Abolish the Department of Education?

[Oak Tree]

Another problem with charter schools becoming the main steam: Statistics and track records. I support free market all the way, but education should not be a part of it if it is education for all. What about the kid who just doesn't advance at the same rate as anybody else? he gets dumped of put intyo a rediculously simple program to improve his scores. THose scores are the calling card, and therefor the "how awesome we are" rating of those schools.

 

I'm not sure how you can say you support free market all the way but not for education for everyone.

 

[side point - Beavah is right - families who attend charter schools go for free.]

 

Now, you do raise an interesting point here. In order for the market to work freely, you need a few things.

- The ability for new producers to enter the market. (open a new school)

- The ability to compare products against one another.

- The ability for producers to increase their supply (enlarge their schools)

- Some incentive for the consumer to choose one product over another.

- Some incentive for the producer to get more consumers.

 

Right now we are limited in the ability to create charter schools in NC. Parents do have the ability to compare schools from one to another. Some important aspects they can see up front - how far is the school from their home, how big are the classes, what are the subjects offered, who are the teachers? They can also get some idea of the student body by looking at test scores and a list of how many students go on to which colleges. The thing that is very hard to get a real handle on is how well the school actually does at educating students. You're right - the number of students who score above minimum is a pretty terrible way to measure this. The thing I'd like to see most would be data on how students do based on their aptitude for learning and their initial grade level. So people at the 90th percentile on aptitude tests and starting at a tenth grade performance level typically gain 1.2 years of grade level performance - or something like that.

 

Even then you'd have to decide if that's really the key data point you want. There are certainly other variables that would play into this - what percentage of the schools juniors are working a job; how many of them come from intact families; how many of them grew up in a house full of books; etc. Doing a statistically meaningful analysis of school performance is difficult. But that can be true for lots of products. Which green beans are safest? healthiest? produced in an environmentally friendly fashion? Still, we let the market decide. The government might decide to make it easier to compare things. Each car has to post the MPG. Each school could be required to provide certain data.

 

I think that the education system clearly has the first four characteristics on my list - it's easy enough to open a new school (once it's legal to do so), we have some data to compare schools, schools can expand, parents have a very strong incentive for choosing good schools (so much that people routinely pay more money for their house so that their kids can attend a particular school. I know multiple instances of people renting an apartment just to establish a new temporary residence so their child can attend a school in another zone.) The big question for me is what the incentive is for the charter schools to do a good job. One part of it is that if they stop attracting students, the school will be forced to close. We usually like incentives that aren't entirely on/off like that - if a school is doing reasonably well, what incentive is there for a teacher to do a better job?

 

And that's the problem with the public schools today too - what is their incentive to do a better job? They have even less incentive than the charter schools. In normal markets there is usually some type of monetary incentive. Do better, sell more product, make more money. It's not clear how that could be applied to charter schools. Well, I can think of a variety of ways, but it's not clear how accepted or practical they might be. One way would be to let charter schools charge an extra fee. Then they can compete on price, and you could offer some bonus-sharing for the teachers at a school that can attract families who are willing to pay extra.

 

Right now I would be happy if their only incentive was to be able to stay open. Charter schools would at least offer a much wider variety of educational options and the bad ones would fail and close.

 

You'd have to figure out how the lottey system worked, and you do still need a school of last resort. My mom was a teacher and she always asked how a charter school system would deal with the special education kids. Quite honestly, I'd expect that schools would open up to cater to them and those schools would be happy to take the federal money. But it is possible that there would be cases where there just isn't enough of a market for some niche demographic, or some remote rural school district. So there would still have to be a government option or something.

 

I know this would open things up for other societal effects - but that's another facet of the discussion that can wait for another time.

[RememberSchiff]

Sorry to sidetrack the discussion, just wanted to followup.

 

"Could someone explain to me why the Dept of Ed. continues to partially fund Howard University as a budget line item to the tune of over $250mil annually?"

 

Because it's one of the very few colleges that were chartered by Congress,...

 

That's my point, those other federally chartered colleges - Gallaudet, George Washington, American,... are not annual line items, let alone BIG ticket line items, in the Dept of Education budget, so it seemed odd to me. As I understand, Congress is not required to fund entities chartered by them and these are private institutions (sound familiar?).

 

Another $0.01,

[packsaddle]

Oak Tree, to address part of your post, today we have political avenues to address educational needs. If enough families see a sufficient need we can force school boards, through replacement if necessary, to make needed changes. This is a very local process. We also have legal requirements that individual families can bring to bear (IEP's for example) if they are willing to take the time and make the investment.

In some sense the market IS working right now. It just has a huge public presence in addition to the private educational opportunities. The risk I see is that many persons might view the political call for privatization as a means to pay lower taxes, with the speculative possibility of improving education at the same time. If these individuals are not already investing the time and other resources to support the education of their children, I think it is unlikely that they will be willing to pay the price for the private option. Most of them, as I noted long ago in my opposition to vouchers, merely want something for nothing (although some, I admit, have even less-honorable motivations as well).

THIS, to me, is the largest risk factor for going to a greater free-market approach. Yes, those of us who work hard for education for our families will get it. I can tell you from personal experience that we CAN get it right now if we're really willing to pay that price.

[BadenP]

Some interesting points being made here, however for you folks who believe that any high school student should not be made college ready by the time they graduate is living in a world that doesn't exsist anymore. The charter school in Harlem I discussed earlier proves that any child can be made college ready, even the poorest and highest risk youth have the ability and potential, if it is nutured and cultivated. Even if they never go to college their education greatly will help them in whatever they do.

 

Look at our industries today how many enginneers, scientists, and doctors are being imported from India, China, Korea, etc., etc. In the medical clinic where my doctor is located only two doctors are American born and trained, in all the hospitals in the large city area where I live the number of immigrant doctors at all levels is staggering. The same thing can be said for most of the high tech industries in our country today, just look at Microsoft for example. This is the reality of todays world, like it or not and if our kids are not properly prepared for these professions in a decade or two we will be outsourcing or filling these professions with foreigners who have been trained.

 

I don't know about you but I don't want to ever see our country sink to the level of a second or third class nation because we insist on perpetuating the current public school system that has been failing our kids for a long time now.(This message has been edited by BadenP)

[CalicoPenn]

Schiff - did you miss the part about the alumni listing reading like a virtual who's who of Black American politics? Or how the college has powerful members of Congress behind it?

 

If there was a powerful, deaf Representative or Senator who went to Gallaudet, you better believe there would be a line item in the budget for them.

 

My point - it isn't in the DoED budget because the DoED put it there, it's in the budget because someone in Congress put it there.

 

 

[evmori]

If there was a powerful, deaf Representative or Senator who went to Gallaudet, you better believe there would be a line item in the budget for them.

 

Looks like it's slippery slope time!

[JoeBob]

At the risk of being flamed into ash:

I think we need to leave some children behind; the opposite of NCLB.

Or at least recognize that not all children will ever be equal, and quit trying to make it so.

 

By sacrificing so many of our resources on the lower sector, trying to pull up the underprivileged, we have lost the excellence we once had.

 

Remember the 'track' system? Schools had smart kids, average kids, and dumb kids divided into three sets and taught to the target audience. But it became politically incorrect to admit that there were 'dumb' kids, and we put everyone in the same classroom, so that the smart kids could help teach the dumbs kids.

 

Over the long term, that hasn't worked too well, has it?

 

We need to face the fact that some parents don't care to invest in their children, and expect the government to babysit them from cradle to grave. These kids have no positive role model to motivate them to learn or work. Having a whole generation aspiring to grow up and be a bad teachers, like their bad teachers, is not good for the country.

 

I'm sorry, someone has to make the fries.

 

[BS-87]

JoeBob has a point.

 

Some kids learn faster than others, which is why the next system of education in America will need to be competency based instead of schedule based.

 

Some kids can, at 16, complete all the competencies a college ready student should have.

 

Some kids, at 18, are will not even be work-ready in their competencies.

 

We will start seeing a lot of independent and small group work versus the traditional classroom. These individuals and small groups will "test out" of competencies, and those who can will move on to more challenging work and those who don't will receive more "teacher time".

 

There will be a lot of distance learning, and a lot more career focused work as we move ahead.

 

Employers will probably be looking more for certifications than degrees.

 

This is all looking down the road, and it suggests that American public education is going to have to change dramatically or the private sector is going to completely overtake them.

 

[BadenP]

Joe Bob

 

The only problem with your scenario with welfare/poor kids is that for one it was not their fault they were born to poor/welfare parents. Secondly, if we don't break the poverty cycle by giving them a chance at getting a good job with a decent education then like their parents they will be on the welfare dole supported by the state for all of their lives. A good education up through high school does NOT have to cost a lot of money and what you spend now will be a small fraction of what they will cost the state if they are on welfare. What delivering a quality education really takes is an administration that really understands how to develop and work within a set budget, and teachers who are knowledgable in their speciality and really love to teach.

 

Instead the public school system we have today hasn't got a clue how to do or live within a budget, and we have teachers who are burnt out, really hate teaching, giving minimal effort, and are just lousy teachers being protected by tenure and unions instead of being culled out as what happens in charter and private schools. Who suffers as a result? The kids and the taxpayers do. It is high time the DoED was eliminated for their dismal record of performance, and that the entire public school system is either totally abolished or revamped into a system that puts the kids education first and foremost. Instead of harboring corrupt administrators misappropriating public tax money and lousy incompetent teachers who should have been let go years ago they should be required to meet a standard of excellence or be shut down. Charter and private schools have been able to meet these standards for years, and all we get from public schools are excuses and diminishing quality in their programs.

[packsaddle]

"Instead the public school system we have today hasn't got a clue how to do or live within a budget, and we have teachers who are burnt out, really hate teaching, giving minimal effort, and are just lousy teachers being protected by tenure and unions instead of being culled out as what happens in charter and private schools."

This is a particularly and uniformly negative outlook. Is it true?

 

"Average 2009 NAEP Score By State Teacher Contract Laws

 

States with binding teacher contracts

4th grade: Math 240.0 Reading 220.7

8th grade: Math 282.1 Reading 263.7

 

States without binding teacher contracts

4th grade: Math 237.7 Reading 217.5

8th grade: Math 281.2 Reading 259.5

 

As the table shows, the states in which there are no teachers covered under binding agreements score lower than the states that have them. Moreover, even though they appear small, all but one of these (8th grade math) are rather large differences."

The above comes from: http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/

as summarized in a Washington Post article.

Here are some rankings:

"Average Rank Across 4 NAEP Tests

Next to each state is its average rank

 

Virginia....... 16.6

Texas......... 27.3

N. Carolina.. 27.5

Georgia.......36.8

Arkansas.....38.9

S. Carolina...38.9

Arizona........43.3

Alabama......45.5

Louisiana.....47.8

Mississippi...48.6

 

Out of these 10 states, only one (Virginia) has an average rank above the median, while four are in the bottom 10, and seven are in the bottom 15. These data make it very clear that states without binding teacher contracts are not doing better, and the majority are actually among the lowest performers in the nation.

 

In contrast, nine of the 10 states with the highest average ranks are high coverage states, including Massachusetts, which has the highest average score on all four tests."

 

Does anyone see evidence in this that public schools dominated by lousy, tenured, unionized teachers are underperforming their non-unionized peers? I sure don't. Actually, we had our children in private school and switched to public school BECAUSE of the lousy teachers in the private school. Yes, some of the public school teachers needed to retire but others were outstanding. I just don't see that you can apply a blanket condemnation to all teachers that work in public school systems and claim it is a fair statement.

[BadenP]

Pack

 

No not all public schools are in a horrific state but the majority are.

Now take your same statistics and compare them to students in foreign countries, who are being imported at an ever growing rate to fill positions in the sciences, technology, and medicine and you will be amazed how far behind our kids truly are. A recent article I read on the jobs of the future, high tech and science that a recent survey of top high tech corporations stated 2 of every 3 jobs in these fields in the U.S. have to filled from outside our country because of the LACK of qualified American candidates.

 

When you see on a worldwide basis in a world wide economy the USA ranks somewhere down between 17th and 20th place in math and sciences, whereas China, Japan, India, and S. Korea are always in the top five positions. Pack, to me that says we are failing both educationally and economically as a country and must reprioritize our current public educational system and set a much better standard of excellence or run the risk of becoming a third rate country, that too is a fact on which all the economic experts and corporate moguls seem to agree.

[BS-87]

BadenP - You are right, but a little misleading.

 

Those countries only test the top 10% of students. However, the top 10% in China outnumbers the 100% of American counterparts.

[Eagledad]

>>The only problem with your scenario with welfare/poor kids is that for one it was not their fault they were born to poor/welfare parents. Secondly, if we don't break the poverty cycle by giving them a chance at getting a good job with a decent education then like their parents they will be on the welfare dole supported by the state for all of their lives.

[BadenP]

Barry

 

In most cases these welfare kids get an inferior education and are not competitive in the marketplace after graduation,if they even graduate. Out of date textbooks, little to no equipment, teachers who don't really want to be there are just a few of the factors. My point is we can either help pay to get them a decent education now or we will pay them 100 times more when they become welfare receipients themselves. We need to be taking more people off of welfare not putting more on it, but that is exactly what is happening in our country.(This message has been edited by BadenP)

[Eagledad]

>>In most cases these welfare kids get an inferior education and are not competitive in the marketplace after graduation,if they even graduate. Out of date textbooks, little to no equipment, teachers who don't really want to be there are just a few of the factors.