Jacksonville Jaguars Fan Forums

Quote:Kotite posted it, so proceed with caution.

You can watch the video of DeVos squirming to respond to this from a Senator with a special needs child.

Quote:30,000 kids with vouchers want into Stanton. No one wants to go to Ribault. Who makes the cut for the one and gets banished to the other?

Lottery, just like it is to get into the magnet schools now. Although my son had to apply to Stanton and meet academic requirements, but he was in the IB program, not sure you have to do that in the AP program.

Quote:That's why vouchers are the simple solution. I pay taxes let me select the education I want my kids to recieve in the form of a voucher. If I pick some fancy school that's more than the voucher I'll pay the difference.

 

Vouchers are a terrible idea.  Money shouldn't be attached to individual students.  You open the way to vouchers, and you're going to open your way to fraudulent schools that take advantage of parents.  Because if the government can't hold them accountable, then there's nothing stopping them.  All you have to do is look at for-profit colleges.  Most people won't put University of Phoenix on their resumes for a very good reason--it looks terrible to employers.  All that will matter to those schools is marketing, and in the end my kids suffer because some dumb parents decide to send their kids to a crappy private school over public school.     Because I'm not going to send my kids to a private school.  

I'm sure you don't care too much about the fraudulent schools that'll cheat people out of an education--at least not until those kids are all on welfare.  


Private Schools should get private funding.  Public schools should get public funding.  I don't think we should subsidize private schools anymore than I think we should subsidize private insurance.  

Quote:Creationism isn't a science, so it doesn't belong in a science classroom. There is no scientific aspect to it. Otherwise you might as well teach Ancient Astronaut theory as well.

Law of biogenisis....

Quote:That's why vouchers are the simple solution. I pay taxes let me select the education I want my kids to recieve in the form of a voucher. If I pick some fancy school that's more than the voucher I'll pay the difference.

Careful, you'll scare the children

Quote:Law of biogenisis....

..has absolutely nothing to do with creationism, scripture or doctrine.

Quote:Vouchers are a terrible idea. Money shouldn't be attached to individual students. You open the way to vouchers, and you're going to open your way to fraudulent schools that take advantage of parents. Because if the government can't hold them accountable, then there's nothing stopping them. All you have to do is look at for-profit colleges. Most people won't put University of Phoenix on their resumes for a very good reason--it looks terrible to employers. All that will matter to those schools is marketing, and in the end my kids suffer because some dumb parents decide to send their kids to a crappy private school over public school. Because I'm not going to send my kids to a private school.

I'm sure you don't care too much about the fraudulent schools that'll cheat people out of an education--at least not until those kids are all on welfare.


Private Schools should get private funding. Public schools should get public funding. I don't think we should subsidize private schools anymore than I think we should subsidize private insurance.

Trump University??

Quote:..has absolutely nothing to do with creationism, scripture or doctrine.

The fact that all life ever observed in the history of the planet has all come from pre-existing living systems? Lol. U must REALLY BE MAD!

Quote:..has absolutely nothing to do with creationism, scripture or doctrine.

 

Or Abiogenesis for that matter.  Abiogenesis doesn't contradict the law of Biogenesis.

What's all this talk about vouchers?


Here every public school is free to go to, although they ask you to pay a "voluntary" donation of around 50 euro if you can. Then they will help pay for books and uniform if you are stuck.


Then the private schools are anywhere from 5'000 per year up to 35,000 or so depending on how exclusive they are.

Quote:What's all this talk about vouchers?


Here every public school is free to go to, although they ask you to pay a "voluntary" donation of around 50 euro if you can. Then they will help pay for books and uniform if you are stuck.


Then the private schools are anywhere from 5'000 per year up to 35,000 or so depending on how exclusive they are.

 

The idea of vouchers is that the money goes to the parents of each student, who can then choose any school. This puts pressure on the schools to perform. Competition breeds improvement.


 

In your case (and in the usual case in the US) the money goes to a school board or other elite bureaucracy, who then decides the education of each student. Each student is then stuck with what they are assigned, no matter how bad.


 

TED is concerned that parents will be taken advantage of by scam artists. This is certainly a concern. What he misses is that government doesn't hold public schools accountable either. Try to fire a bad teacher. You can fire a young teacher, or one who commits a crime or breaks a rule. But you can't fire a tenured teacher for poor performance.


 

Quote:The idea of vouchers is that the money goes to the parents of each student, who can then choose any school. This puts pressure on the schools to perform. Competition breeds improvement.


In your case (and in the usual case in the US) the money goes to a school board or other elite bureaucracy, who then decides the education of each student. Each student is then stuck with what they are assigned, no matter how bad.


TED is concerned that parents will be taken advantage of by scam artists. This is certainly a concern. What he misses is that government doesn't hold public schools accountable either. Try to fire a bad teacher. You can fire a young teacher, or one who commits a crime or breaks a rule. But you can't fire a tenured teacher for poor performance.

How can you monitor if the poor performance is because of the teacher or because of the students?


Just curious how you would find that out.

Quote:Vouchers are a terrible idea.  Money shouldn't be attached to individual students.  You open the way to vouchers, and you're going to open your way to fraudulent schools that take advantage of parents.  Because if the government can't hold them accountable, then there's nothing stopping them.  All you have to do is look at for-profit colleges.  Most people won't put University of Phoenix on their resumes for a very good reason--it looks terrible to employers.  All that will matter to those schools is marketing, and in the end my kids suffer because some dumb parents decide to send their kids to a crappy private school over public school.     Because I'm not going to send my kids to a private school.  

I'm sure you don't care too much about the fraudulent schools that'll cheat people out of an education--at least not until those kids are all on welfare.  


Private Schools should get private funding.  Public schools should get public funding.  I don't think we should subsidize private schools anymore than I think we should subsidize private insurance.  

 

I disagree.

 

Education is not the job or responsibility of the federal government and federal tax dollars should not fund it.  I understand your concern regarding "fraudulent" schools, but in a true free market solution poor performing schools would quickly be eliminated.

Quote:How can you monitor if the poor performance is because of the teacher or because of the students?


Just curious how you would find that out.

 

It's not that difficult really.  Consider this simple example.  Let's say a math teacher has 20 students and their only goal is to teach multiplication.  Let's say after a couple of months half of the students can't tell you what 5 x 5 is or 12 x 3.  That would possibly indicate a bad teacher.

 

Of course, this is a very simple example that would have other factors involved.  For example, what if half of the 10 students that are failing failed to complete homework assignments?  That would be an indicator that the students and/or parents might be a problem.

Quote:It's not that difficult really. Consider this simple example. Let's say a math teacher has 20 students and their only goal is to teach multiplication. Let's say after a couple of months half of the students can't tell you what 5 x 5 is or 12 x 3. That would possibly indicate a bad teacher.


Of course, this is a very simple example that would have other factors involved. For example, what if half of the 10 students that are failing failed to complete homework assignments? That would be an indicator that the students and/or parents might be a problem.

So it's actually not really easy? Because the example you gave is extremely basic, it's a very hard thing to get right.


It's not as easy as "oh you failed this test, that's the teachers fault." And "you didn't do homework, that's the students fault."


It's an extremely complex situation and is a reason why no one is doing it right now.

Quote:So it's actually not really easy? Because the example you gave is extremely basic, it's a very hard thing to get right.


It's not as easy as "oh you failed this test, that's the teachers fault." And "you didn't do homework, that's the students fault."


It's an extremely complex situation and is a reason why no one is doing it right now.

 

Nobody said "easy".  Doing something worthwhile is never easy.

 

I said that it's not that difficult.  Sure it's a complex problem that requires a complex solution, but coming up with an answer is better than throwing money at the problem and hoping that it goes away.

 

Nobody does anything to solve the problem because of government bloat and bureaucracy.  What exactly does the department of education actually do?

 

Let the free market dictate the standards.  Colleges already dictate a standard for entry into higher education.  Companies dictate a standard for employees that they hire.  Get the government out of the way and let the people solve the problems.

Quote:It's not that difficult really.  Consider this simple example.  Let's say a math teacher has 20 students and their only goal is to teach multiplication.  Let's say after a couple of months half of the students can't tell you what 5 x 5 is or 12 x 3.  That would possibly indicate a bad teacher.

 

Of course, this is a very simple example that would have other factors involved.  For example, what if half of the 10 students that are failing failed to complete homework assignments?  That would be an indicator that the students and/or parents might be a problem.

 

Let me give you an actual example.  I am a teacher.  I assign 3 homework assignments per week to my 8th graders because our short classes do not allow the time necessary for students to read as much as they need to in order to keep their skills sharp.  They are expected to read 2.5 hours each week outside of class, find and define 2 vocabulary words they didn't know previously, and write 2-4 pages of responses to their reading.  

 

These assignments are designed to make sure they are reading (they are held accountable by their parents signing off on a log, and the only way to improve at reading is to, you know, read), thinking about their reading rather than just checking out and word calling for a while, and developing their vocabulary and their use of dictionary skills.

 

Probably 1/3 of my students consistently do not turn in homework.  I call parents, send home grade sheets, and stay up to 2 hours after the school day for tutorials and make up sessions, which probably 1/3 of the 1/3 take advantage of.  I still have tons of failing grades due to the fact that a great many of students just do not try.

 

As a result, most of these students will likely fail their state assessments in 8 weeks.  They will have shown no progress because they refuse to work and do what I ask.  At the end of the year, my school with be graded down because these students and parents did not take care of their end of things.

 

But that doesn't show up in public accountability.  It'll just have a C or lower as a letter grade for performance.  Once vouchers are initiated, those SAME PARENTS will looks at our accountability ratings and say, "Oh, little Johnny has been attending an awful school!  I'll send him across town!"  And so eventually, schools are left with the children and parents who are checked out, performance across the board decreases as "good" (i.e., wealthy) schools become overcrowded and "bad" (i.e., impoverished) schools report only data from students whose parents don't even care enough to know what their kid's school ranks as.  Eventually, these "bad" schools will be shut down because NCLB is still a thing (in spirit; I know the actual act has been replaced, but you're crazy if you think the federal government isn't willing to step in and play white knight to "save students"), and teachers are out of work and struggle to get jobs because their names are linked to a school that was consistently low performing.

 

Our system needs SEVERE overhaul, but vouchers are just going to exacerbate the problem.  I know that Trump, who only ever wins, appointed DeVos, but this woman is woefully unqualified to comment on just about anything in relation to the public school system.

Quote:The fact that all life ever observed in the history of the planet has all come from pre-existing living systems? Lol. U must REALLY BE MAD!

If there were proof the flying spaghetti monster created plants, animals and humans, it'd be called science and not faith.


I respect your right to believe whatever you want, including the silly notion anything you could ever type would make me mad (bruh), but education is no place for speculation and "beliefs". It is a place for logic, reason, science and fact.

Quote:Let me give you an actual example.  I am a teacher.  I assign 3 homework assignments per week to my 8th graders because our short classes do not allow the time necessary for students to read as much as they need to in order to keep their skills sharp.  They are expected to read 2.5 hours each week outside of class, find and define 2 vocabulary words they didn't know previously, and write 2-4 pages of responses to their reading.  

 

These assignments are designed to make sure they are reading (they are held accountable by their parents signing off on a log, and the only way to improve at reading is to, you know, read), thinking about their reading rather than just checking out and word calling for a while, and developing their vocabulary and their use of dictionary skills.

 

Probably 1/3 of my students consistently do not turn in homework.  I call parents, send home grade sheets, and stay up to 2 hours after the school day for tutorials and make up sessions, which probably 1/3 of the 1/3 take advantage of.  I still have tons of failing grades due to the fact that a great many of students just do not try.

 

As a result, most of these students will likely fail their state assessments in 8 weeks.  They will have shown no progress because they refuse to work and do what I ask.  At the end of the year, my school with be graded down because these students and parents did not take care of their end of things.

 

But that doesn't show up in public accountability.  It'll just have a C or lower as a letter grade for performance.  Once vouchers are initiated, those SAME PARENTS will looks at our accountability ratings and say, "Oh, little Johnny has been attending an awful school!  I'll send him across town!"  And so eventually, schools are left with the children and parents who are checked out, performance across the board decreases as "good" (i.e., wealthy) schools become overcrowded and "bad" (i.e., impoverished) schools report only data from students whose parents don't even care enough to know what their kid's school ranks as.  Eventually, these "bad" schools will be shut down because NCLB is still a thing (in spirit; I know the actual act has been replaced, but you're crazy if you think the federal government isn't willing to step in and play white knight to "save students"), and teachers are out of work and struggle to get jobs because their names are linked to a school that was consistently low performing.

 

Our system needs SEVERE overhaul, but vouchers are just going to exacerbate the problem.  I know that Trump, who only ever wins, appointed DeVos, but this woman is woefully unqualified to comment on just about anything in relation to the public school system.

 

First of all let me say this.  I appreciate what you do.  I know that teaching is difficult, I somewhat did it myself while in the Navy as an Instructor.  Also while I was in the Navy I volunteered for mentoring/tutoring at a local elementary school.

 

What you describe is not a failure of teachers or the system, it's a failure of society.  Clearly what you describe is a failure of students as well as parents.  The problem reflects on teachers and schools, but that's not what the problem is.  Throwing more money at the school doesn't solve the problem.

 

Let me make a guess here.  Assuming that you live here in Jacksonville, I'll bet that the school that you work at is in a "less prosperous" part of town.

 

The real problem is the lack of "the family unit" and lack of parenting.  Just taking a guess here, but I would bet that the 1/3 of students that don't consistently turn in homework are probably in the majority when it comes to single parent homes.

 

The problem isn't the education system (in your case), the problem is society.  Throwing more dollars at a school isn't going to make children do their homework.

Quote:First of all let me say this. I appreciate what you do. I know that teaching is difficult, I somewhat did it myself while in the Navy as an Instructor. Also while I was in the Navy I volunteered for mentoring/tutoring at a local elementary school.


What you describe is not a failure of teachers or the system, it's a failure of society. Clearly what you describe is a failure of students as well as parents. The problem reflects on teachers and schools, but that's not what the problem is. Throwing more money at the school doesn't solve the problem.


Let me make a guess here. Assuming that you live here in Jacksonville, I'll bet that the school that you work at is in a "less prosperous" part of town.


The real problem is the lack of "the family unit" and lack of parenting. Just taking a guess here, but I would bet that the 1/3 of students that don't consistently turn in homework are probably in the majority when it comes to single parent homes.


The problem isn't the education system (in your case), the problem is society. Throwing more dollars at a school isn't going to make children do their homework.

I agree with everything you've said wholeheartedly. Every. Last. Word.


Throwing more money at the system isn't going to fix it, but using the money that's already there more intelligently will.


Make it easier to fire bad teachers and pay teachers more than they get. This will naturally attract more highly qualified individuals, because bad teachers ARE out there--but they are most certainly the minority.


In addition, we need to establish a federally mandated alternative to traditional schooling for low achieving students. Right now, our system prepares students for University, when many of them do not fit in the traditional classroom due to multiple factors, like the ones you mention.


Instead, we need to offer these kids an alternative. Require functional classes in math, reading, writing, and money management, and then subsidize companies to take on students as appentices. That way, these kids can get certified to perform a trade and make a living wage out of high school rather than riding the welfare train like they do now as dropouts.


Right now poverty is cyclical, and impoverished kids do not have the skills necessary to succeed in a traditional classroom. In a couple of generations, an initiative like this could alter entire neighborhoods and cities as more wealth is achieved and poverty dimimishes.


Just a thought.


Thank you for you kind words.