very blessed by good fortune to be in a strong union and more blessed to be in the right place at the right time with in that industry because many,many others do not have the same story to tell. I doubt my three College educated children will .
So frighten me with a good time . I would like to be as miserable as the Northern Europeans.
Rudy: University or higher ed in Finland and many of the other Western european countries is TUITION free or free at the point of entry. Of course it is funded with tax dollars. Our public roads, interstate highways, police departments, fire departments, etc. are financed by tax dollars. They pay more in taxes BUT THEY GET MORE BACK with “free” education, universal health care and many other benefits we can only dream of in this selfish greedy me me me me me me me country. Me first, everyone else go to hell, that’s the libertarian/right wing, Randian motto.
Rudy: are you posting the top marginal tax rates (for the richest Finns) for Finland and not the tax rate for a middle class Finn?
As the quote said, it was average.
And when you look at the European tax rates, you see how “free” it all is. And should you take the time to look a little deeper, you will see that taxes are creeping up year after year because it is not sustainable.
I left the Netherlands 20 years ago, and when I communicate with my six siblings, it becomes more and more expensive to have everything for “free.”
Wait a minute, Rudy’s right. We are in fact advocating a change to improve the quality of teacher education. We are advocating to end TFA temping and fully restore teaching to being a desirable, lifelong profession.
Those are externals.
Compare the education length, depth and level between Western Europe (not just Finland) with the US, and you will find significant differences between the two.
That is where you would have to start if you want to truly change.
Unions are much less important than the changes in training.
All Finnish educators are in the same union.
Unions are much less important than the preparation of high level teachers.
Rudy Schellekens
Who is asking for high level teachers. Remember that myth about meritocracy and a skills shortage. A high level teacher would be one who is well trained and well compensated for that training. That just so happens to coincide with collective bargaining in many sectors of the economy and many occupations .
So of the 29 construction deaths in NYC this year 27 of them happened to be in the non Union sector focused on smaller projects . Must say something about the training.
They want profit to hell with the training.
Look at the difference in training between US and Finland.
Until those changes are real, there will be a definite difference to be made up.
Rudy: You want reform. You can’t have it both ways. In Utah, teachers can now have no training at all–just a bachelor’s degree. That’s because compensation and respect are at such poor levels that nearly 50% of teachers in Utah leave education within the first five years.
You’re not going to have people willing to undergo Finland-level training (and having to pay tuition for it, unlike Finland) for a job with no future. Until you and others start treating teachers like professionals, and calling for professional compensation for teachers (including union representation), you will not get your Finland-style training.
“Until you and others start treating teachers like professionals, and calling for professional compensation for teachers (including union representation), you will not get your Finland-style training.”
Union representation is the least important of all.
I DO treat teachers with respect. Too often, it is the other way around. Many teachers act like prima donnas – the whole world revolves around them. They are the only ones who count. My entire group had that same feeling: any one who does not have an educational degree does not count, and has no input or opinion of importance. And yet: a computer doesn’t start, and teaching comes to a screaching halt.
When I first started teaching teachers, I was ignored. Got tired of that, and decide after that I would include my educational credentials to the hand-outs. Amazing, the difference.
But my credentials (theology) are totally unrelated to my job (technology), so there really was no reason to flaunt them.
When teachers gush about my computer knowledge, I make it clear I’m no smarter than they are. I just happen to know about computers. Don’t ask me to teach science or physics (geography, foreign languages and history, no problem).
What amazes me is that still too many teacher ex programs do not make use of technology a mandatory, all through the program, as a requirement. It currently is one of the most important tools in a class room.
Wages? In my state, new teachers start off with $ 34,000 with full benefits. After 30 years, with a MA they make close to 70,000. If they become principals, it can go above 110,000.
I consider that a good wage.
It’s 2.5 times as much as I make at the end of my career. And I can honestly say that the impact my group had on education gets bigger and bigger by the day.
When I hear a teacher say that they cannot teach that day because the smart board does not work, I DO lose respect. If they totally depend on whether or not the technology works, something is wrong.
Thank you, Diane, Joel, and T.O.W. I couldn’t have said it better.
Expecting Finnish-style education system all across the nation? State-wide, city-wide? Regardless of family income, race, ethnicity, gender, social well-being? If that’s truly what you are looking for, then, a complete halt of privatization machine is a prerequisite. Forget about bogus teacher training programs under the name of TFA(Wonder what it stands for. Temporary Factory Association??) It’s not gonna happen unless people find their way to keep off state/national Ed deformers, corporate hedge-fund managers, testing culture vultures, and billionaires from mass-producing Privaterminators that would destroy public education. In the age of Trump and Devos, it couldn’t get much worse than now.
Temps for America
For true school choice for poor kids, we need at least three things that no choice proponent has yet advocated.
First, if we are going to have vouchers, then the voucher should provide full tuition for any private school a student wants to attend, including those with annual tuition in the 5 figures. As it stands, poor kids on vouchers are limited to those schools where they can afford to pay the amount the voucher doesn’t cover, and many kids can’t even afford that. it does not level the playing field. I watched Betsy DeVos push vouchers in Michigan using this argument but providing funds that would not allow poor kids to attend most, if any, private schools while subsidizing those already attending private schools, including at the Christian schools the DeVos family supports.
Second, we have to require voucher schools to accept and retain all students on the same basis that traditional public schools are required to do. Otherwise, the choice belongs to the school, not to the student.
Third, we have to require voucher schools to provide the same services, including special education, at the same levels that public schools are required to do.
Without these fundamental requirements, the promise of school choice as an equalizer is a lie.
ML Mason,
And voucher students should take the same tests.
I have a better idea. Let’s not have any vouchers.
I am not in favor of vouchers. I was trying to point out the lie behind the arguments for vouchers. I just left unsaid the virtual certainty that my three conditions are never going to happen and so vouchers can never even pretend to provide equal opportunity.
The first line of the opinion piece: “For most Americans, school choice is an undisputed right.”
Can someone please point to where “school choice” is delineated as a “right” in either a state or the federal constitution?
What?? It’s impossible?
Yes, it’s impossible as there is no such exclusive right outlined in either a state or the federal constitution. Is Hiatt implying that most Americans are dirt ignorant for not knowing that fact?
The federal constitution exists to protect and secure rights for the states and the people. There are many rights and freedoms, that we all enjoy, but are not listed explicitly in the constitution.
See the Tenth Amendment:
The full text of the amendment reads as follows:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people
The right to privacy is not listed in the constitution, but we have this right, notwithstanding.
Parents do have the right to determine the course of their children’s education. Parents (if they can afford tuition) can send their children to a private school. (See President Obama).
If children go to a private or religious school, parents should pay for it, not taxpayers.
Agreed. We discussed home-schooling before. Should parents who home-school their children, be entitled to some financial and administrative support from the local public school? And should home-schooled children be permitted to participate in extra-curricular activities at the local school?
If parents home school, they should not expect to receive any money from the government. I see no reason why their children should be barred from sports or other activities.
They do get services from public school districts. All depends on the requested services from parents.
Q They do get services from public school districts. All depends on the requested services from parents. END Q
Rudy, the services which home-schoolers get from their local public school district varies from place to place. Here in Fairfax County, VA, home-schoolers get no support of any kind from the public schools. The children may not participate in band, or sports, or any extra-curricular activities. (I have a friend who has eight (8) children that he and his wife home-school, and he showed the regulations to me)
Que triste!
Subsidized home schooling? Hey, that gives me some great moneymaking ideas!!! Will the government give me money if I want to deliver my own mail to people? How about if I want to stand in an intersection and direct my own traffic? This is awesome! I could get subsidies for buying guns so the army doesn’t have to. (I made even myself laugh with that last one.)
Left Coast,
Are you going to put out your own fire? Will you write your own traffic tickets? You could run your own trial.
I am not necessarily advocating “subsidizing” home-schoolers. But, I think it would be terrific, if public schools would work with, and assist home-schoolers. Of course, home-schooled children should be able to participate in extra-curricular activities.
Every public school, should have a liaison office, to provide administrative and logistical support to home-schooling parents.
Advice on curriculum, test preparation, even advice on how to obtain financial aid for college, and how to apply for college.
Home-schooling is already part of the “mix” in K-12 education here in the USA. (A friend of mine, in Kentucky, won a national award for home-schooling).
If you truly wish to head off providing financial aid to home-schoolers through vouchers, then public schools should be providing assistance “in kind” to home-schoolers.
Agree?
I don’t think the public should pay anything for home schoolers. Let them participate in sports, yes. Pay them to be educated by their parents? No.
Imagine parents who never finished high school. If they choose to home school, their children will get no education, or nothing more than what their parents know. That’s stupid, although just right for the Era of Trump.
Or, maybe those parents are smart enough to stay a few pages ahead of their children, and become better educated, too??
Remember, “Being one page ahead of the rest of the class makes an expert…”
Sports in most if not all European countries is not part of public school curriculum. In most if not all European countries sports is outside of the public education system and not pat of it.
Parents must pay on their own and offer support to their children in those sports programs outside of the regular public education system. I repeat, competitive sports for children is outside of public education systems in most if not all European countries.
When anyone compares what the U.S. spends per child to educated them to these countries, it’s never mentioned that every dollar in most if not all European countries goes toward academic education and is not shared with competitive, costly sports prgorams.
“Sports are embedded in American schools in a way they are not almost anywhere else.”
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/10/the-case-against-high-school-sports/309447/
It would be interesting to know just how much of every tax dollar that goes to U.S. public schools is used to support those competitive sports programs. After subtracting that cost, we’d then have the actual dollars spend on academics and be able to compare fairly what the U.S. spends to other countries that spend nothing on sports programs in their schools.
For instance, Athletics: Where Budget Balancers Fear to Tread?
With Texas public schools facing cuts of as much as $10 billion in state funding, predictions of the consequence have been dire: teacher layoffs, bigger class sizes, fewer instructional days. One topic conspicuously absent from the conversation: athletics.” …
“According to the data … 2.5 percent of district’s general operating expenses were spent on extracurricular actives, including athletics, That came out to be about $157 per student.”
https://www.texastribune.org/2011/02/03/athletics-where-budget-balancers-fear-to-tread/
Depending on the size/success of districts, the main athletic programs CAN (I capitalize because that is the only way to emphasize – personally, I don’t do yelling) finance their own costs. Booster clubs help, too.
And yes, when my sons wanted to play soccer (organized, not down the street in the park) they could not – because it was too expensive. Later on, they did get to participate in little league baseball – cheaper than soccer, actually.
Is this a response to me cemab4y?
Just a general response. We have many rights and freedoms, which are not explicitly set forth in any constitution. Freedom is God-given. No government grants any rights nor freedoms. Governments are instituted among men (people) to protect and ensure our rights.
The right to influence and determine the course of your children’s education rests with parents, alone. No government will dictate this to any citizen.
Lots of people do not have freedom, regardless of what constitutions or laws may say.
I agree with ” We have many rights and freedoms, which are not explicitly set forth in any constitution.”
But I do not agree with “Freedom is God-given.” Freedom is an inherently human condition that can be abridged by other humans. No gods necessary to explain freedom. Rights, while not “given” by a government they are rightly enforced by a government otherwise we would have “might makes right” as the base philosophy of society.
And yes, parents should have the final say in how their child is educated. But that is not what “school choice”, as the term is currently used by the edudeformers and privateers means.
Parents already have “choices”. If they want they can opt out of public schooling in a number of different fashions. The state is mandated by the state’s constitution to provide education/schooling for all students and whether a parent uses that option is up to them. There is “choice”.
cemab4y: http://hslda.org/laws/Equal_Access/Virginia_eq.asp
Homeschoolers can indeed participate in a buffet style of whatever the local community public school offers, from sports to clubs to even single classes. At least in Missouri they can.
I am delighted that home-schooled children can participate in extra-curricular activities in Missouri. More states should emulate their example.
Home-schooling is here to stay, nationwide. I would like to see public schools, working with home-schoolers, to assist them in their efforts.
Advice on curriculum, and preparation for standardized tests, and assistance in textbook selection, all of these could help the home-schoolers.
Advocates of public schools are always pushing (correctly) for reduced class size. Home-schoolers always have smaller classes, that the public schools!
Home schoolers sometimes have uneducated parents. That’s a prescription for a static society.
Off topic- Thanks to Karl Zimmerman and Sen Holiday, for their service to the nation. They are in jail, after their arena climb to hoist the No Dakota Access Pipeline Banner, targeting US Bank’s investment in the pipeline.
Common Dreams commenters describe NPR’s NADL reporting that protected the bank. It’s reminiscent of NPR’s coverage of ed rephorm.
A federalized Finland-like education system simply ain’t gonna happen in a near or far future. A political structure capable of eliminating poverty at any governmental level is equally unreasonable. Educators complaining among educators seems silly, however, “feel good.” And insulting the ability of the non-educator citizen to make good choices, is embarrassing. We need them on our side. Short of another cultural revolution akin to the union movement of early last century, the prohibition movement of the same period, and the anti-war movement of my generation, I don’t think the slide away from traditional public education can be reversed. I do think that over time, the negatives of “ed reform” will die of their own accord but the public education system in the United States will never return to the (sometimes mistakenly) wistful days prior to 1991.
It was embarrassing for Microsoft Canada’s self-anointed “education partner” to say in an Entrepreneur magazine article, “teachers have to shift or get off the pot”. Thank God, the Network for Public Education, Diane, Mercedes Schneider and others want to protect your children and mine, your grandchildren and mine, from the crass sleaze who are trying to takeover schools and privatize America’s most important common good.
I see some “realpolitik” here. The USA is not going to head towards a Scandinavian-style type of socialism. So just forget it.
Some major changes in education are heading for the USA. I believe that educators should see about getting on the train, or the train is going to pull out, and leave all of them at the station.
CEMA4BY
That train is headed to a high cliff. There are children on the train. Do not get on that train! When it goes over the cliff, make sure the children are not on board!
I disagree. Public school educators and advocates, need to work with the new education policies, which are going to be promulgated at the federal level. Instead of running around saying “The sky is falling!”, how about some compromise?
Cema4by,
No compromise with greed and stupidity.
No compromise with ignorance.
No compromise with the enemies of science, knowledge, and evidence.
Go preach to the other choir, the one that believes in a post-factual world.
Why do you keep commenting here?
I am not suggesting that anyone compromise with stupidity, ignorance,etc. I am suggesting that professional educators should compromise with the reforms, which are going to be heading down from the new team in Washington.
You can and you should, insist that teachers/administrators/parents get a “fair deal”. Insist on proper funding for special needs children, the handicapped, the gifted/talented.
All of us have a stake, in determining education policy at the federal/state/municipal/school board level. Now, is not the time, to just “fold your hand”, and walk away.
And I comment here (and elsewhere), because I am interested in the topic. Maybe you and the other participants here, should be open to alternate points of view. There are many things, on which I agree, and some things on which I disagree.
One thing, on which all of us should agree, is that we should put parents and children first. Top priority.
William,
We have had about 20 years of failed reforms. Why shouldnt we follow a different model?
Diane,
You claim that we have had 20 years of failed reforms. Let us try for some new unfilled reforms now.
Raj,
I suggest that we do those things that are based on research and evidence. If you read “Reign of Error,” you know that every recommended “reform” comes with an evidence base. I can’t say the same for high-stakes testing, value-added assessment of teachers, letter grades for schools, charter schools, vouchers, or merit pay, the failed ideas of this era.
You keep tauting Finland as a model. Research based. Proven model. But I guess you don’t want to do that. Your solution is limited to “tax the rich.”
Tax me too.
Disappointed. I would so much like to see you start a school for teachers based on the Finish model. THAT is productive. Raising taxes is going to do what has been happening since I have been here: throwing more money down the same money pit, and no status-quo.
Ok, Rudy. I will start a new teacher-preparation college.
But Trump will destroy teacher education and shower millions on TFA, like Obama
Prove him wrong. SHOWhim there are better ways. Are you a believer in fatalism or something??
We would like to have funding that matches need instead of having cheap automation and outsourcing to cheap temps, but we’d settle for you reformsters halting all the fraudulent swindling of funds through privatization. Just put the money we have where the kids are. That’s not Communism — unless you’re Jackie Gleason in Smokey and the Bandit.
Ah yeah, someone here thinks Finnish-style education is mass-producable across the nation once it gets started. Wishful thinking. Like a pie-in-the-sky Japanese MEXT officials love to draw for over a half century.
Can I PUKE now? Where’s the bucket?
Teaching can only be as strong as its weakest link.
Until that link is strengthened, little will change.
Ten hours a week (if we’re lucky) of non-teaching time
to plan, develop activities, write tests, grade, improve
instruction, produce visual aids, collaborate, mentor,
contact parents, attend meetings, offer extra help,
carry out extra-curricular duties,maintain classrooms, etc.
simply doesn’t come close.
What often appears to be lack of effort, mediocrity,
or indifference is usually just one more teacher
who ran out of TIME.
Actually, Diane, New Orleans has five public schools left, but staff was recently informed, literally at the same time as this news article was published, on a Friday evening in December, that we are going to be converting to a charter. Parents are fighting this, and I have contacted the Network for Public Education for help, but not received word back. I work at the highest scoring open enrollment elementary school in New Orleans, and our school performance score increased this year, so we did not think we were in danger of takeover. We were wrong. http://www.nola.com/education/index.ssf/2016/12/new_orleans_all_charter.html