How to fix the private school problem

noprivate wrote:

I live in a affluent area. The public schools suck because everyone sends their kids to private schools. Some say people go to private schools because the public schools suck. I guess it's a chicken-egg thing.

Point is that there is a lot of money in the neighborhood and similar neighborhoods in other parts of the state have excellent public schools.

What can be done to pull people away from private schools and make the public schools good?

I was in an Adult Education class (Army Instructor Course) where we talked about the teacher as a facilitator. The problem with our education system is that it was born in the Industrial Age so of course it looks like an assembly line. Each day you go from subject to subject, each year you graduate to the next level until such time that you are a finished product. It is rigid and unwavering, it rarely takes into considerations the emotional, physical, mental, and academic differences among students. It teaches in the middle.

We have been so close to just pulling our kid out and just home school her. Home school is high tech these days. She’s a 4th grader and has been all As and scores well above her peers ever since she’s been in school. She’s a shy kid so the biggest reason we keep her in public school is the social structure, having friends, etc.

Alan

I've got a fix. 100% tax on all private school tuition. Double the cost and all the "think they're rich because they have 250K household income" parents will suddenly start sending their kids to public schools. Good kids make good schools.

Some individuals can state private schools are best. Some families can state private schools are best. Some teachers can state private schools are best. There are several reasons nightly news shows have commissioned officers above rank of 0-3 as their on air analysts. Commissioned officers are trained to have a minimum of 1000ft view of war. Even though private schools can be great for a select few, they are awful for society in general. That is why I stated Public Policy.

I don’t disagree with your sentiment. I am not convinced that private schools are the root cause of the problem, and as I stated in my OP, they are an imperfect solution. But, I think we agree that society would be better if families didn’t feel the need to send their children to private schools.

We can discuss the chicken and the egg at that point until my phone battery dies :-)

thefix wrote:

I've got a fix. 100% tax on all private school tuition. Double the cost and all the "think they're rich because they have 250K household income" parents will suddenly start sending their kids to public schools. Good kids make good schools.

Which will trigger the third Great Migration. Poorly performing school districts will see their tax bases completely dry up at the exodus.

#unintendedconsequences

thefix wrote:

I've got a fix. 100% tax on all private school tuition. Double the cost and all the "think they're rich because they have 250K household income" parents will suddenly start sending their kids to public schools. Good kids make good schools.

So you're saying poor children and minorites are bad kids?

American public schools are not bad. It's a myth spread by both sides of the aisle. Republicans use the myth of bad public schools to argue for smaller government. Democrats argue it to perpetuate the lie that it's lack of funding that's the problem and the solution is to give them more money.

Poor students in the United States are at the top of the world compared to poor students in other developed countries. Middle class American students are at the top of the world compared to middle class students in other developed countries. Same with rich students vs rich students in other areas. The wealthier the student's family, the better the student tends to do in school. The reason the USA's educational scores are low compared to Western Europe is because the proportion of poor students in the US, as a percentage of the total student body, is much larger than it is in most European countries. It's entirely because of economics.

Private schools only look better than public because their scores aren't brought down by poor students & special needs children. Those are students public schools have to deal with. When you adjust for demographics, there's no difference. An intelligent, driven student can receive the same quality of education in a public school as a private one.

Frequent 3 letter named poster wrote:

Private schools only look better than public because their scores aren't brought down by poor students & special needs children. Those are students public schools have to deal with. When you adjust for demographics, there's no difference. An intelligent, driven student can receive the same quality of education in a public school as a private one.

Total BS. There are plenty of studies showing that kids can't learn if they don't feel safe.

Public Schools have been sub par for a long time wrote:

thefix wrote:

I've got a fix. 100% tax on all private school tuition. Double the cost and all the "think they're rich because they have 250K household income" parents will suddenly start sending their kids to public schools. Good kids make good schools.

So you're saying poor children and minorites are bad kids?

LOL yes, libs have been on that line forever... "Look at that school it's terrible........ there's nothing but black people there! We must do something we must save them!"

They fail to see the inherit racism in their assertion that a school must be bad because it's predominately black or minority.

EZ10Miler wrote:

"The main problem with public schools today stems from the No Child Left Behind Act accountability measures. "

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahzahahahhaha

Wow what an idiotic statement, like the public schools were doing GREAT before that.

Try again dumb @ $$....

Schools are only as good as the people that attend them. A school that is full of low functioning, low IQ individuals will be perform poorly. A school full of high functioning, high IQ individuals will thrive.

I am not the person you wrote to. I hate it when LRCers call people names.

Please stop.

For your information they found out many years ago that IQ tests are limited by what they measure.

No IQ test is complete. You could say that the person has a 138 IQ in reading and writing but it would

not say anything about math ability. Indeed that same person might have a 101 in math on that test.

I would have to say the private school problem is not a problem at all. If private schooling is a better option parents should send their kids to private schools. This happens all the time and should.

I'd say public schools have a problem in many areas for many different reasons. I'll just list the reasons I see in my area.

1. Many of the teachers are not very good. As a whole, the best and the brightest do not go into teaching.

A. The average ACT is 18. How? There are a lot of smart kids.

B. The majority of kids do not seem engaged in academics or athletics.

C. There is no vocational training for kids not wanting to go on to higher education.

D. The students that do want to go on are ill prepared to do so.

2. Extracurricular activities are just awful where my kids go.

A. The coaches are horrid.

B. I say this because the school can barely compete with most schools half their size.

C. The bands are not good

D. The plays are painful to go to.

E. If I were in charge I'd clean house of all the teacher, coaches, and administrators that find it too difficult to try to

make a positive impact on their students' lives. I really feel the school does most of the kids a disservice.

3. There is very little parent involvement at my kids' school.

A. 2/3rds of the parents do not show up for sporting events, plays, speeches and such that I have noticed.

1. The opinions of parents that do show up fall on deaf ears.

2. No successful or competitive programs.

B. If the parents of students in extracurriculars cannot find the time. What does that say about the academics at

home?

Public schools near me need to start raising standards and stop lowering them. Public schools need to stop hiring and/or keeping people that are not difference makers. They need more teachers that can get students engaged and motivated. They need people that will find a way to get their communities engaged. They need to stop the excuses and find a way. Public schools basically need to start competing.

The problem is bad parents. Parents that don't give a sh't raise kids who don't give a sh't. Parent's who are paying 25K a year tend to give a sh't.

bad parents wrote:

The problem is bad parents. Parents that don't give a sh't raise kids who don't give a sh't. Parent's who are paying 25K a year tend to give a sh't.

Please no name calling wrote:

Schools are only as good as the people that attend them. A school that is full of low functioning, low IQ individuals will be perform poorly. A school full of high functioning, high IQ individuals will thrive.

I am not the person you wrote to. I hate it when LRCers call people names.

Please stop.

For your information they found out many years ago that IQ tests are limited by what they measure.

No IQ test is complete. You could say that the person has a 138 IQ in reading and writing but it would

not say anything about math ability. Indeed that same person might have a 101 in math on that test.[/quote]

I should not have called him names. You are right, it's just that I've never seen a post where Roy was right about anything- ever.

I said a school full of low IQ individuals and then you retort with "someone could have a 101 IQ in math"?

Dude I'm talking about kids that would test at 70 or lower (MR), but are probably functioning in the mid80's meaning they are borderline MR at best. If your idea of a low IQ is 101 you need to step out of your bubble.

EZ10Miler wrote:

Please no name calling wrote:

Schools are only as good as the people that attend them. A school that is full of low functioning, low IQ individuals will be perform poorly. A school full of high functioning, high IQ individuals will thrive.

I am not the person you wrote to. I hate it when LRCers call people names.

Please stop.

For your information they found out many years ago that IQ tests are limited by what they measure.

No IQ test is complete. You could say that the person has a 138 IQ in reading and writing but it would

not say anything about math ability. Indeed that same person might have a 101 in math on that test.

I should not have called him names. You are right, it's just that I've never seen a post where Roy was right about anything- ever.

I said a school full of low IQ individuals and then you retort with "someone could have a 101 IQ in math"?

Dude I'm talking about kids that would test at 70 or lower (MR), but are probably functioning in the mid80's meaning they are borderline MR at best. If your idea of a low IQ is 101 you need to step out of your bubble.[/quote]

The dude didn’t say 101 is low IQ. He merely said one could test higher in reading and writing than in math.

thefix wrote:

I've got a fix. 100% tax on all private school tuition. Double the cost and all the "think they're rich because they have 250K household income" parents will suddenly start sending their kids to public schools. Good kids make good schools.

So your solution is to put a 100% tax on people who are already paying a disproportionate amount towards public schools in the form of property taxes (I am assuming that people who send their kids to private schools live in nice houses) and not reaping the benefits of those taxes and then tax them some more. That is one of the most idiotic things I have heard of. Private schools are not really harming the public school system at all. The real harm to the public school system is coming from the parents that are not involved and expect the schools to make up for their deficiencies as parents. The other day at one of the public non-charter schools in town, one of the soccer mom's on my team had to suspend 5 fourth graders for getting stoned at school off of a bunch of edibles they obtained from their parents (weed is legal in our state). Don't lay the blame on the parents that are involved in their kids lives, lay the blame on the parents that are terrible. How about instead of taxing people that are already paying the bulk of public education costs, tax the bad parents by increasing taxes on booze, cigarettes, weed, cable television, lottery tickets and all the other useless crap these supposedly poor people tend to spend all their money on.

joedirt, you are an idiot. The parents who send their kids to private school aren't suddenly going to stop being involved if private school is too expensive. Instead they will get involved at the public school which will make the public schools better for everyone.

The kids that are pulling down the public schools now would not suddenly be brought up if the private school involved parents and kids were suddenly thrust into the public school system. They would still be a nuisance to the schools performance. What would likely happen is the brighter students would be held back as the curriculum would have to adapt to the low achieving morons in the class. The school would look better from a performance perspective, as those kids would be there, but overall the achievement would be less, as the brighter bulbs would be held back, not that the idiots with crap parents would suddenly perform better. The reason private schools, charter schools and magnet schools are able to succeed where the mainstream public schools fail is they do not have to dumb down their curriculum. If kids can't cut it, they transfer to the mainstream schools and the next kid on the wait list gets their chance. Academically it is necessary to have some degree of intellectual segregation in order for kids to meet their potential. The only ones who would benefit from eliminating private education would be the teacher's unions. Everyone else would suffer.

bad parents wrote:

The problem is bad parents. Parents that don't give a sh't raise kids who don't give a sh't. Parent's who are paying 25K a year tend to give a sh't.

You should maybe spend some time around some schools. It is not just the parents' fault in many cases.