What does your ideal education system look like?

bandit0013 wrote:
CheezePavilion wrote:

So your solution involves not just having teachers as good as other countries, not just finding teachers that are *better* than other countries as we outperform even the best of other countries by fifteen PISA points when judged on a level playing field, but teachers that will be so much better than teachers in the rest of the world from Finland to Mexico that they will erase the connection we see between poverty rate and PISA points all those other countries have.

This statement makes no sense. I'd really like to respond, but I have no idea what you're talking about. Good teachers are empirically proven to be able to close the gap between poverty students and not. There is a documented, major gap in our country. Therefore those students likely don't have good teachers in their classrooms. Is that really so hard to understand?

What's hard to understand is why, if good teachers are able to close the poverty gap, why so many other nations haven't bothered to hire good teachers to close *their* poverty gaps.

However, you can poke holes at it all you want but the issue is that on average our teachers aren't good. You can take SAT scores, you can take certification test failure rates, you can take PISA performance, whatever. You sir, are incapable of admitting that the current structure of the education system and that many union policies (such as the tenure system) do more harm than good.

I will be incapable of doing so until such time as you demonstrate these things. Right now the only solution you are proposing is that we hire teachers so good they can close the poverty gap that the teachers in so many other nations cannot..

If you look at PISA performance (something you told me was so important, you couldn't discuss the issue with me if I was not aware of it) what stands out is how much better the American educational system is compared to other educational systems with equivalent poverty gaps.

Far from convincing me our system needs to change, you're starting to make me wonder why all these other countries are underperforming. Your arguments actually make the case that with the poverty gap taken into consideration, American teachers are the best in the world.

bandit0013 wrote:
CheezePavilion wrote:

So your solution involves not just having teachers as good as other countries, not just finding teachers that are *better* than other countries as we outperform even the best of other countries by fifteen PISA points when judged on a level playing field, but teachers that will be so much better than teachers in the rest of the world from Finland to Mexico that they will erase the connection we see between poverty rate and PISA points all those other countries have.

This statement makes no sense. I'd really like to respond, but I have no idea what you're talking about. Good teachers are empirically proven to be able to close the gap between poverty students and not. There is a documented, major gap in our country. Therefore those students likely don't have good teachers in their classrooms. Is that really so hard to understand?

It's not just having good teachers, it's having very good teachers for 6 consecutive years.
This (pdf warning) is the study that your study of studies cites for that information. They analyzed the data (a lot of which was self-reported) they got from the Texas Education Agency and found that:

one standard deviation in quality is worth at least 0.11 standard deviations higher annual growth in mathematics achievement and 0.095 standard deviations higher annual growth in reading in elementary school.

and

Economically disadvantaged students systematically achieve less than more advantaged students, on average falling some 0.6 standard deviations behind

They also didn't have the ability to tie specific students to specific teachers, so they never say what the actual effect of having a great teacher for consecutive years is, because they can't measure that with the data they have. They can say Student X improved his test scores .6 standard deviations over the course of 6 years, but they can't say whether or not Student X had great teachers for each of those 6 years. Now, one can assume that having good teachers for 6 years in a row can overcome the gap that poor students have, but it has not been empirically proven (at least not by any study linked to here). You could very well run into a case of diminishing returns. All this paper states is that they estimate it could help close the gap. Their data did not allow them to draw the conclusion your paper says they did.

Another thing that this paper states is that teacher turnover is a bad thing. They found that teachers improve in quality for their first few years (the paper says it's only significant for their first three years) regardless of education level, and that teacher turnover happens more frequently in more impoverished schools. They suggest implementing improved mentoring of new teachers and policies designed
specifically to cut down teacher turnover. My takeaway was that it is more important to keep high quality teacher than it is to fire low quality ones. So instead of focusing on how hard it is to fire bad teachers, it'd be more constructive to focus on how to keep good ones. And as I've said before, I'd support your fast-track for field experience system, though I think reducing it down to 8-weeks is a bit much, and I'd also like to keep them as substitutes or teachers aids until they get more experience/training in actual teaching.

bandit0013 wrote:

No, I said that a retiree should be able to take a speedier path to the classroom since they already have an undergraduate degree and decades of work experience that should be taken into account. Go back and re-read what I wrote.

bandit0013 wrote:

You don't need a degree to teach anything.

bandit0013 wrote:

8 weeks of student teaching and an exam would be fine. I assert that adding 50 credit hours on your own dime at whatever outrageous rate colleges are charging these days is not fine on top of that for someone who already has a degree and verifiable experience training humans.

bandit0013 wrote:

What I was asserting in regards to certification is that the value of much of the education major curriculum is dubious. The coursework is not challenging, and that a good percentage of teachers in the field test poorly in their own subjects.

bandit0013 wrote:

I had proposed 8 weeks of training (320 hours). Surely that could cover the 72 hours of pedagogy and 36 hours of math theory plus 200 hours of supervised classroom training and put him to work educating some kids in math?

So which one is your official position again? How does it change if you're not going to teach elementary math or reading, but biology, chemistry, or AP history?

Also, you forgot the very important part of your policy which is what professions will you allow to get the special "fast track" approach. Only nuclear power plant trainers? Trainers in general? What if I spent my career training people on how to use SAP's ERP software? Would that esoteric knowledgebase allow me to be a fast track teacher or would it be reserved for only ex-scientists and astronauts?

bandit0013 wrote:

Agreed, and I posted a peer reviewed study that showed that high quality teachers can remove that gap. High quality teachers are not found in the worst schools in the country for the income gap like DC, Chicago, etc.

No, not quite. You posted a study that *mentioned* another National Bureau of Economic Research report from an economist who, based on his analysis of data from 4th, 5th, and 6th graders in Texas, found "the role for teachers is substantial" when it came to low income students. Apparently someone else must have re-crunched his numbers to find out that, theoretically, five consecutive years of absolute kick-ass teachers may be able to remove the performance gap faced by low income students.

bandit0013 wrote:

No, I'm saying that many of these other countries like Finland, Sweden, etc have teacher's unions and higher pay, but they also do not have the BS that our unions fight against like school choice, very selective education and hiring processes, etc. You always seem to be a big fan of the data, well the data is overwhelming that the structure of our system is bad.

No, the overwhelming evidence shows that our system is inefficient. And it also shows that we don't know why nor do we know exactly what we should do outside of making sure we have quality teachers and smaller classroom sizes.

If our system was really bad, we'd show up last on every OCED measure and likely have performance worse than developing countries. But that simply isn't the case.

bandit0013 wrote:

Are we still asserting that any other form of experience in educating individuals is automatically invalid? If we are there's nothing more you and I can discuss on this particular bullet point.

Considering you've never, even after repeated requests, explained exactly how it is valid, yes.

bandit0013 wrote:

That's why I used the CIA statistics which attempt to balance that out.

And where do you think the CIA gets those stats from? Do you think they recalculate everything to the American value of poverty? No. They simply use the numbers each government reports.

bandit0013 wrote:

2. You sir, have ignored EVERY SINGLE statistic, article, and link I've posted that shows that on average teachers are the worst performing students and that the bar for becoming an educator as far as talent is exceptionally low, especially against international standards of countries that rank ahead of us in testing.

No, I've just ignored the unsubstantiated crap that you tend to post, like the no reference cited blurb of Michigan SAT test scores, which you then went on to extrapolate as meaning that "on average teachers are the worst performing students". The kicker was that it was for people who *planned* to go to college, not people who were actually accepted into college and then decided on education. Nor was any proof offered that there's even a correlation between high SAT scores and teacher performance. Instead, you went with this:

bandit0013 wrote:

That's not saying that every teacher is dumb, but the stats don't lie. "Those who can't do, teach" didn't just magically appear as a snark in our culture. It's a shame that we can measure and reward good teachers to attract better candidates to the field.

Should I really take that kind of post seriously?

bandit0013 wrote:

You continue to assert that the educators have little to no blame for the performance of schools.

No, the only thing I continually assert is that teachers shouldn't be the only group being blamed for the performance of schools, which is exactly what is happening these days.

bandit0013 wrote:

I have also pointed out numerous union policies that have had the impact of keeping poor teachers in the classroom, little to no reform and almost non-existent termination rates among union teachers in districts with 28% graduation rates.

Again, you are making huge and unproven assumptions about what that means. When Cheeze presented you with actual evidence to the contrary you then linked to a policy brief that summarized 11 existing studies on the subject, 63% of which said that there was a positive correlation between teacher's unions and higher performance, and yet you simply insisted that your "litany" of links proved teacher's unions were bad. The reality is that your links did no such thing. The actual research is inconclusive and that doesn't secretly mean that unions are the problem. You are projecting your political views into the data and drawing conclusions that simply aren't supported.

bandit0013 wrote:

I am well aware of the impacts of socioeconomic status on students, you seem to be in denial that great teachers can help close that gap. Read your posts in this thread, not once do you give any policy, thought, or idea that would improve the teacher quality side of the equation. Every time you respond to it you change the subject.

Really? Even after saying "What does income inequality have to do with learning how to read?" you're going to try and pull an 1984-style retcon and say that you've been pulling for teachers since the beginning of the thread and understand that there's more factors involved in student performance?

Funny, but when I tried to bring up the fact that there where other powerful variables in student performance, such as their socioeconomic status and their parents you responded by saying that I was trying to blame parents for everything. Even after I clarified my position, you still said I was just blaming the parents.

bandit0013 wrote:

3. I've never been against early intervention. I even posted peer reviewed research that showed that low income students when exposed to better than average teachers close the gap and perform along norms. Since this clearly isn't happening, can you admit that the teachers in those classrooms are not better than average?

From your measured responses in the welfare thread I somehow doubt you're really a champion of things like Head Start. And, again, that's not what the study actually said.

OG_slinger wrote:
bandit0013 wrote:

Agreed, and I posted a peer reviewed study that showed that high quality teachers can remove that gap. High quality teachers are not found in the worst schools in the country for the income gap like DC, Chicago, etc.

No, not quite. You posted a study that *mentioned* another National Bureau of Economic Research report from an economist who, based on his analysis of data from 4th, 5th, and 6th graders in Texas, found "the role for teachers is substantial" when it came to low income students. Apparently someone else must have re-crunched his numbers to find out that, theoretically, five consecutive years of absolute kick-ass teachers may be able to remove the performance gap faced by low income students.

That's not quite the right mentioned study. The 5-year thing comes from their (faulty) interpretation of the Rivkin et all 2001 paper, the one you linked is from 1998. But neither of them actually say what the first study claims, so it's not like it changes anything.

Stengah wrote:

That's not quite the right mentioned study. The 5-year thing comes from their (faulty) interpretation of the Rivkin et all 2001 paper, the one you linked is from 1998. But neither of them actually say what the first study claims, so it's not like it changes anything.

Yeah, I saw that. The paper Bandit linked to referenced a 2001 revised version of the study. Unfortunately, the NBER's web site only had the 1998 version of the paper, not the revised version. I ran into your 2005 version but ignored it because that it was newer than the the one referenced in the study (Working Paper 6691).

OG_slinger wrote:
Stengah wrote:

That's not quite the right mentioned study. The 5-year thing comes from their (faulty) interpretation of the Rivkin et all 2001 paper, the one you linked is from 1998. But neither of them actually say what the first study claims, so it's not like it changes anything.

Yeah, I saw that. The paper Bandit linked to referenced a 2001 revised version of the study. Unfortunately, the NBER's web site only had the 1998 version of the paper, not the revised version. I ran into your 2005 version but ignored it because that it was newer than the the one referenced in the study (Working Paper 6691).

Whoops, didn't even realize it was from '05. All I looked for was the paper title.

There's really nothing more to say here. OG is incapable of admitting that the best and brightest are not going into education. He is capable of admitting that great teachers make a difference, but he refuses to support any policies, ideas, or even points from systems that are highly successful like Finland's that seek to maximize teacher quality.

Here's the thing OG. We can't do much about socioeconomic status. There are always going to be poor people. There are always going to be bad parents. The variable that we have the most control over in education is the quality of the instructor and the quality of the school. Yes, I said "what does income inequality have with learning how to read?" because teachers can have a significant impact, and if you have great teachers available then the income inequality part at least has a chance of getting addressed.

So you can blah blah yackity yackity about inequality at the income level, at the social level, etc. But it is not constructive. At no point have you been able to show that our teachers ARE top quality professionals. There is a lot of data showing otherwise, I could go do a full research project, dig through SAT/ACT scores, graduation rates, failure rates (Which btw, teachers can start teaching without passing those assessments, they get a few years to pass them and they are taken AFTER getting the degree and a job, so if > 50% are failing that means a good chunk of first and second year teachers in our school systems are incompetent in the metric of knowing the materials). But why should I bother? You want to complain about all the variables we can't control and I want to focus on the ones we can.

I mean seriously, you're going through the studies I posted (you have posted nearly none) and you're making the argument that because some statistician did some math to come up with years of consecutive teacher quality making an impact that it's invalid? I'm confused, are you trying to assert that teacher quality as a variable doesn't correlate to student performance or are you just trying to be argumentative?

Also, my first 5 quotes you posted there trying to trap me all run along the same theme. The education degree is a mix of basic skills with some pedagogy mixed in, then electives just like any other major. Before there ever were education degrees or the study of pedagogy there were plenty of successful teachers, thus you don't need a degree to teach. That's not saying you shouldn't have formal training of some kind. You however are making the false implication that I think a high school dropout should be allowed to teach, which was never an argument I made. As for the "nuclear trainer or nasa scientist" I was referring to professional workers with college degrees, with bonus points for training certifications. I hope that's clear enough for you since this assertion clearly seems to get you riled. I also mentioned for a math teacher specifically math training, so in response to your question, if they wanted to teach biology, etc they should take training courses on that too, with the equivalent number of classroom hours that a teacher's degree person would have to take. What I am against, and I don't know how I can be any more clear, is having a degreed, experienced professional having to take multiple years and tens of thousands of dollars in classes if all they want to do is teach junior high math. You want to talk about inefficient, there's some right there.

OG_Slinger wrote:

No, the overwhelming evidence shows that our system is inefficient. And it also shows that we don't know why nor do we know exactly what we should do outside of making sure we have quality teachers and smaller classroom sizes.

Inefficiency is bad. That we're not ensuring we have high quality teachers and smaller classroom sizes is bad. You're quibbling on language now.

OG_Slinger wrote:

From your measured responses in the welfare thread I somehow doubt you're really a champion of things like Head Start. And, again, that's not what the study actually said.

Excuse me? I know that personal attacks are banned on this forum, but I'm getting really tired of your veiled accusations. Do I hate poor people now? What are you trying to say here. I do not in any way, shape, or form support punishing poor children. Educational services are the best way to lift the next generation out of poverty and is a good use of public funds. I find it highly ironic that you make comments like these against me when you flat out say things like "old people can't handle technology". I think you're projecting some bigotry and I'm going to ask you nicely to stop.

OG_Slinger wrote:

No, the only thing I continually assert is that teachers shouldn't be the only group being blamed for the performance of schools, which is exactly what is happening these days.

Again, teacher quality is the easiest variable to control. Teachers are not the "only group being blamed" by any means. It is just that when the teacher's union is against some major issues that the majority of parents support, like school vouchers and consistently resist performance based evaluations they put themselves into the position of being the variable that is the "lowest hanging fruit" for reform. Perhaps if the teacher's union was more like Finland (where I remind you only 10% of applicants are accepted into the education program) and embraced school choice, embraced and rigorously enforced a high quality workforce, and constantly publicly sought better methods and higher standards they wouldn't be such a scapegoat? The Finnish union is more like a trade union. They work hard at ensuring only quality professionals are there, and that once in they are developed. That is a good union, a type of union I can get behind. Many of the union policies in our country are more parasitical in nature. You don't see these types of behaviors in Finland, Sweden, Germany, etc.

These are some fun charts too.

IMAGE(http://reason.com/assets/mc/dpowell/2011_01/derugy-column-chart1.jpg)

IMAGE(http://reason.com/assets/mc/dpowell/2011_01/derugy-column-chart3.jpg)

Spending high, class sizes dropping, still ranking poorly. The thing I find interesting is that in healthcare, where we spend way more than others and get similar or worse results there are screams for reform that are typically embraced by left-leaning types.

Same thing happens in education and mostly crickets outside of demands for even more money.

bandit0013 wrote:

So you can blah blah yackity yackity about inequality at the income level, at the social level, etc. But it is not constructive. At no point have you been able to show that our teachers ARE top quality professionals.

I did--remember that part about how American teachers produce an equal or higher PISA score than equivalent countries once compared on a level playing field adjusted for poverty rate?

bandit0013 wrote:

Again, teacher quality is the easiest variable to control. Teachers are not the "only group being blamed" by any means. It is just that when the teacher's union is against some major issues that the majority of parents support, like school vouchers and consistently resist performance based evaluations they put themselves into the position of being the variable that is the "lowest hanging fruit" for reform. Perhaps if the teacher's union was more like Finland (where I remind you only 10% of applicants are accepted into the education program) and embraced school choice, embraced and rigorously enforced a high quality workforce, and constantly publicly sought better methods and higher standards they wouldn't be such a scapegoat? The Finnish union is more like a trade union. They work hard at ensuring only quality professionals are there, and that once in they are developed. That is a good union, a type of union I can get behind. Many of the union policies in our country are more parasitical in nature. You don't see these types of behaviors in Finland, Sweden, Germany, etc.

You also don't see the same jackassery behavior from the parents and the public at large in Finland, Sweden, Germany, etc., regarding education and children's rights, do you?

The reason teacher's unions in those countries don't object (and even that's debatable) is because school choice in those countries isn't being used as a way to break unions--in fact, from what I've read the goal is to create competition for teachers just the same as it is to create competition for students, so both students AND teachers benefit.

Compare that to the 'school choice' movement here: it's presented as a way to pay teachers less and fire teachers more. Any surprise our unions see things differently?

Finally, what are you doing pointing to Sweden and Germany? Even in just a straight comparison--no poverty rate factored in--of our PISA score to German and Swedish PISA scores, we come out ahead of Sweden in Science, and ahead of both of them in Reading.

So what gives here? Our teachers are better at teaching English than...the English!

bandit0013 wrote:

There's really nothing more to say here. OG is incapable of admitting that the best and brightest are not going into education. He is capable of admitting that great teachers make a difference, but he refuses to support any policies, ideas, or even points from systems that are highly successful like Finland's that seek to maximize teacher quality.

...

Perhaps if the teacher's union was more like Finland (where I remind you only 10% of applicants are accepted into the education program) and embraced school choice, embraced and rigorously enforced a high quality workforce, and constantly publicly sought better methods and higher standards they wouldn't be such a scapegoat? The Finnish union is more like a trade union. They work hard at ensuring only quality professionals are there, and that once in they are developed. That is a good union, a type of union I can get behind. Many of the union policies in our country are more parasitical in nature. You don't see these types of behaviors in Finland, Sweden, Germany, etc.

Speaking of Finland and Sweden:

A striking aspect of the 2006 results was how well Estonia performed: 5th place worldwide (after Finland, Hong Kong, Canada and Taiwan). That is, second country in Europe after Finland - see Table 2 of [4]. In Table 1 of [4], Estonia is even listed second country worldwide (after Finland).

Estonia is a small country (1,34 million inhabitants), with turbulent recent history (it restored its independence only in 1991). Its GDP is modest compared to that of many OECD countries.

Now, isn't the fact that such a country got better PISA results than all European OECD countries (except Finland) at least as remarkable as Finland's success? Could there be a common factor behind the success of Finland and that of Estonia?

There is a common factor: language.

Finnish and Estonian are not Indo-European, but Finno-Ugric languages. Hungarian also belongs to the family of Finno-Ugric languages. Finnish and Estonian belong to the Finnic branch of the Finno-Ugric family, whereas Hungarian is the main representative of the Ugric branch.

Finnish and Estonian are so closely related that it is possible for Finns who have never studied Estonian to understand Estonian to some extent, and vice-versa. At least many individual words can be recognized, even though overall understanding is often challenging.

...

The Swedish-speaking population, in addition to being wealthier on average than the Finnish-speaking population, is also said to enjoy a richer social life, to have better self-esteem, to be more tolerant, to have a much higher life expectancy, etc. [9,10]

In Finland, too, socio-economic background of students greatly influences school results (although less than in most other OECD countries). Excerpt from [11] (p. 35):

"Students whose parents had the highest status jobs significantly outperformed those with lower socio-economic backgrounds. This was especially the case in, for instance, Hungary, Belgium, Turkey and Germany. The difference was considerable in Finland as well, yet remained clearly below the OECD average (Figure 13)."

Therefore, one could expect that Swedish-speaking Finns would get considerably better PISA results than Finnish-speaking Finns.

There is indeed a difference between PISA results of Swedish-speaking and Finnish-speaking students, but opposite to the expected one. Excerpt from [11] (p. 17):

"In PISA 2003 Finnish-speaking students clearly outperformed their Swedish-speaking peers in scientific literacy, with an average difference of 26 points. However, also the Swedish-speaking minority was doing very well, since their results were on a par with those of the Netherlands."

http://finnish-and-pisa.blogspot.com/

Finland would have good results in any case, but the explanation for their score being so high could be their language being from the right linguistic group.

bandit0013 wrote:

Spending high, class sizes dropping, still ranking poorly. The thing I find interesting is that in healthcare, where we spend way more than others and get similar or worse results there are screams for reform that are typically embraced by left-leaning types.

There's nothing interesting about it: left-leaning types don't pin health care solutions on tort reform just like they don't blame education solutions on breaking the power of the unions. In both cases the 'solution' seems more like it's been selected to advance an irrelevant political agenda than to solve the actual problem.

CheezePavilion wrote:

The reason teacher's unions in those countries don't object (and even that's debatable) is because school choice in those countries isn't being used as a way to break unions--in fact, from what I've read the goal is to create competition for teachers just the same as it is to create competition for students, so both students AND teachers benefit.

Citation needed. I don't think you know anything about the attitudes of unionized teacher's in foreign countries. Additionally, I have never once seen a school voucher proposal that was directly tied to the elimination of unions. It's about getting your kid out of a failing school and into a better one. (You and OG are all about parental involvement, but not when it comes to choosing the school?) The voucher can be used at another public school, a unionized charter school, a non-union charter school, a union private school, or a non union private school. As I referenced before about Finland/Sweden, the result of school choice is that schools compete in specialties and teachers highly skilled in those specialties are in high demand, driving up wages.

Unions are against school vouchers because there would be a mass exodus from failing districts which would have the impact of a lot of union members losing their jobs.

Oh, on another note, I took my kids to open house today. My eldest (1st grade) got his curriculum objectives and just like last year he already has met all objectives. I'm wondering at what grade he's actually going to start learning something.

They have a lot of big objectives on the curriculum this year, like counting to 100 by 2s (he can already do 2 digit addition and single digit subtraction). Recognizing geometric shapes (he could do that before kindergarten), and other such things. This is why the majority of home schooling parents cite "we could do a better job, or curriculum doesn't meet our needs" as primary reasons.

As a parent it makes me sad, there's no advanced track in this school. Unfortunately, I can't afford private school tuition so I guess he'll just have to chill another year in non-challenging mediocrity. If there were vouchers, at least I could try to pay the difference in a private school with an advanced track.

So yeah, I have a personal reason why I'm so bitter about the lack of school choice. Lucky for my kids I spend personal time teaching them above and beyond what they get in school.

bandit0013 wrote:
CheezePavilion wrote:

The reason teacher's unions in those countries don't object (and even that's debatable) is because school choice in those countries isn't being used as a way to break unions--in fact, from what I've read the goal is to create competition for teachers just the same as it is to create competition for students, so both students AND teachers benefit.

Citation needed.

bandit0013 wrote:

Unions are against school vouchers because there would be a mass exodus from failing districts which would have the impact of a lot of union members losing their jobs.

Did you just really edit a post of yours where you told me a citation for my opinion on unions is needed, only to post your opinion on unions with no citation provided?

I have never once seen a school voucher proposal that was directly tied to the elimination of unions. It's about getting your kid out of a failing school and into a better one. The voucher can be used at another public school, a unionized charter school, a non-union charter school, a union private school, or a non union private school. As I referenced before about Finland/Sweden, the result of school choice is that schools compete in specialties and teachers highly skilled in those specialties are in high demand, driving up wages.

So you want us to change to the Swedish system, when Sweden--even with adjustments for poverty rate left out--scores lower than us on the PISA measurements of reading and science?

You need to explain that one to me.

Besides Cheeze,

If the school teachers are absolutely great and the unions are providing superior quality of education why should they have anything to fear from school choice?

CheezePavilion wrote:

Did you just really edit a post of yours where you told me a citation for my opinion on unions is needed, only to post your opinion on unions with no citation provided?

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=teacher's+union+lawsuits+against+vouchers

Take your pick.

For the record, I didn't remove the citation needed part, I just expanded on it.

bandit0013 wrote:
CheezePavilion wrote:

Did you just really edit a post of yours where you told me a citation for my opinion on unions is needed, only to post your opinion on unions with no citation provided?

[url=http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...'s+union+lawsuits+against+vouchers[/url]

Take your pick.

Here's the first result:

“There is no question that this law violates the provisions of the Indiana Constitution that protect taxpayer dollars from being funneled to private, religious and for-profit organizations,” said Teresa Meredith, a teacher in the Shelbyville Central Schools and one of the plaintiffs in the case. “The CSP also violates laws that seek to safeguard Hoosier students. This voucher program will provide public funds to private schools that can give individual preference to students based on test scores, disabilities, wealth and personal faith. Such preferences should not be publicly funded.”

I read the article twice, and can find nothing about what you said.

This leads to:

bandit0013 wrote:

Besides Cheeze,

If the school teachers are absolutely great and the unions are providing superior quality of education why should they have anything to fear from school choice?

Something you misunderstand about both myself and I believe OG: if we had a population like Sweden or Finland or Germany, we could trust parents with vouchers. We live in a country where you know the whole system is going to turn into a joke. Either it'll be parents sending kids off to a science class where Jesus rides a T-Rex into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, or it'll be overwhelmed and undereducated single parents in the school districts that need improvement getting taken by the same kind of people who target them with payday loans and other scams.

I have no confidence that we will apply the kind of consumer protection those other countries do nor do American families--particularly those that would benefit from educational reform the most--have the sophistication to handle just unleashing school choice. I'm all for experimenting on a small scale under close supervision. What I'm not for is just deregulating the educational sector thinking it's a solution to all our problems.

Especially when we're talking about a place like Sweden, which takes children's rights seriously enough it banned corporal punishment 30 years ago. You think anything like that attitude towards children exists in America? Reading about the Finnish system, they are obsessed with the free expression of children and making sure those children have positive experiences. How about we start with importing those aspects first, and see if that fixes things before we jump on school choice and busting unions?

And again, I ask you why do you want us to change to the Swedish system, when Sweden--even with adjustments for poverty rate left out--scores lower than us on the PISA measurements of reading and science?

CheezePavilion wrote:

Something you misunderstand about both myself and I believe OG: if we had a population like Sweden or Finland or Germany, we could trust parents with vouchers. We live in a country where you know the whole system is going to turn into a joke. Either it'll be parents sending kids off to a science class where Jesus rides a T-Rex into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, or it'll be overwhelmed and undereducated single parents in the school districts that need improvement getting taken by the same kind of people who target them with payday loans and other scams.

So the truth comes out. Americans are too stupid to handle school choice. I'm done here, thanks for the debate, but I can't debate with someone who thinks that way. That's a very bigoted point of view. Just like OG and his elderly comments. I'm very sad for both of you that you honestly have such a low opinion of humanity.

CheezePavilion wrote:

Before you go, could you just answer one question for me?

http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2003/03/01/voucher-lessons-sweden

I'm out.

Now do me! What made up character flaw will you use for a reason not to address my points?

bandit0013 wrote:
CheezePavilion wrote:

Something you misunderstand about both myself and I believe OG: if we had a population like Sweden or Finland or Germany, we could trust parents with vouchers. We live in a country where you know the whole system is going to turn into a joke. Either it'll be parents sending kids off to a science class where Jesus rides a T-Rex into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, or it'll be overwhelmed and undereducated single parents in the school districts that need improvement getting taken by the same kind of people who target them with payday loans and other scams.

So the truth comes out. Americans are too stupid to handle school choice.

Well, you are the one complaining about the American educational system and telling us it's broken and inferior to that of other countries. What would you expect out of broken and inferior educational system?

I'm done here, thanks for the debate, but I can't debate with someone who thinks that way. That's a very bigoted point of view. Just like OG and his elderly comments.

Yeah, I don't see it that way:

CheezePavilion wrote:
MacBrave wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

Education should not be an instrument to affirm traditional or religious ignorance, balkanize territories with fictional history, or ossify class and racial differences. The way to that is localized school boards.

I take it you are not a fan of private or parochial schools? Homeschooling?

I am--in fact, I went to parochial school. Thing is, there was no attempt to affirm religious ignorance. Problem is, not every parochial or private or homeschool is as good as mine was.

You need to be more careful about those accusations of bigotry.

I'm very sad for both of you that you honestly have such a low opinion of humanity.

Before you go, could you just answer one question for me?

Hmm. Korean is also a Finno-Uigrich language. That would partially explain why my wife is such a genius and I'm a dumbass in comparison.

Paleocon wrote:

Hmm. Korean is also a Finno-Uigrich language. That would partially explain why my wife is such a genius and I'm a dumbass in comparison.

Hmm, you know, S. Korea is the only other 'full-size' country up there in the top spots in two of the three categories with Finland in the PISA rankings; in the third they're just a point behind Japan.

Mex wrote:

Hot teachers, wearing glasses and tight black skirts with a half opened formal shirt, they get really close to you when you have questions and if you need some personal tutoring they're always available.

http://www.adverbox.com/admin/wordpr...

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/gszK6.jpg)

Hot teachers, wearing glasses and tight black skirts with a half opened formal shirt, they get really close to you when you have questions and if you need some personal tutoring they're always available.

http://www.adverbox.com/admin/wordpr...

edit: Also, they smell really good, like strawberries or some sort of fruit, you're not sure which but it's nice

Mex wrote:

Hot teachers, wearing glasses and tight black skirts with a half opened formal shirt, they get really close to you when you have questions and if you need some personal tutoring they're always available.

http://www.adverbox.com/admin/wordpr...

edit: Also, they smell really good, like strawberries or some sort of fruit, you're not sure which but it's nice

are those forumlas and graphs on the board a measurement of the rate of change in my pants?

Paleocon wrote:

Hmm. Korean is also a Finno-Uigrich language. That would partially explain why my wife is such a genius and I'm a dumbass in comparison.

Sure, that's it, not a chemical imbalance.

Anyone bring up the archaic thing called the state and local school board? Maybe politicizing our schools with countless curriculum, elections is what holds kids back?

KingGorilla wrote:

Anyone bring up the archaic thing called the state and local school board? Maybe politicizing our schools with countless curriculum, elections is what holds kids back?

No, no, no, granting complete control over education to a small-minded junta of axe-grinders is the best thing we can possibly do for our children. Did our Founding Fathers not give their blood at Gettysburg for the freedom to have special interest groups impose their narrow world-view on all the children in a community, with no consideration for anything outside their limited conception of reality, nor understanding of how curricula are built?

According to Aaron Osmond, we don't need no education...

sometimesdee wrote:

According to Aaron Osmond, we don't need no education...

His area loved to brag about their rock-bottom property tax until their school district went through a pretty spectacular budget crisis, so I bet it's a cost-saving measure.

One of the easiest things to do would be to remove grades (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc), and have all children be in subject areas that are equivalent to their skill level, rather than some strange notion of chronological development. Such a model is being testing right now in a few school districts around the country. The benefit is that we don't need to change much related to educational structures or funding (both of which are unlikely to happen) to accomplish this, and we students who spend much more time on task.

The pilot schools have seen both an increase in student achievement and a decrease in poor behaviors. All using the same amount of money, not too bad as a quick fix.