Would you vote for segregation if it improved your kids education?

[halik]

I guess one problem I have altogether with the public education system is the notion that all kids are "required" to go. Truth is that some of them have zero interest to be there, have no intention of ever doing anything meaningful and really are nothing more than a disruption for the rest of the class.

There needs to be a better way to deal with these kids. For them. For the teachers. For their classmates. In big enough cities you could come up with some sort of a vocational school that teaches real world skills...plumbing, electrical, carpentry, ect. Maybe something that will interest these kids. Pluck them out of the traditional textbook classrooms and put them into more functional learning. A plumber doesn't need to know what happens in the 3rd act Shakespeare's MacBeth. Provide them some other classroom to learn functional skills and do everyone a favor.

Maybe the little gangbangers will learn that they sort of like skilled labor, can make a career off of it and get off the streets peddling smack.

Of course that's the happy, cheery liberal in me hoping everyone can just get along.

Reality is that some kids are just shitheads from birth, raised by shithead parents and will strive to be shitheads the rest of their life making the lives miserable of anyone near them. Schools need some way to deal with those kids too without being sued.

I grew up in Czechoslovakia and that's the standard for most countries there. Smart kids get plucked from middle schools into special academic high schools (6 hour tests), not-so-smart kids go into vocational schools.

 

[halik]

Public education exists for the benefit of society, not "your" kid. The idea is that our tax dollars go towards an educated population, which has a real economic benefit. As such, schools should be relatively normalized and you should see little benefit in sending a child to one school versus another. It doesn't work that way though.

If you want "your" kid to have a better education then private school should be the only option. Society shouldn't subsidize inequality in any form.

I don't have children but if I did I would put the value of interaction with diverse backgrounds ahead of school ratings. The social aspect of schools and a child's development is understated. Any gaps in strict education can be more than covered by my ability/desire to prepare and sustain education at home. I've seen studies that indicate most gains in childhood education are done during summer months in better socioeconomic areas. Poor kids don't increase scores as much during school downtime and the cumulative effect of that over multiple summers is where most of the distance in scores reveals itself.

What you said would be true if the school portion of property tax were uniform across the united states. People choose to live in areas with better schools and pay higher property taxes to do so and as such their children should be receiving the better education the parents are paying for. Private schools should certainly not be the only option.

 

[drebo]

Schools should be segregated by intellectual capacity. Those that excell should be in classes with other kids who excell. Those that don't should be in vocational classes with others that don't.

Mediocrity for the sake of political correctness is a detriment to society, especially when it requires us to constantly lower the definition of "average".

NCLB and Common Core are prime examples of this. NCLB was an abject failure and Common Core will also be. Teachers and students need to be evaluated on performance and should be rewarded/censured appropriately.

 

[drebo]

I grew up in Czechoslovakia and that's the standard for most countries there. Smart kids get plucked from middle schools into special academic high schools (6 hour tests), not-so-smart kids go into vocational schools.

That's how the US should be.

White guilt and "political correctness" are the only reasons it's not.

 

[DrPizza]

There's a notion of lost causes. Teachers will often spend more time with the students that are excelling than the ones who are struggling. If a student is not learning at the same rate as everyone else, they're treated like something is wrong with them. They're branded as having ADHD or a learning disorder. A hard case that teachers would rather not deal with. It makes the student feel stupid and ostracised. Eventually, they too just give up trying.

Extra help is rarely available both in school and after school within the education system.
Reasons for this are lack of funding or pure laziness on the teachers' part.

Please don't paint all schools/teachers with the wide brush you seem to be using for Toronto. I provide virtually no extra help for the top students; when they come in, they know my priority is the struggling students who have to pass. THAT is unfortunate. However, teachers are now evaluated based on how their students do. Give me a lower level class full of below average students, and it's going to overwhelm my time - I won't have time for the calculus students, the physics students, the pre-calculus students. And, egads, next year, the rumor is I have two classes of very weak students compared to previous years.

 

[xeemzor]

Please don't paint all schools/teachers with the wide brush you seem to be using for Toronto. I provide virtually no extra help for the top students; when they come in, they know my priority is the struggling students who have to pass. THAT is unfortunate. However, teachers are now evaluated based on how their students do. Give me a lower level class full of below average students, and it's going to overwhelm my time - I won't have time for the calculus students, the physics students, the pre-calculus students. And, egads, next year, the rumor is I have two classes of very weak students compared to previous years.

Maybe they keep giving you the struggling kids because you are better with them than the other teachers? It's still terrible that NCLB has eliminated much of the gifted funding for schools. There were quite a few AP classes in my high school(top 10 in state), but unless you met a narrow definition of gifted you didn't received much help. Because I had a 3.2 GPA I was considered a sub-par student and constantly beat down. After saying to hell with the school system, I sought out out AP/CLEP materials on my own and worked hard to pass as many exams as I could. Managed to test out of 45 credit hours(max at Ohio State) and graduate with a 3.7 GPA in a hard major. My story is probably more the exception rather than the rule though.

 

[JEDI]

Please don't paint all schools/teachers with the wide brush you seem to be using for Toronto. I provide virtually no extra help for the top students; when they come in, they know my priority is the struggling students who have to pass. THAT is unfortunate. However, teachers are now evaluated based on how their students do. Give me a lower level class full of below average students, and it's going to overwhelm my time - I won't have time for the calculus students, the physics students, the pre-calculus students. And, egads, next year, the rumor is I have two classes of very weak students compared to previous years.

you're not teaching to the standardized tests?

the smart kids don't need help to pass those easy tests.
help the dumb kids just enuf so they barely pass. then move to the next group of dumb kids.
rinse/repeat?

edit:
and keep your job?

 

[thestrangebrew1]

This is a pretty unbelievable subject for me. I live in a 1 high school, 1 middle school and 2 elementary school town so this practice of busing is unusual for me. Disadvantage kids really get sent to another, better school for a year and vice versa?

 

[Exterous]

This is a pretty unbelievable subject for me. I live in a 1 high school, 1 middle school and 2 elementary school town so this practice of busing is unusual for me. Disadvantage kids really get sent to another, better school for a year and vice versa?

Depends on the state. In Michigan they don't do a lottery but many schools are part of a program called 'School of Choice' where you may be able to attend a nearby school instead of the district you are living in assuming space is available. Of course the downside is that it snowballs downward trends. For example Mount Clemens is now losing something like 50% of their students (and all the per pupil state funding) to the School of Choice program. Given that not all the students wanting to move can be accommodated this system means those not lucky enough to get in are likely screwed even more.

 

[JEDI]

This is a pretty unbelievable subject for me. I live in a 1 high school, 1 middle school and 2 elementary school town so this practice of busing is unusual for me. Disadvantage kids really get sent to another, better school for a year and vice versa?

yup.
lotto system.
parents in failing schools can opt for their kids be sent to better schools.

no idea what happens to kids in the better schools? do they randoms get forced out and bussed to the worse schools.
ie: swap
in which case the wealthier parents just take them out of the public school system and put them in private school instead.

or the school just takes it and class sizes increase?

in either case, the bad school's student count decreases to the point where it gets closed because of not enuf students.

it's win/win for the city.
a bad school closes. bad students get put in w/good schools and hopefully get them a chance to succeed.
and the rich parents pay property taxes to support public schools but don't use the resouces because they sent their kids to private. its like free $ for city schools