Diversity of Everything but Thought

But it would have provided a good basis for discussion of that issue other than 'any social idea Bush has come up with is crap.'

More fundamentally, what are we to make of an argument that appears to be advocating that the job market and the economy should conform to the needs of public education -- how utterly backwards and implausible.

[The speaker said] The first is that the official education reform movement in Massachusetts and the nation is part of a decades-long corporate and government attack on public education and on our children. Its goal is:

--not to increase educational attainment but to reduce it;
--not to raise the hopes and expectations of our young people but to narrow them, stifle them, and crush them;
--not to improve public education but to destroy it.

[nimh wrote] Who knows what I missed, but, you know ... crude rhetorics are crude rhetorics, no matter from which side.

P.S. Steppenwolf. I couldn't make the link in your post work and I want to see what's there.

It's been a while, so forgive me if my post isn't 100% germane to this thread, but I wanted to make a brief response to Revel's post about the keynote address to the Mass. Association of School Superintendents.

First, the SAT is not the only metric that shows a problem in school achievement. See, e.g. the various metrics cited in http://www.schoolchoices.org/roo/academic.htm. Regarding the interaction between the economy and education, the speech makes the somewhat mystifying conclusions that: (a) The thriving economy demonstrates an excellent education system; and (b) that corporate America blames public educators for the poor state of the economy. According to the above keynote address, is the economy good or bad? If it's good, why the alleged blame games? Wouldn't schools want to be credited with such a wonderful status quo? If it's bad, the first argument is based on flawed premises. More fundamentally, what are we to make of an argument that appears to be advocating that the job market and the economy should conform to the needs of public education -- how utterly backwards and implausible.

Quote:

me: At the time that the speech was made there were those who were questioning public education by saying that "U.S. business has lost its competitive edge because of the alleged failure of public education?" They were saying this despite the current thriving economy. It was not the defenders of public education that was making the claim that the economy was not in good condition so they were not advocating that the job market should conform to the needs of public education as you said but were merely answering the charges of the anti public education folks. (anti public education folks is just a way to dinstinguish between the two opposing groups for the purpose of this discussion)

However, I don't think we need to stumble over the question of metrics. If the public education system is as brilliant as the school unions imagine, why are they so afraid of competition and change? I smell capture…

me: those in favor of pubic schools are worried about the danger of public schools disappearing. Public schools have been a godsend for ordinary middle class people and if it disapeared we would have bascially a two class system where the haves will get to go to school and advance and the have nots will probably decline into the lower end of the bracket.

those in favor of pubic schools are worried about the danger of public schools disappearing. Public schools have been a godsend for ordinary middle class people and if it disapeared we would have bascially a two class system where the haves will get to go to school and advance and the have nots will probably decline into the lower end of the bracket.

No Teacher Left Behind
Wall Street Journal, January 13, 2005
...
If we really want to improve schools, something has to be done about the teachers unions. ... The unions are what they are. They have fundamental, job-related interests that are very real, and are the raison d'etre of their organizations. These interests drive their behavior, and this is not going to change. Ever.

If the teachers unions won't voluntarily give up their power, then it has to be taken away from them--through new laws that, among other things, drastically limit (or prohibit) collective bargaining in public education, link teachers' pay to their performance, make it easy to get rid of mediocre teachers, give administrators control over the assignment of teachers to schools and classrooms, and prohibit unions from spending a member's dues on political activities unless that member gives explicit prior consent.
...

Mr. Moe, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, a member of the Koret Task Force on K-12 Education, and a professor of political science at Stanford, is the winner of this year's Thomas B. Fordham prize for distinguished scolarship in education.

...in an era of "family values", i find it very strange that many people who claim that their life is all about the children cannot see that most problems of public ed could be lessened or alleviated by increased funding and cutting waste. i'm sure that comment will get me in trouble...

The slide in student performance in several school districts appears to have started in 1965. That's two years after the federal government got involved with the financing of public education. If true, that suggests to me a way to improve public education.

Attorney General of Missouri, Ashcroft persistently attempted to block school desegregation-a federal court threatened to hold the state in contempt for his failure to comply with a court order.

The reason that people want the schools and other public run instiutions to be entirely free from any federal interference in my opinion is just so that individule communities could get away with things that they could not get away with with big bad uncle sam looking over their sholders.

revel wrote:

The reason that people want the schools and other public run instiutions to be entirely free from any federal interference in my opinion is just so that individule communities could get away with things that they could not get away with with big bad uncle sam looking over their sholders.

Why do you continue to presume you know the motives of those with whom you disagree? Why do you repeatedly attribute rotten motives to those with whom you disagree? Why not grant them at least the possibility that they are supporting a solution that will work and you are supporting a solution that doesn't work.

It's a fact that too many black people have been damned to a lifetime of ignorance and disfunctional behavior because of the broken schools in their ghetto-like districts. In Washington, D.C. (my hometown), this ghettotizing of the public schools is most apparent. A few determined folks have managed to do something about it. They have managed to establish a voucher system that rescues some but not all. Black parents are justifiably pleading for expansion of this voucher program and a practical chance for getting their children educated in decent schools. Noteworthy is the fact that these black parents are not allowing themselves to be ensnarled in pernicious envy and crying the pathetic argument: "if you can't do it for all, then do it for none"--don't save any from drowning if you can't save them all from drowning--bah! humbug!

The public high school, Woodrow Wilson, from which my wife and I graduated is in the NW section of DC. The black and white parents living in that section are knowledgeable and demanding. The result is a successful school in that section of DC but not in the rest of DC. We returned for a 50-year alumni reunion back in '99, and were amazed at how much better Wilson's educational program seemed to be in '99 than when we graduated in '49. Students from all over DC were attending there with excellent results. Now those too few students with vouchers who could not get into Wilson are attending parochial and other private schools.

We should do what works, whereever it works, and to hell with the damnable pompous pretentious pontificating about the alleged motives of those advocating change.

... The answer is not to transplant them somewhere else leaving some behind but to work to improve the poverty of the neighborhoods and have support programs that actually do work if they are properly funded and left in place long enough to do some good.
[I think we all have to recognize we are all in a very complicated cause and effect loop. I think it unlikely that we will reduce poverty in poverty neighborhoods, unless we make major improvements in the education of the people in those neighborhoods. But how can we improve the education of the people in those neighboroods without first reducing their poverty? I'm not claiming that providing those that want to attend better schools outside their neighborhoods is a panacea. I am claiming that will rescue some who would not otherwise be rescued. Perhaps refurbishing gettoized schools and turning them into boarding schools might help. Maybe that will help the kids be raised by more knowledgeable and demanding adults. Perhaps better than that would be the construction of new private boarding schools dedicated to ghetto kids but outside the ghettos. These schools could be financed by private organizations plus current public property taxes. Such schools would be more inclined to demand excellence, and resist the current political obstructions to merit pay that have been built by self-serving teachers unions.]

For instance clinton jobs programs worked because it involved a whole range of things like providing for child care and training and education. That is a kind of solution that works. Programs like that could work in education field if people put their minds to it.
[I agree. And people will put their minds to it if not obstructed by a lot of political Bunkum Slop]

I am glad that the public school you mentioned is working. What are they doing besides just testing to make it work? I have no problem with improving public schools. It is just that when people start talking about private schools and vouchers that i have a problem.
[What impressed my wife and I was the richness and quality of their curricula. For example, the math and science curricula included college level courses, and the social studies curriculum had far more challenging civics and history courses than we remembered having. Also, the shop courses I had were more like hobby prep courses. These kids were being trained in actual work-study programs in private businesses. I think it's time we recognized that neither government controlled or private controlled education are panaceas. Accountable partnerships of some kind need to be established.]

It is not that I don't trust people necessarily but we don't operate on trust. It is better to have rules and regulations in place to insure fairness in the case that someone violates that trust.
[I agree]

Furthermore, if we fund private schools and if they are subject to rules and monitoring and the like from government, what makes them different than the public schools that they are replacing? Why reinvent the same wheel? Why not fix the wheel you have?
[That's a valid concern. Don't let gov't control private schools. Let the parents and students evaluate the private schools by permitting them to continually shop for what they think are the best. Nothing like competition to promote accountability and quality results.]

Ican

I took a break after writing this and I thought about what you said and realized that once again I have let my fears of what others will do blind me to rationality when it comes to these sorts of issues. I think I have been reading too many liberal conspiracy theories. I get a germ of an idea and run a mile with it until it is all stretched out of shape. (I am also a bit bi polar and sometimes I get carried away) What I am trying to say is that you were right I was out of line with my previous post and I shouldnt have tried to defend it with my second.