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Diane Ravitch, a top public education advocate, reports via AlterNet:
This month, the Public Broadcasting System is broadcasting a "documentary" that tells a one-sided story, the story that [Trump's Secretary of Education] Betsy DeVos herself would tell, based on the work of free-market advocate Andrew Coulson. Author of "Market Education", Coulson narrates "School, Inc.", a three-hour program, which airs this month nationwide in three weekly broadcasts on PBS.
Uninformed viewers who see this slickly produced program will learn about the glories of unregulated schooling, for-profit schools, teachers selling their lessons to students on the Internet. They will learn about the "success" of the free market in schooling in Chile, Sweden, and New Orleans. They will hear about the miraculous charter schools across America, and how public school officials selfishly refuse to encourage the transfer of public funds to private institutions. They will see a glowing portrait of South Korea, where students compete to get the highest possible scores on a college entry test that will define the rest of their lives and where families gladly pay for after-school tutoring programs and online lessons to boost test scores. They will hear that the free market is more innovative than public schools.
What they will not see or hear is the other side of the story. They will not hear scholars discuss the high levels of social segregation in Chile, nor will they learn that the students protesting the free-market schools in the streets are not all "Communists", as Coulson suggests. They will not hear from scholars who blame Sweden's choice system for the collapse of its international test scores. They will not see any reference to Finland, which far outperforms any other European nation on international tests yet has neither vouchers nor charter schools. They may not notice the absence of any students in wheelchairs or any other evidence of students with disabilities in the highly regarded KIPP charter schools. They will not learn that the acclaimed American Indian Model Charter Schools in Oakland does not enroll any American Indians, but has a student body that is 60 percent Asian American in a city where that group is 12.8 percent of the student population. Nor will they see any evidence of greater innovation in voucher schools or charter schools than in properly funded public schools.
[...] This program is paid propaganda. It does not search for the truth. It does not present opposing points of view. It is an advertisement for the demolition of public education and for an unregulated free market in education. PBS might have aired a program that debates these issues, but "School Inc." does not.
It is puzzling that PBS would accept millions of dollars for this lavish and one-sided production from a group of foundations with a singular devotion to the privatization of public services. The decision to air this series is even stranger when you stop to consider that these kinds of anti-government political foundations are likely to advocate for the elimination of public funding for PBS. After all, in a free market of television, where there are so many choices available, why should the federal government pay for a television channel?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by frojack on Sunday June 18 2017, @11:29PM (47 children)
Normally we do nothing but bash American Education system and its reliance on Lowest Common Denominator Public Schools.
We cry and lament for alternative solutions. Liberals were first in line demanding change.
Then Trump campaigns to Abolish the Dept of Education which would allow States to innovate.
Liberals suddenly rally around the crap schools that they refuse to send their own children to.
So the Republicans come up with a total revamp of public education.
Nope, can't have that either. Gotta maintain those warehouse schools exactly as they are for the kids from the wrong side of the tracks.
Nothing can be allowed to change other than by slow but incessant dumbing down of requirements and a constant barge of political correctness teaching.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @12:18AM (2 children)
Just send all the children to Trump University.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @01:46PM (1 child)
HAHAHAHAHA - if I could guaranteed that my kid would become a "failed billionaire" by going to Trump U, I would send them there.
"Failed billionaire" stupidest thing I ever heard from the left, and that's saying something.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @05:34PM
Well I can guarantee that your child can become a failed billionaire. Just like Trump U., all you have to do is send me some money and I won't actually do anything!
PS: Is your child a billionaire? If not, send me my money, I already succeeded sucker!
(Score: 5, Informative) by Whoever on Monday June 19 2017, @12:19AM (13 children)
The problem is that people like DeVos are not interested in replacing public schools with schools that would:
1. Provide a real educations (they want to replace science with religion).
2. Provide real education for all (those charter schools will find a way to discriminate).
Charter schools do not provide a universal answer:
http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/06/08/charter-schools-accused-of-misuse-of-public-funds-in-livermore-audit/ [eastbaytimes.com]
The schools could not pay their bills (they were already bailed out once a year ago) and now stand accused of misusing $67M of public money.
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Monday June 19 2017, @02:03AM (11 children)
The people actually going to those schools (and their parents) would be the ones interested. Sure, keep in mind the conflicts of interest, but also keep in mind that there would be a lot of people exercising these choices, and they have more at stake than a few bucks.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Whoever on Monday June 19 2017, @03:43AM (10 children)
When DeVos and her cohorts have completely destroyed the public schools, parents (other than wealthy parents) won't have a choice.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Sulla on Monday June 19 2017, @04:02AM (2 children)
New Orleans is doing significantly better education wise after they were rebuilt following Katrina following a similar model.
PBS propaganda = good when dems do it
PBS prop = bad when reps do it
Its always bad, stop only noticing because your guy isnt in power.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @04:54AM (1 child)
this is pure BS, lot of troubles right now on New Orleans and charter schools are one of them
(Score: 2) by Sulla on Monday June 19 2017, @06:00AM
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/05/10/us/charter-driven-gains-in-new-orleans-schools-face-a-big-test.html?_r=0&referer= [nytimes.com]
I would love to see some citations that aren't just teacher union hit pieces to protect under achieving teachers. I have been following this for a while and that seems to be the main complaint. Students appear to be doing better than they were before Katrina but at the expense of teacher protections. Maybe its just me but I think the students are more important than the teachers.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday June 19 2017, @12:45PM (6 children)
The thing is there are a lot of public schools that need destroying because they've betrayed their students and communities. So sorry, I don't see that as a downside. And I don't buy in the least that there will be a single choice available to parents as a result.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Monday June 19 2017, @02:46PM (5 children)
The bottom line is that the evidence shows that charter schools do not achieve better results, when other factors are taken into account: such as the ability to exclude disruptive and poor-performing students.
Even if the public schools are failing, replacing them with charter schools won't solve the problem.
Do you want your tax dollars to be used to teach kids that evolution is a myth and the world is only 6000 years old? I don't.
(Score: 2) by Sulla on Monday June 19 2017, @03:13PM (3 children)
I don't honestly see the difference between that and our public schools teaching them that there are 5n genders. Seems no matter where they go they will be educated in fairy tales.
"When other factors are taken into account"
I would like to see some citations please. Although I imagine this is one of those things where they can always find another factor as long as it protects the teachers union.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @03:25PM (1 child)
The "5n" genders are based on actual legitimate science. You would know that if you weren't so mentally tied up in your own fairy tales. I'd post citations but your kind always just makes up some reason to brush aside reality in favor of your personal biases.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @06:10PM
"based on" "science"
Is that like Hollywood basing movies on books?
And are you talking about genders, or sexes? Not the same thing. Mind you, there's been consistent (apparently deliberate) confusion of the concepts on the part of the LGBTQA mafia, so I can't really blame people for getting confused.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @04:03PM
5n? I thought it was more n log n.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday June 23 2017, @01:08AM
I note here it will, if your child isn't the disruptive and poor-performing student. I don't see public schools which traditionally can't refuse students that disrupt school for other students, as having the advantage here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @05:58PM
Right because in your reality there is no way to discriminate in public schools, like say by moving to a different school district where house prices are out of reach for certain demographics.
And in your reality, where such discrimination does not exist, there is no move to punish the districts that have more affluent demographics for being successful, say with like with some sort of bullshit scheme called Abbot District: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbott_district [wikipedia.org]
Only charter schools will create this warped reality, in which we are not living now!
I love your article, $67 million is NOTHING as far as the expenditures of public educations are concerned. Lack of accountability is beyond the pail right now. Charter schools will make the problem more managable, not less, by ensuring there are repercussions to this nonsense. You can get your charter revoked: http://www.thestate.com/news/local/article131843889.html [thestate.com] and that is a BEAUTIFUL thing.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @12:26AM (8 children)
The charter schools get to cherry-pick their students and those places look more and more like the all-White schools of 1953.
...and, after cherry-picking, less than 20 percent of kids do better, about half do the same, and about a third do worse than in public schools.
Oh, and they get to expel kids on a whim.
Even with the extreme filtering. they still suck at educating.
...because it isn't about educating kids; it's about breaking unions and extracting wealth.
If they wanted to actually do better for the kids, they'd be replicating what is already known to work (better teacher:student ratios for starters).
Additionally, DeVos is a White Supremacist with a fringe Dutch Protestant background who wants to inject her twisted brand of Christianity into schools.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by julian on Monday June 19 2017, @02:50AM
To them, that's a feature, not a bug. They don't want non-whites and non-Christians to get any social or infrastructure investment. Hell, there are people in this very comment section who have said as much. It's not even a secret.
This is why I feel Devos is the most dangerous person in the Trump administration. She is pure evil.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @05:31AM (1 child)
You have got to be kidding me.
The teacher:student ratio is not proven, beyond the most broken examples, to be a key thing. To offer my own anecdotal experience, I graduated from a high school with fantastic results (measured nationally), where the typical class was well over 30, with some in the 40s. It had a lot more to do with good teachers, strict discipline, and a strong academic community that valued education.
But sure, what the hell, let's close our eyes, cherry-pick evidence and swallow uncritically the idea that what we need is MOAR TEECHRZ. Immediately we run into several problems. The first is that hiring teachers is tough. The pay sucks, the qualifications required for advancement are a weird combination of silly and demanding, the theoretical hours required are easy, but the functionally expected additional hours range from long to punishing, the career track is micromanaged by union, and the working environment is straitjacketed. The cream of the crop laugh hysterically, then go off to design electronics, do kidney surgery or trade stocks. Or something, anything else. You're then left with a vanishingly small minority of people who are truly devoted educators, and a vast majority of time-servers who had few realistic alternatives. If you want to hire more, you'll have to offer massively higher pay - and then you'll have to pay all the incumbents more so that they don't get butthurt. This on top of the fact that the USA has the most expensive pre-tertiary educational system per capita in the entire world. (OK, if you cherry-pick your numbers and add certain kinds of vocational training and so on you can make Switzerland look more expensive. I'm sure that will make it easier to pay for MOAR TEECHRZ.)
But let's pretend you have all the cash. Money is no object. You can, and will, pay enough to tempt quants off Wall Street to train the next generation's genius mathematicians. No class is over 10 students. What now? Have you filled every kid with a hunger for learning? Excuse me while I laugh so hard I wet myself, because that's not even a trick question. Wait, wait, here's another good one: have you instilled a decent disciplinary regime in the school, or are we still caught between the detention, suspension and expulsion (and arrest! Yay school cops!) anti-educational choices? Hahaha, I know, crazy, right? Never happen. Let's see, have you filled all the parents with zeal for their kids' educations and future? Man, I kill me!
Real talk: There is such a thing as throwing good money after bad, and doubling down on a failing system that already has such rich resources thrown at it makes no sense at all. Betsy de Vos could be wrong, wrong, wrong on every conceivable level and at least she would be trying to get us out of this terrible hole we're in. Your recommendation looks a lot like: "Shit, we're in a hole. Dig, boys, dig for your lives!"
It's worth pointing out that despite all the money poured into our educational system, teachers don't make all that much. This isn't because we have so many teachers, proportionally, but because we have a terribly wasteful administrative system. This has been covered on Soylent before, but it also bears a surprising resemblance to the story we had recently about the US being bad at infrastructure. Death by bureaucracy. Or, at least, bankruptcy by bureaucracy.
What's your solution for that?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Monday June 19 2017, @10:58AM
It's more than just bureaucracy, though I agree that's execrable. Broken schools are an excellent way to squeeze more money out of overworked parents. "Our schools are failing! The future is in jeopardy. Won't someone please think of the children!" So the taxpayers acquiesce to another levy to raise billions of dollars to "fix" the broken education system. Strangely, however, the billions are never spent on upgrading the schools or improving education. It gets quietly siphoned away in a thousand ways, or sits in escrow collecting interest that gets quietly siphoned away. If the parents continue to yell loudly enough, a few cents on those dollars get spent to put something new and shiny into a few schools. Where the white kids go. The immigrants and poors get nothing.
And so it goes, for decades. Everyone, Republican and Democrat, is in on it. So, yeah, teacher unions don't help at all, but they're the cladding on a rotten core.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @09:55PM (4 children)
Mostly you got it wrong, but "about breaking unions" and "teacher:student ratios" isn't far off the mark.
The unions decided to make an enemy out of the republican party. Oops. Why the surprise when the party fights back? What did you expect? You thought it would be just fine to have a money pipeline that goes from the taxpayers to the democratic party via union dues? No, a private tax is not OK. No, politicians getting kickbacks is not OK.
People pay taxes, part of that goes to schools, the teachers get paid with a cut going to the union, and the union "donates" exclusively to democrats. The democrats then legislate to give the union advantages. Union members aren't all democrats; some are pissed. In any case, this is corrupt.
Public schools may need to die in order to put an end to this corrupt money pipeline. Teachers helped create this disaster; you reap what you sow. Next time, stay out of politics, or at least don't blatantly favor one side in all things.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 20 2017, @02:09AM (3 children)
The unions decided to make an enemy out of the republican party
That took zero effort.
You have it completely backwards.
The GOP has been anti-worker and pro-ownership for over a century.
the union "donates" exclusively to democrats.
Why would you give money to an entity which has voted against you for your entire lifetime?
Why support the party that put through Taft-Hartley and has made no indication they want to change any of it?
Why support the party that has gotten Right-to-Work (For Less) legislation passed in 28 states (and isn't finished with their efforts)?
Are you just plain stupid?
N.B. Giving money to the Donkeys and their Rightward drift since 1972 has been pretty stupid too.
The democrats then legislate to give the union advantages
Pffff. Cite an example of reciprocation in the last 4 decades.
Donkey elites take the money then spit on Working Class people.
The Donkey elites have been Neoliberal for a long time.
If rank-and-file Democrats would get active in their party and replace those folks who only cater to executive-suite people, maybe things would change.
I wouldn't be surprised if the Berniecrats split off and form a Peoples Party before 2020.
There are also lots of folks who just stayed home on Election Day who appear to like the idea.
...and folks who are smart and want worker-friendly politics, -currently- support the Green Party.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 20 2017, @02:22PM (2 children)
Here's a heads-up: there's a huge divide between the unions and the workers that they represent.
Ever noticed how many of the staunch, grizzled workers wiped the sweat from their brows, the grease from their hands and voted for Trump?
Maybe it wasn't so a hundred years ago, but these days it's a growing divide, and more and more workers are abandoning unions at the first opportunity.
So ... yeah. I guess the donkeys get to rejustify their existence to a fragmenting workers' community. The unions do as well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 20 2017, @07:20PM (1 child)
...and how's that going for them?
Most people of that ilk were woting -against- Neoliberal Hillary.
A bunch more didn't cast a vote because they thought what both the GOP and the Donkeys had to offer sucked.
Too bad Donkey elites stacked the deck against Bernie.
If that hadn't happened, we'd be talking about President Sanders (who would have gotten those folks' votes).
...and after Bernie got stabbed in the back by "his own", those lazy Rust Belt folks didn't make the effort to discover JILL STEIN, who was still on the ballot in almost every state (and could be written in in the rest), and whose platform had major overlap with Bernie's.
a huge divide between the unions and the workers
Again, lazy people who don't get involved and CAMPAIGN and VOTE for better representation.
A union is a democracy; One worker==One vote.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 22 2017, @01:47PM
... and here we have again, the blaming of the proletariat because the poor, deluded, benighted (oh, and lazy too!) fellows just don't get it.
If only they would trust the guidance of the intelligentsia who are so much smarter and better-informed (and diligent!) than they are, then we'd have good government!
They are just too ignorant, or (dare I say it) stupid (bless their little hearts!) to "discover" a nationally advertised candidate with a widely published set of policies. Or maybe they just could not comprehend how her ostensibly anti-industrial policy was really all for their benefit!
Oh, well. That really highlights the problem: we need a new proletariat. The old one is broken. Until then, they just need to be disenfranchised, so that they stop voting against their own class interests (what rubes).
Seriously, as a blue collar worker myself, your kind of sneering condescension is very hard to interpret as anything but hostile. So find the nearest available powerwasher and stick it into your left ear until the shit pours out of the right. The world will thank you.
(Score: 3, Informative) by RedBear on Monday June 19 2017, @02:07AM (1 child)
False assumption identified: Liberals are all wealthy "elites" who send their kids to private schools.
Those who have a higher education level, regardless of financial class, tend to lean politically liberal. Those who are wealthy tend to lean politically conservative. Those who are religious fundamentalists also tend to lean politically conservative. It is primarily the wealthy and religious fundamentalist groups who want to send their children to private or charter schools where they can be taught creationism as a science, and the school can discriminate against various types of social groups that conservatives tend to look down upon. Charter schools are simply a modern reimplementation of segregation.
¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @06:04AM
I dunno, I live around a lot of blue folks who scrimp and save to get their kids out of public schools - or if they're not that flush, they move like maniacs to get that good school district love.
Not a lot of Hillary voters around me willingly putting their kids into those troubled inner-city schools. The gentrifiers tend to skip out once they have kids, in my experience. Even know a few homeschoolers.
False assumption identified: it's all about elites, instead of general blue conduct.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by hash14 on Monday June 19 2017, @04:28AM (6 children)
It's one thing to call for change. It's quite another to change your public schooling system into an infested cesspool of billionaire corruption.
Nobody will argue with the fact that the US has about the worst education system of the developed world. Improvement is needed, but it's obvious that this will push it in the opposite direction.
They're not going to "innovate", they're going to use it as an excuse to indoctrinate Christianity and private interests into students.
Sure, and while they're at it, the US could "revamp" its medical system by abolishing hospitals and replacing them with alternative medicine scams. It doesn't mean that it's going to do any good.
If the US wants to have an education system, they can look to how Europeans do it. In Europe, they're not doing any of the things that the current US education department is suggesting. And the US will have to fix its culture of anti-intellectualism while they're at it. So it's probably never going to happen.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @05:35AM (4 children)
Really. The states of, oh, say, Massachusetts and California are just champing at the bit to "indoctrinate Christianity and private interests into students".
Citation needed.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday June 19 2017, @11:58AM (3 children)
No, but the states of Ohio, Alabama, Mississippi, Kansas, Florida, and a lot of other places are doing everything they can to include private profit motive and sometimes religious nutjobs into their public education system. Should the kids living in those areas be condemned to an even worse education than they're already getting solely so some jerks with political connections can get rich?
Another aspect of the efforts to "reform" schools is that teachers are quitting at unprecedented rates, to the point where the average teacher lasts less than a decade in their career and many schools are having a hard time finding qualified teachers. Not surprising, really, when their pay is lousy for a profession all but requiring a master's degree, and the power structures above them are doing everything in their power to make their jobs impossible e.g. demanding that they spend over 50% of their classroom time running standardized tests.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @01:22PM (2 children)
OK, so let's unwrap this a bit.
The states of *insert list here* want to do things that you don't like. Presumably, these states have voters that are quite often parents. I suppose it's possible that a sinister conspiracy of shadow government social architects from the secret american reactionary society are going to somehow pull a fast one and enforce plans that nobody wants, but I'm going to bet that parents will, when possible, vote in the perceived interests of their children and, when that doesn't work, move to more apparently desirable districts. You know, what they do now.
Enforcing a view on what constitutes a good education has a history of being unpopular, and in fact widely reviled. In fact, it has become less popular, not more, over time. So I don't think that your plan for a federally mandated educational standard has a lot of legs. You do realise that people are giving up all sorts of things to homeschool, and that's a growing trend, right?
But, you know, best of luck with that.
As for teacher retention issues, I fully agree with you, which is another reason I don't think that the federally enforced education thing is working out all that great.
We've been doing it a while, you know. There's a track record - not a good one, but there is one.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday June 21 2017, @04:00PM (1 child)
It's not just that I don't like them. What I'm opposed to is:
1. Public money that is intended for the education of students going to line the pockets of politically connected people instead. Corruption is always a bad way to spend public money, since the public has nothing to show for it.
2. The re-introduction of Christian religious practices into publicly funded schools. This was found repeatedly to be unconstitutional back in 1963.
Both of these are happening right now in the states I mentioned.
"Just move elsewhere" isn't always a viable option, either, for two reasons: 1. A lot of people live in the districts they live in because that's where they can afford to live, and they might not even be able to afford to move if they wanted to. 2. If everywhere else is doing the same kinds of things, then there's no way to get away from the improper behavior.
Lastly, I don't care about federal educational standards being popular, so much as I care about them being effective and teach the truth. There are numerous questions of fact in which majority opinion is strongly opposed to what all experts in the field have long known to be true, and in those cases majority opinion should not matter one bit. For example, I don't care that lots of Americans would like to keep kids ignorant of the theory of evolution, what the Confederacy was fighting for in the Civil War, or the basic beliefs of Islam, because ignorance is never a proper goal of an educational institution of any kind.
As far as the home-school trend goes, a lot of that is being driven by a goal of including religious belief systems and other unproven dogmas into education and keeping kids ignorant of that which opposes those beliefs. Which again, I do not support, especially with government funding, because ignorance should not be a goal of education.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 22 2017, @04:27AM
I don't think anybody here is arguing for corruption. If you know of corruption, please alert the appropriate authorities, and campaign against the corrupt. Thank you.
I don't think that anybody here is arguing for christian religious practices in schools. If you know of such practices, please alert the appropriate social pressure groups and bring them the evidence so that they can fight it in court. Thank you.
If there are people who are saddened by these developments, you should be able to make them your political allies if they cannot move elsewhere. Use this alliance to improve education, and we shall all ultimately benefit. Thank you.
The problem you have with federal educational standards is rather more complex, because of certain assumptions that have not been proven to be correct by lived experience. Federal educational standards have not actually developed a great track record of being effective (rather the reverse, in some notorious recent cases), and analysis of expert opinion for the purposes of creating a curriculum (something with which I have plenty of experience in the real world) is a lot more fraught than you seem to think. On top of that, who do you think controls the federal level of this sort of thing, other than politicians and bureaucrats? Not only that, but they are the worst kind because they are very, very far removed from the people affected by their decisions. Arguing for federal control of education is like arguing for federal control of parking fines; a distant, largely unaccountable elite make choices that directly affect local concerns. Again, the more it happens the more you find pressure groups fighting back against it, with every tool in their arsenal including parochial schools, charter schools, private schools, homeschooling and in the case of immigrants, sending their kids overseas to get a better education in boarding schools.
When people in their hundreds of thousands are doing their damndest to undo what the feds dictate, at great personal expense and sacrifice, you're looking at a failed public policy and you need to stop it and figure out something more likely to work.
I know one homeschooler with a religious background. The guy's jewish, and he lives in a community without a jewish school or anything similar. That's it.
I do however know a bunch of homeschoolers who are professors, professionals and otherwise surprisingly left-leaning suburbanites. Many of them are in the tech industry. They're teaching their kids as fast and hard as they can. Their collective's math expert is an actual professor of mathematics, for example. So your cliche needs some updating.
And, just to add some spice to that particular sauce, homeschooling has won in the courts. Repeatedly. It's here to stay, and the worse the federal influence, the more it's likely to develop.
But hey, best of luck turning that clock back.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @06:11PM
This is a silly Strawman you got there.
I would not want Christian beliefs taught to anyone who cannot appreciate them.
At the same time I come from a country where Catholicism is taught in public schools along side of history and evolutionary biology, and it is far from a backwater shit-hole. As a matter of fact it is a wonderful place to live, and I can see no harm in teaching religious beliefs to children if it is part of their cultural heritage. I may believe in a higher being, but my belief in such an entity does not come from study of Catholicism, it comes from my study of Computer Science. I was very skeptical in my youth, and I took everything I learned in Catechism with a large slab of salt. Still I could not deny that the people of faith were very decent folk, and ones that I should emulate.
Finally, Catholic schools have been operating in the US for a long time, and the world has not come to an end. And the only anti-intellectualism I can see today is coming from the left with their Feelz before Realz bullshit. So don't worry, if your kid hers that Jesus rode a raptor 6000 years ago, it will not scar them for life. But if your kid is hammered with Inter-sectional Racism and some other bullshit, "zhe" will end up with Phd in "Trans-African Social Struggles", shit for brains, and exactly 0 job prospects.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by AnonTechie on Monday June 19 2017, @08:19AM (1 child)
Read something interesting related to this discussion. I do not know who wrote it but it is insightful:
http://www.wazua.co.ke/forum.aspx?g=posts&t=35336 [wazua.co.ke]
Albert Einstein - "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @06:19PM
All true, but the collapse of the educational institutions is way on the way in the U.S., started with Affirmative Action (Which is a backdoor to Marxist ideology, starts off with Equality of Opportunity and turns quickly into Equality of Outcome). Look at the Liberal Schools in most top universities. The shit coming out of them is UNREAL. I feel like my diploma is losing value with every Patel in the Masters program who cheats on their exam (and there are 25 out of 30 students who do this).
On a sad note, South Africa is done as a nation. Incoming Zimbabwe within 10 years. There will be war, there will be famine, there will be an International intervention to disarm their nuclear arsenal, after which point no one will want anything to do with that country, and it will revert to a tribal society of hunters, who will most likely hunt each-other. I just hope Europe takes in those poor White refugees before they all become victims of the current genocide.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @03:18PM (1 child)
"The Liberals" wanted change to better our schools not to defund them and run the education system into the ground so that the private sector fat cats can pilfer yet another aspect of our society to funnel cash into their pockets while jacking up the cost of education out of the reach of the poor. But nice try trying to flip the blame onto "duh libtards, herpaderp" as is the standard fare these days.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19 2017, @04:28PM
Right.
You know, there's a lot of confusion about the term "Liberal" especially since americans mean something different by it from what the rest of the world means, so let's be more precise: progressives. People who are motivated to change society by the measure of progress, which is basically victorian/edwardian shorthand for science and technology. Not generally a bad idea - stopping cholera epidemics is a benefit of public health advances.
The progressives want to (and here I'm basing my commentary on their observed conduct, more than their rhetoric) have an educational system where everybody gets a basic education, and nobody has an exceptional education (apparently because that would be unfair) and where alternative educational systems are stamped out (because that would encourage educational deviance and withdrawal of resources from their ideal educational system) and where their values are instilled in the children (because that's how you get the next generation of voters).
That's an interesting take on "better our schools" and not one that is calculated to receive quite universal, uncritical acclaim.
How exactly fat cats are supposed to pilfer cash from people through the educational system any more than they already are (teachers' unions being among the fattest and cattiest around) isn't made clear. Perhaps it's because the problem isn't the fat cats or the pilfering, but which fat cats.
And as for "jacking up the cost of education out of the reach of the poor" I don't know if you've taken a good look around recently, but you get things like homeschooling collectives that cost little besides time in some of the most impoverished rural areas of the country. It's progressives who want to stamp those out. Because *mumblemumble* religious freaks *mumblemumble*.
The biggest panic I've seen from progressives is the same reason that police hate vigilantes: when a community is so despairing of the police that vigilantes are accepted, it undermines the credibility of the police. Homeschooling collectives are utterly despised by the educational establishment because they appear to undermine the entrenched educational establishment. What both the police and the bureaucrats miss is the fact that these are not attacks on their existence so much as symptoms of their failure.
I know, this probably bums you out, so let me leave you with this: "duh libtards, herpaderp"
There, feel better?
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday June 19 2017, @07:15PM
Just because one approach is terrible doesn't make every alternative better.
I haven't been able to come up with a good approach, but this doesn't mean I can't see certain flaws in other approaches. Homeschooling is horrible for those families that aren't wealthy enough to survive with only one parent holding down a full time job. Tracking is horrible for those who are slow at acquiring one skill in the early part of the curriculum. Et multitudinous cetera. It's reasonable to argue about which approach has a better mean result, or a better mode of the result, or a better median result, but none of that matters unless you can agree on what you mean by better. They systems that are best at producing those skilled at taking multiple choice tests tend to be terrible at producing those that do well on essay questions...and conversely. And neither of those captures actual creative solutions to problems. But you can identify systems that produce bad results on all nine (3 measures by 3 statistics), and if you argue in favor of one of them you are rightly suspected of having a hidden agenda.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Monday June 19 2017, @09:31PM (5 children)
Please. If you pretend that the drive towards private schools is anything other than an attempt to put that vast sum of education money into private hands where any sort of accountability is gone you are hopelessly naive. There is no interest in educating the public behind this effort.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 22 2017, @02:07PM (4 children)
What if members of the public want to avail themselves of private schools? Are they Bad People(tm) who must be Stopped(tm) before they Ruin Everything(tm) in their Headlong Rush(tm) to Utter Selfishness(tm)?
Just maybe this is all part of a big picture push of people away from public schools that, despite the biggest national torrent of money in the world, are obviously, pitifully terrible value? Just maybe the politicians are responding to people who've been screaming about it for decades, who are doing everything in their power to get a better outcome?
No, no, must be unaccountable corrupt elites extracting the precious vital fluids of hapless victims for the Illuminati.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 23 2017, @08:18AM (3 children)
Well, yes. If there is a problem with public schools in your area evading it is not a long term solution. If our public education system is falling behind the rest of the world, maybe we should be looking at what other nations are doing right and using what will work here to better our schools rather than racing to the bottom while profit whores feast on our education dollars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 23 2017, @01:36PM (2 children)
Wow, OK. That's a pretty radical position: outlaw private schools.
I think you may find that this is not legally feasible in the USA, for pretty much the same reasons that homeschooling can't be banned (although it can be regulated).
In fact, the worse the public school system gets, the less people want to send their children there.
I propose the alternative analysis, that the success and popularity of alternative schooling solutions should be taken as a barometer of the perceived failures of the public school system, and thus as a spur to those bureaucrats who are concerned with its success.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 03 2017, @09:17PM (1 child)
Who said anything about outlawing private schools?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 10 2017, @10:25PM
Good question. Let's see. Original question:
The response:
OK, so that was wordy, and you didn't want to read it all, so let's break it down.
Summarised original question:
Summarised response:
So the question now arises, how on earth that does not construe a public policy recommendation against public schools? Or are we into telling people that they are bad, bad, bad, wicked, NAUGHTY people for doing what they want to do, and they're feeding EVIL profit-whoring vampire squids, but it's really cool because we're not actually banning anything?
Explanations deserved.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Monday June 19 2017, @09:34PM
If you really want states to innovate, the states need money. And none of this federal grant nonsense. The states should have much more money than the federal government, not less, to implement their local agendas.
Start by repealing the 16th amendment [wikipedia.org]. End the practice of federal control of state budgets resulting from the federal income tax. Force the IRS to disburse the proceeds of all direct taxes directly to the states, apportioned according to the census, as the founding fathers intended.
Without doing this, asking the states to innovate on anything, including education, is asking them to slash already severely diminished budgets.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?