My own education rant ( Re: Reading, Writing, and Multiple Choice)

[psychic_serpent]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Haggridd" 
<jkusalavagemd at y...> wrote:
> The class size at my elementary school was 
> 60 students throughout all eight years.  I realize that this is 
> anecdotal, but theses kids learned just fine.

This sort of argument is not just anecdotal, it defies logic.  If 
teachers are having a difficult time now giving each student 
adequate attention (most districts no longer allow classes larger 
than 30 students, and some have lowered that to 20 for younger 
students) how would doubling class size be a solution?  I have no 
way of knowing what years you went to school, but saying "theses 
[sic] kids learned just fine" is not taking into account the many 
challenges facing today's teachers.  You probably didn't have 
computers in school, either, but a well-equipped school should not 
be without computers in this day and age.
 
I said earlier:  
> > That said, however, raising teacher pay would, as a start, 
prevent the private sector from leeching good teachers from the 
schools who would otherwise have to choose between being able to 
follow their calling or paying their mortgage.  In places like the 
Bay Area (around San Francisco) real estate is at a premium even for 
people making six figures; workers in jobs like teaching and police 
work need to commute ridiculous distances because the wealthy people 
they serve are unwilling to part with a little more of their income 
to let these folks live in the same community.  They end up feeling 
like domestics who have to live on the "wrong" side of the tracks.  
 
You said:
> After implementing the reforms I suggested, agreed.  Your 
> characterization of the taxpayers seems a little snide in its own 
> right.  The quality of schools has historically been a prime 
> factor in choosing where to live, irrespective of the property 
> taxes quality schools may require.

Not in this case.  In Silicon Valley and similar places, the work 
has dictated the reason for so many people being in a given place.  
New communities have sprung up to house folks in the industry during 
the last twenty years, and new school systems have been created from 
scratch.  However, people who work for the public--teachers and 
cops, chiefly--cannot live in the communities where they work 
because houses there are outrageously expensive.  (The high salaries 
of the folks in the computer industry mean that by and large the 
market will bear those high prices).  Commute times of six hours a 
day are not unusual in that part of the country.  Some communities 
are considering constructing low-income housing especially for folks 
like teachers, but this is not prevalent enough yet.  (I'm torn 
between thinking this is a good thing and thinking it's more than a 
little demeaning for the teachers.)

You asked:
> Why should teachers have more job security than others in the 
> workforce?  If the more experienced teachers cannot demonstrate 
> that their experience actually makes for better teaching, then why 
> should they not compete with new hires?  This might free up some 
> funds to increase the compensation of the better teachers.

Teachers should have more job security because we need them, pure 
and simple.  I think the question that should be asked is why should 
just about everyone else have LESS?  Competing with new hires isn't 
the point.  We're talking about the well-being of kids here, not 
salesmen competing to have the highest sales.  More experienced 
teachers are valuable resources.  If I thought that ALL of the 
teachers at my kids' school were fresh out of college, I'd go 
shopping for another school.  You never did say anything about the 
private sector drawing away teachers who need to choose between 
their calling and being poverty-stricken.  We'll only ever have 
teachers with less than five years experience if there's absolutely 
no tenure, and the teacher shortage will surely worsen.

You said: 
> I have suggested that teachers minor in education courses myself. 
> I did not suggest that they be abolished, only the degree program 
> in education process.
 
That still doesn't address the question of what major elementary 
education trainees would take.  There's a huge interdisciplinary 
component to this (see Richelle's post), and right now there's no 
one major (other than "Elementary Education") that would address the 
variety of skills and background material needed by the person whose 
goal is to teach our youngest children.  It's also a different story 
entirely from teaching older children.

> I simply do not accept poverty as an excuse for poor teaching.  
> Experience with vouchers in poor areas belies that claim.

Can you point to these studies?  I know of at least one cited by 
Americans United for the Separation of Church and State that 
contradict your assertions.  I'm sorry you don't "accept" poverty as 
an "excuse for poor teaching."  How can you judge what is poor 
teaching under these circumstances?  Reread Richelle's post about 
the students she teaches.  I am also acquainted with teachers who 
work in North Philadelphia at schools where many of the children 
never eat a hot meal except at school (for free), never see a book 
except in school and never receive any help with homework.  A friend 
who is an art teacher gave a wind-up alarm clock (because their 
electricity was frequently shut off) to a little girl in second 
grade so that she could get herself and her little brother out of 
bed and to school on time each day, no thanks to her drug-addled 
mother.  The ART TEACHER had to take care of this, and we're talking 
about a seven-year-old who's responsible for herself and her five-
year-old brother.  She's an amazing kid, but if another kid 
responded to this situation by being the student from hell, are you 
saying it would be the teacher's fault?  Social Services said there 
was no reason the mother couldn't keep the kids if she went into 
rehab; no one wants to break up families as a first choice.  Saying 
the teachers are making excuses is highly misdirected finger-
pointing.  Until you walk a mile (or twenty) in their shoes, I 
wouldn't accuse anyone of making excuses.

In response to:
> > > 8.  Vouchers, vouchers, vouchers.  
I said: 
> > Where do I start?  So what?  I'll tell you what--a little thing 
> > called the First Amendment, that's what. 
You responded: 
> The first amendment to the U.S. Constitution does not preclude 
> purchasing educational services from private sources.  
> The "restriction of funds to a specific purpose" argument has been 
> used by people from all sides of the political spectrum to justify 
> spending the money, from Voucher advocates to those who want to 
> fund Planned Parenthood only for those services that do not 
> include abortion.  Both sides know that money is fungible.

Funds going to family planning services do not violate church/state 
separation.  While some people may not agree with it because of 
their own religious convictions, the fact remains that restricting 
funding for these services primarily because of religious reasons 
WOULD be contrary to the constitution.  Using public funds for what 
amounts to prosyletizing would also be a church/state violation, and 
as I pointed out, at sectarian schools it is virtually impossible to 
say whether the money is or isn't going for "religious studies" 
since classes that may not be overtly religious in nature can still 
be delivery systems for the religious beliefs at the basis of the 
curriculum.

There are also numerous people who run private and religious schools 
who are opposed to vouchers because they fear government 
interference in their schools.  They are free from that right now 
and like it very much.  They are not completely free from 
regulation, as all schools must receive accreditation from a body 
such as Middle States.  But they'd also have government breathing 
down their necks, possibly preventing them from doing the very 
things that were the reason for creating the school.  (Such as 
having religion permeate the curriculum.)

I ranted (yeah, I admit it<g>):
> > I get so tired of people 
> > thinking vouchers are the be all end all solution for 
> > education.  Vouchers would kill the public schools, pure and 
> > simple.  The fact is the public schools take the students no one 
> > else wants.  All private and parochial schools may choose their 
> > students. 

You said: 
> I am equally tired of that same old song.  Monopolies lead to 
> inefficiencies in many other arenas than in education.  The 
> solution is to break the monopoly, not make it stronger.  Did you 
> ever consider that poor teachers might have made that unfortunate 
> kid into a student that no one else wants?

No.  Not for a minute.  Even the worst teachers don't have that 
power.  Parents do.  You're spouting empty rhetoric about 
monopolies, but you're still not explaining how to force non-public 
schools to take students they don't want (or don't have room for).  
If you say "tell them they have to if they accept the vouchers as 
payment" that brings us back to those folks running non-public 
schools who don't want vouchers because they fear exactly this sort 
of government meddling.

You assert: 
> The most inefficient system for educating studnets is the current 
> publi system.  In response to the outside competitition, the 
> public system will either get better, obviating the need for the 
> vouchers, or shrink, as it should if it doesn't do the job that 
> others can do.

There is no basis for this assertion.  In districts where the 
funding is adequate or more than adequate the public education 
system is preferred by parents and students over alternatives.  I 
went to public school for K-6, private school for seventh grade, and 
back to public school for 8-12.  I call seventh grade "my year in 
hell."  The public schools I attended were far and away better than 
the private one (which, not surprisingly went belly-up when I was in 
the middle of eighth grade, forcing my former classmates to attend 
my public school during the rest of junior high).  

Now, that school was going under long before I came along as a 
student.  The reasons for that are numerous; its switch from being a 
girls' school to a coed school (how to completely alienate the 
graduates and dry up alumnae contributions!) is probably the chief 
one, followed closely by their having an expensive new building 
erected which devastated the endowment.  Many of the students had 
trouble keeping up when they were forced to switch to public school 
mid-year.  Their parents wanted their kids to go to a private school 
but weren't tremendously wealthy, so they sent them to the only one 
they could afford or would take them.  Is this what you call 
competition?  Just because you're sending your child to a non-public 
school is no guarantee that it's a GOOD school.  (And in my case, 
just because your kid receives a scholarship to boost enrollment at 
a private school doesn't mean you should switch your poor kid's 
school and make her miserable for a year.)  

When schools spring up just for the purpose of taking advantage of 
vouchers, there will be a huge number that fail, forcing kids back 
into the public schools mid-year.  Someone else pointed this out.  I 
won't belabor the point, but I went through something almost exactly 
like this, with the exception that I convinced my parents to let me 
go back to my old school at the beginning of the school year, and 
didn't have the disturbing experience of having to do it in January.

Me:
> > As for no funds going to support religious studies,  [snip] 
You:
> See above argument re NARAL and abortion funding.
Me again:
See above argument about how NARAL and abortion funding is 
completely different.

You said:
> Parents would not be forced to send their kids to private 
> schools.  They still have the opportunity to have their children 
> attend public schools, with all the many advantages you describe...

Saying parents would not be "forced" when you want to eviscerate the 
public schools' funding, turning them into schools no one would want 
to go near, is rather odd.  Clearly the goal of vouchers isn't to 
improve public schools, but to take money from them.  (You can say 
it's to foster competition all you like, but without adequate 
funding they CAN'T compete.)  There's little enough money now, and 
vouchers will mean less money.  And parents who do not wish to send 
their kids to the available religious schools either because they 
are not religious or the available schools are not affiliated with 
their religion will be stuck with public schools no one cares about 
anymore and which are not adequately funded.  At that point they may 
very well feel that they are "forced" to send their kids to schools 
with which they do not agree ideologically and which will be 
prosyletizing to their children.

You said:
> The truly egalitarian thing would be to empower poor parents to 
> have the same options as more affluent parents.  In the instances 
> where this choice has been implemented, Parentes have "voted with 
> their feet" time and time again.

The truly egalitarian thing is to have public schools improved to 
the point where even affluent parents want to send their children 
there, as happens in many, many districts across the country.  There 
are many fine public schools because in the areas where they exist 
there has been a recognition of their importance and there is 
funding commensurate with that.  These also tend to be in areas 
where there are fewer problems with poverty impeding student 
learning when kids are not in school.  (Although affluent areas 
still have problems with such things as teen drinking and drug use, 
among other things, and kids who engage in these activities go to 
both public and non-public schools.)  It is not egalitarian to 
expect the rest of us to pay for religious prosyletizing.  That's 
called un-Constitutional.

You said:
> Don't get me wrong.   I want to increase teacher pay by a great 
> deal, by over 100% in most cases.  I cannot justify doing this for 
> the present system.

Good to hear about the increases, but saying "the present system" is 
a rather meaningless phrase as systems differ vastly around the 
country (as noted by your saying that in Louisiana you can only 
pursue certification if you already have an MA in the field in 
question).  Every state has a different system, just about, and some 
work better than others.  What we need to do is hold up the 
successful systems and use them for models, rather than abandoning 
the public schools in favor of a "system" that has the potential to 
tread on many people's Constitutional rights and would have no 
government oversight.

--Barb

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Psychic_Serpent
http://www.schnoogle.com/authorLinks/Barb