I hope that the various viewpoints expressed on my blog the last few weeks have been instructive to readers and leaders. It is obvious we have a schism of opinion relative to race and the elimination of the achievement gap. The polarity of responses mirrors the divide we have on many issues in this great country.
I trust it is not too presumptuous of me to postulate that we who reside in San Jose want all children, irrespective of gender, race, ethnicity or religion to have pathways to a successful life. Can we all agree on this outcome?
Last week the Educational Services Branch of the Santa Clara County Office of Education (SCCOE) convened a meeting of stakeholders to highlight the many new initiatives in 7-12-grade education that focus on Career Technical Education (CTE). New middle- and high-school models with continuance to the community college were featured. One such program is an extraordinary partnership with Franklin-McKinley School District, East Side Union High School District and Evergreen Valley College called the College Connection Academy.
A breakout CTE conference presenter said the United States is the only country in the world where vocational education is viewed as a bad thing. How sad but true this statement is. We all know college is not for everyone and never will be.
A little background here: In 2004 State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell stated: “The job of K-12 education in California must be to ensure that all our students graduate with the ability to fulfill their potential—-whether that takes them to higher education or directly to careers. Unfortunately…too many of our students are not adequately prepared for either.”
Since then, the California Department of Education has created standards and frameworks for 7-12 grade on Career Technical Education. CTE is similar to what many of us called vocational education.
It is obvious our educational system must help prepare its students for meaningful career pathways. Lisa M. Krieger’s front page piece in Sunday’s Mercury asserts that six in 10 community college students drop transfer plans to attend CSU’s or UC’s. My contention is our middle through high school system does an abysmal job of showing students career pathways. Therefore, very few students have a clear picture on how one gets to a particular career destination. Classrooms can no longer be disconnected from the real world of careers and the pathways to these careers.
As a middle school principal, far too often, when I asked students about their career interests they said “I don’t know” or said they wanted to be an actor, professional athlete, or just rich. In other words, few of my thousands of middle school students had a clue about careers and how to plan to get there.
Several years ago one of my districts hired Willard Daggett as a speaker to demonstrate to parents that our nation’s curricula is missing an important application-of-skill model. He asked more than 300 parents in the middle school gymnasium how many had children who had graduated college and were waiting tables or tending bar. Startlingly, more than 50 percent of the room raised their hands.
For us to reach the goal set by Superintendent O’Connell, the work must be much more systemic. The idea here is that the hands-on learning methodology used in a CTE classroom to teach skills and content will support the goal of students applying newly gained knowledge and skills to real-world situations. That is why the SCCOE has a new Career Technical Education Director, Alyssa Lynch, in order to promote the integration of CTE in all middle and high schools.
The SCCOE must continue to lead boldly on the integration of CTE models in our county. This strategy is key for us to develop a region of prosperity and innovation. It is also related to the elimination of the achievement gap and my dream that all students will leave high school in Santa Clara County after graduation (not before) with a plan rooted in a high probability for success in life.
It always amazes me when former school administrators who rose through the ranks during the decline of American education lament over the decline of American education.
DiSalvo made a nice living on helping the growing self esteem industry replace the people who taught the three Rs. It reminds me of the snake oil barkers who became evanglists.
That was helpful!
You postulate that “we who reside in San Jose want all children, irrespective of gender, race, ethnicity, or religion to have pathways to a successful life”.
I’d say you’d get pretty much unanimous agreement on that.
But the way you frame the question seems to imply that you believe that certain children are impeded due to their gender, race, ethnicity, or religion. You keep suggesting that racism is responsible for underachievement and you’re going to keep provoking arguments.
Having said that, I do believe that vocational training is a vital component of our education system.
The demonstrable achievement gap means that certain children ARE impeded by their race and/or ethnicity; it’s not something that is “implied,” or that someone just “seems to believe.” Addressing this achievement gap is critically important, and we need to take practical steps to do so. Pretending that racism simply doesn’t exist is the mirror image of blaming racism for everything. Neither approach is conducive to a practical solution.
Rachel’s argument ignores that the diverse white children who live in this county are one of those demographic groups suffering from an achievement gap.
Because these white kids are 16% points beneath Asian American kids, they have their own achievement gap. Is this gap to be given any thought?
The urge to believe that white kids are succeeding in some way based on the “evil” white culture is simply a knee-jerk reaction taught too well by 1970s Weatherman rhetoric.
Rachel, if you can pull yourself away from the ideology taught you and look at the facts, one of the demographic groups in a state of failure is white kids.
See my comment below to see whether or not I believe in the “evil white culture.” I think it’s funny that a simple acknowledgment that perhaps racism hasn’t been extinguished once and for all always sparks some reactionary insult about political correctness, usually involving “multiculturalism” but in this case a reach all the way back to “1970s Weatherman rhetoric.” Maybe, Cary, you too should try thinking outside your own ideology.
But Rachel, you are unable to acknowledge that the little white children are not successful overall in the academic world. You just can’t say that, can you?
For the record, I like the tools of multiculturalism and I love political correctness. Don’t put words in my mouth while avoiding acknowledging the truth about educational success rates in this county.
Um, little white children are not successful the academic world? I suppose it depends on how you define “success.” Granted, white students perform less well than their Asian counterparts, but by far the biggest gap in performance is between whites and Hispanic/African American minorities. That’s “the truth about educational success rates in this county” which you yourself seem to have trouble acknowledging.
Cary,
I’m not sure what Rachel would say, but everyone I know would agree that all children, including white children deserve to receive any support they need to succeed in school.
Unfortunately, there has been a move afoot in this country to de-fund or privatize public education for decades now. This really got going in earnest after the courts started to force the integration of the public schools because many white people did not want to have their children in classrooms with Blacks and Latinos (i.e. Boston anti-busing riots). If you and others are serious about wanting all children, including white children, to have access to every resource they need to succeed, then I hope you will support the funding of public education.
Pious sentiments. Unarguable truisms.
Unfortunately, I think this analysis demonstrates the stupendous tunnel vision of politicians and educrats theorizing about how to solve employment problems with “more education, more progams, more counseling, more budgets,” more… , more … more … and more swill in the supperdish of the Politician-Union-Educrat Complex.
What is TOTALLY lacking in this analyis is any consciousness of the role and the needs of people who actually provide employment: BUSINESSES!!!
Businesses are not viewed as having any meaningful say in the employment development arena. Businesses are viewed only as tax sows for the Politician-Union-Educrat Complex (PUEC), to be harvested for the funds necessary to operate the PUEC and to feed their clientele.
Once upon a time, I was working for a technology company when I received a call from some do-gooder grant recipient who was trying to create some training programs for unemployed people without employable skills.
It quickly became evident that the do gooder really had no clue about what businesses actually did, what skills they needed, and what motivated them to create jobs. Everything the do gooder knew about jobs in the private sector was apparently learned from an old FDR speech about the WPA.
Education has become an END, when in a healthy balanced economy it is a MEANS.
It the political establishment really want to do something about the “Education-Employment Gap”, they need to FIRST recognize that the Gap is really TOO MUCH of the WRONG kind of education and not enough EMPLOYERS or EMPLOYMENT.
Would somebody please explain why we need to have college educations when business executives, trying to enrich their stock options and bonuses, go out of their way to outsource jobs which require a college education?
This certainly sends a powerful message to the today’s school children as they see their parents put out of work despite their past efforts to obtain a college education. Especially, when they then see the hypocritical executives whining about the lack of engineers.
Rachel writes: “The demonstrable achievement gap means that certain children ARE impeded by their race and/or ethnicity; it’s not something that is “implied,” or that someone just “seems to believe.””
I believe that what is “demonstrable” is only a correlation of underperformance with race/ethnicity.
IMO, what has NOT been demonstrated is causality. That is, what is the “mechanism” by which a child of certain race/ethnicity is handed a “substandard” education simply by virtue of his/her race/ethnicity? Is it biased teachers? Is it biased administrators? Is it biased curriculum? Is it biased parents/family members? Is it biased neighbors? Is it the biases of other children?
I, for one, do not presume to know the answer to this question, nor whether there even IS a causal mechanism, or at least whether there is one that can be addressed by the school system. But I do believe this is the most important question to ask, and answer, before we attempt to “solve” the “problem”, i.e the “demonstrated” correlation of underperformance and race/ethnicity.
Just my $0.02.
I don’t believe at all that a child is “handed a ‘substandard’ education simply by virtue of his or her race/ethnicity.” I think it’s primarily a matter of socioeconomic status—kids relegated to poorer schools and poorer neighborhoods will tend to lag behind their wealthier counterparts. There are cultural factors at work, too. Kids from intact families whose parents are involved in their education will do well almost no matter what school they attend; kids who come from broken homes whose parents don’t care whether they attend school or not will do poorly.
The bottom line is that it is a problem for society when one chunk of the population lags so far behind, and that is what we must address. Personally, I’d rather spend my taxpayer dollars on schools than on prisons.
Demonstrating the factors associated with the achievement gap takes only a minor effort. Poor children, as a group, will not receive the quality of education that wealthier children receive. Children of historically or currently oppressed communities will not receive the quality of education that more privileged children receive. In most of the world, women will not receive the quality of education that wealthier children receive.
These factors refer to a trend, pattern or commonality, but do not predict the experience of individuals. Within each group you will find individuals who live outside of these commonalities.
For example, think about your fourth grade class. Who were the leaders? Who did the teachers like? Whose parents came to all the school functions? Whose parents had college educations? Who had the cool books, clothes and toys? Of course, some of your privileged classmates blew it all. Of course, some of your poor classmates attended college and have great jobs or careers. But what about the majority—what are they doing? What have you done?
The old “Bell Curve” argument has been proven to be disastrously wrong, over and over. It is time to catch up.
> Poor children, as a group, will not receive the quality of education that wealthier children receive.
Well, then, to improve the quality of education for poor children, why not make society wealthier.
A good start would be cutting taxes.
We agree on one point—increasing wealth.
Cutting taxes does not increase wealth for low-income families—only for the over-privileged—as has been demonstrated for the last five or six decades. Just after World War II, taxation was a way to redistribute the wealth in the US. The wealthiest people were taxed heavily—redistributing money to the “commons.” The commons include public schools, highways, utilities, public transportation, police and fire protection—things and services which benefit all of us—since few of us can afford to build our own streets, parks, utility systems and provide our own security services.
Another way that working people redistributed wealth was through unionization—higher wages, 40-hour work week, paid sick leave and holidays, vacation time off.
But sadly, working people have given away those protections as they foolishly voted for tax cuts, virulently opposed unionization, and called for cuts to the very infrastructure that provides what only a tiny minority of US citizens can afford on their own. Now those same working people are undermining their own security in old age by calling for an end to universal health care.
And, of course, the poor are vilified right along with their other oppressed brothers and sisters. At some point, working people which includes poor people and anyone who works for wages will have to give up their “go it alone” fantasies and realize that their well-being is tied to the well-being of their colleagues—not to making the rich richer.
Joseph DiSalvo sayeth:
> I trust it is not too presumptuous of me to postulate that we who reside in San Jose want all children, irrespective of gender, race, ethnicity or religion to have pathways to a successful life. Can we all agree on this outcome?
downstater sayeth:
> White people have unjustifiably enriched themselves at the expense of other groups since they arrived on this continent, except when restrained by fear of loss of profits.
Mr. DiSalvo, meet Mr. Downstater.
I infer that Mr. Downstater may NOT necessarily want children of white “to have pathways to a successful life.”
I suspect that Mr. Downstater’s sentiments about “white people” are not rare or uncommon in the social solutions elites like government and education. And I think this has direct and discrimanatory consequences for children of white in the educational system.
Children of white are basically treated as furniture to be arranged and adjusted as needed to allow for the attainment of successful outcomes for those ethnicities that comprise the muliticulture. Children of white, as has been demonstrated, are NOT included in the multiculture.
The multiculture is simply a constructed “coalition” of certain ethnicities intended to counter the “advantages” of those who “have unjustifiably enriched themselves at the expense of other groups since they arrived on this continent, . . . .”
I think Mr. Downstater has provided Mr. DiSalvo yet another “teachable moment”.
The community awaits, with hope and anticipation, the counsel that education leaders such as Mr. DiSalvo impart to albinophobes such as Mr. Downstater.
John Galt,
Children of color are not impeded by THEIR color or race or culture. They are impeded by the racially disproportionate distribution of wealth in this country, state, and county which favors white people.
In a capitalist society, wealth determines the access that people have to education, housing, and healthcare.
Median Household Wealth in 2004 (assets minus debt)
White $140,700
Black $20,400
Latino $27,100
http://www.federalreserve.gov/Pubs/OSS/oss2/2004/bull0206.pdf
Experts Say:
I expect all educational institutions to treat all children fairly and provide excellent teaching and support to white children too. All that I am saying is that perspectives that reflect the other races and cultures in our society need to be presented as well, and not just as tokens but as fully human and dignified, just like white people.
You assert the following about “white people”:
> White people have unjustifiably enriched themselves at the expense of other groups since they arrived on this continent, except when restrained by fear of loss of profits.
(A sentiment which is likely widely accepted in the social solutions and educrat establishment hierarchy).
And then you ask us to believe that children of white in the education system will be treated fairly, have their self-esteem fostered in a positive and supportive manner, not be blamed for enriching themselves at the expense of other groups, have the perspective of white/culture values presented fairly, respectfully, and with dignity to children of color, have their role models and cultural heroes admired and respected, and benefit from the many “outreach” programs targeted at children of color? No way.
> I expect all educational institutions to treat all children fairly and provide excellent teaching and support to white children too. All that I am saying is that perspectives that reflect the other races and cultures in our society need to be presented as well, and not just as tokens but as fully human and dignified, just like white people.
In the age of silhouette racism, masquerading as “multiculturalism”, educational institutions are INCAPABLE of treating children of white fairly. And it’s naive, disingenuous, or dishonest to claim that they can.
Experts say,
As I mentioned before, multiculturalism is a concept that implies a relationship where there is relative equality among the different cultures in a society, and that we are not anywhere close to that due to the legacy of white supremacy in this country.
White children can expect to benefit from the public education system just as much as any other student, so their fates are tied to the rest of the children in public schools. Help defend public education from those who seek to cut budgets or privatize the schools if you want to ensure that white children have good educations and sufficient resources to thrive.
> White children can expect to benefit from the public education system just as much as any other student, so their fates are tied to the rest of the children in public schools.
No. This is not true. Children of white CANNOT expect to benefit from public education as much as children of non-white.
The multiculturalist context of public education DIVIDES children into victim cultures comprising black children, hispanic children, and Asian children, and oppressor cultures comprising children of white.
The only “benefit” that children of white can expect to receive from the multiculturalist public education system is to have their “white culture/values” attacked as a “problem” and the persisting residue of “white supremacy”, and to have their self-esteem attacked and diminished because they are unfairly advantaged by “white skin privilege”.
> Help defend public education from those who seek to cut budgets or privatize the schools if you want to ensure that white children have good educations and sufficient resources to thrive.
Ridiculous. Defending the toxic and malevolent multiculturalist public education system is NOT something that children of white or their tax paying parents have any interest in. It’s a destructive and immoral institution.
In many ways, the path to teaching defines who I am. Although it certainly may sound trite, I feel that being a teacher is my calling—one that I received when I was very young. When I was six years old, I asked for a grade book. I filled the pages with imaginary names and grades of students that I longed to teach. My ambition of becoming a teacher never faded. When other life decisions seemed ambiguous or confusing, my prospective career was continually concrete.
I have been lucky in this regard, and know that many of my peers throughout my time in k-12 did not hold such an affinity for any profession. I agree wholeheartedly that vocational education could really bolster the strength of our school systems. As is mentioned, however, vocational education is currently viewed as lowly or lesser than college prep or Advanced Placement courses. Therefore, before becoming very effective, this misguided mentality needs to change. Another potential problem that I foresee is the notion of tracking students into an either vocational or college prep route. Overall, however, I feel that middle and high schools are excellent arenas for exposing students to a variety of professions. Furthermore, if implemented properly, students will become passionate about a prospective career, which will undoubtedly add a sense of purpose to their lives and their schooling.
Kaela, on Wed, Nov 04, 2009, at 12:43 AM, you reported a textbook analysis regarding demographic inequities. What was the name of the book, date of publication, and publisher of the book so we can check your analysis?
Is this Bo Sears, member of Dale Warner’s resistingdefamation.org fame?
http://www.occidentaldissent.com/author/bo-sears/
Bo, I tried to provide such information before, but for whatever reason, it was not posted. Here it is again: Deverell, W., & White, G. H. (2006). United states history: Independence to 1914. Orlando: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston.
Bo,
I have s few questions after reviewing material publicly available on the web.
Are you the Bo Sears who coordinated a hit piece against DiSalvo via the following web entry?
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=8070
Assuming it is, and the fact you link your name to Dale Warner’s website http://www.resistingdefamation.org, can we also assume that Dale Warner is party to your expanded call to “attack” (your words) DiSalvo as is witnessed by Warner’s childish and poorly written diatribes sent to the SCCOE. ?
Can we also assume that this call to “attack” DiSalvo, brought other “pro white-European” posters like Frank Roman from websites like http://www.europeanamericansunited.org, http://www.wvwnews.net, stormfront.org and http://www.whitakeronline.org/blog/ ?
Are these the same people who rushed in to promote the “white European” cause under various pseudonyms in DiSalvo’s previous blogs?
Are the European Americans United (EAU) and European American Issues Forum (which according to San Jose Inside was co-founded by Dale Warner),the same entities that the Southern Poverty Law Center identifies as hate groups as noted by the following link?
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/map/type.jsp?DT=25
I wonder if Metro or the San Jose Mercury would be interested in doing an investigative piece on the ways organized groups masquerading behind anti-defamation labels collaborate to attack the reputations of people that don’t cater to their agenda?
Might one be able to argue opinion that efforts such as these actually meet the definition of defamation?
Any thoughts Bo?
Your comments about CTE are important. I believe we leave many students behind by focusing only on the core academic subjects and not training them for alternative, often very lucrative, careers.
In addition, we lose students who drop out because they don’t find a place for themselves. Vocational offerings might motivate more students to stay in school because they see it as something at which they excel, or have an interest. Beyond that, they often get motivated to learn core subject matter when they discover that math and reading are important components of rigorous vocational instruction.
These are the kinds of things that have been lost due to the constant cutting of educational funding. In fact, CTE is always the first thing cut and the last to return. Until people wake up and realize that money is needed to continue to provide well-rounded educational opportunities, many students who are not cut out for traditional academic education will be left behind.
DiSalvo is surprised that more than 50% of the parents questioned by Willard Daggett at a school meeting with parents more than 50% of the parents had college graduate kids who were waiting on tables. Did he ask them what degrees they had? How many had degrees in business, pre-law, pre-med, engineering, economics, math, or hard sciences as opposed to social sciences? Also, what kind of grade point averages did they earn? How many worked their way through college? I don’t know the answers to these questions but I suspect most of them had degrees in areas like Feminist Studies, Latino or African Studies, psychology, English, political science or similar studies that do not necessarily require the critical thinking skills one develops when studying the hard sciences.
Jerry M.,
Very true… the degrees were most likely in the areas you describe. All the more reason for middle and high schools to prepare students for the complexities and realities of the labor market. For sure we educators can do a better job of making school to career connections through CTE and career education counseling.
“I suspect most of them had degrees in areas like Feminist Studies, Latino or African Studies, psychology, English, political science or similar studies that do not necessarily require the critical thinking skills one develops when studying the hard sciences”
Way to alienate a large group of people. BTW, none of the following Presidents completed a college degree:
George Washington
Andrew Jackson
Martin Van Buren
William Henry Harrison
Zachary Taylor
Millard Fillmore
Abraham Lincoln (had only about a year of formal schooling of any kind)
Andrew Johnson
Grover Cleveland
Harry S. Truman
Good point Chris.
Sounds like a good argument for doing away with the public higher education system entirely! Maybe you’re right.
Ditto.
> DiSalvo is surprised that more than 50% of the parents questioned by Willard Daggett at a school meeting with parents more than 50% of the parents had college graduate kids who were waiting on tables.
If DiSalvo is surprised that slackers with college degrees in sociology and thumb sucking can’t find employment in the midst of the Obama depression, he should be even more surprised that HE has a job.
Here’s an in depth article with various expert views on this topic:
http://chronicle.com/article/Are-Too-Many-Students-Going-to/49039/
First of all, this is very well said. “I trust it is not too presumptuous of me to postulate that we who reside in San Jose want all children, irrespective of gender, race, ethnicity or religion to have pathways to a successful life. Can we all agree on this outcome?” Yes, I believe the outcome is for students to become successful.
You know, in high school I took a class called AVID. It was a college prep class but I can’t even tell you what the abbreviation stands for. Why? Well…because it was not my main goal of motivation to go to college. I was one of those students in high school who said “I have no idea what I want as a career.” I was lost. When we are teenagers we are confused and still growing up. My modivation was my family background. I wanted to be successful. My grandmother use to tell me that I would never amount to anything and that I would never get far. I wanted to prove her wrong! I am the first one to recieve a degree in my family and I am proud.
It is okay that teenagers do not know what they want their career path to be, but they should be motivated to go to college. It was not until COLLEGE that I figured out what I loved to do. Yes, school does play a very huge role in influencing students to go to college, but unfortunately I think there will always be other factors that prevent students to even think of wanting to go to college. Maybe we should motivate parents to motivate their children? Yes, I think schools should prepare students for college but I do not think its necessary for students to really know what they want as a career until they get to experience and learn about different real world things.
First and foremost I respect the views and comments that have been posted thus far, but the brutal truth and question I have for all of you is “WHAT ARE YOU DOING TODAY” to help support our education system progress forward and adapt to these tough economic times? Instead of making outlandish remarks and chastising a man who is an advocate for improving our education system I encourage you all to let your actions and not you words do the talking.
I 100% agree with Joseph Disalvo in saying that our middle through high school system does an abysmal or better yet an ATROCIOUS job of showing students career pathways. I am a self made entrepreneur who has created a variety of successful companies and unfortunately I can’t credit the California public education system for my career success. I attribute my good fortunes to educators such as Joseph DiSalvo who taught me the importance of thinking outside of the box.
I believe the wide stream integration of the CTE model throughout are middle/high school education system would be extremely beneficial for students in providing hands on real world skills and expectations to give them a fair chance to have a successful life. Joseph DiSalvo has done an excellent job expressing and explaining critical educational topics and viewpoints through his blog.
> “WHAT ARE YOU DOING TODAY” to help support our education system progress forward and adapt to these tough economic times?
I am trying to convince as many people as possible that the ONLY humanitarian thing to do for their children is to GET THEM OUT of those dreadful, chainlink fence enclosed, windowless youth detention and indoctrination asylums cynically called “public schools.”
Ehuge Entrepreneur,
The reason that nobody other than DiSalvo or the students are putting out ideas of what they are doing is because the rest of us are just spouting our opinions. And the commenters on SJI are deeply divided, not on whether to give the vocational programs the respect they deserve (which we should), but on whether we want to have a public education system at all.
Some of the anti public education folks are coming from a straight up white supremacist position that public education is unfair to white students because issues like slavery, genocide, and jim crow are discussed which hurts the self-esteem of white children by making them doubt their rightful place in the world (on top). Others don’t like paying taxes for public institutions at all.
Some people on SJI are critical of public education because it is broken, but don’t want to see it de-funded because kids need education and should have that right.
The Respected Doofinator,
What exactly do you propose to do with the children after you have taken away the public schooling option? Let the market decide who gets an education and who doesn’t? Rely on the charity of the rich to decide? Let churches indoctrinate them instead? Build prisons for them instead? Let them eat cake?
I don’t think you understand the positions you criticize.
Very few people are against public education overall. And very few people are racist in the way you describe. In my entire life, I’ve met almost no one who holds to either position.
I suspect that you don’t personally know many such people.
They don’t exist here, either.
The public school system definitely has problems. The lack of financial equity that exists between well managed, wealthier school districts in comparison to underfunded urban schools is so out of whack that to correct the problem would require vast amounts of money that is increasingly difficult to find.
Many higher SES parents feel the public school has declined greatly from their days of elementary school and use their financial strength to create their own educational opportunities. By placing their kids in private schools, sponsoring charters, and/or pressuring administrators until their demands are met, they have both political and financial clout that lower SES families do not. So more charter and private schools pop up, while public schools are drained of teachers and resources, filling with lower SES kids who languish in sub-par conditions.
Thus, while researchers and educators correctly request a more equitable distribution of funds, the wealthy create yet another new tier of schools to keep their kids ahead of the curve while continuing to exclude kids who can’t afford them. I do not have contempt for parents who want the best for their kids. But I do have contempt for people who show little regard for those who are left behind. The cavalier attitudes of posters like Doofinator are not helpful and lack social grace.
Lack of financial equity is not the biggest problem with the public schools. If it were all about money, then all revenue limit schools would look about the same.
But that isn’t the case. There is a huge variance in achievement among school districts with nearly identical funding. If it were just per pupil spending, than East Palo Alto would have the same test scores as Sunnyvale.
EPA actually spends more per kid: $9,383 versus $8431. But I don’t see a lot of Sunnyvale parents sneaking their kids into EPA schools.
> The Respected Doofinator,
> What exactly do you propose to do with the children after you have taken away the public schooling option? Let the market decide who gets an education and who doesn’t? Rely on the charity of the rich to decide? Let churches indoctrinate them instead? Build prisons for them instead? Let them eat cake?
You haven’t thought about this very much. Have you.
As a matter of fact, I would say that you haven’t thought about it AT ALL!
If you believe that a government operated school monopoly is the ONLY possible solution, then by definition no alternative proposal has any merit.
I could educate you, but I had to pay a lot of high priced professors and experts for my education. No free ride for you. Pay for your own education.
Questions for those who have indicated opposition to public school funding and multicultural approaches to education:
1. What is your plan to educate children?
2. What would you recommend instead of a multicultural approach?
3. Why do you think there is disparity between rich and poor schools?
4. What is your argument about the difference in educational attainment among the various races and ethnic group?
Thanks