Walker takes broad swipe at public employee unions

Kane said:

Ed Schultz was live at the protests one day, but the others largely ignore the dangerous precedent set by this "debate". These same networks played the phony tea party all day, but are real protests too "scary" for big business media conglomerates?

CNN, FoxNews & MSNBC Ignore 100,000 Protesters

"All three cable networks share something else in common besides their decision to ignore today’s rallies. CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News along with most other forms of media have decided that liberalprotests aren’t newsworthy. They believe that the ratings and the money are in the right, not the left. The three cable networks are corporate owned and only for the purpose of profit. They don’t care about journalism or their obligation to inform the public.

"This is all about dollars, and the outdated notion that the most profitable way to run a cable news outlet is to be like Fox News, which is why CNN keeps hiring more and more right wingers and has hopped into bed with the Tea Party Express."

Conspiracy Planet - Media Liars - CNN, FoxNews & MSNBC Ignore 100,000 Protesters

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NPR covered the protests as well as Walker's budget. But then again, NPR is a way better news source than any of those mentioned.

cpb is on the republican chop block

in times like these many americans are convinced uncle sam just can't afford big bird

and the juan williams fiasco definitely hurt

i'll keep you apprised as things develop

stay up

The Prof said:

cpb is on the republican chop block

in times like these many americans are convinced uncle sam just can't afford big bird

and the juan williams fiasco definitely hurt

i'll keep you apprised as things develop

stay up

Click to expand...

Hurt who? Based on whose opinion? What are you talking about?

Catawba said:

Not sure I understand your point here. Private sector pay with equivalent education is already at or above that of teachers. How low do you think it is possible to drive teachers compensation for their services and still attract quality people into the profession?

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Quite frankly, I'd favor more attractive compensation when possible, including performance-based rewards for teachers, to permit states and localities to recruit and retain as highly effective a group of teachers as possible. Education is an investment. It produces a highly educated workforce. A highly educated workforce produces in long-term economic benefits that flow from greater competitiveness/productivity, including higher tax revenue than would otherwise be the case.

IMO, to the greatest extent possible, budget cuts should be focused on areas that are not investments e.g., don't produce long-term benefits. After all, a dollar of "savings" achieved from reducing education expenditures might be partially or completely offset by the long-term costs associated with a less educated, less competitive future workforce. In an increasingly knowledge-based economy, those long-term costs associated with a lack of competitiveness are growing. Unfortunately, the way governments typically handle fiscal issues is to treat a dollar of expenditures (consumption or investments) as identical, even as the investments yield long-term benefits, while consumption does not.

donsutherland1 said:

Quite frankly, I'd favor more attractive compensation when possible, including performance-based rewards for teachers, to permit states and localities to recruit and retain as highly effective a group of teachers as possible. Education is an investment. It produces a highly educated workforce. A highly educated workforce produces in long-term economic benefits that flow from greater competitiveness/productivity, including higher tax revenue than would otherwise be the case.

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I'm with you here!

IMO, to the greatest extent possible, budget cuts should be focused on areas that are not investments e.g., don't produce long-term benefits. After all, a dollar of "savings" achieved from reducing education expenditures might be partially or completely offset by the long-term costs associated with a less educated, less competitive future workforce. In an increasingly knowledge-based economy, those long-term costs associated with a lack of competitiveness are growing. Unfortunately, the way governments typically handle fiscal issues is to treat a dollar of expenditures (consumption or investments) as identical, even as the investments yield long-term benefits, while consumption does not.

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I agree, there are areas where improvements can be made. I know one of the reasons private schools have fared better is a lower student to teacher ratio. I think that is one area where we can improve our public schools as well. What specific areas do you see that need improvement?

Kane said:

Whatever happened to UFO -CIA???:lol:
"The emergence of open class conflict is exposing myths propagated by the political establishment. Among these is the supposed mass support for the “Tea Party.” Largely a media creation, fueled by millions of dollars from corporate billionaires, the Tea Party backers of Governor Walker could muster no more than a small crowd of demoralized supporters in Madison Saturday."

"Not only do the Democrats support the destruction of the living conditions of the working class, they also have no more interest in the democratic rights of workers than the Republicans. Their aim is not to defend the right of workers to organize and fight against the corporations; but to maintain a union apparatus that has proven to be a crucial instrument in suppressing working class struggles and enforcing cuts. Indeed, Democratic governors in states like New York and California are relying on the unions precisely for this purpose."

The struggle of Wisconsin workers enters a new stage

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Conservative said:

Statement in Response to President Obama’s Misunderstanding

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It seems to me, Obama has 4 ways of supporting his voting base while he's been in office.

1. Check which way the wind is blowing.
2. Keeps his mouth shut.
3. Tepid lip service support.
4. Has underlings make excuses for him.

Catawba said:

I'm with you here!



I agree, there are areas where improvements can be made. I know one of the reasons private schools have fared better is a lower student to teacher ratio. I think that is one area where we can improve our public schools as well. What specific areas do you see that need improvement?

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Class size is a red herring used by the teachers' union to increase the number of teachers and swell union coffers. A recent Harvard study of mandated smaller class size in Florida dispells this untruth:

Florida’s Class-Size Reduction Mandate Did Not Improve Student Achievement, According to Harvard University Study

CAMBRIDGE, MA – A new study finds that Florida’s 2002 constitutional amendment mandating a reduction in the size of classes in school districts throughout the state had no discernible impact upon student achievement, either positive or negative.

Florida’s constitutional amendment, which forced districts to use state funds for class reduction unless they had already reduced class sizes to an acceptable level, had no impact on average student performance. Students in schools where districts were not forced to spend their money on class size reduction improved as much on state tests as those attending schools in districts subject to the constitutional mandate. The study also found no significantly different impact on the average performance of ethnic and racial groups or between economically advantaged and disadvantaged students.

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http://www.hks.harvard.edu/pepg/PDF/PR/PR_PEPG10-03_Chingos.pdf

As you can see, the study also found that ethnic, racial groups, economically advantaged, as well as economically disadvantaged students were not affected by class size.

Florida has wasted $4 billion a year on this boondoggle.

Catawba said:

What specific areas do you see that need improvement?

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Unfortunately, as the education field is highly complex and I haven't really looked at it in the detail necessary to offer much.

In terms of more general matters, I suspect that setting and communicating concrete learning objectives and regularly, rigorously, and objectively measuring progress toward those outcomes using a wide range of tools and techniques can provide a picture of what's happening. Studying various teaching techniques (and different techniques might work differently with individual students due to differences among these students) and delivering more customized support tailored to each student might help. Sharing and emulating "best practices" might be helpful. Compensation structures (teachers and administrators) will need to be more closely tied to outcomes. Given the importance of an educated workforce, all levels of education (primary, secondary, higher) need to make it a renewed priority to improve outcomes among Hispanic and black students (given that they will represent a larger share of the future workforce given the demographic changes underway) and added investment toward that end will be needed. That renewed priority is not a matter of "social engineering" that some critics might claim, but a matter of growing urgency. Either the U.S. will have a more educated workforce at home or it will need to dramatically expand immigration to address challenges to its competitiveness. If current graduation trends hold, the U.S. will find itself in a weaker competitive position and that outcome would have broad adverse consequences that would, further undermine educational results and future competitiveness.

However, improved schools/teaching is just one component of a strategy aimed at improving student learning outcomes and graduation rates. One cannot overemphasize that educators face challenges that can be more demanding than those associated with many other fields. For example, educational outcomes are not just a function of what happens in a classroom. They are also a function of what happens outside the classroom (home, community, etc.). Students coming from a lower socioeconomic background (be it with parents having lower educational attainment, lower incomes, etc.) are at a decided disadvantage to their counterparts from higher socioeconomic backgrounds. Less learning support is available at home, because parents with lesser educational attainment cannot provide the higher-level support that their more educated counterparts can. Poverty or near-poverty might lead to exposure to fewer books/fewer cultural opportunities that support learning e.g., fewer trips to museums, and less parental attention due to the greater need for parents to work more hours to meet their families' living needs, etc. A less nutritious diet can also have an adverse impact on student learning. Mitigating those barriers to learning will also have to be included in a comprehensive approach toward improved education.

Gill said:

Class size is a red herring used by the teachers' union to increase the number of teachers and swell union coffers. A recent Harvard study of mandated smaller class size in Florida dispells this untruth:



http://www.hks.harvard.edu/pepg/PDF/PR/PR_PEPG10-03_Chingos.pdf

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I suspect that the issue is not class size per se. Instead, what is done to leverage the opportunity to provide greater attention to each student in smaller classes and how the teaching pool is expanded are important considerations. If that opportunity is utilized to provide a more customized approach tailored to each student in the smaller classes, perhaps there might be positive results. However, if the teaching approach remains essentially the same despite reduced class size, opportunities for improved learning outcomes could be wasted. If the expanded pool of teachers required to provide smaller class sizes resulted in a dilution of teaching quality, there also might be no gains or even losses from such a strategy. In short, critical questions such as "what new teaching approaches were employed in the smaller classes?" and "what were the backgrounds/effectiveness of the new teachers hired to implement smaller class sizes?" probably have a lot to do with the outcome that was noted in the study. The study did not get into that level of detail, so aside from the lack of positive outcomes solely from class size reductions, understanding the reasons for that lack of progress is not possible.

donsutherland1 said:

I suspect that the issue is not class size per se. Instead, what is done to leverage the opportunity to provide greater attention to each student in smaller classes and how the teaching pool is expanded are important considerations. If that opportunity is utilized to provide a more customized approach tailored to each student in the smaller classes, perhaps there might be positive results. However, if the teaching approach remains essentially the same despite reduced class size, opportunities for improved learning outcomes could be wasted. If the expanded pool of teachers required to provide smaller class sizes resulted in a dilution of teaching quality, there also might be no gains or even losses from such a strategy. In short, critical questions such as "what new teaching approaches were employed in the smaller classes?" and "what were the backgrounds/effectiveness of the new teachers hired to implement smaller class sizes?" probably have a lot to do with the outcome that was noted in the study. The study did not get into that level of detail, so aside from the lack of positive outcomes solely from class size reductions, understanding the reasons for that lack of progress is not possible.

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We know that Florida's experiment with smaller class sizes has been in existence for over eight years now. Surely some indication of success would be evident over that length of time.

If small class size is so important, how does anyone in a freshman college civics course with 100 students ever learn anything or pass the course ??

Gill said:

We know that Florida's experiment with smaller class sizes has been in existence for over eight years now. Surely some indication of success would be evident over that length of time.

If small class size is so important, how does anyone in a freshman college civics course with 100 students ever learn anything or pass the course ??

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Smaller classes by themselves don't improve things any more than hiring more employees in any field. Value added is key. What incremental value added is provided from the opportunity to interact with fewer students. What incremental value is brought by additional teachers. The study didn't go into those issues. I can only suspect that the State assumed that smaller class sizes by themselves would yield better returns. But if everything else remained essentially the same or worse, lesser qualified teachers were hired to help bring about the smaller class sizes, opportunities for improvement were squandered.

In general, if a unit or department or business in a company wants more resources, how those added resources will be deployed and what added gains would be achieved are key questions. The same systematic approach needs to be pursued when one is discussing reducing class sizes. More resources by themselves (and smaller class sizes are, in substance, an issue of added resources: more teachers per student) don't guarantee better results. The study's outcome reaffirms that reality.

As for the freshman civics course, I would suggest that that could be an example of applying best practices to relevant areas. If, for example, class sizes are to be large, strategies that have been empiracally demonstrated to work in larger settings might be more appropriate. An "inventory" of best practices for a range of situations might afford much greater flexibility and better outcomes. The unfolding era of resource constraints/austerity (federal, state, and local governments) makes identifying and applying effective learning approaches increasingly urgent.

donsutherland1 said:

Smaller classes by themselves don't improve things any more than hiring more employees in any field. Value added is key. What incremental value added is provided from the opportunity to interact with fewer students. What incremental value is brought by additional teachers. The study didn't go into those issues. I can only suspect that the State assumed that smaller class sizes by themselves would yield better returns. But if everything else remained essentially the same or worse, lesser qualified teachers were hired to help bring about the smaller class sizes, opportunities for improvement were squandered.

In general, if a unit or department or business in a company wants more resources, how those added resources will be deployed and what added gains would be achieved are key questions. The same systematic approach needs to be pursued when one is discussing reducing class sizes. More resources by themselves (and smaller class sizes are, in substance, an issue of added resources: more teachers per student) don't guarantee better results. The study's outcome reaffirms that reality.

As for the freshman civics course, I would suggest that that could be an example of applying best practices to relevant areas. If, for example, class sizes are to be large, strategies that have been empiracally demonstrated to work in larger settings might be more appropriate. An "inventory" of best practices for a range of situations might afford much greater flexibility and better outcomes. The unfolding era of resource constraints/austerity (federal, state, and local governments) makes identifying and applying effective learning approaches increasingly urgent.

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You could very well be right, but you have not shown any evidence to support your position. We don't know if Florida teachers modified their teaching strategies for smaller classes, or what other adjustments might have been made.

Speculation makes for wonderful conversations over cocktails, but hardly proves anything in the real world or justifies the billions of dollars Florida spent on this experiment.

Gill said:

Class size is a red herring used by the teachers' union to increase the number of teachers and swell union coffers. A recent Harvard study of mandated smaller class size in Florida dispells this untruth:



http://www.hks.harvard.edu/pepg/PDF/PR/PR_PEPG10-03_Chingos.pdf

As you can see, the study also found that ethnic, racial groups, economically advantaged, as well as economically disadvantaged students were not affected by class size.

Florida has wasted $4 billion a year on this boondoggle.

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Your study says this

The National Assessment of Educational Progress
(NAEP) scores of students in fourth grade increased dramatically over the last decade, with
Florida surpassing the national average in reading in 2003 and in math in 2005. Between 1996
and 2009, fourth-grade math scores increased by 0.84 standard deviations, while fourth-grade
8 Core classes, which include all subjects areas affected by the CSR mandate, include language arts/reading, math,
science, social studies, foreign languages, self-contained, special education, and English for speakers of other
languages.
9 Using the EDW student course files, I calculate the average size of the core classes attended by each student
(weighting each class by the number of minutes per week the student spent in the class and dropping as outliers
classes with fewer than five or more than 40 students). These data indicate that statewide average class size in
grades four to eight fell by 5.3 students from 2003 to 2009 (the change in the corresponding official FLDOE
statistics, which are calculated using a modestly different formula, for this period is 5.6). This decrease was smaller
for special education students, who experienced an average decrease of 3.4 (from 20.6 to 17.2), as compared to 5.7
(from 26.0 to 20.3) for regular education students. Students eligible for the free or reduced-price lunch program
experienced an average decrease of 5.2 (from 24.7 to 19.5), as compared to 5.6 (from 26.2 to 20.6) among ineligible
students. The decreases for black, Hispanic, and white students were 5.1, 6.4, and 5.2, respectively.
10 Average class size in all non-core classes in grades six to eight (I exclude grades four and five because of the
prevalence of self-contained classrooms) fell from 26.0 in 2003 to 24.0 in 2009, a decrease of 2.0. Average class
size in art and music classes fell by 2.1. Average class size in core classes in these grades fell by 5.4.
6
reading scores increased by 0.39 standard deviations between 1998 and 2009. Over the same
time periods, the NAEP scores of eighth-grade students in math and reading increased by 0.39
and 0.26 standard deviations, respectively. Scores on Florida’s Comprehensive Assessment Test
(FCAT) posted similarly large increases over this period.11

Click to expand...

Gill said:

Class size is a red herring used by the teachers' union to increase the number of teachers and swell union coffers. A recent Harvard study of mandated smaller class size in Florida dispells this untruth:



http://www.hks.harvard.edu/pepg/PDF/PR/PR_PEPG10-03_Chingos.pdf

As you can see, the study also found that ethnic, racial groups, economically advantaged, as well as economically disadvantaged students were not affected by class size.

Florida has wasted $4 billion a year on this boondoggle.

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I can put up more studies and experiments that show that smaller class size is a benefit:

1. Jeremy D. Finn

1.
State University of New York at Buffalo

1. Charles M. Achilles

1.
University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Abstract

"A large-scale experiment is described in which kindergarten students and teachers were randomly assigned to small and large classes within each participating school. Students remained in these classes for 2 years. At the end of each grade they were measured in reading and mathematics by standardized and curriculum-based tests. The results are definitive: (a) a significant benefit accrues to students in reduced-size classes in both subject areas and (b) there is evidence that minority students in particular benefit from the smaller class environment, especially when curriculum-based tests are used as the learning criteria. A longitudinal analysis of a portion of the sample indicated that students in small classes outperform their peers in kindergarten classes of regular size and also gain more in reading outcomes during the second year. The question of why these effects are realized remains largely unanswered, but in light of these findings, is particularly important to pursue."

Answers and Questions About Class Size: A Statewide Experiment

Class sizes matters. There should not be much disagreement on that.

Gill said:

We don't know if Florida teachers modified their teaching strategies for smaller classes, or what other adjustments might have been made.

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That was precisely my point. Critical information is lacking. I provided two examples of information that would be required to better understand what happened. My list is not all-inclusive.

The point is that without critical information that was beyond the scope of the study, there is a lot of uncertainty with respect to the conclusion. Did the effort fail because smaller class sizes are irrelevant? Or did the effort fail because other factors were involved. The answer is not known. I've given my hypothesis, but it is just a hypothesis. Putting aside the hypothesis, one just knows that the Florida experiment was not successful. One cannot conclude that class sizes don't matter, until other candidate variables for the outcome are tested. In the absence of such testing, the conclusion that class sizes don't matter is, itself, speculative.

donsutherland1 said:

That was precisely my point. Critical information is lacking. I provided two examples of information that would be required to better understand what happened. My list is not all-inclusive.

The point is that without critical information that was beyond the scope of the study, there is a lot of uncertainty with respect to the conclusion. Did the effort fail because smaller class sizes are irrelevant? Or did the effort fail because other factors were involved. The answer is not known. I've given my hypothesis, but it is just a hypothesis. Putting aside the hypothesis, one just knows that the Florida experiment was not successful. One cannot conclude that class sizes don't matter, until other candidate variables for the outcome are tested. In the absence of such testing, the conclusion that class sizes don't matter is, itself, speculative.

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Go back and read the details of the study beyond the intorductory paragraph. It clearly states good and healthy increases in student performance.

again

The National Assessment of Educational Progress
(NAEP) scores of students in fourth grade increased dramatically over the last decade, with
Florida surpassing the national average in reading in 2003 and in math in 2005. Between 1996
and 2009, fourth-grade math scores increased by 0.84 standard deviations, while fourth-grade
8 Core classes, which include all subjects areas affected by the CSR mandate, include language arts/reading, math,
science, social studies, foreign languages, self-contained, special education, and English for speakers of other
languages.9 Using the EDW student course files, I calculate the average size of the core classes attended by each student
(weighting each class by the number of minutes per week the student spent in the class and dropping as outliers
classes with fewer than five or more than 40 students). These data indicate that statewide average class size in
grades four to eight fell by 5.3 students from 2003 to 2009 (the change in the corresponding official FLDOE
statistics, which are calculated using a modestly different formula, for this period is 5.6). This decrease was smaller
for special education students, who experienced an average decrease of 3.4 (from 20.6 to 17.2), as compared to 5.7
(from 26.0 to 20.3) for regular education students. Students eligible for the free or reduced-price lunch program
experienced an average decrease of 5.2 (from 24.7 to 19.5), as compared to 5.6 (from 26.2 to 20.6) among ineligible
students. The decreases for black, Hispanic, and white students were 5.1, 6.4, and 5.2, respectively.
10 Average class size in all non-core classes in grades six to eight (I exclude grades four and five because of the
prevalence of self-contained classrooms) fell from 26.0 in 2003 to 24.0 in 2009, a decrease of 2.0. Average class
size in art and music classes fell by 2.1. Average class size in core classes in these grades fell by 5.4.
6
reading scores increased by 0.39 standard deviations between 1998 and 2009. Over the same
time periods, the NAEP scores of eighth-grade students in math and reading increased by 0.39
and 0.26 standard deviations, respectively. Scores on Florida’s Comprehensive Assessment Test
(FCAT) posted similarly large increases over this period.11

Click to expand...

haymarket said:

Go back and read the details of the study beyond the intorductory paragraph. It clearly states good and healthy increases in student performance.

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Yes, but if you read the rest of the study, it cannot attribute those gains to the class-size mandate. Many other factors were in play. In part, the report notes:

Student achievement in Florida was increasing during the years both prior to and following the introduction of CSR in 2004. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores of students in fourth grade increased dramatically over the last decade, with Florida surpassing the national average in reading in 2003 and in math in 2005. Between 1996 and 2009, fourth-grade math scores increased by 0.84 standard deviations, while fourth-grade reading scores increased by 0.39 standard deviations between 1998 and 2009. Over the same time periods, the NAEP scores of eighth-grade students in math and reading increased by 0.39 and 0.26 standard deviations, respectively. Scores on Florida’s Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) posted similarly large increases over this period.11

]A naïve approach to estimating the effect of CSR would be to examine whether the rate of increase in student achievement accelerated following the introduction of CSR, but this method would be misleading because CSR was not the only major new policy in Florida’s school system during this time period. First, the A-Plus Accountability and School Choice Program began assigning letter grades (and related consequences) to schools in 1999, and the formula used to calculate school grades changed substantially in 2002 to take into account student testscore gains in addition to levels. Second, several choice programs were introduced: a growing number of charter schools, the Opportunity Scholarships Program (which ended in 2006), the McKay Scholarships for Students with Disabilities Program, and the Corporate Tax Credit Scholarship Program. Finally, beginning in 2002 the “Just Read, Florida!” program provided funding for reading coaches, diagnostic assessments for districts, and training for educators and parents.

Catawba said:

You seem to be confusing the socio-economic obstacles to learning with teacher's abilities. The only reason private schools have higher test scores is because they have a select student population and small student to teacher ratio. You put every student in a charter schools and add in corporate profit, your test scores would be the same or lower because you are going to attract less qualified teachers, and the cost would still be higher.

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Then why don't the statistics back up your claims? My grandfather came from an extremely poor family and he went to a fine private school that was connected to his church. The school was located in a very poor neighborhood. How do you explain the great success of his private school, and thousands like it, if the kids are facing the same socio-economic obstacles of which you referenced?

The bottom line with education is that it must allow for freedom of choice and open enrollment. Your zip code and your local government must not dictate where you send your child for learning. Education must be decentralized and driven from the bottom up. Private school must not be reserved for only the wealthiest of Americans.

While trucking is an honorable profession but it does not require a college education. What do you think would be a fair compensation package for someone with 4 to 8 years of college?

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Again with the education! You seem to think that a degree entitles you to a job. It doesn't. It doesn't automatically entitle you to a job that pays higher than a garbage man. Those decisions rest on the demand and supply of labor.

Just oe thing, for every private school you mention that worked, you can find one that didn;t if yoyu look. I know one in Mississippi that did not work. But always remember a private school is under no obligation to take anyone. Even if they are not selective based on priledge or academic success, they can still say no in terms of number or to displine problems or any number of problems the public school MUST take.

Boo Radley said:

Just oe thing, for every private school you mention that worked, you can find one that didn;t if yoyu look. I know one in Mississippi that did not work. But always remember a private school is under no obligation to take anyone. Even if they are not selective based on priledge or academic success, they can still say no in terms of number or to displine problems or any number of problems the public school MUST take.

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But ultimately, shouldn't there be free choice? I never claimed that private schools were perfect by any measure. I have claimed that private schools generally see better results than public schools and this is accurate.

Boo Radley said:

Just oe thing, for every private school you mention that worked, you can find one that didn;t if yoyu look. I know one in Mississippi that did not work. But always remember a private school is under no obligation to take anyone. Even if they are not selective based on priledge or academic success, they can still say no in terms of number or to discipline problems or any number of problems the public school MUST take.

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By the way, there are plenty of private schools that accept children regardless of income and/or disciplinary problems. In fact, many public schools are forced to send troubled youth to an almost private academy that mirrors the structure of a charter school.

Second, public schools are accountable to several dozen layers of bureaucratic boards, trusts, commissions, etc. who are in turn accountable to politicians who are in turn accountable to their constituents. For a public school, a parent must jump through several dozen hoops in order to voice their opinions and/or concerns and simply pray that their voices are heard.

Private schools, on the other hand, are almost directly accountable to the parent. Since the parent is the basic consumer of the education (in a way), they ought to have more power over their purchasing decisions.

ElijahGalt said:

But ultimately, shouldn't there be free choice? I never claimed that private schools were perfect by any measure. I have claimed that private schools generally see better results than public schools and this is accurate.

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Actually that would be incorrect. Private, unlike public schools, siimply expel their lowest performers so as to show on paper that they are doing better. I don't know of any study which has corrected for this practice so you cannot claim they do better.

CriticalThought said:

Actually that would be incorrect. Private, unlike public schools, siimply expel their lowest performers so as to show on paper that they are doing better. I don't know of any study which has corrected for this practice so you cannot claim they do better.

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That is a generalization without a lot of evidence. I don't deny that there are some schools which expel troubled youth and/or the lowest performers, but it would completely inaccurate to generalize all private and charter schools and claim that they all do this. I would argue that the majority do not do such a thing. Private schools are incredibly diverse. There are private learning centers that were created specifically to help under-performing youth achieve better results.

ElijahGalt said:

By the way, there are plenty of private schools that accept children regardless of income and/or disciplinary problems. In fact, many public schools are forced to send troubled youth to an almost private academy that mirrors the structure of a charter school.

Second, public schools are accountable to several dozen layers of bureaucratic boards, trusts, commissions, etc. who are in turn accountable to politicians who are in turn accountable to their constituents. For a public school, a parent must jump through several dozen hoops in order to voice their opinions and/or concerns and simply pray that their voices are heard.

Private schools, on the other hand, are almost directly accountable to the parent. Since the parent is the basic consumer of the education (in a way), they ought to have more power over their purchasing decisions.

Click to expand...

And I did not say there wan't. And I specifically made a point of noting that such could be accepted and they could still discriminate for other reasons, making them different than a public school that could not.

And this direct accountability in part is do to this ability to discriminate. The private school can decide the size, who they will accept and be rid of, and so on. Public schools can't do any of that, so it is more than just the layers, though I've never had any problem being heard at any of the public schools my children went to.