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Post by Don on Dec 22, 2016 6:51:32 GMT -5
...and some specifics to back it up. (bolding mine) None of this should be any surprise. Coercive monopolies with a guaranteed revenue stream are going to grow, as sure as a germ placed on a petri dish loaded with agar. Coercive organizations don't need to worry about pleasing those required to use their services, only those who guarantee their ability to coerce. Monopolies don't need to worry about pleasing those required to use their services, only those who can help them protect their monopoly. Organizations with a guaranteed revenue stream don't need to worry about pleasing those required to use their services, only those who guarantee their revenue stream. In none of those cases are the students, parents or teachers the ones that the education system must keep happy. Bastiat said it best, IMO. Food stamps, now EBT cards, freed the poor from government cheese and allowed them infinitely more control over their physical diet. Education stamps would free the poor from cheesy government schools and allow them to build their own intellectual diet. Choices in all aspects of life are expanding exponentially... except in those places where government restricts choice to the benefit of the status quo. Just call me pro-choice in education. What say you?
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Post by robeiae on Dec 22, 2016 7:27:37 GMT -5
School isn't just about getting an education, Don.
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Post by Vince524 on Dec 22, 2016 9:05:00 GMT -5
I'm all for school choice, but I don't think it's going to solve a lot of the issues because I think a lot of issues come more from the home than the school. Public schools usually offer decent education, but they have to deal in many cases with kids that are extraordinarily disruptive, don't do their work, have parents that don't back the school or help at home. Kids that don't know their basic math facts or how to read. Parents seem to feel more and more that it's the sole responsibility of the school and if little jonny comes home with a bad grade they should either ignore it lest they harm their kids self esteem or fight with the teacher, because it has to be their fault. Not that the kid sat and did no work, no studying, no nothing all year long.
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Post by robeiae on Dec 22, 2016 9:46:33 GMT -5
Well, part of the problem there is that public education is too much of a "right," in some respects, yet school boards also institute "zero tolerance" policies for the outrage flavor of the month. There's too much--imo--control from on high. Frankly, some parents have always sucked. But when the principal had real authority, schools could overcome this.
And this is about the teachers, too: there are a ton of hard-working, caring teachers in the system. But there are also some who are just a waste of space. Here again, a principal with real authority could fix this from school to school. Everyone knows who the turkeys are who are just going through the motions. If they could be fired for sucking, we'd see some improvement post haste, imo.
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Post by celawson on Dec 22, 2016 12:07:58 GMT -5
Maybe we should bring back those wooden paddles with holes (for swifter movement through the air!), like the sort my dad used on problem students when he was an elementary school principle years ago. He ran a tight ship, and everyone, students and teachers alike, loved him. Those were the days. I still do not understand the progressive's anti-school choice stance. Especially from progressives who are wealthy and can send their kids wherever they wish.
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Post by robeiae on Dec 22, 2016 12:36:00 GMT -5
In my opinion, school choice is just addressing symptoms, not problems. It's not a solution, it's just a temporary fix that will--by definition--not work for everyone. I don't oppose it necessarily, because I sympathize with parents looking to do the best that they can for their kids, but it can't be held up as The Answer.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 22, 2016 12:44:57 GMT -5
In my opinion, school choice is just addressing symptoms, not problems. It's not a solution, it's just a temporary fix that will--by definition--not work for everyone. I don't oppose it necessarily, because I sympathize with parents looking to do the best that they can for their kids, but it can't be held up as The Answer. Agree.
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Post by Vince524 on Dec 22, 2016 12:52:28 GMT -5
Sure there are teachers that are a part of the issue too. The teachers union is very powerful, and their job is to protect teachers jobs. Same with my union, but my union is for a private company and they have very limited power unless they can get an outside arbiter. Check this out. nypost.com/2016/01/17/city-pays-exiled-teachers-to-snooze-as-rubber-rooms-return/I remember from years ago, this was an issue. My wife is a teacher, but she has no union as she works for a private Catholic school. She gets paid a small fraction of what a pubic school teacher would. They have to worry that if parents aren't happy with a grade, they'll pull their kids for the free public school. In a public school, there is no tuition and therefore no accountability to the parents. You need a happy medium.
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Post by Vince524 on Dec 22, 2016 13:11:35 GMT -5
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Post by celawson on Dec 22, 2016 14:39:12 GMT -5
In my opinion, school choice is just addressing symptoms, not problems. It's not a solution, it's just a temporary fix that will--by definition--not work for everyone. I don't oppose it necessarily, because I sympathize with parents looking to do the best that they can for their kids, but it can't be held up as The Answer. I agree with you to an extent. However, if it creates an environment of competition, then hopefully the public schools will strive to retain more students by improving what they can offer. Free market forces and all that...
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Post by Don on Dec 22, 2016 15:07:06 GMT -5
In my opinion, school choice is just addressing symptoms, not problems. It's not a solution, it's just a temporary fix that will--by definition--not work for everyone. I don't oppose it necessarily, because I sympathize with parents looking to do the best that they can for their kids, but it can't be held up as The Answer. I agree with you to an extent. However, if it creates an environment of competition, then hopefully the public schools will strive to retain more students by improving what they can offer. Free market forces and all that... As someone who had a black Bakelite phone for decades, I agree that competition is critical for improvement.
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Post by celawson on Dec 22, 2016 15:12:13 GMT -5
I agree with you to an extent. However, if it creates an environment of competition, then hopefully the public schools will strive to retain more students by improving what they can offer. Free market forces and all that... As someone who had a black Bakelite phone for decades, I agree that competition is critical for improvement. Do you still have it? You could sell it for a fair price. www.ebay.com/bhp/bakelite-phone
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Post by Don on Dec 22, 2016 15:17:41 GMT -5
As someone who had a black Bakelite phone for decades, I agree that competition is critical for improvement. Do you still have it? You could sell it for a fair price. www.ebay.com/bhp/bakelite-phoneNope, I have a little miracle gadget that I actually own, that does a million other things than let me talk to people voice-to-voice, and that's much cheaper to operate in constant dollars than that boat anchor I used to have... all thanks to AT&T losing their government-granted monopoly. Imagine what education would be like if it had progressed at the pace of improvements in communication, instead of being legislatively frozen in time.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 22, 2016 15:38:55 GMT -5
In my opinion, school choice is just addressing symptoms, not problems. It's not a solution, it's just a temporary fix that will--by definition--not work for everyone. I don't oppose it necessarily, because I sympathize with parents looking to do the best that they can for their kids, but it can't be held up as The Answer. I agree with you to an extent. However, if it creates an environment of competition, then hopefully the public schools will strive to retain more students by improving what they can offer. Free market forces and all that... This assumes that all parents are equally able to strive for that. They aren't. Comparatively well-off, educated parents are in a much better position to get their children into good schools, get the resources for those schools, etc. Poor, ill-educated parents -- or parents who are overwhelmed by their life circumstances and have no time and energy to deal, who wouldn't know how to deal if they did, or who maybe just don't give a fuck (are addicts, abusers, etc.) -- would not be in that position. Their kids would end up in shittier schools, without energetic, knowledgable parents fighting to improve them. There'd likely be a permanent underclass as a result. And there'd almost certainly be much more segregation. Whatever you might think the parents deserve, the kids deserve better. Here's where I'm pretty much a communist -- ALL children, ALL of them, deserve a good school and a good start. It's fucking appalling to me that some public schools are lacking basic supplies. My biases, for your consideration: My father was a public school teacher (high school math). I am a certified high school English teacher (though of course I ended up going to law school). My mother and her sisters were very bright young students from an extremely blighted family -- a dad who was ill their entire life, and a mom who didn't give a damn. Their parents would not have fought for them to get into the "best" school. I see a couple of basic problems with our schools today. Vince put his finger on one: kids today are a shitload harder to handle overall than they were pre-1970, and the teachers are not permitted to do much at all in the way of discipline. I'm not saying they should be allowed to beat the kids, but frankly, they aren't allowed to do much of anything at all. The result is chaos. So sorry, parents -- some of you need to do more to get your kids in line before sending them to school. Teachers don't have much freedom to teach anymore and it's all about standardized tests. When my dad started, he had a lot of freedom, and was one hell of a good teacher. More and more, he was forced into sometimes ridiculous boxes, and it became all about a standardized test. That's bullshit. And the more we do it, the worse our schools get. There's a huge discrepancy in how much public school teachers get and the circumstances under which they teach. I know some public school teachers in New York State making six figures teaching in very nice suburban schools in rich districts. And I know some here in NYC making 45K (which trust me, makes you poor as dirt in NYC), teaching huge unruly classrooms and buying supplies out of their own pocket. Is "choice" going to solve that shit? I really doubt it. I think it might actually be better, if anything, to make the some of the rich kids go to some of those poor schools -- I'll bet they'd improve fast enough.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 22, 2016 15:49:08 GMT -5
I should also note -- not every area has a choice of schools to begin with. My high school was a central school that bussed kids in from several counties. Our "choices" were a Catholic school in one of the towns, and a very expensive private academy that few could afford.
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