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mousehop
Whenever we discuss vouchers, school choice, etc., there are a couple things we have to be totally honest about. When we see a lousy school, what are we really looking at? Out-of-date text books? Overcrowding? Incompetent teachers? Or are we looking at something else? Gangs? Crime/violence? Student and parent apathy? Are those who take advantage of these programs running to better schools or simply running from the environments that create bad ones? I go back to my original premise. It's poverty and the subsequent problems associated with it. I had some awful teachers, but I also had some great ones. We definitely need a way to weed out the ones who don't belong in front of a classroom, however, when assessing accountability, we have to factor in a school's environment, student body, and parental involvement. Those are the raw materials educators need to build something lasting moreso than books, computers, and lesson plans. If one teacher in one neighborhood gets a pile of straw and another teacher in another neighborhood gets a pile of bricks, we all know what happens when the big, bad wolf comes around. It's not always a teacher's fault. My problem with vouchers and school choice are they're only temporary solutions. It's like a packed ocean liner is sinking, but there are only a few life rafts, so we have to figure out who paddles to safety and who goes down with the ship. Don't get me wrong. If there's a way to "save" some by providing a decent education, by all means we should do so, but I'm also concerned with the big picture. If, as Corbin Dallas states, the under-performing schools go away, what happens to the students left behind? Are they shuffled to another under-performing school where the cherry-picking process starts all over again? That's simply not good enough. Without a decent education, we know what happens next. I fear we, as a society, will have to deal with them one way or another. If we can't figure out how to give these students a book today, we'll have to throw the book at them tomorrow.
posted by
Talion_
on January 27, 2009 at 10:33 PM
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Re: I think all of the problems stated here.........
Sadly, I also agree with you, Corbin Dallas. The teachers unions don't have the student's interests as their primary focus. And increasing school choice would give all parents a way of expressing their concerns that could not be ignored. But the experience with Charter Schools in Ohio has been mixed at best, and even the voucher system for private school tuition for those in at-risk schools has not been successful in improving results. At least not yet.
posted by
mousehop
on January 27, 2009 at 2:48 PM
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Re: mousehop
I'm afraid I agree with you on this, even the part about not knowing how to achieve it. Poverty is a major, maybe the major factor in education. That's the one thing the NCLB tests have shown.
posted by
mousehop
on January 27, 2009 at 2:43 PM
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I think all of the problems stated here.........
only reinforce the need for school choice......If parents and students are given vouchers that would allow a student to attend the the school of their choice.......Schools like friendship’s Collegiate Academy High School in DC, part of the charter school system, everyone one would benefit......choice makes underproducing schools improve or go away. It forces public schools to improve or lose students and thus federal funds to the better schools.....
The teachers unions do not focus their attention toward the students, but instead focus on tenure and protecting the status of their membership.........
posted by
Corbin_Dallas
on January 27, 2009 at 8:29 AM
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Very pertinent points!
posted by
Soul_Builder101
on January 26, 2009 at 1:48 AM
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Mousehop, your post was intriguing, as was Tailon's comment. It seems that the reasons for the problem are clear, but the solution is yet to be determined. Personally, I don't think that every issue should be dumped on the government's doorstep to be resolved. That can only lead to frustration anyway (because nothing concrete will happen unless it will benefit a politician) and most of the 'well-to-do' (of which group a politician is part) tend to ignore any problem until it touches their hems. If you want results, you must look to and organise the ordinary citizen. Only they, working together with a strong and motivated leader, can find and implement the solution. And it only takes one person to start it. Remember Rosa Parks.
posted by
adnohr
on January 25, 2009 at 3:00 PM
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mousehop
At the risk of oversimplifying, the problems with our school systems reflect one of the biggest problems of our society as a whole, class. Lousy public schools aren’t the cause. They’re the effect. Poverty is the cause. Good public schools are in good neighborhoods (meaning more affluent) while bad public schools are in bad neighborhoods (meaning poor) and the supposedly best schools of all are private (meaning for the wealthy). (A side note: Isn't it odd how working hard, sacrificing, and playing by the rules in the hope of achieving a higher rung on the great socioeconomic ladder is packaged as the American dream, yet those who have already attained these mythic upper echelons are derisively deemed "elitist" by those who haven't?) The concept of poverty, like most things, is politicized, pitting the liberal (it’s not their fault) versus the conservative (poverty is the result of moral failure). Tweaking various statistics concerning violent crime, drug use, teen pregnancy, etc. makes both sides appear correct. Repeated bad decisions and a lack of responsibility compounds these problems and race certainly further muddies the waters. However, nothing gets done to address or combat the problem because poor people mostly don’t have money to contribute to political campaigns and seldom vote. (A side note: Isn't it odd that when a teen girl in the inner city gets pregnant, if anyone cares, it's only to prove the continued erosion of the nuclear family, the abject failure of "liberal" policies, and/or the devastating effect of a secular rather than a Christianity-based social structure, yet when the same thing happens to an upper middle class teen who's the daughter of a certain conservative governor, it's no big deal because the young couple plan to marry anyway and such family matters should not be discussed publicly?) Thus, the school system reflects the grand pyramid that capitalism creates. If we can transform our thinking from the me-and-mine to the us-and-our, redirect the capitalistic goal from strictly profit to profit and purpose, if we can move from a have-and-have-not system to a have-and-have-more, the problems our schools face would be greatly diminished. If only I knew how to achieve it.
posted by
Talion_
on January 25, 2009 at 2:32 PM
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