I think what they are doing in Arizona is a good start. I homeschooled my student who is an Aerospace engineer now. What I could have done with an additional $15k each year!
Unfortunately, here in AZ getting ESA money for your student does not SUBTRACT the same mount of funding from the government schools. In that sense it is not school choice. It is an additional expense to the state whereas real school choice is when money follows the student's belly button. I do favor ESA, but would prefer to see the funding of the education borg reduced commensurately.
The education system is a starving beast that always wants more. When I examined the system closely, I came away with the idea that it was more about the adults than the students. When I lived in Ohio, I found the supreme court ruled school funding unconstitutional three times, they rely too much on property taxes. At least AZ is attempting something!
When did the educational system become more about the adults than the children? Do you think mask rules and school closures during the pandemic would have occurred if he educational system actually had children as a priority?
It was an attack on Catholic Church from the beginning. You would never see a transvestite reading stories to a Kindergarten kid.
Before you bring up child rape scandal, my sub stack "Problems with Catholic Church" discussing this. Secret societies are taking care of it all.... Almost, and not enough...
And the Catholic church was an institution created to take apostles of Christ out of the homes and communities (they were roaming mendicants) and give the city powers the authority over that movement. And to choose which scriptures to use and amend them to suit. Etc.
It's like humans can't help themselves but try and control everything.
One of the reasons I fear global forces and universal satellite coverage etc. No place to hide and be independent and free.
Well your child might be smart but is obviously socially awkward like all homeschool kids. You deprived your child of the indoctrination that would have helped them be like everybody else and run with the herd. How can you sleep at night knowing you raised an independent thinker instead of a hive mind drone. You are a monster.
And when I home-schooled my youngest for 8th grade (the year following my return to public school teaching, after a 23 year 'retirement'---when I saw from the inside what school had become)--that year she began singing around the house. Just as she had when small.
what did you work from for your curriculum? I am very strongly considering this but don't really know where to start. Did you do all of the schooling yourself? Did you ever consider a rotating pod of local parents? Very interested in any info you can provide!
I used a variety of resources and invented my own curriculum. It was based on the interests of my particular student. I couldn’t imagine following someone else’s curriculum because of the interests of my student. Yes I did all the schooling myself. It was my student who did most of the schooling. We were considered unschoolers-eclectic. We really didn’t have pods we had a very good homeschool network. Every now and then there would be a parent who would teach a subject they loved, for example a local chemist taught high school level chemistry in his lab 2 days a week. There are hundreds of books written on developing curriculum. The key thing is to get hooked up with your local homeschool network, they’ll give you some good answers. I have written once piece about homeschooling at my substack and do plan to write many more. I get lots of questions.
just got done instructing now. we work with a state charter as they keep us on the path regarding minimum requirements and resources. they have a few online classes and I teach them math, logic, ela.
I homeschool 2 kids now. We pay taxes, plus the cost of homeschooling and they are significantly ahead of their peers academically. I'd love to get the money I pay in taxes for school back.
A great idea...if all parents were deeply engaged in their children's education. They're not. That's how so much of this CRT, anti-white poison got into the system. It also doesn't address the sausage factory of groupthink that is the so-called elite university, the place where SJW orcs are manufactured and let loose to assault Western Civilization.
I am with DeSantis on this one. He clearly sees the destruction to society these leftist ideas are creating and is pushing back as vigorously and as quickly as he can. Generations of kids have been taught to hate their country and we are already late to the fight. Sometimes the best, and only, way to end an aggression is a blunt punch to the nose. We can get to work on implementing the ideal after the correction.
Practically all of our problems can be traced back to the breakdown of the family. Sen Moynihan's conclusion about the black family in the 60s were correct, I believe. A strong family is the core of a strong society and allows for human flourishing. There's not a lot of human flourishing going on the West nowadays. (Dismounts from soapbox.)
universities have been captured by federal tax, title, and grant. if we want them back, we need to get the government out of the regulating and funding them business.
i think desantis is missing a golden opportunity here. he's fighting over who gets to wear the dictatorial mantle as opposed to creating real freedom.
even if he does "use this power for good" he's also entrenching the notion of the right to exert such power and one day you may not like who wields that....
"we'll get the right people to make the right choices with top down power" is a long term sucker bet.
The urge for a Red Caesar to come along and thrash these Blue tyrants is one we must fight, but, with nearly all institutions in the hands of leftists, I sometimes wonder if that's what it'll take to stop them.
The left is in power and have shown that their calls for "tolerance" were just a way to disarm the opposition on their way to power, and not a principle, since none is extended to dissenters. In fact, they are actively attacking anyone standing in their way. Very unnerving.
My son was a student at UC Davis through the fall of 2019. One of his profs there had been in the university for a very long time, and he was utterly disgusted at how the UC system now is focused almost entirely on attracting foreign students and the huge tuition they bring in. This is to the detriment of California kids who can't pay as much. When you are in Davis and especially on the UC campus, you might think you were in China, if that tells you anything.
That's all over. My sister, a graduate of U of I, Urbana-Champaign tells me that there are so many Chinese students they jokingly refer to it as Woo of I....
One of the reasons I don't have children is I knew that I'd have to be the solution to their education challenges. I just could not in good conscious contribute to or comply with a system that so produces mediocrity. I was fine and compliant as a teenager to such mediocrity. I could have skated through high school had my parents not many times intervened on my behalf. My dad often said to me "you won't be given an education, you have to take it." I understand that now more than ever. I don't think the state sponsored educational system even can offer education at all these days. It can't even be taken on the state level. It must be chosen through alternative means.
Well, if students have been taught to hate their country, that might be a good start. Look at how our country is controlled by corporate interests and how democracy has failed. Kids need to be taught that there is a better way.
Excellent article, school choice is the answer. If you can afford it, take your children out and choose your school and then vote in candidates that are for school choice to help the other children who can't afford it, have a choice too! Also, examine these private schools closely and make sure you are getting what you want. Some private schools are worse than the public schools. And to good teachers, you leave too, we will meet again at the good schools. Teachers and parents must unite.
Who will go to dangerous neighborhoods? If all the schools that are worth a darn are outside your area and your kid has no way to get there... I love money following students and school choice, but it rarely if ever works out for the poor kids in poor neighborhoods.
If you are a stellar teacher, do you prefer (generally speaking) to be in a safe place with relatively low chance of being shot or robbed with students who are relatively well behaved or the opposite?
I think, perhaps, this may be a question of, better than before but not perfect. If the money went with the kids, rather than only having good schools/educatirs in higher property tax neighborhoods, I don't see why enterprising individuals who are perhaps FROM those more dangerous neighborhoods wouldn't offer something better than what already exists, and perhaps some students/families who are committed to a higher level of education would opt for bussing. Or perhaps a good deal of education could be obtained online.
But Raptor, why should a kid's education be determined by his or her address? Why can't we provide the ghetto child a bus to a better neighborhood with a better school?
Did you grow up during the era of busing? I did. In principle I agree. In practice, not so much.
Then there is the problem of no schools in your neighborhood if you are poor. There are problems associated with that.
If you did bus how would that work? Not all the children from poorer neighborhoods will choose to go to the same school. Will a bus go 30 minutes in and 30 out to go get a kid? Then there is the burden on the child with potentially 2 hours on a bus.
The bottom line also is that in this market model, schools (or tutor pods or whatever form an educational solution takes) aren't obliged to accept any and all students until they are at maximum capacity under fire codes. If a kid from a poor neighborhood wants to spend their voucher on a 2-hour bus ride and that kid can actually learn and benefit, that's a sacrifice some people will make. Most won't.
I did grow up in that era Raptor, I was born in 1962 so I was aware of, though unaffected, by the forced busing of the 60's and 70's.
Your questions are legit, but that's what we pay our political class to figure out. And to keep at, not just do it once and take a victory lap without assessing and reassessing to find points of improvement.
Private schools deal with all those issues, so they are not intractable. Public schools can contract with private bus companies so that one or two buses could theoretically pick up all the kids in a given neighborhood and take them to multiple schools. Not simple, I know, but not impossible. And again, as pointed out above, not every kid is going to take the option, at least initially. But if it works, more kids will and the busing issues become more complex. I would file that under good-problems-to-have.
"Your questions are legit, but that's what we pay our political class to figure out. "
Someone missed the entire point of this article. Or they're on the other side of it with the state.
Perhaps you'd like to volunteer your home, or the street in front of it ,for the kids who will be suspended from the schools they're forced on when they assault other students or children? Or would you prefer our "political class" continue to expand the practice of banning school suspensions, which would certainly keep them out of your hair?
The problem here isn't about the length of a damn bus ride. The problem is that dumping problems on people who don't have those problems doesn't fix them. It's the old "drop of sewage in a bottle of champagne."
We've been through this before. It never worked out that way very well in the past. Many of those kids are not going to take the time to go to 'better neighborhoods/schools.'
Of course that's the case, but the point is to give them the option. Obviously some won't take it. That's on them, and their parents. I'm curious, when you say we've been through this before, to what are you referring? When/where in the past has it been tried?
Are you seriously unaware of the history of bussing black and Hispanic kids of the ghettoes to better schools in white areas and the, too often, violent backlash from the white parents? It was particularly bad in L.A. and Boston. This occurred during the 70s-80s and to a lesser extent in the 90s. A college roommate was a black girl who lived through it in the 80s, before any one tries to handwave it away. For any Prince fans, he references his own experiences with this issue in Minneapolis in "Sacrifice of Victor".
That was FORCED busing that had nothing to do with educational options. That was strictly about trying to integrate races. What we're talking about here is giving parents and kids choices, not forcing them to go where they may not want to go. See if you can keep up, darling.
I am confident that this reply will be highly offensive to many, but as a teacher I have experienced this situation. The inner city children (from Phila) brought their cultural ways along to the suburban school district--which had been touting itself as one of the top-performing districts in the state. Whether the change of school benefitted those newcomers I cannot say; I can say that it offered considerable disadvantage--culturally as well as academically-- to the children whose parents had chosen to live there, and to pay high real estate prices, and taxes for the sake of the quality of those schools. Colleagues more in touch told me of these kids publicly discussing their trips home on the R5 (the suburban train line), showing the timetable to each other. I.e., they were not residents of the town and were free-loading on the taxpayers.
If you did would you mind talking about what subject you taught and to whom (as in grade, gifted, remedial). How your school dealt with the incoming students, anything you noticed in class and/or outside (like PE, lunch, hall).
My husband and I were both bused and then I went to a school where we were not bused, but had children bused in. Our experiences were mostly terrible (especially my husband's). It was very eye opening. I had a bit of a better experience in that I ended up having a life long friendship with a girl who was bused into my school and am a godmother to her 2 girls (who are now adults). The schooling experience and safety situations were terrible.
When I was in HS I tutored middle school students from the town where my dad grew up (which was mostly black when he was growing up and is now more black/hispanic). It was shocking. Shockingly illiterate students, shockingly poor learning skills and attention spans and much more). I tutored children in a small town in WA as an adult. Mostly poor to lower income white kids. Same general problems with slight differences and to a lesser degree). Mostly all had BAD family lives.
Something radical must happen. Working within the current framework is untenable.
I think gato spoke to this objection, there will be competition even within the bad schools. Some of the schools are very bad now, can it get much worse? All will have to improve or close as others start up to compete for the dollars. This was his bad washing machine comparison. I took my kid and ran, I want to help others run too. Give the parents the money and set them free.
In this realm the fight is so fast and thick that getting a phone call set up is like planning a strategy meeting with your lieutenant in the middle of a fire fight, it's tough to pull off!
We kept our kids out of the system completely. I don’t want state money; it will always come with strings. Just make the school funding a voluntary line item in taxes, at least local ones, and allow us to opt out. We lived on one trade income. We found communities for our kids and ourselves (I’m mom and I drove that-it involves a lot of frog-kissing.) We took *responsibility.* Your children are the most important job you’ll ever have and you *can* eff it up. If you outsource it, how much can you really complain? You had a different priority. For some people, that truly is food on the table, and I get that. But, be honest, for how many is it *really* food on the table, rather than “the manner to which I have grown accustomed.”
Eliminate “compulsory.” End that immediately. Allow people to do whatever they want, whether it’s community coops or small-scale group tutoring or paying people you know and trust to take your kids so you can work.
But *don’t take their money.* They *will* tell you what you have to teach, what competence is, and what qualifies as an education.
Could have written this 100%. One income (and not a six figure one either), used cars (ten years old minimum), 700 sq ft condominium was our first home purchase, cooking and baking at home (rarely eat out - not even fast food), until four years ago my husband had a nice cellphone for work, and I carried one of those jobbies you buy at Wal-Mart and pay as you go. My point: our only child was and is the center of priorities and "sacrifices" must be made (we never thought we were sacrificing anything - I felt and still feel like I'm wealthy 😉).
Good for you! Made the same choices 45 years ago--never regretted having been at home with children. Homeschooling wasn't yet a 'thing' then--but did do it for one year 2001--02. Further, having grown up with iffy income--they take living on slender means to be within their means.
How much of this is from brain damage caused by toxins? Glysophate, Mercury, Aluminum, etc. Too much exposure to Electric-Magnetic fields....?
How much is it from nutritional defiencies? How much from terrible home environments?
Our nation is dying in many places...the kids are in terrible straights, 1 in 36 Autistic?!?!?!
If that's true, I can promise you the rest aren't ok either. We need to look at root causes of disease and delayed development.
Hard!
We also need to look at generations on welfare. Prison populations, and crime and drug and derelict ridden neighborhoods.
If we cannot "clean up" this "gulag" we have created in the United States of America, we are finished.
All of the crises have met in one place, I fear. Health. Education. Economics.
Lack of Integrity in Government.
War Profiteering in Corporate Behavior
Lies, lies, lies, and more lies in Media.
What this really amounts to is a break down of all societal structures.
And, I think the negative force that wants exactly what we are seeing has wormed it's way into the heart of our nation via our Government, and Public School Systems, to the largest extent.
But also through corporations like Disney and other Media Moguls.
And of course those who determine what our children are taught.
Those who hold the contracts to produce the textbooks and the curriculums our children utilize also.
So, pulling back from this brink isn't going to be either easy or elegant, but ANY way we can stop from going over it definitely worth the effort!
Pulling the kids from the state run incompetent schools, pulverizing their hearts and souls with CRT, "wokeness" and radical anti-human theories is worth whatever it takes to accomplish the goal!
Lousy parenting and shitty teachers turn sweet little kids into monsters.
You needn't have been well-parented yourself to learn how to be a good parent to your own kids. You just need to believe they are more important than anyone else or any thing in your life. It's basic instinct.
If people are incapable of doing that, then yes we must ask why. If people are actually brain-damaged by various pre- and postnatal exposures, we need to diagnose that and admit that and devise remedial strategies.
But in far too many instances people use their intelligence and other abilities for ill and not good.
First end the excuses so we can as a society weed out the vile from the genuinely physiologically damaged.
And wasn't the environment and toxins and etc. etc. part of the clean up push during the 1960s and 1970s? (I was there - am I remembering it incorrectly?) So I'm not amenable to the toxins and pollution argument. We had higher crime rates during those decades also, and I'm pretty sure that nasty ghettos are a thing of the past (at least in my region they don't exist anymore). People with this argument sound like a broken record (we all know what those are, right?) Lack of integrity in government is not new and neither is lying politicians. Everyone has his favorite reason for the decline in our society, and I certainly have mine and it's more in line with your comment. I'd flesh it out by pointing out that an increased amount of women in the workforce means no one at home; single parenting is provably not good, etc. I certainly don't think these are the sole reason, but they are certainly not helping.
I think there's no real doubt that conception when each gamete contributor is in less than optimum health to produce a healthy intelligent child is a demonstrable problem. There are too many kids essentially uneducable because they haven't the ability for sustained attention, retention of learned material, regulation of emotion etc. Then they get shunted in special ed and drop out after years of failure and frustration.
But civilizations were built and sustained for millennia when populations had nothing optimum at all, really; there are always smart inventive people born despite the worst conditions.
So it always boils down to parenting. You don't need a GED to talk to your child; to sing; to make silly word games. God knows the culture of rap involves rhythm and wordplay. Choice of words is of course meaningful here, if by the time a kid is five he knows bitch and cunt and fuck you etc. etc. but has no clue that there are dozens of ways to describe the color blue, we can pretty much predict his life trajectory.
I myself had books, but sitting at the table I'd read anything including juice cartons and the ketchup bottle if I couldn't read something of more value at mealtime, and therefore basic literacy materials are always at hand for anyone.
What soured me permanently on social welfare whining was living in a desperately poor highly socially stratified country for awhile, and I saw parents who had no realistic hope of their children getting anywhere, because of poverty or religious minority status etc. etc. nevertheless sacrifice greatly to enable kids to go to shitty primary schools, needing to wash the one school uniform daily because they couldn't afford more.
Compared to them every inner city in this country is paved with gold.
I will never forget a time back in about 1973 when I went into a used book store (I was still a poor college student then!) and bought a bunch of books for my 3 year old daughter. The clerk told me with astonishment, "I can't believe you are buying children's books...NO ONE does that! Most women come in here to buy used romance novels. Their kids are with them, but they don't buy them any books." So lazy, uninvolved parenting is apparently not new.
One of the more thrilling events of my not all that distant past was when Little Golden Books opened a new flagship store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan not far from my office. My kid was quite young at the time, and I was buying for both of us, because an Evil Aunt had given away my cartons of childhood books and I wanted to rebuild those shelves so I could enjoy them with my kid.
I was not, before having my (planned and wanted) kid, seen by anyone (including myself) as maternal in any way, but I can't tell you how much I enjoyed sharing and doing all the childhood things with my kid, watching all the old Disney stuff, the Looney Tunes stuff, Shari Lewis redux (now that was a joy of joys), and the people who think babies and toddlers are boring are to me beneath contempt and bereft of imagination.
(I'm with you on reading anything in front of me - sometimes it would be my Dad's golf magazines with a bowl of cereal 🙄. It's amazing what tidbits of knowledge and/or facts you can accumulate. 😄 )
Agree. As kids, we read everything, including being allowed to read before and after dinner at the table. My parents had everything from 'Organic Gardening and Farming,' 'Prevention,' 'Fate,' 'Guideposts,'
'Mechanics Illustrated,' 'Car and Driver,' 'Boating,' and we read and read, I especially loved the occult, strange and unexplained events, and growing your own food. Probably why I rejected the narrative long ago.
I'd flesh it out by pointing out that an increased amount of women in the workforce means no one at home; single parenting is provably not good, etc. I certainly don't think these are the sole reason, but they are certainly not helping.
BREAKING: Arizona Department of Education is now reporting that parents "may receive an error message" when applying for the new school choice program "due to high volume."
“On February 1st, 1960, four students from North Carolina A&T sat down at a lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C., and demanded to be served. In 2014, four black students sit down at a lunch counter where they’re welcome and can’t read the menu.
Sweden has tried vouchers since the mid-nineties. It is an unmitigated disaster, far worse than the old fully state-run top-down system (for lots for reasons than just the vouchers, truth be told). A race to who can inflate the grades the most, meaning we at the university level discovered (15 years ago) that we suddenly had barely literate students aged 20+ who could barely read newspapers, much less actual textbooks - and yet, the private schools they had attended had awarded them top grades... because who puts their child in a school where the students get low grades? That must be a bad school. Moronic. And don't get me started on what the voucher system did to the correlation of grades vis-a-vis actual math skill/knowledge. Of course, perhaps you can study us to see where we went wrong using vouchers. Then we could point to you and fix our system too.
As to answer your question regardless of the current unfortunate trend in the US (far as I can tell), what we teachers should teach is easily described:
Knowledge and skills. That's it. To do that we need to have a disciplined school environment. And toachive that parents must raise children to comply with a few very simple demands: sit in your seat. Raise your hand when you wish to speak. Keep time. Do your homework. Study so that you can pass the tests and exams.
Anything surplus to this has no place in the school. Want to be christian, moslem, communist, black, jew, martian? Leave it on the peg in the hallway, in my class you are my student, because that's the only interest I have in you.
So when the subject is history of politics, I will teach about communism but I will not teach communism. And you can replace communism with whatever -ism you want: when I come to work, my personal opinions and preferences stay in my locker.
Same principle as in armed forces: no homos, women, men, arabs, plutonians - only soldiers together. Anything else is surpus to the mission.
time to end compulsory public education, full stop. it's a babysitting service. any reasonably intelligent child can take care of himself or herself, or that can be left to older siblings if necessary.
imagine the kind of talent that schools would attract if the insane levels of bureaucracy an educator needs to jump through were eliminated. imagine how many people would sign up for economics 101 with gato - and how inexpensive that would be
I can tell you what this looks like, and it works. What it means, however, is a tremendous amount of responsibility for parents to make the uncomfortable effort to create a community for their children. You *have* to kiss some frogs to find your people, to find their people. I *had* to learn how to be honest and communicate and not just abdicate social structure to the machine because I don’t like Jessie’s mom or my house is messy and it’s scary to host and I’m an introvert which makes me a special snowflake who never has to deal with people. Parents who keep their kids home but don’t deal with their stuff end up with the same kind of woke-broken, neurotic, depressed teens as everyone else.
Great post! Not everyone has the capacity to home school, and just like poorly run classrooms, in that case kids suffer.
But school choice does address a LOT, and brings competition into education--- if I can take those tax dollars elsewhere, then public schools better shape up!
It's a step forward, certainly.
But, quality public education is the goal, IMO, for most kids. We need to take our schools back. The problem is not only the insane state and federal governments, it is also some REALLY insane parents as well!
I think comparing our educational system to say, France, Germany, Argentina, Japan, etc
,would be very wise.
The kids I know coming from those educational systems into ours are light years ahead.
We are TOTALLY Failing to educate our kids.
That leads to a very dark future for our nation....
I disagree. I do not think there is any positive goal involving government provision of these services. Complete decoupling and the myriad independent options that will arise is the goal. There are so many things hamstringing people’s ability to raise their kids outside of that system, and almost all of them start with wither “public” or “government.”
While I hear you, I also know of many excellent public schools, and wonderful individuals who dedicated their lives to being the teachers in those schools.
(Sadly more in the past than today!) Public education created the generation that fought back against Government in the Civil Rights movement, the women's rights movement, the environmental movement, and the Vietnam era. Back then we knew not to trust Government.
Our required reading included Machievelli and 1984!
And you had to take subjects outside your major because being "educated" meant more than technical expertise...it meant History, Biology, Psychology, Literature, etc.
A basic college level biology class in the early 1980s would have enough background to make you question the injections!, a history class the mask madness, and a decent current events class from the Vietnam era would have made you fight the lockdowns as well.
America needs good public schools.
I would start looking at other nations, our own history, and the times that produced the world's greatest minds.
Enrichment is the goal, opening up minds to the real wonders and possibilities that surround us every second.
Also despite technology, there is really nothing new under the sun.
Good public education has always been the BEST thing any nation or civilization could give to it's citizens. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater has always been a mistake..
Perhaps, by your qualitative metrics, this argument holds. But we haven’t defined the terms at all. I think *everything* that’s sideways in this country is a result of the mindset inculcated by compulsory schooling (public and private), “good eggs” notwithstanding.
Not everyone’s time is best spent meeting anyone else’s definition of “educated,” and there is always opportunity cost. Anything government-run will always metasticize. That’s an iron law.
as maria montessori emphasized, kids gravitate toward what they do best. that can change radically depending on developmental factors. give them the choice and a voucher and they'll make it. in my experience, most parents are glad to get them out of the house and if that option exists, if a kid can focus on what they like - whether that's computers, or music, or basketball - they'll thrive.
we have to get over the fact that all kids are educable within a one-size-fits all framework. they're not. that applies to the top achievers as well as the bottom end who are completely ineducable and would do better for not being shamed in a system that wasn't engineered for them.
Here are a few small things to consider while we wait for the tsunami of change to occur:
In my early 20’s, I taught school. My first rude awakening was that I HAD to join a teachers union. At the time, the unions were all over the news with some issue I had not the bandwidth nor discernment to concern myself with. I didn’t think I liked their arguments but wasn’t certain. I didn’t want to join until I knew more about it so I tried to “hand-wave” them off. Several mentors strongly cautioned that if I didn’t join, and say I lost my temper and knocked over a kid’s desk, if a pencil went flying and blinded a kid or something, even though I had not actually thrown said pencil, it would not matter if the kid had been knocking out windows and slashing others with the glass, I would be sued and worse. So I paid my $75 to get my million dollar coverage. For that reason alone, I was now a member of a union currently making moves in the news that I myself wasn’t sure I condoned. Do the math for every teacher, every year, then consider that, like me, many teachers do not have the same ideals as the teacher’s unions. We’re just stuck needing insurance.
Another lesson wherein my hands were tied by stupid bureaucracy: They handed out massive catalogs of teacher supply stuff, telling me to check the boxes of what I’d need—- everything from staplers to projectors. I was like a kid with a JCPenny catalog and no budget. PLUS, the goods were dirt cheap in comparison to Walmart. (Thanks, Feds!) I went sort of hog wild — with a dash of, “but I don’t want to be greedy”, and got construction paper in every color, fun math tools like plastic pie pieces to help teach fractions, you get the idea. I turned in my wish list. They returned it to me saying I had to spend more. (?!) I went back and REALLY went hog wild, forget seeming greediness. They returned it to me again, saying spend more! This happened 3x before I finally asked exactly how much more and WHY, if I honestly didn’t think I needed anything else? The office said (wait for it…) if we didn’t collectively spend more than we’d spent last year, we would not be allocated as much the following year and whatever we were allocated may not be enough. WHAT? I was only 24 and I knew that wasn’t a good rationale for the entire country’s worth of teachers to overspend! I suggested they give my spare $ to special ed or art or … Turns out those depts. already get far more money than the rest. A secretary who had been around for 40 years actually looked at me and said, “Just order extra construction paper and math toys and give them to your nieces for Christmas.” 😳 Yes, they basically MADE me spend $600 more than I needed. Again, do that math for all federally funded schools.
Allocating needs to be refined, at the very least.
By the way, I homeschooled all 3 of my kids because I wanted them to have our ideals and because I could accomplish more than most schools accomplish per day, in half the time, leaving the rest of the day to read good lit, to create or to pursue others interests.
The parent is responsible for the education of the child - not the State. The government should have no role in education AT ALL. Only an irresponsible parent would sign over to government the right to determine what and by whom their child is taught.
We know the government cannot run ANYTHING. The USPS was trying to learn customer service from McDonalds. Common sense dictates that public education should be eliminated. But we have a Congress corrupted by teachers' unions. So we are stuck with the status quo. As always, the root cause is corruption. When corruption is protected by the First Amendment (when creatively interpreted), as free speech, we are doomed.
I think what they are doing in Arizona is a good start. I homeschooled my student who is an Aerospace engineer now. What I could have done with an additional $15k each year!
Unfortunately, here in AZ getting ESA money for your student does not SUBTRACT the same mount of funding from the government schools. In that sense it is not school choice. It is an additional expense to the state whereas real school choice is when money follows the student's belly button. I do favor ESA, but would prefer to see the funding of the education borg reduced commensurately.
I agree with you completely.
The education system is a starving beast that always wants more. When I examined the system closely, I came away with the idea that it was more about the adults than the students. When I lived in Ohio, I found the supreme court ruled school funding unconstitutional three times, they rely too much on property taxes. At least AZ is attempting something!
When did the educational system become more about the adults than the children? Do you think mask rules and school closures during the pandemic would have occurred if he educational system actually had children as a priority?
When did the educational system become more about the adults than the children?
Well, I made that discovery in 1999. I can’t imagine trying to school a child these days.
It was an attack on Catholic Church from the beginning. You would never see a transvestite reading stories to a Kindergarten kid.
Before you bring up child rape scandal, my sub stack "Problems with Catholic Church" discussing this. Secret societies are taking care of it all.... Almost, and not enough...
And the Catholic church was an institution created to take apostles of Christ out of the homes and communities (they were roaming mendicants) and give the city powers the authority over that movement. And to choose which scriptures to use and amend them to suit. Etc.
It's like humans can't help themselves but try and control everything.
One of the reasons I fear global forces and universal satellite coverage etc. No place to hide and be independent and free.
So Jesus founded an evil and defective Church?
Well your child might be smart but is obviously socially awkward like all homeschool kids. You deprived your child of the indoctrination that would have helped them be like everybody else and run with the herd. How can you sleep at night knowing you raised an independent thinker instead of a hive mind drone. You are a monster.
Thank you.
So many stories like this on home-ed groups.
Apart from extreme success other main thread is:
My child's eyes were dead, I took him out of school, they're brightening up again.
And when I home-schooled my youngest for 8th grade (the year following my return to public school teaching, after a 23 year 'retirement'---when I saw from the inside what school had become)--that year she began singing around the house. Just as she had when small.
Well they aren't giving it to homeschoolers. They're only giving it (back) to homeschoolers who spend it in approved ways. So again, not real freedom.
what did you work from for your curriculum? I am very strongly considering this but don't really know where to start. Did you do all of the schooling yourself? Did you ever consider a rotating pod of local parents? Very interested in any info you can provide!
I used a variety of resources and invented my own curriculum. It was based on the interests of my particular student. I couldn’t imagine following someone else’s curriculum because of the interests of my student. Yes I did all the schooling myself. It was my student who did most of the schooling. We were considered unschoolers-eclectic. We really didn’t have pods we had a very good homeschool network. Every now and then there would be a parent who would teach a subject they loved, for example a local chemist taught high school level chemistry in his lab 2 days a week. There are hundreds of books written on developing curriculum. The key thing is to get hooked up with your local homeschool network, they’ll give you some good answers. I have written once piece about homeschooling at my substack and do plan to write many more. I get lots of questions.
https://collettegreystone.substack.com/p/not-back-to-school
just got done instructing now. we work with a state charter as they keep us on the path regarding minimum requirements and resources. they have a few online classes and I teach them math, logic, ela.
I homeschool 2 kids now. We pay taxes, plus the cost of homeschooling and they are significantly ahead of their peers academically. I'd love to get the money I pay in taxes for school back.
A great idea...if all parents were deeply engaged in their children's education. They're not. That's how so much of this CRT, anti-white poison got into the system. It also doesn't address the sausage factory of groupthink that is the so-called elite university, the place where SJW orcs are manufactured and let loose to assault Western Civilization.
I am with DeSantis on this one. He clearly sees the destruction to society these leftist ideas are creating and is pushing back as vigorously and as quickly as he can. Generations of kids have been taught to hate their country and we are already late to the fight. Sometimes the best, and only, way to end an aggression is a blunt punch to the nose. We can get to work on implementing the ideal after the correction.
Practically all of our problems can be traced back to the breakdown of the family. Sen Moynihan's conclusion about the black family in the 60s were correct, I believe. A strong family is the core of a strong society and allows for human flourishing. There's not a lot of human flourishing going on the West nowadays. (Dismounts from soapbox.)
universities have been captured by federal tax, title, and grant. if we want them back, we need to get the government out of the regulating and funding them business.
i think desantis is missing a golden opportunity here. he's fighting over who gets to wear the dictatorial mantle as opposed to creating real freedom.
even if he does "use this power for good" he's also entrenching the notion of the right to exert such power and one day you may not like who wields that....
"we'll get the right people to make the right choices with top down power" is a long term sucker bet.
The urge for a Red Caesar to come along and thrash these Blue tyrants is one we must fight, but, with nearly all institutions in the hands of leftists, I sometimes wonder if that's what it'll take to stop them.
The left is in power and have shown that their calls for "tolerance" were just a way to disarm the opposition on their way to power, and not a principle, since none is extended to dissenters. In fact, they are actively attacking anyone standing in their way. Very unnerving.
The left is not in power. The corporations are in power; the elites are in power.
Bingo.
And they are apolitical.
Gold collar class.
Yes, they are, but they are pushing a leftist agenda--collectivism for the hoi poloi. As always, the left has an overabundance of useful idiots.
The corporations particularly their elitist C suites are doing the left's work. Both gain money and power.
My son was a student at UC Davis through the fall of 2019. One of his profs there had been in the university for a very long time, and he was utterly disgusted at how the UC system now is focused almost entirely on attracting foreign students and the huge tuition they bring in. This is to the detriment of California kids who can't pay as much. When you are in Davis and especially on the UC campus, you might think you were in China, if that tells you anything.
That's all over. My sister, a graduate of U of I, Urbana-Champaign tells me that there are so many Chinese students they jokingly refer to it as Woo of I....
I think there would be more value of having a family of raccoons teach our children over the state run educational system.
One of the reasons I don't have children is I knew that I'd have to be the solution to their education challenges. I just could not in good conscious contribute to or comply with a system that so produces mediocrity. I was fine and compliant as a teenager to such mediocrity. I could have skated through high school had my parents not many times intervened on my behalf. My dad often said to me "you won't be given an education, you have to take it." I understand that now more than ever. I don't think the state sponsored educational system even can offer education at all these days. It can't even be taken on the state level. It must be chosen through alternative means.
Well, if students have been taught to hate their country, that might be a good start. Look at how our country is controlled by corporate interests and how democracy has failed. Kids need to be taught that there is a better way.
Excellent article, school choice is the answer. If you can afford it, take your children out and choose your school and then vote in candidates that are for school choice to help the other children who can't afford it, have a choice too! Also, examine these private schools closely and make sure you are getting what you want. Some private schools are worse than the public schools. And to good teachers, you leave too, we will meet again at the good schools. Teachers and parents must unite.
Who will go to dangerous neighborhoods? If all the schools that are worth a darn are outside your area and your kid has no way to get there... I love money following students and school choice, but it rarely if ever works out for the poor kids in poor neighborhoods.
If you are a stellar teacher, do you prefer (generally speaking) to be in a safe place with relatively low chance of being shot or robbed with students who are relatively well behaved or the opposite?
I think, perhaps, this may be a question of, better than before but not perfect. If the money went with the kids, rather than only having good schools/educatirs in higher property tax neighborhoods, I don't see why enterprising individuals who are perhaps FROM those more dangerous neighborhoods wouldn't offer something better than what already exists, and perhaps some students/families who are committed to a higher level of education would opt for bussing. Or perhaps a good deal of education could be obtained online.
How's the current system working out for the poor kids in poor neighborhoods?
But Raptor, why should a kid's education be determined by his or her address? Why can't we provide the ghetto child a bus to a better neighborhood with a better school?
Did you grow up during the era of busing? I did. In principle I agree. In practice, not so much.
Then there is the problem of no schools in your neighborhood if you are poor. There are problems associated with that.
If you did bus how would that work? Not all the children from poorer neighborhoods will choose to go to the same school. Will a bus go 30 minutes in and 30 out to go get a kid? Then there is the burden on the child with potentially 2 hours on a bus.
The bottom line also is that in this market model, schools (or tutor pods or whatever form an educational solution takes) aren't obliged to accept any and all students until they are at maximum capacity under fire codes. If a kid from a poor neighborhood wants to spend their voucher on a 2-hour bus ride and that kid can actually learn and benefit, that's a sacrifice some people will make. Most won't.
I did grow up in that era Raptor, I was born in 1962 so I was aware of, though unaffected, by the forced busing of the 60's and 70's.
Your questions are legit, but that's what we pay our political class to figure out. And to keep at, not just do it once and take a victory lap without assessing and reassessing to find points of improvement.
Private schools deal with all those issues, so they are not intractable. Public schools can contract with private bus companies so that one or two buses could theoretically pick up all the kids in a given neighborhood and take them to multiple schools. Not simple, I know, but not impossible. And again, as pointed out above, not every kid is going to take the option, at least initially. But if it works, more kids will and the busing issues become more complex. I would file that under good-problems-to-have.
That is a comment I can happily respond to and will when I get back. Thank you John.
"Your questions are legit, but that's what we pay our political class to figure out. "
Someone missed the entire point of this article. Or they're on the other side of it with the state.
Perhaps you'd like to volunteer your home, or the street in front of it ,for the kids who will be suspended from the schools they're forced on when they assault other students or children? Or would you prefer our "political class" continue to expand the practice of banning school suspensions, which would certainly keep them out of your hair?
The problem here isn't about the length of a damn bus ride. The problem is that dumping problems on people who don't have those problems doesn't fix them. It's the old "drop of sewage in a bottle of champagne."
Yeah, that someone is you.
We've been through this before. It never worked out that way very well in the past. Many of those kids are not going to take the time to go to 'better neighborhoods/schools.'
Of course that's the case, but the point is to give them the option. Obviously some won't take it. That's on them, and their parents. I'm curious, when you say we've been through this before, to what are you referring? When/where in the past has it been tried?
Are you seriously unaware of the history of bussing black and Hispanic kids of the ghettoes to better schools in white areas and the, too often, violent backlash from the white parents? It was particularly bad in L.A. and Boston. This occurred during the 70s-80s and to a lesser extent in the 90s. A college roommate was a black girl who lived through it in the 80s, before any one tries to handwave it away. For any Prince fans, he references his own experiences with this issue in Minneapolis in "Sacrifice of Victor".
Here's a Google search result. Pick an article and start reading: https://www.google.com/search?q=school+bussing+1970s&oq=school+bussing&aqs=chrome.3.69i57j0i10i512j0i512l2j0i10l5.6875j0j7&client=ms-android-tmus-us-revc&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8
That was FORCED busing that had nothing to do with educational options. That was strictly about trying to integrate races. What we're talking about here is giving parents and kids choices, not forcing them to go where they may not want to go. See if you can keep up, darling.
I am confident that this reply will be highly offensive to many, but as a teacher I have experienced this situation. The inner city children (from Phila) brought their cultural ways along to the suburban school district--which had been touting itself as one of the top-performing districts in the state. Whether the change of school benefitted those newcomers I cannot say; I can say that it offered considerable disadvantage--culturally as well as academically-- to the children whose parents had chosen to live there, and to pay high real estate prices, and taxes for the sake of the quality of those schools. Colleagues more in touch told me of these kids publicly discussing their trips home on the R5 (the suburban train line), showing the timetable to each other. I.e., they were not residents of the town and were free-loading on the taxpayers.
Did you teach in the suburban school district?
If you did would you mind talking about what subject you taught and to whom (as in grade, gifted, remedial). How your school dealt with the incoming students, anything you noticed in class and/or outside (like PE, lunch, hall).
My husband and I were both bused and then I went to a school where we were not bused, but had children bused in. Our experiences were mostly terrible (especially my husband's). It was very eye opening. I had a bit of a better experience in that I ended up having a life long friendship with a girl who was bused into my school and am a godmother to her 2 girls (who are now adults). The schooling experience and safety situations were terrible.
When I was in HS I tutored middle school students from the town where my dad grew up (which was mostly black when he was growing up and is now more black/hispanic). It was shocking. Shockingly illiterate students, shockingly poor learning skills and attention spans and much more). I tutored children in a small town in WA as an adult. Mostly poor to lower income white kids. Same general problems with slight differences and to a lesser degree). Mostly all had BAD family lives.
Something radical must happen. Working within the current framework is untenable.
I think gato spoke to this objection, there will be competition even within the bad schools. Some of the schools are very bad now, can it get much worse? All will have to improve or close as others start up to compete for the dollars. This was his bad washing machine comparison. I took my kid and ran, I want to help others run too. Give the parents the money and set them free.
Brilliant. Simple. Makes perfect sense.
This is why you (and me) will never get elected for public office
You still owe me a phone call :)
i sent you an email trying to schedule one the other day.
did you not get it?
Wow. Schedule phone calls? Guess that's why I'm just your average schmuck.
In this realm the fight is so fast and thick that getting a phone call set up is like planning a strategy meeting with your lieutenant in the middle of a fire fight, it's tough to pull off!
; ))
Yeah, I was just trying to inject a little humor. I won't quit my day job.
We sincerely need that!
We need you, and Gato, in public office!! Take those Billions and run Newsome out of California!
Or come up to Oregon. Here I think you could take over State Politics just by outting our levels of Corruption.
"Kirsch & El Gato Malo for the lying stats and corruption elimination Crew!"
I really believe we need a Third Party. Or a "Cleaning Crew" platform in Each.
It's graft, greed and collusion that's killing us, our kids, and the American way of Life.
We kept our kids out of the system completely. I don’t want state money; it will always come with strings. Just make the school funding a voluntary line item in taxes, at least local ones, and allow us to opt out. We lived on one trade income. We found communities for our kids and ourselves (I’m mom and I drove that-it involves a lot of frog-kissing.) We took *responsibility.* Your children are the most important job you’ll ever have and you *can* eff it up. If you outsource it, how much can you really complain? You had a different priority. For some people, that truly is food on the table, and I get that. But, be honest, for how many is it *really* food on the table, rather than “the manner to which I have grown accustomed.”
Eliminate “compulsory.” End that immediately. Allow people to do whatever they want, whether it’s community coops or small-scale group tutoring or paying people you know and trust to take your kids so you can work.
But *don’t take their money.* They *will* tell you what you have to teach, what competence is, and what qualifies as an education.
Could have written this 100%. One income (and not a six figure one either), used cars (ten years old minimum), 700 sq ft condominium was our first home purchase, cooking and baking at home (rarely eat out - not even fast food), until four years ago my husband had a nice cellphone for work, and I carried one of those jobbies you buy at Wal-Mart and pay as you go. My point: our only child was and is the center of priorities and "sacrifices" must be made (we never thought we were sacrificing anything - I felt and still feel like I'm wealthy 😉).
So glad to hear that there are people like you--I feel as though I passed the torch to you.
Good for you! Made the same choices 45 years ago--never regretted having been at home with children. Homeschooling wasn't yet a 'thing' then--but did do it for one year 2001--02. Further, having grown up with iffy income--they take living on slender means to be within their means.
Exactly right. Money is the key. Once you accept it, the strings begin to tug.....
"...struggling fourth- and fifth-grade kids learn to read..."
This is it right here and all of our teeth collectively should've fallen out reading it.
How much of this is from brain damage caused by toxins? Glysophate, Mercury, Aluminum, etc. Too much exposure to Electric-Magnetic fields....?
How much is it from nutritional defiencies? How much from terrible home environments?
Our nation is dying in many places...the kids are in terrible straights, 1 in 36 Autistic?!?!?!
If that's true, I can promise you the rest aren't ok either. We need to look at root causes of disease and delayed development.
Hard!
We also need to look at generations on welfare. Prison populations, and crime and drug and derelict ridden neighborhoods.
If we cannot "clean up" this "gulag" we have created in the United States of America, we are finished.
All of the crises have met in one place, I fear. Health. Education. Economics.
Lack of Integrity in Government.
War Profiteering in Corporate Behavior
Lies, lies, lies, and more lies in Media.
What this really amounts to is a break down of all societal structures.
And, I think the negative force that wants exactly what we are seeing has wormed it's way into the heart of our nation via our Government, and Public School Systems, to the largest extent.
But also through corporations like Disney and other Media Moguls.
And of course those who determine what our children are taught.
Those who hold the contracts to produce the textbooks and the curriculums our children utilize also.
So, pulling back from this brink isn't going to be either easy or elegant, but ANY way we can stop from going over it definitely worth the effort!
Pulling the kids from the state run incompetent schools, pulverizing their hearts and souls with CRT, "wokeness" and radical anti-human theories is worth whatever it takes to accomplish the goal!
Sometimes things are simpler than you think.
Lousy parenting and shitty teachers turn sweet little kids into monsters.
You needn't have been well-parented yourself to learn how to be a good parent to your own kids. You just need to believe they are more important than anyone else or any thing in your life. It's basic instinct.
If people are incapable of doing that, then yes we must ask why. If people are actually brain-damaged by various pre- and postnatal exposures, we need to diagnose that and admit that and devise remedial strategies.
But in far too many instances people use their intelligence and other abilities for ill and not good.
First end the excuses so we can as a society weed out the vile from the genuinely physiologically damaged.
And wasn't the environment and toxins and etc. etc. part of the clean up push during the 1960s and 1970s? (I was there - am I remembering it incorrectly?) So I'm not amenable to the toxins and pollution argument. We had higher crime rates during those decades also, and I'm pretty sure that nasty ghettos are a thing of the past (at least in my region they don't exist anymore). People with this argument sound like a broken record (we all know what those are, right?) Lack of integrity in government is not new and neither is lying politicians. Everyone has his favorite reason for the decline in our society, and I certainly have mine and it's more in line with your comment. I'd flesh it out by pointing out that an increased amount of women in the workforce means no one at home; single parenting is provably not good, etc. I certainly don't think these are the sole reason, but they are certainly not helping.
I think there's no real doubt that conception when each gamete contributor is in less than optimum health to produce a healthy intelligent child is a demonstrable problem. There are too many kids essentially uneducable because they haven't the ability for sustained attention, retention of learned material, regulation of emotion etc. Then they get shunted in special ed and drop out after years of failure and frustration.
But civilizations were built and sustained for millennia when populations had nothing optimum at all, really; there are always smart inventive people born despite the worst conditions.
So it always boils down to parenting. You don't need a GED to talk to your child; to sing; to make silly word games. God knows the culture of rap involves rhythm and wordplay. Choice of words is of course meaningful here, if by the time a kid is five he knows bitch and cunt and fuck you etc. etc. but has no clue that there are dozens of ways to describe the color blue, we can pretty much predict his life trajectory.
I myself had books, but sitting at the table I'd read anything including juice cartons and the ketchup bottle if I couldn't read something of more value at mealtime, and therefore basic literacy materials are always at hand for anyone.
What soured me permanently on social welfare whining was living in a desperately poor highly socially stratified country for awhile, and I saw parents who had no realistic hope of their children getting anywhere, because of poverty or religious minority status etc. etc. nevertheless sacrifice greatly to enable kids to go to shitty primary schools, needing to wash the one school uniform daily because they couldn't afford more.
Compared to them every inner city in this country is paved with gold.
I will never forget a time back in about 1973 when I went into a used book store (I was still a poor college student then!) and bought a bunch of books for my 3 year old daughter. The clerk told me with astonishment, "I can't believe you are buying children's books...NO ONE does that! Most women come in here to buy used romance novels. Their kids are with them, but they don't buy them any books." So lazy, uninvolved parenting is apparently not new.
Now THAT'S an awful anecdote for sure.
One of the more thrilling events of my not all that distant past was when Little Golden Books opened a new flagship store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan not far from my office. My kid was quite young at the time, and I was buying for both of us, because an Evil Aunt had given away my cartons of childhood books and I wanted to rebuild those shelves so I could enjoy them with my kid.
I was not, before having my (planned and wanted) kid, seen by anyone (including myself) as maternal in any way, but I can't tell you how much I enjoyed sharing and doing all the childhood things with my kid, watching all the old Disney stuff, the Looney Tunes stuff, Shari Lewis redux (now that was a joy of joys), and the people who think babies and toddlers are boring are to me beneath contempt and bereft of imagination.
To not buy books for one's kid!
This is a fantastic comment. Thank you.
(I'm with you on reading anything in front of me - sometimes it would be my Dad's golf magazines with a bowl of cereal 🙄. It's amazing what tidbits of knowledge and/or facts you can accumulate. 😄 )
Agree. As kids, we read everything, including being allowed to read before and after dinner at the table. My parents had everything from 'Organic Gardening and Farming,' 'Prevention,' 'Fate,' 'Guideposts,'
'Mechanics Illustrated,' 'Car and Driver,' 'Boating,' and we read and read, I especially loved the occult, strange and unexplained events, and growing your own food. Probably why I rejected the narrative long ago.
Thank you!
I'd flesh it out by pointing out that an increased amount of women in the workforce means no one at home; single parenting is provably not good, etc. I certainly don't think these are the sole reason, but they are certainly not helping.
Arizona Holds The School Choice Crown, But Can It Keep It? https://thefederalist.com/2022/08/19/arizona-holds-the-school-choice-crown-but-can-it-keep-it/
BREAKING: Arizona Department of Education is now reporting that parents "may receive an error message" when applying for the new school choice program "due to high volume."
https://twitter.com/deangeliscorey/status/1560734192933081089?s=21&t=W90I4_kZOPD27COBR-2ZoA
A random dump from old notes. Note the first and last ones ones;
Obama Cancels DC Voucher Schools: http://www.humanevents.com/2010/10/12/obamas-hypocrisy-on-school-choice/
Hypocrite Obama Criticizes Sending Children to Private School While Sending His Girls to Private School: http://eaglerising.com/18462/obama-criticizes-sending-kids-to-private-school-while-sending-his-own-kids-to-private-school/
DC Mayor Breaks With Obama Over Vouchers: http://dailycaller.com/2016/04/27/dc-mayor-breaks-with-obama-to-support-gop-backed-school-choice-bill/
North Carolina Gets OK for Vouchers from Judge: http://dailycaller.com/2015/07/23/huge-win-for-school-vouchers-in-north-carolina/
Arne Duncan, Head of Education, Daughters Attend Non Common Core Schools Though He Preaches it For Others: http://dailycaller.com/2015/07/10/arne-duncan-loves-common-core-for-your-kids-but-not-his/
Nevada Introduces Country’s Biggest Ever Choice Program: http://dailycaller.com/2015/06/03/nevada-enacts-countrys-biggest-ever-school-choice-program/
DC Rep, Holmes Norton Warns House, Don’t Mess With DC Local Laws: http://dailycaller.com/2015/05/07/dc-rep-warns-house-gop-dont-mess-with-local-laws/
Spending doubles on education but kids doing worse than in 1972: http://dailycaller.com/2014/03/20/despite-outrageous-school-spending-students-actually-dumber-than-in-1972/
Educational Outcomes: How Did This Happen in America? http://dailycaller.com/2015/01/27/school-choice-education-is-liberation/
“On February 1st, 1960, four students from North Carolina A&T sat down at a lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C., and demanded to be served. In 2014, four black students sit down at a lunch counter where they’re welcome and can’t read the menu.
“How did this happen in America?”
Teachers Don’t Know How Much is Being Spent Per Pupil: http://dailycaller.com/2015/08/18/teachers-dont-know-how-much-is-spent-on-schools-but-want-more/
New Ed Czar http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2013/03/african-american-education-czar-to-reduce-resegregation/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
New Hampshire Fights Vouchers http://reason.com/archives/2013/03/12/the-battle-against-school-choice-in-new
Obama 1995 Collectivism Guarantees Equality:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjzPirAp0vM#action=share
Sweden has tried vouchers since the mid-nineties. It is an unmitigated disaster, far worse than the old fully state-run top-down system (for lots for reasons than just the vouchers, truth be told). A race to who can inflate the grades the most, meaning we at the university level discovered (15 years ago) that we suddenly had barely literate students aged 20+ who could barely read newspapers, much less actual textbooks - and yet, the private schools they had attended had awarded them top grades... because who puts their child in a school where the students get low grades? That must be a bad school. Moronic. And don't get me started on what the voucher system did to the correlation of grades vis-a-vis actual math skill/knowledge. Of course, perhaps you can study us to see where we went wrong using vouchers. Then we could point to you and fix our system too.
As to answer your question regardless of the current unfortunate trend in the US (far as I can tell), what we teachers should teach is easily described:
Knowledge and skills. That's it. To do that we need to have a disciplined school environment. And toachive that parents must raise children to comply with a few very simple demands: sit in your seat. Raise your hand when you wish to speak. Keep time. Do your homework. Study so that you can pass the tests and exams.
Anything surplus to this has no place in the school. Want to be christian, moslem, communist, black, jew, martian? Leave it on the peg in the hallway, in my class you are my student, because that's the only interest I have in you.
So when the subject is history of politics, I will teach about communism but I will not teach communism. And you can replace communism with whatever -ism you want: when I come to work, my personal opinions and preferences stay in my locker.
Same principle as in armed forces: no homos, women, men, arabs, plutonians - only soldiers together. Anything else is surpus to the mission.
You're lying. The freiskolor is pure success and is cheaper to the state than the public system.
time to end compulsory public education, full stop. it's a babysitting service. any reasonably intelligent child can take care of himself or herself, or that can be left to older siblings if necessary.
imagine the kind of talent that schools would attract if the insane levels of bureaucracy an educator needs to jump through were eliminated. imagine how many people would sign up for economics 101 with gato - and how inexpensive that would be
I can tell you what this looks like, and it works. What it means, however, is a tremendous amount of responsibility for parents to make the uncomfortable effort to create a community for their children. You *have* to kiss some frogs to find your people, to find their people. I *had* to learn how to be honest and communicate and not just abdicate social structure to the machine because I don’t like Jessie’s mom or my house is messy and it’s scary to host and I’m an introvert which makes me a special snowflake who never has to deal with people. Parents who keep their kids home but don’t deal with their stuff end up with the same kind of woke-broken, neurotic, depressed teens as everyone else.
Great post! Not everyone has the capacity to home school, and just like poorly run classrooms, in that case kids suffer.
But school choice does address a LOT, and brings competition into education--- if I can take those tax dollars elsewhere, then public schools better shape up!
It's a step forward, certainly.
But, quality public education is the goal, IMO, for most kids. We need to take our schools back. The problem is not only the insane state and federal governments, it is also some REALLY insane parents as well!
I think comparing our educational system to say, France, Germany, Argentina, Japan, etc
,would be very wise.
The kids I know coming from those educational systems into ours are light years ahead.
We are TOTALLY Failing to educate our kids.
That leads to a very dark future for our nation....
I disagree. I do not think there is any positive goal involving government provision of these services. Complete decoupling and the myriad independent options that will arise is the goal. There are so many things hamstringing people’s ability to raise their kids outside of that system, and almost all of them start with wither “public” or “government.”
While I hear you, I also know of many excellent public schools, and wonderful individuals who dedicated their lives to being the teachers in those schools.
(Sadly more in the past than today!) Public education created the generation that fought back against Government in the Civil Rights movement, the women's rights movement, the environmental movement, and the Vietnam era. Back then we knew not to trust Government.
Our required reading included Machievelli and 1984!
And you had to take subjects outside your major because being "educated" meant more than technical expertise...it meant History, Biology, Psychology, Literature, etc.
A basic college level biology class in the early 1980s would have enough background to make you question the injections!, a history class the mask madness, and a decent current events class from the Vietnam era would have made you fight the lockdowns as well.
America needs good public schools.
I would start looking at other nations, our own history, and the times that produced the world's greatest minds.
Enrichment is the goal, opening up minds to the real wonders and possibilities that surround us every second.
Also despite technology, there is really nothing new under the sun.
Good public education has always been the BEST thing any nation or civilization could give to it's citizens. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater has always been a mistake..
Perhaps, by your qualitative metrics, this argument holds. But we haven’t defined the terms at all. I think *everything* that’s sideways in this country is a result of the mindset inculcated by compulsory schooling (public and private), “good eggs” notwithstanding.
Not everyone’s time is best spent meeting anyone else’s definition of “educated,” and there is always opportunity cost. Anything government-run will always metasticize. That’s an iron law.
as maria montessori emphasized, kids gravitate toward what they do best. that can change radically depending on developmental factors. give them the choice and a voucher and they'll make it. in my experience, most parents are glad to get them out of the house and if that option exists, if a kid can focus on what they like - whether that's computers, or music, or basketball - they'll thrive.
we have to get over the fact that all kids are educable within a one-size-fits all framework. they're not. that applies to the top achievers as well as the bottom end who are completely ineducable and would do better for not being shamed in a system that wasn't engineered for them.
Here are a few small things to consider while we wait for the tsunami of change to occur:
In my early 20’s, I taught school. My first rude awakening was that I HAD to join a teachers union. At the time, the unions were all over the news with some issue I had not the bandwidth nor discernment to concern myself with. I didn’t think I liked their arguments but wasn’t certain. I didn’t want to join until I knew more about it so I tried to “hand-wave” them off. Several mentors strongly cautioned that if I didn’t join, and say I lost my temper and knocked over a kid’s desk, if a pencil went flying and blinded a kid or something, even though I had not actually thrown said pencil, it would not matter if the kid had been knocking out windows and slashing others with the glass, I would be sued and worse. So I paid my $75 to get my million dollar coverage. For that reason alone, I was now a member of a union currently making moves in the news that I myself wasn’t sure I condoned. Do the math for every teacher, every year, then consider that, like me, many teachers do not have the same ideals as the teacher’s unions. We’re just stuck needing insurance.
Another lesson wherein my hands were tied by stupid bureaucracy: They handed out massive catalogs of teacher supply stuff, telling me to check the boxes of what I’d need—- everything from staplers to projectors. I was like a kid with a JCPenny catalog and no budget. PLUS, the goods were dirt cheap in comparison to Walmart. (Thanks, Feds!) I went sort of hog wild — with a dash of, “but I don’t want to be greedy”, and got construction paper in every color, fun math tools like plastic pie pieces to help teach fractions, you get the idea. I turned in my wish list. They returned it to me saying I had to spend more. (?!) I went back and REALLY went hog wild, forget seeming greediness. They returned it to me again, saying spend more! This happened 3x before I finally asked exactly how much more and WHY, if I honestly didn’t think I needed anything else? The office said (wait for it…) if we didn’t collectively spend more than we’d spent last year, we would not be allocated as much the following year and whatever we were allocated may not be enough. WHAT? I was only 24 and I knew that wasn’t a good rationale for the entire country’s worth of teachers to overspend! I suggested they give my spare $ to special ed or art or … Turns out those depts. already get far more money than the rest. A secretary who had been around for 40 years actually looked at me and said, “Just order extra construction paper and math toys and give them to your nieces for Christmas.” 😳 Yes, they basically MADE me spend $600 more than I needed. Again, do that math for all federally funded schools.
Allocating needs to be refined, at the very least.
By the way, I homeschooled all 3 of my kids because I wanted them to have our ideals and because I could accomplish more than most schools accomplish per day, in half the time, leaving the rest of the day to read good lit, to create or to pursue others interests.
I suggest you close comments on this article so everyone will comment in the second half and the discussion will remain coherent and integrated.
Pubic schools exist to fund teachers, perverts and the Democratic Party
Pubic schools exist solely to prop up the power of teachers, perverts and the Democratic Party
The parent is responsible for the education of the child - not the State. The government should have no role in education AT ALL. Only an irresponsible parent would sign over to government the right to determine what and by whom their child is taught.
We know the government cannot run ANYTHING. The USPS was trying to learn customer service from McDonalds. Common sense dictates that public education should be eliminated. But we have a Congress corrupted by teachers' unions. So we are stuck with the status quo. As always, the root cause is corruption. When corruption is protected by the First Amendment (when creatively interpreted), as free speech, we are doomed.
YES! GET THE GOVERNMENT OUT OF SCHOOLS!
In 40 years, the Department of Education hasn't educated a single student.