School Choice

[mgh80]

I understand it's a bother to make it a point to contact parents on a regular basis. Saying they don't all have the internet is a cop out. You're saying you won't contact 180 parents because five don't have the internet.

A bad response from someone and I'd contact them once more and make a note to not call them again. You've gone the extra mile.

When I say they don't have the Internet it's true.

Now as I stated every student gets a syllabus from me with my phone number and school email address-so every parent should have my contact information. I make the students rip the portion to it with a parent's signature (those that don't return it or forged a signature get a call home). That's the first way I reach out.

I update all of my contact information and assignments/announcements on my class page for their parents to access.

I call parents whose child is struggling-many times their parents don't answer, aren't interested, or are afraid to talk to school personnel due to their legal status as in the us.

I invite parents to attend conference night.

Other than calling every parent on the phone (which I will do if their kid is either messing up or improving), or knocking on their doors there's not much more I can do.

If a parent contacts me (which I've clearly informed them on how to do so), I'll talk to them and be open minded (like I said a lesson I taught a few weeks ago directly came from a conversation I had with a parent in the past). It was a great lesson and honestly one I probably wouldn't have thought of on my own-so why wdid uosnt I teach it?

My problem is with the drug dealers, the kids who look up to Pablo Escobar or Jay-Z and the apathy that runs rampant in my classroom. I produce results which is why they give me "those kids" the ones that nobody else wants and I get some kind of them on the right track. The bottom line however is if parents don't care about their child's education and the child doesn't care...there's only so much I can do. I can give them the keys and the car to get to where they need to go, but if they sit around all day doing nothing and don't want to get into the car-i can't force them to.

I understand you do the minimum amount possible because you get a paycheck regardless.

You could call no more than 3 or 4 parents a day and have all 180 contacted, or left a message for in three months and then start over. Maybe you could make a change in your school. Please don't tell me that you could not at least double the parents showing up if they really believed YOU had as much or more of an interest in their kids. Shame them into participating.

I do the minimum? Tell that to the kids I tutor (for free) after school. Tell that to the kid who came to my room last week in tears because I guided him on his way to earning a scholarship (which I wasn't paid for).

Contacting 3 parents a day would take 60 days....which would be 12 weeks...almost 1 1/2 semesters. That's assuming that every parent i call answers.

Again they have my contact information and they're adults-if they want to contact me they can. It's not my fault if they don't take any initiative. It's called personal responsibility and if parents want a say in what goes on i the classroom-they need to show up to conference night, or email their kid's teachers, or call the teachers, or send a note with their kid, or call the school. I guarantee the parents go to the football games (I do too mind you).

Believe me I don't do my job for a check (I run my online business for a check)--I actually make less money by teaching than I would if I didn't. I'm well aware there are teachers who do the minimum just for a check and it's embarrassing befaue it makes us who are dedicated look worse.

You say you don't do it for a check but refuse to reach out to anyone who doesn't come to you first.

The usual has failed. Yet you have a lot of excuses for not changing. You wish for me to believe that reaching out to parents, bringing them into a circle of communications with emails and phone calls would make more of a difference than one student is not believable. If the parents don't answer, you leave a message.

That's fine, I understand.

How is me posting my contact information on the site/program for the class not reaching out? How is me sending them home with a syllabus with contact information not reaching out?

Reaching out is done, but does no good! Doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.

That perfectly describes our current education system run by teachers unions. Keep doing the same thing and keep paying those DOLLARS!

National Education Association General Counsel Bob Chanin stated in July 2009.

Chanin: "It is not because we care about children. And it is not because we have a vision of a great public school for every child. NEA and its affiliates are effective advocates because we have power. And we have power because there are more than 3.2 million people who are willing to pay us hundreds of millions of dollars in dues...."



Says it all, does it not?

Crickets.....

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

When I say they don't have the Internet it's true.

Now as I stated every student gets a syllabus from me with my phone number and school email address-so every parent should have my contact information. I make the students rip the portion to it with a parent's signature (those that don't return it or forged a signature get a call home). That's the first way I reach out.

I update all of my contact information and assignments/announcements on my class page for their parents to access.

I call parents whose child is struggling-many times their parents don't answer, aren't interested, or are afraid to talk to school personnel due to their legal status as in the us.

I invite parents to attend conference night.

Other than calling every parent on the phone (which I will do if their kid is either messing up or improving), or knocking on their doors there's not much more I can do.

If a parent contacts me (which I've clearly informed them on how to do so), I'll talk to them and be open minded (like I said a lesson I taught a few weeks ago directly came from a conversation I had with a parent in the past). It was a great lesson and honestly one I probably wouldn't have thought of on my own-so why wdid uosnt I teach it?

My problem is with the drug dealers, the kids who look up to Pablo Escobar or Jay-Z and the apathy that runs rampant in my classroom. I produce results which is why they give me "those kids" the ones that nobody else wants and I get some kind of them on the right track. The bottom line however is if parents don't care about their child's education and the child doesn't care...there's only so much I can do. I can give them the keys and the car to get to where they need to go, but if they sit around all day doing nothing and don't want to get into the car-i can't force them to.

I understand you do the minimum amount possible because you get a paycheck regardless.

You could call no more than 3 or 4 parents a day and have all 180 contacted, or left a message for in three months and then start over. Maybe you could make a change in your school. Please don't tell me that you could not at least double the parents showing up if they really believed YOU had as much or more of an interest in their kids. Shame them into participating.

I do the minimum? Tell that to the kids I tutor (for free) after school. Tell that to the kid who came to my room last week in tears because I guided him on his way to earning a scholarship (which I wasn't paid for).

Contacting 3 parents a day would take 60 days....which would be 12 weeks...almost 1 1/2 semesters. That's assuming that every parent i call answers.

Again they have my contact information and they're adults-if they want to contact me they can. It's not my fault if they don't take any initiative. It's called personal responsibility and if parents want a say in what goes on i the classroom-they need to show up to conference night, or email their kid's teachers, or call the teachers, or send a note with their kid, or call the school. I guarantee the parents go to the football games (I do too mind you).

Believe me I don't do my job for a check (I run my online business for a check)--I actually make less money by teaching than I would if I didn't. I'm well aware there are teachers who do the minimum just for a check and it's embarrassing befaue it makes us who are dedicated look worse.

You say you don't do it for a check but refuse to reach out to anyone who doesn't come to you first.

The usual has failed. Yet you have a lot of excuses for not changing. You wish for me to believe that reaching out to parents, bringing them into a circle of communications with emails and phone calls would make more of a difference than one student is not believable. If the parents don't answer, you leave a message.

That's fine, I understand.

How is me posting my contact information on the site/program for the class not reaching out? How is me sending them home with a syllabus with contact information not reaching out?

Reaching out is done, but does no good! Doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.

That perfectly describes our current education system run by teachers unions. Keep doing the same thing and keep paying those DOLLARS!

National Education Association General Counsel Bob Chanin stated in July 2009.

Chanin: "It is not because we care about children. And it is not because we have a vision of a great public school for every child. NEA and its affiliates are effective advocates because we have power. And we have power because there are more than 3.2 million people who are willing to pay us hundreds of millions of dollars in dues...."



Says it all, does it not?

Crickets.....

I wish some of these teacher wanabees will saddle up and show us how easily it can be done and how we are too busy screwing things up all of the time to be able to do our jobs better!

 

[mgh80]

I understand you do the minimum amount possible because you get a paycheck regardless.

You could call no more than 3 or 4 parents a day and have all 180 contacted, or left a message for in three months and then start over. Maybe you could make a change in your school. Please don't tell me that you could not at least double the parents showing up if they really believed YOU had as much or more of an interest in their kids. Shame them into participating.

I do the minimum? Tell that to the kids I tutor (for free) after school. Tell that to the kid who came to my room last week in tears because I guided him on his way to earning a scholarship (which I wasn't paid for).

Contacting 3 parents a day would take 60 days....which would be 12 weeks...almost 1 1/2 semesters. That's assuming that every parent i call answers.

Again they have my contact information and they're adults-if they want to contact me they can. It's not my fault if they don't take any initiative. It's called personal responsibility and if parents want a say in what goes on i the classroom-they need to show up to conference night, or email their kid's teachers, or call the teachers, or send a note with their kid, or call the school. I guarantee the parents go to the football games (I do too mind you).

Believe me I don't do my job for a check (I run my online business for a check)--I actually make less money by teaching than I would if I didn't. I'm well aware there are teachers who do the minimum just for a check and it's embarrassing befaue it makes us who are dedicated look worse.

You say you don't do it for a check but refuse to reach out to anyone who doesn't come to you first.

The usual has failed. Yet you have a lot of excuses for not changing. You wish for me to believe that reaching out to parents, bringing them into a circle of communications with emails and phone calls would make more of a difference than one student is not believable. If the parents don't answer, you leave a message.

That's fine, I understand.

How is me posting my contact information on the site/program for the class not reaching out? How is me sending them home with a syllabus with contact information not reaching out?

Reaching out is done, but does no good! Doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.

That perfectly describes our current education system run by teachers unions. Keep doing the same thing and keep paying those DOLLARS!

National Education Association General Counsel Bob Chanin stated in July 2009.

Chanin: "It is not because we care about children. And it is not because we have a vision of a great public school for every child. NEA and its affiliates are effective advocates because we have power. And we have power because there are more than 3.2 million people who are willing to pay us hundreds of millions of dollars in dues...."



Says it all, does it not?

Crickets.....

I wish some of these teacher wanabees will saddle up and show us how easily it can be done and how we are too busy screwing things up all of the time to be able to do our jobs better!

Agreed they couldn't even tell you the difference between standards and a curriculum...yet they seem to have all of the answers lol.

 

[Spare_change]

They pay for both.

Should they be able to withhold taxes to pay for their own security force?

That's a stupid analogy, people who have no kids can't with hold tax dollars for schools, we pay no matter what.

Good point

Why should someone who sends their kid to catholic school receive a voucher while someone without kids gets nothing

I believe you're off track. We are talking about giving a voucher to students in failing schools to allow them the same choice of schools enjoyed by more affluent parents. How is that a bad thing? How does competition harm education?

The schools are not failing. The students that attend them are failing.

Then, I would suggest those schools are in the wrong business. It is their mission to educate those students, not blame them for their inability to motivate them.

Frankly, and I mean no offense, you sound like shill for the teachers' unions.

 

[DGS49]

In general terms, our national public school system is hampered by the general inertia of government activity in general, and the strangle-hold that teacher's unions have over the entire institution.

New, innovative ideas, such as those that exist in ALL private industries are a virtual impossibility in public education. We don't make cars the same way as we did in 1900, we don't farm the same way, we don't sell things the same way, we don't mine coal the same way, we don't access medical treatment the same way...but we are still sending our kids to school the same way we did when the school year was determined by the need for kids to help out on the family farm.

Local and state school boards are petrified at the thought of changing anything significant (e.g., the school day, the school year), because they know that the Teachers' Unions will throw up a horrific fuss, and DEMAND that wages be doubled in order to compensate the teachers for the horrible stresses of making the change.

Teaching of reading, math, languages, history, civics, and the arts and sciences are all hogtied by the immutable teaching paradigms of yesteryear. Even THE ARMY has a much better way of teaching foreign languages! And the only avenues we have of making true innovations - private and charter schools - are FOUGHT VIOLENTLY by the teachers' unions with the full support of their political arm, the Democrat Party.

And BTW, standardized testing also impairs private and charter schools because they have to cover basically the same material at the same time, so as not to look bad by comparison to the public schools. To illustrate, what if a charter school wanted to try "full-immersion math" for six months per year, and it was wildly successful. They would be shut down because the students' reading scores would suffer.

And I won't mention the perennial problem of the impossibility of removing non-performing teachers, because it's minor, relatively speaking.

 

[Unkotare]

In general terms, our national public school system is hampered by the general inertia of government activity in general, and the strangle-hold that teacher's unions have over the entire institution.

New, innovative ideas, such as those that exist in ALL private industries are a virtual impossibility in public education. We don't make cars the same way as we did in 1900, we don't farm the same way, we don't sell things the same way, we don't mine coal the same way, we don't access medical treatment the same way...but we are still sending our kids to school the same way we did when the school year was determined by the need for kids to help out on the family farm.

Local and state school boards are petrified at the thought of changing anything significant (e.g., the school day, the school year), because they know that the Teachers' Unions will throw up a horrific fuss, and DEMAND that wages be doubled in order to compensate the teachers for the horrible stresses of making the change.

Teaching of reading, math, languages, history, civics, and the arts and sciences are all hogtied by the immutable teaching paradigms of yesteryear. Even THE ARMY has a much better way of teaching foreign languages! And the only avenues we have of making true innovations - private and charter schools - are FOUGHT VIOLENTLY by the teachers' unions with the full support of their political arm, the Democrat Party.

And BTW, standardized testing also impairs private and charter schools because they have to cover basically the same material at the same time, so as not to look bad by comparison to the public schools. To illustrate, what if a charter school wanted to try "full-immersion math" for six months per year, and it was wildly successful. They would be shut down because the students' reading scores would suffer.

And I won't mention the perennial problem of the impossibility of removing non-performing teachers, because it's minor, relatively speaking.

You keep making these sorts of declarations, but we have established that you have no basis for doing so. You have no applicable training or experience, but you want to sound like you know what you're talking about. Why?

 

[Markle]

I wish some of these teacher wanabees will saddle up and show us how easily it can be done and how we are too busy screwing things up all of the time to be able to do our jobs better!

You see, with private schools, that doesn't happen. Parents are involved.

By the way, I do teach. I teach adults and have for about 30 years. It is a hobby and something at which I am extremely good. I also realize that there is no comparison between the two.

 

[Unkotare]

I wish some of these teacher wanabees will saddle up and show us how easily it can be done and how we are too busy screwing things up all of the time to be able to do our jobs better!

You see, with private schools, that doesn't happen. Parents are involved.

By the way, I do teach. I teach adults and have for about 30 years. It is a hobby and something at which I am extremely good. I also realize that there is no comparison between the two.

...oh brother...

 

[mgh80]

I wish some of these teacher wanabees will saddle up and show us how easily it can be done and how we are too busy screwing things up all of the time to be able to do our jobs better!

You see, with private schools, that doesn't happen. Parents are involved.

By the way, I do teach. I teach adults and have for about 30 years. It is a hobby and something at which I am extremely good. I also realize that there is no comparison between the two.

Then what's the point of bringing it up? (No I don't expect an answer, just like I never got one after you made false claims-but it's cool the silence is much louder than lame excuse would be).

 

[DGS49]

Unk,

I hope you are truly not a teacher. In a forum like this it is appropriate, if you choose to present a rebuttal, to make logical, fact or logic-based arguments. Rarely do you do that,

I spent more than 20 years in classrooms of both public and private schools. I have taught children (10-11 years old) and adults. More importantly, I have seen non-traditional teaching/learning strategies working very well many times in my lengthy adult life. Such strategies are near impossible in government schools, for the reasons stated.

Your arguments are similar to the argument that a child psychologist who has counselled parents and children for decades, is not qualified to do so because she is childless.

In short, it is ridiculous and ignorant.

Have a nice day.

 

[Unkotare]

Unk,

I hope you are truly not a teacher. ....

You'll have to be disappointed.

 

[Unkotare]

In general terms, our national public school system is hampered by the general inertia of government activity in general, and the strangle-hold that teacher's unions have over the entire institution.

New, innovative ideas, such as those that exist in ALL private industries are a virtual impossibility in public education. We don't make cars the same way as we did in 1900, we don't farm the same way, we don't sell things the same way, we don't mine coal the same way, we don't access medical treatment the same way...but we are still sending our kids to school the same way we did when the school year was determined by the need for kids to help out on the family farm.

Local and state school boards are petrified at the thought of changing anything significant (e.g., the school day, the school year), because they know that the Teachers' Unions will throw up a horrific fuss, and DEMAND that wages be doubled in order to compensate the teachers for the horrible stresses of making the change.

Teaching of reading, math, languages, history, civics, and the arts and sciences are all hogtied by the immutable teaching paradigms of yesteryear. Even THE ARMY has a much better way of teaching foreign languages! And the only avenues we have of making true innovations - private and charter schools - are FOUGHT VIOLENTLY by the teachers' unions with the full support of their political arm, the Democrat Party.

And BTW, standardized testing also impairs private and charter schools because they have to cover basically the same material at the same time, so as not to look bad by comparison to the public schools. To illustrate, what if a charter school wanted to try "full-immersion math" for six months per year, and it was wildly successful. They would be shut down because the students' reading scores would suffer.

And I won't mention the perennial problem of the impossibility of removing non-performing teachers, because it's minor, relatively speaking.

You keep making these sorts of declarations, but we have established that you have no basis for doing so. You have no applicable training or experience, but you want to sound like you know what you're talking about. Why?

.

 

[psikeyhackr]

Let's empower students and parents instead of tired, bloated bureaucracies. Why should only the rich have school choice?

The rich need for people to believe in schools in order to control education.

I have an app on my smartphone that can read e-book files.

Alreader.com - new perspective on reading e-books.

If I was still in grade school how much would I need a teacher with that app and Project Gutenberg? If anything the problem would still be selecting books that are worth the time.

So why don't we have a National Recommended Reading List? Because it would then be too easy for smart poor kids to do a better job of educating themselves than dumb rich kids sent to the best schools?

psik

This ^^^ is absurd in my opinion. It is wishful thinking which lacks understanding of the social issues of attending school and working with peers, learning to listen actively and debate ideas, and put one's own ideas and conclusions orally and on paper.

Not every child has the advantages, ambtion and intellect of Rene Descartes.

Rene Descartes had a tablet computer with wi-fi access to Project Gutenberg?

Lisa Betts-LaCroix personifies this attitude pretty well. She is no stranger to the various obsessions of the tech world—she leads the Silicon Valley chapter of Quantified Self, the personal tracking movement; her husband Joe has helmed a variety of computer and biotech startups. She has homeschooled her kids for the last nine years (though she prefers the term “independent learning”). When she started, it was seen as unusual. Now, she says, there are more than 500 families in her homeschooling group—a growing number of them tech entrepreneurs like her husband. She sees it as the latest expression of the industry’s push toward disintermediation. “We are going direct to learning,” she says. “We don’t need to hold to this old paradigm of top-down, someone tells me what to do.”

The Techies Who Are Hacking Education by Homeschooling Their Kids

Independent Learning can be done by individual students even while they attend normal schools. It may help demonstrate how bad normal school is.

psik

 

[Unkotare]

Let's empower students and parents instead of tired, bloated bureaucracies. Why should only the rich have school choice?

The rich need for people to believe in schools in order to control education.

I have an app on my smartphone that can read e-book files.

Alreader.com - new perspective on reading e-books.

If I was still in grade school how much would I need a teacher with that app and Project Gutenberg? If anything the problem would still be selecting books that are worth the time.

So why don't we have a National Recommended Reading List? Because it would then be too easy for smart poor kids to do a better job of educating themselves than dumb rich kids sent to the best schools?

psik

This ^^^ is absurd in my opinion. It is wishful thinking which lacks understanding of the social issues of attending school and working with peers, learning to listen actively and debate ideas, and put one's own ideas and conclusions orally and on paper.

Not every child has the advantages, ambtion and intellect of Rene Descartes.

Rene Descartes had a tablet computer with wi-fi access to Project Gutenberg?

Lisa Betts-LaCroix personifies this attitude pretty well. She is no stranger to the various obsessions of the tech world—she leads the Silicon Valley chapter of Quantified Self, the personal tracking movement; her husband Joe has helmed a variety of computer and biotech startups. She has homeschooled her kids for the last nine years (though she prefers the term “independent learning”). When she started, it was seen as unusual. Now, she says, there are more than 500 families in her homeschooling group—a growing number of them tech entrepreneurs like her husband. She sees it as the latest expression of the industry’s push toward disintermediation. “We are going direct to learning,” she says. “We don’t need to hold to this old paradigm of top-down, someone tells me what to do.”

The Techies Who Are Hacking Education by Homeschooling Their Kids

Independent Learning can be done by individual students even while they attend normal schools. It may help demonstrate how bad normal school is.

psik

Wait for it.....

 

[Markle]

I wish some of these teacher wanabees will saddle up and show us how easily it can be done and how we are too busy screwing things up all of the time to be able to do our jobs better!

You see, with private schools, that doesn't happen. Parents are involved.

By the way, I do teach. I teach adults and have for about 30 years. It is a hobby and something at which I am extremely good. I also realize that there is no comparison between the two.

Then what's the point of bringing it up? (No I don't expect an answer, just like I never got one after you made false claims-but it's cool the silence is much louder than lame excuse would be).

Then what's the point of bringing it up? (No I don't expect an answer, just like I never got one after you made false claims-but it's cool the silence is much louder than lame excuse would be).

Because you referred to teacher "wanabees" and I don't fit that description. I don't teach kids, I teach someone far more educated and discerning.

Where did I make any false claims?

 

[Markle]

When I say they don't have the Internet it's true.

Now as I stated every student gets a syllabus from me with my phone number and school email address-so every parent should have my contact information. I make the students rip the portion to it with a parent's signature (those that don't return it or forged a signature get a call home). That's the first way I reach out.

I update all of my contact information and assignments/announcements on my class page for their parents to access.

I call parents whose child is struggling-many times their parents don't answer, aren't interested, or are afraid to talk to school personnel due to their legal status as in the us.

I invite parents to attend conference night.

Other than calling every parent on the phone (which I will do if their kid is either messing up or improving), or knocking on their doors there's not much more I can do.

If a parent contacts me (which I've clearly informed them on how to do so), I'll talk to them and be open minded (like I said a lesson I taught a few weeks ago directly came from a conversation I had with a parent in the past). It was a great lesson and honestly one I probably wouldn't have thought of on my own-so why wdid uosnt I teach it?

My problem is with the drug dealers, the kids who look up to Pablo Escobar or Jay-Z and the apathy that runs rampant in my classroom. I produce results which is why they give me "those kids" the ones that nobody else wants and I get some kind of them on the right track. The bottom line however is if parents don't care about their child's education and the child doesn't care...there's only so much I can do. I can give them the keys and the car to get to where they need to go, but if they sit around all day doing nothing and don't want to get into the car-i can't force them to.

I understand you do the minimum amount possible because you get a paycheck regardless.

You could call no more than 3 or 4 parents a day and have all 180 contacted, or left a message for in three months and then start over. Maybe you could make a change in your school. Please don't tell me that you could not at least double the parents showing up if they really believed YOU had as much or more of an interest in their kids. Shame them into participating.

I do the minimum? Tell that to the kids I tutor (for free) after school. Tell that to the kid who came to my room last week in tears because I guided him on his way to earning a scholarship (which I wasn't paid for).

Contacting 3 parents a day would take 60 days....which would be 12 weeks...almost 1 1/2 semesters. That's assuming that every parent i call answers.

Again they have my contact information and they're adults-if they want to contact me they can. It's not my fault if they don't take any initiative. It's called personal responsibility and if parents want a say in what goes on i the classroom-they need to show up to conference night, or email their kid's teachers, or call the teachers, or send a note with their kid, or call the school. I guarantee the parents go to the football games (I do too mind you).

Believe me I don't do my job for a check (I run my online business for a check)--I actually make less money by teaching than I would if I didn't. I'm well aware there are teachers who do the minimum just for a check and it's embarrassing befaue it makes us who are dedicated look worse.

You say you don't do it for a check but refuse to reach out to anyone who doesn't come to you first.

The usual has failed. Yet you have a lot of excuses for not changing. You wish for me to believe that reaching out to parents, bringing them into a circle of communications with emails and phone calls would make more of a difference than one student is not believable. If the parents don't answer, you leave a message.

That's fine, I understand.

How is me posting my contact information on the site/program for the class not reaching out? How is me sending them home with a syllabus with contact information not reaching out?

Reaching out is done, but does no good! Doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.

That perfectly describes our current education system run by teachers unions. Keep doing the same thing and keep paying those DOLLARS!

National Education Association General Counsel Bob Chanin stated in July 2009.

Chanin: "It is not because we care about children. And it is not because we have a vision of a great public school for every child. NEA and its affiliates are effective advocates because we have power. And we have power because there are more than 3.2 million people who are willing to pay us hundreds of millions of dollars in dues...."



Says it all, does it not?

Crickets.....

You're point?

 

[Thunderbird]

Some facts: New Evidence on School-Choice Successes in Wisconsin

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

Some facts: New Evidence on School-Choice Successes in Wisconsin

From your link:

"When factors such as poverty, race, and the number of students who are not proficient in English are taken into account and properly controlled for, we find that student outcomes on test scores are simply better in the private and charter sectors than they are in traditional public schools."

Read more at: New Evidence on School-Choice Successes in Wisconsin

For those unfamiliar with statistics, that is called skewing the data to reach a predetermined outcome. They just didn't count kids who were poor, immigrants, and minorities.

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

In general terms, our national public school system is hampered by the general inertia of government activity in general, and the strangle-hold that teacher's unions have over the entire institution.

New, innovative ideas, such as those that exist in ALL private industries are a virtual impossibility in public education. We don't make cars the same way as we did in 1900, we don't farm the same way, we don't sell things the same way, we don't mine coal the same way, we don't access medical treatment the same way...but we are still sending our kids to school the same way we did when the school year was determined by the need for kids to help out on the family farm.

Local and state school boards are petrified at the thought of changing anything significant (e.g., the school day, the school year), because they know that the Teachers' Unions will throw up a horrific fuss, and DEMAND that wages be doubled in order to compensate the teachers for the horrible stresses of making the change.

Teaching of reading, math, languages, history, civics, and the arts and sciences are all hogtied by the immutable teaching paradigms of yesteryear. Even THE ARMY has a much better way of teaching foreign languages! And the only avenues we have of making true innovations - private and charter schools - are FOUGHT VIOLENTLY by the teachers' unions with the full support of their political arm, the Democrat Party.

And BTW, standardized testing also impairs private and charter schools because they have to cover basically the same material at the same time, so as not to look bad by comparison to the public schools. To illustrate, what if a charter school wanted to try "full-immersion math" for six months per year, and it was wildly successful. They would be shut down because the students' reading scores would suffer.

And I won't mention the perennial problem of the impossibility of removing non-performing teachers, because it's minor, relatively speaking.

Regarding your comments on the school schedules, while living in Florida before I became a teacher, my oldest two kids attended school year-round. Guess who led the fight to return to the traditional summer-off schedule? The PARENTS! They didn't like taking their summer vacation in the middle of winter because Disney at 50 degrees is not as much fun!. They also didn't like having one kid in school for weeks while the other kid was sitting at home. That was one thing I could not stand as my kids had different schedules. They were off for two weeks of the year at the same time! So much for visiting the grandparents! Childcare facilities wanted out of it too!

 

[Thunderbird]

Some facts: New Evidence on School-Choice Successes in Wisconsin

From your link:

"When factors such as poverty, race, and the number of students who are not proficient in English are taken into account and properly controlled for, we find that student outcomes on test scores are simply better in the private and charter sectors than they are in traditional public schools."

Read more at: New Evidence on School-Choice Successes in Wisconsin

For those unfamiliar with statistics, that is called skewing the data to reach a predetermined outcome. They just didn't count kids who were poor, immigrants, and minorities.

"When factors such as poverty, race, and the number of students who are not proficient in English are taken into account and properly controlled for, we find that student outcomes on test scores are simply better in the private and charter sectors than they are in traditional public schools."

Do you know what "and properly controlled for" means?