This oughta make the extreme rightwing homeschoolers happy

[cjsmom]

Sneakily dismantling public school systems has been happening across North America for years. It begins by creating charter schools and cutting funding to public education while increasing the funding to private schools. Add in high-stakes testing, and corporations and textbook companies designing curriculum that is completely at odds with how kids learn and when they're ready to learn new concepts. Then the typical cry of fundie persecution... cus you know, as an agent of teh ebbil government, I do that every chance I get, right?

There are basically 4 concepts that threaten public education (somewhat off-topic... what fundies are doing is only 1 part of the problems facing public education):

1. Neo-liberal marketplace/business models of education: parents should have a choice of where to educate their children, so let's allow private and charter schools to flourish with extra funding over and above what public schools receive.

2. Neo-conservative thinking which pushes for standards - too many standards, and standards that are too high for most children to achieve, and funding is cut to public schools that don't meet standards (why schools don't meet standards is a whole other issue!).

3. The growing popularity of fundamentalists who believe that homeschooling is the only means to an education if your children are to be protected from the outside world.

4. The current data-driven trend to measure what typically has not been measured before, and programs designed to accomplish this (eSIS for example). I spend countless hours entering data, and where I can legally get away with it, I enter "see documentation on file", because I don't feel confident in what's being done with data such as medical diagnoses or IQ determination. I can't tell where privileged information goes, or who has access to it, or for what purpose.

I wonder what would happen to the students I teach - profoundly affected by autism, low IQ's, developmental disabilities, brain injuries, FASD (and other toxicity-related disorders) - if public schools are to be fully disallowed. Already there is a tremendous burden on the public system. My students are generally not welcome in private schools unless they were to attend specialty schools for their diagnosis.

Ultimately, the gap between those who have an abundance of resources and those who don't will widen as a result of public schooling being made illegal/unconstitutional/unfunded... however the legislative powers that be manage to completely kill them off.

[camdendayton]

You're right, and that's chilling. Defund a little more here, regulate a little tighter there, and soon the public schools will be so bad that the only kids in them are those that can not afford anything else. That has already happened in some US cities, and the school system has become worse and worse in those areas. My own state just drastically cut education spending, especially at the university level. I have a toddler, and I'm very concerned about whether he and his peers will have access to good schools over the next twenty years. :(

Yes! This is happening all over the country. LA's school board seems content to give brand new buildings they have PAID for away to other groups if there is anyone that seems capable. They, IMO, are throwing in the towel.

While I agree with pretty much everyone here that public schools will not be abolished, as they are made worse and worse they will become more and more like day cares and juvenile detention centers than true places of learning (at least at the middle and high school level) as teachers are overwhelmed with higher percentage of students with issues that make them very difficult to educate, especially in the era of standardized testing.

[misslady]

Thanks to a proliferation of private and charter schools, Milwaukee public schools are suffering. Private and charter schools can be more selective about what students they accept. As a result, the public schools are required take on the burden of troublemaking kids, disabled kids, unmotivated kids, and kids who have already been kicked out of the private and charter schools. There's a disability advocacy group suing the city, claiming that the voucher program and charter schools are discriminatory against disabled children.

Many other urban districts, including my local, are having the same problem. We actually have a charter attempting to claim it's not a public school, even though it is entirely funded through the local district. Additionally, our central administration keeps converting more and more schools to charter status (except they still have to accept everyone in their cachement), because that will somehow fix all of the problems those schools are having. What it really does is bust the union in that building, leading to reduced staff experience level (because the people with experience won't stand for the nonsense, go somewhere else and are replaced by starry-eyed recent grads who can be pushed around because they don't know better) and burnout. We also have parents who "charter-shop" - kid gets in trouble at one charter, gets kicked out, parent takes them to another, repeat, and by the time they've exhausted their options and the kid's back in public school their education has been completely disrupted.

Sorry, this is one of my bugaboos. Hate the "charters will fix everything" movement. On topic - I agree with whoever said that you have to watch what your local area is doing to your district. I live in an area where the elderly tax base would take all their money out of the schools if they could. Do we want to wind up like some of the countries in Africa where kids don't go to school because parents can't pay the fees? We've already got schools charging "activity fees" to make up budget shortfalls, which excludes some of the kids who most need activities.

[liltwinstar]

Do people not understand that an educated population benefits everyone?? That is the whole point of having a free, public education system - because one day, those kids in school will grow up to be voters, and in a democracy, we need informed, educated voters. That's kind of the foundation - we believe in equality here and any child can grow up to be president and all that - but if kids can't go to school because their parents can't afford it, that's not very equal, is it?

I'm not a socialist (I don't think, anyway) but you can't really share in the benefits of a society when you don't pay for them. Tea partiers drive on roads, call 911, send their kids to public school, etc and you don't get that stuff for free. You just don't. The money has to come from somewhere. Now, I know that corporations in a lot of cases get huge tax breaks, and I think that needs to be fixed - so I'm not saying that "Joe Six Pack" has to foot the bill for everything. But we all do have to share in a portion of it - that's part of being a good citizen.

I'm just getting so tired of the attitude of "I want it all (Medicare, Military spending, whatever) but someone else has to pay for it - not me."

[camdendayton]

Do people not understand that an educated population benefits everyone?? That is the whole point of having a free, public education system - because one day, those kids in school will grow up to be voters, and in a democracy, we need informed, educated voters. That's kind of the foundation - we believe in equality here and any child can grow up to be president and all that - but if kids can't go to school because their parents can't afford it, that's not very equal, is it?

I'm not a socialist (I don't think, anyway) but you can't really share in the benefits of a society when you don't pay for them. Tea partiers drive on roads, call 911, send their kids to public school, etc and you don't get that stuff for free. You just don't. The money has to come from somewhere. Now, I know that corporations in a lot of cases get huge tax breaks, and I think that needs to be fixed - so I'm not saying that "Joe Six Pack" has to foot the bill for everything. But we all do have to share in a portion of it - that's part of being a good citizen.

I'm just getting so tired of the attitude of "I want it all (Medicare, Military spending, whatever) but someone else has to pay for it - not me."

I think everyone (except maybe our dear fundies) knows the population is better when educated. People have just become so selfish they aren't willing to pay for it. I believe school board's like LA know this and are honestly giving up (at least some of the prominent members are)

[JesusFightClub]

I'm just getting so tired of the attitude of "I want it all (Medicare, Military spending, whatever) but someone else has to pay for it - not me."

It is a basically socialist attitude, but that doesn't make you an avowed Marxist (unless you would like to be? wink, beckon etc ;))

There is a huge problem with "I want this. But I won't pay." It's everywhere. Here in the UK we've had a party leader say we shouldn't have to pay for disabled people on long term incapacity benefit. Fine then, we cut off their money and they beg on street corners. Onoez, it's a nuisance to Joe Public and he appeals to the police. Too bad, there are three coppers in your local station (which has been defunded) all of whom are dealing with one murder case and don't have time for him.

People don't seem to get that no money equals no money for nice things. You can't refuse to pay for anything *on principle* and expect to get something. Choose your principle, no tax and no services, or tax and services.

[dcmhejbl62]

cjsmom, I agree. I think the article gets to the core of the problem... for years now, there has been a concerted effort by many to dismantle public schools. I really believe that. Until we as a country and legislative body come together and decide we all WANT a good public school system, it's not going to happen.

And we're not there yet. In our community, which boasts good schools, we've had a teabagger or two trying to dismantle the teacher's union, eliminate professional development and education reimbursement for teachers, restrict bus transportation, eliminate administration and crisis counselors and the gifted program, restrict special education testing, and cut extracurriculars. Oh, but they did manage to get "Winter Break" changed to "Christmas Break."

Luckily we have a very active community and usually sane members on the bulk of the board (including my pastor, who was the lone dissent against the "Winter Break" change, go figure) who prevail, but I can't help but wonder how extraordinary the district could have been by now if the entire community believed it was imperative to our country's survival to educate our children, and everybody spent time doing that, instead of squabbling all the time.

If your community is not supportive of public education, you as a parent are not going to be able to show up to school 3-4 days a week or head the PTA and fix all that is wrong.

[Austin]

I ranted about the charter school thing this morning in Chatter on the Union thread, and won't reinvent the wheel here, but my husband has had experience in both public and charter schools so I think it's relevant to this conversation:

My husband is a teacher, as I have mentioned many times. He worked in a public school for 35 years as a member of his teacher's union. Meh. We never thought much about it. He never really "needed" them and while he appreciated that they negotiated the best they could on their members' behalf, he didn't get too involved in the union stuff.

Last year he retired and took a position in a charter school so that we could have affordable health insurance. No union. It sucks. Administrators do what they want when they want. They do not provide necessary resources (such as paper) if they don't feel like it. There is no support staff, so that a teacher may have to spend an hour or more a day copying, as there are not enough textbooks to go around. Staff are targeted for no good reason. His neighboring teacher was written up because as with many young people, she does not wear a wristwatch and an administrator walked by her classroom and saw her with her cell phone out. She was checking the time, as the clock in her classroom had not worked all year. She was written up for "cell phone usage".

Meanwhile, administrators behave horrendously and have to be way over the top to be fired. His principal last year was wild, drinking with younger staff after school regularly and just generally misbehaving in bars and clubs. Staff became concerned about this, because this is hardly the sort of mentoring that a 22-year-old beginner teacher needs (many charter school teachers are young and inexperienced, b/c they are the only ones who will work for $28K a year), plus she often showed up to work hung over or not until noon the next day. It wasn't until photos of her dancing nearly topless in a bar appeared on facebook that action was finally taken. Then it came to light that she didn't even have a teaching license. Yeah, great due diligence there.

Throughout this, my husband realized how much unions actually protect the process of education and ability of teachers to actually educate (not be receptionists, aides, janitors, etc.).

Charter schools are the darlings of legislatures and politicians right now, even in the Obama administration, which should know better. Capitalism/competition is supposed to improve everything, right? Charter schools are raking in the money and largely underperforming with little oversight. No pesky unions keeping kids from being educated, right? The truth is that while there are some very successful charter schools, there are many more that are not using the resources they are afforded for the benefit of their students and perform overall worse than public schools.

The charter school my husband teaches at is in "academic emergency" due to poor test scores since it opened five years ago. The neighboring district (the one he used to teach in) is rated as "excellent" by the same body (ODE). Why parents make this strange choice is frankly, beyond me. (Brag warning: 95% of my husband's 5th grade class tested as proficient or higher on the state test. He would not stay if he did not feel he could make a difference, and clearly he can, despite the terrible mismanagement.)

The outrage over unions protecting sub-par teachers is pretty much just crap. In every district, including the one he taught for 35 years, there are clearly defined ways to deal with sub-par teachers. It is a process. Insufficient performance must be observed. It must be documented. If it is documented properly, there is NOTHING the union can or will do to "save" an underperforming teacher. The problem is that administrators do not seem to know how to read these steps and follow them. Good teachers know that there are a few bad teachers in their buildings. They want them gone as much as anyone, but so often, administrators do little or nothing. They may call the teacher in and speak with them, but if nothing is written down and the process that has been agreed upon is not honored, that conversation means nothing. Unions can't fire bad teachers. Other teachers can't fire bad teachers. Only administrators can fire bad teachers, but since they can't just do it on a whim and there is a process in place, they often just can't be bothered.

[O Latin]

I'm not even going to go into all the things that I think are wrong with public schools (and probably many, if not most, private schools as well) because I'd be here all day. I do not think public schools should be done away with, however. That would be ridiculous, and I agree with those who have already said it will never happen. I would love to see public education vastly restructured, although I don't think that will happen either, at least not any time soon. I hope I will be able to afford some alternative for any children I might have, because I don't think public schools provide anyone but a very highly motivated few with anything resembling a good education. And before anyone asks, yes I went to public school and yes I think I got a decent education but only because 1) I happened to live in a good school district, and 2) because my parents and I put a great deal of effort into ensuring that I got a good education.

I don't mean to sound so anti-public school, because I'm really not. I signed petitions and went to protests (things I normally never do) against our idiot state superintendent of education, whose only goal seems to be to screw over teachers, and thus, students as well. I just think education could be so much better, if only everyone could stop pointing fingers at each other and work to get something done.

[camdendayton]

I don't mean to sound so anti-public school, because I'm really not. I signed petitions and went to protests (things I normally never do) against our idiot state superintendent of education, whose only goal seems to be to screw over teachers, and thus, students as well. I just think education could be so much better, if only everyone could stop pointing fingers at each other and work to get something done.

Yes, especially those like you mention who seemingly point fingers exclusively at teachers. (opps, was that a finger point ;-) )

[Alecto]

1. Neo-liberal marketplace/business models of education: parents should have a choice of where to educate their children, so let's allow private and charter schools to flourish with extra funding over and above what public schools receive.

Shouldn't that be neo-libertarian? The whole free market thing doesn't seem to jive with common liberal beliefs.

[treemom]

They don't seem to get the impact that would have economically.

[misslady]

The outrage over unions protecting sub-par teachers is pretty much just crap. In every district, including the one he taught for 35 years, there are clearly defined ways to deal with sub-par teachers. It is a process. Insufficient performance must be observed. It must be documented. If it is documented properly, there is NOTHING the union can or will do to "save" an underperforming teacher. The problem is that administrators do not seem to know how to read these steps and follow them. Good teachers know that there are a few bad teachers in their buildings. They want them gone as much as anyone, but so often, administrators do little or nothing. They may call the teacher in and speak with them, but if nothing is written down and the process that has been agreed upon is not honored, that conversation means nothing. Unions can't fire bad teachers. Other teachers can't fire bad teachers. Only administrators can fire bad teachers, but since they can't just do it on a whim and there is a process in place, they often just can't be bothered.

Most of the people I have encountered who are outraged are people with some horror story about a terrible teacher, who for whatever reason can't let go of their experience even years after they have left school and who refuse to admit that the vast majority of teachers are not like that. Add this to the fact that teachers have it rough anyway because most people have been to school in some form, so they think they know what teachers' jobs entail, and you get a perfect storm for this kind of anti-union thinking.

[camdendayton]

Shouldn't that be neo-libertarian? The whole free market thing doesn't seem to jive with common liberal beliefs.

Neoliberalism has been around since the 70s, when liberal was used somewhat differently than it is today: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism#History

[fundiefan]

I don't see it happening. While there are things too numerous to count that need to be 'fixed' within the public school systems of this country, the key word is fix. If it's broken, freaking repair it. Don't abolish or dismantle it. Education isn't disposable.

[GolightlyGrrl]

I don't see it happening. While there are things too numerous to count that need to be 'fixed' within the public school systems of this country, the key word is fix. If it's broken, freaking repair it. Don't abolish or dismantle it. Education isn't disposable.

THIS TIMES A HUNDRED!!!

Okay, when did public education become a bad thing? My mom grew up working class in what is considered the "hood" and she got a top notch education at a public school. No matter what, people deemed it good that America's children got a good education, and they didn't mind paying for it.

Just wtf changed? When did educating our children become such a hot button issue for some people? Private school and home schooling isn't feasible for everyone. Maybe I'm just naive, but don't we want all of our citizens to be educated?

[treemom]

Thanks to a proliferation of private and charter schools, Milwaukee public schools are suffering. Private and charter schools can be more selective about what students they accept. As a result, the public schools are required take on the burden of troublemaking kids, disabled kids, unmotivated kids, and kids who have already been kicked out of the private and charter schools. There's a disability advocacy group suing the city, claiming that the voucher program and charter schools are discriminatory against disabled children.

+1

[Childless]

So, if we get rid of public schools, then what? What if parents can't afford a private education for their child? What if the parents aren't educated enough themselves to give their child a good edcuation? The result would be a person who is poorly educated and unable to get a good job. The person would end up living in poverty. What does a large population living in poverty create? CRIME! As the population of this country sinks further into despair, there will be more theft, murder, and gang activity. Is that really the country these tea baggers want to live in?

[duplessis3]

The tea baggers are being manipulated by the corporate powerful. Some day those assholes have to realize that if people don't have jobs there will be no one to by their stuff.

[kthomp38+]

I think that these people are nuts! I was raised in public schools and I felt like I got a great elementary school education and average 6-7 grade and no a great 8-12 grade. I feel like the high stakes testing has made things worse that were already not working. I went to college to be a secondary (6-12) English teacher. With cutbacks in public schools I was not able to find a job in the public schools after college even though that was what I wanted. Even though I didn't want to, I went looking for private school jobs.I have taught at two different private Christian schools. It has changed my mind about private schools. I used to think that only snobs went to private school but I have found this not to be true and I am really enjoying where I am. That said I think that everyone that can should work toward making the public schools the best that they can because there are many people in this country that cannot afford private schooling and homeschooling and everyone deserves a wonderful education.

[Rosa]

Golightly girl, one thing that happened is that schools desegregated. Private all-white schools, many of them "Christian", exploded then, and lots of white people moved out of formerly-segregated neighborhoods to places where their kids would be in all-white public schools.

And then, since they weren't sending their kids there anyway, white people voted to de-fund or not correct suddenly lopsided funding for city schools.

edited to fix a typo, but Austin already quoted my dumb homonym mistake. So here, watch an awesome video so you won't make the same mistake:

[Austin]

Golightly girl, one thing that happened is that schools desegregated. Private all-white schools, many of them "Christian", exploded then, and lots of white people moved out of formerly-segregated neighborhoods to places where there kids would be in all-white public schools.

And then, since they weren't sending their kids there anyway, white people voted to de-fund or not correct suddenly lopsided funding for city schools.

This was actually one of the first and main things that united fundamentalists as a political force. Everybody thinks it was Roe v Wade, but it was actually "Christian schools". They were commonly referred to as "segregation academies" because so many fine Christian people were so horrified that little Susie or Billy might have to mix with those. . . others.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segregation_academies

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 36,00.html

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 65,00.html

“The crusade for vouchers actually has its roots in an effort to continue segregation,†said Cynthia Tucker, editorial page editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, in a July 7, 2002 column. “By the time of Jimmy Carter's presidency, the parents of segregation academy students were campaigning for tax breaks for private school tuition. They formed the early core of what later became the voucher movement.â€

The haste with which southern whites established private schools after 1954 made it impossible to cloak the exodus in euphemisms – this was white flight from physical proximity to Blacks, pure and simple, and the name “segregation academies,†stuck. Whites in the North would react in much the same way when their turn came, opting out of the cities entirely to invest their taxes in quality schools for their own children in the suburbs. Those who remained in places like Boston chose private education over integration. “You saw an immediate drain of white participation from public education, going into parochial and private schools,†said Rev. Graylan Hagler, president of Ministers for Racial, Social, and Economic Justice. “And ever since, they have attempted to redirect public dollars out of public education and into private schools.â€

http://www.blackcommentator.com/92/92_c ... rs_pf.html

[fundiefan]

This was actually one of the first and main things that united fundamentalists as a political force. Everybody thinks it was Roe v Wade, but it was actually "Christian schools". They were commonly referred to as "segregation academies" because so many fine Christian people were so horrified that little Susie or Billy might have to mix with those. . . others.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segregation_academies

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 36,00.html

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 65,00.html

“The crusade for vouchers actually has its roots in an effort to continue segregation,†said Cynthia Tucker, editorial page editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, in a July 7, 2002 column. “By the time of Jimmy Carter's presidency, the parents of segregation academy students were campaigning for tax breaks for private school tuition. They formed the early core of what later became the voucher movement.â€

The haste with which southern whites established private schools after 1954 made it impossible to cloak the exodus in euphemisms – this was white flight from physical proximity to Blacks, pure and simple, and the name “segregation academies,†stuck. Whites in the North would react in much the same way when their turn came, opting out of the cities entirely to invest their taxes in quality schools for their own children in the suburbs. Those who remained in places like Boston chose private education over integration. “You saw an immediate drain of white participation from public education, going into parochial and private schools,†said Rev. Graylan Hagler, president of Ministers for Racial, Social, and Economic Justice. “And ever since, they have attempted to redirect public dollars out of public education and into private schools.â€

http://www.blackcommentator.com/92/92_c ... rs_pf.html

That makes me sad. I was in 4th grade when our city public schools re-integrated. While it had its failures (loss of neighborhood schools and the communities they formed and supported; kids spending hours on buses, etc.) as a kid who grew up with all colors, races, ethnicity, cultures, etc. my education was greatly enriched and socially fulfilling. I went to public schools and got a perfectly fine education. It wasn't college prep, accelerated learning or anything, but it was not sub-par, academically. Socially, it was top notch. How do you learn how to interact with people who are different from you if you don't interact with them?

Grrr. I am now done veering off.

[cjsmom]

Shouldn't that be neo-libertarian? The whole free market thing doesn't seem to jive with common liberal beliefs.

This side of the border, they're called Liberals. Sorry.

[bicyclecat]

I got a pretty crappy education, but it was more because the school buliding was falling apart, our textbooks were 20 years old, with many were defaced beyond recognition and there were 35-40 students per class. All because nobody seemed to want to pay for education.

As a result, my high school churned out a large number of blue collar shiftworkers, a large number of drug dealers/ petty criminals, a large number of unwed mothers (a girl went into labor during class in my senior year... totally bizarre.) A few went on to do something with their lives, but for many, their career achievement is working at Applebees or factory work.

But, nobody wanted to pay for anything better, so we never got it. I used the same texbooks that my oldest brother used 11 years before, which was fine for math (if the book hasn't been defaced so badly that you couldn't read the problems,) but... didn't quite work for US History and Science. Half the time, we barely had usable bathrooms and they'd flood at least once a week, because the plumbing was so old and rotten. No extra curriculars, unless you were an athlete. We got barebones educational opportunites and it was sad, because so many students had a lot of potential. How can you really learn when you can't even use the bathroom for the entire day, because the plumbing blew and there was raw sewage all over the place?

I was lucky that I had an aptitude for computers and knew BASIC, so I got a cushy job straight out of high school. Most of my friends went to the one university that would accept them or worked a crappy job. And I doubt things have changed.

But, it's so much easier to blame the teachers. Most of them really tired, but they had enormous classes full of students and half of them were totally out of control. Or the administration, who had 2100 students to deal with and were underfunded. The hard part was digging a little deeper, so that we could have history books that went beyond the Gerald Ford era.

/rant