The Great Public School Questions

[Reason10]

Take a tour of a school. Ask a teacher how much she spends on supplies.

There would be no paper or pencils if teachers didn't spend their money on supplies.


Count how many children are in each classroom. Compare the teacher's salaries with that government appointee in the principal's office or at the state level.

Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman once talked about Max Gammon's Theory of Bureaucratic Displacement. In a true bureaucracy, useful work is often replaced by useless work. And certainly useless work is compensated at a higher rate. The typical public school model pays political hacks and bureaucrats ten times the money paid to the people who are doing the actual teaching.
Above all, focus on inner city schools. Work with local governments and businesses to provide the above improvements as well as extracurricular activities for children to expand and stay off the streets.

President Trump has proposed creating Opportunity Zones in inner cities, offering tax breaks for businesses who relocate to those sections of town. Creates more commerce and more jobs. Build up the economy of an inner city and you get increased tax receipts from new property taxes. Local school boards have more to work with.

Enforcing immigration laws and getting illegal aliens OUT of these neighborhoods, as well as preventing new illegal aliens from moving in would be a gift to teachers that just keeps on giving. I subbed at a third grade class in an inner city school where one fourth of the class did not speak English. And yet, the teacher is held accountable for the achievement of those who are sitting in a room without any idea of what is being said. It's not fair to them and it's not fair to the teacher.

[The Sage of Main Street]

Take a tour of a school. Ask a teacher how much she spends on supplies. Count how many children are in each classroom. Compare the teacher's salaries with that government appointee in the principal's office or at the state level.

Above all, focus on inner city schools. Work with local governments and businesses to provide the above improvements as well as extracurricular activities for children to expand and stay off the streets.

It works.

We Win by Winnowing

You mean like Clinton's Hoops for Hoods? If they have to be bribed to overcome their natural inclination to become predatory beasts, they'll keep extorting us for more payoffs. Pay the conscientious ones for their grades and blow off the trash.

[Reason10]

We Win by Winnowing

You mean like Clinton's Hoops for Hoods? If they have to be bribed to overcome their natural inclination to become predatory beasts, they'll keep extorting us for more payoffs. Pay the conscientious ones for their grades and blow off the trash.

I STILL remember that dumbass idea, hoops for hoods. Midnight basketball. And then the idiots can't stay awake in class.
Anyone who even IMAGINES KKKlinton was anything but a disaster as a president is an idiot.

[Reason10]

It depends how you define education. A solid, classical education creates competent citizens capable of critical thought and self-government with the skills to drive a modern economy. This is essential to the success of a Republic such as ours. Unfortunately, due to the influence of thinkers such a John Dewey and politicians like Woodrow Wilson backed by the financing of industrial Magnates such as J.D. Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan in the early 20th century, the educational system has been transformed into a split tier system where the typical public school student is meted out little more than enough knowledge as necessary to serve the system. This goal was clearly articulated, even celebrated in that early "progressive" era and executed with great effectiveness. It's become ingrained in the system. Meanwhile, in the same period there was a proliferation of elite boarding schools which housed and educated the children of the wealthy and influential. Much of the upper tier of our political leadership are the product of such schools even to this day. Jefferson would have been aghast. He envisioned education as a tool to empower the people. It has become the opposite, merely enforcing a modern caste system. It's simply impossible to debate modern education while side-stepping that reality.

There certainly is an element of "serving the state" that even Horace Mann got pretty close to. And his goal was to take the religious and parental influence out of the mix entirely.

[FindersKeepers]

btw...private schools, like private prisons, don't work. Both work off the concept of greed as opposed to education and/or rehabilitation.

I don't know about private prisons, but students from private schools tend to score higher and become more successful than public school students.

[gamewell45]

Remove teachers unions from public schools and eliminate government sponsored indoctrination.
Abolish the Department of Education while we're at it.

Even better, close down all public schools and have the parents either home school their children or send them off to private school for their education. Home schooling their children will allow them to ensure that the proper values that are important to them will be instilled in their children and they will have more control over what they are taught. Additionally the savings in tax dollars and sale of school property would benefit all taxpayers immensely.

Parents worried about their children being socially inept can always form social groups with other parents and the children can socialize with other children their age.

[Standing Wolf]

Even better, close down all public schools and have the parents either home school their children or send them off to private school for their education. Home schooling their children will allow them to ensure that the proper values that are important to them will be instilled in their children and they will have more control over what they are taught. Additionally the savings in tax dollars and sale of school property would benefit all taxpayers immensely.

Parents worried about their children being socially inept can always form social groups with other parents and the children can socialize with other children their age.

Sorry, but that strikes me as a very upper-middle-class, suburban view of how it would work, gw. Were it not for public schools, millions of American children would receive no formal education whatsoever - ever. Private schools would not be in the budget for the majority of working families, let alone those living in poverty. As for home schooling, when would the parents in a two-paycheck home have the time, even if they had the resources, patience, or - let's be frank about it - the intelligence to do something like that effectively, or at all?

Taxpayer support for universal public education is by far one of the best investments that could possibly be made. Public schools are the only hope for escape from a crappy life for a hell of a lot of kids, and also vastly increases the chances that fewer of those kids will grow up to be criminals, addicts or just a drain on society. The ones who live in actual houses or apartments or whose parents have jobs are the relatively fortunate ones; there are kids whose parents barely acknowledge their existence, living in conditions you wouldn't subject an animal to. Private or home schooling? I don't think so.

[DGUtley]

I live in a very small community, though not as small as it once was. We have great public schools. I was going to send my kids to Catholic HS (they went to Catholic grade school) but our Priest told us that we'd be wasting our money, that our local public school was as equally morally supportive and better academically. We found the staff, admin and teachers to be excellent. My two daughters were very well prepared for college. My youngest is in her last year of her PharmD program and my oldest is a pharmacist also. I appreciate our local schools system.

Yes, I know that there are problems out there, but there are also some great schools.

[Cannons Front]

The problem with a lot of local Public schools is the idea that money will solve all problems, the bigger the system, the bigger the problem in most cases. Much of the problem comes from lack of parenting, which leads to educational and discipline issues. The teachers I know tell me that 5% of the kids take up 90% of their time and it is with discipline issues not education.
Until we improve the lack of discipline in a great number of children, public schools will struggle.

[gamewell45]

Sorry, but that strikes me as a very upper-middle-class, suburban view of how it would work, gw. Were it not for public schools, millions of American children would receive no formal education whatsoever - ever. Private schools would not be in the budget for the majority of working families, let alone those living in poverty. As for home schooling, when would the parents in a two-paycheck home have the time, even if they had the resources, patience, or - let's be frank about it - the intelligence to do something like that effectively, or at all?

Taxpayer support for universal public education is by far one of the best investments that could possibly be made. Public schools are the only hope for escape from a crappy life for a hell of a lot of kids, and also vastly increases the chances that fewer of those kids will grow up to be criminals, addicts or just a drain on society. The ones who live in actual houses or apartments or whose parents have jobs are the relatively fortunate ones; there are kids whose parents barely acknowledge their existence, living in conditions you wouldn't subject an animal to. Private or home schooling? I don't think so.

I understand your viewpoint but consider this: the tax dollars saved might enable the parents to either send their children to private school or enough savings in tax dollars where a second paycheck would not be necessary. I'm sure that most people would agree that having one parent staying at home is better then having to ship kids off to daycare which is an additional expense.

Additionally each parent knows their limitations as to home schooling; those who don't feel they have what it takes always have the option of sending their kids off to private school.

You say that public education is by far one of the best investments that could be made; I agree it is an important one, hence why parents ought to decide which path their children take as far as their education and values are concerned. I went to a private high school and did better in life then some of my friends who went through the public school system. Schools are designed to teach their students and prepare them for life; not to act as babysitters which unfortunately some schools have become.

Either way you make some compelling points and I respect your viewpoint.