11 years since No Child Left Behind (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/02/09/a-warning-to-college-profs-from-a-high-school-teacher/?tid=pm_pop)!
QuoteYou are a college professor.
I have just retired as a high school teacher.
I have some bad news for you. In case you do not already see what is happening, I want to warn you of what to expect from the students who will be arriving in your classroom, even if you teach in a highly selective institution.
No Child Left Behind went into effect for the 2002–03 academic year, which means that America's public schools have been operating under the pressures and constrictions imposed by that law for a decade. Since the testing requirements were imposed beginning in third grade, the students arriving in your institution have been subject to the full extent of the law's requirements. While it is true that the U.S. Department of Education is now issuing waivers on some of the provisions of the law to certain states, those states must agree to other provisions that will have as deleterious an effect on real student learning as did No Child Left Behind—we have already seen that in public schools, most notably in high schools.
QuoteEven during those times when I could assign work that required proper writing, I was limited in how much work I could do on their writing. I had too many students. In my final year, with four sections of Advanced Placement, I had 129 AP students (as well as an additional forty-six students in my other two classes). A teacher cannot possibly give that many students the individualized attention they need to improve their writing. Do the math. Imagine that I assign all my students a written exercise. Let's assume that 160 actually turn it in. Let's further assume that I am a fast reader, and I can read and correct papers at a rate of one every three minutes. That's eight hours—for one assignment. If it takes a more realistic five minutes per paper, the total is more than thirteen hours.
Further, the AP course required that a huge amount of content be covered, meaning that too much effort is spent on learning information and perhaps insufficient time on wrestling with the material at a deeper level. I learned to balance these seemingly contradictory requirements. For much of the content I would give students summary information, sufficient to answer multiple-choice questions and to get some of the points on rubrics for the free response questions. That allowed me more time for class discussions and for relating events in the news to what we learned in class, making the class more engaging for the students and resulting in deeper learning because the discussions were relevant to their lives.
From what I saw from the free response questions I read, too many students in AP courses were not getting depth in their learning and lacked both the content knowledge and the ability to use what content knowledge they had.
The structure of testing has led to students arriving at our school without what previously would have been considered requisite background knowledge in social studies, but the problem is not limited to this field. Students often do not get exposure to art or music or other nontested subjects. In high-need schools, resources not directly related to testing are eliminated: at the time of the teachers' strike last fall, 160 Chicago public schools had no libraries. Class sizes exceeded forty students—in elementary school.
QuoteNow you are seeing the results in the students arriving at your institutions. They may be very bright. But we have not been able to prepare them for the kind of intellectual work that you have every right to expect of them. It is for this that I apologize, even as I know in my heart that there was little more I could have done. Which is one reason I am no longer in the classroom.
Based on what I've heard from friends who have worked in education this seems extremely spot on.
NCLB was also inevitable, given the American punishment culture.
I read this earlier. It's so disgustingly true.
My Roman history professor, 2 years ago, said in front of the class, "Look, I know most of you are products of No Child Left Behind, but would it behoove you to actually do some damn work?"
On the bright side, a better chance to get into graduate school for me, because you aren't getting through undergrad without writing papers.
Yep.
This is one of the reasons I literally do not give a flying fuck whether my children do well in, or even graduate from, high school. It's utter shit. I would rather they drop out and spend the next couple of years doing self-guided learning, and then take the GED and got to community college for a couple of years before transferring.
In fact, I feel that in many ways they are better off without high school transcripts at all.
The note is correct in that the students ARE bright. They aren't DUMB by any stretch, and some of them really do want to learn and try, but they aren't being taught properly. This is one of the main reasons why I don't want to teach high school. If I did, I'd actually want to, you know, teach.
None of this is making me feel good about the kids starting school again in the fall...
The children are our future; is this not the future you wanted?
BRB gonna go punch myself in the balls while I meditate on this.
I agree. I also think that No Child Left Behind suffers horribly from the "Incorrect feedback makes retaining knowledge difficult" science finding (which I can't find the link to at the moment).
Over in educational publishing (where I work), there is an enormous focus on "efficacy". Basically, the need to measure improvement. And this is a big part of NCLB - state standards, being able to identify who is not being educated effectively, etc.
Prior to NCLB, there were fewer ways to evaluate (at the federal level) whether or not a school was doing any good at educating its students. Efficacy is also important to publishers because it becomes an empirical measuring stick they can use to move product. "Kids who used our books got 20% better grades than kids who used our competitors books."
And when we follow this trend down the long curve, we can see that emphasis on high stakes tests and one-size-fits-all state standards is ultimately decreasing the quality of education. But how would you actually measure that without coming up with ... well ... some other kind of state standards?
If we are to overturn NCLB, and I hope we do, we need to come up with a better means of measuring student advancement. IMHO the emphasis on efficacy needs to be paired with an emphasis on validity --- that is does state standard 1.3.1.4 represent mastery of a real-world skill? One that's important to getting employment in the 21st century?
Schools that suck at education -- what should we do at the federal level to help them out? I don't like NCLB's answer (basically fire and replace the staff), but the problems which NCLB addresses (like kids in many parts of the country graduating with a 5th grade reading level) are real problems.
Quote from: Cramulus on August 08, 2013, 09:20:24 PM
And when we follow this trend down the long curve, we can see that emphasis on high stakes tests and one-size-fits-all state standards is ultimately decreasing the quality of education. But how would you actually measure that without coming up with ... well ... some other kind of state standards?
The high water mark of American education was 1965-1983. The model that worked then would work now, though the curriculum would obviously be different.
Cram, teachers go to college for SIX YEARS to learn to teach and to assess progress. Furthermore, they are required to have annual ongoing postgraduate training. There are tests like the SAT and college placement exams that test a student's readiness to enter college. Furthermore, every year the next teacher sees the progress made by the previous teacher. Why do we need standardized testing to assess progress?
The worst thing to ever happen to our educational system is mandatory standardized testing and tying funding to performance on those tests.
Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on August 09, 2013, 02:39:16 AM
Cram, teachers go to college for SIX YEARS to learn to teach and to assess progress. Furthermore, they are required to have annual ongoing postgraduate training. There are tests like the SAT and college placement exams that test a student's readiness to enter college. Furthermore, every year the next teacher sees the progress made by the previous teacher. Why do we need standardized testing to assess progress?
The worst thing to ever happen to our educational system is mandatory standardized testing and tying funding to performance on those tests.
When I graduated in 2000 in Florida, we had ONE test we HAD to take, and that was the HSCT, or the High School Competency Test. It was basically a GED test. I missed one question on the whole damn thing. If you failed, you had one shot to take it again, if you failed that, you did not get a diploma. We had the CTBS testing through elementary and middle school (this was more of a placement test to see if you qualified for honors than anything) and the Florida Writes Exam, which was administered in 5th, 8th, and 10th grade. That was exactly like what was on the GRE, it assessed your essay writing skills, because they STRESSED these things. You need writing and comprehension skills to succeed.
When I was in 10th grade, they put me in the beta for the FCAT, the test that would become Florida's downfall. This thing...OMG. They grabbed me from class and said, "Take this." 2 hours of my life, with no prep, and I got a 75 on it. A solid C. The math was stuff I had not taken yet, and even though it counted for absolutely nothing, and doesn't show up on my transcript, it nearly brought me to tears. There is no more CTBS test, no more Florida Writes, only the FCAT. I did better on the SAT and the ACT than that fucking beta test. It seemed entirely unreasonable to test 10th graders on calculus and difficult vocabulary that was at least on the senior level. But, they accepted it. That's why Florida schools are so fucking bad. It's not the students, it's not the teachers, it's not the schools in general, it's that fucking test. Students are graduating with test answers, no writing skills, no vocational skills, no logic or anything. The Rhode Island test is even worse, and the schools in Providence are absolutely terrible. This is a relatively low-income area with lots of immigrants, of COURSE the tests aren't going to yield good results, and neither is closing the damn schools that have the low scores. It's not fucking fair to these kids.
This all kinda makes me think maybe I don't want to teach.
Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on August 09, 2013, 02:39:16 AM
Cram, teachers go to college for SIX YEARS to learn to teach and to assess progress. Furthermore, they are required to have annual ongoing postgraduate training. There are tests like the SAT and college placement exams that test a student's readiness to enter college. Furthermore, every year the next teacher sees the progress made by the previous teacher. Why do we need standardized testing to assess progress?
The worst thing to ever happen to our educational system is mandatory standardized testing and tying funding to performance on those tests.
Why should we trust people that are merely trained, when we have politicians?
Quote from: Doktor Howl on August 09, 2013, 04:40:18 AM
Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on August 09, 2013, 02:39:16 AM
Cram, teachers go to college for SIX YEARS to learn to teach and to assess progress. Furthermore, they are required to have annual ongoing postgraduate training. There are tests like the SAT and college placement exams that test a student's readiness to enter college. Furthermore, every year the next teacher sees the progress made by the previous teacher. Why do we need standardized testing to assess progress?
The worst thing to ever happen to our educational system is mandatory standardized testing and tying funding to performance on those tests.
Why should we trust people that are merely trained, when we have politicians?
Clearly, politicians know best. I mean, they already went to school, and stuff. They
KNOW things.
Quote from: Suu on August 09, 2013, 03:40:29 AM
Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on August 09, 2013, 02:39:16 AM
Cram, teachers go to college for SIX YEARS to learn to teach and to assess progress. Furthermore, they are required to have annual ongoing postgraduate training. There are tests like the SAT and college placement exams that test a student's readiness to enter college. Furthermore, every year the next teacher sees the progress made by the previous teacher. Why do we need standardized testing to assess progress?
The worst thing to ever happen to our educational system is mandatory standardized testing and tying funding to performance on those tests.
When I graduated in 2000 in Florida, we had ONE test we HAD to take, and that was the HSCT, or the High School Competency Test. It was basically a GED test. I missed one question on the whole damn thing. If you failed, you had one shot to take it again, if you failed that, you did not get a diploma. We had the CTBS testing through elementary and middle school (this was more of a placement test to see if you qualified for honors than anything) and the Florida Writes Exam, which was administered in 5th, 8th, and 10th grade. That was exactly like what was on the GRE, it assessed your essay writing skills, because they STRESSED these things. You need writing and comprehension skills to succeed.
When I was in 10th grade, they put me in the beta for the FCAT, the test that would become Florida's downfall. This thing...OMG. They grabbed me from class and said, "Take this." 2 hours of my life, with no prep, and I got a 75 on it. A solid C. The math was stuff I had not taken yet, and even though it counted for absolutely nothing, and doesn't show up on my transcript, it nearly brought me to tears. There is no more CTBS test, no more Florida Writes, only the FCAT. I did better on the SAT and the ACT than that fucking beta test. It seemed entirely unreasonable to test 10th graders on calculus and difficult vocabulary that was at least on the senior level. But, they accepted it. That's why Florida schools are so fucking bad. It's not the students, it's not the teachers, it's not the schools in general, it's that fucking test. Students are graduating with test answers, no writing skills, no vocational skills, no logic or anything. The Rhode Island test is even worse, and the schools in Providence are absolutely terrible. This is a relatively low-income area with lots of immigrants, of COURSE the tests aren't going to yield good results, and neither is closing the damn schools that have the low scores. It's not fucking fair to these kids.
I absolutely HATED that first FCAT. Was so relieved that it wouldn't get put into effect until after I had graduated in '99. I never would have graduated if that thing counted.
Thankfully they are getting rid of it next year. Going to something called Core that some other states have. Hope that it's at least somewhat better.
Quote from: Suu on August 09, 2013, 04:49:49 AM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on August 09, 2013, 04:40:18 AM
Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on August 09, 2013, 02:39:16 AM
Cram, teachers go to college for SIX YEARS to learn to teach and to assess progress. Furthermore, they are required to have annual ongoing postgraduate training. There are tests like the SAT and college placement exams that test a student's readiness to enter college. Furthermore, every year the next teacher sees the progress made by the previous teacher. Why do we need standardized testing to assess progress?
The worst thing to ever happen to our educational system is mandatory standardized testing and tying funding to performance on those tests.
Why should we trust people that are merely trained, when we have politicians?
Clearly, politicians know best. I mean, they already went to school, and stuff. They KNOW things.
You can't go trusting educators to know their job. They need to be told how to do it.
I find myself in the middle. The middle is a shrinking thing. Nanny-staters on one side, telling me what's SAFE and what PROTECTS ME, and libertarian savages on the other, telling me to JETTISON THE WEAK and get rid of governance. I haven't really changed any of my views, but I find my feet coming down into one side or the other now and again, simply because there's no middle left.
Quote from: Sita on August 09, 2013, 05:19:28 AM
Quote from: Suu on August 09, 2013, 03:40:29 AM
Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on August 09, 2013, 02:39:16 AM
Cram, teachers go to college for SIX YEARS to learn to teach and to assess progress. Furthermore, they are required to have annual ongoing postgraduate training. There are tests like the SAT and college placement exams that test a student's readiness to enter college. Furthermore, every year the next teacher sees the progress made by the previous teacher. Why do we need standardized testing to assess progress?
The worst thing to ever happen to our educational system is mandatory standardized testing and tying funding to performance on those tests.
When I graduated in 2000 in Florida, we had ONE test we HAD to take, and that was the HSCT, or the High School Competency Test. It was basically a GED test. I missed one question on the whole damn thing. If you failed, you had one shot to take it again, if you failed that, you did not get a diploma. We had the CTBS testing through elementary and middle school (this was more of a placement test to see if you qualified for honors than anything) and the Florida Writes Exam, which was administered in 5th, 8th, and 10th grade. That was exactly like what was on the GRE, it assessed your essay writing skills, because they STRESSED these things. You need writing and comprehension skills to succeed.
When I was in 10th grade, they put me in the beta for the FCAT, the test that would become Florida's downfall. This thing...OMG. They grabbed me from class and said, "Take this." 2 hours of my life, with no prep, and I got a 75 on it. A solid C. The math was stuff I had not taken yet, and even though it counted for absolutely nothing, and doesn't show up on my transcript, it nearly brought me to tears. There is no more CTBS test, no more Florida Writes, only the FCAT. I did better on the SAT and the ACT than that fucking beta test. It seemed entirely unreasonable to test 10th graders on calculus and difficult vocabulary that was at least on the senior level. But, they accepted it. That's why Florida schools are so fucking bad. It's not the students, it's not the teachers, it's not the schools in general, it's that fucking test. Students are graduating with test answers, no writing skills, no vocational skills, no logic or anything. The Rhode Island test is even worse, and the schools in Providence are absolutely terrible. This is a relatively low-income area with lots of immigrants, of COURSE the tests aren't going to yield good results, and neither is closing the damn schools that have the low scores. It's not fucking fair to these kids.
I absolutely HATED that first FCAT. Was so relieved that it wouldn't get put into effect until after I had graduated in '99. I never would have graduated if that thing counted.
Thankfully they are getting rid of it next year. Going to something called Core that some other states have. Hope that it's at least somewhat better.
In 2000 we still had the HSCT. I don't believe the FCAT went into effect until 2002. I feel like I seriously escaped in the nick of time. I do know they're getting rid of it (The one good thing Voldemort has done?) but that doesn't help that a decade plus of students have been subjected to it.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on August 09, 2013, 05:23:48 AM
I find myself in the middle. The middle is a shrinking thing. Nanny-staters on one side, telling me what's SAFE and what PROTECTS ME, and libertarian savages on the other, telling me to JETTISON THE WEAK and get rid of governance. I haven't really changed any of my views, but I find my feet coming down into one side or the other now and again, simply because there's no middle left.
The funny thing is, trusting teachers to do their job IS the middle. It sure as hell isn't any Libertarian bullshit.
Because teachers have very specific credentials and licensing, overseen by the state. They have state-mandated continuing education. They are reviewed by their peers and overseen by a principal, the school administration, and the state board.
Yeas, sometimes incompetent teachers are allowed to continue teaching when they should be ousted... but NCLB doesn't seem to do fuck-all to address that problem.
The single best predictor of how a child will do in school is their socioeconomic status. Federally-mandated standardized testing that is tied to the finding a school will receive does nothing but tie teachers' hands and punish poor students, as well as make teachers less willing to teach in poor neighborhoods.
It's FUCKED.
Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on August 09, 2013, 05:34:57 AM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on August 09, 2013, 05:23:48 AM
I find myself in the middle. The middle is a shrinking thing. Nanny-staters on one side, telling me what's SAFE and what PROTECTS ME, and libertarian savages on the other, telling me to JETTISON THE WEAK and get rid of governance. I haven't really changed any of my views, but I find my feet coming down into one side or the other now and again, simply because there's no middle left.
The funny thing is, trusting teachers to do their job IS the middle. It sure as hell isn't any Libertarian bullshit.
Yes, I know. But as a person who values properly applied regulation, it still puts my back up. So do many other things I agree with. The right thing isn't always the comfortable thing.
QuoteBecause teachers have very specific credentials and licensing, overseen by the state. They have state-mandated continuing education. They are reviewed by their peers and overseen by a principal, the school administration, and the state board.
Yeas, sometimes incompetent teachers are allowed to continue teaching when they should be ousted... but NCLB doesn't seem to do fuck-all to address that problem.
In fact, it supports the crappy teachers at the expense of the decent ones.
QuoteThe single best predictor of how a child will do in school is their socioeconomic status. Federally-mandated standardized testing that is tied to the finding a school will receive does nothing but tie teachers' hands and punish poor students, as well as make teachers less willing to teach in poor neighborhoods.
It's FUCKED.
Well, it's been fairly obvious from the beginning that it was designed to further America's aristocracy, by shoving the peasants down into the shit a bit further. The struggling schools get less, the posh schools get more.
Quote from: Osama Bin Login on August 09, 2013, 05:38:51 AM
Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on August 09, 2013, 05:34:57 AM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on August 09, 2013, 05:23:48 AM
I find myself in the middle. The middle is a shrinking thing. Nanny-staters on one side, telling me what's SAFE and what PROTECTS ME, and libertarian savages on the other, telling me to JETTISON THE WEAK and get rid of governance. I haven't really changed any of my views, but I find my feet coming down into one side or the other now and again, simply because there's no middle left.
The funny thing is, trusting teachers to do their job IS the middle. It sure as hell isn't any Libertarian bullshit.
Yes, I know. But as a person who values properly applied regulation, it still puts my back up. So do many other things I agree with. The right thing isn't always the comfortable thing.
QuoteBecause teachers have very specific credentials and licensing, overseen by the state. They have state-mandated continuing education. They are reviewed by their peers and overseen by a principal, the school administration, and the state board.
Yeas, sometimes incompetent teachers are allowed to continue teaching when they should be ousted... but NCLB doesn't seem to do fuck-all to address that problem.
In fact, it supports the crappy teachers at the expense of the decent ones.
QuoteThe single best predictor of how a child will do in school is their socioeconomic status. Federally-mandated standardized testing that is tied to the finding a school will receive does nothing but tie teachers' hands and punish poor students, as well as make teachers less willing to teach in poor neighborhoods.
It's FUCKED.
Well, it's been fairly obvious from the beginning that it was designed to further America's aristocracy, by shoving the peasants down into the shit a bit further. The struggling schools get less, the posh schools get more.
Bingo!
I'm currently helping with some "school management" software for a big charter school chain in NY. Judging by relative emphasis on the software, the only things they cover are how to wear a uniform properly and taking assessments. So. Many. Assessments. They have like a dozen different types of practice assessment, most of which are taken I think 2x a year, starting from kindergarten.
I can't speak for the actual educators (only thing I know about them is that they have a really high turnover rate), but the people managing the software project are completely incompetent in every possible way. Aside from just general software and management idiocy, they sent us (third party tool vendor) a database with "test" data - which included photographs and contact info for every student, along with medical problems, family alerts, who's allowed to pick the kid up from school, disciplinary records, test scores, whatever. Worse, it turns out that if you were to know the SOOPER SEKRIT adress of their testing site, you can get at all of that using the unsecured accounts they use to test the site. I'm pretty sure something there is against the law.
But their kindergarteners have some of the best standardized math tests cores in the state, so that's al right then.
Quote from: YOUR Social Science Thinkmonkey on August 09, 2013, 02:39:16 AM
Cram, teachers go to college for SIX YEARS to learn to teach and to assess progress. Furthermore, they are required to have annual ongoing postgraduate training. There are tests like the SAT and college placement exams that test a student's readiness to enter college. Furthermore, every year the next teacher sees the progress made by the previous teacher. Why do we need standardized testing to assess progress?
The worst thing to ever happen to our educational system is mandatory standardized testing and tying funding to performance on those tests.
I agree, NCLB has deformed the curriculum to the point that it's nearly useless. I think it should be scrapped, as do most of the teachers I work with in educational publishing. But here's a bit of background about the situation which prompted the NCLB... (which you probably already know, but for the sake of people who don't....)
There were many places in the country where education simply sucked. I'm talking about rural counties in Montana, South Dakota, Missouri, Kentucky, West Virginia. These schools were falling apart - their meager education budget tended to be spent on keeping the roof from leaking. There were entire counties where there were no books in the library published after 1980. As late as 2000, some schools were lucky to have a single Apple-][ in their library, much less a computer lab. Furthermore, it's very difficult to fire a tenured teacher, and many schools were loaded with bad teachers. Bad teachers + no continuing ed budget = bad education.
The result of this was that there were many schools which could not equip kids to get jobs outside of the farm.
So in comes the federal government. Whether or not you agree that education should be controlled at the federal level, that's what we apparently voted for in 2000. Bush campaigned on education reform, and when he won, he put aside a lot of money for education. So the question arises - who do we give these monies to?
And that's the real purpose of standardized testing--- it's not so much because these tests are valid measurements of education, their purpose is so that the federal government can identify which schools "need help".
They are a measurement of teachers. (Of course, federal help is often a dangerous medicine which comes with a long list of side effects.)
The NCLB is also part of a power struggle between state and federal government. (btw, Foucault's writing in
Discipline & Punish about education as a form of discipline/control and as a mode of power is
extremely relevant here) And the other part of the story is that the Bush family invests heavily in educational publishers who create these tests everybody is required to take. At my company's shareholder meetings, Jeb Bush is often a key speaker. Educational Publishers play a role in this too - follow the money, right? There are powerful lobbies for standardized testing. Part of the corporate mission is to "change the culture so that it values education." Blerg, I could go on about that for pages.
But anyway, the question that needs to be answered if the NCLB is to be overturned is --- what should the federal government be doing about shitty schools?
Many schools are now dependent on the federal money received through NCLB policies. And many schools, prior to NCLB, could not afford basic education materials. There were entire counties whose high school graduates had a 5th grade reading level and could not type. Should the federal government step in? There's a lot of debate around that point, but I think the cat is already out of that bag.
as a brief devil's advocate point, I will note that there are a few silver linings to NCLB --- teachers are now required to have a degree in the subject they are teaching, which wasn't always the case. (You'd have physics teachers in charge of social studies classes, etc, which was mainly a product of tight school budgets.) Also, under NCLB, parents can choose to pull their kids from failing schools and bus them to a better school, which is nice. Finally, a lot of schools could not afford computers, and NCLB provided a large budget for that. Now most schools at least have a computer lab, which I don't think that would have happened as rapidly if it was left up to local politicians.
all those things can easily be separated from NCLB though, so I don't they're in themselves a loud argument that the policy should be kept around
Quote from: YOUR Social Science Thinkmonkey on August 09, 2013, 06:17:46 AM
Quote from: Osama Bin Login on August 09, 2013, 05:38:51 AM
Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on August 09, 2013, 05:34:57 AM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on August 09, 2013, 05:23:48 AM
I find myself in the middle. The middle is a shrinking thing. Nanny-staters on one side, telling me what's SAFE and what PROTECTS ME, and libertarian savages on the other, telling me to JETTISON THE WEAK and get rid of governance. I haven't really changed any of my views, but I find my feet coming down into one side or the other now and again, simply because there's no middle left.
The funny thing is, trusting teachers to do their job IS the middle. It sure as hell isn't any Libertarian bullshit.
Yes, I know. But as a person who values properly applied regulation, it still puts my back up. So do many other things I agree with. The right thing isn't always the comfortable thing.
QuoteBecause teachers have very specific credentials and licensing, overseen by the state. They have state-mandated continuing education. They are reviewed by their peers and overseen by a principal, the school administration, and the state board.
Yeas, sometimes incompetent teachers are allowed to continue teaching when they should be ousted... but NCLB doesn't seem to do fuck-all to address that problem.
In fact, it supports the crappy teachers at the expense of the decent ones.
QuoteThe single best predictor of how a child will do in school is their socioeconomic status. Federally-mandated standardized testing that is tied to the finding a school will receive does nothing but tie teachers' hands and punish poor students, as well as make teachers less willing to teach in poor neighborhoods.
It's FUCKED.
Well, it's been fairly obvious from the beginning that it was designed to further America's aristocracy, by shoving the peasants down into the shit a bit further. The struggling schools get less, the posh schools get more.
Bingo!
THIS. SO THIS. This is why Providence schools are struggling. This is why Central Falls, RI schools had to be taken over by the government. Not because the kids are stupid, but these are poor, rundown areas, and it DOES make a difference. Poor students have less access to materials needed to succeed. Without certain tools, even a damn scientific calculator, you can't expect them to excel.
Quote from: Osama Bin Login on August 09, 2013, 05:38:51 AM
QuoteBecause teachers have very specific credentials and licensing, overseen by the state. They have state-mandated continuing education. They are reviewed by their peers and overseen by a principal, the school administration, and the state board.
Yeas, sometimes incompetent teachers are allowed to continue teaching when they should be ousted... but NCLB doesn't seem to do fuck-all to address that problem.
In fact, it supports the crappy teachers at the expense of the decent ones.
it depends on how you define crappy
The federal government defines it as an inability to get kids to make "Adequate Yearly Progress" (AYP). If a school as a whole has a bad AYP for several years in a row, the government steps in. In the beginning, the gov holds the schools hand, requiring them to come up with a plan for improvement, and providing budget in the form of free tutoring and other supplemental education services. But if the school's AYP is low for five years or more, the government has the authority to fire & replace
everybody.
I'm sure there a few places in the country where this has actually really helped. Somewhere.
:america:
Quote from: Cramulus on August 09, 2013, 03:08:52 PM
Quote from: Osama Bin Login on August 09, 2013, 05:38:51 AM
QuoteBecause teachers have very specific credentials and licensing, overseen by the state. They have state-mandated continuing education. They are reviewed by their peers and overseen by a principal, the school administration, and the state board.
Yeas, sometimes incompetent teachers are allowed to continue teaching when they should be ousted... but NCLB doesn't seem to do fuck-all to address that problem.
In fact, it supports the crappy teachers at the expense of the decent ones.
it depends on how you define crappy
Oh, that's easy. Teachers who teach to the test, because the lesson plan is something to get to the bottom of ASAP.
Quote from: Osama Bin Login on August 09, 2013, 03:14:16 PM
Quote from: Cramulus on August 09, 2013, 03:08:52 PM
Quote from: Osama Bin Login on August 09, 2013, 05:38:51 AM
QuoteBecause teachers have very specific credentials and licensing, overseen by the state. They have state-mandated continuing education. They are reviewed by their peers and overseen by a principal, the school administration, and the state board.
Yeas, sometimes incompetent teachers are allowed to continue teaching when they should be ousted... but NCLB doesn't seem to do fuck-all to address that problem.
In fact, it supports the crappy teachers at the expense of the decent ones.
it depends on how you define crappy
Oh, that's easy. Teachers who teach to the test, because the lesson plan is something to get to the bottom of ASAP.
Sadly to the government that makes a good teacher. Because all that matters is that the kid do well on the test. Whether or not they remember it 10 minutes after it's done is not their concern.
My son has an extremely hard time in math. Last year his teacher gave a possible reason as to why: They are told to teach for the FCAT first, and to teach the way of doing things that is expected for that test (when they show their work).
My son can't grasp the way it's taught and so now he has an IEP and gets to be taken aside with a few other kids in his class to work on it with another teacher. This group of kids has grown every year.
His grades have improved, but that's because he now doesn't have to be held to quite the same standard as kids not on an IEP (also he can pass on with a low FCAT score instead of being held back another year)
PS, Carlos Danger; your new handle makes me LOL and LOL and LOL.
This year I enrolled my kids in a charter school because A) fuck public schools, and B) fuck most of the parents of kids who go to public schools. Anyway, this charter school still has to produce standardized testing results, BUT they are free to develop their own curriculum and processes for arriving at those results, rather than being held by the public school district's plainly awful way of doing things.
We're 3 weeks in now, and my daughter (in kindergarten) has already surprised everyone with her reading ability. This isn't the school's doing entirely, but when my son was halfway his first year of kindergarten they had just barely covered naming the fucking letters in the alphabet. Luckily he's borderline-autistic and was reading by the age of 3, so he spent most of his kindergarten year getting yelled at for being too far ahead of the other kids and getting bored.
I feel a little bad for abandoning traditional public schools and the unions that go along with them to protect teachers' rights to organize and bargain collectively, but at least in AZ the public schools aren't worth it. The class sizes are inexcusable, the teachers are all burned out and the results are so bad the kids might as well just watch Sesame Street all day.
Quote from: V3X on August 10, 2013, 06:37:14 AM
This year I enrolled my kids in a charter school because A) fuck public schools, and B) fuck most of the parents of kids who go to public schools. Anyway, this charter school still has to produce standardized testing results, BUT they are free to develop their own curriculum and processes for arriving at those results, rather than being held by the public school district's plainly awful way of doing things.
Funny how that works, isn't it? It's almost like the law was deliberately written that way.
I'm not knocking you V3x, you did what was best for your family, and I KNOW you're a good parent. But, at the same time, I feel the "fuck public schools" approach is part of the problem and not part of the solution.
I see plenty of Republicans knocking public schools left and right and insisting on homeschooling or private schooling their kids, but at the same time, they're mostly responsible for the shit that went down with NCLB. If parents would be more proactive in their children's education at the public level, it would be more efficacious to fight back against this bullshit. I know, I know, it's a damn pipe dream, but my parents hovered over my ass when I did homework every night. I was never short of help from either of them, even though they both worked, and weren't home for the better part of the afternoon. Hell, my mom worked nights and weekends, but she would find a way to make time to help me with the subjects she knew. She also almost got herself arrested a few times organizing sit-ins at the school board to protest the busing laws, and the cutting of curricula in the early 90s.
Are the parents today just lazy? Are the students just careless? There's so many factors I can't wrap my head around, and it frustrates me.
And then there's the schools themselves: I think I could offer public school students a lot as a history teacher because I had AWESOME teachers and I would want to do them justice, but history is getting cut left and right, because hell, who needs it when you only need math and science to do anything ever? Where is the proactivity that my mom and her cohorts had?
I'm probably talking out of my ass, but I just feel something somewhere went amiss, and people just don't care anymore.
Suu's Ass : Attractive AND Erudite
Quote from: Suu on August 10, 2013, 03:00:14 PM
I'm not knocking you V3x, you did what was best for your family, and I KNOW you're a good parent. But, at the same time, I feel the "fuck public schools" approach is part of the problem and not part of the solution.
I see plenty of Republicans knocking public schools left and right and insisting on homeschooling or private schooling their kids, but at the same time, they're mostly responsible for the shit that went down with NCLB. If parents would be more proactive in their children's education at the public level, it would be more efficacious to fight back against this bullshit. I know, I know, it's a damn pipe dream, but my parents hovered over my ass when I did homework every night. I was never short of help from either of them, even though they both worked, and weren't home for the better part of the afternoon. Hell, my mom worked nights and weekends, but she would find a way to make time to help me with the subjects she knew. She also almost got herself arrested a few times organizing sit-ins at the school board to protest the busing laws, and the cutting of curricula in the early 90s.
Are the parents today just lazy? Are the students just careless? There's so many factors I can't wrap my head around, and it frustrates me.
And then there's the schools themselves: I think I could offer public school students a lot as a history teacher because I had AWESOME teachers and I would want to do them justice, but history is getting cut left and right, because hell, who needs it when you only need math and science to do anything ever? Where is the proactivity that my mom and her cohorts had?
I'm probably talking out of my ass, but I just feel something somewhere went amiss, and people just don't care anymore.
I agree with all of this. I know both I and my wife are pretty involved in our kids' education at home and at school. Last year we had to teach ourselves the ridiculous NCLB methods for math because the way they're teaching it makes no sense at all. The charter school uses Common Core, which isn't a replacement for NCLB but it does vastly improve the methods, at least as far as my kids are concerned.
It's easy to see, a decade later, that NCLB was basically engineered specifically to kill public schools in favor of charter schools. That's been a goal of the "privatization/eliminate government" crowd since forever, and it also pleases the "eliminate unions" crowd. As for me, as much as I despise falling into a system designed by these crazies, I have to admit reality. Because of a combination of NCLB and growing educational negligence among parents, public schools are more or less a dead end these days.
And, truth be told, I'm not entirely sad about this. If it's possible to privatize education and have an industry of for-profit companies making money off of education, while providing education superior to what public schools can provide (for whatever reason), keeping the price at or near zero, and retaining genuine educators who really are willing to do a good job, then what's the problem? It isn't like the State has an inherent monopoly on effective education. Public schools were never about getting the BEST education possible, they were about expanding access to education. If the "market" has a solution to this that works, there's no reason to hate it just because it's the "market."
One thing that's nice about the charter school option is that kids don't "accidentally" end up in a charter school. Parents have to
at least think enough about their kids' education to intentionally put them on a list to get into a charter school, so as a baseline we're working in a system that has parents whose participation level is already light years ahead of the average "school = babysitter" parent out there.
Like I said, though, we're only 3 weeks into it so we can't really make anything like an informed judgment about this experiment, even one limited to our own school district. But 2 years in the public schools were enough to convince us our kids had nothing to lose, and potentially a lot to gain from rethinking where they are educated.
The problem with charter school is that *by design* they gather the kids that were going to do fine anyway because their parents are more involved/have better resources/whatever and the kids themselves are brighter, and the kids who were going to have a rough time of it are literally "left behind" over in the public schools. I'm super pissed off at the public schools here, but I will home school my kids before I buy into a system that's built to make sure the peasants are kept in their fucking place.
Quote from: Queen Gogira Pennyworth, BSW on August 10, 2013, 07:29:00 PM
The problem with charter school is that *by design* they gather the kids that were going to do fine anyway because their parents are more involved/have better resources/whatever and the kids themselves are brighter, and the kids who were going to have a rough time of it are literally "left behind" over in the public schools. I'm super pissed off at the public schools here, but I will home school my kids before I buy into a system that's built to make sure the peasants are kept in their fucking place.
Certainly that's one way to see it. But I'm not going to punish my kids or put them at an educational disadvantage by keeping them in a public school when there's a better option, just because I might disagree with the political reasoning behind that better option. I still support fixing public education, and you'll never hear me say that free public education ought to be eliminated or even scaled back, because there are millions of kids that depend on it and without it our whole system would be up the creek. But that doesn't change the fact that right here and right now, public schools aren't the best option for my kids and if I can give them a better education somewhere else, I'm going to do it.
Arizona is actually implementing Common Core statewide, so hopefully we'll eventually see some improvement in schools. The problem of course is always funding, and being that our state is full of terrible bastards who will shoot down anything with a price tag if it's floated by the government, I don't expect public schools to improve too much soon (or ever) here. And as much as I support organized labor, there are serious problems with teachers' unions (like forcing the state to retain ineffective educators just because they managed to dodge the axe for enough years), and those do need to be fixed.
My understanding is that charter schools have much laxer rules about, for instance, the quality of school lunches compared to public schools. You aren't allowed to take special ed students if you don't have the resources to cover them properly... but in a lot of places charter schools aren't required to have special ed resources in the first place, so they can leave all of the difficult kids in public schools.
Public schools - as govt institutions - have to maintain a minimal standard of students civil rights. Private schools can kick you out for whatever they feel like. The school I'm helping to build an administrative backend for has something like 6400 days of suspension served in the last five school years out of 6900 students, and only 400 of those suspended were only suspended for one day. About 500 were suspended for 2-3 days. Their suspension curve is crazy, they have a ton of students who've been suspended for 20+ days.
They make everyone wear expensive uniforms, and if something happens to it you gotta buy a new one, or else they'll write up your kindergartener in class every day for even the wrong color socks or whatever. God help you if you got paint on the tie. The catch is that they operate in the poorer neighborhoods of NYC. And as Nigel pointed out, the best predictor of student success is their family income. So you design policies specifically to discriminate against your own poorer students, repeatedly punishing them over trivial matters (I think their #1 "culture infraction" is some variation on "wore white socks with black shoes") until those poorer students parents get fed up and take their underperforming kid to go bring down the average of the public school test scores. Or not, and you just keep suspending the kid. They've got at least a dozen kids who've spent 40+ days in suspension. That's two months of school days. If they were actually dangerous, you'd expel them... so the only explanation is that they're playing chicken with kids lives to try to get the parents to voluntarily withdraw them.
Quote from: YOUR Social Science Thinkmonkey on August 10, 2013, 04:32:02 AM
PS, Carlos Danger; your new handle makes me LOL and LOL and LOL.
You'll LOL even harder when Carlos Danger's Penis becomes the Mayor of New York.
Quote from: Golden Applesauce on August 10, 2013, 08:00:53 PM
My understanding is that charter schools have much laxer rules about, for instance, the quality of school lunches compared to public schools. You aren't allowed to take special ed students if you don't have the resources to cover them properly... but in a lot of places charter schools aren't required to have special ed resources in the first place, so they can leave all of the difficult kids in public schools. Public schools - as govt institutions - have to maintain a minimal standard of students civil rights. Private schools can kick you out for whatever they feel like. The school I'm helping to build an administrative backend for has something like 6400 days of suspension served in the last five school years out of 6900 students, and only 400 of those suspended were only suspended for one day. About 500 were suspended for 2-3 days. Their suspension curve is crazy, they have a ton of students who've been suspended for 20+ days. They make everyone wear expensive uniforms, and if something happens to it you gotta buy a new one, or else they'll write up your kindergartener in class every day for even the wrong color socks or whatever. God help you if you got paint on the tie. The catch is that they operate in the poorer neighborhoods of NYC. And as Nigel pointed out, the best predictor of student success is their family income. So you design policies specifically to discriminate against your own poorer students, repeatedly punishing them over trivial matters (I think their #1 "culture infraction" is some variation on "wore white socks with black shoes") until those poorer students parents get fed up and take their underperforming kid to go bring down the average of the public school test scores. Or not, and you just keep suspending the kid. They've got at least a dozen kids who've spent 40+ days in suspension. That's two months of school days. If they were actually dangerous, you'd expel them... so the only explanation is that they're playing chicken with kids lives to try to get the parents to voluntarily withdraw them.
This is America in a nutshell.
ps About once every three months your avvie turns around and looks at me, but if I sit there and wait for it, it never happens.
Quote from: Carlos Danger on August 10, 2013, 09:40:23 PM
Quote from: YOUR Social Science Thinkmonkey on August 10, 2013, 04:32:02 AM
PS, Carlos Danger; your new handle makes me LOL and LOL and LOL.
You'll LOL even harder when Carlos Danger's Penis becomes the Mayor of New York.
Won't be the first or the last penis mayor.
Quote from: Carlos Danger on August 10, 2013, 09:40:23 PM
Quote from: YOUR Social Science Thinkmonkey on August 10, 2013, 04:32:02 AM
PS, Carlos Danger; your new handle makes me LOL and LOL and LOL.
You'll LOL even harder when Carlos Danger's Penis becomes the Mayor of New York.
Holy shit, is it running? I'd vote for that!
Quote from: V3X on August 10, 2013, 06:12:03 PM
And, truth be told, I'm not entirely sad about this. If it's possible to privatize education and have an industry of for-profit companies making money off of education, while providing education superior to what public schools can provide (for whatever reason), keeping the price at or near zero, and retaining genuine educators who really are willing to do a good job, then what's the problem? It isn't like the State has an inherent monopoly on effective education. Public schools were never about getting the BEST education possible, they were about expanding access to education. If the "market" has a solution to this that works, there's no reason to hate it just because it's the "market."
:lolchix:
Quote from: Golden Applesauce on August 10, 2013, 08:00:53 PM
My understanding is that charter schools have much laxer rules about, for instance, the quality of school lunches compared to public schools. You aren't allowed to take special ed students if you don't have the resources to cover them properly... but in a lot of places charter schools aren't required to have special ed resources in the first place, so they can leave all of the difficult kids in public schools.
Public schools - as govt institutions - have to maintain a minimal standard of students civil rights. Private schools can kick you out for whatever they feel like. The school I'm helping to build an administrative backend for has something like 6400 days of suspension served in the last five school years out of 6900 students, and only 400 of those suspended were only suspended for one day. About 500 were suspended for 2-3 days. Their suspension curve is crazy, they have a ton of students who've been suspended for 20+ days.
They make everyone wear expensive uniforms, and if something happens to it you gotta buy a new one, or else they'll write up your kindergartener in class every day for even the wrong color socks or whatever. God help you if you got paint on the tie. The catch is that they operate in the poorer neighborhoods of NYC. And as Nigel pointed out, the best predictor of student success is their family income. So you design policies specifically to discriminate against your own poorer students, repeatedly punishing them over trivial matters (I think their #1 "culture infraction" is some variation on "wore white socks with black shoes") until those poorer students parents get fed up and take their underperforming kid to go bring down the average of the public school test scores. Or not, and you just keep suspending the kid. They've got at least a dozen kids who've spent 40+ days in suspension. That's two months of school days. If they were actually dangerous, you'd expel them... so the only explanation is that they're playing chicken with kids lives to try to get the parents to voluntarily withdraw them.
Annnnnd this.
A couple of things I'd like to point out: Teachers are required to have a degree in the subject they're hired to teach. Not the one they end up actually teaching. This is how a PE coach taught (failed to teach, actually) my daughter math for a year.
Schools have significantly increased the amount of homework children are supposed to do, starting at a very very young age, and their grades are increasingly tied to this homework. This creates an even greater burden for families where there is only one parent, or where both parents have to work, which is the majority of families. The excuse for this is that they are "preparing children for college" (really? You're preparing my ten-year-old for college?) but of course, as both a parent and a college student I am very aware that what children experience in college is absolutely nothing at all like what they are trained for in high school. In fact, yesterday I heard yet another college educator say that she consistently prefers teaching kids who dropped out of high school or weren't schooled at all, because, assuming they can read fluently, no education at all is a better preparation for college than most schooling.
This is the third one I've heard say something along those lines. And bam, there's another research idea.
Quote from: YOUR Social Science Thinkmonkey on August 11, 2013, 02:16:13 AM
Quote from: V3X on August 10, 2013, 06:12:03 PM
And, truth be told, I'm not entirely sad about this. If it's possible to privatize education and have an industry of for-profit companies making money off of education, while providing education superior to what public schools can provide (for whatever reason), keeping the price at or near zero, and retaining genuine educators who really are willing to do a good job, then what's the problem? It isn't like the State has an inherent monopoly on effective education. Public schools were never about getting the BEST education possible, they were about expanding access to education. If the "market" has a solution to this that works, there's no reason to hate it just because it's the "market."
:lolchix:
Not really getting this, to be honest. In my admittedly limited experience with the charter school system I'm not seeing a major problem. What I've seen of the curriculum so far (what's being taught so far and the plans for this year) pretty much blows public school curriculum out of the water, there's no charge for tuition (there are uniforms, but there isn't a "fundraiser" event every week that they set the kids' hearts on while they're at school to shame you into going and contributing, like public schools have), and the teachers we met with are excited about the job and seem to know what they're doing (again - so far, at least).
So... are you posting the "ha ha look at the slow kid" gif because you know something that should change my calculus here, or just because I said something that hilariously fails to meet with your own opinions?
Quote from: Golden Applesauce on August 10, 2013, 08:00:53 PM
My understanding is that charter schools have much laxer rules about, for instance, the quality of school lunches compared to public schools. You aren't allowed to take special ed students if you don't have the resources to cover them properly... but in a lot of places charter schools aren't required to have special ed resources in the first place, so they can leave all of the difficult kids in public schools.
The quality of school lunches at this particular school (not all charter schools are the same...) makes public school lunches look like a McDonald's happy meal. There is an entrance exam, which I suppose is their way of eliminating the need to deal with "special ed" kids, a luxury public schools don't have. It used to be that public schools dealt with that by allowing for different "tracks" based on a student's individual ability and current level of proficiency in a given subject, which I understand was basically dismantled by NCLB. A real tragedy, that, but again I'm not going to make my kids dawdle uselessly in a class that's been slowed down to the lowest common denominator just because I hate the people who keep pushing for privatization of stuff.
QuotePublic schools - as govt institutions - have to maintain a minimal standard of students civil rights. Private schools can kick you out for whatever they feel like. The school I'm helping to build an administrative backend for has something like 6400 days of suspension served in the last five school years out of 6900 students, and only 400 of those suspended were only suspended for one day. About 500 were suspended for 2-3 days. Their suspension curve is crazy, they have a ton of students who've been suspended for 20+ days.
They make everyone wear expensive uniforms, and if something happens to it you gotta buy a new one, or else they'll write up your kindergartener in class every day for even the wrong color socks or whatever. God help you if you got paint on the tie. The catch is that they operate in the poorer neighborhoods of NYC. And as Nigel pointed out, the best predictor of student success is their family income. So you design policies specifically to discriminate against your own poorer students, repeatedly punishing them over trivial matters (I think their #1 "culture infraction" is some variation on "wore white socks with black shoes") until those poorer students parents get fed up and take their underperforming kid to go bring down the average of the public school test scores. Or not, and you just keep suspending the kid. They've got at least a dozen kids who've spent 40+ days in suspension. That's two months of school days. If they were actually dangerous, you'd expel them... so the only explanation is that they're playing chicken with kids lives to try to get the parents to voluntarily withdraw them.
No experience with this personally, but I'm sure it's a problem. Public schools, of course, have their own problems. For my family it was a choice between two sets of problems. On one hand, there was a school that systematically slowed learning to a barely perceptible crawl because classes were too large to control, the only thing being downsized faster than faculty was curriculum, large volumes of obnoxious kids whose parents refused to take an active role in their education (or their lives in general, for that matter), and the constant pleading for donations in the form of "hey kids let's all go home and tell our parents about this super awesome fun zany thing we're going to do! yay!" AND on the other hand, a school that doesn't bus the kids from and back to home, has a strict dress code including uniforms you have to buy (there are price breaks for low-income families), and a lack of accessible governing bodies.
Ultimately the charter school won out because the positives outweigh the negatives, for my family at least. We'll see how it looks a year from now. Maybe our opinions will change, but either way the alternative is a known losing proposition.
I don't really know where to start, so what I'll go with is the inevitable and highly-visible degradation of services which occur as soon as any for-profit sector hits market saturation.
I am not necessarily opposed to charter schools. I (unsuccessfully) attended one of the nation's first charter schools, my children attended/attend a charter school for the highly gifted.
HOWEVER
Charter schools are able to limit attendance to those who make their statistics look good. Since they are also subject to NCLB, they often simply play the numbers by refusing to enroll or kicking out those who drag their statistics down. So, "superior education" is highly questionable. But the most suspect aspect of the for-profit charter school (for what its worth, both the schools I and my children attended are not-for-profit) is the history of for-profit organizations in the US.
Quote from: YOUR Social Science Thinkmonkey on August 11, 2013, 03:23:34 AM
I don't really know where to start, so what I'll go with is the inevitable and highly-visible degradation of services which occur as soon as any for-profit sector hits market saturation.
I am not necessarily opposed to charter schools. I (unsuccessfully) attended one of the nation's first charter schools, my children attended/attend a charter school for the highly gifted.
HOWEVER
Charter schools are able to limit attendance to those who make their statistics look good. Since they are also subject to NCLB, they often simply play the numbers by refusing to enroll or kicking out those who drag their statistics down. So, "superior education" is highly questionable. But the most suspect aspect of the for-profit charter school (for what its worth, both the schools I and my children attended are not-for-profit) is the history of for-profit organizations in the US.
Yeah, I'm not really trying to argue any of this. I can totally see how it's likely that a for-profit (and non-profit) school trying to get a high score on standardized tests and therefore expose themselves to as few funding cuts as possible, is likely to play the numbers however they can. It's definitely suspect. My only point is that my kids happen to be their target audience, and for admittedly privileged kids like my own, charter schools
do have a better track record than public schools do. So I'm torn between political distrust of the way the system is set up, and my obligation to give my kids every conceivable advantage I can give them. We do strive -- with a lot of success -- not to pass the "privilege" on with the "advantage," though.
Quote from: V3X on August 11, 2013, 03:36:11 AM
Quote from: YOUR Social Science Thinkmonkey on August 11, 2013, 03:23:34 AM
I don't really know where to start, so what I'll go with is the inevitable and highly-visible degradation of services which occur as soon as any for-profit sector hits market saturation.
I am not necessarily opposed to charter schools. I (unsuccessfully) attended one of the nation's first charter schools, my children attended/attend a charter school for the highly gifted.
HOWEVER
Charter schools are able to limit attendance to those who make their statistics look good. Since they are also subject to NCLB, they often simply play the numbers by refusing to enroll or kicking out those who drag their statistics down. So, "superior education" is highly questionable. But the most suspect aspect of the for-profit charter school (for what its worth, both the schools I and my children attended are not-for-profit) is the history of for-profit organizations in the US.
Yeah, I'm not really trying to argue any of this. I can totally see how it's likely that a for-profit (and non-profit) school trying to get a high score on standardized tests and therefore expose themselves to as few funding cuts as possible, is likely to play the numbers however they can. It's definitely suspect. My only point is that my kids happen to be their target audience, and for admittedly privileged kids like my own, charter schools do have a better track record than public schools do. So I'm torn between political distrust of the way the system is set up, and my obligation to give my kids every conceivable advantage I can give them. We do strive -- with a lot of success -- not to pass the "privilege" on with the "advantage," though.
:lulz: ok
Ohhh I probably forgot to tell you about something.
Fuck it I don't care anymore.
Quote from: V3X on August 11, 2013, 02:45:22 AM
Quote from: YOUR Social Science Thinkmonkey on August 11, 2013, 02:16:13 AM
Quote from: V3X on August 10, 2013, 06:12:03 PM
And, truth be told, I'm not entirely sad about this. If it's possible to privatize education and have an industry of for-profit companies making money off of education, while providing education superior to what public schools can provide (for whatever reason), keeping the price at or near zero, and retaining genuine educators who really are willing to do a good job, then what's the problem? It isn't like the State has an inherent monopoly on effective education. Public schools were never about getting the BEST education possible, they were about expanding access to education. If the "market" has a solution to this that works, there's no reason to hate it just because it's the "market."
:lolchix:
Not really getting this, to be honest. In my admittedly limited experience with the charter school system I'm not seeing a major problem. What I've seen of the curriculum so far (what's being taught so far and the plans for this year) pretty much blows public school curriculum out of the water, there's no charge for tuition (there are uniforms, but there isn't a "fundraiser" event every week that they set the kids' hearts on while they're at school to shame you into going and contributing, like public schools have), and the teachers we met with are excited about the job and seem to know what they're doing (again - so far, at least).
So... are you posting the "ha ha look at the slow kid" gif because you know something that should change my calculus here, or just because I said something that hilariously fails to meet with your own opinions?
I have
extremely limited knowledge of charter schools - most of what I know about them is from an aunt who is Very Much active in her local politics, specifically against charter schools. I probably swallowed some woppers along with her legitimate gripes about charter schools. I vaguely recall a source that seemed more balanced to have found is that there is more variation within charter and public than between the two groups, and that the average charter school is about as good as the average public school. The top 10% of charter schools and of public schools are both better than a random school in the other category, but adopting a charter school program doesn't necessarily give you a better or worse school; it comes down to the individual schools. Given that there's no clear statistical benefit, though, there's a fair argument to be had about how whether you want government funds to be diverted into teacher union benefits or individual CEOs.
The only other bit I know is from working with a single specific chart school chain and some googling I did to figure out what all their acronyms meant. (they hired some incompetent 3rd party people to build them software, and it's now August and it's not ready, so they're paying my company to do it
right better) This specific chain - I think they might be the largest charter school network in the state of NY, certainly in the city - pretty much only hires teachers straight out of college and few last longer than about 4 years. Is that a good thing? It certainly saves money, but I don't know how that affects the quality of education. I suspect that the high teacher turnover (according to them, this isn't specific to their chain; they claim all charter schools have high turnover rates) is symptomatic of really awful management and teachers getting fed up with educational policy. Or maybe the place is so awesome that a teacher with four years experience can walk into any other school in the country and get a job, I dunno.
unrelated to topic:
HEY I THINK MY COMPANY IS THE "INCOMPETENT 3RD PARTY" TO WHICH YOU REFER
You keep your grubby mitts off my client, you interloper.
somewhat related to topic:
To be honest I shouldn't be making large-scale statements about the validity of charter schools "in general" as compared to public schools "in general," as I have no real in-depth experience with either "in general." I have only the one district local to me, and the 3 weeks we've spent in a charter school so far, which hardly qualifies me as an authority on the matter. Really it's only anecdotal, and thin at that. My point is only that I am not convinced that either system is superior to the other, only that they have weaknesses in differing categories, and that for my kids specifically (can't say anything about anyone else's kids), charter school seems to be the lesser of two evils.
I'm not that familiar with how charter schools work, nor am I a parent, but, as someone who may potentially educate your child either in college or high school, I find a lot of this pretty disturbing. Granted, teaching is my fall-back plan, though I may still make more money bartending. Either way, thanks for this thread.
Quote from: YOUR Social Science Thinkmonkey on August 11, 2013, 01:55:19 AM
Quote from: Carlos Danger on August 10, 2013, 09:40:23 PM
Quote from: YOUR Social Science Thinkmonkey on August 10, 2013, 04:32:02 AM
PS, Carlos Danger; your new handle makes me LOL and LOL and LOL.
You'll LOL even harder when Carlos Danger's Penis becomes the Mayor of New York.
Holy shit, is it running? I'd vote for that!
Well, the posters I've been making up and putting online certainly work on the basis that it is.
I also think Carlos Danger's penis, despite it's few notable, controversy-laden public appearances, is less liable to break under the pressure of one of the most stressful political positions in the world than Mr Carlos Danger himself. Probably.
Quote from: Suu on August 11, 2013, 11:33:24 PM
I'm not that familiar with how charter schools work, nor am I a parent, but, as someone who may potentially educate your child either in college or high school, I find a lot of this pretty disturbing. Granted, teaching is my fall-back plan, though I may still make more money bartending. Either way, thanks for this thread.
Based on what I've heard from my friends teaching in the US, I would use this as my very last fallblack plan.
Unless you are willing to teach somewhere they don't treat teachers as the cheap alternative to hiring a babysitter/anger management therapist/parole officer. Private schools aren't that hard to get work with, and the classrooms are smaller, better equipped and you're usually paid better....but they have their own special brands of bullshit which can be hard to swallow, and when you factor in the extra hours private schools expect from their staff, you're probably not getting paid that much more than a public school.
Quote from: Carlos Danger on August 12, 2013, 08:14:37 AM
Quote from: Suu on August 11, 2013, 11:33:24 PM
I'm not that familiar with how charter schools work, nor am I a parent, but, as someone who may potentially educate your child either in college or high school, I find a lot of this pretty disturbing. Granted, teaching is my fall-back plan, though I may still make more money bartending. Either way, thanks for this thread.
Based on what I've heard from my friends teaching in the US, I would use this as my very last fallblack plan.
Unless you are willing to teach somewhere they don't treat teachers as the cheap alternative to hiring a babysitter/anger management therapist/parole officer. Private schools aren't that hard to get work with, and the classrooms are smaller, better equipped and you're usually paid better....but they have their own special brands of bullshit which can be hard to swallow, and when you factor in the extra hours private schools expect from their staff, you're probably not getting paid that much more than a public school.
I second this. Also, I have friends who teach or have taught at private schools in the US, and the pay is quite typically really shitty, because private schools can hire whoever they feel like regardless of educational level. My friend was teaching high-school math at a quite expensive private school here and she has no degree at all. She's taken basic math including calculus in college but dropped out.
If you end up teaching, you're better off teaching in a community college or university.
Like I said, total fall-back plan. I want to go into museum work, which pays better to start, at least.