re: #55 Rightwingconspirator

Home schooling has a reputation of being a thing for creationist/revisionist parents. I do not deny that happens. But I still support home schooling for where the public schools are inadequate. Like LAUSD. Let the parents upgrade without fear of jail. Let parents of humble means choose the best school available that is near enough.

When geography, bigotry and money all stand in the way let the parents have an option. Even if that appears to be a politically awkward option. Some of those options are political/partisan hot buttons.

I’m not really sure what you’re saying here. Parents of humble means won’t be able to send their children to the ‘best’ schools because they’ll cost too much, and/or in the case of charter schools in New Orleans, they won’t get admitted anyway. The charter schools get to choose, too.

As for homeschooling, very few people are equipped to homeschool their children effectively. It’s not a solution, in general, except in corner cases.

“Common Core” “Charter school” “Vouchers”

Nobody would want these things where public education is good in their zip code. I can not hold it against a parent for being for any of those oh so controversial policies given inadequate schools down the street.

Mixing ‘common core’ in with charter schools and vouchers is weird. Why would nobody want it if their schools were good, if it could improve their schools? But anyway, even if you create charters and vouchers, it doesn’t fix the schools.

Fix the schools or be prepared to live with policies that could include the scary 3 above that piss you off even worse than the inadequacies in public school.

Again, ‘common core’ isn’t in the same category as charter schools or vouchers. And

I don’t care what it takes. The answer is not just money. It’s management. It’s a certain non bigoted honesty in policies. It’s drawing in good committed educators as teachers. Low administrative overhead. Comfortable uncrowded class rooms. Current texts.

All of these are true and good things.

We have seen vast amounts of money spent in some places and those things still not happen. That’s the greed part that has to go.

is money per student and educational test results a tightly wound correlation? I don’t think so.

Money per student and results are pretty unrelated, because money can be spent in educationally useless or anti-educational ways. For example, spending lots of money on metal detectors is sadly necessary at some schools, but it’s not going to improve anyone’s education.

That said, there are still a lot of schools with crumbling infrastructure, underpaid teachers, outdated textbooks—which you note—and in those cases, money is the issue. It also means that application of money won’t immediately fix anything, because the problems have gotten ingrained, there’s a deficit to be worked against.

There are lots of stories of public schools improving. There’s no magic bullet, not more money, not standardized testing, not introducing charter schools. It’s complicated stuff, heavily contingent on local problems and opportunities. And a public system is not a safeguard against inequity, at all, either.