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Privatize U.S. Schools

alphamale said:
Pure invention. Supply proof.
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I already did. Please try and keep up with the thread.
 
Turns out I was wrong. Public schools actually do better than private when controlling for socioeconomic status.
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http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/studies/privateschools/

In the report Student Achievement in Private Schools, results of the 2000, 2002, 2003, and 2005 assessments for all private schools together and for the largest private school categories—Catholic, Lutheran, and Conservative Christian—are compared with those for public schools (when applicable). It also reports important demographic differences between students nationwide in private and public schools. To explore the results of the study, download a printed copy of the full report.

In early years, NAEP reported assessment data separately for public school students and for all private school students without distinguishing among types of private schools. In 1990, NAEP also began reporting separately on the performance of private school students in Catholic and in non-Catholic schools. In 2000, NAEP expanded the private school reporting categories to provide more detailed data on private schools.

To explore data regarding private school performance, use the NAEP Data Explorer. Select a grade level, a subject, and "national" as the jurisdiction. Then, select the option to view data by type of school, or search the list of variables for data related to private schools.

Findings Discussed in the Report
The report affirms what NAEP has consistently reported over the years—that students in private schools outperform students in public schools—but it also looks more closely at NAEP results for three types of private schools: Catholic, Lutheran, and Conservative Christian schools. These schools enroll the majority of private school students.
 
You appear to have an incorrect definition of insulting. I'll try not to hold it against you. I never said you were delusional. Only that you hold delusions. Which is true.
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Oh, lessee, then I can say you entertain the ideas of an asshole - as long as I don't call you an asshole?
 
alphamale said:
http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/studies/privateschools/

In the report Student Achievement in Private Schools, results of the 2000, 2002, 2003, and 2005 assessments for all private schools together and for the largest private school categories—Catholic, Lutheran, and Conservative Christian—are compared with those for public schools (when applicable). It also reports important demographic differences between students nationwide in private and public schools. To explore the results of the study, download a printed copy of the full report.

In early years, NAEP reported assessment data separately for public school students and for all private school students without distinguishing among types of private schools. In 1990, NAEP also began reporting separately on the performance of private school students in Catholic and in non-Catholic schools. In 2000, NAEP expanded the private school reporting categories to provide more detailed data on private schools.

To explore data regarding private school performance, use the NAEP Data Explorer. Select a grade level, a subject, and "national" as the jurisdiction. Then, select the option to view data by type of school, or search the list of variables for data related to private schools.

Findings Discussed in the Report
The report affirms what NAEP has consistently reported over the years—that students in private schools outperform students in public schools—but it also looks more closely at NAEP results for three types of private schools: Catholic, Lutheran, and Conservative Christian schools. These schools enroll the majority of private school students.
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That's not holding socioeconomic status constant.
 
Kelzie said:
Well, this isn't the same study I was thinking of, but it got the same results:



http://www.pdkintl.org/kappan/k_v86/k0505lub.htm

SES stands for socioeconomic status and the mean they are referring to is mathmatical performance (just in case you don't want to read the study). Turns out I was wrong. Public schools actually do better than private when controlling for socioeconomic status.
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Did you read all that stuff about weighting percentages and adjusting for variables? This is exactly the type of study I previously referred to. This is one of those studies that shows private school kids to better than public school kids unless you fudge the numbers then the public school kids do better:rofl
 
Politicians who advocate public schools don't send their children there. Hmmmmm ..... I wonder why? :lol:

"Politicians who promote public schools don't always send their kids to them," said ABC News journalist John Stossel in a segment of the 20/20 program broadcast on January 28, called "Public Schools for Poor Kids, Not Politicians' Kids."

You might think the people who fight for public schools would always send their children to those public schools, but that's not the case, explained Stossel. As an example, he cited Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), who has called public education the "cornerstone of our democracy." Her husband, former President Bill Clinton, also declared he was "unalterably opposed to a voucher system to give people public money to take to private schools."

Yet when the Clintons were in the White House, they sent their daughter Chelsea to an exclusive private school.

Stossel pointed out that many poor families would like to exercise the same option as the Clintons, but don't have the money. He cited the example of Ivan Foster, who wants to get his two children out of the dangerous public schools in Camden, New Jersey, where spending is almost $15,000 per pupil. If Foster could use those education tax dollars as a voucher, he could afford to send his children to a private school.

But many politicians oppose the idea of letting education dollars follow the child to whatever school their parents choose. These anti-voucher politicians, noted Stossel, include U.S. Senators Lincoln Chaffee (R-RI) and Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL), all of whom have chosen private schools for their own children.
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talloulou said:
Did you read all that stuff about weighting percentages and adjusting for variables? This is exactly the type of study I previously referred to. This is one of those studies that shows private school kids to better than public school kids unless you fudge the numbers then the public school kids do better:rofl
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*sigh* It's not "fudging" the numbers. It's holding a variable constant and it is a valid and much used practice in statistics. Just because it doesn't provide the answer you want doesn't mean it's wrong.
 
Kelzie said:
*sigh* It's not "fudging" the numbers. It's holding a variable constant and it is a valid and much used practice in statistics. Just because it doesn't provide the answer you want doesn't mean it's wrong.
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Well I just want public schools to serve our kids as well as private counterparts. I think they can do a better job. It serves noone to say well if we weight this and adjust for this then the public schools are doing as well or better! I want them to REALLY actually perform on tests as well or better with no weighting or adjustments. If they can't then perhaps the overbloated government isn't serving our kids as well as they should be and the money should be taken out of the governments hands and handed back to the parents so they can spend it on schools that do better.

In washington state they are worried that up to 40% or more of our high school seniors won't graduate 'cause they can't pass the WASL test required for graduation. The test is written at an 8th grade level! That's a problem any which way you look at it! I don't want to hear that our kids failing test scores are actually better than the private school kids scores when you consider that their parents are richer than us! Is there something wrong with that?

Public schools use to produce smart kids! Not so much anymore! Is that acceptable? Should we just sit back and let that continue? If now is not the time to start hollaring when would that time be? How are our kids going to compete in a globalized economy when our seniors can't pass 8th grade tests? How long should we just sit back and wait while the government runs our schools into the toilet?
 
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alphamale said:
Politicians who advocate public schools don't send their children there. Hmmmmm ..... I wonder why? :lol:
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'Cause they can afford better!
 
talloulou said:
Well I just want public schools to serve our kids as well as private counterparts. I think they can do a better job. It serves noone to say well if we weight this and adjust for this then the public schools are doing as well or better! I want them to REALLY actually perform on tests as well or better with no weighting or adjustments. If they can't then perhaps the overbloated government isn't serving our kids as well as they should be and the money should be taken out of the governments hands and handed back to the parents so they can spend it on schools that do better.

In washington state they are worried that up to 40% or more of our high school seniors won't graduate 'cause they can't pass the WASL test required for graduation. The test is written at an 8th grade level! That's a problem any which way you look at it! I don't want to hear that our kids failing test scores are actually better than the private school kids scores when you consider that their parents are richer than us! Is there something wrong with that?
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Make more money and it won't matter where you send your kids. Public schools do ACTUALLY perform better on tests if they are in the same socioeconomic class. That's what holding a variable constant is.
 
Kelzie said:
Make more money and it won't matter where you send your kids. Public schools do ACTUALLY perform better on tests if they are in the same socioeconomic class. That's what holding a variable constant is.
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Do you deny that public schools are performing worse now than they ever have before? Don't you think that's a problem? How are our kids going to compete in a globalized economy? Why are SAT scores lower? Why have SAT scores been adjusted over time so even a high score today is not equivelant to that same score 20 yrs ago? Shouldn't our kids be smarter and better educated in public school than we were? Why is it going downhill and how long should parents sit back and accept that? Kids coming out of school today should know more than their parents did but they know less! We use to produce some of the smartest kids in the world.....now we are way down on the list.
 
talloulou said:
Do you deny that public schools are performing worse now than they ever have before? Don't you think that's a problem? How are our kids going to compete in a globalized economy? Why are SAT scores lower? Why have SAT scores been adjusted over time so even a high score today is not equivelant to that same score 20 yrs ago? Shouldn't our kids be smarter and better educated in public school than we were? Why is it going downhill and how long should parents sit back and accept that? Kids coming out of school today should know more than their parents did but they know less! We use to produce some of the smartest kids in the world.....now we are way down on the list.
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That's cause we used to be FAR more successful than other countries. Now we're just marginally more successful. It was bound to happen that their education would catch up. I'm not too worried about it. I got a fantastic education at a public school. My kids will get a fantastic education at a public school. It's all about socioeconomic status.
 
Kelzie said:
That's cause we used to be FAR more successful than other countries. Now we're just marginally more successful. It was bound to happen that their education would catch up. I'm not too worried about it. I got a fantastic education at a public school. My kids will get a fantastic education at a public school. It's all about socioeconomic status.
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Well you seem to believe the other countries have "caught up" and certainly many have progressed however that doesn't change the fact that we have fallen down!!! High school seniors knowing less today than their counterparts did 20 years ago is not a result of other countries catching up its a result of our country falling assbackwards.

And you may think being rich in a lovely neighborhood protects you and yours. Maybe it does and hopefully thats the case as I find my neighborhood to be quite nice as well. However I am not blinded and have seen that statistics show our SAT scores dropping as a nation. That doesn't mean just the poor people at the bottem are failing it means somehow the highest or richest as you like to think are fallilng backwards too. I think it has much to with loss of accountability, loss of tracking, and lack of competition in schools. My son is in the gifted program and that makes a world of difference so hopefully my daughter will get in that too. But I'm here to tell you the schools aren't doing as well as they should be doing.

I spend alot of time volunteering in my childrens classrooms and as a reading tutor at school. I witness horrible crap weekly. For example smart kids being ignored, never called on, and sometimes reprimanded for not giving other kids thinking time! They are encouraged to shut up and sit there bored. Teachers spend the most time on the kids who are doing the worst. Now I believe kids doing poorly probably need and benefit from extra help but I'm not sure we should be doing that at the expense of others.

Now in my state Washington schools are worse than many other states but I think there is a real downhill trend nationwide. If you read newspapers you'll see stories everyday about states dropping honor rolls, dropping abcdf grades, and basically doing away with teaching our kids the merit of hard work and competition. They instead are learning a ridiculous sense of entitlement without merit or work! It's a sad state and the worst part in my opinion is that most of the problems are a direct result of some misguided attempt to make everything fair all the time which its not and shouldn't be if we are really trying to prepare these kids for life.

When our smartest go to compete with the smartest from other countries no one gives a crap about socioeconomic class. We aren't sending kids from the ghetto to compete in these competitions! We are sending the best of our best and they are not measuring up!

When the schools start slipping they slip together. Ever run a race...you do better when everyone in the race is faster! School is the same way. Its not just the poor that are slipping the downhill trend is infecting the whole damn system.
 
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talloulou said:
Well you seem to believe the other countries have "caught up" and certainly many have progressed however that doesn't change the fact that we have fallen down!!! High school seniors knowing less today than their counterparts did 20 years ago is not a result of other countries catching up its a result of our country falling assbackwards.

And you may think being rich in a lovely neighborhood protects you and yours. Maybe it does and hopefully thats the case as I find my neighborhood to be quite nice as well. However I am not blinded and have seen that statistics show our SAT scores dropping as a nation. That doesn't mean just the poor people at the bottem are failing it means somehow the highest or richest as you like to think are fallilng backwards too. I think it has much to with loss of accountability, loss of tracking, and lack of competition in schools. My son is in the gifted program and that makes a world of difference so hopefully my daughter will get in that too. But I'm here to tell you the schools aren't doing as well as they should be doing.

I spend alot of time volunteering in my childrens classrooms and as a reading tutor at school. I witness horrible crap weekly. For example smart kids being ignored, never called on, and sometimes reprimanded for not giving other kids thinking time! They are encouraged to shut up and sit there bored. Teachers spend the most time on the kids who are doing the worst. Now I believe kids doing poorly probably need and benefit from extra help but I'm not sure we should be doing that at the expense of others.

Now in my state Washington schools are worse than many other states but I think there is a real downhill trend nationwide. If you read newspapers you'll see stories everyday about states dropping honor rolls, dropping abcdf grades, and basically doing away with teaching our kids the merit of hard work and competition. They instead are learning a ridiculous sense of entitlement without merit or work! It's a sad state and the worst part in my opinion is that most of the problems are a direct result of some misguided attempt to make everything fair all the time which its not and shouldn't be if we are really trying to prepare these kids for life.

When our smartest go to compete with the smartest from other countries no one gives a crap about socioeconomic class. We aren't sending kids from the ghetto to compete in these competitions! We are sending the best of our best and they are not measuring up!
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I haven't seen any evidence that our kids are getting dumber. Would you mind posting a study?
 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41278-2004Dec6.html

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060305/OPINION03/603050408

http://www.education-world.com/a_curr/curr305.shtml

http://phoenix.swarthmore.edu/2006-02-16/news/15819

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_12/007860.php

I could probably continue posting links all day but I don't have time right now. You could start by looking up info on declining SAT scores, how our kids compete with other kids globally, how standardized test scores are falling across the nation, and how textbooks are being dumbed down.

But here is something you can easily do to see for yourself. Go to your public library and borrow some old early readers. Levels 1,2,3, ect from 20 yrs ago. Then go to Barnes and Noble and compare those old early readers to newer ones of the same level. The differences will shock the hell out of you.

Furthermore pull some old library storybooks off the shelf and compare them to the books on Barnes and Noble shelves.
 
talloulou said:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41278-2004Dec6.html

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060305/OPINION03/603050408

http://www.education-world.com/a_curr/curr305.shtml

http://phoenix.swarthmore.edu/2006-02-16/news/15819

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_12/007860.php

I could probably continue posting links all day but I don't have time right now. You could start by looking up info on declining SAT scores, how our kids compete with other kids globally, how standardized test scores are falling across the nation, and how textbooks are being dumbed down.

But here is something you can easily do to see for yourself. Go to your public library and borrow some old early readers. Levels 1,2,3, ect from 20 yrs ago. Then go to Barnes and Noble and compare those old early readers to newer ones of the same level. The differences will shock the hell out of you.

Furthermore pull some old library storybooks off the shelf and compare them to the books on Barnes and Noble shelves.
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Those are all saying that we aren't doing as well as other countries. Which I already agreed with. We can't all be number one and it makes sense that the countries that spend more per child on education will have better tests scores. Do you have any studies that show kids are dumber than they used to be?
 
Kelzie said:
Those are all saying that we aren't doing as well as other countries. Which I already agreed with. We can't all be number one and it makes sense that the countries that spend more per child on education will have better tests scores. Do you have any studies that show kids are dumber than they used to be?
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"Stamper and many other teachers welcome the shift to more real-life problems, but some critics say it's not that simple. Schools, they say, are diluting algebra, making it almost unrecognizable and less useful for college-bound kids.

Too often it's pretend algebra and it's pretend 'real world,' " Dancis says. He says his own children, who attended high school in the 1990s, were taught about one-third less math than he was in high school in the 1950s."

"It would be like teaching Shakespeare in comic books," says Tom Loveless of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. "The content has been dumbed down."

http://www.usatoday.com/educate/mathscience/article-math1.htm
 
talloulou said:
"Stamper and many other teachers welcome the shift to more real-life problems, but some critics say it's not that simple. Schools, they say, are diluting algebra, making it almost unrecognizable and less useful for college-bound kids.

Too often it's pretend algebra and it's pretend 'real world,' " Dancis says. He says his own children, who attended high school in the 1990s, were taught about one-third less math than he was in high school in the 1950s."

"It would be like teaching Shakespeare in comic books," says Tom Loveless of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. "The content has been dumbed down."

http://www.usatoday.com/educate/mathscience/article-math1.htm
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That's not a study. That's an article with some people supporting the new way algebra is taught and some people disagreeing with it. Don't you have an actual study that says kids are getting dumber? With, you know, tests and numbers. Kinda like the study I provided you. It should be a pretty easy study to do. If it's actually true.
 
talloulou said:
Well actually I have seen some highly questionable studies that show that but they are strange studies where they say here are the scores for the Catholic school kids and here are the scores for the public school kids. It looks like the Catholic school kids are doing better butnow we adjust the public school kids scores for home environment, parental involvement, socioeconomic class, ect..... Now with the adjustments it's plain to see the public school kids are doing just as well if not better!

I'm sorry but what a load of crap! You can't adjust for home environment, money, ect.....

You get two groups of kids to take a test. One group outperforms the other. There's no adjusting. I know if I was poor and lived in a bad neighborhood I'd love a voucher to send my kid somewhere else, somewhere the kids test better without adjustments:roll:
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What adjustments???????? Explain what you are trying to say? My son goes to a private Catholic without "adjustments".
 
Kelzie said:
That's not a study. That's an article with some people supporting the new way algebra is taught and some people disagreeing with it. Don't you have an actual study that says kids are getting dumber? With, you know, tests and numbers. Kinda like the study I provided you. It should be a pretty easy study to do. If it's actually true.
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Look I'm kind of doing a couple things at once here so I don't have time to search for studies for you but let me ask you questions.....

Have you ever compared early readers from decades ago to early readers today?

Have you ever gone to a store and been told by the young cashier you owe $10.24 and handed the cashier a $20.00. Then a couple seconds later you find a quarter in your pocket and hand that over so you can get a $10.00 bill back with a penny and witnessed the absolute blank confusion on the cashiers face because they're dumbfounded and don't know what to do with your quarter since the machine told them they owe you $9.76?

Have you ever gone to a store and the register is down and now they can't sell you anything?

Have you noticed the lack of vocabulary in newspapers?

Have you talked to high school graduates who don't know what galaxy they live in? Or who don't know where France is? Or don't know which countries make up the middle east?

How about college kids who don't understand fractions?

How about college kids who can't figure out what 30% off means at the store?

I don't need studies to understand that I need to homeschool my kids along with their public school education!

I don't consider this a liberal/conservative issue. I worry that we are failing our kids and it will effect their future as well as ours.

I am upset that my kids school had a science fair and didn't give out awards for the best projects! I'm not upset because I wanted my kids to win an award. I'm upset because the school made it appear as if all the projects were equal and they weren't. Some were great and some were thrown together at the last minute. Why should kids try to achieve greatness when it will go unrecognized?
 
alphieb said:
What adjustments???????? Explain what you are trying to say? My son goes to a private Catholic without "adjustments".
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There are many studies around today that say Catholic school students perform better not because the school is better but because the parents are richer and more involved. Then they say if you adjust the public school students scores to make up for their parents income levels and parental involvement the kids are doing just as well or hey even better than their private school counterparts.

I guess the idea behind these studies is that you can't make parents richer or more involved therefore you can't hold the public school system accountable for the differences. I'd agree with that to a point....but I think the public schools can do a much better job than they are currently doing. Plus I tend to look for solutions vs excuses.
 
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talloulou said:
There are many studies around today that say Catholic school students perform better not because the school is better but because the parents are richer and more involved. Then they say if you adjust the public school students scores to make up for their parents income levels and parental involvement the kids are doing just as well or hey even better than their private school counterparts.

I guess the idea behind these studies is that you can't make parents richer or more involved therefore you can't hold the public school system accountable for the differences. I'd agree with that to a point....but I think the public schools can do a much better job than they are currently doing. Plus I tend to look for solutions vs excuses.
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That is probably true. I have my son tutored three nights a week. His grades have gone up drastically. A lot of parents don't go that extra mile.
 
talloulou said:
Look I'm kind of doing a couple things at once here so I don't have time to search for studies for you but let me ask you questions.....

Have you ever compared early readers from decades ago to early readers today?

Have you ever gone to a store and been told by the young cashier you owe $10.24 and handed the cashier a $20.00. Then a couple seconds later you find a quarter in your pocket and hand that over so you can get a $10.00 bill back with a penny and witnessed the absolute blank confusion on the cashiers face because they're dumbfounded and don't know what to do with your quarter since the machine told them they owe you $9.76?

Have you ever gone to a store and the register is down and now they can't sell you anything?

Have you noticed the lack of vocabulary in newspapers?

Have you talked to high school graduates who don't know what galaxy they live in? Or who don't know where France is? Or don't know which countries make up the middle east?

How about college kids who don't understand fractions?

How about college kids who can't figure out what 30% off means at the store?

I don't need studies to understand that I need to homeschool my kids along with their public school education!

I don't consider this a liberal/conservative issue. I worry that we are failing our kids and it will effect their future as well as ours.

I am upset that my kids school had a science fair and didn't give out awards for the best projects! I'm not upset because I wanted my kids to win an award. I'm upset because the school made it appear as if all the projects were equal and they weren't. Some were great and some were thrown together at the last minute. Why should kids try to achieve greatness when it will go unrecognized?
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I'm thinking that I have a lot more positive experiences than you. :lol: Maybe I just don't pay that much attention to other people. Regardless, I will await your studies whenever you have time.
 
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