posted on July 10, 2002 01:27:54 PM new
Borillar,
I don't like vouchers for the reasons stated by the rest of you, but the Another-School-For-Jesus crowd have not made inroads everywhere, not yet anyway. I live in what is usually a very tolerant area...it's one of those rural places where everybody knows everybody else's business and nobody cares. My kids see me buying beer at our only store on the weekends, and nobody bats an eye.
I'm not afraid to confront the issue in public, and I'm quite sure that the ultra right fundamentalists are indeed working away like termites at the foundations of secular public education. My little rural school had a Christmas play every year until 3 years ago. The plays were comedies, but all based on the scrooge archetype. Each one ended with a live nativity scene, in which a baby selected from the community served as the infant Jesus. My kid was baby J 9 years ago. The plays were designed so that there were parts for every kid in Kindergarten thru 6th grade, and the 7th and 8th graders took care of lights, sound and backstage stuff. After returning from Thanksgiving break, pretty much the whole school was involved in practice and preparation. Students with religious or other objections were of course never required to participate, each year we had a few of those kids. Virtually the entire community would turn out for those plays, and they really were a large part of our feeling of the school being part of the community. Nearly everybody here is of some protestant persuasion, mostly more liberal Baptist types, with a few fudamentalists thrown in. My wife and son practice the Native American religion of her people and I am an amnesiatic Catholic. I have always been outspoken about the separation of church and the schools, but I also feel that local communities should be the final determiners of much that goes on in their schools. I enjoyed participating and the community spirit that went along with the play, but I also always openly made my opinion clear that it was operating on borrowed time. Finally someone came along who was "offended", and on the advice of district lawyers, the 100th annual presentation of our Christmas play was the last one. Now we have a PC "Winter Celebration", where we all sing carefully edit Frosty the Snowman type songs....hardly anyone bothers to come...I personally will never post the 10 commandments in my classroom, teach creation "science", or allow the LDS missionaries to come into my room to visit students they are recruiting for their placement program. On the other hand, the fact that ONE newcomer to a school that didn't like a tradition supported by virtually the entire community (that year I had an Islamic girl in my class whose parents had no problem letting her play the part of an angel) can kill it also frightens me and makes me sad........
posted on July 10, 2002 03:48:55 PM newAntiquary! That was well-put! Can I quote you without attribution or royalties? That statement was succinctly put.
Prof: I can sympathize with your situation. I, too, remember participating in those plays and never heard any complaint from a parent or kid. But now, these religious types are using a Scorched-Earth policy that states that if they do not win their way to insinuate their agenda into your organization, they'll screw up what you have that you cherish the most. In the end, pushed to the Wall, I'd have to vote for the separation of Church and State, as displeasing as it is personally to me.
But every school or organization or system has its share of problems. All could be improved with enough keen insight and effort and dollars carefully and wisely spent. However, when you have loud and well-orchestrated religiously or politically motivated groups whose only agenda is to Infiltrate, Obfuscate, or Obliterate your school's cherished traditions that pull your community together and educate, then I'd say that this concern qualifies as the single, #1 biggest threat to educating children.
That web site that I linked to above, Creation "Science" Debunked provides help and information for understanding the movement against Public Education and ways to fight them on your turf.
posted on July 10, 2002 05:30:23 PM new
The vouchers will also provide a nice little scam for home schoolers. Instead of teaching your own children, the parents teach each others children and collect the vouchers.
If they won't allow the home type school to collect vouchers, they can start their own little school with the kids parents as teachers, and then collect the vouchers. But I'd bet before long their will be suits filed about not allowing some school types to collect vouchers. I don't see why a home schooler shouldn't be allowed to collect vouchers anyway.
If I lived where vouchers are given, I'd get a group of home schoolers to go in with me on it. You still get to teach your kids yourself, but now you get tax payer money for it.
posted on July 10, 2002 06:33:46 PM new
In addition, vouchers will be used to fund fundamentalist schools - religious based schols and schools backed by extremist groups.
How would you feel about the voucher system funding a school backed by a group such as the Ku Klux Klan or any other extremist group?
Taxpayer money should be used to fund public school education. Religious, home, and private schools should take care of themselves.
posted on July 11, 2002 07:50:35 AM new
Well, I finally read most of this thread, and I have a few opinions to post. I am a teacher at an inner city middle school in Los Angeles. Our student population is roughly 97% Hispanic. Most of our students are the first generation to live in the United States. Our parents are quiet, respecting, and helpful, however, they are also poor. The greatest correlations are between both socioeconomic status and educational achievement, and Parent education and achievement (no surprise there, as education and socioeconomic status are very closely linked). Our school has about a 25% staff turn around (in other words, about 25% of our teachers leave the school for another school or another industry every year). Because our turn around is so high, we are usually forced to hire Emergency teachers. These are “teachers” with no training, no experience, and no idea what they are doing. They know their field, but little else. Those of us who have been through the battle a few times try to help as much as we can. Our school has one of the best learning environments in the area. We have set up a Detention room. This is a place to send those children who do not want to participate in the normal classroom activities. They sit and do other work for the remainder of the class period. Our Principal is a man who has been “convicted” of sexual harassment of a teacher at another school (he was sued and lost). He was an officer in the Air Force, and believes that the teachers are his privates (pun intended). He has forced out some of our most experienced teachers because they would not go along with his dictatorship. His goal seems to be to look good. We are up for state review because we have not met our Testing goals, and if his policies look good, he is likely to keep his job. It would look good to do away with the detention room, so that has been a target for the last 3 years. Fortunately we are unionized, so we have been able to prevent his unilateral and illegal moves. I forgot to mention that his big issue now is making sure the classes look nice. We are supposed to have nice posters and such. I am positive my poster of the kitten hanging from a tree with the caption, “Hang In There, Baby!” is going to improve our test scores at least 10%. One assistant principal honestly believes all the BS she has been forced to feed us as to what is going to save our children this year. Her plan is to have me read to my home room for 15 minutes every day from a book she selected. Yep, listening to someone else reading sure helped my reading skills when I was 14. Every year there is a new program to improve the skills of our children. Every year, she believes it. Another Assistant Principal is very nice, but not competent. Her job is to organize the classes, Assign students to classes and so on. It has not been done right yet. This is her 6th year at our school. Another Assistant Principal was force transferred from another school. We do not know why, but we have identified a Napoleon complex. Our last assistant principal is a former teacher who is respected by all of the teachers. If you are wondering why we have 5 administrators for 60 teachers, so are we. I have been in education for 11 years. I spent 5 years teaching history, 1 year as an administrator in charge of technology for 17 different schools, and 5 years teaching computer skills. This all serves as background for my opinions...
1) Administrators are basically useless. A big issue with them is control. They think that if they can control what is going on in school they can improve things. The fact of the matter is almost all of them have their eye on the next level. Meanwhile, the further you get from the classroom, the less you can do to change anything. Extend my statement to say that the higher up an administrator is, the more useless he becomes. My guess is that the Superintendent is so completely useless that he does not exist.
2) All parents care. The issue is not whether or not they care, but how do they express it. Some show they care by hitting their kids when they get a “C.” Some show it by checking the homework every night and helping to make sure their child understands what is happening. I’ve have yet to meet a parent that said, “I don’t care about education. It is not that important anyhow.” The real problem happens when you have a parent who has a 3rd grade education beings asked to help a student learning algebra.
3) Class size matters, but having good teachers counts more. Across California they reduced class sizes and showed some gains in test scores, except in Los Angeles. We had smaller classes, and lower scores, Why? Los Angeles is one of the least attractive places to be a teacher, so we have to settle for emergency teachers. Usually, as soon as they get their credentials, they leave.
4) Self Esteem is important, but it must be based on reality and not on myths. I try to build my students self esteem, but I have no problem pricking that balloon if the esteem they have is based on nothing by wishes and air. If a student can not read, add, subtract, or do any other basic skill and they are in the 8th grade, they have no basis for self esteem and that is a balloon ready for a needle.
5) In the end, a good education is partnership between teachers and parents. If either partner is weak, the partnership is weak.
6) Testing teacher’s skills is useless. You can test their knowledge in their field, but they have to pass a test to get the credential in the first place. You can not test their skill as a teacher. There is no test that can show whether or not I am a good teacher except answering the question, ‘are my students are learning.” I propose a pre/post test. If I am teaching reading, test my students basic reading skills before I start to teach, and test it again after I teach. Eliminate any student who scores under a C in my class (If they did not learn, and I have Identified them as not learning, then they should not count). If the students improved their skill, then I am a good teacher. If a 14 year old reads at a 2nd grade level when he enters my class, and a 4th grade level when he leaves, then I am a great teacher.
posted on July 11, 2002 08:14:14 AM new
Dejapooh - Thank you for sharing that information and your experiences. Very interesting reading especially coming from a teacher from your area.
posted on July 12, 2002 02:30:42 PM new
Another major problem with schools today is that everyone has an opinion. Nearly everyone went to school, so they think they have experience upon which to base their opinion. This is like saying I was an apple, so I know how to make an apple pie. The fact is that until you have been in front of 35 or 40 Thirteen year olds and tried to get them all to move in the same direction at the same time, your opinions are those of an outsider looking in.
posted on July 12, 2002 03:19:23 PM new
Yes, Dejapooh, that was good. That myth of being able to test Teaching Ability comes from those same folks who feel that Government could be better run like a Business. The fact that government can never be run like a business, because it isn't one, only shows how some people can make up absurd ideas and get it into the social consciousness and turn fiction into pesudo-fact.
posted on July 15, 2002 09:19:49 AM new
Generally, the people who say that government can be better run by business or as a business are the same people who are trying to deregulate everything. They did it to us in California when they deregulated energy. Almost without fail, they pass deregulation saying prices will go down, and quality will go up. More often then not, the opposite is the case.
posted on July 16, 2002 09:22:41 AM new
Any significant number of vouchers could reduce funding for the public schools in question as it is based on numbers of children in the system. According to an ABC poll, the public would then be overwhelmingly against them.
posted on July 16, 2002 09:39:28 AM new
My experience when in school was that I was able to help the other two boys at my lab table understand chemistry so that they got much better grades. I was able to do this because if you kept your voice down our teacher did not mind you discussing the lesson and I was able to explain things to them in class right when the question came up and was fresh.
The schools reaction to this was to accuse us of cheating.
When it became clear I was tutoring them not cheating on tests we were told the only way we could continue was if I adapted their methods and tutored the two later ina study hall long after the class was over and the questions not clearly in mind and able to be related to the material.
They put a stop to any competing methods and the boys grades went back down and the threat was averted.
posted on July 16, 2002 10:26:19 AM new
Yes, gravid, we've all managed to have one or two asses for teachers. My first grade teacher used a ruler to punish me for using my left hand instead of my right. My parents saw to it that she was gone for that. My second grade teacher was found to be twisting my ear in class as incentive to pay attention. She too, was gone when my parents found out. My fifth grade violin teacher slapped my hard across the face during class in fornt of the other kids because I was daydreaming. I was too embarassed to tel school authorities or my parents that I had been daydreaming and said only that I wanted to drop out of that class. I never did learn to play the violin. My eigth grade Gym teacher made me nervous so I stopped taking showers, because he would lean in the showers to peer at the boys taking showers and leering at them. Then there were the other bad teachers - >sigh<!
Does that mean that school was rotten for me? Nope! There were many teachers who tried their best to get me to excell, some of them still inspire me today with their enthueseasm and dedication to the idea that knowledge will set you free.
I think that that episode still sticks in your craw, gravid. That you'd like to go backm in time and tell that idiot off, tell him that what you were doing was better than what he could conceive of. Maybe we can use these things, these bad memories as platforms to springboard our ideas into this discussion?
posted on July 16, 2002 10:39:16 AM new"Almost without fail, they pass deregulation saying prices will go down, and quality will go up. More often then not, the opposite is the case."
You are absolutely correct on that remark, Dejapooh. The reason that regulating works so well is that most industries refuse to come up with their own standards of Quality and Fairness. When they are behaving badly - like Microsoft does, then it is up to a bigger bully to turn around the small bully that is beating up on us. That is, the government must make up standards of Quality and Fairness and enforce them on industry where industry will not do it for itself. Many times, regulations actually do more for the industries than they let on: food standards help keep businesses from getting sued becase Quality and Safety are heavily regulated. Sure, it costs them more to adhere to the regulations, but it also helps to prevent them from going out of business. This is why you see the demand to get rid of regulations mixed together with the demand to make said industries lawsuit-proof. That should tell anybody the story right then and there.
But, schools are not industries or businesses. Yet, I am all for a National Standard. I do not think that we ought to punish a student or school for not meeting that national standard, but that we ought to use it as a guide to point out what schools need help with what services and funds.
That presents a danger as well. If you give more services and funds to schools in areas that they need them, certain administrators will figure that the worse their school is off, the more money and services they can get ahold of. Natural Administrator thinking.
So, we can adjust things so that it won't be an incentive to do worse. But the point is that we can begin to target extra funding and services to those schools that need it the most.
Remember last year after 9-11, Bush couldn't wait a single breath to rush out and to procure a 20 Billion Dollar Bailout of the airline industry (who turned right around and fired everyone that they were going to anyway, while dispersing that 20 Billion as Bonuses to executives)? You don't hear Bush or the GOP rushing around for a 20 Billion dollar repair and upgrade of our schools, do you? Bastards!
posted on July 16, 2002 10:51:07 AM new
Well I never had children so a lot of you will say right there that I have no right to an opinion. But If we had been able to have children there is no way I would have sent them to public school because there were things every day not just isolated incidents that I remember with anger - and yes I am not one to forget or forgive. In 12 grades I can think of 3 teachers that were worth having because they both knew their subjects and could teach them, another 3 that should be charged with child abuse, and the rest were plodding along doing their best but bless their little hearts they just weren't very bright and the administration worked against them to prevent doing any better. I would rather have one really really good teacher in a virtual class room with 10,000 students and a supporting network of fellow students and tutors for those having difficulty than 1,000
dull insipid zoombies who can concentrate their pointless droning on ten students to no effect.
Technology is no help because nobody has the imagination to use it other than presenting the same material in the same manner at a distance. If it's crap it doesn't get better spreading it around.
The system has been broken for a good 40 years and is beyond saving.
It squanders the talent of many middle ability students that could contribute much to society and fails the ones that need special help at both ends of the scale even worse.
posted on July 16, 2002 11:58:47 AM new
A real problem with Vouchers is that they will provide government sponsorship to students who currently go to private schools on their parents dime. By doing this, the number of children educated by public expense goes up while the funding remains the same. The result is less money per child. Often I hear people say that you can not solve the problem by throwing money at it. Well, we need better qualified and trained teachers ($). We need to retain good teachers who are now leaving education for higher paying jobs ($). We need new schools and we need to update the schools that exist ($). We need a longer school year with more time in class ($). We need fewer students in each class ($). A major problem is that people want the problems solved for free. Some people confuse wise and necessary spending and throwing money.
That statement was succinctly put.
