School Choice (Voucher) is not the solution to the public education debacle

**RWReaganfan** · May 6th, 2012, 4:45 pm

Originally Posted by CaptainPike

And EVERYONE's kids are made to attend government run schools at the cost of tax payers.

Why should that be the only option?

Your statement is not true, because they are other options. There are private schools and home-schooling.

No one forces children to attend "government run schools".

Please try again.

**RWReaganfan** · May 6th, 2012, 4:52 pm

Originally Posted by jkm

Personalize other posters much? What ever happened to the four words "I beg to disagree"?

I agree with the poster. Why is it the taxpayers' responsibility to transport kids who aren't theirs to school? How about parents drop the kids off on their way to work, job search, whatever it is they do during the day?

Not that same old tired argument again!

It is in societies best interest to have an educated populace.

You pay for the ability for everyone's kids to go to school, just like I do. My youngest graduates in 12 days and I will happily pay my taxes until I die. Why? Because I have grandkids going to school, and their deadbeat dad sure as heck will not be paying anything toward their education. I also have to pay for kids in the neighborhood that I don't even know.

It is what we do.

**CaptainPike** · May 6th, 2012, 5:39 pm

Originally Posted by RWReaganfan

Your statement is not true, because they are other options. There are private schools and home-schooling.

No one forces children to attend "government run schools".

Please try again.

Why would I continue to pay for a service that I no longer use?

Please don't pretend that you don't see my point.

**historynut** · May 7th, 2012, 1:03 pm

Originally Posted by RWReaganfan

In regards to that school, they have changed the students!

Didn't I say:

"You have to change the kids to get them to work harder at their own education".

Why, yes, I did say that because you quoted it and bolded it!

As has been explained to you many, many times, you are proposing changes to a system when only part of the system needs attention. Don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Does that ring a bell?

For every anecdotal story that you generate, I can counter with my 15 years of real world experience in the field of education of which you have ZERO.

I have yet to see a student who could not learn if they put forth the effort, with the exception of those who were suffering from a severe learning disability.

BTW, what the heck are "adminsters"?

Your statement:
As has been explained to you many, many times, you are proposing changes to a system when only part of the system needs attention

And I am only trying to change the part of the system that needs attention!!

I am saying that if the school is not able to teach the student to let them go to a different school.

What is wrong with that?

Why force a student to stay in a school that is not teaching him?

I am not talking about the lazy students that do not want to learn I am talking about students that want to learn but are in a poorly run school staffed with bad teachers.

I'm not trying to put teachers down. There are a lot of good and very good teachers. But there are a few that for one reason ot another can not teach, maybe they just need more training, maybe they just need another teacher to point out where they are doing the wrong thing.

Putting a student in a class with a teacher that can not teach is wrong.

Forceing them to stay there is very wrong.

What is wrong with letting them move to a different school where they can learn?

I can not see anything wrong with having a voucher that lets a student
go to any public school in there area.

The parnets that care will put there kid in the best school they can find. The students that want to learn will want to go to the best school. All the rest will go to the school nearest to them.

**tzor** · May 7th, 2012, 1:18 pm

The notion that "you have to change the kids" has nothing to do with "it's the kids fault." To show you why I'll use an example from baseball. Young professional baseball starting pitchers aren't used to throwing 8 or 9 inning games. Why? Because that's not what they do in the minor leagues and that's not what they did in high school so they are not used to it. Is it their fault? No. But to get them to be more comfortable later you need to get them used to it when they are young.

The same is true for education. While we are not taking about training arms, we are talking about training minds and the primary function of a mind is to learn. Now there is a lot of reasons for not wanting to learn, just as there are a lot of reasons for young kids to not spend all day throwing pitches. In fact it doesn't matter what those reasons are; they all need to be reduced or eliminated. It's not the kids "fault" but they are the kid's biggest problems that must be overcome.

**RWReaganfan** · May 8th, 2012, 1:05 pm

Originally Posted by historynut

Your statement:
As has been explained to you many, many times, you are proposing changes to a system when only part of the system needs attention

And I am only trying to change the part of the system that needs attention!!

I am saying that if the school is not able to teach the student to let them go to a different school.

What is wrong with that?

Why force a student to stay in a school that is not teaching him?

I am not talking about the lazy students that do not want to learn I am talking about students that want to learn but are in a poorly run school staffed with bad teachers.

I'm not trying to put teachers down. There are a lot of good and very good teachers. But there are a few that for one reason ot another can not teach, maybe they just need more training, maybe they just need another teacher to point out where they are doing the wrong thing.

Putting a student in a class with a teacher that can not teach is wrong.

Forceing them to stay there is very wrong.

What is wrong with letting them move to a different school where they can learn?

I can not see anything wrong with having a voucher that lets a student
go to any public school in there area.

The parnets that care will put there kid in the best school they can find. The students that want to learn will want to go to the best school. All the rest will go to the school nearest to them.

Schools do not teach a damn thing! Putting a moron in Harvard will not make them smarter.

You seem to have yourself wrapped up in the idea that the location makes a difference. About 99% of the time it does not.

A kid with no background in mathematics cannot pass algebra. A kid with no concept of algebra cannot pass calculus. The concepts are usually being taught, just not learned.

I have kids that complain that I don't teach them, yet they refuse to do anything I tell them to do in order to learn. I see it every day and have for 15 years.

You cannot convince me that moving the kid to an "A" school will matter one bit.

**jkm** · May 8th, 2012, 3:11 pm

Originally Posted by RWReaganfan

Not that same old tired argument again!

It is in societies best interest to have an educated populace.

You pay for the ability for everyone's kids to go to school, just like I do. My youngest graduates in 12 days and I will happily pay my taxes until I die. Why? Because I have grandkids going to school, and their deadbeat dad sure as heck will not be paying anything toward their education. I also have to pay for kids in the neighborhood that I don't even know.

It is what we do.

Did I say I shouldn't pay taxes for kids to attend school? That they shouldn't be there?

NO. I agreed with Little Nipper that the rest of us shouldn't be stuck paying for their TRANSPORTATION. School is a STATE function, not federal. Most schools where I live are a reasonable distance to commute.

Generally students attend schools in the town where they live. Many students live within walking distance, and the others? You'd be amazed by the things many so called "poor" can afford up here, and there is no reason mom or dad can't drop the kids off on their way to work, or being a stay at home parent, whatever it is they do with their time. Obviously a parent who chooses a private school for their kids is responsible for their own transportation.

We're stuck paying for transportation. Some kids get free lunches, even free breakfast. What are we going to cover next up here? Personal home care aides for children with special needs, like in Michigan, where a child with a problem like Downs' Syndrome can have a home care nurse come into their home and brush their teeth and bathe them, instead of the parents doing that for their own children? The social worker who told me that story I had to bite my tongue to avoid saying, "It's no wonder the state of Michigan is broke."

**jkm** · May 8th, 2012, 3:14 pm

Originally Posted by historynut

Your statement:
As has been explained to you many, many times, you are proposing changes to a system when only part of the system needs attention

And I am only trying to change the part of the system that needs attention!!

I am saying that if the school is not able to teach the student to let them go to a different school.

What is wrong with that?

Why force a student to stay in a school that is not teaching him?

I am not talking about the lazy students that do not want to learn I am talking about students that want to learn but are in a poorly run school staffed with bad teachers.

I'm not trying to put teachers down. There are a lot of good and very good teachers. But there are a few that for one reason ot another can not teach, maybe they just need more training, maybe they just need another teacher to point out where they are doing the wrong thing.

Putting a student in a class with a teacher that can not teach is wrong.

Forceing them to stay there is very wrong.

What is wrong with letting them move to a different school where they can learn?

I can not see anything wrong with having a voucher that lets a student
go to any public school in there area.

The parnets that care will put there kid in the best school they can find. The students that want to learn will want to go to the best school. All the rest will go to the school nearest to them.

There are some who just don't want competition. Personally, I say if a child gets a school change once, and still isn't learning, something else is the problem. Parents should be free to choose a different school for their children to attend if they are unhappy where they are, but what child can learn when they keep getting transferred from school, to school, to school?

**WreckedParty** · May 8th, 2012, 3:21 pm

Ehh I wont coment on vouchers yet but I can say with a good bit of experience, managing transportation to public schooling solely via politics has been monumentally disasterous. ***** I wouldnt have minded if it was structured like the RTA with subsidies because it is much better than what we had at least in my state....

**historynut** · May 8th, 2012, 6:26 pm

Originally Posted by RWReaganfan

Schools do not teach a damn thing! Putting a moron in Harvard will not make them smarter.

You seem to have yourself wrapped up in the idea that the location makes a difference. About 99% of the time it does not.

So that 1% that it can help your just going to throw away.

I do not care about the 99% who it will not help.

And you do not seem to care about the one percent it would help.

I could see if we were talking about about thousands of kids. We're not.

Originally Posted by RWReaganfan

A kid with no background in mathematics cannot pass algebra. A kid with no concept of algebra cannot pass calculus. The concepts are usually being taught, just not learned.

And if the school doesn't have a teacher that teaches calculus too bad. You should have gone to the school that teaches calculus, but then you can't go to school because we will not let you.

Originally Posted by RWReaganfan

I have kids that complain that I don't teach them, yet they refuse to do anything I tell them to do in order to learn. I see it every day and have for 15 years.

My first question is do they know how to do what you tell them to do in order to learn?

I've seen students sent all the time to the library to do reports that have never been taught how to use the library. No idea how to look for a book, no idea what the information desk is for etc.

Like when you said "A kid with no background in mathematics cannot pass algebra". A student that has never been taught how to study, how to take notes, how to look for information is not going to do well in school.

Originally Posted by RWReaganfan

You cannot convince me that moving the kid to an "A" school will matter one bit.

Then why don't we just shut all the "A" schools down. If there are no students that want to learn you don't need them.

**Momekc2** · May 9th, 2012, 6:49 am

Originally Posted by RWReaganfan

Schools do not teach a damn thing! Putting a moron in Harvard will not make them smarter.

You seem to have yourself wrapped up in the idea that the location makes a difference. About 99% of the time it does not.

A kid with no background in mathematics cannot pass algebra. A kid with no concept of algebra cannot pass calculus. The concepts are usually being taught, just not learned.

I have kids that complain that I don't teach them, yet they refuse to do anything I tell them to do in order to learn. I see it every day and have for 15 years.

You cannot convince me that moving the kid to an "A" school will matter one bit.

We bought our home with the school district in mind. A few years later they wanted to rezone the schools and wanted to force bussing my kids a mile and a half to a school versus the neighborhood school 3 blocks away. We fought the school board to prevent this and won. It is totally ridiculous that there are kids that have to ride a bus for as much as an hour or more in some cases just to get to school. If you have little kids going through this they are tired before they even begin their school day! Think! When you travel and the kids start saying " when are we gonna get there"? Everything is computer these days and unfortunately there are teachers coming up now that rely teaching solely off this. I read to my kids at an early age. my son he was a gifted child. my daughter? She was very smart but she had a teacher that sent a note home in elementary school stating she had a problem reading. I talked to my daughter and she told me that the teacher never opened the English literature book. I went to the school and called for the meeting with the teacher. I asked her how she expected a child at such a young age to learn if she as a teacher never opened the very book to help them learn? I had my daughter put into a different class with a different teacher and she began to understand and learn. The schools especially in the elementary stage need to get back to the old reading, writing and arithmetic as a base to learning and working up to the computer learning. These kids are learning to let the computer make the corrections for them. The calculators do the adding and etc. I see college kids that can't figure 10% without a calculator! kids have to learn to think and comprehend. They can't do this if the computer is doing it for them. Then you have those parents that only get involved with their child's learning and school when their child gets in trouble. Then they want to blame the school. Teachers today have a tough job because there are so many that don't respect them. I taught my kids to listen to the teacher as they did me and we always discussed their day. If your interested as a parent and get involved they will be interested. it starts at home.The teachers and the parents need to work close together in order to give that child the best advantage to learning. Kids learn at different paces but if both the teacher and the parent regonize what heir child needs there is a solution. sometimes the teacher and the child are best separated for what ever reason.There is a lot of abuse in our schools today both toward the teachers and the student. There needs to be one source of punishment. The principal. it's an old way but it worked. If a child got in trouble they were sent to the hall. The principal was on the way. The parents were notified.You got the wack on the butt, not directly in front of your fellow classmates but you knew they could hear and knew they knew what was happening. Embarrassing to say the least. This alone stopped the unruly kids in class.A little embarrassment doesn't hurt a kid and they learn respect for the learning center. There are to many parents that don't teach their kids, they have the addittude it's all on the teacher and it is not. It does begin at home. A good start is the child's listening and seeing skills. what they see and hear is what they learn. The school or the teacher can be an isolated cause for the child not learning but I think most generally you will find this to be the more of the exception than the rule.

**Praetorian** · May 9th, 2012, 7:07 am

I remember those days as well, bag lunch, walking to school....etc..and the US was on top of the world in science and math.

**pubschteacher** · May 9th, 2012, 7:47 am

Originally Posted by Praetorian

I remember those days as well, bag lunch, walking to school....etc..and the US was on top of the world in science and math.

Hmmm..

So I was surprised to find, in the latest report by the wonderfully contrarian Brookings Institution scholar Tom Loveless, that the notion of America on the downward track is a myth. The data show that we have been mediocre all along, as far back as 1964. If anything, we have lately been showing some signs of improvement.

Loveless, senior fellow at the Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings, says in his annual report on American Education:

"The United States never led the world. It was never number one and has never been close to number one on international math tests. Or on science tests, for that matter. It is more accurate to say that the United States has always trailed the world on math tests."

Still yearning for the "good old days"?

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/cla...s_schools.html

**historynut** · May 9th, 2012, 1:22 pm