Louisiana Schools Mass Privatization

Sorry I miss understood what you were saying. I have mixed feelings about the voucher system. In some ways it could be good and in some ways bad like you stated.

 

I am interested in how many in favor of vouchers have blasted the auto industry bailouts. Public money is public money, and private entities are private entities.

 

That would be interesting. But isn't that money that has already been set aside for education and is divided up differently? Or are they talking about new money?

 

No problem, my friend. I have an issue with treating education as a means for shareholders to make a profit from public money. When decisions in education are made based on profit margin, our priorities are officially screwed up. Some things are more important than making a buck.

 

Not new money as I understand the issue, but regardless, public money will be given to private entities. That goes against conservative fiscal policy as I understand it.

 

The thing I think we need most in schools today is good old fashion discipline. Every school that I ever taught at that has had it does better and the reverse is also true.

 

You are absolutely right. Private or public, no teacher can educate without discipline. A good portion of students have no idea what discipline is.

This brings up another question. If private schools accept public funds, are they held to the same national standards/regulations as public schools in regard to performance, restrictions, mandates, etc. or, can they still cherry pick what students they serve, kick students out for infractions specific to that school, and so forth?

 

You should read the second post of this thread: http://8thmaxim.com/site/forum/checkerboard/4307-louisiana-schools-mass-privatization.html

Oh wait, that is THIS THREAD. Huh, small world.

 

Not even.

 

It's a waste of time and a continuing part of the attempt to divert power and money from largely pro-Democratic public school unions and teachers to more conservative private interests.

But, the worst part is that it's a waste of time and things like charter schools and vouchers have proven to be as hit or miss as public schools, for a number of reasons.

1. It fails to address the real problems of the education system. Somehow, it's become dogma that a bunch of lazy, shitty teachers who can't be fired or disciplined are the root cause of our educational problems and, if you just find a way to motivate or fire them, then the problems will be solved.

2. Private schools can pick and choose whom can enroll and if they stay. Will this change once they receive voucher students or can they cherry pick their student body while still claiming their superiority?

3. If they are required to take the students as is, like the public schools do, are they going to be judged by the same tests as the public schools? Is it going to continue to be a system of teaching to the test and basing teacher "performance" on student scores?

4. Will certain schools be perceived as lower level schools because of their student make-up (i.e. poor blacks and Hispanics) and gradually have their schools gutted?

5. Will teachers now even more avoid the schools most in need of fresh, bright teachers because of the slippery slope of good students leaving "bad" schools as they are worried about job security or negative reviews from low functioning students?

6. Will these vouchers be distributed to special education students as well, which, oh yes, are included in the school statistics for public schools?

I could list another 100 concerns, but the gist of the problem is not the one that Louisiana is trying to suggest. In fact, there are a myriad of problems that can't be solved by politicians simply placing the problem in another area because that area is more sympathetic to their particular party.

 

Like I said, either the creative process was made to look like billions of years via the lense of uniformitarianism (natural processes are the same through time-- and so far every shred of evidence points to that being absolutely true), or the Earth is billions of years old.

This isn't the "IPorange hypothesis." I didn't come up with any of it. The men who did so when suggesting this stuff could bring personal ruin by the Christian establishment. This was before tectonic plate theory, before evolution, etc. This was simply making observations about the landscape and geology of the Earth.

 

Good post Unimane. You nailed it, imo. The problems in today's educational system are societal problems as much as anything else. See it every day. I asked some of the same questions earlier.

 

Thats where the private schools have an advantage over the public schools. They can put a kid out quicker than a public school. I had to go to court today about one of my students that took a swing at me and tried to bite me. He got probation just like I figured he would. He was originally suspended for 3 days, so that was in fact his punishment.

 

I agree. It's presented as if you're just getting the money you're "entitled" to back to let you decide how to spend it rather than the government. The problem is that you should only be entitled to an amount that is equivalent to what you contributed in taxes, not what is set aside per student.

 

I think all of these are absolutely valid practical concerns with this voucher system. I just can't be in favor of it; I don't see how it's possible that it doesn't further hurt public education.

 

I agree with what you have posted,BUT there has to be some of the blame placed on the students themselves. There are kids today, regular students, not kids like I teach or special ed kids, that will stand up in the middle of class and tell the teacher F-you. I have a good friend teacher that put his tests in his desk one day. A female student got into his desk and took the test. He caught her, let her take the test and gave her a 0. Her dad came came to the school and wanted to know why his daughters Civil Rights were violated. Her had to give her a 100. I've been bitten, hit, called every name in the book, even the N word. In a lot of cases, it really doesn't matter how good the teacher is, some kids now days do not care.

 

The worse case scenario will be that it leads to the destruction of public education. This will lead to for-profit entities deciding on who receives what kind if any education. Sounds like a return to a neo-feudalism mindset. Profit motive is not a viable model for educating an entire population. By it's very nature, it's exclusive to what makes the entity money.

 

This is 100% accurate as well. Schools are scared to death of today's litigious society. How can the kids you speak of have respect for others when they have no respect for themselves? I'll save everyone the trouble, and answer that: they can't- it's impossible.

 

This is exactly what sort of mindset we're talking about.

 

Exactly, and I'm sure you know, its still blamed on the teacher.