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

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?

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

[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

[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

[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.