Obama's Kids to Get Private Education

[Red Arrow]

Critical thinking and life skills (shop, home ec, making change at the burger stand, and a few sarcastic ones I'll omit) are good.  How do you intend to measure the achievement of the student.

Some basic hardware for living includes communication (I hated English class but my engineer dad insisted I needed to be able to tell someone what I had created.) and Math.  Math teached critical thinking and problem solving. Most people will not spend their lives figuring out if Car A leaves the station at 9:00AM and Car B......  What that does teach is how to solve a problem.  At each grade, students should achieve a skill level.  How do you determine if that skill level has been attained without tests of some kind?  Good self esteem comes with achieving something that challenges the person in some way.  Buy the weigh, if ewe cant add to and too to git the some of fore, maybee you knead to find some buddy to learn you sum moore skoolin.

[USRufnex]

Republicans use the politically correct buzzword of "accountability" to systematically shortchange poorer public schools.... discuss.

[Gaspar]

quote:Originally posted by waterboy

quote:Originally posted by Gaspar

Good for Obama!  

I think everyone should have the opportunity and choice to send their children to the best school they can afford, and with the state of the DC public school system, I would think far less of him if he chose to send them to a public school for PR reasons.

I'm liking him more every day.

I wonder if he would consider a voucher system to allow the rest of us to do the same?

Make enough money or grab off enough power and pay for private school yourself like the other parents. You want some sort of "special treatment"? You want the government to intercede in the process and equalize income and social opportunity? You some kind of socialist or something?[]

Vouchers are one of those seemingly "fair play" ideas (like private SS accounts) that sound good but are doomed because they are an attempt to change nature coupled with an unholy motive. Just the kind of thing most conservatives abhor. They ignore the reality of wealth and its love affair with privilege.

The real motive of vouchers is to destroy the public school system through budget starvation. Its promoters see religious schools as less challenging to their principles. It also helps private schools which never seem to be able to be profitable.

In short, a well run private school would not welcome a voucher system. A well run public school can produce similar results as a private.

Strange?  vouchers have  worked in Wisconsin for about 20 years now and caused the Public schools to compete for students and teachers, with the private schools.  The outcome  continues to be excellent, High-scoring public schools and some of the best private.  

Damn that competition thing!

[waterboy]

Are you prepared for the litany of failed voucher system stories to compete with your Wisconsin story? They are there and some here for that matter. Anecdotal.

Everything in Wisconsin and Minnesota seems to work well and fail in the rest of the states. The populations there are better educated, more tolerant and more progressive. Too bad about their weather though...

[cannon_fodder]

RUF:

Generally you and I are able to civilly discuss may different topics.  I have been very clear on my position here and you completely misconstrued it.  Please read my point of view before attacking it.

quote:Originally posted by USRufnex


I consider people like Guido911 and Cannon Fodder to be hypocrits [sic] every time they suggest the NEA is responsible for all that is wrong in public schools and how vouchers are going to be some magical panacea that will force public schools to reform themselves... as if teachers and their unions were part of some horrible bureaucracy and have little interest in educating students....

LIE.

Did you read my post at all?

I never suggest the teachers union is responsible for all that is wrong with our schools.  Nor did I say that vouchers are some magic pill.  I said that if structured correctly vouchers could help public education and allow people to choose qualified private schools if they desired.

1) IMHO, lazy parents are the underlying cause for the decline of education in America.  Myself included.  I try to do homework with my boy, make him read and/or read with him, allow him to ask questions, take him to the zoo, museums, travel, etc.  I try to give his teachers all the tools they need and support them in their job.  But I could do more (except during college football season).  Even the best teacher is crippled by a lazy parent.  And even a good parent can be handicapped if a social circle mocks education as "selling out."  Certainly the teachers union is not the root of the problem.

2) And how are my qualms with the teachers union hypocritical?  I feel any organization that inflates the cost to the public with no discernible gain to tax payers is detrimental to my interests.  Isn't that logical?

If the union spent more money upholding the quality of its members and the integrity of the profession than it does on politics, I might give it some concern.  Unfortunately, more often than not the union blindly supports teachers even in the face of gross incompetence instead of upholding any standards.  More so, it serves as a giant political action committee than anything else.

My wife was a teacher, many of her friends are teachers, my friends wives are teachers (in TPS), a real good friend of mine was a teacher (also in TPS)...  Surely  that doesn't mean I'm "in the know."  But I'm not in the dark here. This is a reasoned opinion.

What does the teachers union provide for me, as a consumer of public education?  The Operators Union provides safe professionals.  The Teamsters fight for safe operating procedures for trucks (CDL drivers hours log).  Heck, most unions don't cost me money at all - if their products don't provide a benefit to me over others I won't consume them.  But many union products DO provide a benefit to me (quality, consistency, safety).

While I support their right to fight for better wages and benefits for themselves - unless it provides a service to the public by equating to better public education, then it is not "for the children" (a god awful catch all excuse).  As such, it is self serving and against my interests.  You and I both know there are teachers who work their asses off go the extra mile to teach children... and there are teachers that run out the door with the kids and simply don't care.  The teachers union ensures they are both treated the same and I don't agree with that goal.

Correct my ignorance as it needs to be corrected.  My take on unions is pretty standard. Unless they provide a benefit, they merely artificially inflate wages serve as a detriment to the industry.  Unions have played vital rolls and they still can, but just by being "union" does not mean you are fighting the good fight.  

3)

quote:Republicans use the politically correct buzzword of "accountability" to systematically shortchange poorer public schools.... discuss.

And Democrats use the buzz word "underprivileged" to siphon resources and opportunities away from my child.  Yay.  Clearly Republicans hate poor people and Democrats hate middle class white people.  Surely that must be the way of it.

Seriously, neither side is out to destroy any segment of society.  Get over that mindset.  Each thinks they are advancing the best plan to educate the country.  

Again, read my voucher take.  Provide an incentive to remove your student if you so choose, but in doing so you will burden yourself with added costs AND leave more per-pupil money in the public school.  With the limitations I discussed above, how is that not beneficial?  In what ways does it destroy poorer public schools?

4)
My interest is not to advance religion (I'm not religious at all).  It is not to destroy public schools (my son goes to public schools).  It is not to break unions (worked with the AFL/CIO - UAW and Operating Engineers for years).  Nor is it to destroy minorities, poor people, Democrats, or whomever else the bourgeois are supposed to plot against (I once had a poor black Democratic friend).  

Like you, my interest is to facilitate the best education for America.  All classes, racist, situations.  It is in my interest to do so.  Please accept the premise that we both want the same thing and merely differ on how to get there.   I think we could have a much better discussion.

[Red Arrow]

quote:Originally posted by cannon_fodder

Please accept the premise that we both want the same thing and merely differ on how to get there.  

Applies to a lot more than education. I think it is one of the basic differences between non-extremist left and right. There's no accounting for guys bouncing off either the left or right wall (Or falling off the cliff, if you prefer.)

[Gaspar]

quote:Originally posted by waterboy

Are you prepared for the litany of failed voucher system stories to compete with your Wisconsin story? They are there and some here for that matter. Anecdotal.

Everything in Wisconsin and Minnesota seems to work well and fail in the rest of the states. The populations there are better educated, more tolerant and more progressive. Too bad about their weather though...

Nothin better than watching Green Bay in -10 wind chill!

I do agree, they are very tolerant and progressive, and that gives them an attractive atmosphere to raise a family and educate children.  They however are very far from liberal-social-dependance, which also makes them a very attractive atmosphere to raise a family.

Yes the teacher's unions hate vouchers and hate the system in Wisconsin. . . Bla bla bla.  

Freedom encourages competition and from competition comes excellence.

Currently we are still free to choose what school our children go to, ONLY if we can afford to send them there, but in doing so, we are still required to relinquish money to send another less fortunate child to a lesser school in their place through our tax system.

I just want to see a system where we can choose what school our children go to no matter how wealthy or successful we are.

The side-effect is that schools will have to compete or cease to exist.  As long as the money exists within the system, schools will continue to spring up offering new and exciting possibilities to our children rather than old text books and unhappy teachers.

We all want the same thing, smart, happy kids, can't we just agree that something needs to be done?  Can't we just agree that it's a performance issue, not a funding issue?  The wealthiest public school systems in the country still have the same problems as the poorest, and some of the poorest produce some of the sharpest kids.

Respectfully, your stance always seems to be one of throwing more money at problems.  I simply have never seen where that works.

[we vs us]

quote:Originally posted by Gaspar
Freedom encourages competition and from competition comes excellence.

I can agree with this to a degree, but competition isn't the only avenue towards excellence.  Not everything can or should respond as a market.  Markets simply don't account for human costs, especially when we trust wholesale in a market's infallibility.  

Look around at what Wall Street is teaching us.  Markets are excellent when they are on an upswing, but the destruction that they can cause while unwinding can be extensive.  And they're subject to whims, to fear, and to greed.  You nailed it:  vouchers are another way of saying "let's let the free market take care of our education"  And I have to say that, seeing what an unfettered free market has wrought in our financial system, vouchers seem to be one of the worst ideas to make it out of the GOP Ideology Factory yet.

[cannon_fodder]

Wevus:

The free market created all the wealth you see.  It created all the wealth that is now evaporating.  The person that is losing their $1,500,000 house in California would not have had that house in the first place without the free market.

Thus, at the end of the day, even after all this crap... we will be ahead of where we would have been sans market economics.  It hurts to lose what we have, but we would not of had it to lose.

[waterboy]

quote:Originally posted by Gaspar

Originally posted by waterboy



Respectfully, your stance always seems to be one of throwing more money at problems.  I simply have never seen where that works.

Well, this was my post yesterday-

"....... Standards for quality are not related to cost of education as has been pointed out here. After certain basic overhead costs(building, equipment, teachers, administration) are established, the amount of money thrown at educating a student reaches a point of diminishing returns. My point is that considering the quantity and quality of students served, public schools are more cost effective.

If you want to match the cost of 4 years of high school for your kids at BTW vs 4 years at Holland Hall you would find that both will prepare them for college. Both schools produce students who will ace their ACT's. BTW does it cheaper and exposes more students from lower income demos.

Its YOUR contribution as parents that makes the difference."

I think we agree on a that.

[Gaspar]

quote:Originally posted by waterboy

quote:Originally posted by Gaspar

Originally posted by waterboy



Respectfully, your stance always seems to be one of throwing more money at problems.  I simply have never seen where that works.

Well, this was my post yesterday-

"....... Standards for quality are not related to cost of education as has been pointed out here. After certain basic overhead costs(building, equipment, teachers, administration) are established, the amount of money thrown at educating a student reaches a point of diminishing returns. My point is that considering the quantity and quality of students served, public schools are more cost effective.

If you want to match the cost of 4 years of high school for your kids at BTW vs 4 years at Holland Hall you would find that both will prepare them for college. Both schools produce students who will ace their ACT's. BTW does it cheaper and exposes more students from lower income demos.

Its YOUR contribution as parents that makes the difference."

I think we agree on a that.

Very good point!  

[we vs us]

quote:Originally posted by cannon_fodder

Wevus:

The free market created all the wealth you see.  It created all the wealth that is now evaporating.  The person that is losing their $1,500,000 house in California would not have had that house in the first place without the free market.

Thus, at the end of the day, even after all this crap... we will be ahead of where we would have been sans market economics.  It hurts to lose what we have, but we would not of had it to lose.

Agreed and agreed.  I understand how competition works only too well.  And in my business, it works pretty well.  But my point is that it shouldn't be applied everywhere to everything.  It may ultimately provide an upward trend, but that's only on average.  Within that trend are spikes and troughs . . . and the occasional free fall like we're seeing now.  

Imagine if we'd trusted our Social Security funds to the general market back in 2004.  Think about what kind of retirement the bleeding edge of the Boomer generation would be entering right about now.  Or alternately, think about the kind of services and programs we'd have to create on the fly to deal with these retirement funds losing half their value, and the resultant millions of old folks catapulted into poverty through no fault of their own.  

Or we could rely on spikes and troughs and say, "well, dollar cost averaging -- on paper -- says that you should be better off than you were, so suck it up old people.  The paper is right."

My fear with an educational free market (vouchers) is that something similar could result, and the peaks and troughs  wouldn't average out into an improved situation for everyone.  You'd just get a lot more inequality, even more than you have now.

[cannon_fodder]

Imagine if we would have put our social security in the markets in 1935 when it first started...  our current return has been ZERO percent.  Likewise, the funds have provided no economic capital to our system.  

DJIA 1935:  144
DJIA 2008: 8500

A whopping 5,900% return on investment!  The S&P 500, a better market picture, shows even more promise.  The recent decline wouldn't matter in the big picture.  It would have taken social security from godly over funded amazingly over funded.  

In the LONG run you can't beat the return of the market.  It should not be a short term investment.  From 2005 - 2008 is a short term perspective and would have resulted in a healthy loss.  Over the long run you can expect a 7% gain from market investments (broadly).  

I understand this does not apply directly to education.  Clearly not.  But if schools were only eligible for vouchers if they met a set of criteria, it would limit the impact of the free market. If you are not a performing schools, you get no incentive to send your children there.

Logically I can't really see education in such a way ebbing and flowing like a free market.  It is much more controlled.  If kids are not getting good grades at a private school it will die and they go back to public schools.  If there is greater disparity it will be because of a sample of the population having an increased level of education.

Frankly, that's a good thing.  If you are fighting to hold every one back to par and refusing to let other excel to promote equality, then I disagree.  Not that private schools will necessarily do such a thing mind you...

[nathanm]

quote:Originally posted by cannon_fodder

Imagine if we would have put our social security in the markets in 1935 when it first started...  our current return has been ZERO percent.  Likewise, the funds have provided no economic capital to our system.  

DJIA 1935:  144
DJIA 2008: 8500

A whopping 5,900% return on investment!  The S&P 500, a better market picture, shows even more promise.  The recent decline wouldn't matter in the big picture.  It would have taken social security from godly over funded amazingly over funded.  

In the LONG run you can't beat the return of the market.  It should not be a short term investment.  From 2005 - 2008 is a short term perspective and would have resulted in a healthy loss.  Over the long run you can expect a 7% gain from market investments (broadly).  

I understand this does not apply directly to education.  Clearly not.  But if schools were only eligible for vouchers if they met a set of criteria, it would limit the impact of the free market. If you are not a performing schools, you get no incentive to send your children there.

Logically I can't really see education in such a way ebbing and flowing like a free market.  It is much more controlled.  If kids are not getting good grades at a private school it will die and they go back to public schools.  If there is greater disparity it will be because of a sample of the population having an increased level of education.

Frankly, that's a good thing.  If you are fighting to hold every one back to par and refusing to let other excel to promote equality, then I disagree.  Not that private schools will necessarily do such a thing mind you...

That doesn't help the people that have to retire this year. (or next)

Let the old folks eat their 401k statements, I guess?

And no, I think 401ks are great, so long as they have a backstop with a somewhat reasonable minimum. One can survive on Social Security. It may not be great, but one can eat and have a few minor luxuries. Market investments are great for going above and beyond that point. Then you don't have to worry if the market takes a nose dive a few years before you retire or whatever.

Free marketeers amaze me. I'm all for a market economy, but there have to be rules. Beyond that, a market does not make everything better, although it does make a lot of things better. As in almost anything, moderation is key. Deregulating to the point that transparency in a market is lost results in bad things.

So does trying to make a market out of something where there is no feasible transparency. Or trying to make a market out of a limited number of suppliers. (the ever-rising cost of healthcare is a good example, although much more complex than just limited supply and lack of transparency, although those are definitely issues in that market..same goes for higher education)

And adjusted for inflation, a dow index fund isn't too hot an investment. Pretty crappy, really, unless you happen to time the market just right. But if you forget that little bugaboo, it sure looks a lot better, so why bother thinking about it!

[cannon_fodder]

Nathan, your argument is without merit in this matter.

Folks that were to retire this year would have a higher return on investment in the market than with the Fed.  Even considering the down market (note what DOW number I used) and taking inflation into account.  That's ignoring the ancillary positives of capital investment in our economy.

If given to the government and "adjusted" for inflation (read: tax current income to make up the shortfall), that $144 in 1935 would turn into  $2154.59.  The market, even in this downturn, would yield a return 3 times that amount.  300% greater than the nominal inflationary adjustment.  

Why would a retiree be better off with the government's $2150 than the markets $8500?  True, they lost $4,000 in fictitious wealth, but they are STILL far better off than the other scenario.  If you time it so you cashed out during the worst market year in 75 years you would still be OK compared to the alternative.

HOWEVER, I do agree with you wholeheartedly that government regulation to ensure transparency and to correct other market imperfections is required.  Though I believe most regulation is just a hindrance and serves no real function (sounds good, does nothing... ie. Sarbanes).  Regulators rarely have an idea of what the actual effect of their rules will be.