Posted on 01/05/2006 8:32:55 AM PST by SoFloFreeper
TALLLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -- The Florida Supreme Court has struck down the state's school voucher system that paid for some students to attend private schools.
My fingers are aquiver over the keyboard, but...please elaborate. Tell me more.
Let me stick in my two cents. I taught in both public and private schools from 1968 to 2005. In the typical public school nowadays, if the teacher follows the watered down, time wasting curriculum a typical elementary students receives more education from alternate resources from "Leap Frog" educational toys, kid web sites, and certain cable TV channels. After retiring from full time teaching in 2000 (in California), I continued to keep my toe in the classroom by substitute teaching (in Nevada). If a 4th grade teacher faithfully follows the curriculum, a student is fortunate to receive an hour of hardcore math, reading and writing lessons. Much of the day is devoted to mind-numbing busyness, waiting for slower students to catch up and discussions of social issues.
Do you expect the teachers hired with your tax dollars to be able to do the same? You must be disappointed.
Sorry. I'm a high school drop out:') I pulled my youngest out of public school in the 5th grade. He was always in some kind of trouble. He couldn't read. None of us knew that. Oh he could read the words but he couldn't understand what he was reading. In school he would do something outrageous and get sent to the principal to get out of work that he struggled with. At home, all the crying and tantrums didn't get him anywhere. He studied. In his senior year he wanted to go to high school. He was tested and put into GT classes. I wasn't happy about this but he did ok for about 2 months. A guidance counselor pulled his recorders and saw that he had been a special ed student in 5th grade. They insisted on modifying his work, even though he was passing and humiliated him. I was told that I had no say and that they could do what they wanted. By that time he had had enough and I pulled him out and finished up with homeschooling. I was told that I was making a mistake and was not qualified by the very people that couldn't teach him to read to begin with, despite all their fancy diplomas. I have no idea what their Latin and Greek skills were though. Anyway, he's in college now and doing fine so I guess I wasn't too ignorant.I'll continue to be a good citizen and pay my taxes but I want better for mine, even if it requires two jobs or passing retirement age.
Our inquiry begins with the plain language of the second and third sentences of article IX, section 1(a) of the Constitution. The relevant words are these: “It is . . . a paramount duty of the state to make adequate provision for the education of all children residing within its borders.” Using the same term, “adequate provision,” article IX, section 1(a) further states: “Adequate provision shall be made by law for a uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools.” For reasons expressed more fully below, we find that the OSP violates this language. It diverts public dollars into separate private systems parallel to and in competition with the free public schools that are the sole means set out in the Constitution for the state to provide for the education of Florida's children. This diversion not only reduces money available to the free schools, but also funds private schools that are not “uniform” when compared with each other or the public system. Many standards imposed by law on the public schools are inapplicable to the private schools receiving public monies. In sum, through the OSP the state is fostering plural, nonuniform systems of education in direct violation of the constitutional mandate for a uniform system of free public schools.Cordially,
- 5 -
Because we determine that the OSP is unconstitutional as a violation of article IX, section 1(a), we find it unnecessary to address whether the OSP is a violation of the “no aid” provision in article I, section 3 of the Constitution, as held by the First District.
I am highly disappointed with the education provided by the public schools. When half the school pupils and their parents show up on Saturday for indoor soccer, and not one of them has any foreign language but Spanish, and no science but Global Warming, it should be clear that the country is doomed to become healthy day laborers.
The private schools around here really prefer kids to come up thru the grades. They take them out of public school but it's an adjustment. They aren't bad kids, though.
***The sad thing is I don't know that you can fix all the schools. In one school I've heard of, about 90% of the children lived in single-parent homes. How do you fix that?
***
You could pair up some of the single-parents. =P
Most school assignments can be disposed of every day in a short time. If the home has a decent library, the pupil can become a student and leap ahead at his own pace. Amazing that so many homes have a hungry student and don't have any of the classics to feed that hungry mind. The school library won't have those works, parents must provide.
And, of course.
Hmmmmm. Most likely, they're living with their mothers. Or grandmothers. Not a pretty visual.
It is the attitude of the people in public education that private education is a bad thing. People who privately educate their children are being selfish. They want all children to have common values instilled in them, and they get to choose the values. Most poor people, of course, do not pay taxes (except sales taxes) and they sure can't afford private schools. Most middle people who could afoord private schoolwant the schools to be "good enough" so that their own kids will not be handicapped when they go to college, and the public schools do provide enough bells and whistles to keep this from happening. It is still cheaper than private schools and they can save up for the kid's college education, where his educational shortcoming can be remedied.
But for most kids, even in good high schools, their high school ius mostly a social experience. If colleges had entrance exams, it would be a different story, but that went out decades ago.
from yahoo
Chief Justice Barbara Pariente, writing for the majority of the court, said the Opportunity Scholarship Program "diverts public dollars into separate private systems parallel to and in competition with the free public schools," which are the sole means set out in the state constitution for educating Florida children.
More and more "poor" kids are being private schooled. The rates are dropping and schools are opening, esp as missions. The parent must really want this though. There are partial and parent work scolarships available. You might have to pass on a new car or something else but it can be done.
President Gore is pleased.
Thanks .. is this Dover, DE ?
Home-schooling was the norm not so long ago. Even now, we have to do our real learning outside the state school system. So long as the young student has the right library available to meet his talents and interests, he will do just fine. Most of what state schools can teach, which would be considered valuable, can be taught in an hour, and that is mostly such things as rules of spelling and techniques of arithmetic. The rest is drill.
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