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JagNGeorgia · 06-13-2017, 11:48 AM

(06-11-2017, 12:11 PM)The Real Marty Wrote: It's not the public schools that are at fault. It's the students and their parents that bear most of the blame for failure. I'd bet that if you sent those same students to private schools, they'd fail there, too.

I think there's a lot of blame for parents, but our school system is a joke. And the evidence is in our continual decline.

I did poorly with math (like a lot of people). None of my teachers were interested in teaching me one-on-one or ensuring that I actually knew what I was supposed to know. I know there are a lot of great teachers, but it took until college that I met one that cared if I actually learned the subject matter, and I learned every thing I was supposed to know but in one semester.

I wasn't a bad student. I tried to study and take notes. I didn't skip class or cause problems. Most of my teachers just weren't interested in teaching the average student but instead the students in high-performing classes.

(06-13-2017, 10:43 AM)flsprtsgod Wrote:
(06-13-2017, 10:32 AM)MalabarJag Wrote: The money to pay for the schools would still come from the government. Each student would receive an allocation and it couldn't be used for anything but school tuition, sort of like what a SNAP card does for food. The money would be tied to the students instead of the schools, and the students' parents would be free to spend it at any school they choose. Poorly run schools would languish, better ones would thrive. Real competition for students' money = an incentive to improve.

Of course deadbeat parents wouldn't make much effort to maximize their child's benefit, but deadbeat parents also one of the biggest problems with the current government school system.

All that would get you is a series of publicly funded diploma mills and waiting lists to get into the good schools followed by geographic assignment for those students who don't make the cut. You'd also suffer adverse selection as the higher performing schools develop methods to keep lower performing students out so they can keep their ratings high. Getting into high school shouldn't be like getting into college, but every high school should provide the same education to every child at no direct cost.

That's definitely a risk if it isn't governed properly.

I think, if it's a government-run school, they wouldn't be able to deny students or have entry exams. I'm not a fan of standardized testing, but maybe there could be something that's given to the students to assess their progress, and the specific school wouldn't have control over the results or which questions were asked.

I don't know. I don't pretend to have the answers, but we need a lot of help.

(06-13-2017, 10:43 AM)flsprtsgod Wrote:
(06-13-2017, 10:32 AM)MalabarJag Wrote: The money to pay for the schools would still come from the government. Each student would receive an allocation and it couldn't be used for anything but school tuition, sort of like what a SNAP card does for food. The money would be tied to the students instead of the schools, and the students' parents would be free to spend it at any school they choose. Poorly run schools would languish, better ones would thrive. Real competition for students' money = an incentive to improve.

Of course deadbeat parents wouldn't make much effort to maximize their child's benefit, but deadbeat parents also one of the biggest problems with the current government school system.

All that would get you is a series of publicly funded diploma mills and waiting lists to get into the good schools followed by geographic assignment for those students who don't make the cut. You'd also suffer adverse selection as the higher performing schools develop methods to keep lower performing students out so they can keep their ratings high. Getting into high school shouldn't be like getting into college, but every high school should provide the same education to every child at no direct cost.

That's definitely a risk if it isn't governed properly.

I think, if it's a government-run school, they wouldn't be able to deny students or have entry exams. I'm not a fan of standardized testing, but maybe there could be something that's given to the students to assess their progress, and the specific school wouldn't have control over the results or which questions were asked.

I don't know. I don't pretend to have the answers, but we need a lot of help.