Using tax dollars to pay for private schools will be back. Proponents of voucher schemes don’t have any choice but to bring them back - first because they are ideologues who are convinced their ideas are inherently good and when 62% of the people vote against them, the problem is bad communication or flawed implementation or lies spread by some conservative bugabear (think Unions) rather than the possibility that people simply rejected the concept itself. Second because they are trapped in their ideology and that ideology leads to a single conclusion: Privatization.
Conservatives have spent decades convincing themselves that only private entities are efficient, effective and valuable while any government entity is inherently, corrupt, inefficient and ineffective. Challenged to improve public schools, they will be ideologically blind to any options other than privatization in some form or another. Vouchers are a back door form of privatization. Expect the next variation to be even less open about the actual goals.
As a result, conservatives will be unable to generate any options for school reform aside from variations on privatization. Vouchers or scholarships or seed money or whatever twisted form the next proposal actually takes will be nothing more than an attempt to privatized public education. It’s a ”We’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas” situation.
UEA and other pro-public school groups have an absolute and immediate responsibility to produce reform proposals in the next few months. The problems need to be accurately defined and articulated effectively and broadly. Low test scores aren’t the problem, they are the symptom. Solutions need to be proposed that address the defined and articulated problems.Â
I see a few issues that can be addressed, hopefully without greatly expanding fixed costs. Public schools are entirely too big and the student experience is entirely too anonymous but facilities can be used differently to address those issues. Bright students aren’t sufficiently challenged while struggling students don’t receive enough support. Desired educational outcomes are insufficiently clear and not broadly known.Â
The skills aquired in the Referendum One campaign need to be employed immediately and expanded upon - communication, messaging, media relations, coalition building. Privatization proponents aren’t taking this defeat as a defeat. They’re already planning their next move. In a nutshelf, they don’t respect the voters enough to trust their decision.
Public education supporters need to be ready, now, to move to stop the next voucher attempt. The public has already spoken, now is the time to lead the public to greater support for public education so vouchers can’t ever be passed in Utah. It’s also time to start recruiting some strong anti-voucher candidates. Public school teachers should be recruited to run against voucher supporting legislators and they should put together a coordinated campaign about positive school reform.
We need some new language. We should also start talking about neighborhood schools rather than the more abstract public school.
Some reform proposals need to come forward soon or the next time conservatives try to take public money to pay for private schools, we will be in control of the debate.
#1 by glenn on November 7, 2007 - 2:11 pm
So funny that you post that the voucher people are trapped in their ideology, it would seem, so are the non voucher people.
Meanwhile our kids test in 30th @#$%^&* place in international competency testing.
It would seem that supporting public education is an ideology more important than educating our children in basic academic competency. The whole outlook of it politically is really sad.
Something akin to a house burning down, and the owner not wanting the fire dept. to put it out, because it will cause water damage. Either way, our kids will suffer, and in turn so will out society.
I have been asking children between the ages of 10 and 15 if they know what civics is up here in Washington State. About two dozen so far. The best answer, so far, is that they are up the hill from downtown, where I live, at the Honda dealership.
No, I am not kidding. I’ll keep you public school warriors posted on how stupid it is going to get before we simply stand like turkeys in the rain with our gullets to the sky, staring at raindrops til we drown.
#2 by glendenb on November 7, 2007 - 2:21 pm
Glenn – I think the part you’ve missed was the part where I said that test scores aren’t the problem, they are the symptom. The underlying disease, I believe, is the expectation that public schools are for something other than education – the product if you will is an educated citizen with a broad knowledge base.
Our public schools can and should do a better job, but the principle of making a good education available to every student is not something that private, for profit institutions can and should be doing, nor is it something that private schools are designed, prepared or able to accomplish. Public school advocates must offer reforms to address the shortcomings of public schools and they must do so now.
Also bear in mind that you asking kids “What is civics” isn’t really a measure of knowledge of lack of knowledge, but rather a question of semantics. Ask the same kids “Who is the President? Who is the governor? Who is the mayor?” and go from there.
#3 by Cliff Lyon on November 7, 2007 - 8:39 pm
The voucher advocates suffer from the same disease that affects our National policy makers.
Why do we insist on reinventing the wheel. When will we begin to take short cuts to intelligence problem solving: Look at what others are doing who are better than we are.
There are plenty of examples of public school systems that work, both here and abroad.
Why are the European schools so much better than ours? They have as many or more immigrants, more bigger cities, and much higher test scores.
Obviously someone has got something ficured out. Why can we look at those systems and figure out how to make our public schools better? They did it in Philadelphia. Why can’t we.
Why are some Utahns be so arrogant as to think that we can or should figure it out in a vacuum. The answers all all around us.
Anyone ever heard of smaller class sizes and higher paid teachers? Hello?
The pro-voucher people want to walk away from pubic education rather than work hard to fix it.
Good public education is a public good. We must fight harder to fix it because everyone benefits.
Vouchers are not the solution and only lead to bigger disparity between the rich and the poor. It is unamerican and chickenshit.
#4 by glenn on November 7, 2007 - 10:46 pm
Glendon, don’t be nuts, well rounded can make change and read a newspaper, something many of our kids CANNOT DO!!
What do we expect? We have an incredibly high percentage of high schools that are running in the 50% tile in graduation rates.
You people must all be smokin crack!
The proof is in the pudding, do what works, THAT’S AMERICAN!!!
#5 by nizzle dizzle on November 8, 2007 - 5:20 am
50% tile? Now Glenn, I must have been smoking crack through this lesson in basic arithmetic and grammar. What exactly is a 50% tile. Does that mean half tile and half hardwood flooring?
You fuckin’ dumbass. Shut the fuck up. Capice!
#6 by glenn on November 8, 2007 - 11:07 am
It means that we are graduating slightly over 50% in many schools.
You are clearly a product of the system you idiot.
nizzle dizzle says it all, don’t look now, you need to wipe your chin.
#7 by glenn on November 8, 2007 - 11:17 am
Glendon, asking who is in power is meaningless, and getting correct answers is about the same as asking who won on Idol last week.
The fact is that young people have absolutely no working knowledge of how this system is meant to work. That is what civics used to teach. If I was a teacher in the public school system these days I would hide and hang my head in shame.
Yesterday I had a conversation with a High School Shop teacher, a practical man, and he said the state of academics at where he is teaching is so pathetic, so as to be described in his terms, as a DISASTER!!!
He stays because in teaching “shop” the kids interested will have a shot at doing something practical for a living, as many of them CANNOT READ COMPLEX ACADEMIC MATERIAL!!!
Or figure things as simple as the square footage of a house. He says he spends a lot of time teaching BASIC COMPETENCY, not shop.
#8 by glenn on November 8, 2007 - 11:49 am
Cliff; How much more money do you want to spend for 30th @#$%^&* place?
It’s interesting, Stowe Vermont spent the highest amount per pupil in the state, 9600 dollars per student. The lowest spending in the state before Act 60, or “spending equalization”, per pupil statewide, was 4500 dollars per student. That school was in the 5th percentile(%tile), the highest level of success, in tested academics, while Stowe was at the near bottom. After equalization, they are all hovering at the towering height of 30th @#$%^&* place.
The State of Washington, where I now live, spends more than just about any state in the Union per student, and is currently testing students DEAD LAST in the nation!! Academic success is not about money.
Our Founding Fathers were educated en masse, in one room school houses heated by a woodstove, and they accomplished what they did, and seemingly had more COMMON SENSE in their pinky than our current administrators do now together in a one of their education crisis meetings. It is imbecilic by now given the results that are being “produced”.
I’m sorry, “produced” implies some success, and a successful homogeneous product that people can buy with reliability…and that is not what is coming out of American schools.
We need to stop relying on “expert” American education theory, and become results oriented. At any level of high competency involving professionalism there are TESTS.
This is a world wide phenomenon strangely. The people running their countries and kicking our fucking asses all over the place in business, academia, name it, are clearly wrong, and our way of teaching students is clearly superior and better.
30th @#$%^&* PLACE!!
THE SUCCESSFUL TEST THEIR STUDENTS RIGOURLESSLY!!
Or rigoursly, either way it is the way success is made, testing and pressure, and of course competition, makes for excellence in learning.
By the time you are 12 in Europe, if you don’t cut the academic mustard, your career options are delineated towards what you can excel at. Seems harsh to do this, but better there at 12, than idiotic unemployed, or working at wal-mart or the lyon company or something.
#9 by Richard Warnick on November 8, 2007 - 12:08 pm
New York topped the nation in per-pupil spending for FY 2005. Washington State ranked 35th. Utah dead last as always. I was in a New York suburban public school system from third grade to high school, and IMHO Utah will never catch up. Maybe the quality of the schools wasn’t entirely due the willingness to fund education, but that sure doesn’t hurt.
#10 by Glenden Brown on November 8, 2007 - 12:36 pm
Glenn – Your vision of the founders is – at best – overly idealized. The founders were, almost to the last one, a wealthy, colleged educated men. Many were slave owners. While they were in many ways far sighted, they could not have imagined the America of today – a nation with great urban centers, millions of residents, computers, television, equality (at least in the legal sense) for persons of all races and genders. Education, in their era, was largely the realm of the wealthy and powerful, something from which the average American was excluded. In the world of North America of the 1700s, people like you and I would have been lucky to get any education at all. If we lived in New England, we’d've been taught to read only so we could read the bible. In the South, we would have received no education.
Public education, with the goal of educating every single citizen, is a huge and important innovation. Other nations do a better job, individual states and districts do good jobs. We have a responbility to learn what they’re doing and improve upon it – just as Cliff pointed out. The reforms are available and it is incumbent on people in Utah who opposed vouchers to offer solutions.
#11 by Don on November 8, 2007 - 1:57 pm
I think it’s funny that Glenn misspelled “rigorously” twice.
#12 by glenn on November 8, 2007 - 5:41 pm
That was purposeful Don. I am a product of public education through University, up through State University. Cliff and I attended the same school. UVM.
I am also a very crappy typist, I think the edit feature should be on permanently. It would be a lot like the open book tests our kids are taking in school these days, where nothing is mis-spelled, 2 2 can equal 3, and the esteem of the child is all that matters.
Tomato, to ma to,
Rigorously: American
Rigoursly : English
http://www.spellingcenter.com/rigoursly
Rigourlessly: the kind of testing that we give our kids, which is barely any. It’s a made up word. One that I made. Goes well with 30th @#$%^&* place.
Are we having fun yet Don? Is this a test? (:
If you don’t know, I write from the perspective of progressives’ enemies. Sometime if you care, ask me what I really think. It is clear that most battles cannot be won if your emotions are unchecked. Most progressives wear their hearts on their sleeves, so their intentions are clear, and cunning right wingers make quick work of disposing of their efforts. Just sayin….glenn
#13 by glenn on November 8, 2007 - 6:07 pm
Glendon; John Stark was no egghead, nor were most of the men that did the fighting, that is the America that is needed. Many who fought up North, had been indentured white slaves. They didn’t need public school to know what to do, though it is a nice addition.
“Live Free, or Die, there are evils worse than Death”. Stark didn’t learn that in school very likely. In school you learn to become an obedient little drone. Stark wasn’t one of them to be sure.
I wonder sometimes if education beyond simple competency in public school is of any value. Most of what comes after competency is political brain washing from either end of the spectrum, and I believe should be left out completely. I believe it is over emphasized and causing the failures we are seeing.
So, it is now up to public school supporters to get our kids out of 30th @#$%^&* place! It is hard for me to type it dammit, so let’s do something!!
In Vermont you can take I believe 70% of the money set aside for your kids in public funding, and educate them where you choose. I’m not saying eliminate public education, but if it can’t do the job, there have to be options. It is dishonorable of us to leave our kids to the ignorance that they currently display, everywhere I go now in this country.
Schools are just buildings, it is the six inches between your ears that is the real institution of education. Lot of empty real estate to build on there it would seem.
Just sayin…
#14 by Barbara on November 8, 2007 - 7:25 pm
Glendon,
I agree with you when you state “The problems need to be accurately defined and articulated effectively and broadly. Low test scores aren’t the problem, they are the symptom. Solutions need to be proposed that address the defined and articulated problems. ” I’ve been trying to figure out if there is any agreement of the problem.
Rep. Urquhart writes, “I would hope we have broad agreement that (1) parents need to be more involved in their children’s education, (2) Utah’s educational system needs to adequately (and, some day, exceptionally) prepare our children for college, the workforce, and the world, (3) incentives need to be in place to attract/retain great teachers and encourage bad teachers to improve or, if not, leave, and (4) public education needs greater funding.”
Rep. Dougall shares his thoughts on reforms .Payback? Only Those Resistant To Improvement. What do you think of their positions?
#15 by Larry Bergan on November 8, 2007 - 7:55 pm
Cliff:
The editing feature is a very nice addition to a very cool blog.
#16 by Glenden Brown on November 9, 2007 - 4:57 am
Barbara – well Steve U isn’t really defining the problem, per se, he’s assuming several problems. First, I agree that we need greater parental involvement; the research I’ve seen (which has been consistent for decades) says that parental involvement is the single most important factor in determining academic success. However, there’s no systemic means we can employ to make that happen; a parent who cares is going to find ways to be involved, a parent who doesn’t, won’t. Nothing schools or teachers or state government does will effect that. So, the lack of parental involvement, while accurately defined as a problem, is a problem which defies solutions – beyond educating parents about their importance of their roles (FWIW, I know several people who have succeeded despite their parents but they are the exceptions which prove the rule).
Urquharts second item is more a goal than a problem and broadly is correct. His third item is a solution which assumes a problem – it assumes actually several things, including the idea that “bad teachers” stay and stay and stay forever and that good teachers are leaving in droves because of low pay. Those may be accurate assumptions – I know low pay is a problem but “incentives” can mean a broad number of things. Job security has been a trade off for low pay – in essence teachers have said, “We’ll accept low pay but in exchange we want tenure.” The state has been willing to make that bargain, which has resulted no doubt in some poor teachers staying on the job. But will reducing job security result in better teachers? Or will it encourage people to not become teachers in the first place? Part of Urquhart’s “problem” is the assumption that “bad teachers” cannot be removed from the classroom, but that raises questions about what is a bad teacher, how does one determine if a teacher is effective or not, how does on measure a teacher’s performance?
Urquhart’s final statement about funding also assumes that lack of funding is a problem, but that’s a broad idea that requires clarification – maybe the problem isn’t specifically poor funding but funding the wrong things. In a basic sense, I’d like to see more educational funding but we have a responsibility to make our use of that resource responsive to the needs of communities, responsible, meaning we are transparent about the use of that money and finally that we use the money in ways consistent with the desire of people in the community. Do we know educational priorities of Utahns or are we assuming we know?
As far as Dougall’s post, I skimmed it and saw several major problems in his definition – not the least was a casual assumption about educational bureaucracy as a problem – but that’s typical boilerplate that does not necessarily have facts to support it. So more later . . .
#17 by Glenden Brown on November 9, 2007 - 10:02 am
Barbara – Okay, so about John Dougall. I’ve been reading Steve Urquhart’s blog for months and while I almost never agree with him, I’ve come to respect him for his honesty. He is able to explain why he believes what he believes and defend it and he values his political opponents as real people. He is also able to learn from the past. By contrast, Dougall has an advanced case of conservative lunacy. Any wingnut talking point – no matter how absurd – has a comfortable home on his blog.
Consider his constituent letter in support of vouchers where he claimed vouchers will strengthen families and that the UEA is opposed to improving education. Or his post in which he claims the average cost of private school tuition doesn’t matter in calculating the effectiveness of vouchers.
Dougall’s post voucher analysis includes some great example of wingnut logic:
Dougall manages to work in insults both to government employees and a good anti-union smear as well. Throughout his blog, Dougall works in quotes from previous generations of American patriots without actually understanding them.
#18 by glenn on November 10, 2007 - 1:29 pm
WHY I AM SCARED OF THE PEOPLE THAT CURRENTLY RUN PUBLIC SCHOOLS BASED ON IDEOLOGY THEY SEEMINGLY CANNOT KEEP TO THEMSELVES.
This is from Eric Fromm, psychologist, Art of Listening, p.159
Here is the question of taking sides. There is no neutrality in this question which leads to a very interesting question…that of value judgments….well is it a value judgment if somebody is diagnosed with as having cancer? Is it a value judgment to say he will probably die from this illness, or somebody will die from some crazy diet he is using or get sick from it? It is not a value judgment. This is a statement of facts, of cause and effects, which is as valid in psychic terms, as it is in physical terms, except that in physical terms you can prove it. In psychic terms you can prove it too at the end of ones life. But people naturally don’t want to know that.
The question is: What can the analyst do to help this process of revolution, of the liberation of a person? What active help can he do? How can he help and affect this process? I think that is in itself a very significant function of all EDUCATION and of all therapy. I include education, although education is a different story. Usually education is a social institution and it is certainly NOT meant to to lead people to freeing themselves and to become independent. That is not the aim of any socially supported institution. But that is why education contributes SO LITTLE to the development of a person in general. In analysis it’s a little bit different, because the analyst has the freedom to be his own, and to be relatively independent.
Credentialed enough? The emphasis were placed there by me. Fascinating book. Hope this clears up what I would want out of public school…not much huh? Simple competency, nothing more. Something to ponder as you go forth and try to save the world. Maybe start with saving yourselves.
#19 by Allie on November 10, 2007 - 9:10 pm
Of course we want to privatize public education! It works so well with health care. A few people are getting really rich and the rest of us are out of luck. Lets do that to our kids too!
Here’s my suggestion (besides smaller class sizes and paying teachers more)… There is a charter school near me that is grouping kids into “pods” for various subjects. If a student excels at reading but is struggling in math, the “pod” they are in for reading will include other students who also do well in reading, and their math “pod” will be with other children of a similar ability so that the teacher can focus on the needs of that group of students instead of trying to teach to everyone and leaving some students bored and some confused.
Glendon, you mentioned making schools smaller, and I think the pod idea would work better in a smaller school.
#20 by glenn on November 11, 2007 - 1:11 pm
I love this forum, no one addresses anything unless it is within the scope of a pre-determined social, or political agenda.
Public school has our children testing in 30th @#$%^&* place in international competency testing. You want to stay stupid and uncompetitive, this is how its done.
As for health care being private, that is ridiculous, it is so in name only, but is run just like public school. The difference being is the the public subsidy is being pocketed by the insurers for profit, it has worked to propel America to the leader in bells and whistles, and the facilities we call hospitals, but that is not necessarily what will make people well. Much like spending more on school or reducing class size will improve the outcomes our poor students are producing.
The schools much like the public funding of health care via medicare/medicaid, or any other government subsidized insurance(military, govt.), simply has no real oversight and at least when incompetence kills someone in a hospital there are legal remedies to provide for a rather different punitive oversight.
Unfortunately when education fails our kids, and they end up diminished, and without viable options or jobs, there is no one to sue, after all many teachers don’t make any money, and many school districts, often run by academicians, are completely broke.
So Allie, I guess Fromm does not resonate. It’s ok, it’s alright.
30th place people. Focus.
#21 by Caveat on November 11, 2007 - 2:08 pm
We’re not producing stupid kids…the info-load is just outpacing practically everybody. What do you do?
#22 by glenn on November 11, 2007 - 3:14 pm
What to do?
Shoot for basic competency, drop ideologically motivated outcome based education.
Teach the basics and test for it, comprehensively, if the teachers and educators can’t get it done, fire them.
Get rid of the NEA.
#23 by glenn on November 11, 2007 - 3:16 pm
What info load Cav? The kids I am dealing with don’t know the 3 branches of government, can’t make change, cannot write coherently, and don’t read very well, many not well enough to be able to teach themselves.
This is all I want out of education, it seems we are paying a lot, and not getting much.
#24 by Caveat on November 11, 2007 - 7:55 pm
A short list might inclued, in no particular order and with all the ramifications:
Global warming, or if you prefer, the effects of everything from factory farms to air quality, investing our life energy paying for stuff that’s bad for us to having trillions of $ of debt for the forseeable future;
The failure of our system to be honest about policy or even which principles even count;
The engaging nature of the new media, from the Wii to corporate lies;
There are so many of us;
?where ‘the basics’ fit since 9-11 seems to have changed everything;
and on and on…
This shit all sinks in, even to the 7th graders.
I believe that as much as we struggle with this new, modern world, our kids are struggling, but without the perspective of quite so many years as you and I have (another way of saying we’re “short”). While all of our access to info is in some sense liberating and even fun, IT can be quite onerous as well. It can be a real bummer to the youth, even if they’re loved and supported. There are many who are not and it all paints a rocky statistical picture.
Aside from that, I resonate with your take on it all!
#25 by glenn on November 11, 2007 - 9:28 pm
Getting back to the basics that started this Great Nation. Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness…and the primary dictum of…
DON’T TREAD ON ME.
There are rights no majority has any right to remove through vote. Education of your children by choice is one of them. 1st amendment, Freedom of Assembly.
Henry’s admonition is essential as well.
“For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the WHOLE truth; to know the worst and provide for it”.