Chicago Mayor Calls For "Brainiac High"

theodp writes "In a private lunch with Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, BusinessWeek's Michael Arndt was taken aback by the mayor's candid monologues against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the failure of public schools — Chicago's included — to adequately train kids today in technology, math, and science. Among the education fixes Daley said he's contemplating are a fifth year of high school and elite math and science academies for Chicago's brainiest students. Endless wars that divert hundreds of billions a year from schools and job training are also undermining America's competitiveness, Daley added, wondering where the public outrage is."

Comments

Schools vs. Killing brown people

[koreaman]

Thank god at least one elected official has some sense of priorities...

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Rockoon]

Except that his message is to throw more money at schools as if that will fix the problem.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that his message is to throw more money at schools as if that will fix the problem.

Actually, his message hints at an end to the "social promotion" and "everyone is equal" memes that has plagued the system. If he thinks he can do that with more money, then by all means please. We just had an article about Jaime Escalante who was a pioneer of that braniac concept, who was forced out by the union for promoting "inequality" (especially among teachers). He tried again at other public schools but was unable to hire the quality of teacher he needed for his program to work.... apparently "those who can" got paid big money for "doing".

Of course, Daley being Daley, I'm sure the money will quickly disappear into people's pockets never to be seen again.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[introspekt.i]

But, but, some people are more equal than others!

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[PopeRatzo]

Except that his message is to throw more money at schools as if that will fix the problem.

Like it or not, there's no such thing as a school that couldn't do a better job educating kids with more money. It does take money to teach kids. The more the better.

People point to public schools and say "See, they spend more money and don't get better results" than private schools.

What those people don't take into account is that private schools self-select their students based on social and economic measures, and start off with better students. Further, unlike the public schools, private schools are not required to take the most difficult cases: students with learning disabilities, physical disabilities, behavioral problems. Public schools MUST take those students, and that's where a huge amount of the funding in public schools goes.

Anybody who parrots the right-wing talking point that the problem is teachers unions has never taught in both public and private schools. I taught in both systems, back when I was working my way through grad-school in the 80s, and was on the school board for both my daughter's k-8 and high schools. She went to public schools here in Chicago and got a first-rate education (she's in grad school now). Chicago is supposedly "ground zero" for a school system that is dysfunctional because of the teachers' union, and I can tell you from direct experience that's not the problem.

The problems are many, but at the top are funding, shitty parenting, a growing socially and economically-impoverished underclass (thank you Ronald Reagan) and a society that is increasingly anti-education (thank you, Fox News).

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[$RANDOMLUSER]

This is Daley, he'll say anything to get more votes the idiots who live in Chicago.

Perhaps if he had his way, you and your ilk would be able to troll in complete, comprehensible sentences.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[russotto]

Like it or not, there's no such thing as a school that couldn't do a better job educating kids with more money.

There are, however, such things as schools that will not do a better job educating kids if given more money.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[0xdeadbeef]

Except that his message is to throw more money at schools as if that will fix the problem.

Yeah. You'd think they'd have learned their lesson from the failure of capitalism. When will people learn, incentives don't work!

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Anonymous Coward]

Bout time someone mentions parenting! Parents who choose to send kids to private school, despite higher costs, have a clue that having a decent education is important. (and the private schools benefit from having students whose parents tend to be intellectually smarter, generally leading to smarter kids.

As to thanking Ronald Reagan, it's the "trickle down" theory of economics at its best...rich people will tinkle down on poor people...err, trickle down. Whatever happened to that HBO documentary on Ronald Reagan that HBO was prevented from airing, even thought they paid for the production? Without the education of the people about the decisions that have had long lasting effects, how can people make more intelligent choices?

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Anonymous Coward]

If common sense (like Daley's) does not take over soon we shall have weapons generally smarter than people (the weapons industry has been for quite some time now, feeding on the bloodshed), continuous war in the streets instead of solutions to the world's problems. Pres. Eisenhower after WWII warned against the "military industrial complex". He is not with us anymore. Nazis and commies are gone, so what now ? Find WMDs ? Or go after the real daily killers like disease, traffic, drugs, poverty, ignorance, illiteracy ?

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[spune]

I went to the Illinois state-run brainiac school (IMSA) upon which Daley is dreaming -- let me tell you, this is not the model that will help Chicago's education program. These elite schools spend exorbitantly on a small crop of students, giving them (myself included) a fucking awesome education while students who didn't make the cut are stuck in the ineffectual morass of public high schools.

To really solve Chicago's education problem, you have to prioritize the schools that cater to the very worst students; it makes no sense to spend more money on students who are already succeeding.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Anonymous Coward]

Daley's probably just making this statement to hide the public outrage over the Gerrymandering charges.

For those who haven't heard about this issue, renovations at O'Hare airport are necessitating the move of graves at a nearby cemetery. Apparently a couple of the tombstones might be crossing the dividing line between voting wards.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[commodore64_love]

>>>his message hints at an end to the "social promotion" and "everyone is equal" memes that has plagued the system

But that's not enough. You also need to start FIRING people just like in private industry people get fired for pisspoor conduct, or whole businesses go bankrupt (like Circuit City). Under the current system you have school principals who literally think, "It doesn't matter if my students don't learn shit. I am guaranteed this job for life, so I can just slack off and not improve the education." It is the thinking of a monopoly.

Therefore I propose a PRO-CHOICE solution (ya know... "pro-choice", like Daley and other Democrats claim to support, but keep pushing one-size-fits-all monopolies, like Uncle Sam Hospitals):

- Don't like your school? Think having water leaking through class roofs sucks?
- Fine.
- We the politicians will let you choose any other government school you wish (I hear the suburban schools are superior quality). In exchange we will make you exempt from the School Tax. The ~$3000 you save can then be used to pay that out-of-district school's tuition.*

- And Theroofs'R'Collpsin' High School that sucks so bad, no students want to go there? Shut it down. Like Circuit City. If customers don't like your school/store enough to attend, choosing to take their business to another school, then there's no reason to allow it to continue. Layoff the administrators just like engineers, programmers, and other workers get laid off during hard times.

- Pro-Choice and Competitive.
- Break the back of the monopoly.
Monopolies (comcast, microsoft, verizon) are the opposite of progress.

*
* I don't know what it's like in other states, but in my state if you go to a neighboring school district you get charged tuition. If for example I decided to quit Annapolis High and goto Baltimore High instead, then I'd have to pay an annual tuition, even though both are government schools.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[countertrolling]

Funny.. I never heard him complain about the wars during Bush's term... Is this some kind of cheap shot, or did he have an epiphany?

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[CrimsonAvenger]

Yeah. You'd think they'd have learned their lesson from the failure of capitalism. When will people learn, incentives don't work!

The problem isn't that incentives don't work. It's understanding what you're encouraging. If the kids in this school fail, the teachers get more money. If the kids in this school succeed, the teachers don't get more money.

Hmm, looks to me like you're encouraging the teachers to produce kids who fail (thus producing more money for the teachers).

Alternatively, you can argue that the teachers don't get the extra money, the SCHOOL gets the extra money, for more teachers, etc, etc.

Which encouraged the principals to produce kids who fail, since that builds his little empire....

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[ArcherB]

Thank god at least one elected official has some sense of priorities...

Am I the only one here that remembers that those "Brown People", as you call them, from Afghanistan killed us first? You can argue Iraq all day, but we were attacked by people indoctrinated, trained, and equipped in Afghanistan. When we are attacked, we respond. If you disagree with that, you're nothing more than a fucking momma's boy pussy!

That's right, I just called you and anyone else who has a problem with us in Afghanistan, a momma's boy pussy. See, I can do that because if you don't think we should fight back when someone kills 3000 of our civilians, then you certainly won't respond when someone calls you names, especially when they are true. If you did, you'd be a hypocrite, liar and a momma's boy pussy.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[toastar]

Daley's probably just making this statement to hide the public outrage over the Gerrymandering charges.

For those who haven't heard about this issue, renovations at O'Hare airport are necessitating the move of graves at a nearby cemetery. Apparently a couple of the tombstones might be crossing the dividing line between voting wards.

If you have people voting from their graves, you might have a bigger problem then where the district line is drawn?

or am i missing something?

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Attila Dimedici]

This is the man who inherited the mayor-ship from his father. His only sense of priorities is maintaining and expanding his own power. Saying he has a sense of priorities that makes sense is like saying that President Mugabe of Zimbabwe has his priorities right when he calls for more food production in that country. He is one of the people who created the problem.
Of course the other problem with what he said is that the money spent on the military (including the wars it has fought) doesn't come from a level of government that has any business being involved in education.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[koreaman]

I am in favor of the war in Afghanistan. (has nothing to do with the skin color of the people involved.)

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Anonymous Coward]

Man, I love the internet.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Ant P.]

indoctrinated, trained, and equipped in Afghanistan

By whom?

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Attila Dimedici]

No, I point to public schools that spend more money than other public schools and get worse results. I am pretty sure if you take the top 10 schools in spending per pupil the majority will be among the bottom 10 schools as far as actually educating students goes. Washington DC school district is among the worst schools in the country and yet they spend more per pupil than just about any other public school district in the country.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Anonymous Coward]

Like it or not, there's no such thing as a school that couldn't do a better job educating kids with more money.

There are, however, such things as schools that will not do a better job educating kids if given more money.

It always amazes me that this isn't more obvious. Doubling the salaries of poor quality 30k teachers does not produce good quality 60k teachers, but the same poor teachers with inflated salaries. Unions contribute to this in that they seek to limit teacher turnover from year to year. So in a school that only averages 2-3% turnover year to year, doubling salaries will produce results, but only after a decade or so. In contrast, were the old school closed down and a new one opened with the new salary rate, and management given the ability to deny roll-over from the previous school, I can imagine the result would be quite different.

(why is "brown people" a part of the parent? It's silly and distracting.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Venik]

Except that his message is to throw more money at schools as if that will fix the problem.

I actually read the linked article and it would seem that the mayor's suggestion is in fact to throw more money but not at schools in general but at the most gifted students. Unlike the current populist approach to education, this simple idea recognizes the fact that most children have no talent, will not complete college education, and, despite what their parents may hope for, will never amount to anything in a any way remarkable. If there is a limited amount of money to be spent on education, one should spend it on students that can take full advantage of extra tutoring. This would not address America's retarded education system, but at least it will allow the country to keep its head above water in science and technology without relying quite as much on the imported brains.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Anonymous Coward]

lol'd

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[trapnest]

OS 10.6 requires 1 gigabyte; no exceptions. But WIN7 runs well on just 256 MB. Apple OS appears 4x as "bloated" as MSOS.

The 1GB requirement is so the OS will very well. It's just using the recommended requirement as the min requirement.

PS I agree with your post.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Anonymous Coward]

There are, however, such things as schools that will not do a better job educating kids if given more money.

So you're suggesting we should not give additional funds to any schools, because of the claim that there are kids in some schools who mightn't benefit from additional funding as much as others?

And I bet you still wonder why people are appalled by Randists...

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that his message is to throw more money at schools as if that will fix the problem.

I agree, his solution is just another problem. Why should stealing for his agendas be so much better than stealing for any other agenda. Stop all stealing and support Voluntaryism.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd say 95% of the problem is shitty parenting/peers environment. But it's spoken about like it's only 5% of the issue. How can anyone learn at all in such a supportless environment? They can't; and they won't--no matter how much the teachers are paid, or how nice the laptop software becomes. Until there are laws forcing parental responsibility (pipe dream), this problem will exist.

I respectfully disagree, "more money" is bubble gum on a Hoover dam crack.
 

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Redlazer]

I went to a totally normal school in Cape Coral, Florida.

I made it out, I'm assuming, an intelligent person capable of thinking for myself.

My school was hardly anything special, however, I had just enough amazing teachers at just the right time to get me where I am now, among many other variables.

I suppose my point is that the teachers are the ones who can affect us. If you're throwing more money at schools, give it ONLY to the teachers who deserve it.

Admittedly, I also have two parents who gave me the tools and put me in a position to be affected by the good teachers I had. It's not an easy solution, but it can be done, and yes, the school system is where the magic happens. Those 12 years need to radically change.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Anonymous Coward]

The undead are Daley's biggest supporters in Chicago.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[jbengt]

I am pretty sure if you take the top 10 schools in spending per pupil the majority will be among the bottom 10 schools as far as actually educating students goes.*

And I'm pretty sure you'd be dead wrong.*

The top public schools in the Chicago area are in some of the wealthiest suburbs, and they spend a lot of money per student.


*citation needed

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Anonymous Coward]

Come visit the great state of North Carolina I will correct your idea that more money is the way to fix it. The problem is the students, parents, AND teachers. I know of at least 10 people that graduated from high school with the inability to read and do simple math. This is from knowing many people from all parts of the NC school system across the state. Who is at fault here? All three groups are to blame, the students, the parents, AND the teachers. None of the three groups wants to take responsibility that they have done anything wrong. I have also known many from the *SAME* system who have top notch educations. Guess what, the ones who took control of their lives (or were forced to be parents or teachers) got (and sit down for this) an education.

money != education. Never has never will. Responsibility for learning things (such as doing your homework and being challenged to do better) has. Now with that it does take money to run schools. But just pumping money into a system with no sort of responsibility as to how it is spent is just dumb as well. Much like putting computers in class rooms with no instruction to use them or software is dumb as well.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Anonymous Coward]

The average IQ of both cites went up.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you control for the particulars of the student body...and their parents?

Cuz you know what Washington DC also has? One of the worst populations ever.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Totenglocke]

Like it or not, there's no such thing as a school that couldn't do a better job educating kids with more money. It does take money to teach kids.

In general, you're correct. However, the problem with US public schools is the Department of Education and all the useless bureaucracy that goes along with it. The majority of money never gets close to a school because of all the useless administration jobs that don't do a thing to improve education, yet cost millions of dollars a year. We need to cut the bureaucracy and put the money tagged for education in the schools so that it actually goes towards education.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[gartogg]

People supported and sheltered by the Afghani government. The Taliban funded Al-Qaeda, at least implicitly by allowing them free reign over parts of the countryside, then refused to hand over Bin Laden when we found he was responsible for the attacks. We invaded. Simple.

If I pay for something, support it, and refuse to even admit I was wrong when confronted, I should be held responsible.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Anonymous Coward]

In exchange we will make you exempt from the School Tax. The ~$3000 you save can then be used to pay that out-of-district school's tuition

Round these parts, my ISD property tax is about $900/yr. Not going to get much of any tuition paid for that.

It's hilarious watching people rant pro-vouchers (which is kind of what you're offering, except you still pay your taxes but you get a voucher to whatever school you want public or private). It'd basically amount to a discount for the wealthy, everyone who can afford to put their kids through private school already does. The public schools would lose that money but still have to teach the same kids, so they'll just get worse and worse.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[jbengt]

This is the man who inherited the mayor-ship from his father.

Considering that this is the man who lost his first try at getting elected to Mayor in the Democratic primary, and that there were 6* different mayors in the time between the father was mayor and the son first got elected, I'd say it's a little more complicated than that. The grain of truth in your statement is that the voters really liked Daley the father (don't know why, I never voted for him) and that did help the son somewhat.

* 3 were elected and 3 were appointed to or rose to the position when the incumbent mayor died. I had only remembered 4 at first - Bilandic, Byrne, Washington, and Sawyer, but Wikipedia reminded me of the very brief tenures of Wilson Frost when Richard J Daley died and David Orr when Harold Washington died.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Rockoon]

I taught in both systems, back when I was working my way through grad-school in the 80s, and was on the school board for both my daughter's k-8 and high schools.

Translation: "The circles I was in always said they needed more money!"

ummm.... duh? of course they did. With few exceptions, everyone wants more money.

Do not simply declare that more money will help. Please explain how more money will help, and then we can tell you if you are full of shit or not.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[countertrolling]

Am I the only one here that remembers that those "Brown People", as you call them, from Afghanistan killed us first?

You mean to say you have irrefutable, concrete evidence of this? Because I sure haven't seen any. And I would bet that the vast majority of people haven't either. All we have are statements by a government that has every reason to lie and distract attention from other issues that were present at the time. But I guess that everybody who doesn't play along is a pussy. In that case being a pussy is a good thing. And I'm proud to be one.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[countertrolling]

People supported and sheltered by the Afghani government. The Taliban funded Al-Qaeda, at least implicitly by allowing them free reign over parts of the countryside, then refused to hand over Bin Laden when we found he was responsible for the attacks.

[citation needed] - show some real evidence, not government issued press releases.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[PopeRatzo]

Come visit the great state of North Carolina

Not until I get some guarantees that a group of guys with banjos and bad teeth aren't going to butt-rape me with Confederate flags.

Until then, I'll stay well North of the Mason-Dixon, thanks just the same, Bubba.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[PopeRatzo]

However, the problem with US public schools is the Department of Education

I'm sorry, but that's nothing but a right-wing talking point. The same Department of Education administers to excellent schools and terrible schools, so clearly, that's not the problem.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[ShakaUVM]

All the research shows that spending more money on schools, contrary to the talking points you parroted, doesn't improve educational outcomes, unless the money is actually spent on removing a barrier that money can fix. For example, not having a late bus for kids in the afterschool program actually meets a need. Paying starting teachers 65000 dollars? Not so much.

Naturally, Unions, which are part of the problem, say the opposite. And why wouldn't they?

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[aekafan]

our 3000 versus 500000. a little lopsided to me at. If you really slaughtering them is so brave, then why don't you and all of you chinckenshit war hawks go over there go over there and earn your own grave. Country would be better off for it.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Colonel Korn]

Except that his message is to throw more money at schools as if that will fix the problem.

Hey, for once he's not just trying to throw public money to himself, his wife, or organized crime (unless he and his wife are going to start a mafia-tied tutoring service). And his proposal here isn't even illegal...what happened to the real Daley?

see, for instance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meigs_Field#Closure

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Dr. Hellno]

I have a problem with you failing in Afghanistan in order to pursue a nonsense invasion in Iraq. If you didn't want to focus on the real threat, you shouldn't have asked other countries to come along.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[DarthBart]

Well, we know its a bad troll. Everyone knows its not the *live* people in Chicago who vote.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Amiga Trombone]

Like it or not, there's no such thing as a school that couldn't do a better job educating kids with more money. It does take money to teach kids. The more the better.

Two words: Kansas City.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I point to public schools that spend more money than other public schools and get worse results.

No shit. The single most accurate predictor of how a school will perform is it's ethnic composition. Money spent is a surprisingly poor one. Not that you're likely to hear that trumpeted on the evening news.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Anonymous Coward]

However,

I think it is wrong to say that children in public schools are incapable of learning. Several comments apparently posted by MTA members in response to articles published by the Boston Globe seem to indicate that it is not the fault of the MTA. They place the blame on the children living in Boston
The teachers in Boston receive the highest pay in the state and have children that fail to pass a lot of the tests. The teachers have guided the worst results in our state while receiving the highest compensation.

I have seen the movie regarding the teacher in California and read several books related to the educational theory.

The unions are moribund and resistant to change. They prefer to concoct their own witch's brew instead of teaching materials that the children require so that they can excel on the MCAS. The teachers talk about "not teaching to the test." They lash out at GWB and hail his act as the worse thing to hit education. GWB's bill simply provided us with numbers so that we can see the dismal results. Today, teachers prefer curriculum developed by a "co-ordinator." They never develop a plan of action to teach the required materials to the children in the best manner for which the children would absorb these things.

Before GWB's NCLA the teachers had been pushing their own standardized core codes. They had pushed for teacher licensing, which prevents new teachers from rapidly assimilating. The teacher licensing system is designed to capture students from teaching colleges. Several state schools produce the teacher corps; these schools have less then stellar track records. It is impossible for a Harvard graduate with a degree in Biology(perhaps a masters or a phd) to simply walk into a MASS school and start teaching biology.

I would really think that a PhD candidate or Masters candidate in a liberal arts field would have an idea on how to prepare papers, develop the class structure, and evaluate the students. Plus, I think that they would have a better grasp on the subject matter. How many English PhD's do you know that have failed to obtain a job as an English Professor? Isn't the public school opportunity ripe for them?

Not right now.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[bpkiwi]

So, while you appear to agree that offering a higher wage results will result in better teachers (since it will increase the number of people willing to to the job, and thus increase competition and quality), you think we shouldn't do it because it will take a while to work??

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[chentiangemalc]

actually i think parenting is the top problem, not the schooling. parents have a major influence over kids development, and some people may seem to expect the school to just 'take care of everything' top students don't necessarily need to be at top schools, they spend more time at home learning, that is why they are top student. the teacher maybe can have some influence on inspiration etc, but if desire to continue learning outside of school is not there, then it can be a waste of time. governments always try to throw money to fix things, throw more money at health, throw more money at education. working in business we actually have to work out ways to produce higher quality & quantity and faster for LESS cost. Which we continue to do...but I can't see that happening in government...budgets seem almost unlimited...

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[sumdumass]

In almost every state that I know of which had a voucher program also had an income limit which bared participation. This limit was based on a percentage of the federal poverty level in the are just like most other government programs have.

It wouldn't be a discount for the wealthy for that reason alone yet another would be because the wealthy are already over paying. That's right, when they pay taxes to support an institution they choose not to use and duplicate costs of by sending their students to a private school, they are over paying for their child's education. But as I already pointed out, that's a moot topic because they won't get a discount even if you look at it in the most extreme light.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[AK Marc]

Am I the only one here that remembers that those "Brown People", as you call them, from Afghanistan killed us first?

It is brown people from Saudi Arabia that killed us first.

You can argue Iraq all day, but we were attacked by people indoctrinated, trained, and equipped in Afghanistan.

They were trained by the USA in Afghanistan, equipped by the USA in Afghanistan, and born, funded and indoctrinated in Saudi Arabia. And the only reason they went to Afghanistan is because the USA encouraged it and gave them support to do so.

Afghanistan is where they had a temporary base because of the USSR's actions there, but if you want to stop where the people are "from" and currently getting financial support, then you'd need to be invading Saudi Arabia. If you want to stop the people that funded them, trained then, enticed them to Afghanistan, and equipped them, then we need to invade the USA.

When we are attacked, we respond. If you disagree with that, you're nothing more than a fucking momma's boy pussy!

I'm all for that. We should start by putting Bush Sr up for trial for treason, since he funded, trained and supported those enemies of the USA that attacked. That's treason under any definition. Well, unless you are a Republican where it's ok to support our enemies (treason) as long as they hate someone worse than us - though never any thought is given to what happens when the USSR collapses and we are the only enemy left...

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[sumdumass]

Here is a citation with several citations within it. Here is another and yet another..

I'm willing to bet that most high dollar educations didn't involve simple google skills as it took me all of a couple of minutes to find those references.

Here is a PDF report that ties a bunch of numbers together as late as 2008. Unfortunately, it's in book form so you will probable need to print it and assemble the pages to keep the lines straight with the tables.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[AK Marc]

These elite schools spend exorbitantly on a small crop of students, giving them (myself included) a fucking awesome education while students who didn't make the cut are stuck in the ineffectual morass of public high schools.

The guideline is that the top 15% of students are exceptional and can get special treatment. The bottom 15% are also special and get appropriate treatment. The middle 70% are treated exactly the same. But what happens if you have tiers of schools, and tiers of classes within them? Treat every 10% of students independently and you won't have the mass numbers where they are either bored or left behind (or worse, bored in math and left behind in English). The "elite" schools in Texas, which I went to (I'll give a hint, it's been the top public school in the country more than once in the past 10 or so years) didn't have much more than others. They just had motivated teachers, interested parents, and a little extra funding for some tech. The level of funding wasn't that much out of line, and wasn't even the most expensive school in the district.

The problem I see it is that school is seen as daycare. Making someone go to school whether it's good for them or not doesn't make sense. And worse is making people go who don't want to go and make things harder for those that want to be there. Sure, you can try to address the parents and such that are the root cause, but something needs to be done to separate out those that want to be there from those that don't, and focus on those that will benefit from it.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[initdeep]

whoosh!

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[initdeep]

so a properly run voucher program, which would allow little Johnny from the "hood, to not attend his local crack infested school, but instead attend the much nicer and better equipped "white boy school" in the really nice suburbs, which all of the "rich white kids" already attend because they LIVE in that district, is a discount for the wealthy?

methinks you don't understand a properly formatted and run voucher program........

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[initdeep]

no he thinks we shouldnt do it because we shouldnt waste the time on hoping it will work.
instead, school districts should be free to fire shitty teachers and not have them protected by the union, and then if they hire a good teacher, pay that teacher based upon their results, regardless of what the 10 year veteran shitty teacher makes.

run it like a real small business.

not like the government.

if you do a shitty job you get fired.
if you do a mediocre job, you dont get a raise.
if you do an outstanding job, you get a raise regardless of what everyone else gets.

this also allows immediate turnover to those "better" teachers because they CAN be paid more if they deserve it, and not having to WAIT for turnover and HOPE you get a "better" teacher instead of just now keeping the overly inflated "bad" teacher from moving onto something else.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[initdeep]

i would suggest we not give money to schools that have a history of turning out inept students, yes.

stop wasting money on shit that doesn't work.

change the system.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, they were indoctrinated, trained, and equipped in Saudi Arabia and other countries all over the world. There's no one in Afghanistan that could afford to train or equip them. Afghanistan is just where they found refuge when the Americans started hunting them during the Clinton administration. The war there now is nothing more than a quagmire caused by shooting first and asking questions later -- we installed a new government that cannot stand on its own and requires constant military enforcement.

If you're going to try to justify the war there, at least have a legitimate reason, like the Taliban granting refuge to terrorists or their now infamous abuse of women. There's really no need to dream up some macho revenge fantasy about it.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Sabriel]

When we are attacked, we respond. If you disagree with that, you're nothing more than a fucking momma's boy pussy!

I'm going to take a leap and say that most of us don't disagree with responding to an attack. However, the least we could do is respond competently.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[larkost]

I thing that the Washington DC schools also have a major handicap that should be tossed into that discussion: they are one of the most hightly politisized school districts in the nation. The folks in Congress get a hand in many of the decisions made for that program, so they are constanly blown by the winds of politics.

Politics and the courts play a hugely negative roll in the performance of schools everywhere. My mother was a Special Ed. teacher in Wisconsin and the parrents in her program were constantly suing the school district or the state to get more special treatment for their children, who were already getting funding many times the average. My mother was fortunate to never have had to spend her time in court testifying in those cases, but only because she has a couple of administrators above her who took care of spending all that time in court for her. None of the mony spent there did anything to help a single child learn anything more.

Just imagine what it must be like in a city full of government lawyers and lobyists.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[budgenator]

If you have people voting from their graves, you might have a bigger problem then where the district line is drawn?

or am i missing something?

Yes in Chicago, many dead people are registered and vote "Mayor Daley of Chicago "found" tens of thousands of dead people to "vote" for John F. Kennedy in the 1960 election," .

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[FlyingBishop]

What makes you say this is all about money? It's just as much about attention. The president and Congress spend at least a third of their time dealing with an unnecessary war. That's time they could be looking at all sorts of domestic reform programs that would improve our society in concrete ways.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Bastard of Subhumani]

(why is "brown people" a part of the parent? It's silly and distracting.

Because nobody - neither you, him, nor me - can be bothered to change the subject line.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Attila Dimedici]

I agree as to the nature of the problem. However, it doesn't matter what the cause is, the evidence suggests that more money doesn't fix bad schools. Private school teachers generally make a lot less than public school teachers, yet they generally do a significantly better job of teaching students.
Now you can make all kinds of arguments about why private schools do a better job of teaching students, but that difference in salary between public and private school teachers clearly shows that the problem with public schools is not inadequate teacher salaries.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think this sorry excuse for a President is spending ANY time dealing with the war, you're sorely mistaken.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Anonymous Coward]

As a former member of the brainiest Chicago Public High School I can only say 2 things about this plan. First of all, by junior year most "brainy" students are longing for college. Generally, the junior and senior year were a waste of time. As for my second point, this move is classic Daley. Pretend to care about education, but do nothing to actually improve education for students at all. All a 5th year will do is increase the funds to his private contractor buddies, and annoy intellectually bored students.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[drsquare]

Actually, Bin Laden was from Saudi Arabia, and last I looked, they were best friends with America. It seems the USA doesn't care how many of their own people are killed as long as the country doing the killing is aligned with American economic interests. This is why America ostracised Cuba whilst simultaneously installing genocidal regimes in South America. If America cared about thousands of Americans being killed they'd wage war on Detroit, or McDonalds, or the military contractors.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Bing Tsher E]

Well, a problem (not the problem) is needless and excessive expense.

Which the GP addresses, and you appear to think is irrelevant.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Bing Tsher E]

You're showing yourself to be ignorant and prejudiced.

Or are you just trolling?

If so, IHBT. I'll try to HAND.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[arth1]

I went to the Illinois state-run brainiac school (IMSA) upon which Daley is dreaming -- let me tell you, this is not the model that will help Chicago's education program. These elite schools spend exorbitantly on a small crop of students, giving them (myself included) a fucking awesome education while students who didn't make the cut are stuck in the ineffectual morass of public high schools.

Forgive me if I misunderstood, but if this guy is proposing a fifth year, clearly he isn't targeting the "brainiacs", but those firmly entrenched on the left hand side of the bell curve. The smart students don't need a fifth year; they need to be allowed to complete high school in 3, 2 or even 1 year, and be able to take additional courses if they want to, without the "no child leap ahead" act making it difficult for them. THAT would create more "brainiac" winners.

Yes, it's laudable to make sure that the not-so-fortunate get the help they need to complete their education, but be very careful that you don't fetter the smarter students in the process. By compressing the bell curve, you create fewer losers, but you also create fewer winners.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Dun Malg]

To really solve Chicago's education problem, you have to prioritize the schools that cater to the very worst students; it makes no sense to spend more money on students who are already succeeding.

Trouble is, they aren't failing for lack of money to teach them. It's taboo to suggest so, but not all people are college material. I work for Los Angeles Unified School District, and their theory is that they're going to prepare everyone for college... everyone. Subsequently, the dropout rate is obscene, but they keep pounding away, trying to teach calculus to kids who'd be better served learning practical skills, like they used to teach in shop classes. The idiots in charge are convinced that a kid with a associate degree from a junior college working as a customer service rep at a rental car agency for $11/hr is somehow better off than a kid working as a welder in a body shop for $18/hr. It's all based on the ignorant bias of education academics that being a tradesman is to be a failure. Fuck people who push this universal college prep concept. Bring back the fucking shop classes. You can cite all the Jaime Escalante cases you want, but the fact remains that the kids that make it to high school calculus are already the cream of the crop. Despite what crap movies like Stand and Deliver want you to think, the ghetto dregs aren't taking fucking calculus because they haven't even passed algebra. They're stuck repeating remedial math in a vain effort to push them into academia when what they really need is to learn something they can use. Instead, they fail class after class before they give up and go get a job. The problem isn't lack of spending, it's lack of acceptance that some people would fucking love being a plumber and would make tons of money doing it.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet living in Chicago, I'm hard pressed to find anyone that has ever agreed with any of his historical priorities (as a hint, most of them involve corruption and payola). I wouldn't be surprised if his Brainiac Academy was supposed to be run by his good friend who just happens to run a private school, and is willing to start such an academy for a mere pittance!

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[koreaman]

"If America cared about thousands of Americans being killed they'd wage war on Detroit, or McDonalds, or the military contractors." --drsquare

Do you mind if I start using that as my sig? I'm long overdue for a new one.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[ravenshrike]

Of course, one of the reason's the government's so weak is because they killed the most honest anti-terrorist politician in Afghanistan several days before 9/11 in a suicide bombing. They damn well knew what our reaction would be, though they probably didn't realize the full extent of our ability.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Totenglocke]

I'm sorry, but that's nothing but a right-wing talking point. The same Department of Education administers to excellent schools and terrible schools, so clearly, that's not the problem.

If you weren't so busy focusing on stupid party politics, you'd have bothered to read the whole sentence which said "However, the problem with US public schools is the Department of Education and all the useless bureaucracy that goes along with it". I wasn't commenting about school performance at all in my post, I was talking about wasteful government spending that causes money that's supposed to go to education to be wasted on countless "administrators" that have nothing to do with educating students.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[johncadengo]

That's interesting. The GP mentions Jaime Escalante. Jaime's solution to your problem was to allow anyone who wanted to succeed to take his class.

From the reason.com article:

Open Enrollment. Escalante did not approve of programs for the gifted, academic tracking, or even qualifying examinations. If students wanted to take his classes, he let them.

His open-door policy bore fruit. Students who would never have been selected for honors classes or programs for the gifted chose to enroll in Escalante's math enrichment classes and succeeded there.

Unless the program Daley is advocating actually grows in cost per student, this would be a great idea. Larger class sizes, in Escalante's case, did not detriment his student's ability to work hard and learn.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey toastar - that wasn't a plane taking off!

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Hognoxious]

Doubling the salaries of poor quality 30k teachers does not produce good quality 60k teachers

And yet if you double the salaries poor quality 30m CEOs they become awesome 60m CEOs!

Obviously that's a bad analogy. Schools can't bring next year's grades forward or ship the kids off to India & China.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[ChrisMaple]

There is always a point of diminishing returns. Spending $100,000 per student-year to increase their earning power by $1 a year is a waste.

Another waste is intensive education of severe mental defectives. There are people who, no matter how well they are taught, will never be able to do anything more than mold clay into ashtrays. Yet their parents sue the school system to have huge quantities of money spent on them.

It is not expensive to teach most children who want to learn, through high school level. A teacher, a schoolroom, books. Yet this, which ought not to cost more than $2500 per student-year in the US, now costs about $8000. The problem is government "public" schools, which have no incentive to do well and a negative incentive to control costs.

Note that Daley wants additional years of government schooling, i.e. more money and power. Judging from the summary, he wants this especially for bright children. This is in contrast to the proper approach for intelligent students, who ought to be prepared for college in as few years as possible and then gotten out of the government school system.

Keep in mind that government schools, like all government activities, are funded by theft from victims who are legally prohibited from defending themselves.

If you'd bother to read any source material on Objectivism, the supporters of which you smear as "Randists", you might realize that criticism in this context is evasive at best.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[nobodie]

OK, i will try to keep this sane. The problem is, in part, money. The schools are horribly UNDERFUNDED. That is a simple fact. The amount of your tax dollars, your paycheck your everything that goes into public education is a fraction of what it was when you went to school and an even smaller fraction of when I went to school. The idea that taking money away from schools will increase their efficiency, make them leaner and meaner is BS. Here in China EVERY classroom has multimedia, a computer, a projector a TV and LAN to 4MB internet. Every school has a website that passes daily pertinent information to parents. For $1.40 a month I get between 4 and 8 SMS messages from my son's teachers telling me his homework, his accomplishments during the day and any other information that the teacher deems useful for the parents. The teachers are highly trained, many with Master's degrees and teach about 14-16 class hours a week. They have art, music, PE, calligraphy and after school programs for more enhancement. And it is paid for mostly by the government, although I, as a foreigner pay the real cost for my son. That real cost is roughly equal to slightly more than a 1 year salary on minimum wage, which is to say about 35% of an average individual's income. Run the numbers, they are outspending us and out producing us and you are worried about your stinking tax dollars being siphoned into somebodies pockets???? you are robbing my children and grandchildren with your greed for your pocket today. Sorry to get so cranky, but really, this money thing makes me crazy. Like what are you going to do with all your saved tax pennies? Build a school? I doubt it .

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[FredMenace]

While I agree that money doesn't hurt, that much of it in public schools goes into special needs, that comparing to selective private schools is unfair and meaningless, etc., I will also say that I think the unions are at, or at least near, the core of the problem (and that schools of education aren't far behind, because the tend to impart very little that is truly useful to being an effective teacher).

By far, the biggest factor in student performance is the quality of the teacher. It is more important than all other factors under the school's control combined (class size, curriculum, facilities, etc.), and the top decile of teachers literally get their students to learn three times as much as the worst teachers (ie, 1.5 years worth of material per school year, vs. 0.5). Fortunately, much of the skills needed can be taught, so firing incompetent teachers should not be the first step, but it should still be an option, and one that is used far more frequently than is allowed currently. The first step should be evaluating teachers (and continuing to do so to ensure ongoing improvement), then giving job training and feedback where needed.

The other problem is that so many people in the business of education have no idea what they should be evaluating teachers on, and what they should ask them to improve on. This is partly due to the paucity of good research on what works, and what doesn't.

It turns out the biggest factor in teacher success is simply classroom management - the ability to get a room full of kids to behave, pay attention, and do what the teacher asks. This alone is probably responsible for about 50% of total outcomes. Fortunately, this can be taught as a discrete set of skills, much like teaching public speaking techniques.

Next of course comes expertise in the subject being taught (which should go way beyond simply what the curriculum calls for, so that the teacher doesn't make confusing mistakes and can successfully answer the probing, often surprisingly advanced questions students can come up with), as well as the ability to understand the kinds of cognitive confusion or mistakes students are likely to make so as to be able to help the student come to a better understanding of the topic (ie, seeing it from their point of view, and saying "I know what you're probably thinking, here's why it's wrong and what you need to change to get it right").

I would rather have my kids go to a school with huge class sizes and absolutely primitive facilities, but where I knew the teachers were almost 100% of the top quality (and continuously being evaluated and improving) than in almost any public or even most private schools in the US today.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[itlurksbeneath]

Yes, it will (IANAT - teacher - but I'm married to one). Obviously you don't know much about school systems. More money in the system means more teachers, smaller class sizes for important grades like 1-6, the ability to refresh your school books more than once a decade, increased money in programs like band, art, music (in elem.), gifted programs, school activities like field trips, modern and safe playground equipment. I could keep going.

School requires a lot of people and resources to run and more money (as long as it's wisely spent) is always a good thing.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[yndrd1984]

The average IQ of both cites went up.

And you managed to increase the percentage of incorrectly-spelled words in slashdot posts.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[stonewolf]

Believe me, if you throw enough money it will fix the problems. How? If you doubled the starting salary of teachers how many of the teachers currently working would be in schools five years from now? Maybe 10 percent, The best 10 percent. Right now Teachers work on contract. A school district does not have to hire the same teachers every year, they can hire new ones of keep the old ones. If teaching salaries started in the $70k to $90K range you would have many of the top Ph.Ds graduates in the world competing for entry level jobs in the US public schools.

That would solve most of the problem right there. The same effect would result in most of the administration and staff in public schools being replaced by competent people.

My local school district likes to issue 20 year bonds to get money to buy PCs. Only an idiot, or someone who can not get the money any other way, commits to a 20 year mortgage to buy something with a useful life of 3 years. But, they are both idiots and desperate.

They are also astonishingly arrogant, we had a bond election that included $6 million for a football field to be shared by all the district schools. They spent $26 million to build a professional level (semi-pro anyway) football stadium that goes unused for most of the year. Then they found out the hard way that having been fooled once the people were not interested in being fooled again. It took nearly 10 years before they were able to pass another bond issue. In the mean time the school deteriorated and became grossly over crowded.

But, you get what you pay for. When you put people who make less than a middle school football coach in charge of hundreds of millions of dollars they make the kind of idiot mistakes you expect from idiots.

If we had twice the money per student they would not need to issue bonds to buy computers, they would not be going out for bond elections every couple of years, and we could pay enough to attract competent people to run our schools.

Some one is likely to write in an tell me how the teachers union will stop everything I've described from happening. At first, yes. But, not for long. Unions exists because the workers feel exploited. In the case of teachers are they are being exploited. If you pay more the union will lose its grip and fade away. I've seen that happen in many businesses. If the workers believe the business is dealing with them fairly they will not want a union.

Stonewolf

P.S.

IMHO, the teachers unions are the only group that even tries to maintain the quality of our current schools. Without the unions teacher salaries would be so low that we would not be able to hire college graduates to fill the jobs.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[FredMenace]

While I fully agree with your first three paragraphs, I do think that the teachers unions are often at, or near, the heart of the problems with education in the US (and many schools of education may not be far behind, often doing little to prepare people to actually become effective teachers).

The primary indicator of student success in school is the quality of the teacher, more than all other factors combined (including class size, curriculum, facilities, accountability/testing, and yes, funding). The best teachers get their students to learn fully three times as much as the worst (1.5 years worth of material per school year compared to 0.5).

But are the teachers being evaluated? And fired if they are incompetent and unable to improve? Not very often. But even if schools were willing and able to do so, would they know what criteria to evaluate teachers on?

It turns out that the biggest factor in teacher success is simple classroom management - the ability to get students to pay attention and do what they're told. This factor alone probably accounts for about 50% of total educational outcomes. Fortunately, there is a discrete set of skills and techniques on which people can be trained (much like learning public speaking skills - which also requires practice in front of an audience and feedback on areas of improvement). Clearly, this ought to be the central element of teacher training (but I'm pretty sure it's not).

The other factor is mastery of the subject, which must be substantially more than enough to cover the curriculum, to ensure the teacher isn't making confusing mistakes due to barely understanding the material themselves, and also to allow them to answer the often surprisingly probing and advanced questions students often come up with. The other aspect of subject mastery is knowing the ways in which students typically mis-understand a concept, and how to help them arrive at a better understanding. Like "I know what you're thinking, here's why it's wrong, and here's how to understand it correctly."

I would rather have my kids go to a school with large class sizes, dilapidated and outdated facilities, and generally not a lot of money, but with nearly 100% excellent teachers, than to most public or private schools in the US, considering the likelihood of encountering lousy teachers at most of them.

When you talk of the top problems, the only one you list that can be addressed directly through the schools is funding, and I am pretty sure that funding is NOT the prime source of poor educational outcomes, unless it's the only way to get better teachers, which I'm pretty sure it's not. (Though I totally agree with all the other points.)

(I will also note that Chicago's relative success has largely been because they, including a panel chaired by now-president Obama, came to this same realization - that the problem is the teachers, so improving the teachers is the key to improving the system.)

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Mr. Slippery]

Yes in Chicago, many dead people are registered and vote "Mayor Daley of Chicago "found" tens of thousands of dead people to "vote" for John F. Kennedy in the 1960 election," .

No reputable source holds that there was enough fraud in the 1960 election to alter the results:

Completed Dec. 9, the recount of 863 precincts showed that the original tally had undercounted Nixon's (and Adamowski's) votes, but only by 943, far from the 4,500 needed to alter the results. In fact, in 40 percent of the rechecked precincts, Nixon's vote was overcounted. Displeased, the Republicans took the case to federal court, only to have a judge dismiss the suits. Still undeterred, they turned to the State Board of Elections, which was composed of four Republicans, including the governor, and one Democrat. Yet the state board, too, unanimously rejected the petition, citing the GOP's failure to provide even a single affidavit on its behalf.

Yes, Nixon believed he was robbed, but Nixon was fscking crazy.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Mr. Slippery]

People point to public schools and say "See, they spend more money and don't get better results" than private schools.

People do indeed say that. They are wrong.

In general, adjusted for region, private schools that out-perform public schools, spend more money, while private schools that underspend public schools, perform worse than public schools.

(Note that we're talking about spending, not tuition: private school tuition doesn't measure per-student spending because private schools usually get grants or subsidies from other sources.)

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[Mr. Slippery]

It is not expensive to teach most children who want to learn, through high school level. A teacher, a schoolroom, books. Yet this, which ought not to cost more than $2500 per student-year in the US, now costs about $8000.

And you pull this number of what it "ought" to cost from where, exactly?

If it "ought" to cost only $2,500 per student-year to educate a student, how is it that independent private schools spend $15,000, Hebrew schools spend $12,000, and Catholic schools (which slightly under-perform public schools, and provide fewer services) spend $7,743.. Even conservative Christian schools, which perform much worse than public schools, spend $5,727 -- more than twice your $2,500.

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[DelShalDar]

Or, that they stopped caring because they were stuck in remedial math. It wasn't until my junior year in high school at a new school (in a different state) that I even knew that other kinds of math existed. All that happened in every year prior to that was that the course selections for students would just default to the most basic, re-reiterative courses: "This is how you add two single-digit numbers..." and "The Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776." I only was given the ability to choose something else when the new school sent out sign-up sheets to students (like those I became accustomed to in college) and I was given the ability to sign up for anything that wasn't the same as what I had been doing in the previous ten years.

Looking back, I can see a lot of the problems that have only become worse over time, and I can also see where many of the failures in the current system of education reside. The biggest problem is that nobody competent is in a position to actually fix those problems. And anyone who is in such a position has a vested interest in keeping to the status quo (and is often a "shining example" of the intended result of the current system: blind obedience).

Re:Schools vs. Killing brown people

[wondafucka]

Thank god at least one elected official has some sense of priorities...

Yeah, except for Mayor Daily had the Chicago Police arrest and detain protestors of the Afghan and Iraq wars. How about the priority of using your position to support your convictions.

Chicago Mayor Calls For 'Brainiac High'

[Anonymous Coward]

If the Mayor wants to get a "brainiac high" he can try one of those Ecstasy dens down on the south side.

But

[Anonymous Coward]

>Endless wars that divert hundreds of billions a year from schools and job training are also undermining America

Have you seen how brown those people are?

5th year?

[sanosuke001]

How about let the smart kids finish the required classes and go to college a year early? Or at least work on college classes their fourth year (like a community college set of classes for free given to them by the high school). Making them wait another year seems cruel when they can do the same coursework in college and actually further their education instead of taking classes that will probably be required in college anyway, effectively making them take those classes twice.

Re:5th year?

[salesgeek]

Nah... they should go to school for and extra year to get the smart ground out of them.

Re:5th year?

[russotto]

How about let the smart kids finish the required classes and go to college a year early?

Where's the money in that for Daley?

Re:5th year?

[pooh666]

The practical effect of this *should* be just that the kids get a free year of collage on the state under the guise of another year of high school. Sounds like a great deal to me. So not so cruel. Many kids manage to cut close to a year off as it is with advanced classes. If this opens up those chances to a few more, then great as well.

Re:5th year?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was going to make the same comment. His fifth year sounds like a remedial education for students who find they weren't properly prepared for secondary education. Treating the symptom and not addressing problem.

Re:5th year?

[apoc.famine]

This is a very valid point.

I taught HS science for 5 years. The only class I really liked teaching was Physics, because it lacked a hardcore, "test them to see if they learned the items on the list" metric. I could spend 2/3 of the time teaching, and 1/3 of the time letting my students "run wild", applying what they had learned, and generally just screwing around and LEARNING stuff. No, not the stuff on the checklist.

If this was a year before college where students could just play, use what they had learned, create things, and explore the world, then it would be FANTASTIC! We'd be producing some really amazing scientists and engineers. If it's just another year of HS, I agree with you. We'd just be grinding the smart and ambition out of them.

Re:5th year?

[moortak]

I know that some public school systems do just that. Most of the systems in the greater Cleveland area, including the wretched Cleveland City Schools, are involved in a partnership with either the nearest community college or one of the state schools.

Re:5th year?

[fermion]

I feel it really depends on the available funding and teachers, as well as maturity of the student. 'Smart' kids can finish school early, but they don't necessarily have the self discipline to succeed in an environment where they are not being coached by an adult, being parent or teacher or whatever. For some kids, an extra year before college might provide time to grow up and become ready for rigorous work. In addition this year can be used to model how to succeed in college, especially in a natural science, math, engineering and architecture.

For the student in the last year of high school, at least those that are college material, they are mostly taking near college level courses, often for dual credit. of course the two problems with this system is that high school teacher does not, in many cases, have the freedom to grade on a college level, and most students are not going to apply the appropriate effort, as most students see the last year as a time to relax rather than engage in a big finish. As such I see the last year as a time to give them a preview of what is expected in college. Though the may be required in college, more college prep work may help the up to 25% freshman drop out rate.

Here is where the Mayor is on point. There are schools that teach to the college level, but these are mostly for the top 10% of the population. These schools are in urban and suburban districts, and are cost effective because students are bussed in from 20 miles away to make up the student body of much less than 500. These will only serve the highly motivated student who will live on six hours of sleep due to homework and travel time. The question is how we deliver comparable opportunities to the local school. This requires money and trained teachers. Equipment like $50,000 computer labs with large format and 3D printers, pro 3D rendering and design software, pro circuit and aerospace simulation software. A grand of consumables per student. Funding these for the top 10% of motivated students is easy. Funding these for everyone else requires a redirection of funds. But without the funds, kids that do not have parents of friends with such equipment simply aren't ready for the required work.

Re:5th year?

[GeckoAddict]

My high school did this. They only allowed it if you completed all the classes they offered. So, for example, I took AP Comp Sci junior year and they had nothing past that, so I got to take half days Senior year and went to college in the afternoon.

Re:5th year?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats one thing I love about Washington State, we have the running start program, where if you pass the exam before starting your second year of High School you have to option of taking two years (or if you pass the exam before your senior year, one year) of Community College classes where the State pays your tuition. This effectively gets you double credit because you finish your High School graduation requirements, but since they count as college classes you can get up to two years of transfer credit (for the classes you already took) at a real four year University. Additionally since you get a full year's worth of High School credit for each quarter long class you have the opportunity to take so much more than you would have stuck in high school. For Example, I took Art, Wiring (multiple classes), Anatomy and Physiology, full first year: Chemistry, Biology, and Organic Chemistry, and more, while still in High School!! How many people have the chance to do that? Now I'm a "freshman" at the University of Washington but I have Junior standing, taking Biochemistry, and on track to graduate in about two years. This "Running Start" was a state funded program that anyone was eligible to participate in, you only had to pass one Reading, Writing Math basic placement test. How's that for well funded public education, unfortunately I've been hearing rumors that it's being cut back so the state won't pay 100% of Tuition any more, but it will still be around 90% which is still an amazing opportunity.

Re:5th year?

[Metasquares]

1/3 of the time letting my students "run wild", applying what they had learned, and generally just screwing around and LEARNING stuff. No, not the stuff on the checklist.

If this was a year before college where students could just play, use what they had learned, create things, and explore the world, then it would be FANTASTIC! We'd be producing some really amazing scientists and engineers.

Bingo! Someone else who gets it. The message we're sending right now is "if you're smart we're going to make you work harder" when it should be closer to "Hey, look at how cool this is! Try it out! I can tell you more about it if you're interested..."

Seriously, lots of intelligent people have this amazing propensity to learn about stuff on their own and many have fun doing it. As educators we should be assisting them in this mission rather than trying to brutally suppress their interests in favor of some canned curriculum.

Re:5th year?

[MacGyver2210]

My high school had this. Public school, small country town in Wisconsin.

In your senior year you could do a variety of things. If your grades were in good standing, you could:

-Leave after a little more than half the day to do...whatever. Most people used this time to work.
-Sign up for work study programs where you can get a job in an applicable field and get credit for working it. They also paid for high-level vocational training(A+ cert, Net+ Cert, Project Management, etc for my program)
-Graduate half a year early if you completed the required number of credits in each area

Re:5th year?

[Metasquares]

Given the choice between learning college level work in a high school and learning it in a college, I would take the college any day. It makes more sense to use the funds to give these students state-sponsored scholarships to the colleges of their choice rather than tying them down to another year of high school.

Re:5th year?

[apoc.famine]

The problem is that the beancounters can't "measure" this. In this day and age, "accountability" is the keyword. Standardized tests give numbers. You can compare those to other numbers. Letting students actually do shit and create things doesn't results in numbers you can compare to other numbers.

That's the real issue.

Re:5th year?

[Dwindlehop]

And be grievously stunted socially. I earned a 1600 on my SATs and hung with the smart kids my entire life. My parents never let me skip a grade. I figure maybe one out of three smart kids has the maturity to do well in college socially a year early. We don't need more nerds in this country. We need more smart leaders and doers.

Re:5th year?

[AK Marc]

5th year is great. Just add it instead of the 8th grade, rather than as year 13.

We are about 5 years behind in schools now to cater to the bottom 15%. Yes, public schools are aimed so that someone who at the bottom 15% level will keep up with everyone else. So, by definition, anyone above the worst 15% should be bored. If they aren't bored, the school is likely violating federal law.

Instead, we should abandon the idea of "grades" and just have classes like college. If you get something earlier, take the next class up. Don't get it? Then there's a class for that. Yes, there's a difference in method for teaching a smart 8 year old something vs a slow 13 year old, but much less than sticking the top 85% of children in a single class and being required by law to not leave anyone behind or let anyone get ahead.

Making them wait another year seems cruel when they can do the same coursework in college and actually further their education instead of taking classes that will probably be required in college anyway, effectively making them take those classes twice.

You assume the worst implementation, then attack it. Why not assume that they'll do the common thing and either push for AP testing so they'll get the college credit or work with a local college to have the class actually count as college credit? Of course, better yet is to actually get the high school certified as a community college and run the last three years of high school as a community college for students that can handle it so that rather than taking AP courses and tests, they'll be in the same building with all their regular friends and taking classes with them most of the time and not have to commute between high school and college like the few that take combined jr and sr years.

Sadly, there are a billion ways to make public schools better, but no one wants them. The teachers are afraid of change. The unions are afraid of everything. The administrators are afraid that outside improvements make them look bad. Parents are afraid that their child won't be the smart one. And people are afraid of funding, minorities, and their own shadow. "Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate . Hate leads to suffering." And the children are suffering.

Re:5th year?

[Metasquares]

Right, the lack of standardization seems more a problem than a lack of any performance metric at all. "Show and tell" style assignments (or fewer larger projects) in which people describe all of the fun geeky things they did seem like they would work reasonably well in that sort of model, but this would be hard enough to compare against other students in the same class, much less across schools or districts.

But it may even be possible to keep the standardized tests and just alter the nature of the day to day assigned work. Most of the really bright people we're talking about here would probably do well on them regardless. But then havoc gets raised if the numbers start to slip at all, even if the result is truly a more educated student body, people demand that the system become more proactive in addressing the "problem", and the system is back at square one...

Re:5th year?

[sanosuke001]

However, the Mayor isn't saying it should be done for everyone; he is suggesting to do it for the top 10%. This is feasible in those specialized schools but in every public school just for 5-10% of the student body? No.

Re:5th year?

[apoc.famine]

It's not possible to keep standardized tests. Believe me, I've looked into it. It was my Master's thesis.

The issue with standardized tests is that they are a tiny snapshot of student performance. They don't do any sort of a good job of measuring learning. They measure two things:

1) Can students answer questions in this format.
2) Do students have the motivation to answer questions in this format.

IFF the answer to both of those is "yes", then, and only then can you use standardized tests questions to assess learning. But again, it's just a one or two hour snapshot, and not really representative of a year of school.

The big problem is that in the real world, only a small subset of the student body applies here. By and large, students aren't used to answering questions in the rigid format of a standardized test, and most don't give a shit about answering the questions. In this "no high-stakes testing" climate, the public refuses to put any penalty on failure to take tests seriously. Because of this, looking at standardized test scores as any sort of useful metric is asinine.

Re:5th year?

[falconwolf]

I taught HS science for 5 years. The only class I really liked teaching was Physics, because it lacked a hardcore, "test them to see if they learned the items on the list" metric. I could spend 2/3 of the time teaching, and 1/3 of the time letting my students "run wild", applying what they had learned, and generally just screwing around and LEARNING stuff. No, not the stuff on the checklist.

My high school chemistry teacher was the same, though not all he allowed some students to do their own experiments.

If this was a year before college where students could just play, use what they had learned, create things, and explore the world, then it would be FANTASTIC! We'd be producing some really amazing scientists and engineers.

How about this, give students credit for the work? Kind of like AP, Advanced Placement, on steroids.

Falcon

Re:5th year?

[Anonymous Coward]

I did that. In Ohio it's called PSEO. I just took a few math and science courses, but kids can start in their junior or even sophmore years. They can even earn an associates degree by the time they graduate. And when I enroll in college next year, those classes will be credited.

Re:5th year?

[Philip_the_physicist]

It would seem better to me to simply teach uni-level subjects at schools during the normal 13 or so years (depending on precisely what you count), as well as offtering scholarships based on entrance rank or whatever to the top students who apply to university (which my country does, although they means test them in a rather flawed way).
At my school there were quite a few students who did final-year subjects a year or two ahead of their other subjects (for example, about 1/6 did biology a year early) and for people like them it would make sense if they could do university-level courses and count the grades towards their high-school result, and for university entrance. (Obviously, a scaling factor would need to be applied to the grades when using them for university entrance, to take into account that they are harder than ordinary high-school subjects, buy my state's system does this already so that a comparison between grades in, say, easy maths for non-uni or future humanities student and pre-uni advanced maths is fair.) With careful planning and execution, students would also be able to use their prior study towards their degree.

Re:5th year?

[xilmaril]

The problem is that the beancounters can't "measure" this. In this day and age, "accountability" is the keyword. Standardized tests give numbers. You can compare those to other numbers. Letting students actually do shit and create things doesn't results in numbers you can compare to other numbers.

That's the real issue.

Which really bugs me, because there are other numbers they should be using. % of graduating class which go into particular types of post secondary programs, % of graduating class which finish those programs, % of graduating class who make above poverty wages 5/10/20 years after graduating.

These are the important numbers, they're just hard to get, so we use easy to measure but largely useless numbers instead, like mean and median grades on a committee-written series of tests. I have never met anyone who works in education who thinks this is a good idea...

Re:5th year?

[shentino]

Here's a good number:

Average salary of student post graduation.

Re:5th year?

[apoc.famine]

The other problem is that they're also reactive metrics. You can only react to the outcome years later. With standardized test numbers, you can react to them a month after you get them back!! That allows you to DO SOMETHING!!!

Yes, the numbers don't mean shit, but if your job requires you to look like you're doing something, standardized tests serve you well. Besides, 10 years after graduation, if the students got a bad education, the teachers who taught them might well be gone. It's hard to fix that.

As you point out, the real issue is that education is a long-term investment. We don't have a mechanism for long-term tracking of student progress. We also can't fix problems with education from a decade ago, when we figure it out now.

If I could figure out how to do this, I'd be a rich man.

Re:5th year?

[apoc.famine]

And then we fire all the teachers this year, because nobody can get a job. Must be bad education!

Yeah, that was a bit snide, but that's the big issue with a single metric. What if some of them decide that they want to be organic farmers? What if several friends from the class before all went into finance?

What all this comes down to is the fact that there isn't a good way to measure the effect of education. Yet we insist on trying to make one up.

Re:5th year?

[shentino]

Not really. If everyone sucks at the same time, then it must be a systemic problem not the fault of the teachers. Of course, if some teachers can get their students employable in SPITE of the economy being in the toilet...raise time.

It's called management by exception.

And of course every plan can fail if implemented poorly.

Missed the mark

[Brain-Fu]

There are not enough jobs that require math, science, and technology skills.

The jobs that exist don't pay squat.

Furthermore, brainy kids are treated terribly by their peers.

Therefore, neither kids nor adults have real incentives to develop themselves intellectually.

Pouring more money into schools will not change any of that.

Re:Missed the mark

[Anonymous Coward]

Well said!

Re:Missed the mark

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this post serious? Because if we're speaking seriously, every single sentence is absolutely wrong. Except maybe the "brainy kids are treated terribly by their peers", which is only true until college.

Re:Missed the mark

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you train the kids that can apply those skills to creating things, and let them worry about making money? It used to work so well for us in the early 20th century. We had people who were smart and created things that they knew would be useful. They then attempted to sell those things.

Enough with the attitude that corporatism is neccessary for the progression of society and that we won't ever be able to move forward from our current position.

Re:Missed the mark

[segmond]

You can't be serious.

Once upon a time, there was not any job that really required science, math and technology skills? Go back to 1850.

So I suppose we should not have taught them. Do you think the job comes before the skills or the skills come before the job?

Frankly. There are more than enough jobs that require math, science, and technology skills. It's 2010. We are no longer in the industrial age, we are in the tech age. Even if people don't work in the tech fields, they will be able to apply their skills using technology. We are at the point where physicists, chemists, biologists are needing to know how to program to dig in into their work. Do you think it doesn't apply to other's in different fields? Please!

Jobs will be created when we know we have people with the needed skills.
It's when there aren't enough people with the skills that you need that we hesitate to create jobs because training is expensive!

Re:Missed the mark

[T Murphy]

At my highschool there wasn't a real problem between smart students and the rest of the school. I mean geeks still tended to hang out with each other, but if anything smart students got a little more respect than your average student. It's all about the culture of the school. Finding the right way to emphasize academic success could eliminate the geek-hating problem, and that could produce a positive feedback loop as people look up to straight-A students and try to become as successful as them.

That said, I realize not all students can pull off an A in calculus, so there has to be some balance so as to avoid sidelining the "dumb" students instead.

Re:Missed the mark

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. The problem should be attacked from the demand side (industry, jobs) rather than the supply side (schools, # of math/science students). Kids get the picture. They're not studying science and math because they realize they'll actually get a job if they study business. They'll study the easier subjects any day, but when there's career incentives for it, we're in trouble.

The problem is that an Indian or a Chinese braniac is a lot cheaper than an American braniac. Our gov't must cut down in the number of H1B visas that are issued. That'll raise demand for American brains for companies that actually still manufacture here (Intel, for example) and software companies that still choose to develop products in the US.

Surely that won't begin to solve the problem, but there needs to be a carrot on a stick to get kids to go into science and math.

Brian
too lazy to create an account

Re:Missed the mark

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is when they get taken advantage of by their peers.

Re:Missed the mark

[Anonymous Coward]

Therefore, neither kids nor adults have real incentives to develop themselves intellectually.

Maybe the graduates of the mayor's academy can be offered discounts on season tickets to Wrigley Field?

Steve Bartman (the guy who inadvertently prevented the Cubs' outfielder from catching a late inning fly ball in the playoffs) looks like a math/science type.

Re:Missed the mark

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually we're going backwards in the number of tech jobs. Big time. Here in Portland, there are currently fewer tech jobs than there were 17 years ago. And this is a place where Intel has 4 factories including their only process development fab and employs about 10,000 people. But since 2006, Intel has closed one factory here and cut about 25% of its workforce.

Re:Missed the mark

[mc moss]

I take it you have no clue at all about the science job market.

You work your ass off in college, then grad school, and are often required to do a post-doc these days. For what? You have a snowballs chance in hell getting tenure these days, and there is little stability in industry (especially biotech/pharma which I'm familiar with). And even if you have the PhD that is required for the job, if you don't have the right specialization, you can forget about getting the job. Add in the fact that companies are off-shoring or brining in H1B workers, why in anyone in their right mind do a science PhD?

There's a reason why if you go to the grad department of any university, it's filled with people from China and India with few if any Americans. There are no decent paying jobs for all the training and schooling required.

I know plenty of science PhD's. A lot of them still have the interest and love for science, but regret going down that path. It's hard work, little pay (compared for the training), heavily dependent on funding, and little prestige (compared to a doctor/lawyer/ibanker).

Re:Missed the mark

[93 Escort Wagon]

I know plenty of science PhD's. A lot of them still have the interest and love for science, but regret going down that path. It's hard work, little pay (compared for the training), heavily dependent on funding, and little prestige (compared to a doctor/lawyer/ibanker).

Come on. I work in an engineering department at a state university. Starting faculty salaries are between eight and nine thousand dollars a month. Our full professors are making twenty thousand dollars a month. That's "little pay"? This is all public information and easily verified.

You also mentioned tenure. I didn't used to have a strong opinion about it, but now... it really is welfare for the well off. We have a couple dozen tenured faculty, and very few of them are doing any significant amount of research. There are a couple that still work hard, still invest loads of time into their students... but those are the exception.

Nice work if you can get it - you get paid very well for working hard 10-15 years, then you get paid fantastically for the next 20 years, even if you do next to nothing. I don't begrudge these guys their nice salaries, but - the tenure system has to go.

Re:Missed the mark

[Alphanos]

Oh, so kids are only discouraged from being brainy for the first 14 years of their education then? Got it, no problem.

Re:Missed the mark

[Yergle143]

Amen brother. And nothing is more sucky than being an out of work brain. (Reading /. all day.)

Re:Missed the mark

[MacGyver2210]

One of my teachers in college loves to say things like "Not all students will be A-Students. If you get a B in my class, you're doing just fine." Then he'd pile on the work so thick if you didn't spend every second of your free time reading up or studying some new technique, you couldn't pass, let alone get an A.

Re:Missed the mark

[zippthorne]

Add in the fact that companies are off-shoring or brining in H1B workers, why in anyone in their right mind do a science PhD?

Well, that's certainly quite a pickle you've described there!

Re:Missed the mark

[NewbieProgrammerMan]

...why in anyone in their right mind do a science PhD?

I'm doing one now because I want to know if I can. I don't expect anybody to pay me more just because I have an extra piece of paper (although lots of pointy-haired people think pieces of paper automatically equal more value, and I won't argue with them if they want to offer a bigger salary up front). I certainly wouldn't expect to land an academic position, but that's because I know I'm not smart enough or dedicated enough, and I'm already too old (plus I hate teaching anyway, so I don't care).

There's a reason why if you go to the grad department of any university, it's filled with people from China and India with few if any Americans. There are no decent paying jobs for all the training and schooling required.

Not everywhere--it's been at least half Americans at the two schools I've seen. There would probably be more Americans if they either dropped the tuition or didn't make you live like a pauper while you're on an RA/TA appointment. And there are jobs available after all that training if you're willing to step outside academia.

Maybe the educational system should do a better job explaining the after-PhD options to young, bright students, just so they know that sticking with academia (1) isn't the only route and (2) isn't all that promising if your end goal is to obtain a tenured position at a university. But then, that would drain the gigantic pool of grad students willing to burn away half a decade working for a tiny little stipend, wouldn't it?

Re:Missed the mark

[corbettw]

Finding the right way to emphasize academic success could eliminate the geek-hating problem, and that could produce a positive feedback loop as people look up to straight-A students and try to become as successful as them.

How about cutting the funding for things like sports in half and diverting those funds to debate, rhetoric, history, math, and chess clubs that can compete against other schools? Don't let the jocks be the only ones representing their school's honor and maybe the nerds will get some respect.

Re:Missed the mark

[Anonymous Coward]

Finding the right way to emphasize academic success could eliminate the geek-hating problem

I seem to recall each result by each rugby team being praised at length during morning assemblies (and this was a very academic school compared to most in the UK). Academic performance would never get you that kind of admiration from the school.

Re:Missed the mark

[Anonymous Coward]

"golf clap"

Re:Missed the mark

[Actually, I do RTFA]

That said, I realize not all students can pull off an A in calculus, so there has to be some balance so as to avoid sidelining the "dumb" students instead.

Why not sideline the "dumb" students? That's truly where the anti-geek culture thrives. If everyone can succeed to some degree, how special are the smart students?

I couldn't play football; that's fine. But why should we assume everyone gets academic accolades?

Re:Missed the mark

[tthomas48]

"Once upon a time, there was not any job that really required science, math and technology skills?"

And I'd contend that people should reread the little house on the prairie series. If you think you can build a house, make a dress, or grows crops without math and science skills I would contend you're severely undereducated in history (among other things).

Re:Missed the mark

[falconwolf]

One of my teachers in college loves to say things like "Not all students will be A-Students. If you get a B in my class, you're doing just fine." Then he'd pile on the work so thick if you didn't spend every second of your free time reading up or studying some new technique, you couldn't pass, let alone get an A.

When I was in college we had 3 professors teaching calculus and we'd tell new students that if they wanted to know calculus they should take professor X. But if they wanted an "A" to take professor Z. A "C" in X's class was a "B" in professor Y's class and an "A" in Z's class. However X always said he didn't want students to remember formulas, instead he wanted students to learn how to solve for the formulas. He was the same in Physics.

Falcon

Re:Missed the mark

[AK Marc]

Add in the fact that companies are off-shoring or brining in H1B workers, why in anyone in their right mind do a science PhD?

It's illegal for them to get H1B workers for industries with sufficient US workers. So you are arguing that there aren't enough math/science spots to justify doing it, and as proof, the industry is importing help because there aren't any Americans willing to do it. That sounds like you are contradicting yourself, as those in the industry should be employed before the H1B workers.

Re:Missed the mark

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on. I work in an engineering department at a state university. Starting faculty salaries are between eight and nine thousand dollars a month. Our full professors are making twenty thousand dollars a month. That's "little pay"? This is all public information and easily verified.

Well, sure, based on that logic we should all become actors and professional athletes.

There are many more people training to become scientists (science students) than there are science professors. Other highly trained professions are the same. There are many more law/medical/engineering students than law/medical/engineering professors. The difference with science is that most law/medical/engineering students can get jobs that pay enough to live comfortably without becoming law/medical/engineering professors.

If you really want to know what (most) scientists earn then look at post-doc salaries (typically 40-50K/year in the biological sciences).

Re:Missed the mark

[Lost Race]

we had 3 professors teaching calculus and we'd tell new students that if they wanted to know calculus they should take professor X. But if they wanted an "A" to take professor Z. A "C" in X's class was a "B" in professor Y's class and an "A" in Z's class. However X always said he didn't want students to remember formulas, instead he wanted students to learn how to solve for the formulas. He was the same in Physics.

Is this going to be on the test?

Re:Missed the mark

[Taco Cowboy]

Normally I do not reply to shitty messages but I am making an exception:

There are not enough jobs that require math, science, and technology skills.

There are not enough jobs that require math, science and technology skills because there aren't enough people with brains in America who can work at these jobs in the first place.

Resulting in these jobs go elsewhere - to Korea, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Germany.

The jobs that exist don't pay squat.

Those jobs don't qualified.

Real brainy jobs pay very well.

Coders on the other hand, comes aplenty, dimes a dozen, in India.

Furthermore, brainy kids are treated terribly by their peers.

So we brainy kids grow up to be leaders, and those "peers" who treated us badly better watch out, because as leaders, we think of fancy ways to take our sweeeeeet revenge.

Therefore, neither kids nor adults have real incentives to develop themselves intellectually.

You are talking about those born scumbags, right?

Brainy kids will grow up to be leaders. Like Alan Cox, like Linus, like Steve Jobs.

Pouring more money into schools will not change any of that.

Pouring money into teaching the brainy kids will change a lot of things.

Brainy kids will grow up to be even more brainy, so they can take even sweeter revenge on those shitheads "peers".

Re:Missed the mark

[shentino]

Plants don't grow very tall if their stems get chewed off before growing season.

Re:Missed the mark

[Anonymous Coward]

little prestige (compared to a doctor/lawyer/ibanker).

Perhaps Western countries could learn from the USSR where there was state-endorsed glorification of physicists, mathematicians and other space-related labourers.

Soviet doctors complained right up to the 1990s of bad pay and working conditions.

CPS

[crumbz]

The Chicago Public Schools are laying off teachers and closing schools due to budget constraints. Howver, despite da mayor's feelings on the issue, I am not sure that dumping more cash into the the arguably bloated CPS bureaucracy would result in students receiving a better education. At some point, parental responsibility ensuring that students actually attend the schools and complete the days assignments might have a greater impact.

Re:CPS

[thbb]

How is this "Insightful"? The USA are really doomed if its educated population actually believes this shit.

And how exactly, do you want to increase "parental responsibility"?

You want to set up a mandatory adult "schooling" education program? With what funds and who do you put in charge of creating this program, which would, admitedly, be a world premiere?

Or perhaps, you have the idea of sanctioning the parents when their children don't do their homework or don't attend school? This has been tried: it merely results in even more children dropping out of schools and even poorer education. Notwithstanding the creation of ghettoized populations cut back from any chances of ever raising out of poverty and poor education.

Even though it's costly, pouring more money at schools, providing teachers with the means to do their job well is the only method that has a track record of actually raising the education levels.

Yes, maybe the CPS' bureaucracy is choking the attempts of the few remaining dedicated teachers to do their job properly. In any case, I doubt it is much worse than the US Army bureaucracy, which is completely sold to the military industry.

Throwing more money in the school system provides the ability to hire more talents (at the management and operational levels), motivate the education personnel and, ultimately, raise the education levels globally. As for the details, let the teachers and their administration, who are in daily contact with the population they have to deal with, decide how it's better done.

Re:CPS

[zippthorne]

It's all well and good to admonish the parents for not participating, and certainly efforts to improve parental participation should be part of any failing school system's rehabilitation plan, but you can't hire new parents.

You can hire new teachers or administrators and since they work for you, you can control how they are required to do things. You've got the parents you've got, now what are you going to do about it?

Re:CPS

[Anonymous Coward]

My wife taught in public school and now teaches at a college.

Administrators for the sake of administrators are one of the biggest problem she's encountered. They become people who make up rules to justify their existence and ridiculous salary and contribute nothing to the educational process. They don't teach, they don't interact with students, they don't make rules that help anyone get educated. They have meetings and pat themselves on the back for making policies that are more frustrating for teachers AND students.

Another big problems are teachers who openly dislike students and hold such incredible disdain for them. These are the people who "Those who can't, teach" is aimed at. They can't do whatever their degree is in professionally and teach as a fall back and they are horrible.

Eliminate these two groups somehow and bring in more teachers who want to do it (and pay them better, everyone outside of four-year unis gets paid shit) and you'll have the problem solved. Because those who can't teach? They administrate.

Re:CPS

[dbcad7]

Attendance is really important, I'll agree with that one.. I do have to wonder though, how adults would feel if they had to go to work for 8 hours and then have to come home and spend several more hours doing homework. That it has been the norm, doesn't mean it is the best way to do things.

Re:CPS

[AK Marc]

Howver, despite da mayor's feelings on the issue, I am not sure that dumping more cash into the the arguably bloated CPS bureaucracy would result in students receiving a better education.

I hear "bloated" all the time. But when I compare top private schools with the public system, I see a disparity where the private schools are the times as expensive as public schools. The "cheap" private schools are only twice as expensive. And that doesn't include the fact that the public school system includes special ed and such which are generally excluded from most private schools. When you account for such differences, the cost gap widens even more. Public schools are cheaper than the private schools, and so much cheaper than not having them that people don't understand (even the most optimistic libertarian estimates with no welfare for the unemployable and such, just letting them die destitute of disease and malnutrition would result in prison costs increasing by more than saved by closing all public schools).

So anyone that ever indicates that schools are expensive, I assume they are too stupid to talk about the issue (or any others). Those that complain about "bloat" aren't stupid, but are usually liars who complain about a little bloat as if the schools themselves are expensive, when it's obvious they are not. Though there are areas where the costs of schools are higher or lower than other areas, so it's always possible that it's a local issue, but I haven't seen it yet. Just a quick glance gives me the numbers I see. Stand alone private schools are always higher than the public schools in the area, and the only "cheaper" private schools are those with free buildings, volunteer administrators, and educators paid below market rates (one of which, though "low" at about twice public cost had required fundraising where you'd be fined if you didn't volunteer). But that was just a quick glance around the Chicago area.

Re:CPS

[shentino]

Dear government:

Stay the fuck out of my kid's life when they're at home.

Respectfully, parents.

Re:CPS

[Philip_the_physicist]

Getting a visit from a truancy officer is likely to encourage parents to make sure their children actually attend school and don't just lurk in the streets and shopping centres making a nuisance of themselves, especially once they get fined for their child's non-attendance. Here this appears to work where it has been tried, but with only a handful (literally) of truancy officers in a state of 2M people most of the effort has been focused on country areas with extremely bad attendance, not on the urban poor, although police on the beat do stop and question people of school age during the school day, especially if they are out of uniform (virtually all schools have at least a nominal uniform, from a polo shirt and maybe fixed colour trousers/jumpers to a complete blazer/shirt/tie uniform).

I think part of the problem with pouring more money into education is that it ends up getting pissed away by the bureaucracy without ever getting to the schools.

Here, teachers are very poorly paid: the heads of subjects in a state or catholic school doesn't get much above the average salary for a fresh-out-of-uni undergrad, and will typically work 70-hour weeks for 35 weeks per year, and even more for the last few weeks of each semester. Even in the holidays, teachers have to work normal hours to do lesson preparation, admin, and professional development work. They then get their requests for pay rises mocked and denigrated by the local newspaper (which is happy to support senior doctors and surgeons who were seeking a *pay rise* of more than a teacher's starting salary). Small wonder, then, that recruitment of teachers is below the replacement rate even though the school-age population is rising.

Re:CPS

[Anonymous Coward]

And how exactly, do you want to increase "parental responsibility"?

We could start by requiring a license before we allow anyone who feels like fornicating to inflict their progeny upon the rest of us.

Re:CPS

[ChrisMaple]

Why does everything you mention involve the use of government force?

Re:CPS

[deranjer]

Even though it's costly, pouring more money at schools, providing teachers with the means to do their job well is the only method that has a track record of actually raising the education levels. Not true at all.. money does not have a good track record at all.. And while many people say, "We need to spend more money on our schools," there actually isn't a link between spending and student achievement. Jay Greene, author of "Education Myths," points out that "If money were the solution, the problem would already be solved ... We've doubled per pupil spending, adjusting for inflation, over the last 30 years, and yet schools aren't better." http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Stossel/story?id=1500338 Parents DO need to get involved.. can we easily force them to? Doubt it, but throwing more money at it wont solve it either.. maybe stricter discipline in the classroom

Re:CPS

[MobyDisk]

And how exactly, do you want to increase "parental responsibility"?

You can't. That is his point. The biggest factors in education are not controlled by the government. They are controlled from the grass roots - the parents themselves. Until people accept that this is a problem with society, not with politicians, nothing can be fixed. No figurehead or bean counter can make schools better. It's a social problem.

You want to set up a mandatory adult "schooling" education program? With what funds and who do you put in charge of creating this program, which would, admitedly, be a world premiere?

What? crumbz did not suggest this. You suggested it, then tore it down.

Or perhaps, you have the idea of sanctioning the parents when their children don't do their homework or don't attend school?

He didn't suggest this either. Don't waste time suggesting things then saying they don't work, when they have nothing to do with the parent poster's point.

pouring more money at schools, providing teachers with the means to do their job well is the only method that has a track record of actually raising the education levels.

I'd like to echo back to you the first thing you said. "How is this Insightful The USA are really doomed if its educated population actually believes this shit."

Pouring money into schools does not have a track record of raising education levels. It just isn't that simple.

Re:CPS

[MobyDisk]

And how exactly, do you want to increase "parental responsibility"?

You can't. That was the poster's point. At some point, the people have to fix these problems from the grass roots. Politicians can't actually do anything about this. People need to stop blaming the government and looking to big brother to solve all their ills.

You want to set up a mandatory adult "schooling" education program? With what funds and who do you put in charge of creating this program, which would, admitedly, be a world premiere?

The poster did not suggest any such thing. You do, then you blasted it.

Or perhaps, you have the idea of sanctioning the parents when

No... he didn't suggest that either.

Even though it's costly, pouring more money at schools, providing teachers with the means to do their job well is the only method that has a track record of actually raising the education levels.

You insulted the original poster, and your solution is to throw money at the problem? Things aren't that simple. If you want students to be involved in their education, you need parents to be involved in education. And money can't solve that. It's ironic that you opened up your post saying

How is this "Insightful"? The USA are really doomed if its educated population actually believes this shit.

Yet you not only misunderstood the original post, but you go on to promote the most overly-simplistic solution. How is THAT insightful?

Public outrage?

[the_arrow]

wondering where the public outrage is

What happened the last 40 years or so? Then there were riots in the streets and major protests against the then ongoing war. Is a SUV on the driveway and a reality show on tv all that is needed to pacify everyone?

Re:Public outrage?

[Anonymous Coward]

There were plenty of riots and massive demonstrations here in the UK. The issue in Britain is not lack of a public outcry but lack of anyone in Westminster who payed, or is paying, even the slightest attention with the two major parties having backed the war despite obvious massive popular opposition, and despite the extremely transparent nature of the nonsense regarding WMD, `hand of history on my shoulder' etc etc from Tony Blair.

Re:Public outrage?

[Joce640k]

Same thing here in Spain ... we had massive anti-war protests here and for weeks on end everybody would go out on the street at 8pm and bang frying pans with spoons to make a huge noise all over the city.

Did anybody listen? Nope. It took a change of government to get us out of Iraq.

(But hey, at least the 'democracy' part worked in the long term...)

Re:Public outrage?

[Swanktastic]

There is no draft.

Re:Public outrage?

[tompaulco]

wondering where the public outrage is
I wouldn't be nosing around for public outrage Mr. Daley. People have been ignoring your illegal misuses of power in Chicago for far too long.

Re:Public outrage?

[NewbieProgrammerMan]

It took a change of government to get us out of Iraq.

I recall hearing several times that the change of government wouldn't have taken place without the 2004 train bombings in Madrid. Do you think there's any truth to that? (I figure the opinion of somebody that actually lives there is worth more than all the news reports and commentary I heard here in the U.S.)

Re:Public outrage?

[Blakey Rat]

Some points:

1) Our military is all volunteer now; there's no draft, there's no plans for a draft.

2) The current wars are less costly by orders of magnitude than Korea and Vietnam were.

3) I would wager that there is significantly more public support for the current wars than supported Vietnam. (Although I am somewhat impressed at the half-dozen or so people who protest in front of the Seattle Federal Building every single day. I'd rather them have a *job*, but I'm impressed at their dedication.)

4) The press isn't really covering the current wars in any useless fashion. They're certainly not covering it the way Vietnam was covered. Sadly, while the Internet is making in-roads, the mainstream media is still the primary driver of opinion.

Re:Public outrage?

[AK Marc]

Our military is all volunteer now; there's no draft, there's no plans for a draft.

No plans? They have the Selective Service for the express stated reason as a plan for the draft. Until they get rid of that, they do have plans that are draft related. They may not be planning on drafting someone tomorrow, but they do require that you register with the government for the express reason of notifying them that you are of draftable age and you have to let them know what you are up to so they can contact you if you get drafted.

Re:Public outrage?

[Blakey Rat]

That's for emergencies. Military leadership has said time and time and time again that the volunteer military works significantly better than the drafted military. Unless the mainland US gets invaded or the nukes go flying, those Selective Service cards are never going to be called in.

The public prefers a volunteer service. Military leadership prefers a volunteer service. Political leadership prefers a volunteer service. Citing an emergency measure as if it's going to be used tomorrow is ridiculous.

Re:Public outrage?

[pablodiazgutierrez]

I'm Spanish and I believe this to be true. The last published surveys (it is now allowed to publish them too close to election day) gave a slight advantage to the conservative party (PP), but the vote count showed the socialist party (PSOE) ahead by a decent leap. The only significant event to take place in the lapse was the terrorist attack and the ensuing unrest. How exactly did this affect the results? Well, conservatives blame the left for trying to appease the terrorists by voting out a party that strongly opposed them. Liberals argue that it was the terrible handling of the situation by the government that gave the opposition the final advantage. My take: It was the government's fault. If they had handled it with care they could have pushed further ahead in the vote, just like we so often see (also in Spain) that a fearful enemy unifies people around their leaders. Instead, they were quick to blame the wrong guys (ETA, the Basque terrorist organization), which in turn made them look like they were manipulating the events in their profit.

I have no sympathy for the socialist party (much less after 6 years in power), but the conservatives made too many mistakes stupid mistakes in just 3 days, and they're still paying for it. I'm afraid the incompetence of the main parties is going to let fringe groups start crippling in the institutions. May you live interesting times :).

Re:Public outrage?

[Joce640k]

Definitely true. The government lied blatantly to the people about who was behind the bombings and their image dived sharply as a result. It was a week before the elections so they ended up losing because of this.

Why add a 5th year?

[commodore64_love]

It would just be wasted as a "babysitting service" like the first 4 years of high school typically are. The amount of time my teachers spend goofing-off in class, not teaching anything, was ridiculous. When I got to college the professors taught the same material in about one-quarter the time. - Take the existing 4 years and concentrate them. Instead of Algebra 1 and 2, make it a combined course. Then take the resulting extra year and teach some "tech oriented" like Programming.

Final thought - I wonder where Mayor Daley thinks he'll get the money? You can't get more juice out of an already-squeezed orange. A wiser course is to hold costs at present levels, and make sure the 12 years in school are maximized to full potential rather than wasted.

(But of course "I'll give your kids an extra 13th year" will probably sell better to voters.)

Re:Why add a 5th year?

[Nerdfest]

We had 4 and 5 year paths through high school in Ontario up until fairly recently and I think it worked quite well. The 5th year in the advanced path had lots of science and math courses (physics, chemistry, calculus, functions and relations, algebra) as well as the usual English, history, etc. I'm still not sure why it was cancelled, the class sizes were always big enough (20-30).

Re:Why add a 5th year?

[dAzED1]

"insightful..."

you wouldn't have learned it that fast in college, had you not already learned it in high school. Education is a cumulative process.

Re:Why add a 5th year?

[pooh666]

Why the bloody hell is Algebra even taught in high school? Like the last two years of grade school couldn't cover it as well for all but he ultra helmet wearers?

Re:Why add a 5th year?

[RobinH]

I was in the 5 year program, and I think the problem is that when you got to University, you're in first year with a bunch of other students who may not be from Ontario, so they may not have taken the 5th year of high school. The idea of the 5 year program was to help subsidize post-secondary education by teaching introductory level university courses to university-bound students without them having to pay tuition or live away from home, etc. I agree that it originally worked that way in principle, but once students started going to university out-of-province, the universities in Ontario had to assume you didn't have those courses, and universities outside of Ontario assumed nobody had them either, so you just ended up with a lot of repetition in first year.

Specifically I remember thinking that calculus was really easy in first year, but I was in class with people who hadn't done integration in high school. Things got harder again when everyone was up to speed.

I agreed with removing the 5th year. Not because it was a bad idea in principle, but because it was flawed in practice.

Re:Why add a 5th year?

[93 Escort Wagon]

I agreed with removing the 5th year. Not because it was a bad idea in principle, but because it was flawed in practice.

It would seem to me the flaw could be removed by following a "Running Start" model, where that fifth year of high school would earn the students equivalent college credits. You'd start college with a somewhat advanced placement - those "out of province" students could still take the first year courses, but you wouldn't need to.

Might even save you (or your parents) some money on tuition, in the long run.

Re:Why add a 5th year?

[misexistentialist]

Babysitting is necessary if you can't legally do much before 18 or 21. I agree that time could be better spent, but most students are not motivated and most teachers are not very qualified. On the other hand, in high school mastering the limited curriculum is possible, unlike in college where there are steep grading curves and you don't have time to even look at half of the material.

Re:Why add a 5th year?

[Nerdfest]

I was exempted from a few first semester classes in college after initial testing, which was nice as it game me a bit more time to spend on other classes. I think the real benefit though is that people who didn't plan on taking any higher education still got a good introduction to more advanced math and science than they would otherwise. It could help a lot of them in later endeavours and in some cases even give them an extra push towards going to college.

Re:Why add a 5th year?

[value_added]

I agreed with removing the 5th year. Not because it was a bad idea in principle, but because it was flawed in practice.

I went through a 5-year program way back when and still believe it's a good approach.

It's certainly possible to cram those 5 years (or more realistically, parts of those 5 years) into 4, but not without losing something in the process.

As for being flawed in practice, here's something to consider. Here in the US it's long been the case that universities are routinely forced to offer remedial classes in everything from basic literacy and math to things like how to write and essay. Why? Because their freshman students haven't mastered the prerequisites of university level classes. Or put more simply, students didn't learn what they were supposed to learn in high school.

I view elimination of 5-year or similarly enhanced programs as a race to the bottom where the buck gets conveniently passed to someone else. How many grade schools, for example, are forced to provide clean clothes, a hot meal and even counseling to their students so they can focus on their schoolwork? Is the grade school approach flawed in practice?

Re:Why add a 5th year?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is already a solution to that problem: give the 5th year students in the advanced classes the opportunity to receive college credit and allow them to skip the intro classes that everyone else takes. In the US we have the AP (advanced placement) program, where high school students can get college credit for advanced courses in a wide variety of subjects during their Senior year of high school.

I took AP Physics (one semester of college physics) and AP Calculus BC (2 semesters of college calc). For me, those classes were DIFFICULT. I managed to pass the final exam for Calculus BC and went straight into multi-variable calculus in my 1st year at University. On the Physics test I crashed and burned, and regretted it every single day I had to go to my University Physics 101 class.

Re:Why add a 5th year?

[Philip_the_physicist]

This is roughly what is done at my university. Maths and the hard sciences all have a subject aimed at those who didn't study the top-level high-school course in it, both as a bridging course for those who didn't do it (or didn't do well enough) and as the introduction for non-specialists in that field, and CS have been talking about doing that with the "programming for utter noobs" section of the course, which is taught before any real CS (since you can't do any practical CS until you've got at least a basic grasp of programming, and it does seem to help concepts "click" if students can go away and try to implement them) and always bores half the cohort senseless.

Re:Why add a 5th year?

[Anonymous Coward]

In the US, we have Advanced Placement classes in high school; based on how you do on the AP test, universities give you credit so that you don't need to take redundant classes. I was also able to take a test at the university to get credit for a Spanish class. It seems like stuff like this could easily solve the problem you have with the 5th year.

Why would the smart kids want to stay in hs?

[Anonymous Coward]

The current highschool system is such a steep step down from college that staying an extra year seems like punishment.

Re:Why would the smart kids want to stay in hs?

[pooh666]

This depends on which classes you are in. In my high school AP Chem was a vastly different env than the time that shop classes with people smoking joints in the back. My school had both extremes and it was pretty much up to the kids which class they took. The only real difference I found in better high schools is they didn't have the joint smoking shop class part.

More money?

[jamesl]

" ... Endless wars that divert hundreds of billions a year from schools and job training are also undermining America's competitiveness, Daley added, wondering where the public outrage is."

And exactly how would the good mayor spend the hundreds of billions a year to improve schools? Specifically. No platitudes. Nothing like, "more computers" or "magnet schools" or "more arts programs." To use a sports metaphor, what's needed is "more blocking and tackling." Or, back to education, the three Rs -- Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic. Test the kids and fail the failures. Test the teachers and fire the failures. Success is dependent on hard decisions and hard work, not billions of dollars.

Re:More money?

[sjames]

To be perfectly honest, we would be better off digging a big hole, tossing the money in and then covering it over than spending it on war. Unlike the never ending wars including the war on [demon of the day], throwing the money down a big hole will create jobs and can be stopped at any time when we think of something more worthwhile to spend it on. It would have the side benefit of not making the rest of the world hate us as much as war and not alienating as many of our own citizens as the war on drugs does.

Given that, throwing the money at schools and seeing what sticks can hardly do worse.

Re:More money?

[pluther]

Good questions.
And where would answers possibly be found. Oh, gods, if only there were an article linked from that summary!
Or... and I know this is crazy talk here... but, what if the summary itself mentioned something other than billions of dollars!

Re:More money?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, we need to privatize education. When schools are forced to seek profit and keep themselves afloat people will really value education because they will see exactly how much it costs them. Schools will finally be forced to innovate in order to differentiate themselves from mainstream education and bad teachers will finally be fireable.

All your approach has done is hamstring teachers and students with ridiculous academic requirements that most students should not need to survive life outside of school. I have never seen anyone use algebra in a work environment, yet it is still a high school requirement. Why? Why do requirements have to be so specific? Are we preparing ALL students to study in a rigorous academic environment? All I've seen come from that movement is a dumbing down of undergraduate courses so that all students can take them and not flunk. I graded coursework for 180 undergraduate students at my school and if I had been teaching the class I would have flunked 160 of them. They didnt try, they didn't even care that they were in college. The attitude from high school of doing the absolute minimum had perpetuated itself because most of them were getting a free ride paid for by you and yours.

I'm a little bitter because I'm still paying off my loans and I actually learned something from my education. So fuck your return to the fundamentals. Teach the kids that don't belong in college skills that they can sell in the real world, and track the students who do belong in college into college.

College is not for everyone. It shouldn't be for everyone. It should be for people who have the potential to advance the world by their study of something. If that sounds like elitism to anyone they are correct. But look at what is happening to our country every time you push for equality of the mind! You are killing our country by destroying the elite. They are the ones who drive us forward, and they need our moral support to continue. Things are not equal which are not equal. Elite used to have such wonderful connotations. Now it is a word spat into the faces of the bright, the wealthy, and the gifted.

Re:More money?

[0xdeadbeef]

Success is dependent on hard decisions and hard work, not billions of dollars.

No it isn't. It is dependent on accomplishing goals, and doing better than your competitors.

If you think not failing stupidly easy multiple choice tests, or not getting fired because your students are not failing stupidly easy multiple choice tests is success, well, yeah, you're part of the problem.

Re:More money?

[0xdeadbeef]

Elitism is private schools giving morons the same degree you earned because their parents can pay full tuition.

Re:More money?

[NewbieProgrammerMan]

Test the teachers and fire the failures. Success is dependent on hard decisions and hard work, not billions of dollars.

People that are really good teachers and administrators are going to want to get pay that's commensurate with their level of education and dedication to their job. Usually they are smart enough to go work anywhere they want and get paid much more than most teaching jobs offer.

So you're not going to get "more blocking and tackling" unless you pay for some really good players. I expect the amount you'd have to pay is more than most Americans will think is reasonable.

Re:More money?

[corbettw]

Not to mention, it would have a positive impact on the property value of that hole.

Re:More money?

[jamesl]

My question was how specifically the mayor would spend additional money. Paying teachers for performance is a specific program that has been shown to improve student outcomes and would therefore be a good thing to do.

Re:More money?

[jamesl]

Hard decisions and hard work are required to set goals, achieve goals and out compete.

I don't think that "not failing stupidly easy multiple choice tests" is success. I don't think that "not getting fired because your students are not failing stupidly easy multiple choice tests is success." I don't know where you got those ideas -- certainly not from what I posted above.

Re:More money?

[0xdeadbeef]

I don't know where you got those ideas -- certainly not from what I posted above.

The answer is

C. "Test the kids and fail the failures. Test the teachers and fire the failures."

Re:More money?

[ShakaUVM]

Tossing money in a pit rather than a war?

How droll. Silly man, we can throw money down a hole, refund Cash for Clunkers and mortgage subsidies (or do I repeat myself?) AND pay for Iraq and Afghanistan all at the same time. Oh, and free health care for everyone, too. Congress has a magic wand that can pay for everything.

Re:More money?

[aekafan]

Indeed. It is called the Fed.

Re:More money?

[jamesl]

"Test the kids and fail the failures" does not mean "not failing stupidly easy multiple choice tests." You're making things up.

Re:More money?

[shentino]

I seriously don't think ANYTHING can take away the fact that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

It's in mankind's nature to get rich, and indeed, part of the satisfaction of having is someone else not having.

Re:More money?

[Philip_the_physicist]

That is why you need standardised final exams (which the universities will want anyway).

Personally, I like the voucher idea, which is that a child is allocated a sum of money for their education each year, with extra if they are remote (more than so far from the nearest school) or have relevant disabilities, which they can then "spend" at any school they like. There needs to be state schools with no extra fees which will take anyone, but if the child goes to a private or religious school (which may charge extra fees, as decided by its governing council), the same amount of government funding is paid there instead. Here, independent schools receive less funding per student than state schools and typically produce better results than the state schools with the same catchment, but the fees at many are not much more than the gap in funding. This suggests that the private schools are using their money more effectively (since most independent schools are religious, academic merit is not a significant barrier to entry), although it must be admitted that parents who are spending a few thousand dollars each year in fees are likely to be more involved in their child's education. In turn, this suggests that if more people could go to independent schools the overall level of achievement would be higher.

Too Dumb To Protest

[b4upoo]

Infested with the lies of corporatism and capitalism our general public is far too dumb to make intelligent demands for education. It
has reached the sad point where one supposed leader has remarked that education should be run like a business. That translates rather
  easily into giving students as little as possible while taking as much from the public as they can get.
              Limit summer holidays to three weeks in total. Stop honoring lesser holidays. Get rid of teacher work days. Make school a 8 am to
5 pm activity with half days on Saturday. Get rid of equivalency diplomas and be quick to permanently expel students who either show
little interest in academic life or have behavior problems. Let the parents pay for private schooling for the expelled.
              In essence every student should know that endless help is at hand for excellence but endless rejection and failure are also very real and immediate consequences. Make courses just hard enough so that some good students can not pass them.
              Be certain that Texas has no influence over text books. And isolate schools from parental influence or complaints. Pay teachers as if they were professionals in the same sense that doctors or lawyers or CPAs get paid.
              That will do the trick. Do less and we will serve foreign masters.

Re: Too Dumb To Protest

[vcgodinich]

And isolate schools from parental influence or complaints.

because parents should have no say in their child's education

Re: Too Dumb To Protest

[Ironchew]

Lots of good points, but some seem unnecessarily and impractically harsh.

Stop honoring lesser holidays.

Which ones are the important holidays, and how can you justify those in an impartial manner?

...be quick to permanently expel students who either show little interest in academic life or have behavior problems.

Sounds like one-strike-you're-out to me. Suspensions and counseling should make things clear the first or second time, and you can consider expulsions afterward. Having little interest in academic life is relatively normal, otherwise everybody would be scholars. Not bothering to make a minimal effort suggests a problem.

In essence every student should know that endless help is at hand for excellence but endless rejection and failure are also very real and immediate consequences. Make courses just hard enough so that some good students can not pass them.

This is utterly impractical and it sounds a little vindictive. Set the bar so that some good students are eternally unable to pass any of their courses? Intellectual improvement is the point of going to school, and there should be help for students who have the determination to pass a course.

Be certain that Texas has no influence over text books.

Care to be a little more specific? I'm sure there are many intelligent professors in Texas that publish adequate material for the subject(s) at hand.
Though I agree with most of the other stuff. Education should be a higher priority in the United States than our military prowess.

Re: Too Dumb To Protest

[Vasheron]

People need downtime. Getting rid of weekends will burn people out. People need time to be creative, to relax, to socialize. If you eliminate those elements of a person's life, you lose an important part of that individual. That said, I am not against incentives that push people to succeed. I say, make cash prizes available for students that demonstrate potential; that will get people working hard!

Re: Too Dumb To Protest

[Anonymous Coward]

CAPITALISM IS TEH EVIL!!!!

Spare us the cliched, libtard rant. Capitalism built the PC you're using to make your retarded post....along with 9,000,000 other items but yeah you're right...look at the Soviet Union for an example of a country with great products to own and enjoy. Oh wait...they don't exist...but maybe you an import one of their amazing cars or computers!!!

Re: Too Dumb To Protest

[MacGyver2210]

So, basically...make our schools just like Japanese schools?

I could see that working.

Re: Too Dumb To Protest

[Phroggy]

Holy crap you're a moron. Get rid of teacher work days? Seriously? If anything, we need MORE teacher work days, because an effective teacher needs time to prepare. Currently all the good teachers do all of that stuff at home in their free time, which means they don't really have any free time left over, which means they burn out and stop being good teachers.

Re: Too Dumb To Protest

[dbIII]

I think the "Texas" point is to prevent micromanagement at a state level from resulting in weird shit getting taught to students in different areas instead of a national idea of what a good education is.
Somewhere, sometime, some self-serving loony is going to say Revelations or the book of Mormon or some Scientology thing is the only book students ever need to read. There should be something to stop that happening before all the "educated in the USA" resumes get tainted by it and go into the rubbish bin.

Re: Too Dumb To Protest

[Anonymous Coward]

Education should be a higher priority in the United States than our military prowess.

Unless you make Military Prowess a consequence of Good Education. However, the time required to do this is longer than one or two of the USA's electoral terms.

Re: Too Dumb To Protest

[ChrisMaple]

an effective teacher needs time to prepare.

The first year that the teacher is teaching, yes. After that, he's just repeating the same stuff he did last year.

A large part of a teacher's non-class time is spent grading and otherwise evaluating student performance, particularly when essays are involved.

Re: Too Dumb To Protest

[ChrisMaple]

The recent flap in Texas was due to the well-deserved defeat of people who think that Rosa Parks is more important than George Washington.

Texas has become a standard because a large state is a good choice to have the resources available to make textbook choices, and even teachers recognize that California is too crazy to be accepted country-wide.

No, it's backlash against the 60s and...

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason the country doesn’t have enough money for better schools or job retaining, he went on, is that it is spending hundreds of billions a year on war. This isn’t what the U.S. should stand for, he added. He also wondered where the public outrage is. Back when his father was Chicago’s mayor, he recalled, thousands of people would routinely take to the streets to protest the Vietnam War. Nowadays, he said, there are no demonstrations—people shrug off war and say if enlistees want to go off and risk their lives, well, that’s their choice.

First, a lot of it, I think, is some sort of backlash against the 60s and calling kids that had no choice to go to war "baby killers" and horseshit like that. Many of our boys coming back from Viet Nam were treated like shit for no good reason.

Secondly, it's the new patriotic sentiment. We got caught with our pants down on 9/11 and folks are pretty steamed about it still - especially the older folks who grew up with a secure and invincible America. There are also the folks who just like the fact that the US is "asserting" its power. Personally, I think power should be used sparingly and only when absolutely needed because others will:
not be afraid or respectful
and consider us to be bullies instead of beacons of freedom.

Third, there's a lot of apathy. Just what will protests do? What can you expect? There have been protests since the beginning and nothing has come of it an many protesters were harassed by folks - see #2.

Forth, there isn't the news coverage like we had in Nam. No stories with the soldier's coffins coming home. Hardly any battlefield coverage. And the economy is showing everything. So, of course there's no outrage. Folks are worried about paying their bills.

Re:No, it's backlash against the 60s and...

[gabrieltss]

"We got caught with our pants down on 9/11"

Your right we did - OUR OWN GOVERNMENT did it! 9/11 was an INSIDE JOB! People just REFUSE to believe our government would do it. I guess they won't believe we did the Gulf of Tonkin - READ the declassified papers on it - WE did it! How about Operation Northwoods that proposed that our governement do MANY terrorist acts to make it look like Cuba did it - INCLUDING what? Yup flying airplanes into buildings! Hell even Hitler was involved in government sanctioned terorrism with the Reichstag fire.

GOOGLE these things - find out for yourself.

If they're smart kids...

[icebrain]

...then they don't need another year of high school. Off to college with them.

Simply dumping more money into education does not make it better.

Buying all this "technology" stuff is a waste of money if it's not implemented right. You don't need a computer to learn basic subjects.

Paying bad teachers more doesn't make them teach better. There are good teachers out there who deserve more for what they put into their jobs, and plenty more people who would make great teachers but won't take that big a pay cut from their current jobs in science, engineering, etc.

Similarly, elementary schools don't need two "counselors" each making $70k+. High schools don't need "career counselors" making $90k. And the school board doesn't need six figures (hell, no elected official does). Stop wasting money on administration and get some better teachers.

Hire some former drill instructors to fix discipline problems. Yes, your little deviant brat who "would never do anything bad" might get his feelings hurt a little bit, but maybe he'll finally get his shit straight and go on to be a decent member of society.

Spend some money and get some real scientists and engineers to teach. Teach hard science and math to the kids. Let's try to stop the reverence for idiocy while we can.

Re:If they're smart kids...

[sco08y]

Paying bad teachers more doesn't make them teach better. There are good teachers out there who deserve more for what they put into their jobs, and plenty more people who would make great teachers but won't take that big a pay cut from their current jobs in science, engineering, etc.

Similarly, elementary schools don't need two "counselors" each making $70k+. High schools don't need "career counselors" making $90k. And the school board doesn't need six figures (hell, no elected official does). Stop wasting money on administration and get some better teachers.

I'll be up front and admit that I have no idea how much teachers and administrators should be paid. However, I know that if someone wrote the same thing about IT people, we'd be pointing out that if you don't offer a decent salary, you're guaranteed to get crap people.

Hire some former drill instructors to fix discipline problems. Yes, your little deviant brat who "would never do anything bad" might get his feelings hurt a little bit, but maybe he'll finally get his shit straight and go on to be a decent member of society.

Understanding how the recruiting process works might dispel the notion that some guy screaming at people can turn "deviants" into good citizens.

First off, the Army gets to be pretty picky about who it lets in. They can screen out a lot of physical and mental disorders that few employers are allowed to screen. And felonies are right out, whereas schools pretty much have to teach kids even if they've been expelled from other schools.

Now, my experience was combat arms, so this may not be as universal in the Army as it should be. But even if only at an abstract level, we understood that the stuff we were doing could get us or our buddies killed, which becomes pretty concrete when you're dealing with heavy weapons. Further, there was a real sense of camaraderie, and the feeling that we were doing something truly worthwhile. I was older than others, but I thought that even for teenagers they were pretty damned good about paying attention, even when no one was looking over their shoulders.

Finally, our drill sergeants (drill instructor is the Marine term) had gone through everything we were going through. Just in case they hadn't, in drill sergeant school they got to be treated like brand new privates. So the younger guys especially looked up to them and tried to emulate them.

None of those three factors are in play in a school. The bottom line is that parents aren't going to listen to any erudite arguments as to why some guy is yelling at their precious baby, they're just going hire a lawyer and sue the school into submission.

Re:If they're smart kids...

[sauge]

Being smart and being educated are quite different. In order to be educated, one needs some smartness, but being smart does not mean one is educated.

Re:If they're smart kids...

[russotto]

I'll be up front and admit that I have no idea how much teachers and administrators should be paid. However, I know that if someone wrote the same thing about IT people, we'd be pointing out that if you don't offer a decent salary, you're guaranteed to get crap people.

That's because IT doesn't have unions assuring that performance and pay are orthogonal. Also I think GP is implying that the "counselor" positions he mentioned are entirely superfluous, not merely overpaid.

As long as the system works the way it does, throwing money at the schools won't work. As soon as more money might be available, the unions will smell it and go on strike until they get it. And everyone else with a pet project within the system will grab for a cut too. Net result: more money being spent for the same people resulting in the same results. And maybe a new library (but don't count on actual books) with some politically powerful person's name on it.

Re:If they're smart kids...

[wbackner]

It must be different in different parts of the country. Areas where I have lived and worked, almost all of the additional school staff (counselors, school psychologists, and speech/language pathologists) get paid on the teachers salary schedule, which definitely isn't $70-90k+. According to NEA average teacher salary in the best paying states is around $60k.

Re:If they're smart kids...

[MacGyver2210]

"Hire some former drill instructors to fix discipline problems. Yes, your little deviant brat who "would never do anything bad" might get his feelings hurt a little bit, but maybe he'll finally get his shit straight "

Unfortunately, the lax governing of acceptable lawsuits has made our society far too litigious to ever succeed with this plan. The school board would be sued, and would probably lose, should they ever 'discipline' a child like that.

Re:If they're smart kids...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Spend some money and get some real scientists and engineers to teach."

Why exactly do you want to make math and science education worse? We need excellent teachers who are good at science, math and the like. Just because people can do does not mean they can teach. I've encountered great scientists and engineers that couldn't teach themselves out of a wet paper bag...

Re:If they're smart kids...

[Phroggy]

Spend some money and get some real scientists and engineers to teach. Teach hard science and math to the kids. Let's try to stop the reverence for idiocy while we can.

How about, let's teach kids how to USE science and math. At this point, most of them think it's a pointless waste of time that they only have to remember long enough to pass the final, and then they're free to forget everything because they'll never use it later in life. Change that attitude, and you'll find kids who actually WANT to learn.

I saw a commercial on TV the other day, I'm not entirely sure what they were advertising - some sort of non-profit organization promoting a mentoring program over webcams? I dunno. Anyway, they had a little girl asking an adult, how do you find the area of a triangle? The adult says "well, the formula to find the area of a triangle is 1/2b*h, so you multiply the base times the height, and divide by two." The kid smiles and says "thanks!" but I'm thinking to myself, "That's a terrible answer!"

Try this approach:

To find the area of a 3x5 index card, take a pencil and a ruler and fill it with one-inch square boxes. You can see that there are a total of 15 of them. If you simply multiply the length and width together, this will also give you the same answer, without drawing little boxes, and it always works with any rectangle.

Now, take a peanut butter sandwich and cut the crust off to make a perfect rectangle. Cut it in half diagonally, and you get two right triangles. The area of each half of the sandwich is obviously half the area of the whole sandwich, and to find the area of the whole sandwich, you can multiply the height and width. So, if all you have is half a sandwich, you can measure the two sides to figure out how big the whole sandwich was, and divide by two to get the area.

Next, rotate the half sandwich so the cut edge (hypotenuse) is at the bottom. Find a way to cut the other half sandwich in half such that it makes two triangles which together can complete a rectangle around the first half sandwich. We know the area of the big piece is identical to the sum of the area of the two little pieces. Measure it. The shape is different but the area is the same, and 1/2b*h still works.

Now figure out how to do it with non-right triangles. Now add a third dimension and measure volume. Now learn A=pi*r^2 and V=pi*r^2*h. Now take a few cylinders and prisms of various sizes, measure the area of the base, solve for h if you assume the volume to be 1 liter, mark how high h should be, then pour in a liter of water and see if you did it right.

Those kids are going to remember how to find the area of a triangle for a very long time. The kids who only memorized A=1/2b*h are going to forget the formula after they pass the test, because a formula is all it was to them.

Re:If they're smart kids...

[AK Marc]

That's because IT doesn't have unions assuring that performance and pay are orthogonal.

Even without unions, there hasn't been a "fair" way to measure teachers I've ever seen. Every method I've heard proposed screws at least one of the best teachers I've ever had (and almost all reward at least one of the worst I've ever had).

Re:If they're smart kids...

[icebrain]

Also I think GP is implying that the "counselor" positions he mentioned are entirely superfluous, not merely overpaid.

That is precisely what I meant. From everything I've seen, counselors spend most of their time drinking coffee and pushing papers around. In high school, they also help you choose your electives, but I don't think that's a job that requires a graduate degree.

Re:If they're smart kids...

[icebrain]

Yeah, my drill instructor comment was a bit over the top... you're right, they wouldn't be the best people for this job. I was just letting the cranky old guy in me come out for a bit.

Though, I will add that my grandmother never had discipline problems in her classes, and her students always turned out very well. She had been in the army for several years, got out as a sergeant (outranking my grandfather at the time, who stayed in), and was known for having her students salute her :)

Re:If they're smart kids...

[gabrieltss]

"First off, the Army gets to be pretty picky about who it lets in."

WHAT!? They are letting in convicted felons, non U.S. citizens, gang bangers, all kinds of malcontents these days just to get BODIES to go fight in Afganistan and Iraq. I know - I have friends and family SERVING in the Army right now (no none of them are in the above list - they know people who are though). We have PYCHOS's in the Army killing kids FOR FUN, killing dogs FOR FUN, killing reporters and kids FOR FUN! Read the news watch the videos WIkileaks released!

Here is just a few for you:

Wikileaks reveals video showing US air crew shooting down Iraqi civilians
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/05/wikileaks-us-army-iraq-attack
"Footage of July 2007 attack made public as Pentagon identifies website as threat to national security"

Wikileak'd video shows U.S. troops firing on Reuters reporters and Iraqi children
http://www.infowars.com/wikileakd-video-shows-eager-to-kill-troops-firing-on-reuters-reporters-and-children/

http://www.collateralmurder.com/

Neo-Cons Defend Massacre Of Iraqi Journalists, Children
http://www.infowars.com/neo-cons-defend-massacre-of-iraqi-journalists-children/

Wikileaks leaked video of Civilians killed in Baghdad -- Full video
http://www.infowars.com/wikileaks-leaked-video-of-civilians-killed-in-baghdad-full-video/

Wikileaks Video Exposes Apache Murders of Journalists, Children In Iraq
http://www.prisonplanet.com/wikileaks-video-exposes-apache-murders-of-journalists-children-in-iraq.html

Alex Jones Covers the WikiLeaks Pentagon Snuff Video
http://www.infowars.com/alex-jones-covers-the-wikileaks-pentagon-snuff-video/

WikiLeaks VIDEO Exposes 2007 'Collateral Murder' In Iraq
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/05/wikileaks-exposes-video-o_n_525569.html

Mainstream media ignores Wikileaks video and pays more attention to Tiger Woods
http://snardfarker.ning.com/group/MainstreamMediaAndMindControl/forum/topics/rt-video-mainstream-media?commentId=2649739%3AComment%3A167787&xg_source=activity&groupId=2649739%3AGroup%3A134445

Wikileaks Iraq Video Authenticated By Senior Military Officer
http://news.firedoglake.com/2010/04/06/wikileaks-iraq-video-authenticated-by-senior-military-officer/

Leaked U.S. video shows deaths of Reuters' Iraqi staffers
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6344FW20100406?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

36 Still Images - WikiLeaks Iraq Video (Dial-Up Warning and UPDATE from Wikileaks
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8095770

Violence in Video Games and the Baghdad Massacre

Re:If they're smart kids...

[Rockoon]

You are right. There isn't a fair way to measure teachers, but there is a fair way to measure their supervisors.

Put the onus on the school board and the principles to improve things. Give them the authority to fire teachers, change the curriculum, etc.

If things get worse, fire them. If things didn't get better but they should have, fire them.

If the teachers have a union that is making demands that will make things worse, let them go on strike and find some scabs.

In short: Do not tolerate bullshit.

Re:If they're smart kids...

[ShakaUVM]

Actually, at the education workshop I'm at right now, the consensus is that Boot Camps are the only thing that worked for a certain category of students. However, they were all closed in the recent round of budget cuts.

Re:If they're smart kids...

[AK Marc]

If the teachers have a union that is making demands that will make things worse, let them go on strike and find some scabs.

I was raised in Texas. The funding for schools is decreasing while they are complaining about the rising cost of schools. They are dropping in the ranks. The schools are seriously screwed up. And the unions are prevented, by law, from striking. So there's nothing the union can actually do, nor even threaten. Yet they get blamed for all the ills of schools. It doesn't matter that the best private schools in the state charge three times what the public schools get for funding and the public schools are getting cut year after year. It's all the fault of the unions and their rules and the Texas school system, with it's fundamentalist push for textbooks that make running Slashdot jokes and the constant push for vouchers to further cut public school funding have nothing to do with it.

Yes, there are some issues with the unions making silly rules for pay and making it hard to fire teachers, but they don't make it hard to reassign an incompetent teacher to study hall duty and replace them, and they don't prevent funding public schools the way they need to be funded. And no, I'm not saying that just throwing money at the problem will fix it, but when the top private schools get three times the funding, and you are comparing public schools to private for things like vouchers, then you have to throw money at it first to get parity before drawing such comparisons.

Re:If they're smart kids...

[AK Marc]

WHAT!? They are letting in convicted felons, non U.S. citizens, gang bangers, all kinds of malcontents these days just to get BODIES to go fight in Afganistan and Iraq. I know - I have friends and family SERVING in the Army right now (no none of them are in the above list - they know people who are though). We have PYCHOS's in the Army killing kids FOR FUN, killing dogs FOR FUN, killing reporters and kids FOR FUN!

Agreed. And they have higher standards than the public schools. You are only proving his point. Most of the people you are talking about (other than non citizens who got here after their school years, though I have no idea why you'd list them with the felons and gangbanger list unless you have some serious xenophobia) went through the public schools. They weren't angels in the school system that suddenly became demons when they enlisted. They (and people worse than them) are in public school right now. And the schools can't kick them out, at least the military can, even if they choose not to.

Re:If they're smart kids...

[Anonymous Coward]

None of my elected officials for the schools receive compensation. The superintendent receives 135k per annum. He has a scheduled raise for himself, while he lays off teachers. The teachers average 60k. However, some of them receive more pay. The principals average 100k.

I know of many other places in which the lower management do not earn 1.67 times the peon work scale. In the town next to me some 100 persons - this includes many teachers - in the school department earn 100k+. Most of the individuals do not have advanced degrees. I feel highly confident that in asserting that none of them had attended a degree program with the rigour of many science programs or any liberal arts PhD program.

Re:If they're smart kids...

[N1EY]

How can you re-assign a teacher to study hall duty? How are you going to pay for their replacement? did you really think about this one?

Re:If they're smart kids...

[AK Marc]

I never said cost effective. I just said possible.

Re:If they're smart kids...

[falconwolf]

Actually, at the education workshop I'm at right now, the consensus is that Boot Camps are the only thing that worked for a certain category of students.

Yea, for certain types but not for all. Where I would have been rebellious boot camp worked for my nephew.

Falcon

Re:If they're smart kids...

[sco08y]

"First off, the Army gets to be pretty picky about who it lets in."

WHAT!? They are letting in convicted felons, non U.S. citizens, gang bangers, all kinds of malcontents these days just to get BODIES to go fight in Afganistan and Iraq. I know - I have friends and family SERVING in the Army right now (no none of them are in the above list - they know people who are though). We have PYCHOS's in the Army killing kids FOR FUN, killing dogs FOR FUN, killing reporters and kids FOR FUN! Read the news watch the videos WIkileaks released!

I'm currently in Baghdad, and I've done five years active prior to that. I've heard my share of stories. I also know that a lot of guys are totally full of shit; if some guy claims he had 200 confirmed kills, I assume it's more like 20. If someone claims he killed a civilian and the guy hasn't just got out of prison, he's probably lying.

There were a lot of dogs killed. This was often requested by locals; Muslims generally consider dogs to be pests like rats, and they are a major problem in this region. The biggest problem was never dogs being killed, it was camels; they threatened us with having to pay the $25k if we killed a camel.

Also, most vets I've talked do dislike the children, but no one goes around randomly killing them or any other civilians. All these fantastic stories have to be squared with the fact that there is a justice system in place and soldiers do go to prison when they break the law.

There are gangs that are actively trying to infiltrate the Army, I guess to get the training on weapons and tactics. If felons are getting in, it's because background checks failed, which is liable to happen when you're recruiting for an organization that has hundreds of thousands of people.

Re:If they're smart kids...

[ChrisMaple]

My grade school had a small library that was heavily used because the entire class was marched down there once a week to get a book to read that week. Both my Jr High and Sr High schools had large libraries, and in 6 years I never saw a student in either. At first glance, high school libraries seem like a good idea, but the regimented class schedule tends to insure that they get little use.

Yes

[ArchieBunker]

Yes it is.

It will work at least as well

[Anonymous Coward]

As throwing more money at the military-industrial complex

Re:It will work at least as well

[magarity]

As throwing more money at the military-industrial complex
 
It's a flase dichotomy; schools are financed at the local and state level while the military is financed at the federal level. Total spending by states on subsidized health care and transfer payments is double what is spent on education (click on the 'state' tab). How about less subsidizing the use of hospital emergency rooms as primary care physicians? That's a much better comparison than "military-industrial complex" spending.

Re:It will work at least as well

[koreaman]

It's wrong to suggest that federal and state taxation have nothing to do with each other. Decreases in federal spending leave more money in the pool that states can tap.

If the federal government stopped taxing its citizens to pay for the military, state and local governments could either
1) keep taxes the same so that people get to keep more of their own money, or
2) raise taxes so that the tax burden would be the same as if the feds were spending trillions on the war, but instead spend that money on schools.

Re:It will work at least as well

[AK Marc]

If we eliminated the debt and stopped the war (and appropriate reduction of the military costs), we'd have taxes that were almost half what we are paying now. With that much more pocket money, those with sales taxes will see the difference.

Re:It will work at least as well

[magarity]

Decreases in federal spending leave more money in the pool that states can tap.
 
First, dude, you are tripping out of your mind if you think the federal government would do anything other than spend the money on expanded social programs if military spending were cut. See: 199x's, Clinton era peace dividend. Hardly any of that went to education.
 
Second, I take the position that no level of government is entitled to a 'pool' of private citizens' money. If, in some bizarro world, they cut spending then taxes should be cut accordingly, not shifted elsewhere.

Re:It will work at least as well

[Hognoxious]

Second, I take the position that no level of government is entitled to a 'pool' of private citizens' money. If, in some bizarro world, they cut spending then taxes should be cut accordingly, not shifted elsewhere.

He never said anything about entitlement and nothing about keeping taxes high. But it's a fact that there are services that need funding from taxes, and a dollar taken in tax in one place can't be taken somewhere else.

good thing 'economy' etc.. roaring back to LIEf

[Anonymous Coward]

so much so, that 33 states have exhausted their ability to pay unemployment to the few of us who have yet to experience the stellar (?faiytail?)'recovery'.

like 1984 (the book). almost forgot, we're also 'winning' wars all over the globe. we hope it doesn't get much better right away, lest we forget the troubles we had a couple days ago.

never a better time to consult with/trust in your creators. just in case something goes wrong again ever.

Outstanding chutzpa!

[Bearhouse]

Not THE Richard M. Daley, from the outstanding bunch of politicos who have shaped Chicago's history for the last 50 years?
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daley_family
Reap what you sow, then bitch about it...what amazing hypocrisy.

illiteracy will make us more competitive !!

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's eliminate schools now. We are the dumbest nation in the world. A 4 year college education in the US is the same as a HS education in most other countries. Most people just watch sports and reality shows and lucky if they have the brains the eat, shit and fuck. Wasn't for the McDonalds commercials they wouldn;t know how to eat.

Since we are becoming a 3rd world country let's act like one ! Most jobs have left the country. Why learn how to read? We will be able to compete with 3rd world countries on their level !!! Illiteracy will give us an economic advantage.

We already have this for brainiac kids...

[ducomputergeek]

It's called college.

Re:We already have this for brainiac kids...

[falconwolf]

It's called college.

And many colleges require a General Education Diploma if not a high school diploma. Capable students should be able to take advanced placement courses in high school to earn college credit. That's better than what a friend did. She dropped out of school in 10th or 11th grade then got her GED. The following year she started college.

Falcon

Re:We already have this for brainiac kids...

[Anonymous Coward]

Many high schools don't allow early graduation. Mine doesn't.

additional 'benefits' noted

[Anonymous Coward]

schools closing (40 in detroit alone), who needs 'em anyway.

old people eating pet food. even though it's more expensive now, it's still good they've learned to do that.

with record profits for felonious stock brokers/'bankers', one can only imagine how well the honest folks/& the rest of us are doing.

can anyone even remember what the supposed 'hard times' were like?

money from wars?

[phantomfive]

Endless wars that divert hundreds of billions a year from schools and job training are also undermining America's competitiveness, Daley added

Right. I'll tell you, I've heard so many times people say, "we could easily pay for X if we weren't spending money on wars" that if all those things people have in mind got funded, the money would be spent twice over. I don't know where the money would go if we stopped fighting wars, probably to cover medical/social security expenses, but Mayor Daley is very low on the priority list for recipients of the money.

wondering where the public outrage is

Where it is? It's everywhere. Outrage is the American national pasttime. Aren't there tea parties in Chicago? I mean, doesn't he watch TV? Every news program you watch has some segment trying to make people outraged. What we need is less outrage, not more, and more rational thought. I will happy when Americans realize outrage really doesn't help (or maybe they already are, maybe mayor Daley is noticing that). Of course politicians like outrage, it makes people easier to manipulate.

Re:money from wars?

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't a problem that just popped up yesterday or in the last 10 years, it's very old. So yeah, less outrage, less thought and more doing,

Re:money from wars?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know where the money would go if we stopped fighting wars, probably to cover medical/social security expenses, but Mayor Daley is very low on the priority list for recipients of the money.

We wouldn't be spending it on anything. That's because we don't have the money in the first place. We're borrowing to support the war and we wouldn't be borrowing for education, social security or anything that's an ongoing expense. The war is among the larger financial blunders we've ever made (along with the recent bailouts) and it will end up crippling this country for years to come. But the money we're spending is at the expense of money we might have spent on education, health care, social security and other legitimate expenses in 20-30 years, not today. To pretend like any of the money spent on the war would have been spent otherwise today is ignoring how the war is being funded.

Re:money from wars?

[magus_melchior]

Of course politicians like outrage, it makes people easier to manipulate.

They like outrage because they think it makes people easier to manipulate. The reality is, outrage is a fickle beast and can be used against those who would seek to manipulate it.

Re:money from wars?

[phantomfive]

All emotion makes people easier to manipulate because it tends to turn off the brain. It takes skill to manipulate, yes, but that's what politicians do.

Re:money from wars?

[Anonymous Coward]

...Where it [outrage] is? It's everywhere. Outrage is the American national pastime. Aren't there tea parties in Chicago? I mean, doesn't he watch TV? Every news program you watch has some segment trying to make people outraged...

Most of the outrage you speak of, when talking about war and related spending, is directed against those who speak out against it. I tend to avoid mainstream U.S. media because it is controlled by those with a invested interest in the status quo, not in making things better or discovering and presenting the truth. I find that, even with those that appear sympathetic to a position I have, if it is an issue I have particular knowledge of, are incapable or unwilling to get their facts correct when discussing the issue. Based on the evidence, I can only extrapolate that it is the same for issues for which I do not have a detailed knowledge. The "outrage" that is shown in the media comes from those who are most similar to the sheep in Orwell's Animal Farm. They simply start bleating about whatever they are convinced to bleat about.

Re:money from wars?

[KlausBreuer]

Outrade is everywhere in the USA?
No. It's complaining which is everywhere. Very different: you complain, then lean back, open another beer and watch some TV.

Have a look what happens when the french public gets outraged. Politicians are actually *forced* to do something *useful*...

Re:money from wars?

[phantomfive]

I'll tell you something, calm, cool, calculating voters win out over wild, protesting non-voters every time. For a clear example, consider Nixon's 'silent majority,' where protesters everywhere were protesting against Nixon, and yet in the election he won 49 of the states.

France is a different situation, though, I admit.

law of unintended consequences anyone?

[waddgodd]

Does anyone else notice here that the "elite school" is going to be a HUGE PITA? first, you'll have helicopter parents doing MORE stuff (like making their kids teachers life hell when they MARK SOMETHING WRONG on their precious snowflake's paper) to make sure their kids get to the 5th year HS, then idiots that have no business caring about the 5th year HS are going to make it a requirement, can you imagine being told by the local McD's "sorry, you only have a 4 year HS degree, the guy we hired has a 5-year".

There's Only One Problem I See

[LifesABeach]

This Educator is correct. At Orange County California, one does have an option to take an ROP class, but with some troubling limitations.

5th F#@!% year?

[Bai jie]

Why would we want to send them to school for another year when the four they already are forced into are a waste of time? Most college educated people I know will admit that they learned more their first semester of college than they did in four years of High School. How will another year of crappy education help? It'll only delay their real education. I say shorten High School to 2 years and make it into a preparatory school for either getting a trade or going to college. Take the extra money saved by not running a four year high school and funnel it into making higher education cheaper to get access to. This will have kids done with school by 16, when most of them really should start thinking about how to take care of themselves.

Re:5th F#@!% year?

[gabrieltss]

Hey I actually like this idea!! Write it up and send it to the dumb F@#$ politicians = maybe they might get a clue!

How about the 4 day a week plan to save costs??

[Joe The Dragon]

How about the 4 day a week plan to save costs??

that sounds better then cutting class and laying people off.

What does anyone expect?

[Vinegar Joe]

Chicago is a 3rd world city with a 3rd world government and a 3rd world education system.

Re:What does anyone expect?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck you, troll.

Re:What does anyone expect?

[night_flyer]

Is that you Mayor Daley?

Re:What does anyone expect?

[spire3661]

He does have somewhat of a point. Chicago is a cesspool, in fact the entire region is shit. Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland are all rotting holes.

Re:What does anyone expect?

[moortak]

Cleveland is a rotting cesspool, but it is also one of America's greatest cities. The same is true of Pittsburg and Chicago. Cleveland excels in healthcare, has a killer art museum, and a world class orchestra. In fact one of Cleveland's suburbs comes in at number three in per capita income, while in an incredibly cheap metro area. What you are seeing in the Great Lakes area is a huge wealth disparity. Each of those cities is basically two worlds one filled with crushing poverty and endless despair, and the other representing the elite of American society. http://blogs.wsj.com/numbersguy/in-search-of-the-worlds-most-livable-cities-106/tab/article/

Re:What does anyone expect?

[gabrieltss]

We should be levelig Chicago instead of cities in Michigan!
Mayor Of Detroit's Radical Plan To Bulldoze One Quarter Of The City

University of Michigan - private

[GPLDAN]

The school system in Michigan, with it's devastated tax base, has become so horrific that the University of Michigan is working towards becoming totally private, using Penn as the school to model itself against. Once it does so, in-state admissions will drop to probably below 2-3% of all students admitted. The Chinese will increase the number of students they send to Ann Arbor from 15% of all undergrads to over a quarter.

Daley looks across the lake and sees what's happening to Michigan and Ohio. Like his father before him, who saved Chicago from becoming Cleveland (where it was headed) by making it a financial and banking hub, Daley knows he's got to do something to save Chicago. DePaul and Northwestern and others see the quality of students getting worse and worse every year, and they haven't developed a pipeline of foreign students like Umich has.

The whole city suffers from a workforce that is under-educated, especially in tech. He looks up to Minnesota, where high state taxes have helped keep Minnesota public schools top notch and he starts thinking like a Democrat, or more accurately: like a sane person. Public schools either continue to wilt under a dwindling tax base, or he finds the revenue to pump up the school system. CPS are some of the worst in the nation, worse than even LA or NYC, so that's pretty abysmal. He knows he has to change course, and avoid living in a state where U of I has to consider going private by 2030. Umich will be private by 2020.

Re:University of Michigan - private

[Vinegar Joe]

he starts thinking like a Democrat

The Democrats have run Chicago since Anton Chermak beat Chicago's last Republican mayor, Big Bill Thompson on April 7, 1931.

Re:University of Michigan - private

[fwarren]

starts thinking like a Democrat, or more accurately: like a sane person

When in a boat that is taking on water, you try to do 2 things. 1) Patch the leak and 2) Bail out the water.

The Chicago school district is in much the same boat (pun intended). More money in the right spots would help, but also a lot of that money is thrown at "bad" teachers. To keep things going they are trying to "pump" more money. But they are not fixing the base problem. They have lots of bad teachers.

It does not matter if it is the Unions that won't let you identify bad teachers and get rid of them. Or if it is the school district itself lacks the will to discover and remove bad teachers. I know parents play their part as well, choice of teaching materials, school policies.

The current way of doing things is to just throw more money at it, (much of it consumed at the administration level) and hope enough cash sticks to the good teachers that everything will somehow work out.

The bottom line is to fix the system. To do that they need to fire bad teachers and replace them with better teachers. While they are at that, yes, more money would not hurt.

No Oprah moment

[SmallFurryCreature]

The problem is that there isn't a problem. There are a whole lot of them, all interconnected and unrelated all at the same time. And that means there isn't a solution. Not a simple one anyway.

The problems are:

• The elites (several, not all the same group), who live in their own world and have carefully surrounded them by like minded indivduals (unpaid yes-men) so they never hear anything that disagrees with them.
• Voters who want to be involved but not be involved. Who don't trust everything that is told to them but don't bother to find out the truth either.
• NIMBY.
• Politicians getting elected on promises, not on what they deliver.
• People keep voting for taxcuts despite taxes never ever having being cut, ever anywhere.
• Taxes being considered the only measurement, people not asking what you get for them. Fine that someone promises to cut spending, but if this means that you now have to pay more yourself, then you lost. Oh and remember, spending cuts never result in less taxes.
• Long term plans don't appeal to politicians facing re-election in two years. Take Obama, has to fix 8 years of bad goverment in less then a year before being judged. HOW? If a politician initiats a policy that takes years to prove successful, he will have lost and the opposition takes the credit. Why bother? Instead shout "TAXCUTS" and get elected now.
• Media with clear agenda's ruled by an elite who never has to take responsibility.
• Secret ballots. I know how to solve the deadlock around global climate change. The republicans get their way, but if in 10-20 years they are proven wrong, all republicans and their offspring are killed off. Now we get voters voting for whatever but without any accountability. So they vote for their own short term self intrests, then bitch when the long term bites them in the ass. AKA all the people who voted for this major for 20 years that lead to Chigaco needing a bullet detection system.

  • And the list goes on. Frankly, I think democracy is to blaim. Democracy only works if the voters take an intrest and the elected people are accountable. Neither of these two is happening in western democracies. Fix that and you will start fixing the system. good luck.

Your racism is really offensive

[dirkdodgers]

Please stop using the words "brown people" like that. I don't care if you think you're being snide or ironic.

As one of those "brown people" I can tell you that to our ears it's your own racism you're projecting, not the alleged racism of anyone else. In fact, I've never heard a US politician in favor of the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan use those words. It's always those who oppose them.

Speaking of education, while war is horrible and I would not wish it on anyone, at least now as a side effect the girls and young women in Afghanistan are returning to schools, still with great risks, but have been empowered to take some small measure of their future into their own hands. That, in the scale of human progress, is in my opinion at least no less an achievement than 5% more scientists coming out of the US.

Re:Your racism is really offensive

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that any worse than saying white people or black people?

Re:Your racism is really offensive

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe you may be missing something. Can you guess what it is?

Re:Your racism is really offensive

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you prefer camel jockey or sand nigger?

Re:Your racism is really offensive

[koreaman]

I'm against the war in Iraq. I think the war in Afghanistan was justified (but very stupidly prosecuted).

Racism is discrimination against people based on (perceived or real) racial characteristics. It's not using certain words. For the record, I harbor no ill will for members of any race and have many friends who could reasonably be called "brown".

Obviously no politician who cares less about non-Americans is going to publicly announce that by calling them "brown people". When I and other people against the war use that term, it is to signify that that is the mindset of most of those in favor of the war continuing, NOT to say that I condone people being lumped together under that label.

Re:Your racism is really offensive

[countertrolling]

I think the war in Afghanistan was justified...

Oh? Based on what real evidence, as opposed to government hearsay?

Re:Your racism is really offensive

[koreaman]

Whether Bin Laden was behind the destruction of the twin towers isn't the most relevant thing. What's relevant is that Afghanistan is an Islamic theocracy, and Islamic theocracies tend to be bad for the world and for U.S. interests in particular.

Also, Afghan civilian support for the war has been as high as 70%, IIRC. They clearly didn't mind what we were doing; what they mind is the fact that we're still around and have killed more civilians doing the job than was necessary.

It's hard to know for sure, but there's a decent chance we'd be out already had it not been for the war in Iraq diverting attention and troops.

Re:Your racism is really offensive

[Anonymous Coward]

Can I call Katrina "letting N--gers drown" then? You don't get off the hook for racist comments by putting them into someone else's mouth.

And you certainly don't get points for treating Americans and "brown people" like a dichotomy when America is becoming increasingly "brown". Maybe you didn't notice a mixed race man is prosecuting both wars now.

Re:Your racism is really offensive

[koreaman]

If you think that Katrina was handled the way it was because the government doesn't care about black people, then I would have no problem with you satirically referring to it as "letting niggers drown". Words are just arbitrary sequences of sounds. They are only "bad" if they are used to express harmful or offensive thoughts.

Re:Your racism is really offensive

[countertrolling]

Whether Bin Laden was behind the destruction of the twin towers isn't the most relevant thing.

Excuse me? That's precisely the reason the government gave for the invasion.

What's relevant is that Afghanistan is an Islamic theocracy...

Oh, I see now. So, absent any real verifiable evident that Afghanistan took part in any attack on the US, or is protecting anybody that did, we are justified by our distaste for their government? This is all very interesting, but I'm kinda disappointed that so many people actually believe this is the proper way to act. Logic would indicate our obligation to take down every tinpot dictator if this is the case. Evidently our economic interests take precedence over all else, so we are very selective on which ones we do remove. I suppose you're right. In this context, the war is justified, but please, let's at least be a bit more forthcoming about our real intent.

Re:Your racism is really offensive

[trapnest]

What is: Humour?

Re:Your racism is really offensive

[koreaman]

Looks like we are in almost complete agreement. I'd like to point out that just because it's justifiable doesn't mean it's necessarily in our best interests. I think there are a lot of governments that it would be morally justifiable to take out, but clearly it wouldn't be in the interests of the U.S. to do so in the majority of cases.

Re:Your racism is really offensive

[countertrolling]

My point is that there is nothing morally justifiable about this, or any other war. It's strictly business. Every decision is based on expected cost/benefit ratios. The morality angle serves only to distract attention.

Re:Your racism is really offensive

[dwillden]

Not to mention, that the afghans are actually a mostly fair skinned people. (At least until they spend their lives out working in the fields.) Blue/green eyes are the standard eye colors found among the people there. The racist "brown people" accusation just does not fit.

These folks are not Arabic, they actually have a strong Aryan (Persian/Iranian ethnic background) and Caucasian (The Caucasus mtns are just to the north) genetic background. The one exception to this are the Hazera who are descended from the Mongols.

Re:Your racism is really offensive

[falconwolf]

Whether Bin Laden was behind the destruction of the twin towers isn't the most relevant thing. What's relevant is that Afghanistan is an Islamic theocracy, and Islamic theocracies tend to be bad for the world and for U.S. interests in particular.

No, what is relevant is that if first Ronald Reagan then Bush Sr had not armed what became the Taliban and al qaeda, then left Afghanistan to deal with the aftermath after the Soviets left then there would not have been an Islamic theocracy. Clinton didn't do anything to improve Afghan either.

Falcon

Re:Your racism is really offensive

[AK Marc]

Please stop using the words "brown people" like that. I don't care if you think you're being snide or ironic.

Then let me be the first to say "fuck you." The fact it was in quotes conveyed to me that the writer thought that racism was involved in the war. From your complaint, you are supporting those that kill for race reasons, but whine when someone points it out. That's why you earn a hearty "fuck you."

In fact, I've never heard a US politician in favor of the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan use those words. It's always those who oppose them.

Great, so if you kill people because they are lesser than you because they are brown, that's ok. But actually saying that out loud is unacceptable. Again, the hearty "fuck you" is all I can muster for the pro-racist brown person. Lets push the racism down so that we can't see it. It doesn't matter if they really are racist, as long as they pretend they aren't, at least according to you. And for that, I muster "fuck you." I may not be "brown" but I am from a family that is a minority. I'd rather people wear their racism on there sleeve so that people would at least know that it's so prevalent and still a very real problem in the US.

Re:Your racism is really offensive

[HBI]

i.e. thoughts you don't agree with.

Oh? Well who exactly is the arbiter of 'harmful/offensive'?

Re:Your racism is really offensive

[koreaman]

Since we have free speech in this country, why does it matter?

Since you are allowed to make harmful or offensive comments, there is no need for an "arbiter" thereof. However, it is perfectly alright to debate whether certain words are bad (i.e. convey harmful thoughts), which is exactly what we are doing in this thread.

Re:Your racism is really offensive

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is, people have a lot of trouble finding a pejorative that describes the target racial/ethnic group -without- describing anyone else. My vote for calling them the blue people--or maybe the purple people. Actual color is irrelevant as long as it's a unique nomenclature.

Re:Your racism is really offensive

[Bing Tsher E]

You appear to be heavily into copulating with people who you have strong disagreements with.

Yes. I know that means you'll say the same to me. Your eloquent language useage will win the debate for you.

Re:Your racism is really offensive

[ravenshrike]

Well for one, whenever someone says brown people I think of Samoans and Thai

British television could help with this.

[Shag]

On British TV, there have been some Brainiac shows about science and history that I dare say are more engaging than any typical American curriculum.

Re:British television could help with this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Chicago has WTTW and WYCC and perhaps 2 or 3 more PBS type channels with lots of educational content that are free and over the air. And if you have cable you also get the Discovery Network channels in the base package with lots of educational stuff mostly produced by our Canadian friends to the north as well as the BBC U.S. channel and some other channels with the programming you speak of.

Now it's not on major network TV (ABC/CBS/NBC/FOX/UPN/WGN), but it's not like there's a complete lack of access to educational programming. Although I'll admit, some of the PBS content isn't as showy or entertaining as on cable. Yet some PBS programs like NOVA are actually equal if not better quality that what's on cable.

Access to TV isn't really the problem with the demographic in greatest need of educational improvement. If they have TVs, they're either tuned to sports or stupid stuff promoting the latest thug life like MTV or BET or whatever. I think offering some kind of incentives to the students themselves may yield better results than throwing more money into the current system, but that's part of another slashdot topic.

Chicago Political Machine

[fwarren]

I think the big thing to take away from this is that Mayor Daily IS the Chicago Political Machine. To do business as a politician you have to be in his good graces and of the same mind.

Obama is cut from the same cloth. Much of his staff grew up as part of Chicago Politics. As a rule, what is popular in Chicago does NOT play well in the rest of the country. So Obama can't say these things himself. But watch how he governs. His mindset and agenda are the same.

If you agree with that agenda then you should be very happy with his presidency. If you don't agree with his agenda, at the very least you should not be surprised by it.

Re:Chicago Political Machine

[Joey Vegetables]

Obama is cut from the same cloth. Much of his staff grew up as part of Chicago Politics. As a rule, what is popular in Chicago does NOT play well in the rest of the country. So Obama can't say these things himself. But watch how he governs. His mindset and agenda are the same.

I'm sorry to say it does play pretty well here in other Rust Belt cities (Cleveland, Detroit, Youngstown, etc.). It's the last thing this region needs though. We've already taxed and regulated productive businesses literally to death, leaving government and its close associates (the highly regulated medical, financial, and legal industries) as the chief if not only major employers. We need to reverse 50-60 years of creeping socialism/fascism, and allow free enterprise to bring economic growth and opportunity back to this region. They don't realize it yet but in 10 more years Chicago, New York and other larger cities will be in the same predicament. For economies to prosper, businesses must be allowed to create jobs.

Re:But Yes!

[mcneely.mike]

They are so brown, their brown goes all the way to eleven!
Don't touch them... don't even look at them.

Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes because more money would stop stuff like this.

Daley is a crook. Be thankful his only aspiration is Emperor of Chicago.

How about...

[Anonymous Coward]

Teaching kids how to stay out of debt!

Two ideas that don't address the problems

[kenh]

The mayor 'floated' two possible 'fixes' for what ails chicago's ailing school system (wasn't our 44th president a community activist trying to improve public education in Chicago? What happened? Why is it not better?) - a fifth year of high school and a brainiac academy. Neither addresses the problems and would likely impact the average Chicago Public School student.

A fifth year of high school would have little impact, as these children managed to avoid getting a proper education in the first 13 years of public school, plus some amount of 'Head Start' programs, how in the world can anyone think adding a 14th year make a difference? It would increase the number of teachers by 1/14th and would require 25% more high school classrooms. Why not simply enforce a 'no social promotion policy' and start to cull the ranks of the teachers weeding out those that aren't effective?

A brainiac academy ony supports/aids those already succeding, draining the teaching pool of all the good teachers, and leaving those most in need of help to fend for themselves without even the benefit of a smart kid to help them with their homework/copy off of during tests.

In these tough economic times, several states are looking at eliminating the requirement for a 12th grade/senior year of public school, since kids are able to complete their required studies in before their senior year. Iowa is considering granting a bit of money as a scholarship (of sorts) of $2,500 toward their freshman year of college.

Mayor, get your teachers to do their job in the first 13 years (K-12), don't punish the kids for one more year, and pulling the brainiacs out of the general student population only helps those that have overcome the challenges your schools pose to their students, it does nothing for those left behind.

Re:Two ideas that don't address the problems

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck those that are left behind.

Or the opposite.

[Anonymous Coward]

Having come from Chicago's schools, it was my experience that the opposite seemed to work better. For high school I attended the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, which gave you the option of doing high school in three years--and many of the most successful kids did just that. While it was not related to CPS and had a slew of other factors (it was a boarding high school, and drew selected students), the fact that you could take someone from algebra 1 to multivariable calculus in the span of three years says that if you need 5 years to do less, you're doing something wrong.

What we need is...

[elnyka]

This is what we need:

1. Better parenting and accepting responsibility for one's children teaching: my sisters when to public school and got an awesome education. But then again, we expected that from them, taking every hard elective they could get, even on summer, never taking a summer break.
2. A public education system that resembles the German model of education, a system geared towards training kids from an early age so that they become useful and self-reliant. We have this notion of middle and high school that are just baby sitting for teens, and that the only way to *make it* is to get a university degree. Bullshit on both.
3. Abandon the "everyone is equal". No, we are not. We have been confusing "we have a right to the same opportunities" with "we are equal". This is strongly related to the previous point: not everyone is made for university and not everyone that goes to university is guaranteed to make it.
4. Get rid of the stigma of technical trades. We have this shitty thinking of "plumber bad, mba good". Incredibly stupid way of thinking. College professions and technical traders are to be nurtured and respected.

Instead of throwing money for a 5th year for brainiacs, fix the entire system. It makes no sense to have HS graduates who can't do fractions. Many kids in other parts of the world (even in developing countries) end their HS with a solid foundation in algebra, trig/geometry, vectors, biology, chemistry, classical physics and world history.

If we are to throw money, do it for the purpose of changing our way of thinking.

Why would anyone want a career in technology?????

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a software developer for 40 years now. As a senior developer, my only course for advancement is to become a project bookkeeper creating endless spreadsheets, powerpoint slides for preliminary & critical design reviews, requirements reviews, risk management - it's called "process". Then there's the endless screwing around trying to get MicroQuack Project to reflect what's really going on. Accounting can't get me useful information regarding hours entered into a stupid time card program so that has to be manually managed. Fully 67% of my last project's hours went, not to programming, but to managing programming. Since I avoid doing all this crap, I'm constantly told I can't be advanced plus I get constantly harrassed because I'm "overpaid".

American business is trying to turn nearly everyone into an accountant, so why the hell should anyone study technology when all the action, fame, & glory is in admin & accounting? Smart people see this & get into day trading or creative finance in the first place.

Yeah, I'm cynical...used to be companies at least claimed there was a "technology track" where one could advance without becoming a conventional "pointy haired boss". Nowadays, doesn't seem to be the case...

Problem with different high school requirements

[wbackner]

Here in Utah one of the state congressmen proposed having only three years of high school to save money because he felt the fourth year was wasted. This brought up the problem that most colleges have a standard set of classes that they expect high school graduates to have. Adding a year may not cause the same problems. However, before anything is done that changes what colleges expect they are getting, the people implementing changes need to make sure that they aren't screwing over their best students for college admissions.

I'd rather offer grades 13 and 14 to everyone

[davidwr]

These days schools with more than a few dozen brainy kids offer enough advanced-placement classes so kids have 1 or 2 semesters of college behind them before they start.

What we need is taxpayer-paid K-14 for anyone who wants it, especially those of limited income. Grades 10 and above don't even need to be academic, they can be vocational or pre-military training. Every tax dollar spent on educating young adults will pay itself back several times over in the long run, even after taking inflation into account.

Most cities already have community colleges in place, and many of these offer high-school-level classes to adult students. Piggyback on this. You don't really want a 14-year-old high school freshmen on the same campus as a 20-year-old college student or trade-school-student, but at the same time an 17-year-old taking college-sophomore-level classes should be allowed to choose if he wants to be in the high school social group or the college social group. Now, a brainiac 14-year-old taking college freshmen classes? He probably belongs at a Tier-1 university, not a community college. Let him take a couple of non-academic or college-level classes at a local high school if he wants to get a swirley, er, I mean socialize with other teens his age.

Immediate Direction Change

[Anonymous Coward]

High-Speed Video Shows How Flies Change Direction So Quickly:

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/04/high-speed-video-flies/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29

They are upgrading to try the device on politicians.

You're missing something here

[tuxgeek]

His point is that if we stop spending so much money on wars in far away lands and put that money into out school systems, our own people and nation will be much better off in the long run.

I have to concur with this view
All our national wealth is spent on military industrial complex while the nation is slipping away into 3rd world status. The majority of Americans are morons that still believe Saddam was behind 9/11. Education can fix this ..

We need to redirect our priorities sooner than later. The longer we continue to dick around not dealing with our social problems, the worse things will become. Improving our school system is a great place to begin

Re:You're missing something here

[sumdumass]

His point is that if we stop spending so much money on wars in far away lands and put that money into out school systems, our own people and nation will be much better off in the long run.

I have to concur with this view
All our national wealth is spent on military industrial complex while the nation is slipping away into 3rd world status.

Fist of all, we do not have the money we are using to fight the wars. It would be impossible to spend it on education unless we are going to continue to spend money we don't have. Until recently, the wars have been funded off budget which stops congress from just re-spending the money after the war doesn't need it. It's hard to say what will happen when the war is over but it appears that trillion dollar deficits aren't all that startling any more. Eventually this deficit spending will backfire then all of the tax revenue is used for paying our debts instead of financing the programs we shouldn't be having in the first place.

Second, the money for wars is spend at a federal level, the states are primarily responsible for their school funding so nothing is stopping the state from raising taxes and spending more. Certainly the federal taxes haven't been raised to account for the war spending outside of tax cuts being stopped. What the mayor is really asking for is money from outside the state because his own constituents do not agree with his logic.

Finally, the amount of money we are talking about is a misnomer. It's actually less then $1 per student per year increase in funding. There are 52,935,996 school aged children from 5-17 years of age as estimated in 2008. Now this estimate doesn't include students starting school before age 5 or students over 18 in school. It also doesn't guarantee all of the population referenced is in school but it's a decent place to start. Anyways, it works out to just over $3,000 per kid if you divert all funding from Iraq and Afghanistan to the schools but do not count the fact that members of the military are normally stationed elsewhere so part of that funding is going to not be accessible. Currently, there are about 2,284,856 student aged children in Illinois (same source). So an increase of $6,854,568,000 would be seen if that money was diverted. Illinois already spends something like $51.6 trillion dollars (as of 2008) per year, that would be around a 13% increase in spending but why should it come from the feds and not the citizens of Illinois? It's not like the feds are already taking it, hell- it's already not paid for.

Illinois is currently fighting a 13 billion dollar budget deficit because they failed to do proper spending and federal government requirements for program mandates. Do you really think that 6 billion would go to the students? Even if you passed a law mandating it would, they would just pull other funding from the schools to make a run about look legal. It's happened many times before and happens in almost any state when they receive federal funding.

The majority of Americans are morons that still believe Saddam was behind 9/11. Education can fix this ..

I believe this too. However, I do not limit my beliefs to 9/11 issues.

We need to redirect our priorities sooner than later. The longer we continue to dick around not dealing with our social problems, the worse things will become. Improving our school system is a great place to begin

I think the problem is sort of like you not seeing the forest for the trees. The problem is actually dicking around with social problems in the first place. The federal government shouldn't be involve in most of them and the state should delegate most of the issues down stream to localities within their control so that the money or programs are more effective.

Re:You're missing something here

[aurispector]

Why is it that liberal's answer to every problem is to throw more money at it? Certainly if we cut all other spending to the bone we could fund individual tutors for every student, free laptops, massages, anything. The question is this: who's responsibility is it to ensure students work hard and strive to achieve excellence? THE PARENTS. Not the government. End of story.

No amount of government spending can make up for bad parenting. Entitlement spending is a deep, dark, bottomless hole.

Re:You're missing something here

[shentino]

With the feds sucking up most of the money states really don't have a big tax base to fund out of.

Re:You're missing something here

[IICV]

And the modern conservative party's answer to every problem is to throw more money at a different country. If we're going to be tossing money around, I'd prefer if it got spent here, thanks.

And if you dislike the fact that the modern conservative party isn't actually conservative, then maybe you should get off your asses and kick out the asshole politicians who think that pandering to paranoid idiots is a good way to get elected. It makes sense though, because those idiots never check what the politicians actually do (after all, liberal media is so biased and conservative media is so truthy), so the politicians can go ahead and do whatever they want as long as they mouth the right words.

Re:You're missing something here

[Ihmhi]

Remember the good ol' days before Pearl Harbor when America said they'd have an isolationist stance and meant it?

I wonder how different the world would be today if we were never pulled into the war like that.

Re:You're missing something here

[benchbri]

Daley is exactly right that we should be spending money on education instead of wars.

I look at it this way: We have two choices, we either spend money on education, or we spend money on wars. I've seen this choice somewhere else: Star Trek.

An oversimplification of the ST:TNG galaxy (actually more along the lines of VOY, but bear with me...) would be that there are two civilizations in the galaxy: The Federation, and The Borg. The Borg spend their money on war. They assimilate knowledge that has already been discovered by other races. The Borg do not learn. The Federation, on the other hand, spends money on education, not on war.

Now, look where America is. We spend all our money bombing brown people, and try and assimilate the world into our culture. America is the Borg. What Daley wants to do is have America become the Federation. Daley wants America to invest in education and basic research so that eventually we'll be transporting replicators and fusion reactors into villages that hate us. The brown people will love us, because we're not bombing them, and we're not forcing them to assimilate. It's actually pretty easy.

Really, it's kind of genius. Instead of bombing all the brown people so that they'll come around to our way of thinking, all while putting the brain drain on America, we invest in education and research in America, and make the country the best it can possibly be so that everyone comes around to our way of thinking.

One of these strategies doesn't work, ever, and that's the strategy we're currently using.

Re:You're missing something here

[Anonymous Coward]

As I mentioned previously, the feds aren't paying for their spending so it's still not being sucked up as fast as it's spent. But the states are in the same boat. This is especially the case with Illinois who is already receiving crap-loads (billions) of money from the feds and still fighting a 13 billion dollar deficit.

So if the feds are sucking up most all of the money and they still cannot pay their bills, then all it would do by diverting money to the states for education is simply run up the debt for someone else. Remember, even without the two wars, we are still into deficit spending and it will get worse with the recent health care debacle that was rammed through. And there is no technical difference between the feds increasing the taxes and Illinois increasing their own taxes if this would be implemented nation wide. The funds disbursement wouldn't be significantly changed between state and feds when all the schools in the country are getting the same increase in funding.

Re:You're missing something here

[Hognoxious]

I wonder how different the world would be today if we were never pulled into the war like that.

Ich weisse nicht.

Re:You're missing something here

[Mr. Slippery]

Why is it that liberal's answer to every problem is to throw more money at it?

Investing money in social infrastructure like education is not "throwing money" at the problem, any more than fixing the leaking roof in your house, or getting your car's oil changed regularly, is ""throwing money" at those issues.

The question is this: who's responsibility is it to ensure students work hard and strive to achieve excellence? THE PARENTS

Working hard and striving can only get you so far if the buildings are crumbling, the textbooks outdated, the labs lacking supplies and equipment, and the student body living in constant fear of violence.

No amount of government spending can make up for bad parenting.

No amount of good parenting can make up for a lack of vital resources.

Entitlement spending is a deep, dark, bottomless hole.

Education is a public good, as as been understood since Jefferson's day, not an entitlement; but anyway, entitlements are the ante we owe for playing the private property game.

(And, by the way, your consistent misuse of "'s" make the case that American schools are underfunded better than anything I can say. And of course, by pointing this out, I ensure that my own post will contain at least one grammatical error.)

Another source for the money

[Anonymous Coward]

Richie could stop stealing hand over fist. Put some of your parking-meter and Olympic-bid rakeoff into the system, Richie; that'd pay some teachers.

Free Public Colleges

[Doc Ruby]

Public school should be free at least through college. At the very least loans should have their interest rates set, or be refundable, depending on one's graduating scores.

If we spent $10,000 a year on only the (1.5 million) top half of graduating students for each of four college years, that $60B would buy more than the $120B+ a year we spend in Iraq and Afghanistan (plus the "business as usual" $TRILLION+ annual expenses for the Pentagon and intelligence budgets). That's free education and expenses for every American above the median performance. If we gave $1000 to everyone who graduated high school on time, and $500 to everyone graduating only a year late, cash and no strings attached, the extra $1.5B would pay for itself in the drop in people who instead "graduate to jail" at $40,000 a year (plus the cost of whatever damages put them there, and the loss of their taxable productivity).

And more Americans who can think and research for themselves would reduce how often we go into these expensive wars.

Education investment is the best investment. We've got plenty of places from which we can redirect the wasteful expenses instead into education, where the public is really building something that protects and benefits the public.

Re:Free Public Colleges

[Angeliqe]

College (in the US) is practically free as long as you go to school locally. Living expenses is where most of your financial issues come from. When in elementary, middle and high school, your parents pay for your living expenses. Sometimes, parents can't or won't do that after you turn 18. If you have a nice college near you like I did, tuition and books are not that hard to cover. Community college starts are cheap. Then you have programs like Florida Bright Futures (yes, that requires good grades) that pay for tuition. If you didn't have good grades in school, you can always get loans that you don't pay while in college. If your parents don't make much or if you support yourself, you can get government grants. Also, even if you have to pay for school with loans, you can get almost all of the money back on your tax return as I did. This requires that you work while in school, but I did it for awhile on a job with McDonalds. Later, I got a paid internship through the school that was more money than fast food. The part of my loans that I did not cover is an interest rate of only 2.25% (requires consolidation) and repayment is income based. If I can't pay it off in 25 years, it is written off. It's different for every situation, but I started out as lower middle class (family of 5 living off of $30k/yr) and paid my own way through college. That's actually more difficult than someone from below the poverty level because they qualify for more government help.

Re:Free Public Colleges

[N1EY]

The best thing would be the elimination of the US Dept of Education. They really don't set any of the concrete standards for which schools have currently used. They only collate data. They also supervise the provision of massive loans, which has created price inflation at the collegiate level. The tuition at public schools in Europe does not cost anywhere near the average US cost. We should also consider that the public schools can and should perform better, but ignore these pleas to send every child to a 4 year institution. Many of these educational programs are already moribund. They offer little to no value for the students. Many of the European programs had only been for 3 years. Why do we have a 4 year program as the basis?

Re:Free Public Colleges

[Doc Ruby]

You're unusual, because you pieced together seemingly every possible source of revenue and savings to pay for your tuition, which people around the 50th %ile of HS grads generally can't figure out how to do. And you did it by both working a job enough time while going to school that your loans were smaller than your income taxes, which makes it harder to get the most out of school - especially for people around the 50th %ile of HS grads. And you did it I expect without going to a public school as expensive as, say, UC Berkeley. But even a school like SUNY at Albany costs over $12,500 a year, for students commuting from their family home (ie. room & board is extra). $12,500 would be a lot for a $30K income family of five.

It's not impossible to get an education in the US for free (net after many years working to earn it, and not just in the classroom). Your achievement is a testimony to both your own effort and to the fact that it is at least barely possible. But what I described was a system that would increase the value of millions of Americans' entire future lives, every year, for half what we're spending on Iraq and Afghanistan; for about 5% of what we spend on our entire defense system - but which would create a lot more value even in just our national security. You yourself, under a system like that, would have spent probably up to double your time during college learning, instead of flipping burgers, and likely gone to a better college - even if the same school, but with more tuition money to spend on educating more students with more focus on their education.

That shouldn't be just possible. It should be the baseline.

Re:Free Public Colleges

[Doc Ruby]

Why is the Education Department bad, even if all it did were collating info? It's the smallest Cabinet agency, with only 5000 employees in about 30 offices. Its work in organizing finance is of course essential, and has just been reformed to kick out the worthless middlemen banks previously given free profit for little work or value, recapturing all that money and reinvesting it in direct financing to students. Its other activity is in enforcing "No Child Left Behind", which is also being dismantled after a decade of failure. The total budget is about $70B, which it spends on those activities along with enforcing Federal privacy and civil rights laws ensuring equal access to education, and restricted access to personal information generated by our educational systems where most people spend at least 20% of their lives.

"Abolish the Department of Education" is, however, a bedrock agenda of Republicans. Is the reason you want it gone because you're a Republican?

Re:Free Public Colleges

[Angeliqe]

You are talking about out of state fees. I am talking about a local college which is the whole premise of my point. I think most states have at least one public university. University of Central Florida has a good reputation for their Computer Science program, so I was a little more lucky. Their average yearly tuition is only $4,518 (http://finaid.ucf.edu/applying/app_costs.html). Sunny, the school you mentioned is $4,970 (http://www.albany.edu/financialaid/costs.shtml) which isn't much more. Plus I started out at a community college which is also an important point. It saves you a lot of money and employers don't really care where you spent your first 2 years. All of the methods I used are available to most of high school students. The problem is motivation. I see kids in college all of the time take their education for granted because their parents are footing the bill. It's just one big party to them. If someone has to work for what they get, they take their classes more seriously.

A couple of points...

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen enough "if they're smart, off to college!" type responses here and elsewhere to know that it's a fairly popular proposition. However, as someone who did just that - I left high school as an under-18 kid to enroll in a very demanding engineering faculty in a prestigious university - I can attest that the transition can be extremely difficult. I simply didn't have as mature a mindset I needed as well as the social skills to easily succeed that early. Eventually, I did graduate, but for the first couple of years, I was very close to simply dropping out (and I knew enough colleagues who did - which was a complete waste of their talent and knowledge). I know anecdote =! data, but high school allows a child to struggle and fail without some very real consequences (mostly having to do with the already high and growing cost of retaking courses in university and/or continued residency, or not being allowed to proceed in a field due to low marks, etc).

The Ontario (Canada) HS system used to have an "extra" year (Gr13 or OAC) that was abolished some years back. As someone training to become a teacher (thus, my nick), I've already observed some very obvious negative trends (from talking to and working besides teachers who've been on the front lines for the past 10-20 years) due to the loss of a school year. Without the extra year of prep, students interested in university are discouraged from taking courses outside of the core curricula necessary for entrance. Sadly, this means stuff like comp sci courses, which used to have packed classes, are now sparsely attended and are close to being removed (if not already gone) at many high schools. Other things like integration in calculus (something OAC math used to have) have been dropped for parity with students coming from HS boards that only go up to 12 (who don't teach it) - leading to students being behind the eight ball almost immediately upon walking into any high science or engineering math course.

These two factors (amongst others) can lead to a situation where your high achievers, the ones who are so glibly asked to "go to college!", are negatively impacted by timing pressures or the attitude that they can succeed purely on academic terms.

I don't know anything about this mayor, so I don't know his politics or whether or not this is just a thinly disguised cash grab (as some have implied), but extending HS is not such an evil thing in and of itself.

Don't serve the advantaged students

[symbolset]

This is patently unfair. Yes, there needs to be an education system that provides for the needs of students struggling with language, with disabilities and even schools that help the intellectually challenged achieve their potential. There's no question about this.

The proper way to do this is not to refuse to serve the students whose intellectual or artistic gifts become special needs for out-of-mainstream education. Neglecting our brightest students is not a good way to drive America to the fore in the new century. To turn an old saw: the world needs physicists, research chemists and brain surgeons too.

Re:Don't serve the advantaged students

[PSandusky]

The proper way to do this is not to refuse to serve the students whose intellectual or artistic gifts become special needs for out-of-mainstream education. Neglecting our brightest students is not a good way to drive America to the fore in the new century. To turn an old saw: the world needs physicists, research chemists and brain surgeons too.

The world does indeed need scientists, sure. The problem is, the world needs a scientifically literate public to recognize that it needs more scientists. We're not too hot on that part.

Gifted and intellectual students have something of a mixed bag of possibilities -- if they're in well-endowed school districts, they're well provided for. If they're not, they may take a back seat while the funding goes to having pizza parties for seniors who still can't read (harsh, I know -- still, that's how it was in my school district). "Not refusing" is the goal state -- first we need people who care about getting there. Right now, those who should frequently don't.

A couple of points

[notjustchalk]

Reposted (I have no idea why my original was posted as AC while I was logged in?!)

I've seen enough "if they're smart, off to college!" type responses here and elsewhere to know that it's a fairly popular proposition. However, as someone who did just that - I left high school as an under-18 kid to enroll in a very demanding engineering faculty in a prestigious university - I can attest that the transition can be extremely difficult. I simply didn't have as mature a mindset I needed as well as the social skills to easily succeed that early. Eventually, I did graduate, but for the first couple of years, I was very close to simply dropping out (and I knew enough colleagues who did - which was a complete waste of their talent and knowledge). I know anecdote =! data, but high school allows a child to struggle and fail without some very real consequences (mostly having to do with the already high and growing cost of retaking courses in university and/or continued residency, or not being allowed to proceed in a field due to low marks, etc).

The Ontario (Canada) HS system used to have an "extra" year (Gr13 or OAC) that was abolished some years back. As someone training to become a teacher (thus, my nick), I've already observed some very obvious negative trends (from talking to and working besides teachers who've been on the front lines for the past 10-20 years) due to the loss of a school year. Without the extra year of prep, students interested in university are discouraged from taking courses outside of the core curricula necessary for entrance. Sadly, this means stuff like comp sci courses, which used to have packed classes, are now sparsely attended and are close to being removed (if not already gone) at many high schools. Other things like integration in calculus (something OAC math used to have) have been dropped for parity with students coming from HS boards that only go up to 12 (who don't teach it) - leading to students being behind the eight ball almost immediately upon walking into any high science or engineering math course.

These two factors (amongst others) can lead to a situation where your high achievers, the ones who are so glibly asked to "go to college!", are negatively impacted by timing pressures or the attitude that they can succeed purely on academic terms.

I don't know anything about this mayor, so I don't know his politics or whether or not this is just a thinly disguised cash grab (as some have implied), but extending HS is not such an evil thing in and of itself.

Re:A couple of points

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a little box and you checked it.

Re:A couple of points

[Angeliqe]

I majored in Computer Science. I had to take a test to get into the math classes and all highschool got me was Intermediate Algebra. Then I had to take College Algebra, then Trigonometry, then I skipped Pre-calculus because I was sick of taking courses that really did not count towards my degree. Calculus I is where they expect you to be at the beginning when you get into college for Computer Science.

Re:A couple of points

[N1EY]

Aren't you ignoring the American issue? Why aren't they providing the subjects that you mentioned on an earlier basis to the children. It takes too long for them to develop math and science skills. Why should an extra year be introduced when they are so behind the 8 ball.

Re:A couple of points

[notjustchalk]

I'm not sure how I'm ignoring the "American" issue. One of the points brought up was having an extra year in HS, was it not? As a province that already had that, I was giving a concrete example of how it the extra year had a beneficial impact on some students.

As for why CS and integral calculus (amongst other advanced aren't introduced earlier, it mostly comes down to time. Students need time to get through the immense amount of content the state expects them to (believe me, it ain't easy). Whether or not the material is effective at teaching them math and science skills is a whole different kettle of fish - and we (as teachers and parents) have to suffer with a dysfunctional system developed by people more concerned about mechanical efficiency than passing along the tools that facilitate real understanding (ie. the factory vs the mentor model). I could go on all day...

Hope and Change - the early years

[kenh]

For those of you not paying attention a couple years ago, our current President spent (invested) two decades of his life building the Chicago Public School system up (as a community organizer and local politician) to what it is now - from the NY Times:

One of the biggest lessons Mr. Obama drew from his experiences in Chicago, associates said, is that student achievement is highly dependent on teacher quality.

In the two decades since Mr. Obama arrived in Chicago, its public schools have undergone a sweeping turnaround, from an education wasteland to a district that, while still facing major challenges, is among the most improved in the nation. The city has closed many failing schools and reopened them with new staffs, making it an important laboratory for one of the country’s most vexing problems

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/10/us/politics/10educate.html

Remeber, improvement is easy, if you're already at rock-bottom...

Lewis Black, on President Clinton's educational achievements: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7axLyrK12ms

Money

[Anonymous Coward]

Part of the problem IS a lack of funding. Public schools rely on taxes within the region and contributions from students' parents. This leads to serious inequalities between teachers' salaries and the level of overall funding when you compare schools in rich neighborhoods to schools in poor neighborhoods. I saw in my last years at a public HS one teacher making ~$80,000 annually (after benefits I think) for teaching TYPING. She could hardly operate a computer. A class of /.ers would have laughed her out of the school. Meanwhile, new, talented teachers had to try to avoid making waves and had to distinguish themselves to make it out of the ~$25,000 income bracket they have pre-tenure. And layoffs come from the new end.

$25,000 a year to TEACH OUR KIDS? How much did the pre-nummi unionized auto industry workers make? How much do we spend on each hellfire missile we launch, each drone, each soldier sent to our wars of imperialism?

Sorry to sound fringe, but its hard to justify any other stance these days.

What's old is new again

[hyades1]

Ontario used to have a system somewhat like this. There were five-year arts and sciences programs for students intending to go on to university and four year programs directed at kids who were going to enter the work force or community colleges.

Under a Conservative premier, all high schools programs were reduced to four years. The results haven't been good.

That's not it

[zogger]

I'll speak from long "olden days get off my lawn" perspective here as regards street protests. You realize that if you keep it up, not only will you eventually OD on teargas, but there is a distinct real possibility you will suffer permanent physical damage to your body from getting beat on by goons with clubs, plus spend a long time in the pokey, or get a heart attack from a Taser, or they will just shoot you. And nowadays they hire recent combat vets whose mindset is "kill" to be "community police". All the old cops are gone, and a lot of them were certainly bad enough, the new younger ones now are all black suited swat wannabees and snipers and door kickers and so on, where the main goal is protect the criminals at the top of the political scene.

If after all these decades we still have the bulk of the people voting for either criminal gang R or D...no use anymore, I quit. I know *I* am certainly not going out protesting anymore, those days are long freakin gone for this gray haired and bearded boy. It just ain't worth protesting when that simple easy step-to just STOP voting for the criminals isn't being taken in large enough numbers, in all age demographics, including my own.

The boomers (some, not all, but a lot at the time) did good, I honestly think we did, but after a decade and change of non stop protest and political reform and activism, and at least accomplishing some semblance of racial and gender equality and ending the draft and at least ending one big blood profits war..time for the next generations to step up and do something.

*crickets*

If they don't care about their future..well..that's it then, they don't care. If people succumb to brainwashing with that "don't waste your vote" BS and keep electing from the approved by the elite overlords pool of media-picked-for-you candidates...well, that's it, they don't care. If they can't see the brainwashing, just keep sucking it up, believing in that horsecrap drivel those professional pols spew, after all the evidence out there going back generations as to why this is a stoopid idea...well, they don't care, you get what you get when you don't care or allow yourself to become compromised.

In a way, I think ending the draft backfired bigtime. Not that I want it back, but when 50% of the young population was staring at the real possibility of fighting yet another bankers/wall street profits war...you did get a lot of protest and "social unrest". It dropped off rapidly once the draft ended. And the "overlords" learned from their mistakes, and came up with a new plan they implemented for controlling the population. With no draft, what they do now is a stealth economic draft and control. Blow the economy out enough, raise tuition costs enough, get people believing that credit (debt) is the same as wealth accumulation, and they get all the younger "volunteers" they need to "join up" and go fight those same wars, basically just to have a job, and the older ones get stuck in that perpetual debt trap, so they are very reluctant to become that nail sticking up that gets hammered.

When we had tons more entry level and "good enough" paying manufacturing jobs, you didn't see it as much, people weren't as afraid I think, they would go protest, but now that those are poofing, and a lot of service jobs that were traditionally taken by new entries to the work force like in construction go to wall street max profits labor arbitrage "new arrivals"..it doesn't leave much choice for a lot of younger folks. And they have so many people dependent on some check from the state for their life...they don't want to rock the boat. Carrot and the stick, equally applied. don't rock the boat, maybe you get a small carrot, rock the boat, you will get the big stick.

So the older ones are just tired of being the ones protesting, plus are now saddled in debt and staring at real old age sneaking up, and maybe losing their job, etc, and the younger folks are so economically compromised in advance of getting out of school e

Money DOES NOT equal better schools

[DesScorp]

"Like it or not, there's no such thing as a school that couldn't do a better job educating kids with more money. It does take money to teach kids. The more the better."

That's absolutely farcical, and further, is demonstrably untrue. And the argument about public vs. private here doesn't wash, because the rankings for school spending and test scores don't even take private schools into account. The rankings for dollar per kid are for public schools only.

Washington D.C. spends more per pupil than any other major city, and far more money than most states. And yet they have arguably the worst school system in the nation. And if you look around the country, you'll see that in terms of dollars-per-child, most of the worst performing systems are those with the highest average spending. Money will not fix schools. Period. If you're spending enough for books, teachers, and keeping the lights on, then the success of your students depends overwhelmingly on factors completely unrelated to cash. While DC spends more for less results, Utah public schools spend less than anyone per pupil, and yet has test scores and graduation rates well above the national average. So D.C. spends money comparable to many fine private schools, and they still stink, while Utah public schools spend a pittance. Again, money is not the problem here.

And BTW, it's not like the US is skimping on education spending when compared to our competitors, either. The US is third globally in spending-per-pupil, far ahead of other countries that regularly beat us in math and science scores, like Germany and Japan. Only Austria and Switzerland spend more per child, so again, the notion that "more education money = always better" is just flat wrong.

"Anybody who parrots the right-wing talking point that the problem is teachers unions has never taught in both public and private schools."

Unions by themselves are not the only problem, but they are a big one. And I come from a family of teachers in both public and private schools. Go to a unionized public school and take a private survey. Ask how many teachers send their kids to non-unionized private schools. You're going to be surprised just how many do. Many teachers join the union because they basically have to do so to get a job at a public school. Further, every boneheaded "reform" of the last 50 years... new math, whole language instruction, bussing students, etc, were all firmly backed by the teachers unions. Any real reform... pay for performance, charter schools, making it easier to fire bad teachers, etc, have all been fought with a scorched earth campaign by the same unions.

" She went to public schools here in Chicago and got a first-rate education (she's in grad school now). "

What a shock. The daughter of a professional academic does well in school wherever she is. No one saw that one coming. I mean, it had nothing to do with parents that expected her to perform, right?

"The problems are many, but at the top are funding,"

Again, bull.

"shitty parenting"

We agree on something

"a growing socially and economically-impoverished underclass (thank you Ronald Reagan)"

We've always had an underclass. We always WILL have an underclass. That's humanity. That's never going to change. And yet we never had the systematic problems in school with that underclass that we have now until the 1960's. I look forward to your explanation of how Ronald Reagan is responsible for that, or how he caused black kids to decide that academic success is "acting white", or how despite the fact there is more opportunity to better yourself than in any time in history... more colleges, weaker entrance requirements, more pell grants available... some kids just don't give a ****.

"that is increasingly anti-educ

Re:Money DOES NOT equal better schools

[AK Marc]

That's absolutely farcical, and further, is demonstrably untrue.

No, it is true. You are taking a few points out of the 51 available and picking the ones you like, implying a correlation that doesn't exist, then using that to disprove something that wasn't what was asserted. Whether they do more with less is irrelevant. You are asserting that if Utah were given more money, they'd do *worse*. That's the only way that the statement you are complaining about would be untrue. So, just to be clear, are you asserting that Utah would have a worse system if they had double the money they have now?

Mass Murder Has a Cost

[independent123]

Expensive mass murder of innocent people abroad has repercussions at home. How terrible. We have to do something about this.

based on my HS experience

[Anonymous Coward]

The extra year will most likely be used for the following things: programming with Pascal, Calc 2 or 3, web design, photoshop class, CAD, etc. The problem is that the math/engineering types will need to retake calc 2 in college at a higher level along with way more coursework. The web design/photoshop group will have only scratched the surface and probably learn bad habits, and the Pascal kids will still need to complete a BS and possible MS in comp sci to get a decent job. So...its just a waste of money.

They should spend less on wars and more on education, but it should work like this. If you go to a college and get good marks, you get reimbursed by the gov't depending on your marks and the price of your states in-state tuition (you don't get more money for going to an expensive school):

4.0: 100% reimburement
3.5+: 80%
3.2+: 60%
3.0+: 50%
2.75+: 25%

You can get a bonus of 0.3 on your GPA if you're in math, science, engineering, pharmacy, etc.

Re:based on my HS experience

[shentino]

I am a college student, and I'm mopping up 4.0's literally left and right. Yet, I'm probably not going to be all that employable any time soon.

Apart from the economy being in the toilet, I have zero experience in job interviews, social skills, and the general brass tacks schmoozing with the power people that is required to break into the job market, merit be damned. I'd probably do fine once I get into a lab or a cubicle.

Did I mention that I was autistic?

To really solve Chicago's education problem

[falconwolf]

you have to prioritize the schools that cater to the very worst students;

To solve America's education problems it will take more than just spending money. One thing that needs to end is to stop allowing poor students to graduate when they don't know the material. Get rid of all this flunking students damage their ego nonsense. Then give the students who want to learn the resources to do so. Allow charter, public, and private schools to compeat for students. Allow magnate schools.

it makes no sense to spend more money on students who are already succeeding.

It makes no sense to hold students back because of lack of money. Money needs to be spent to improve education for everyone. Now what can help teachers with slow students is having those faster and brighter students help those who are slower. It also makes no sense to spend money on people who don't want to learn. I tutored one such student in college in algebra, almost every tyme we met she was drunk. I eventually had to tell the tutoring office I couldn't tutor her because of her drinking, after I asked her not to drink before meeting me. Of course she wasn't paying tuition herself, her parents paid. Along with taxpayers.

Falcon

Re:To really solve Chicago's education problem

[ffreeloader]

The money argument is a red herring.

Money, or lack of it, is no indicator of success, ability to learn, or the quality of a person's education.

One of our nations smartest, most capable political leaders ever came from nothing. He competed with men born to wealth, privilege, and every educational advantage possible. He still succeeded, and those very men with whom he both competed and worked with acknowledged that he really was their intellectual better, and acknowledged him as an outstanding leader. They scoffed at his humble beginnings at the start, but once they came in direct contact with him they, to a man, acknowledged his supremacy and wisdom.

They were men from the best of schools. He was entirely self-taught. He attended no more than 1 full year of formal education.

The man? Abraham Lincoln. If you've never read his speeches you've never really understood his genius. The man could frame an argument like no one else I've ever read. After reading Lincoln's speeches I felt sorry for Stephen Douglas. He never had a chance in the Lincoln-Douglas debates. He was squashed like a bug.

Re:To really solve Chicago's education problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I tutored one such student in college in algebra, almost every tyme we met she was drunk.

And you complained? I'd have squeezed her boobs or taken sneaky pics up her dress.

Daley is the problem

[FoolishOwl]

Endless wars that divert hundreds of billions a year from schools and job training are also undermining America's competitiveness, Daley added, wondering where the public outrage is.

The public outrage was systematically misled and dismantled by the Democratic Party machine, which deliberately encouraged anti-war activists to believe that Democratic political candidates intended to end wars and withdraw troops, even as those candidates actually favored escalation. The Democratic Party machine spared no expense of time and energy on denouncing candidates who actually opposed the war, particularly Nader and Green Party candidates, for having the temerity to run against "anti-war" Democrats who were actually pro-war.

In short, Daley is not just part of the problem, he is at the core of the problem, and he's a damned hypocrite for blaming voters for doing exactly what he manipulated them into doing.

Wausau EGL Acadamy

[gabrieltss]

The Wausau School District in Wausau Wisconsin is taking a HUGE leap in this area. They are opening up a new kind of Charter High School called the Wausau EGL (Engineering Global Leadership) Acadamy. The kids will be doing college level learning at the high school level. The whole concept is the kids will learn math, science, engineering, history, etc.. in a different way. They will learn things like math and history at the same time, science,history and english at the same time. Think about it when you took science didn't you learn some history around the scientists, when you wrote papers in class weren't you using english skills? This high school will heavily focus on math, science and engineering. The kids will be involved in "core" academic learning and "project based" learning. Meaning they will do individual AND group projects. They will also be required to do an individual project each year as well as a Senior Capstone project. They will also be colaborting with students in OTHER countries to do GROUP projects. They will also be doing internships with local companies, as well as taking trips abroad to do projects with students and companies in other countries. This charter school is geared towards kids who are motivated to math, science and engineering and to help motivate kids to these areas. They also have to keep a "portfolio" of the projects they have done, they will have video of their presentations. Top people from local and not local companies will actually help grade their work. When they graduate they will have a comlete portfolio including video of everything they did. It will show practicle application of what they learned. The University of Wisconsin Madison is extremely excited about this program. I am sure kids that complete their high school in this program with excellent grades will have no problem getting into some of the top engineering schools anywhere. They have brought in teachers from all kinds of disciplines. One has worked in engineering in multiple countries besides the U.S. We are enrolling our son in this school for the coming school year. If kids find that they have having trouble in this school they can always transfer bakc to one of the other Wausau School Distric high schools.

Mod that up

[jbengt]

Really, mod it "insightful"

public, private schools

[falconwolf]

Anybody who parrots the right-wing talking point that the problem is teachers unions has never taught in both public and private schools.

Up until this I was with you, but if you ever tried to fire a bad teacher in California you'd know just how much an effect bad teachers have on education. Because of powerful teachers' unions students have to suffer years and years before the bad teacher is fired. Meanwhile the only reward good teachers get is the occasional pat on the back and a thank you from students. It takes a lot of dedication for the good teachers to stay. Meanwhile those private schools you say don't have to "take the most difficult cases: students with learning disabilities, physical disabilities, behavioral problems" don't have to take and keep bad teachers either.

Falcon

Re:public, private schools

[PopeRatzo]

There are a lot fewer "bad teachers" then there are bad parents.

In fact, in my experience on two school boards, the number of "bad teachers" is a lot smaller than you would think from listening to the Party of Glenn Beck.

Re:public, private schools

[falconwolf]

There are a lot fewer "bad teachers" then there are bad parents.

I don't disagree, but it's disingenuous to overlook bad teachers and the unions that protect them.

In fact, in my experience on two school boards, the number of "bad teachers" is a lot smaller than you would think from listening to the Party of Glenn Beck.

Who is Glenn Beck and what is his party?

Falcon

Re:public, private schools

[ravenshrike]

In terms of absolute numbers, sure. In terms of percentage however, things become much more uncertain.

Re:public, private schools

[PSandusky]

Who is Glenn Beck and what is his party?

Bless you, sir.

spending

[falconwolf]

Of course the other problem with what he said is that the money spent on the military (including the wars it has fought) doesn't come from a level of government that has any business being involved in education.

That is not compleatly true. If federal taxes weren't as high then states could raise their taxes, they'd thus have more money for education. Oh, and the federal government is in education. While I agree it shouldn't be the feds have entered into education, just look at the United States Department of Education to start with. The U.S. Department of Education 2010 Budget is $46.7 billion. Now that's only a fraction of the cost of the war in Iraq but it's still pretty big.

Falcon

Justifiable war

[falconwolf]

My point is that there is nothing morally justifiable about this, or any other war.

A war to stop the Rwanda genocide would not have been justifiable?

Falcon

Re:Justifiable war

[countertrolling]

No, just as many people would get killed. You have to go after the big players, most of them outsiders who sit in their castles, who fomented the thing in the beginning. You don't need a war for that. If there was an economic interest(natural resources for example) in preventing the massacre, it never would've happened. No war has ever been fought on moral principles.

Re:Justifiable war

[falconwolf]

No, just as many people would get killed. You have to go after the big players, most of them outsiders who sit in their castles, who fomented the thing in the beginning.

Any big players became irrelevant a long tyme before the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. European colonialism created Rwanda but Rwanda became independent on 1 July 1962. From that tyme on it was up to Rwandans themselves whether they'd live in peace.

If there was an economic interest(natural resources for example) in preventing the massacre

There are few natural resources in Rwanda to fight over. The "economy is based mostly on semi-subsistence agriculture by local farmers using simple tools."

No war has ever been fought on moral principles.

Half true, wars are never started for moral purposes. But the opposition can fight based on moral principles. Say against an invader. Or against genocide.

Falcon

How about RELEVANT Math & Science?

[Anonymous Coward]

It used to be that the math and science taught in schools was highly relevant to a majority of the populace either in an every day sense or it was useful in careers they started directly out of high school. As a result of this many people made a decent (not luxurious but decent) living with no college because their K-12 education actually provided them the education they needed to succeed in life.

Currently it seems the schools of the United States have departed from this idea of teaching real-life skills and instead now focus on preparing kids for college, or just plain passing as many kids as possible to meet standards set by politicians who are for the most part, Uninformed.

I do not see an issue with preparing kids for college because college itself can prepare you for a very good career, however in many ways college is not life. A good example of the issue with teaching kids skills for college instead of skills for life is that many college students completely demolish their financial credit scores because they are all the sudden old-enough to get "Free Plastic Money" and no one has taught them the necessary math skills to learn to balance a checkbook, or the reading comprehension skills to understand contracts they agree to regarding interest and late fees. Instead of teaching these real-life skills we instead drill the S.oh C.ah T.oa concept of trigonometry which most will never use and ask the kids to analyze fictional stories to the point that many do not enjoy reading by the time they are 18.

What would help the American School System is REAL-LIFE skills training. If we can teach kids actual useful things they will be better prepared for entering the world of college, and also maybe there wont be so many kids who become disgusted with the schools at the age of 14 because they are being taught things they perceive to be "Useless."

Also how do I define useless? Well if a kid is 14 years old and can make a valid argument on why they will never use X Concept (X Concept being anything from Chemisty Titration Formulas to Advanced Trigonometry to Line By Line Analysis of Shakespearean Sonnets), then it probably is useless.

Some points

[falconwolf]

1) Our military is all volunteer now; there's no draft, there's no plans for a draft.

There's no need for a draft, my nephew's serving his second tour of duty and when he reenlisted he got a $250,000 bonus.

4) The press isn't really covering the current wars in any useless fashion.

Do you mean "useful fashion"?

Falcon

Boy, $250,000? Use say $50,000 for a down payment on a house then invest the rest.

The money argument is a red herring.

[falconwolf]

The red herring is your argument. I never said all it takes was money. Quite the contrary, my first sentence to the post you replied to says "To solve America's education problems it will take more than just spending money."

Falcon

Re:The money argument is a red herring.

[ffreeloader]

I realize what you said about money. But, the money argument is being made throughout the replies to the article, and you basically endorsed the idea that more money is needed.

Our public school system used far fewer monetary resources, had many one-room schools, very few books, etc... for most of our history as a nation. Yet, in spite of the "lack of money" that educational system produced the people who built this country and made it into the economic and military powerhouse that it became.

The above tells me that money, or lack of it, has nothing to do with the problems our educational system is having. The school system having money doesn't motivate student to succeed. School system financing doesn't motivate parents to be involved in their kids education and encourage them learn. Money is a very poor substitute for those things, and without those two things our school system is bound to fail, no matter how much money is spent on it.

Re:The money argument is a red herring.

[Hognoxious]

Back in the "Little House on the Prairie" days the vast majority fo people worked in agriculture; for them, education beyond a basic level wasn't necesary. Same for those working on mass production lines in factories.

Those days are gone.

Re:The money argument is a red herring.

[ffreeloader]

I will have to disagree with you once again as I believe you're missing the obvious.

Dismissing our school system of the past just because we were an agrarian economy misses the fact that the same school system powered our industrial revolution. What might seem as simple to us today, as it is now common, was state-of-the-art in its day and just as revolutionary as improvements today, if not more revolutionary as there wasn't a known base to build on. Those men worked in entirely unknown territory.

The same school system that educated "those farmers" also educated the engineers, businessmen, etc... that advanced the multiple technologies used that built our economic and military power in this country. Those old schools educated the men who first conceived of computers. If not for those inventors and creators we wouldn't be where we are, technologically, today.

As I said, the problem isn't money. The problems lie elsewhere.

Re:The money argument is a red herring.

[Mr. Slippery]

Our public school system used far fewer monetary resources, had many one-room schools, very few books, etc... for most of our history as a nation.

And for most of our history, we were an agrarian nation; and even as we started to industrialize, there were many good industrial jobs available that didn't require a lot of education.

Also for most of our history, it was not expected -- or even illegal -- to teach the lowest classes how to read and write. If poor black kids couldn't read and write in 1910, no one gave a damn.

So, your historical comparison is not really useful.

Its culture, stupid!

[gillbates]

The problem with Chicago Schools is not merely a matter of funding, but of culture.

No, it doesn't help that some parents don't care about their children's education. Yes, their kids drag the testing averages down. But they are not the primary problem.

Nor is the lack of funding the primary problem. Yes, there are things that could be taught if the schools had the money, but the really core, fundamentals do not require lavish cash outlays. Consider, for example, that even during Russia's leanest years, they managed to produce the best hackers, chess players, and mathematicians. Teaching math requires a pencil and paper, and English, a library card. And computer science? A computer - and who doesn't have one of those in the home?

The real problem is cultural. Chicago *politicians* don't value education. CPS doesn't value education. Throwing money at the problem won't help when there's a culture of intellectual mediocrity embedded in the key positions in the CPS. From time to time they throw out ideas - like 5 year terms, school uniforms, extending the school year, etc... to distract from the real problem: CPS doesn't care about your child's education. CPS seems to be a political reward for friends of the mayor.

Consequently,

1. Teachers in CPS are paid a third of their suburban counterparts.
2. Teachers who try to actually teach, by doing things like enforcing classroom discipline, grading standards, and the like are drummed out by those who favor a more liberal curricula emphasizing self esteem and social promotion over actual ability.
3. Parents who try to change the system are demeaned as "elitist" or racist. There's little, if any, effort made to remove teachers who can't (or won't) teach, because the board believes the problems with children failing to learn are the fault of the parents. To some degree, it's believable - Chicago does have problems with drugs and gangs. However, the failure to remove teachers is largely a result of the adversarial attitude of the board, and the problems with finding a replacement to work for a third of what they could make in the suburbs.

Now, I have to qualify the above with the fact that this is all personal knowledge gleaned from the rumors of the teachers I know; I've got three in the family, and none of them work for CPS (thankfully). But they'll all tell me how and why CPS schools are so bad. While financial problems do exist, and there are disinterested parents, the root cause of the failure is largely political. Adding a 5th year to high school, or creating a brainiac high isn't going to address the fundamental problem that hundreds of thousands of CPS students are getting a substandard education because Mayor Daley wants it that way.

After all, districts with good schools tend to elect Republicans. If Chicagoans really understood how the Democratic party has locked the inner city into poverty through a combination of corruption, high taxes, low education funding (bad schoools), and empty promises (there's always "urban renewal" going on, but strangely, the city as a whole never gets better), we might have better schools and more businesses locating in Chicago.

But then again, Daley won't let that happen. And everyone in Chicago knows that what he says, goes. Those who don't like it move to the suburbs.

firing incompetent teachers

[falconwolf]

Yes, there are some issues with the unions making silly rules for pay and making it hard to fire teachers, but they don't make it hard to reassign an incompetent teacher to study hall duty and replace them,

Maybe they don't make it hard to reassign incompetent teachers but that doesn't mean the school can afford to pay all the bad teachers as well as good ones. One incompetent teacher requires two people to be paid for the same job.

top private schools get three times the funding, and you are comparing public schools to private for things like vouchers, then you have to throw money at it first to get parity before drawing such comparisons.

Of course there are differences between comparing regular public and top private schools. How about comparing regular public and private schools?

Falcon

Re:firing incompetent teachers

[AK Marc]

Of course there are differences between comparing regular public and top private schools. How about comparing regular public and private schools?

Well then, compare top public and top private schools. The results are similar and public schools are much cheaper.

As for the middle of each, we don't have those numbers. The mediocre private schools get free land, free administrators, cheap teachers (often part-time people employed elsewhere in the church already), and have massive fund raisers to cover things not paid for in tuition. Mediocre public schools are well cheaper than the "average" school cost because the bottom 15% of students can take up to 50% of the funding, so the middle 70% can end up with 35% or so of the funding. Since the "average" pupil costs around $7k, when you count the "average" you are down to around $3-4k. I'd say that the average student costs a school slightly more at a public school than a private one, but because of factors other than actual market forces. And the results for average private school are worse than average public school where you select based on interested parents (a reasonable assumption when dealing with parents interested enough to send their children to private school).

So in every case I can think of, public schools either outperform for the same money, or cost less for the same performance.

Re:firing incompetent teachers

[Rockoon]

Well then, compare top public and top private schools. The results are similar and public schools are much cheaper.

Yes, *anything* but comparing regular public schools to regular private schools. Stick to only extreme non-representative samples, right?

Re:firing incompetent teachers

[falconwolf]

The mediocre private schools get free land, free administrators, cheap teachers (often part-time people employed elsewhere in the church already), and have massive fund raisers to cover things not paid for in tuition.

Fund raisers for mediocre private schools? And who will donate to them? Don't you think people aren't discriminate about who they donate to? If such a school is worse than the local public school then why are the parents paying more when they could be sending their child to the public school and not have to pay more?

I'd say that the average student costs a school slightly more at a public school than a private one

Do you have data supporting this? I agree it is possible as private schools have to compeat whereas many public schools don't. But I don't know which is cheaper and more expensive.

And the results for average private school are worse than average public school where you select based on interested parents

Citation needed.

Falcon

Re:firing incompetent teachers

[AK Marc]

Fund raisers for mediocre private schools? And who will donate to them? Don't you think people aren't discriminate about who they donate to?

You think that people buying at a bake sale demand a history of standardized test scores before considering whether to buy cookies? And in most cases, the fund raisers are run against the congregation anyway. You try telling a member of a church that the daycare there is bad. They won't believe it. Churches don't even believe their priests molest children even after they lose the court cases.

If such a school is worse than the local public school then why are the parents paying more when they could be sending their child to the public school and not have to pay more?

Have you thought about this at all? The vast majority (as in nearly all) private schools in the US are religious institutions. And you can't think of a single reason why the court-mandated secular schools are shunned for an institution that may be a little worse academically? Honestly, did you not think about it before you posted? It's also one of the largest complaints about the vouchers, and the few passed have had pressure (if not lawsuits) against them because of Constitutional reasons. Did you not know that either. And you still can't think of a single reason why a parent might pick an institution that's a little weaker academically than the free choice?

Do you have data supporting this?

No. You find it and prove me wrong. I've stated some simple things. It should be easy to prove me wrong. Even the links other have posted from conservative think-tanks justifying vouchers because of cost end up dropping back to "we think public schools are more expensive, but we can't prove it because no one anywhere reports actual costs, whether public or private."

But, as someone that's gone to a non-church private school, church-based private school, and public schools, as well as a public university for one degree and another from a private university, I've gotten a good idea of what funding comes from where and goes to where. The private school that wasn't church based charges over $20k for a year. The one in the church has the (otherwise retired) organist teaching music and other such measures where they get teachers for free or nearly free, the land is all free, the administrators are all free, and some unknown level of support comes in from the church directly. And the public schools are better documented, but still some don't take into account the land, and others do, some count district costs, and others don't. And most private schools has much more in add-ons. I had to buy my books for the unaffiliated private school. But no public school I know of does that, with the exception of literature classes, though most have those books available in the library and such.

So, not even the experts can compare them. But I went to a school that has been called the best private school in Texas. You should be able to find it from that description alone. And I went to the best public school in the country (at least the one that hit some polls as such the most number of times in the past 20 years). So at least for the best vs best comparison, I have a better perspective than most. So if you want to prove me wrong, feel free.

Another reason why competition is silly is that absolutely no one agrees on the cost of anything. How can you have fair comparison when there is no agreement on cost and the private schools aren't held to the same standards of education or administration? Anything that tries according to any voucher system ever proposed so far is like having a race between runners when one has his legs tied together.

Re:firing incompetent teachers

[AK Marc]

Stick to only extreme non-representative samples, right?

I compare the middle case as well. Did you miss that, or are you just a liar that purposefully misrepresents what others post in order to make a point because they'd otherwise not be able to make a point because they are too stupid to have independent thoughts?

Re:firing incompetent teachers

[falconwolf]

You think that people buying at a bake sale demand a history of standardized test scores before considering whether to buy cookies?

AH, so you believe bake sales generate enough to keep bad schools open?

And in most cases, the fund raisers are run against the congregation anyway.

Yea, those who most know how bad a school is. Like most people don't know about throwing good money after bad.

You try telling a member of a church that the daycare there is bad. They won't believe it. Churches don't even believe their priests molest children even after they lose the court cases.

You have obviously not been paying attention to the news lately or you're incompetent.

Falcon

Re:firing incompetent teachers

[AK Marc]

AH, so you believe bake sales generate enough to keep bad schools open?

I never said that, but if you feel you have to lie to make up things to win the argument, go for it. You've stopped addressing the issue, and instead decided on quips that insult me is all you can muster. I'll take that as you conceding defeat. But thanks for playing, don't forget your parting gift.

Re:firing incompetent teachers

[falconwolf]

if you feel you have to lie to make up things to win the argument, go for it.

You hare the one who brought up bake sales, in this post.

You've stopped addressing the issue, and instead decided on quips that insult me is all you can muster. I'll take that as you conceding defeat.

You are the one who failed to address the issues, instead you release a lot of hot air, puff of smoke. You even admitted as much telling me to find the evidence to prove you wrong. Well I noticed when I did provide evidence, about sexual abuse by priest, you totally ignored it. You had to because you could not defend your position

Falcon

Re:firing incompetent teachers

[AK Marc]

You wrote "you believe bake sales generate enough to keep bad schools open?" And I never said anything of the kind. I stated a type of funding that isn't tied to performance at all. You implied that I tied it to performance and that it has some relation to whether the school will or won't stay open, which is another point that I didn't address. I simply stated where some of the funding for "average" private schools comes from, taken right from the web site of a Chicago private school (I searched there because that's where this story is about). You then asked the "have you stopped beating your wife" question in order to lie to imply that I did at one time beat her. I'm curious how you think you can get away with such blatant lies when anyone can just look up what I wrote and see that your comment was a fabrication designed to attack an argument I never made and attribute it to me.

You are the one who failed to address the issues,

Public schools are cheaper and better than private schools, when you correct for factors private schools don't have to deal with. That's the issue, and I continued to address that.

Well I noticed when I did provide evidence, about sexual abuse by priest, you totally ignored it.

Of course I did. Whether priests molest children is not related to the schools. You showed a link that 40 years after the fact the church is just now getting around to condemn some past actions and you are claiming that it shows they reacted timely to the degradation of the priesthood? All it showed to me is proof that my point about them burying their heads in the sand is correct (as an indication of denial if their school happened to be bad). But arguing an ancillary point seems to be what you want, because addressing the issues doesn't go your way. People don't send their kids to "average" private school for a better education. From the measures, it isn't any better, and from the parents, they are more interested in avoiding the "religion" of secularism.

Public schools are cheaper and more effective than private schools. Voucher systems that promote "competition" between two sets of institutions that are operating under vastly different rules would be like fining General Mills every time Ford sold a car.

Lane Tech??

[sfjohnso]

...But isn't Chicago's Brainiac High actually Lane Tech High School? Or have things changed that much?

Brainiac High

[sesshomaru]

But than makes no sense, Brainiac's response to Superman's "But why kill?" was "The fewer beings that have the knowledge, the more precious it becomes." I remember that episode:

See what I mean?

So, logically, any student who became educated in Brainiac's school would be immediately murdered!

Remember, don't turn your public education over to supervillains!

outrage

[falconwolf]

I will happy when Americans realize outrage really doesn't help

Outrage doesn't help? Outrage helped end apartheid.

Falcon

public school style

[Anonymous Coward]

I went to an English public school. We were tiny. 3 guys in history, 4 in accounting, 16 in maths - total in the school was just over 200. Our education began at least 3 hours before most kids today. We would be studying at 5am, running and playing sport at 6 and be at a desk by 8am. The rest of the day was just as packed-tight as those early hours. But that was where the real education was, infact the only free time we got was a 30 minute compulsory afternoon siesta. Time management, motivation, self-esteem - priceless. Our headmaster always said train the mind, the body will follow. Everyday give yourself more things to do than you did yesterday - but sleep at 8pm, no television at all. As a result other kids couldnt stand up to us in sport or academically. I'm not saying this is what ALL kids today need, but for some this is the just the polishing of the stone

It's worth it though.

[Philip_the_physicist]

But the minimal amount of effort required combined with the number of free beers I got probably made the effective hourly pay rate of getting taken advantage of like that better than that of a proper tutor. After all, you've just done the work and can just say "use so and so's law, then apply rule #3 from the lecture slides last week and the rest is just plodding" and do that for a whole paper for a few people (taking less then five minutes of extra work), and there's not a bad chance for a couple of pints next time you're in the bar.

Everyone wins, and in my department the staff usually got to hear about who was doing that (not least because some of the junior staff do it too), and it helps students to get actual prac supervision jobs.

Bitching about unions just an excuse to do nothing

[dbIII]

I find it amusing and then alarming that people assume that the extra money only goes into increasing salaries.
Haven't you guys ever heard of textbooks? School buildings? How about putting on MORE teachers instead of this childish game of pretending the money will turn the existing ones into undeserving commie traitor millionaires?
Union this/union that means NOTHING when there is either a lack of resources or mismanagement of what there is.

How about the trillions in bailouts?

[diablovision]

Billions on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? How bout the motherf***ing TRILLIONS given to, loaned to, and invested into the dumbest car manufacturers, financial firms, banks, and insurance companies in history over the last two years?

That would be a case of rewarding bullshit

[dbIII]

It would turn into a game of getting the best numbers for whatever metrics are used instead of giving children an education.
IMHO the spectacular sign of a good teacher is taking someone on track for a lifetime of living off handouts and steering them in the direction where they become independent. Some of the best teachers have the worst students because they are the only ones that can handle them. However it is very difficult to quantify that in any sort of bullshit performance metric so on paper they are the worst teachers even if their immediate superior knows otherwise. If suddenly their job depends on it and their superior doesn't want to lose a good teacher then a new teacher gets hit with the worst students, a career gets cut short and kids get a poor education - everyone loses.
So that's the first problem, knowing if they are doing a good job or not. Then you fire them and lose all of that experience and have a new teacher on a learning curve, so it's not just the fired teacher that loses. You are also ignoring the problem that an easy way to remove a conflict between a parent and teacher is to immediately blame the teacher and remove them swiftly, which is why rules about turnover came in to start with.
Does all of this sound familiar from other fields? It should, because you are talking about applying cocaine addled MBA thought to something that is neither small nor a business. What works when the boss can see just about everything his employees do does not work in a large organisation where the boss has come in from the outside.

You gotta be kiddin' !!

[Taco Cowboy]

I went to the Illinois state-run brainiac school (IMSA) upon which Daley is dreaming -- let me tell you, this is not the model that will help Chicago's education program. These elite schools spend exorbitantly on a small crop of students, giving them (myself included) a fucking awesome education while students who didn't make the cut are stuck in the ineffectual morass of public high schools.

Look buddy. This world isn't a flat world and there's no equality in anything.

You got a leader and you got 1000 followers. Not everyone can be a leader.

So what if the school spent a lot to give a few true brains a fucking awesome education?

The aim is clear --- to make you guys leaders, so that when you grow up (if you grow up, that is) you can become a good leader and take care of your followers.

So what if your followers got crap for education now? They will have you as a good leader.

To really solve Chicago's education problem, you have to prioritize the schools that cater to the very worst students

Reading the sentence above makes me thinking. That brainaic school has chosen a wrong candidate.

You shouldn't be there since you have no brain.

Worst students will stay worst no matter what.

There are always a certain percentage of human population that will become scumbags. No matter how you educate them, they will still become scumbags.

Educating scumbags is a waste of precious resources.

Re:You gotta be kiddin' !!

[Anonymous Coward]

Educating scumbags is a waste of precious resources.

The problem with this attitude is that numerous studies have shown that most students will rise (or fall) to the expectations of their instructors, regardless of how high or low those expectations are.
This becomes a huge problem when the instructors assume that the students in their care are those "scumbags." Kids are very susceptible to suggestion and will (eventually) pick up on the attitudes of those around them. This has lead to the unfortunate state that we're at right now, where we decry how poorly the students are doing, all while "teaching" them as if they're the morons we expect them to be, and make it all too easy for even the most out-going students to throw their hands up in frustration and simply allow themselves to descend to the level of the rest of those "scumbags."
Even back when I was in grade-/high-school, they were already a good way into teaching to the lowest common denominator in the class. This lead to so many students merely doing the absolute bare minimum (if they had to do anything at all) in order to continue passing from grade to grade. Only one person in my entire high-school senior class didn't graduate, and he had to actively work to fail to that extent. He did it intentionally, as an experiment, just to see if it could be done. He was told that all he had to do was take (not pass, just attend) two classes in summer-school to get his diploma.

Equal opportunity apathy

[dbIII]

If you think that Katrina was handled the way it was because the government doesn't care about black people

It was equal opportunity apathy but "a heck of a job" just the same.
The priority of property over people and turning back all the people that came in to help in case they might be looters was probably the main reason why even Haiti could handle a disaster better than FEMA. Amtrack had trains ready to take people out before but were told "piss off we'll handle it" by FEMA and many tried to help out after with the same result.
What happened to that horse judge anyway? Is he a CEO somewhere appointed by someone else he went to school with?

Re:Equal opportunity apathy

[ravenshrike]

Given that the stupid bitch Blanco refused to give the go-ahead for Bush to mobilize the Nat Guard until 2 days after the hurricane hit and that dumbass Nagin left fleets of buses in the town I'd say the federal government did pretty damn well. Especially since the NG got to the Superdome less than 24 hours after they were released to operate.

Re:Equal opportunity apathy

[dbIII]

The death toll speaks for itself. The events at the superdome after troops got there does it well, as does holding emergency workers up for a day to get media training and a million other bits of utter bullshit that ultimately cost lives.
Forget stupid Republican vs Democrat tribalism - it was a massive failure due to inept management which could have happened no matter which party decided to put personal friends with no ability into an important position.
Blanco didn't give the order to turn volunteers away in case they were looters did she? Was she in charge of the operation? You can only blame her for what she did or didn't do and not the entire botched operation. Couldn't the Commander in Chief just send them in instead of golfing or whatever parties he went to?
I suspect the fleets of busses had a similar story behind them to the trains that Amtrack offered free of charge before the event and got them a very rude reply. Look at how the rest of the world handles disasters, an equivalent of a National Guard General would be packing the troops up ready to go before the hurricane even hit and would expect the messy politics to sort itself out later. Instead you've got idiots acting like a cartoon version of 18th century royalty that decide to keep each other waiting on important issues to "send a message" that they are on the other side. Something as important as a military and important as disaster relief is supposed to be above this petty political shit.
It was a massive failure because the people in charge could not be bothered to attempt to do their jobs and cared far more for personal pride and getting credit than lives.

Re:Equal opportunity apathy

[Anonymous Coward]

Couldn't the Commander in Chief just send them in instead of golfing or whatever parties he went to?

No. No more than we could unilaterally send troops over Haiti without prior approval. How would Britain respond if Germany just started sending in troops after a particularly bad storm? What's to stop the POTUS from declaring an emergency in the states that oppose him the day before election day? What happens when an un-invited Army "peacekeeper" shoots a local looter? Whose jurisdiction does said soldier fall under? What rules of engagement will be used to judge her behaviour during the trial?

There are very important protocols and sign-offs that must be followed if we are going to claim to be civilized.

Re:Equal opportunity apathy

[dbIII]

Don't give me that bullshit - the entire reason for a federal agency is to get around silly little turf wars in the first place.
You are thinking like that idiot Brown that cared more about the appearance of process instead of actually doing anything.
When the example you gave of military on the scene shooting looters actually happened in the San Francisco earthquake around a hundred years ago the acting commander in charge of the garrison took responsibility - it's somewhat obvious isn't it instead of pointless weaseling.
Wasting entire days teaching firemen how to talk to TV reporters while people were dying on the scene is not the way to handle a disaster.
The whole "do nothing in case it looks bad" is the sort of behaviour you see with people who think these positions are a prize and not an actual job. Look at Brown's wikipedia page and you'll see a long string of such prizes instead of jobs - chairman of the board of directors of a bank two years out of law school FFS? Nobody is that brilliant to get there on their own, especially someone that failed as spectacularly as Brown and had to be removed from his post mid-disaster.

I must study politics and war

[WillAdams]

that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy....
---John Adams

Certainly not for the math and computer science(?)

[jonaskoelker]

This requires money and trained teachers. Equipment like $50,000 computer labs with large format and 3D printers, pro 3D rendering and design software, pro circuit and aerospace simulation software.

Money? To teach math, pretty much all you need is a blackboard, some chalk, an inspiring teacher and an attentive student. (Maybe a 'loaner' laptop or two for the students who have none, so they can write some LaTeX documents).

I'm thinking physics can be taught using a blackboard and chalk too, with the addition of some string, a measuring tape, a stop watch, some 2-by-4's and a toy car. Not all of physics, but enough of it to fascinate the eager student and convey the most important truth of physics: that you know the world through evidence from experiments. ... Or am I off my rocker here?

5th year of High School??

[Anonymous Coward]

Where I'm from, we call that "Junior College"

Not an extra year, a decent education instead

[dbIII]

The impression I get with US education is that the first year of college is a remedial year to give the students enough of the background they should have received in high school so that they can actually do some college subjects.
You have some of the best postgraduate students in the world. Meanwhile the first year undergraduates were given such a raw deal that they would not be ready to attempt a degree anywhere else in the world.
Sadly that applies to students at both government and many private schools. When the government schools dropped their standards the private schools decided they could get away with doing the same for increased profit.
Most of this crap comes back to the cuts under Reagan and nobody has fixed it since then. It's turning the USA into a cargo cult that loves technology but thinks the underlying science is witchcraft and sets the kids up nicely to be exploited by confidence tricksters. A small part of that health insurance nightmare came from money getting funnelled off to fucking naturopaths instead of doing anything to actually treat medical problems. Where things get complicated and people don't have the motivation to ask the simplest questions you get the confidence tricksters taking advantage of a population that has not been given a good enough education to function well in society.

Warning, simple logic here

[Penguinoflight]

I can't speak for DesCorp, but I'll try anyway :)

The funding problem is centered around the best way to get more funding, not whether the amount of funding is sufficient, or if the government has allocated enough funding to the education sector as a whole.

Going back to your Utah example, Utah would never be _given_ more money, because politics don't work that way. The phenomenon that leads to higher budget schools being lower quality than low budget is the method for receiving more funds; success in this case is often proving to the right bureaucracy that you don't have enough funding by performing poorly. Where funds are distributed like this we see the same problems that the financial sector has: failure to the people isn't failure for the organization, it's an opportunity.

Schools are hopeless

[Anonymous Coward]

Schools are infected with every possible bureaucratic disease. They are unionized, federalized, legalized, standardized, professionalized, bureaucratized layer upon layer upon layer.

This is code-base that has been patched and reworked for generations. Every 5 years for my entire adult life, there is some new federal initiative to reform the schools. School performance continues to degrade.

Just as with a hopeless code base, a complete rewrite is necessary.

Abolish the public education system. There can be no possible harm : adult literacy programs around the world only need 90 hours of classroom time to prepare adults to take over their own education. Routinely, if the adult has the time and motivation, they can start college in 2 or 3 years after that.

Also routinely, kids learn to read playing with other kids, from their parents and grandparents, from games on the computer. Ditto basic math.

Games and languages are far more important for producing good brains than any early academic work.

No reform is meaningful unless it puts a lot of lawyers and bureaucrats out of work. Teachers have become part of the bureaucracy.

Hours in the classroom

[Anonymous Coward]

I read very recently a statistic that made me blink. Are the Asian kids really that smart? Some are. But *AND THIS IS THE KICKER*, they wind up much better educated than American kids. Much better educated. Before some dumbass climbs on the high horse and starts to argue, lets look at the numbers. American School year: 180 days (hey, 2 months off for the summer is soooooo nice). South Korean School year: 220 days. Japanese School year: 243 days (yes, you read that correctly... 49 week Trimester system, with 1 week between trimesters, all year round). The Japanese kids get 63 more days of education per year, or 756 more days after 12 years. Thats 4.2 more *YEARS* worth of education. Now someone can talk to me about why with most people in the United States living in urban areas, we have an education system based around whether kids can be out of school to help on the farm in the summer.

What? Braaaains?

[KlausBreuer]

In a politician?

I thought the first of April was over?

IMSA?

[mattcoz]

This already exists, it's called the Illinois Math and Science Academy.

As Does The Father, So Does The Son

[jman.org]

Having "enjoyed" the Chicago Public School System, my take is that it was about the worst one could endure. If Daley is bitching about it, he ought to look into the past. Nothing has changed since his father's time, and Dad died over 30 years ago now.

In the early 70's we moved back home from L.A. to Chicago, toward the end of 4th grade. Out West the year before I'd been in an experimental half-n-half class with kids the next grade up. There were all sorts of neat things to challenge our young minds, like the day we learned about cilia. We took the tallest kid (a 4th grader, of course), stood him upside down in the courtyard outside the classroom, and fed him various things: 7-Up, peanut-butter, crackers, olives, water, bits of hot dog; then had him gauge how easy it was to swallow. Yes, those little hairs really *do* help pull the food down, even if it's up.

That first day back in Chicago, one of the big lessons was to come up with a word starting with a 'k' sound. Yikes.

Having (I thought, quite humorously) chosen 'cantankerous', the teacher & I never really got along.

The next year, one day the teacher was explaining subtraction. "What's 3 from 8?". A couple kids managed to answer 5. "Good, now what's 8 from 3?" I thought everyone knew about negative numbers, but was the only to give the correct answer. She told me I was wrong. I protested, indicating the big number line above the chalkboard. It clearly went to -100. No, said the teacher in that authoritative voice that can shut up any 10 year old, "You cannot take 8 from 3".

So by the 5th grade you're still not supposed to know that mathematically, something less than zero exists. Incredible. I never did figure out what the actual lesson was that day.

Now, it wasn't all dark ages. In 6th grade I got to go with some friends a couple days a week to an advanced class at another school. They'd been going since the year before but having come back to town late in the 4th grade I missed out at first. We did all sorts of things: made our own newspaper, gave puppet shows to earlier grades, learned other languages, played a board game called "Moon Management" that I'd love to find again (not Avalon Hill. I've looked), which taught economics, environmental and social skills to the younger mind set. It was *much* more rewarding than the regular classes.

We moved again, to rural Illinois, so I missed out on going to the Lane, a more technically oriented high school. Many of my friends from the advanced class went.

I'm not sure exactly where the problem lies here. Was it just a really bad batch of teachers, simply too many kids (averaging 30 per class, with the schools one huge box that took a block, and contained all grades), bad curriculum? No matter what, perhaps Mr. Daley is engaging in a little shadow projection here.

Re:As Does The Father, So Does The Son

[slothman32]

I "learned" the same thing about 8 and 3 in like 1st grade.
Of course I learned 'W' was a vowel in kindergarden, 0th grade, but never knew what the words were until about 8 years ago.
At least public school was a little better.
That private school wasn't too bad though.

I like cilia.
They help us digest things, they help paramecium move, and they allow geckos to stick to walls.
They are even in our ears.

Wow, only 20 years behind the times

[lsatenstein]

My son was considered brainy, or gifted. As a result, when we lived in Toronto Canada, he was invited to attend a school set aside for children like him. The programs started not with accelerated learning, but with enrichment. The quick learners were given opportunities to explore in more depth, the subjects in hand. His switch to the Gifted Program took place in Grade 4. (When we moved from Montreal to Toronto, he was already bumped up one grade so he entered the gifted program, one year younger then his peers). When at High School Level, we returned to Montreal, where no such gifted program existed, he was again bumped up one grade. That made him two years younger then his peers. We had a lot of social problems with acceleration. His friends could get a drivers permit, but he had to wait two years, similarly, he had to wait two years for other social activities, because of age discrimination. I would say that most school children can get enriched learning, and thrive. I in my youth, like the students of today, found school boring. Thats why I believe that the kids lose interest and why resluts are poor.

It Just Disgusts Me

[Zancarius]

Why is it that liberal's answer to every problem is to throw more money at it? Certainly if we cut all other spending to the bone we could fund individual tutors for every student, free laptops, massages, anything. The question is this: who's responsibility is it to ensure students work hard and strive to achieve excellence? THE PARENTS. Not the government. End of story.

No amount of government spending can make up for bad parenting. Entitlement spending is a deep, dark, bottomless hole.

Not only that, but forcing another year of high school on smart students seems like punishment. I'm sure most of us can recall horror stories of our own public education (if we're from the US and went to public school) and, at the time, wanted nothing more than to get the hell outta dodge. After all, if the public education system has failed, why force another year of it onto the students to "train" them? That sounds to me to seem more like the real problem in our society: Punish those who succeed.

If nothing else, he should be advocating less time in high school. Place them in accelerated programs and graduate them early, give them scholarships to university--anything--but get them out of the public education system as quickly as possible. After all, if the students are "brainy," chances are they're more well motivated and organized than their peers and need to be challenge. Only university can provide them with the challenge they need.

You're right, though. It does smack of the entitlement mindset. I think it's really rather disgusting, because the system is so broken and rewards mediocrity so much more that forcing extra time for "more training" isn't going to accomplish anything. I really don't think that the solution to a broken system is to say "Hey, we know it's not working, but just give us another year of your lives and we'll promise to make it better."

Yeah, that's really going to work.

Daley - Pfffttt

[kc7rad]

IMHO, anything that comes out of Daley's mouth is highly subject. On one hand he wants "Brainiac High" and on the other he destroys an operating airport in the middle of the night without notifying FAA or aircraft owners with craft parked there. Why? "National Security." Yet, actually removing the airport make Chicago LESS secure. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meigs_Field

IMSA

[Nepre]

The Chicago area already has a magnet school focused on math and science: the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy. It's funded by the state, and has a great record of students that go on and become leaders in their fields.