$15,000 espresso machine bought for school district

[Truthmatters]

The private schools are no better than puplic schools and this report reflects that.

Giving vouchers to private schools will take money from public schools and will increase the profits for the owners of private schools.

I dont want the funds for public schools going to the profit margins of private business.

 

[actsnoblemartin]

its a question of priorities.

another teacher's aid, or more coffee for the students.

Now, 15,000$ is simply very expensive, are you telling me they couldnt find a used one?. Even a cave man can do it .

Now, im not against the espresso machine, i think they didnt give a dam about the cost, and couldnt have found a macihne for 40-70% off its retail price.

Now, why a espresso machine?. You could teach business lessons in any number of ways. Students could come up with their own business plans, get funding, and how many students could use that 15,000 to learn about business hands on?

Espresso machine = good idea

espresso machine over 7,500 = bad idea

 

[actsnoblemartin]

The private schools are no better than puplic schools and this report reflects that.

Giving vouchers to private schools will take money from public schools and will increase the profits for the owners of private schools.

I dont want the funds for public schools going to the profit margins of private business.

Well, then...

what would you do about the problems of our schools?

 

[Truthmatters]

Its in the teachers lounge.

They chose to buy a new machine because it is a new product and the older models do not do what this new model does.

It is already on track to pay for its self and the profits will go to the general school district fund for years to come.

 

[Annie]

The private schools are no better than puplic schools and this report reflects that.

Giving vouchers to private schools will take money from public schools and will increase the profits for the owners of private schools.

I dont want the funds for public schools going to the profit margins of private business.

Actually, I would still argue the methodology. In many suburbs, the public schools may be vastly better in many ways than the private-controlling for income, educational achievement of parents etc. (my school district spends over 11k per grammar school student; 14k per high school)-parochial school tuition is under 4k per student grammar, 8k per high school. Check out the schools your profs went to for prep school.

On the other hand, where the worst schools are located, in urban and rural areas, parochial/private schools are often the best option around.

 

[Truthmatters]

Well, then...

what would you do about the problems of our schools?

Many things.

There is no one answer.

The main thing is to get the kids engaged in learning.

Kids are individuals so you need a multi pronged approch.

This is the reason school sports were started.

Music: which has proven to encrease math success.

Theater: which is a great way to teach litrature and english.

Arts: which can be used to teach almost anything if it is directed properly.

Many inner city schools have vertually no funds for these programs.

I believe we could use some of the ideas of commerce like I listed above like a school run off campus sandwich shop and or Gym.

The ideas in this realm are endless.

A dance studio, a craft shop or anything appropriate to the area which could involve increamental investment to grow the business and get the kids involved after school in healthy activities for small wages.

You then turn the results into a planned lesson.

You open up the books of the business and teach the math lessons from them.

You teach the english class from a perspective of a marketing plan.

Im not saying you replace the regular learning plan but you use these businesses to augment your lesson plan to show the kids HOW the knowledge they aquire will be applied in their futures.

 

[Shogun]

id pay the kids..

givem an understanding what it means to perform for money since that is what we expect from them after they get out of school.

let them accrue a fraction of minimum wage for a corresponding class grade of total GPA. Give them half of what they have earned each semester and put half of the money in a savings account to draw interest until they graduate... which can be used towards some form of higher education.

want motivation? there it is..

 

[heretic]

the school voucher idea is very flawed

I think that study is flawed

The results presented in this report are based on additional analyses, using statistical modeling techniques that take demographic and other ontextual differences into account in estimating differences in how attending public versus private schools relates to students’ performance on NAEP.

Ideally, to ascertain the difference between the two types of schools, an experiment would be conducted in which students are assigned (by an appropriate random mechanism) to either public or private schools. With a sufficiently large sample, such a procedure would guarantee that, on average, there are no initial differences between students attending public or private schools, and would facilitate a more controlled comparison of the two types of schools. However, students are not randomly assigned to schools; families choose to seek admission for their children to private schools. Thus, it is possible that students enrolled in the two types of schools differ on key characteristics that are associated with achievement. To the extent that is true, estimates of the average difference in achievement between school types will be confounded with initial differences between their student populations. This is of special concern if measures of prior academic achievement are unavailable, as is the case here.

In other words the scores were adjusted to make it "fair".

 

[JeffWartman]

id pay the kids..

givem an understanding what it means to perform for money since that is what we expect from them after they get out of school.

let them accrue a fraction of minimum wage for a corresponding class grade of total GPA. Give them half of what they have earned each semester and put half of the money in a savings account to draw interest until they graduate... which can be used towards some form of higher education.

want motivation? there it is..

Interesting. I have heard this idea before, and it intrigues me.

The first time I heard of it, it was actually Newt Gingrich supporting the idea.

I agree in principle, but I am very very skeptical of our ability to implement this in an honest way.