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Detroit Free Press blows apart charter-school movement

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by LongTimeListener, Jun 24, 2014.

  1. Starman

    Starman Well-Known Member

    Chuckle now, because they'll be coming to whack your wife soon enough.

    However "criminally underpaid" she may be now, as long as there are people with education degrees working at Mickey D's, some nickel-pincher will try to cut her even more.

    And they won't give a shit about test scores or college placement or any of that crap; all they will care about is if they can get some other grunt to do her job for $10,000 less a year.

    Then she can go work at a charter school, for about $9,800 less per year. Chuckle, chuckle.
     
  2. Hokie_pokie

    Hokie_pokie Well-Known Member

    Actually, our school division is in the process of hiring more than 100 new teachers to reduce class sizes, which swelled during the recession as many positions left empty through attrition went unfilled.

    Voters also approved more than $300 million in school revitalization construction projects for many of our oldest schools.

    Education is a priority here. It's not going to become more of a priority if we all of a sudden start spending X more millions every year.
     
  3. Starman

    Starman Well-Known Member

    So those 100 new teachers don't mean increased labor costs for the district? Or are the current teachers, like your wife, taking pay cuts in order to clear money to pay the rookies?

    And that $300 million for the school revitalization program, does that money not count either? Sounds like quite a few "X million" to me.

    Sooner or later, they'll come with the knives.
     
  4. Hokie_pokie

    Hokie_pokie Well-Known Member

    No pay cuts, and yes, we will be spending many millions more as the school revitalization projects progress over the next 10 years.

    But my point was, we have excellent schools already with the current level of resources. I'm skeptical that any of the new spending will make much, if any, difference in the quality of the education provided here.
     
  5. Bob Cook

    Bob Cook Active Member

    Is the whole school system full of poor children? Or does it have a larger, wealthier base with pockets of poverty? And is that poverty endemic, or is it something that has developed in recent times?

    One thing that's very much overlooked in the schools discussion is that poverty rate of children coming in, and how much it's spiked since the recession. My kids' schools, in a more working-class area (lots of tradespeople), went from about 30 percent qualifying for free or reduced lunches in 2007 to 50 percent in 2009, and it's stayed at that level ever since. And it's not that a lot of people moved out, and poor people moved in. It's that people are making less money. (Don't need as many tradespeople when you're not building much anymore.) By all measures, poorer students come into school less prepared, in terms of such things as having been read to or hearing a wider vocabulary. Not that parents of poor children don't support schools or teachers, but the kids are coming in steps behind their wealthier peers.
     
  6. outofplace

    outofplace Well-Known Member

    Those additional teachers and the smaller class sizes won't improve things? Seriously, I'm amazed that the spouse of a teacher doesn't know better. Pardon me if I misread your post.
     
  7. outofplace

    outofplace Well-Known Member

    The thread is about the news. YankeeFan is just doing what he always does, turning every thread on education into a pulpit he can use to attack public education.
     
  8. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    I don't understand why we are all worked up about under performing charter schools, while we ignore the same problems in public schools.

    I'm also unsure why the remedies, such as closure, work for charter schools, but are unthinkable in public schools.
     
  9. BitterYoungMatador2

    BitterYoungMatador2 Well-Known Member

    Two things:

    1. Charter schools were supposed to be the cure to underperforming public schools in the eyes of many. Turns out, as this series points out, that many are nothing more than a cash grab.

    2. Closing an underperforming public school isn't as simple as shuttering the doors and re-distributing the kids. Most of the times, these bad schools are in bad neighborhoods with kids who are considered bad. Go tell a nice upper middle class neighborhood that we'll be busing in some kids from the nearby ghetto and watch the NIMBY outbreak at the next school board meeting. Just in the small town of 17,000 where I was an education reporter there was always an uproar anytime there was any discussion of closing one elementary school which was poor performing and had a high population of "those people" enrolled. Seems they want better performance, but not at the price of having "those people" intermixed with their kids.
     
  10. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    So, charter schools didn't fix all the problems that had been festering for 50 years or more. I'm shocked! We should do away with them completely -- especially since public schools have gotten so much better in the mean time.

    And, you're right. Closing public schools would be difficult. We should probably just take the idea off the table. Leaving kids in schools that have failed for over a generation is the easier, better option.
     
  11. Baron Scicluna

    Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member

    Again, where will you put them all?
     
  12. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    I've folded.

    You guys are right. My solution is untenable. It's too hard. The status quo is obviously better.
     
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