Schools, how to make them better.

[Cephus]

It's not, eh? So it's just a privilege for those who can afford it?

No, it is not a Constitutional right. Your feelings are irrelevant.

Education shows up in the 14th Amendment?

As part of the equal protection clause, the courts have ruled that if a state provides public education, it must provide it to all.

 

[ttwtt78640]

But what if education is a right? If private schools can be shown to detract from the quality of public education, does that not infringe on that right?

Please enlighten us as to how that happens.

 

[The Mark]

Can you show a strict correlation between per pupil funding and academic achievement? If so, please do.

https://www.americanexperiment.org/2017/06/link-school-spending-student-achievement/

I think you're trying to avoid the question.

But certainly I don't think funding always means better education, it has to be spent right for that to work.

 

[Phys251]

Perhaps that is to escape the reality of public schools. Why do so many in congress send their kids to private schools?

https://www.heritage.org/education/report/how-members-congress-practice-school-choice-0

You have any idea how much extra security that would take?

 

[The Mark]

Your premise seems to be that the folks sending their children to private schools subtract funding (tax money) from public schools. That idea has not been supported by any facts. How, exactly, do "the rich", which are obviously a high percentage of those availing themselves of the private option, allegedly now get away with paying lower state/local school taxes?

In some cases such as charter schools, or school vouchers, they absolutely do draw funding off.

But obviously a private school that is not a charter school and is not paid by any school voucher does not draw existing funding from public schools.

My thinking is more that if all the schools are public, that will be an incentive for everyone, including the rich and powerful, to ensure they are good schools, which benefits all the students.

 

[Phys251]

No, it is not a Constitutional right. Your feelings are irrelevant.

Right back at you. :thumbs:

As part of the equal protection clause, the courts have ruled that if a state provides public education, it must provide it to all.

Now wait a minute. First you try to claim that public education isn't a right. Now you claim it is. So which is it?

 

[ttwtt78640]

I think you're trying to avoid the question.

But certainly I don't think funding always means better education, it has to be spent right for that to work.

Unfortunately, that (bolded above) rarely happens when the same folks are in charge. Houston, TX is a larger city (about 800K more people) than San Antonio, TX yet Houston has one school district and San Antonio has 13 school districts. Rest assured that having more school districts in a smaller city results in far more administrative overhead.

 

[DaveFagan]

It's the goals and expectations that present a problem. When those are the same for everyone, socialism works well.

Diversity in teaching methods and considerations provides a more robust experience for all students. Diversity in the classroom is good.

Would you agree that our current education system seems to be homogenized. That is not intended to flatter the system. I believe in home schooling and know that motivational methods bear the sweetest fruit. The student must want to learn and enjoy the process. What's not to like about learning to function in changing Worlds?
/

 

[The Mark]

Many children dont go to "school" as you would normally think now, my children included. Would you force them to attend your schools? If so you would have fight the likes you are ill equipped to handle. Unpleasant would be an understatement. The price to accomplish your vision is far higher than you think.

I was homeschooled myself.

I think it had pros and cons.

I'd say that if some kind of evaluation was done (like they did in PA when I was schooled by my parents) on any homeschooled children, that would likely work, at least somewhat.

 

[ecofarm]

Would you agree that our current education system seems to be homogenized. That is not intended to flatter the system. I believe in home schooling and know that motivational methods bear the sweetest fruit. The student must want to learn and enjoy the process. What's not to like about learning to function in changing Worlds?
/

There are many good ideas out there regarding improving education and educational tools. Formats, methods, countless aspects. Only a system including private development can experiment with them all.

 

[ttwtt78640]

You have any idea how much extra security that would take?

Are you implying that public schools are unsafe? If it was really a security concern then why do many in congress not send their children to private schools?

 

[DaveFagan]

There are many good ideas out there regarding improving education and educational tools. Formats, methods, countless aspects. Only a system including private development can experiment with them all.

Fascist gov't control starts with education control.
/

 

[ttwtt78640]

In some cases such as charter schools, or school vouchers, they absolutely do draw funding off.

But obviously a private school that is not a charter school and is not paid by any school voucher does not draw existing funding from public schools.

My thinking is more that if all the schools are public, that will be an incentive for everyone, including the rich and powerful, to ensure they are good schools, which benefits all the students.

Perhaps the real problem is that you feel "the rich and powerful" can influence government bureaucrats while we the sheeple can't. IMHO, "the rich and powerful" know better than to expect the public school system to improve and simply elect to use a private school system that they can influence.

 

[Bullseye]

You said it never happened, and that's what I thought we were talking about, so it appeared you were claiming that.

Which promise were you claiming was never kept, then?

The promise between more money and better performance. I thought that was clear. Not just one school or a few schools - the entire system. Here's just ONE example

 

[Cephus]

Now wait a minute. First you try to claim that public education isn't a right. Now you claim it is. So which is it?

You don't read very well, do you? I said *IF* it is offered, then it must be offered to all. There is no requirement that it be offered at all.

 

[TheParser]

We cannot ban private schools, for that would mean that many children would be forced to attend institutions that are more combat zones than educational centers.

It would literally be a cruel and unusual punishment.


As we all know only too well, the United States of America is not a cohesive society like Finland, which -- I believe -- ranks as one of the happiest nations in the world.

 

[Xelor]

So, Finland has the best schools in the world in many categories.

Part of their method to get there was banning private schools.
They don't test children until high school.
They have small class sizes (20?) and I think 3 teachers per class.

Should we do this in the USA?

If not, why?



Edit: To clarify my argument, allowing private schools clearly results in public schools being underfunded and understaffed, thus children getting poor educations.

I find that result unacceptable, and it seems that in Finland, banning private schools addressed it by only giving the public school option.

This means that they have to get sufficient funding so that everyone gets good education, or the children of parents who currently send their kids to private school (because of course they would, since the public schools have so many problems) won't get the education their children deserve.

It puts all the people behind making the schools very good, and all children benefit as a result.

The downside is only that thousands of private schools will have to be ended, or made public.


That seems a decent trade.

Red:
That -- the student-teacher ratio -- is among the key factors yielding better education outcomes; moreover, that ratio's impact is most influential at the start and end of one's educational journey. Low student-teacher ratios (~12:1 or less) are typical of the nation's top private schools, and the same phenomenon (lower rather than higher student-teacher ratios) is so among public schools; however, in general, public schools as a whole have markedly higher such ratios.

States and counties, using economy-of-scale driven models, have determined that X is a normatively appropriate target for balancing among educational outcomes, school/class size (student-teacher ratios) and the cost to build and operate a school (on a national level, dropping the ratio by one student increases cost by ~$12B).

• Do jurisdictions' conclusions (basically that of build or don't build another school) in that regard align with parents' and students' expectations about the nature and quality of education delivered?
  • Well, in some public school jurisdictions (whatever the level of jurisdiction), it certainly or probably does and in others it clearly doesn't.

Of course, pedagogy also plays a role; however, as one can see from the above-linked private school rankings, "standard" pedagogies and innovative ones like Harkness yield comparable outcomes, at least in terms of handily measured academic performance dimensions, when class size is small.


So to the theme of your OP, it's not that Finland has discerned something America hasn't. It's that Finland, its people, is willing to spend their tax dollars to bring to fruition low student-teacher ratios, one's that are on par with those at America's best private schools...Unsurprisingly, if I'm aptly inferring from your OP's content, Finnish schools achieve roughly comparable results. Moreover, US public schools like Thomas Jefferson or the BASIC schools in AZ, also manage to produce outstanding education outcomes. The reason American public schooling -- overall, for it's clear specific public schools do just fine -- isn't better than it is results from a lack of will to make it better by building more and smaller schools.

Are people willing to have their tax dollars allocated to obtain better overall outcomes? I don't know. For now, I know that high performers in public schools realize excellent outcomes because as high performers, they necessarily end up in classes that just do have smaller class sizes. Thus if parents want their kids to get the most from what's offered -- and make no mistake, pretty much all public school systems offer the right courses -- they should abet their kids becoming high performers. Forcing and helping their kids to just do the damn work of studying goes a long way to making that happen.

 

[Tom Horn]

You’re not gonna test anyone till 8th grade? Your schools will be chaulked full of idiots who never caught on. And at 8th grade, it’ll be too dam late to catch up. What then? Off them? Feed them till they die? Hope they dont commit crimes while cleaning the public bathrooms? Finland sucks. They committed genocide during WWII when they attempted to exterminate the Saami.

 

[Xelor]

Finland's population is 5m. A single US city.

Irrelevant. National population is a count metric, rather than a proportional metric; thus the count metric cannot be used as a basis of comparison. One must convert the count data to proportional data in order to compare and contrast inputs and outputs extant in locales having highly divergent count metrics.

Spending per student by country

Educational outcomes by country

 

[ttwtt78640]

Irrelevant. National population is a count metric, rather than a proportional metric; thus the count metric cannot be used as a basis of comparison. One must convert the count data to proportional data in order to compare and contrast inputs and outputs extant in locales having highly divergent count metrics.

Spending per student by country

Educational outcomes by country

With the US being above the OCED average except for math it is hard to argue that we need a massive system overhaul. What is amazing is that we have not fallen further as our percentage of ELL students rises.

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cgf.asp

 

[zimmer]

So, Finland has the best schools in the world in many categories.

Part of their method to get there was banning private schools.
They don't test children until high school.
They have small class sizes (20?) and I think 3 teachers per class.

Should we do this in the USA?

If not, why?



Edit: To clarify my argument, allowing private schools clearly results in public schools being underfunded and understaffed, thus children getting poor educations.

I find that result unacceptable, and it seems that in Finland, banning private schools addressed it by only giving the public school option.

This means that they have to get sufficient funding so that everyone gets good education, or the children of parents who currently send their kids to private school (because of course they would, since the public schools have so many problems) won't get the education their children deserve.

It puts all the people behind making the schools very good, and all children benefit as a result.

The downside is only that thousands of private schools will have to be ended, or made public.


That seems a decent trade.

My beautiful babe is a teacher in a wealthy EU country which has 2-teachers per class. It’s a waste.

Sweden has gone the voucher system way. Allowing parents/students to choose the school is a much better way. Competition weeds out the crap teachers and schools, and hopefully destroys the teachers unions.

 

[Josie]

In some cases such as charter schools, or school vouchers, they absolutely do draw funding off.

But obviously a private school that is not a charter school and is not paid by any school voucher does not draw existing funding from public schools.

My thinking is more that if all the schools are public, that will be an incentive for everyone, including the rich and powerful, to ensure they are good schools, which benefits all the students.

You are forgetting one massive factor in all of this --- a fact that many people NOT in education forget. PARENTS.

I've always said, give me a classroom of 25 kids with wonderful, supportive, non-addicted, non-abusive parents and they will (generally) grow up to be successful, mature, educated no matter how much money the school is getting from the government. On the other hand, give me a classroom of 18 kids who have horrible, addicted, abusive, selfish and non-caring parents and they will (generally) struggle all through the year -- EVERY year -- and grow up to continue the cycle of abuse and addiction -- no matter how much money the school gets from the government.

Home life has a HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE impact on how a student performs in school and, therefore, how the schools perform as a whole.

 

[Xelor]

With the US being above the OCED average except for math it is hard to argue that we need a massive system overhaul. What is amazing is that we have not fallen further as our percentage of ELL students rises.

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cgf.asp

Red:

• Math and science accomplishment can happen to the same extent regardless of the language in which it's taught. This is the one discipline in which we shouldn't be below the OECD average because it's the one that depends least on English mastery.
• Reading competency, which is really a proxy for critical thinking acumen, also can happen to the same extent without regard to language.

We need to excellently educate our people, no matter the language in which they converse, and it behooves us not, as a nation, to impose purely linguistic impediments on our people's intellectual development. Of course, we want our ELL students to eventually master English; however, it's imprudent (and fiscally wasteful) to prioritize their doing so ahead of, and make developing their math, science and critical thinking skills dependent on their English mastery.

 

[Xelor]

It's the goals and expectations that present a problem. When those are the same for everyone, socialism works well.

Diversity in teaching methods and considerations provides a more robust experience for all students. Diversity in the classroom is good.

Red:

• Diversity among students in a classroom is a plus because it affords teachers and students the opportunity to, from different vantages, consider the subjects, concepts, techniques, and tools introduced and applied in the classroom and larger scholastic setting.
• Diversity among pedagogies is of dubious, if any, intrinsic value. There is ample evidence that, for example, the Harkness pedagogy works quite well, but when comparing Harkness schools to otherwise comparable non-Harkness schools, one sees essentially the same measurable academic outcomes.
  
  Where diversity in pedagogies is existentially valuable in that certain approaches don't integrate well with "specialized" population segments and settings. To wit, Harkness doesn't lend itself as well to classrooms having intellectually/academically heterogeneous students, nor does it work well in classrooms having more than 12 students; however, cultural diversity among intellectually/academically similar students abides their excelling more in Harkness classrooms than they might under other pedagogical implementations. Similarly, Critical Pedagogy is well suited to some classrooms and not to others, largely due to Critical's tendency to bolster in conventionalism, both among students and teachers.

 

[VanceMack]

Public schools have failed miserably, which has spawned the need for private schools, charter schools, and home schooling. Please dont pretend the answer is to throw more money into a failing public school system.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entr...7th-year-in-a-row_us_5722273ee4b0b49df6aa5aaa

For the seventh consecutive year, Urban Prep Charter Academy is keeping it one hundred.

Every senior at the predominantly black, all-boys charter school in Chicago has committed to a four-year college or university. At the school’s three campuses combined, the class of 2016 has been admitted to more than 220 schools.

“It’s a great day,” Rudolph Long, who’s attending Hampton University, told CBS Chicago on Urban Prep’s college signing day on Tuesday. “I feel great. We all made it. We all come from good environments so to see us all going to college is nice.”

Parents have a choice. Keep sending their kids to schools that are far too often just penal preparatory academies, or find an alternative that will give their kids a fighting chance.

In some cases it is questionable teachers but not in most cases. Hell...public schoopl teachers are the true unsung heroes in this country. They go into some of the most god-awful environments knowing they dont stand much of a chance to actually teach, let alone make a difference in kids lives, yet they try. In some cases they get their asses beat for attempting to actually teach classes.

You want change? Kill the unions. Kill the teachers associations. Kill the state and fed level departments of education. Commit to actually TEACHING an then make school an opportunity but a privilege and not a right. Little Johnny acts up, little Johnny's ass is gone. Stop insisting the schools be infected by ****heads that are more invested in making life miserable than learning. Insist parents step up and when parents come to school whining about little Johnny's grades, kick their parents ass out of the school and tell them to step up and stop blaming the teacher. You know what else is needed? Shop. Woodshop...metal shop...autoshop...tech classes. Not every kid is destined for college and that is fine. Give them a better path to success...maybe with mentoring and job shadowing programs.

OK...and now the holistic part. You CANT just work to make schools more successful without investing in better economic opportunities for them once they ARE successful. So in some areas we need renewal and that will provide jobs. We need manufacturing jobs. We need an investment in the trades. We need investment in the home communities to help them become more successful which ALSO means we need better law enforcement and yep...more prisons because when little Johnny takes the thug route, **** him, and I dont care what his race or ethnic background is.

Better schools isnt going to solve the problem. It takes a total investment. That requires government and private sector investment. THAT is something worth going into reasonable debt over.