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Kevin Jones suggests the public schools aren't broken.
You're assuming kids show up bright-eyed and ready to learn. Kids failing with constant zeroes do not want make up work. They do not want Saturday school, and they certainly do not want any type of help.
I'm assigning 3 grades per week to ensure every student who has an off day and is having a case of the grumpies due to puberty can still easily make up the work and pass a class.
It's not illegal, a law just passed to do away with the mandate that ALL teachers must assign a 50. We can still be nudged into assigning a 50 ourselves. Slippery slope though for faculty for a few reasons. We WILL be called in to pretty much be scolded for a high failure rate. We will be asked by numerous administrators what modifications are being made along with what interventions are being made as well. This is a part of our job which we fully understand. Problem arises when certain students NEED to be tested for special ed., moved into a lower level reading class, etc. and they have a grade of 70 which is nowhere near an accurate assessment of where they are academically. Also, come TAKS time red flags are raised on a teacher for having low TAKS scores with high passing rates. That's a boat we all avoid trying to be in.
I realize on the outside it seems like every student should be given a chance. Before I started teaching, that sounded great. But with some students we NEED to do ent their lack of effort, TRUE test score and so on. Some students should flat out be in alternative school or fail but it's so hard to do so now. , right now I have to submit so much paperwork to deny a student credit with 30 absences (and he refuses to do Saturday school) yet he has an 80 in the class. Because I offer so much make-up work 7 weeks after it was due he is in great shape. By no means is that fair to the average student with 2 absences, does work on time and yet he's pulling an 80 as well.
Like I said, just because that mandate was done away with doesn't mean it's not being implied when I meet up with my 5 bosses.
You know what has the greatest effect on a student? Seriously, letting them drop out. They come back months later bored out of their minds and so sick of work. They've grown up in every sense when they come back.
Last edited by CharlieMac; 12-12-2009 at 07:40 PM.
Kevin Jones suggests the public schools aren't broken.
Austin ISD currently mulling over the idea of trying this at a couple of low performing schools....
ALL public schools ARE NOT BROKEN. The decently and well financed ones, even with the conservative-hated unionized teachers, do well, even wonderfully, with well above avg graduation rates and college acceptances. Conservatives can't explain that, cognitive dissonance.
how would you explain the striking lack of measurable progress at the 17 year old level, given the dramatic increase in money expended for public education?
"dramatic increase in money expended for public education"
got any dramatic numbers?
and exactly where was the alleged money spent?
the VRWC doesn't give a about education, they only want taxpayers' school funds transferred to for-profit dumbed-down, "Christian indoctrination" charters, which so far have not succeeded in getting students better results.
sure, man. about 3-4x more per head since 1960.
http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=66
a lot more is spent on the administrative layer than educators. that's been the historical trend, anyway.
63% increase in school district expenditures per student between 98-99 and 08-09. I wonder if the quality of education the students received during this period increased by a comprable percentage?
So you can see why VRWC wants to get their greedy, predatory hands on those $100Bs.
63% increase in school district expenditures per student between 98-99 and 08-09. I wonder if the quality of education the students received during this period increased by a comprable percentage?
The overall increase is spending doesn't explain why many schools get excellent results while many schools simply fail. The only results the privatizing VRWC care about is pocketing as much of those $Bs as they can scam.
thanks. I see what I did there.
yeah, that's what the state sponsored vouchers in Indiana are all about.
yeah, that's what the state sponsored vouchers in Indiana are all about.smh
We get it. You're more interested in protecting the government's monopoly on taxpayer education dollars than you are in ensuring that every child has access to a quality education. So long as the public schools in the suburbs are giving quality educations to the white kids, that should be good enough for everyone else. Heaven forbid a poor minority stuck in a failing public school be given an alternative. That could just ruin everything.
lots of red herrings and straw men
There is no monopoly.
If parents want to spend their education money on a private school, as they've done for many decades, they can.
lack of dollars for schools in poor districts is not the only reason those schools fail. It's well known black and Hispanic culture, in general, doesn't put as much value on education as Asian and middle class Euro-Americans. (and save me the ing anecdotes and exceptions, please). Combined with parents, often single parents, working in ty jobs for ty wages, it's fatal.
I can guarantee you reason VRWC/ALEC is pushing so hard to destroy public schools isn't to get their hands on small funds for underprivileged kids in underfunded schools.
They want the taxpayer dollars of middle class parents in funded districts transferred to for-profit non-unionized charters, and, above, to bust the teachers' union as a source Democratic/democratic funding.
VRWC/ALEC doesn't give a about education outcomes.
Talking point nonsense.
There is no meaningful way you can do ent or validate manufactured "intent". The lazy guarantee you offer is meaningless.
ALEC, financed by the VRWC has written "suggestions" and has been taken up by Repug legislatures everywhere. ALEC's language appears, often verbatim if not paraphrased, in may Repug bills and amendments.
you and your willfully ignorant nitpicking "intent"
Yeah, that's real convincing. I can see the ALEC language re: education so clearly now.
and L ingOL at willful ignorance. That's Thinkprogress's gig.
http://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed
google "alec language in state bills"
ALEC is a non-profit that violates the law by lobbying widely and aggressively.
You can send your kid to a private school, but your tax dollars still belong to the public school. Monopoly proven.
No real discrepancy between these two statements. Seems I characterized your position pretty accurately.
Neither do you. You've made it abundantly clear that protecting the democratic funding source is what's important.
Times are going to get interesting now that most schools in TX have failed AYP for at least one year..next year the students attending these schools will have school choice..i wish some of these parents in poorer districts would move their kids to the North or Northeast side districts and level the 'playing field' so to say...and that's just it, vouchers or not, private or public schools, there are only a finite amount of good teachers just like there are a finite amount of good doctors, teachers, and car mechanics...I'm not saying that every good teacher works at a Northside district, nor that every teacher who works on the North side is a good teacher, but the challenges for a good teacher at a poor district are exponential and the pay often less...
There's no monopoly ass hat even if you gave everyone a $6K voucher, which is really what poor districts pay per student, that money wouldn't go far in private education, especially better schools...You can send your kid to a private school, but your tax dollars still belong to the public school. Monopoly proven.
ALEC/VRWC see charter schools as a just another way to suck wealth out of taxpayers' pockets, while delivering, in classic capitalist mode, the tiest possible product for highest possible price.
Charter Schools Sold Like an Investment to Wealthy Foreigners Looking for a Green Card
According to a Miami Today report last week, these Chinese financiers are taking advantage of the U.S. EB-5, an Immigrant Investor Program that sets aside certain visas for investors who stimulate economic growth within the United States. The investors are required to invest at least $1 million and create at least 10 full-time jobs for U.S. residents. The EB-5 process has therefore been dubbed the “green card via red carpet.”
So what are these Chinese financiers investing millions of dollars in as a way to win their green cards? Evidently, charter schools. In fact, they have invested $30 million in charter schools in Florida alone. And according to the report, they are planning to invest three times that amount in the next year.
Speaking about these educational ins utions in business terms, Brain said:
It’s a very stable business, very recession-resistant. It’s a very high-demand product. There’s 400,000 kids on waiting lists for charter schools ... the industry’s growing about 12-14% a year. … It’s a public payer, the state is the payer … and if you do business with states with solid treasuries, then it’s a very solid business.
Meanwhile, Florida’s State Board of Education announced a new plan this week, which aims to double charter school enrollment in the state, from 9 percent enrollment to 17 percent enrollment within the next six years.
http://www.alternet.org/education/ch...ing-green-card
It's harder for charter schools to keep teachers
http://extras.mysanantonio.com/pdf/Teacher-turnover-093012.pdf
Teachers leave Bexar County charter schools almost three times more often than at traditional public schools, which generally pay more and perform better academically, according to an Express-News analysis of five years of state data.
The average teacher turnover rate for charter school districts was 46 percent, compared with 13 percent for traditional school districts,
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/edu...#ixzz29Bae75WY
Many charter school pay peanuts (more money for administrators and investors), and get monkeys for teachers who accept, for a short while, such low salaries vs other jobs. Perhaps the low-paid teachers aren't qualified for better paying jobs.
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