Bottom line Progressivism is a kinder gentler more humanitarian, communism. Slo and easy wins the race, we just happened to wake up when the house was on fire
What idiot wrote THAT?
Where is there data, adjusted for race and language, that suggests ANY relationship between per-pupil spending and outcome?
Public ed is welfare. First of all, don’t indulge in it. That you’re paying for it, doesn’t make it right for you to use it. Second, it’s run by anti-American leftists devoted to producing more anti-American leftists without having to sacrifice their most precious sacrament, abortion. They have to replicate somehow, and YOUR baby is that somehow.
Per my tagline, it’s government cheese. And it stinks!
Like The War On Poverty, the more money poured into it the worse it gets.
Speaking as someone who appreciates home schooling, parochial and private schooling, this is still a poorly written hit piece using bad arguments.
1) Using “ambush interviews” is a way to guarantee bad answers. Walk up to a random *adult*, shove a microphone in their face, and ask them to name the justices of the Supreme Court, and most people will sound like idiots. But if you give them a few minutes to think, and they will be able to name several, some being able to name them all.
2) “Average public school” is meaningless. What is the most “average” U.S. state? New York or Utah? In a teacher’s union collective bargaining or right-to-work state?
3) The three big problems of public education are federal intrusion, state incompetence and corruption, and teachers union and “ivory tower leftist” disruption.
The first two of these feed off of each other, with some of the state legislatures using public schools for patronage jobs and unfair allocation of resources based on many things. But federal involvement is ridiculously expensive, taking money and student learning time away for whimsical and indoctrination purposes.
The federal intrusion is often done under threat of taking away funding for the federal school lunch program. But they have placed so many demands that some states are considering making the FSLP voluntary. If a school opts out, it can still provide lunches in its budget, but it will be freed of tons of paperwork and students will have more time for their studies.
Teachers unions are now being challenged by states stripping away the collective bargaining rights of teachers, which makes teachers no longer “blue collar”, but “white collar”, with rewards that are performance based.
The worst “ivory tower leftist” interference was with the creation of Noam Chomsky’s ‘whole language English’ instruction, that systematically wiped out near educational parity of black students with white students, condemning million of black children to life long poverty. As such, Chomsky has done more to “keep the black man down” than did Jefferson Davis.
Despite the enthusiastic support of idealistic young teachers, indoctrinated as they have been in such dreck, their utter failure means that such schemes must be prohibited if students are to succeed.
The bottom line is that yes, there is a place for public schooling, but only if such schools are supported by parents, school boards, and states, and required to perform or perish.
The cream:
Name a country that begins with "U"...
Public educated kid: "Utopia".
Another PEK: "Europe" (probably would spell it Urope)
We keep hearing from some quarters that if we reform public schools yet again, they’ll produce better results. Others say that if we go back in time and run public schools like they used to be run, they’ll produce better results. Those claims are not true. Public schools have never produced good results and they never will. They were not designed to build young minds and give them knowlege and skills. The real history of public education is easily accessed online and proves that.
Reforming public education is like trying to reform a brothel or, in a more extreme example, like trying to reform a concentration camp.
Until mandatory education ends at eighth grade, the problem is hopeless.
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bump for later
Here’s an idea to save money without costing the taxpayer a dime:
Allow any student of any age to take the GED or similar private exam. If they pass, award them a high school diploma from their local high school. As it is now, students must be a certain age or older before they are permitted to take the GED.
By having a regular high school diploma bright and ambitious students would be able to qualify for college scholarships and loans, attend trade school, or start their careers many years earlier instead wasting time in their local government kiddie prison ( oops! “school”). It would save the taxpayer money, as well.
By the way, no student should be given a high school diploma without passing the GED or similar exam, and no teacher should be teaching in a government school who couldn’t pass it as well.
Almost all the trouble we now have in the United States has come from a commie or a progressive trying to use the government to reform something.