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Why is the Obama administration fighting to keep poor children in bad schools?

Jack Hays

Jack Hays

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DOJ Bids to Trap Poor, Black Kids in Ineffective Schools - Washington Post

The number that should matter to federal officials is this: Roughly 86 percent of students in the voucher program came from schools that were rated D or F. Mr. White called ironic using rules to fight racism to keep students in failing schools; we think it appalling.
Unfortunately, though, it is not a surprise from an administration that, despite its generally progressive views on school reform, has proven to be hostile — as witnessed by its petty machinations against D.C.’s voucher program — to the school choice afforded by private-school vouchers. Mr. White told us that from Day One, the five-year-old voucher program has been subject to unrelenting scrutiny and questions from federal officials. Louisiana parents are clamoring for the choice afforded by this program; the state is insisting on accountability; poor students are benefiting. The federal government should get out of the way.:peace
 
Because bad schools are bad because they are full of poor students. Move the poor students to good schools, then those good schools become mediocre at best, if not outright bad.

Maybe it's the same reason why private schools are generally "better" than public schools. the methodology used at public and private schools is pretty much the same, and private schools often don't have teachers who are as qualified as public schools (at least in terms of educational background), but private schools are full of students who come from families that value education. Most of those private school students would do just as well in a public school, at least if they were in a classroom at that public school which was filled with other students who's families value education.

It's all about attitude and having good roll models in the family. O'Reily has been on this "disintegration of the family is the root of poverty" kick recently, and I love to disagree with him, but in this case, he's got it right.

Taking poor students who's parents care nothing about education, and who don't have positive roll models in their families, and putting those students in classrooms where most of the students come from families that do care about education, will probably do more to pull down the good students than it would to pull up the bad students.
 
imagep said:
Because bad schools are bad because they are full of poor students. Move the poor students to good schools, then those good schools become mediocre at best, if not outright bad.

Maybe it's the same reason why private schools are generally "better" than public schools. the methodology used at public and private schools is pretty much the same, and private schools often don't have teachers who are as qualified as public schools (at least in terms of educational background), but private schools are full of students who come from families that value education. Most of those private school students would do just as well in a public school, at least if they were in a classroom at that public school which was filled with other students who's families value education.

It's all about attitude and having good roll models in the family. O'Reily has been on this "disintegration of the family is the root of poverty" kick recently, and I love to disagree with him, but in this case, he's got it right.

Taking poor students who's parents care nothing about education, and who don't have positive roll models in their families, and putting those students in classrooms where most of the students come from families that do care about education, will probably do more to pull down the good students than it would to pull up the bad students.
Click to expand...

Why not give the good students trapped in bad schools the opportunity to escape?
 
Jack Hays said:
Why not give the good students trapped in bad schools the opportunity to escape?
Click to expand...

I agree. Give them the best schools and best teachers, paid for by taxing the rich.

Glad you're on board. Wait . . . you're not. You want to simply destroy public schools because an educated population is a threat to conservatism.
 
head of joaquin said:
I agree. Give them the best schools and best teachers, paid for by taxing the rich.

Glad you're on board. Wait . . . you're not. You want to simply destroy public schools because an educated population is a threat to conservatism.
Click to expand...

There is plenty of money in the system for good schools now: highest cost per pupil in the world. First step is for the Obama administration to stop denying resources to the poor.:peace
 
head of joaquin said:
John Stossel. BWHHHAHAHAHAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAA!

A perfect link in a knownothing thread.
Click to expand...

I'm not a huge fan of Stossel and I realize many on the Left will automatically discount him but as someone who tries and find good ideas on both sides of the spectrum, his criticisms on the education system mirror mine in a lot of ways. Here is my education plan:

Create a virtual university. I thought of this about ten years ago while attending some classes at BYU with inspiration from a video course by a professor there and Apple i-tunes. Recently come to the knowledge of Khan Academy, and they are doing what I had in mind, not at the scale with large budget video game type companies creating the videos, but for the resources they have, they are doing excellent! Below are some links to their website and a speech the founder of Khan Academy gave. My vision of a VirtualU is along the same principles just on steroids. If not familiar with Khan Academy here are a couple of links. The first is their website where you can view their videos for free. The second is a speech give by the founder that explains his vision and how it is being utilized in a pilot program as a resource fr teachers in schools.

https://www.khanacademy.org/

khanacademy - YouTube


To create what I have in mind, I am envisioning a collaboration of the national government and say Khan Academy, Brigham Young University, Google, and X-box. The videos will be made by all kinds of educational companies who will utilize the best talent in academics, software, graphics, video game, entertainment, etc. Imagine your family being in front of the big screen or labtop, going on xbox and entering the VirtualU like they do for video games or Netflix, and being able to download amazing, fun, addictive, designed for fast learning video courses on pretty much anything. For free or very cheap. Think about that, world class education and job training that is at a much higher quality than the best universities currently can give, for basically free and universal access. The way Khan Academy is being utilized by schools in their pilot programs, you can see how this would be a valuable tool also for teachers to use in their classrooms. Instead of using their time giving lectures, they can have more one on one interaction with the students tutoring them.



The second part of my educational plan is for states/local communities to eliminate the education bureaucratic blob and the teachers unions in each of their states and adopt school vouchers and choice. Government role becomes to just fund education through vouchers allowing every family the freedom to choose what school to go to, whether public or private. Government will solely fund and not run the schools. Since the blob is destroyed, cut the per capita student expenditures down pretty drastically, in the neighborhood of say 75%.

My idea how a Public High School would look like under such a system:

The school's bureaucratic structure will be set up like a corporation where the parents and students are investors who vote in a board of directors.
Each student will choose from say six degree programs. Something like this: science/math, music/art, bachelor of arts, vocation, first responder action hero, domestic bliss.
The students in each degree program will pool their voucher checks and through the board of directors choose and hire an educational company to implement the degree program as well as hire teachers. At any time they can change educational companies in a degree program or fire what they consider a bad teacher or give raises to good ones.
 
Jack Hays said:
There is plenty of money in the system for good schools now: highest cost per pupil in the world. First step is for the Obama administration to stop denying resources to the poor.:peace
Click to expand...

So you don't want to spend more money on the education of poor kids and you don't want to tax people to pay for it.

In short, a totally dishonest OP.
 
laska said:
I'm not a huge fan of Stossel and I realize many on the Left will automatically discount him but as someone who tries and find good ideas on both sides of the spectrum, his criticisms on the education system mirror mine in a lot of ways. Here is my education plan:

Create a virtual university. I thought of this about ten years ago while attending some classes at BYU with inspiration from a video course by a professor there and Apple i-tunes. Recently come to the knowledge of Khan Academy, and they are doing what I had in mind, not at the scale with large budget video game type companies creating the videos, but for the resources they have, they are doing excellent! Below are some links to their website and a speech the founder of Khan Academy gave. My vision of a VirtualU is along the same principles just on steroids. If not familiar with Khan Academy here are a couple of links. The first is their website where you can view their videos for free. The second is a speech give by the founder that explains his vision and how it is being utilized in a pilot program as a resource fr teachers in schools.

https://www.khanacademy.org/

khanacademy - YouTube


To create what I have in mind, I am envisioning a collaboration of the national government and say Khan Academy, Brigham Young University, Google, and X-box. The videos will be made by all kinds of educational companies who will utilize the best talent in academics, software, graphics, video game, entertainment, etc. Imagine your family being in front of the big screen or labtop, going on xbox and entering the VirtualU like they do for video games or Netflix, and being able to download amazing, fun, addictive, designed for fast learning video courses on pretty much anything. For free or very cheap. Think about that, world class education and job training that is at a much higher quality than the best universities currently can give, for basically free and universal access. The way Khan Academy is being utilized by schools in their pilot programs, you can see how this would be a valuable tool also for teachers to use in their classrooms. Instead of using their time giving lectures, they can have more one on one interaction with the students tutoring them.



The second part of my educational plan is for states/local communities to eliminate the education bureaucratic blob and the teachers unions in each of their states and adopt school vouchers and choice. Government role becomes to just fund education through vouchers allowing every family the freedom to choose what school to go to, whether public or private. Government will solely fund and not run the schools. Since the blob is destroyed, cut the per capita student expenditures down pretty drastically, in the neighborhood of say 75%.

My idea how a Public High School would look like under such a system:

The school's bureaucratic structure will be set up like a corporation where the parents and students are investors who vote in a board of directors.
Each student will choose from say six degree programs. Something like this: science/math, music/art, bachelor of arts, vocation, first responder action hero, domestic bliss.
The students in each degree program will pool their voucher checks and through the board of directors choose and hire an educational company to implement the degree program as well as hire teachers. At any time they can change educational companies in a degree program or fire what they consider a bad teacher or give raises to good ones.
Click to expand...

1. School bureaucracy is simply not a problem. All institutions need bureaucracy to run. So you are solving the wrong problem

2. One major problem is disruptive children. It just takes one disruptive kid to make it very difficult to teach. Especially if there is only one teacher (and there should always be two, but alas that costs money and people don't want to put their money where their mouth is). Because we have due process, it takes time for disruptive kids to be put in special classes where they need to be. Of course principals don't want to send kids to special classes, because again, that costs money. They prefer to let teachers deal with it and let them suffer, rather having a clearcut, but costly procedure that benefits the disruptive kids and the other kids.

3. Another major problem is teacher quality. The way to handle that is to raise salaries. A lot. The higher the pay, the more qualified people you attract. It's an iron law. But again, it costs money, and people (like Stossel, just want to blame unions rather than solve problems).

4. Another major problem is NCLB. Teaching to test is a failure. Worrying about testing, except diagnostically, is a failure. Kids learn naturally, if you don't make it dull and idiotic, like NCLB does. And of course there is no hurry. Kids learn at different rates. It's OK, you don't need to have every kids reading at a certain level by X grade. That's silly.

5. Another major problem is resources. Most suburban schools are relatively modern, but urban schools often are not. Their physical facilities are run down and outdated. The answer: money, as usual.

To summarize: it costs money to provide the best education in the world. It solves everything. If you spend enough money to have small classes, two teachers per class, top notch facilities, high salaries, and an easily accessible special education system, schools will do fine. Everything else -- voucher, competition, blaming teachers -- is nothing but gimmickry directed at destroying public education.
 
head of joaquin said:
So you don't want to spend more money on the education of poor kids and you don't want to tax people to pay for it.

In short, a totally dishonest OP.
Click to expand...

You have mischaracterized the issue and the OP. The problem is the BHO administration denying already available resources to poor children. Let's get those resources in play before we consider whether we need more. As already posted, the US already spends more per student than any other country.:peace
 
imagep said:
Because bad schools are bad because they are full of poor students. Move the poor students to good schools, then those good schools become mediocre at best, if not outright bad.

Maybe it's the same reason why private schools are generally "better" than public schools. the methodology used at public and private schools is pretty much the same, and private schools often don't have teachers who are as qualified as public schools (at least in terms of educational background), but private schools are full of students who come from families that value education. Most of those private school students would do just as well in a public school, at least if they were in a classroom at that public school which was filled with other students who's families value education.

It's all about attitude and having good roll models in the family. O'Reily has been on this "disintegration of the family is the root of poverty" kick recently, and I love to disagree with him, but in this case, he's got it right.

Taking poor students who's parents care nothing about education, and who don't have positive roll models in their families, and putting those students in classrooms where most of the students come from families that do care about education, will probably do more to pull down the good students than it would to pull up the bad students.
Click to expand...

I always saw the voucher and charter system as offering that same means of self selection to families too poor to finance a private education, but still having the parental interest in education. After all, a ****ty parent isn't going to go through the trouble to pursue either.
 
Jack Hays said:
You have mischaracterized the issue and the OP. The problem is the BHO administration denying already available resources to poor children. Let's get those resources in play before we consider whether we need more. As already posted, the US already spends more per student than any other country.:peace
Click to expand...

You've already indicated that you don't think we should spend more money on educating the poor because you don't want Paris Hilton to pay higher taxes.

Your credibility is zero. Besides the talking points aren't even original.
 
head of joaquin said:
1. School bureaucracy is simply not a problem. All institutions need bureaucracy to run. So you are solving the wrong problem

2. One major problem is disruptive children. It just takes one disruptive kid to make it very difficult to teach. Especially if there is only one teacher (and there should always be two, but alas that costs money and people don't want to put their money where their mouth is). Because we have due process, it takes time for disruptive kids to be put in special classes where they need to be. Of course principals don't want to send kids to special classes, because again, that costs money. They prefer to let teachers deal with it and let them suffer, rather having a clearcut, but costly procedure that benefits the disruptive kids and the other kids.

3. Another major problem is teacher quality. The way to handle that is to raise salaries. A lot. The higher the pay, the more qualified people you attract. It's an iron law. But again, it costs money, and people (like Stossel, just want to blame unions rather than solve problems).

4. Another major problem is NCLB. Teaching to test is a failure. Worrying about testing, except diagnostically, is a failure. Kids learn naturally, if you don't make it dull and idiotic, like NCLB does. And of course there is no hurry. Kids learn at different rates. It's OK, you don't need to have every kids reading at a certain level by X grade. That's silly.

5. Another major problem is resources. Most suburban schools are relatively modern, but urban schools often are not. Their physical facilities are run down and outdated. The answer: money, as usual.

To summarize: it costs money to provide the best education in the world. It solves everything. If you spend enough money to have small classes, two teachers per class, top notch facilities, high salaries, and an easily accessible special education system, schools will do fine. Everything else -- voucher, competition, blaming teachers -- is nothing but gimmickry directed at destroying public education.
Click to expand...

I totally disagree with most of what you say. What are you, part of the blob :2razz:
 
head of joaquin said:
You've already indicated that you don't think we should spend more money on educating the poor because you don't want Paris Hilton to pay higher taxes.

Your credibility is zero. Besides the talking points aren't even original.
Click to expand...

Actually, I haven't said a word for or against higher taxes. As for talking points, it's a Washington Post editorial. Do you think the administration should be preventing poor children from attending better schools?:peace
 
imagep said:
Because bad schools are bad because they are full of poor students. Move the poor students to good schools, then those good schools become mediocre at best, if not outright bad.

Maybe it's the same reason why private schools are generally "better" than public schools. the methodology used at public and private schools is pretty much the same, and private schools often don't have teachers who are as qualified as public schools (at least in terms of educational background), but private schools are full of students who come from families that value education. Most of those private school students would do just as well in a public school, at least if they were in a classroom at that public school which was filled with other students who's families value education.

It's all about attitude and having good roll models in the family. O'Reily has been on this "disintegration of the family is the root of poverty" kick recently, and I love to disagree with him, but in this case, he's got it right.

Taking poor students who's parents care nothing about education, and who don't have positive roll models in their families, and putting those students in classrooms where most of the students come from families that do care about education, will probably do more to pull down the good students than it would to pull up the bad students.
Click to expand...

Parents who care nothing about education don't bother sending their children to better schools...
 
laska said:
I totally disagree with most of what you say. What are you, part of the blob :2rawzz:
Click to expand...

A typical knownothing response based on ignorance of what really is happening at schools. Seems like you got the idiotic rightwing talking point memo and are going to stick with it.
 
FederalRepublic said:
Brilliant analysis. Money solves all problems.
Click to expand...

Yep it does. So of course conservatives blame teachers, unions and everybody else.

Smaller classes, two teachers in each class, special classes with special teachers for disruptive kids (who usually have cognitive issues), modern facilities, avoidance of cookie cutter teach to test -- it all costs lots of money.
 
Jack Hays said:
Actually, I haven't said a word for or against higher taxes. As for talking points, it's a Washington Post editorial. Do you think the administration should be preventing poor children from attending better schools?:peace
Click to expand...

Man up.
 
Jack Hays said:
Why not give the good students trapped in bad schools the opportunity to escape?
Click to expand...

I would go with reading what he wrote. It answers that question. If you don't agree with, ask a question that addresses what he wrote.
 
head of joaquin said:
Yep it does. So of course conservatives blame teachers, unions and everybody else.

Smaller classes, two teachers in each class, special classes with special teachers for disruptive kids (who usually have cognitive issues), modern facilities, avoidance of cookie cutter teach to test -- it all costs lots of money.
Click to expand...
And of course, that's the only thing wrong with schools.
 
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