I think this is great. Public schools have had a virtual monopoly on K-12 education in many parts of the country, while having little accountability for the end product. A little competition for education dollars should improve the field.
I think this is great. Public schools have had a virtual monopoly on K-12 education in many parts of the country, while having little accountability for the end product. A little competition for education dollars should improve the field.
"Things should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler." ~ Albert Einstein
Don't drop dead of shock. I agree with you here. I'm not suddenly batting for the other team - it's just that as an Arizonan, I realize that our public schools suck. I am OK with an experiment with education such as this- it reminds me of Colorado putting it's neck on the block by legalizing Marijuana before any other state, or Massachusetts making same sex marriage legal way back in 2004 before any other state. RobOriginally Posted by Alan
The primary race is too close to be called between Kari Lake and her opponent. I am praying she does not win. Rob
What does ‘accountability’ for public schools look like? Did ‘no child left behind’ not accomplish that? If not why not? Is it really a better answer to just toss accountability to the winds and let parents decide what they think accountability is? And what of parents who just don’t care or are too busy worrying about keeping food on the table to even consider educational accountability? Do the kids of those parents not deserve accountability and a good education? This seems like a great way to simply write off as ‘hopeless’ kids at the lower end of the financial spectrum.
It is the elite status quo that decided children's education was expendable. While putting their own children in private schools that met in person they shut down public schools, disproportionately impacting students of color and poor students. They left multiple children with one device in a household to try to do schoolwork remotely - in noisy, multigenerational homes where they presented a greater risk to their grandparents than if they had been in school. They left children in rural areas with no internet at all to sit in cars in the middle of winter in the McDonald parking lot trying to do their schoolwork using the wifi there. They told children they were disease vectors and shamed them if they didn't wear masks. They forced even toddlers to wear masks. They forced disabled students to do without the in person supports they needed to learn. They forced young deaf, hard of hearing, etc students to try to do speech therapy masked. They gave children demerits if they took their mask off. They denied them outdoor mask breaks when they had trouble breathing. They made them sit alone for lunch 6 feet from others in school parking lots in all kinds of weather. They forced parents to keep their kids home for weeks at a time if there was a "close contact" with covid at school even as they themselves in Boris Johnson style ignored covid protocols. A recent example is Kamala Harris hugging covid positive Joe Biden but yet going about her schedule normally with no restrictions.
I used to oppose government funding of private schools but now I am all for it. The system exists for the benefits of teachers unions and the kids don't matter. States that kept schools open like Florida had no worse covid outcomes than states that closed them, but there has been zero accountability. Some people are now claiming they were never for school closures when they were, but they really don't need to lie. No heads will roll. As school enrollment has gone down, the number of school bureaucrats has gone up in places like Boston.
Let people vote with their feet.
they won't answer it because they can't. How do parents have any possible way to make those decisions? They don't really. Like ok, well connected parents make them by word of mouth, by prestige, whatever, same as it ever was, but everyone else, has no real means to evaluate one school from another. What is there in terms of consumer protection or guidance? Parents not caring that much is NORMAL. Utterly utterly mundane and normal. And in many ways same as it ever was too. Evolution hasn't required perfect or even good parents, just reproduction and survival, that is all. Remember it actually takes more strategy to prevent pregnancy than to get/get someone pregnant.Is it really a better answer to just toss accountability to the winds and let parents decide what they think accountability is? And what of parents who just don’t care or are too busy worrying about keeping food on the table to even consider educational accountability?
Trees don't grow on money
I have had the privilege of working with some parents on covid mandates in the schools. These are not the "well connected parents" because the well connected send their kids to private schools.
There is a fierce love of and advocacy for their children by the activist, primarily blue collar, parents. Those who stereotype them are ill informed. These individuals (some with medical backgrounds, but most self-educated) know much more about covid than the people putting in the mandates, who blindly follow the guidance of a very politicized, flawed, and contradictory CDC.
You could do what past societies, called primitive, did - rotate leadership among all members of the society - and you would have a better government than you have now. Think of juries where everyone serves - same idea. I highly recommend The Dawn of Everything on the topic of decentralized leadership.
Right now we have government of the elite, by the elite, for the elite, including the pharma millionaires and billionaires.
One thing people lose sight about in this in their doom and gloom statement about public schools is that some parents want to send their child to a public school that is not the one that the public school has designated they must attend. There are pockets of“good” schools in my city of St. Louis. Too bad if you happen to live across the line they have decided is the boundary line.
I think this is amazing - if you read the article, not all of the per pupil funding us leaving with the student, so the schools will have more funding per pupil for the ones who stay - which supposedly will help them better serve those students. Meanwhile, the ones who are not being well served will gave more options.
my point of view is shaped by working in schools, sending one kid to public kindergarten, then homeschooling my children, then sending them to public high school by their own choice, and teaching in a program that serves the same function as a school but does it better for the kids we serve because we are a “non profit educational program” serving legally homeschooled kids and are free from a lot of red tape.
my program tends to never qualify for any educational funding, and we pay badly in spite of prioritizing payroll, and still lose kids over tuition costs because we don’t have enough scholarship money. so it would be lovely if a program like ours qualified for this. But there was no step of my children’s education that I don’t think would have been improved by this.
edited to add - as a homeschooler and now empty nester, I always vote for school funding. Just because I didn’t want to hand over my kids doesn’t mean I don’t want the best for other people’s kids - especially since they are going to run the world when I am old!
What have you done today to make the world a better place?
The well connected don't necessarily send their kids to private schools, but if it's public schools. it's in "good school districts". The cost of admission is high either way, but the latter is called property values.
Trees don't grow on money
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote