At least it's my own response, and not just a regurgitation of what I read in the latest issue of some left-leaning magazine.

The rest of your stuff is all irrelevant to the subject of primary and secondary education. My claim is that taking more money from "well-off" people and tossing it into failing school systems will have a negative effect all around. This has nothing to do with parent's spending money on college educations, fire, police, roads, retirement or anything like that.

And if you're upset by people calling your solutions "throwing money at it", then you probably shouldn't advocate exactly that. The upshot of your article is that poor kids going to poor schools perform more poorly than rich kids going to wealthy schools, that the US can afford to spend more on social welfare and therefore it should, the implication being that this money will somehow solve the problem.

Right. The government has decided that everyone gets a high school education. We have to pay for it and they have to attend, regardless of quality. A college education, on the other hand, is a voluntary thing you have to work hard at, and pay for yourself, if you can't qualify for scholarships.

A college is run like a business; if they start sucking, they lose applicants and money. If a high school starts sucking, the kids and the federal money keep right on coming, there's just less learning going on.

I think you and I have different definitions of "successful." I think it is still quite possible for a person to be successful without a college education.

My husband has no college degree. His mom is a kindergarten teacher and his dad was a landscaper. He was fascinated by computers as a kid, despite not having one in the house as a child, and proceeded to learn everything on his own through library books. He worked very hard to get his first job in a computer assembly shop. He is now a network administrator making a very decent amount of money.

My friend Mike has no college degree. He moved up the ladder at Domino's Pizza for awhile, then decided that the franchise path was not for him and that he wanted to own his own business with no strings attached. He called random contractors in the phone book, offering himself as an "apprentice" for $9 an hour (non-English-speaking day laborers in my city get around $7-8 an hour.) For six months he worked for a guy, asking questions constantly. Then he left to start his own contracting business, and two years later he lives in a house that cost three times what mine did.

My friend Tara has no college degree. She started as a cashier at a local grocery store, and has stayed with the company for almost 7 years. She is now the senior HR administrator. She plans to be the store's general manager in another several years. They make well over $100,000 a year.

You may write these off as "occasional individual exceptions," but these are just the three people closest to me. I can think of four more very successful people I know with only a high school education right off the top of my head. I believe they are indicative of the opportunities available in the country as a whole. And of the three, only my husband worries about global competition. We will never be able to outsource new-home-building and employment paperwork overseas.

Of course they shouldn't. The question is, what will improve those schools? Money is not the answer.

I was trained to cite my arguments whenever possible. Blame it on the Colorado system of higher education.


If all high schools get funding no matter what, why is it that some are far better than others? Random chance?

No, I don't think that we do have different definitions of "successful." Certainly, people can still do well for themselves without going to college. Overall, however, people with a college degree tend to earn more than ones who don't have one. You pointed this out yourself in your previous post. Keep in mind, also, that I am talking about competition on the global scale in the years to come.

I assume, you would feel perfectly comfortable sending your children to school in Paradox, Colorado, then, rather then one in the suburbs of Austin. After all, funding makes no difference in the quality of education, right? Want to give me a source for this perception of yours? I'm not questioning your credibility, just wondering on what facts you have drawn your conclusion from.

No, but it's part of the answer.

I'm curious about this so I've been looking around the internet instead of grocery shopping and fetching Jim's laundry. First off, I found that my kid's private school education costs the same per child today that PA public schools were spending in 1993. This particular private school is a democratic/child-led/non-coercive learning environment with a 4-5:1 student/teacher(or helper) ratio.

I'd be curious to read more on this subject.
I think for the most part, public schools are just a very clear reflection of the community they serve.

Better parents and better students. It's not really "the school" that's bad--the teachers aren't hurting the students, and the principal's not selling drugs. It's the other students that make a school good or bad. If each of us attended high school alone, we could live up to our full potential. But if my teacher has to spend half the class period breaking up fights and telling the other kids to be quiet, I'm not going to learn anything no matter how smart I am. The students have to care, and no amount of new textbooks and computers-in-every-classroom is going to cause that.

I don't know anything about Paradox, Colorado, but I'll assume it's a poor rural area. And I would imagine that, legally, they get the same or similar amounts of federal dollars as other schools in Colorado. Really it's the monetary contributions of wealthier parents we're talking about. But I can tell you about the school districts in Austin, however.

First, Austin doesn't have that many suburbs. The main district, where I live, is the Austin Independent School District, which has I think 16 high schools. They each get the exact same amount of money from the school district, with only small variations based on attendance--if you're only teaching 1000 students, you don't get as much money as the schools with 2500.

Of those, there are only 4 that I am willing to consider sending my children to. This is based purely on my experiences with these schools/neighborhoods growing up in the city. But it is this active discrimination of "bad" schools on my part which leads to better schools in the first place. Parents who care have better-behaved children.

We bought our house based entirely on what high school the neighborhood fed to. I wouldn't even look at other areas. But our neighborhood is far from rich: our house was about $60,000 less than the median home price for the city. There are even less expensive apartment complexes right across the way from us. I am actively choosing to put every effort into having my children in what seem to me to be the best schools possible. And that's what's missing from the "bad" schools: the parents didn't care enough to do the research, or choose where to live based on the schools. There is affordable housing available in every school's neighborhoods (Austin participates in bussing, so a kid living south might feed into a high school way up north, it's all gerrymandered) if they only have the desire to find it.

Incidentally, even if I could afford to live there, I would not send my children to the southwest suburb, because while it is one of the richest areas in town, the children in that high school are incredibly cliquish. They perform extremely well on tests each year, but they also have problems with bullying, alcohol use, and--get this--cocaine, of all things. Richer isn't always better. It's having parents who care that makes the difference.

How about lower student to teacher ratios? That costs money, too, and it is one of the biggest parts of what you are really paying for in a private school.

Here, you and I are in complete agreement. A concerned parent can indeed make a vast difference in a child's education. The gratitude I have toward my father and his concern for my education knows no bounds. He encouraged me and helped me with my school work and made sure that I understood what a gift an education is.

I'm going to have to attend to some other matters, so I'll leave you guys to carry on without me and my inflamatory liberal statements - for a while. ;)

I don't buy that. I think the biggest part of what you are really paying for in a private school is for your child to be around other kids with like-minded parents. Student-to-teacher ratios are pretty even across a single school district, and yet some schools in a district will do well while others will not.

i really do believe that is the reality of it. to be certain, there are other forces at play, but this is a HUGE factor. i said that when i made the decision to send my son to a private school. the school has a tuition assistance program that is phenomenal - so even a family with no disposeable income can go there. i know this to be true, because my son's best friend is in that situation.

over dinner, his parents mentioned that this is their second child in the school - the older one is in the 4th grade. they had a career change and needed to pull their son out and go to public schools due to money issues. when the registrar discovered this he sent a package home with them - very similar to the FAFSA for college. there is a sliding scale of benefit - in their case the school has made them tuition free and even reminded them not to forget when the younger child was old enough to enroll.

all that to say this - the private school isn't better because you have to be "rich" to go. the fact that the parents place a high enough value on education to put their kids in a school even if it costs extra money is the issue - there are things that go along with that mindset.

i don't believe you have to go to a private school to get a good education. i used to ridicule private schoolers. in arizona the public schools are pretty bad - even in the higher income areas. the high school 5 minutes from my house is only 4 years old - even the teachers refer to it as "sandra Drug-O'connor". the "best" school district in arizona is in a relatively low income area.

The biggest factor in a child's education is one that NCLB cannot affect. It is the involvement of the parent(s). It doesn't matter how much you spend on education if the parents aren't working with their kids.

Figure out how to fix that issue, and then you'll have something.

Amen Dar. Some of the brightest, politest, funniest, most well-rounded kids I know are home schooled. Explain that.

i think that goes back to what Clodfobble and i were saying. it is about the family's view and valuation of education.

One problem created by some jurisdictions is a demand that all teachers be working on and obtain a Master's degree within specific time limits. But then these districts discovered a teacher with a Master's degree better be earning $50,000 to $70,000 per year.

Curiously that is the same problem with 'More children left behind'. It was originally created in cooperation between Sen Kennedy and George Jr. But then George Jr broke the alliance when the administration refused to put any money into their bureaucratic requirements. According to virtually every teacher, they are being forced to do things that are overall not beneficial to all students.

So what is a public school system to do? Increase costs again to pay for the 'more child left behind' laws.

Surprising all this talk about the law and not a word about who the original sponsors were. Even more important is the reason why that cooperative effort ended prematurely.

Legislate standards and improvements. OK. But the same law should provide money to pay for it. That bean counter mentality from George Jr is why he and Ted Kennedy had their education disagreement after what had looked like a love fest.

all I know is that a friend of mine works in the public school system (or did), he said that they spent most of their time prepping the kids to take the tests rather then the general education that most of us enjoyed (and by enjoyed I mean recieved...). until eventually he threw up his hands in disgust and went into the private sector of education where he is now happily teaching kids things other than the 'basics'.