patrick.net

Yep, based on the results of Devos putting god only knows how much money for the last 20 years into lobbying for charter schools in MI the state now has the most and poorest performing charter schools in the country. Let's take that kind of "success" nationwide as quickly as possible.

Or the success of Calif public schools nation wide amongst the most expensive with amongst the worst test scores.

indigenous says

Or the success of Calif public schools nation wide amongst the most expensive with amongst the worst test scores.

Who is being nominated sec of ed from the calif schools? I see that in the news.

It is the dichotomy to your charter school villain.

I have to think there is more to the story regarding her schools.

Bring the vouchers already!

Straw Man says

Bring the vouchers already!

Is that what DeVos uses in Mi?

The rest of the story

https://www.cato.org/blog/new-york-times-continues-mislead-about-school-choice-michigan

anonymous says

Pick for Education Secretary Wont Rule Out Defunding Public Schools

I certainly hope she does. If spending money was the operative in guaranteeing a good education over the past 50 years, every single high school graduate would be a Rhodes Scholar instead of requring remediation for nearly 40% of them before they can assume their college work..

Did you read my link?

indigenous says

Straw Man says

Bring the vouchers already!

Is that what DeVos uses in Mi?

Have no idea. I want vouchers for purely selfish reasons. Voting for my best interests and all that.

My daughter is in a California "charter" school that uses the same curriculum as every public school in the district. If a charter is funded by federal dollars, and under the thumb of the CTU, then it's a distinction in name only. In kindergarten they gave her homework with a problem that asked her to solve for "x". Yes, algebra in elementary school. In case you don't know why that's so abhorrid, any basic courses in teaching will tell you that children's brains do not develop the ability to think abstractly until sometime in Junior High. She is now is 2nd grade, where they are attempting to teach her large addition problems without ever having done the math tables memorization that is a perquisite to such problems. In kindergarten they also attempted to get her to read by sounding out long words without ever having taught her the basic grammar of single letters. She learned how to read over Christmas break with us, her parents.

BOO HOO. Please don't defund our precious public schools!!

NuttBoxer says

BOO HOO. Please don't defund our precious public schools!!

Besides, if parents like their public school, they can keep their public school.

The beauty of voucher is that you can bring it wherever you like.

Turn education over to the Charter schools, and just make the Public schools part of the prison system, the infrastructure is mostly there, win-win.

I thought this was interesting

www.youtube.com/embed/-42hks_qvf0

Thomas Sowell said somewhere that Japan with no resources has excelled and Japanese immigrants within a short period of time excelled in the US, where as Mexico is rich in resources yet their standard of living has mostly gone up because of oil, Mexican immigrants do not excel in the US.

The point is that this appears to be all about culture.

And the US appears to have sold that culture very cheaply. Agree with or not that culture is the culture of the free market.

indigenous says

The rest of the story

https://www.cato.org/blog/new-york-times-continues-mislead-about-school-choice-michigan

Great, I trust the Cato instititute about as much as the NYT. I wouldn't get information from either.

bob2356 says

Great, I trust the Cato instititute about as much as the NYT. I wouldn't get information from either.

Excellent ad hom

anonymous says

I've been following this in the Straits Times and other news sources from that part of the world but not so much in this country.

Your own article says it's been adopted in 40 states. That's more than not so much. It's used in New England states quite a bit. I like it, it works well.

In the 21st century, ppl should be able to watch streaming classes (youtube, coursera, etc) and read books on their own. This whole K-12 system is so 20th century.

If charter schools have to toe the line of political correctness, they will just go down the toilet like the Public schools.

NuttBoxer says

She learned how to read over Christmas break with us, her parents.

Wow ! You helped teach your child ? That's awesome! Kudos to you !!

I think they might soon discover that children who have parents that are very much involved in their children's education do way better in school than the children of hands off parents. Kind of counter intuitive, but I can see how it would be true.

I wouldn't be surprised if some of the very most successful students have parents that see themselves as collaborators with their children's teachers, rather than competitors. But sadly, being in a good district does make a difference.

Ceffer says

If charter schools have to toe the line of political correctness, they will just go down the toilet like the Public schools.

This mythology runs deep around here. Surprised that you're so misinformed about this too. Care to enlighten me with examples of what this means ?

Public schools are totally a reflection of the socioeconomics of the neighborhoods. People tend to think that money is attracted to neighborhood with good schools. IT works in both directions. Great communities, families and kids also make for good schools. Not automatically, but that's the way it works. It's a positive feedback loop. In some neighborhoods it's hard to fight it going the other way. That would be in the worst neighborhoods where there is a lot of crime, poverty, drugs and or gangs, single parents, poor nutrition, bad attendance, too much stress, family dysfunction, and so on.

anonymous says

Nearly half of Indiana's charter schools doing poorly or failing.

Ambiguous. Bad conjecture and unexplained grades is not a real metric.

anonymous says

Bringing failing charter schools to heel

Also ambiguous

anonymous says

Charter Schools Cost State Twice as Much per Student as Traditional Schools

The numbers are posted and editorialized by the school office personnel, not convincing and pertains to one state.

anonymous says

Risking Public Money California Charter School Fraud

TLTR, suspect a report prepared by those who have a lot to protect, and literally control Calif politics. anonymous says

Some of these also touch on in varying degrees the amount of or potential for fraud, waste, mismanagement, secrecy and the publics ability or inability for scrutiny in general.

Very left leaning piece.

Unsurprisingly I will have to go with this chart

I find it interesting that none of your articles cited test scores.

I also find it interesting that the metric that I look to the most in matters of the market place is customer retention and growth of the schools customer base is absent.

At the end of the day how could DeVos do any worse than Obama?

indigenous says

I find it interesting that none of your articles cited test scores.

IT's a rigged game. A lot of charter schools kick out low performing students (sometimes even right before test time). They also aren't required to take special ed students, and if they are smaller, they don't really have the ability to take special ed students, especially the ones that we call resource students (students that have relatively minor challenges that are mainstreamed but given additional attention in various ways), ones whos scores are included in schooltest scores.

indigenous says

At the end of the day how could DeVos do any worse than Obama?

By treating public education as an opportunity for cronies. By killing or harming one of the great things about this country - public education.

If you are even interested in having perspective on this, read DIane Ravitch.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2010/11/11/myth-charter-schools/

She was originally a charter school advocate who worked for GWB. But she changed her mind as she became better informed.

I'm not saying charter schools are never good. But judging them on test scores is unfair in the cases where charter schools literally either don't include or even pressure poor students to leave.

indigenous says

At the end of the day how could DeVos do any worse than Obama?

Odds are, similar performance but more expensive under DeVos, coupled with healthy dose of cronyism.

Realistically, even that won't work, because all the public/governmental intervention can never substitute for the support and promotion of education in the home. Until you solve that problem, all this other stuff is just noise that costs a lot of money.

anonymous

Yanonymous says

other pertinent data from the rest of Michigan as well as other states.

I did read your articles except the two that were TLTR, I viewed your articles with critical thinking. You did not defend the articles rather you elected to attack my view point.

Why didn't you comment on my post # 18 rather than just say "it's a reveal". I'm not hiding the fact that I'm a conservative and against war.

I read and consider your stuff most of the time. This thread was no exception, but your links are decidedly biased.

As a conservative of course my metric is always the free market, of course that is the metric I want to see with regards to private education.

Based off of the video I linked and what I have read from Sowell in the past I have to conclude this is a cultural problem. Limiting this to some sort of panacea is myopic.

But considering the inefficiency of the public system...

A good place to start would be to abolish the Department of Education. Education is most effective when directed at the local level and probably umpteen layers of administration could be eliminated as well from most school districts.

marcus says

If you are even interested in having perspective on this, read DIane Ravitch.

That was TLTR as well, but I read most of it.

I almost dismissed it with the endorsement from Oprah and NBC, but it was a non biased read.

Ok so charter schools are not the answer either.

They talk about poverty having a bigger influence than the teacher. If that were true than most countries are doomed because even the poor in the US have it better than most countries upper or middle class. Mexico for instance has an average of 4 years of education. South Korea OTOH are maniacs for school they must of struggled at some point as Japan must have as well, let alone China.

India struggles because of a corrupt bureaucratic government. Which is the very reason why they have been outpaced by China.

It brings me back to this is a cultural problem.

Nobody has a bigger influence on culture than government. It is widely know that much of trouble Blacks have in the economy is attributable to the Great Society programs aimed at single mothers and poverty. It is more like a genocide on Blacks. India will never improve until they clean up the corrupt government. China is somewhat better in that department as the local apparatchiks have free market motivations for their districts.

indigenous says

Great Society programs

And when someone rhapsodizes about the Great Society I like to point out that the same hubris that drove the Great Society social engineering schemes was the same hubris that drove our involvement in Vietnam--it's no accident they occurred at the same time.

P N Dr Lo R says

it's no accident they occurred at the same time.

Sactly!

anonymous says

Nuttboxer - is the school your child attends using Singapore Math method ?

Common cra.. Err common core. Everything should be done by tens. 6+7, that's too hard, change it to 6+4 so the answer is 10. I shit you not, they really do this.

marcus says

Wow ! You helped teach your child ? That's awesome! Kudos to you !!

Point being, if we are going to pick up the slack and teach her everything, why is she going to school...?