What sort of education are public school students entitled to?

[DGS49]

Marc Stier: Every kid deserves a chance; Republicans don’t agree

Before he became the great liberator, Sen. Thaddeus Stevens was, as state Representative, the author of the first Pennsylvania legislation to provide public...

www.post-gazette.com

The linked article, when you cut through all the bullshit, is proposing that the State "owes" inner-city, minority, and otherwise disadvantaged students a better public school education than [he doesn't actually say it, but] white, suburban kids. The taxpayer-funded System must seek to overcome the disadvantage of poor parenting, social anomie, and endemic failure, in order to provide an "equal opportunity" to the students in that environment who have the potential to excel and be extraordinarily valuable citizens.

It is fairly well known that some of the best funded school districts (in terms of $/Student) are in these very school districts of which he speaks. But this is apparently not enough.

He obviously rejects the current "Republican" solution to this conundrum: school choice, in the form of vouchers, charter schools, and so on. These are like kryptonite to teachers' unions, as they threaten the awful monopoly that they hold in public schools.

What is the answer? Can "we" simply provide "better" funding and leave it at that, or is something more owed, as this pundit proposes?

 

[fncceo]

 

[Ringtone]

The man is a fool. The only just solution, indeed, the only solution compatible with the imperatives of natural and constitutional law, is universal school choice.

 

[Muhammed]

It seems that the anti-science Democratic party is in denial that genetics plays a significant role.

 

[DGS49]

Alas, I also subscribe to the genetics thing. Had I been born a hundred years earlier I would be a staunch promoter of eugenics. Without even mentioning IQ data - which drives Leftists up the wall - I would ask, if you have a neighborhood where failure is the norm, wouldn't you expect a "gap" in standardized test scores between that neighborhood's kids and those in a neighborhood where the average household has two parents in the home, 1.8 college degrees and the median home value is three times higher?

Still, there are diamonds in the rough, and these few extraordinary students should not be blocked by their shitty schools. But isn't that what Republicans are saying with "School Choice"?

 

[jwoodie]

Opposing school choice is reserving superior education for the wealthy.

 

[Woodznutz]

The paradox in education was unwittingly stated recently by local teacher here speaking in support of a $45 million proposal for a new school that would serve mainly minority students. "We need these new facilities to better prepare our students for life beyond school", she said. The paradox is that education is inbred and self-serving. Most lessons are quickly forgotten, making them merely an exercise in rote, or memorizing course requirements, courses that often have no value whatever to most students. Meanwhile, what students really need to know for 'life beyond school' is soundly ignored by the educational system and has been from its inception.

Teachers plead that this practical knowledge should be learned elsewhere, that it is not their responsibility, even as they witness the gross failure of their students because they do not possess this necessary knowledge. One only has to follow a graduating class for a few seasons to realize that they were not "prepared for life beyond school". Our educational system has two duties not just one, that is in addition to teaching us how to make a living they need to teach us how to live. They are the custodians of knowledge, therefore they should know, and teach, these things.

 

[Dogmaphobe]

If our children are owed anything, it is an actual education, which by very design, should avoid interjecting political bias into the classroom.

As far as inner city schools are concerned, it starts and ends in the home. It is the ingrained disdain for education that lies at the heart of inner city school failings.

 

[Mac-7]

What sort of education are public school students entitled to?​

Whatever the parents of those kids want them to have

 

[Woodznutz]

What sort of education are public school students entitled to?​

Whatever the parents of those kids want them to have

The problem is that parent don't possess the knowledge that their kids need. That's why the custodians of all knowledge, the educational system is responsible for imparting this knowledge.

 

[Mac-7]

The problem is that parent don't possess the knowledge that their kids need. That's why the custodians of all knowledge, the educational system is responsible for imparting this knowledge.

If you mean that most parents should not homeschool their children I think most parents will agree

but that does not mean they must turn over education decisions to any old teacher or administrator who stumbles through the school house door

Parents must have the final say

 

[Woodznutz]

If you mean that most parents should not homeschool their children I think most parents will agree

but that does mean they must turn over education decisions to any old teacher or administrator who stumbles through the school house door

Parents must have the final say

Parents and teacher should agree on what kids are taught, at the very least. However, that doesn't guarantee that the kids will learn what they need to know. That's because both parents and teachers are loathe to teach kids certain things, things that they desperately need to know.

"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge." -God, Hosea 4:6

 

[Mac-7]

Parents and teacher should agree on what kids are taught, at the very least.

And when they dont?

when teachers and parents disagree, what then?

 

[Unkotare]

...both parents and teachers are loathe to teach kids certain things, things that they desperately need to know.

"...

Such as?

 

[Woodznutz]

Such as?

Sex education is a biggy. What's being taught now doesn't seem to be working very well.

As for academics if school authorities really want the kids to learn they should equip them, and their parents, with the lesson plans that are given to the teachers. That way everyone is on the same 'page', so to speak.

 

[Unkotare]

Sex education is a biggy. What's being taught now doesn't seem to be working very well.

As for academics if school authorities really want the kids to learn they should equip them, and their parents, with the lesson plans that are given to the teachers. That way everyone is on the same 'page', so to speak.

Sex ed is part of Health class, and is taught now of course.
Lesson plans aren't given to teachers, they are made by teachers. Any parent can see the syllabus for any class their child is taking, and review lesson plans with the teachers, in person and in detail.

 

[Woodznutz]

Sex ed is part of Health class, and is taught now of course.
Lesson plans aren't given to teachers, they are made by teachers. Any parent can see the syllabus for any class their child is taking, and review lesson plans with the teachers, in person and in detail.

Why not include the students as well?

 

[Unkotare]

Why not include the students as well?

???

 

[Woodznutz]

I

???

Why not reveal the lesson plans with the students?

 

[Unkotare]

I

Why not reveal the lesson plans with the students?

The students see every lesson plan, of course.