Should taxpayer dollars be used to fund private education?

[tw]

Originally Posted by Aliantha

Hmmm...I think you could be talking out of your arse TW.

So you are telling me private schools provide superior education? So you are saying we should spend tax dollars on private schools?

[Aliantha]

Private schools offer a better education because it has become a self fulfilling profecy. When you tell people they can buy a better education for their kids, they'll pay for it through they eye teeth if they have to. This means that private schools generally have more money and therefor better resources to aid learning.

They also offer better social capital which is really the main benefit kids get from private schooling. Believe me, the 'old boys' club doesn't start when you're an old boy. It starts when you're about 6.

So, the wealthy kids go to private schools. They create networks of friends and acquaintances while they're there and then when they take over daddy's business, they have a neat little package to go with it.

Education is not just about educational outcomes. If you believe that, you're living in dreamland.

[xoxoxoBruce]

#1 - Parents
#2 - Parents
#3 - Parents

If the parents don't raise the kid to respect the teachers, school and education in general, there's trouble from the git go.

If the parents don't keep in touch with their kids teachers, how do they know the kid didn't buy a box of gold stars at the corner store.

If the parents don't ride herd on the school board, how do they know if the money is being spent in the right way, in the right places.

Fuck that village raising your child...that's your job.

I pay a lot of school taxes. I've been paying a lot for a long time. I don't use the facilities, but I don't grumble too much because I believe in public education. Maybe a little when you get a tax break because you have spawn, but I don't, even though I spending a whole lot on those spawn.

And I more than grumble, when I see the schools wasting large sums on stupid stuff. Case in point; the high school pays consultants $500,000 to come up with a plan...wait for it.....to make the school look and feel less like an institution. That half million is just for the ideas....millions more to do it.

Maybe if the place looked and felt more like an institution, the little bastards would be better behaved.

I'm ranting, sorry.

Parents!

[Aliantha]

Originally Posted by tw

So you are telling me private schools provide superior education? So you are saying we should spend tax dollars on private schools?

No, I don't think tax dollars should be spent on private schooling.

Yes I do believe the long term benefits of private schooling can be beneficial to children.

No I don't support private education. I support the public system here in Australia and endeavour to ensure the longevity the system while encouraging reform.

The reason is because I believe every child has the same right to the same education. I don't think education should be granted depending on how rich your parents are. I believe it's a social issue and one that must be addressed with all urgency.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Aliantha

Education is not just about educational outcomes. If you believe that, you're living in dreamland.

Every peer I believe to be a millionaire is self made and a graduate of public schools. Private school friends did well. But clearly the most successful were all public school graduates. That's not dreaming. That's hard reality.

As xoxoxoBruce notes: parents, parents .... 85% of all problems are directly traceable to top management.

Remove hype from lying political extremists (ie George Jr), and facts remain - as even City College of NY demonstrated: public schools tend to outperform private schools. City College has a long list of Nobel Prize laureates and other famous American success stories. So now the rich or religious extremists want us to pay for their inferior schools. Sound exactly like the George Jr philosophy of enriching the rich at the expense of those who don't contribute to his campaign funds.

[Aliantha]

So is the American public going to fall for it TW?

Again, I don't believe the government should fun private education in any way. Private is private.

[footfootfoot]

I pay about $800. a year in school taxes. I don't plan on sending my kids to our local school for a very long list of reasons. If I could opt out of paying my taxes I would, because a good portion of my taxes is going to pork barrel stuff.

I seriously doubt that if people could opt out you'd see the mass exodus of students since the law requires that they be schooled. (NY law anyway) and in our state it is more expensive to home school than to pay your school tax, and you need to be at home instead of work to home school or you need to spend a heck of a lot more than $800. to send your kid to a private school.

You just won't see the numbers fleeing if opting out was possible.

What percentage of your tax dollars are actually going to things you agree with anyway? Any guesses?

[AgentApathy]

Originally Posted by piercehawkeye45

Going to a bad school will hurt the kid in more areas than just an SAT score. He/she will probably take a lot of crap from the other kids which will hurt his or her self esteem and motivation. Just a different set of friends or just a group of friends in general can work miracles with both getting someone ahead and pushing them down.

If you want to fix inner city schools you have to:
Get more after school activities
Get rid of the idea that they are second rate to white suburban kids
Get good influences in the building (teachers)
Reward good grades
Pound in the idea that they need an education to get anywhere
Get rid of the idea that a 'gansta' life is glorious

If you look at them, a majority of those are mindsets, inner city kids are screwed before they even start. Giving the school more money will help a little bit but won't solve anything.

I totally, totally agree. I mentor a child in a bad section of Austin in a school that includes the child residents of four housing complexes and at least one homeless shelter. I see this every time I go there and especially when I talk to my mentee: they see life on welfare and in public housing/shelters and as a young unwed mother as normal because it's all they know. My mentee is the 4th child (other sibs are 19, 18, and 15) of a 35 year old mother who is pregnant again, this time with a Down's syndrome baby, which promises to be disastrous for both baby and family. Dad is in prison, and she was with her older sister at the mall a few weeks ago when the sister got busted shoplifting. They live in a homeless shelter, mom works at a fast food restaurant, and mom *claims* that she's off the bottle for the pregnancy but everyone is a little doubtful about this. There is no hope for change in this situation but for what ambition my mentee brings to the table, which is the reason I am there. As a relatively successful woman of 35 with no kids and no dependency on the government or drugs/alcohol, my purpose is to be proof to her that good choices yield a good life. I am one of the very few good influences in this child's life, which puts no small amount of pressure on me, but I'm happy to be there.

That said, a private school for young women is opening in Austin in honor of Ann Richards, our former governor, who was a strong, dynamic woman who overcame the gender barrier to become Texas' first elected female governor. She is known for overcoming alcohol addiction and catapulting women, Hispanics, and blacks into government positions formerly held only by white males. I've seen applications for Ann Richards' school in the counselor's office at my mentee's school, and I really hope that some of those kids will be able to attend that school and see a world bigger than the squalid one they live in so that they can strive to achieve a better life for themselves.

If a kid shows potential and has ambition, I'm all about sending that kid to whatever educational opportunity will best make that child shine and become a more fully contributing member of society. There is nothing to be gained by anyone to limit the potential of brilliance because the average kid or below average kid can't do it. It's just this kind of plan that I believe will reduce our nation from a world power to a nation of polar haves and have nots within 50 years.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

#1 - Parents
#2 - Parents
#3 - Parents

amen

Originally Posted by footfootfoot

I pay about $800. a year in school taxes. I don't plan on sending my kids to our local school for a very long list of reasons.

Parental engagement.

For someone who will probably end up teaching in a publicly funded program, I have an odd take on this issue. Public education should only be for the poor or disabled. PE allows parents to disengage from their children's lives and makes the state the parent.

[yesman065]

How bout we spend the money better to improve the public schools lessening the need or desire for privatized education? Perhaps if we actually tried to fix what is broken instead of abandoning "the 99", we would not need to have as many private schools, thereby lessening the burdon on the system.
I don't believe that one cent should be spent on private education - period. Thats why its called private not public.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by yesman065

How bout we spend the money better to improve the public schools lessening the need or desire for privatized education?

What is the goal of education? The state has goals for your children, do you?

[Sundae]

Originally Posted by Griff

Public education should only be for the poor or disabled. PE allows parents to disengage from their children's lives and makes the state the parent.

I'd be interested in hearing more about this point of view, because at the moment it has absolutely floored me, so I think I have either misunderstood you, or you have access to information I don't.

I went to a state school (what you call a public school) as did almost everyone I know. Some of these people did have parents who disengaged from their lives, but this would have been no different if they went to private school.

In fact the few people I have known who went to private school were more or less left to get one with things - one person's family seemed to have the view that as they had paid for their son's education they had done more than most and therefore discharged their parental responsibility.

In an ideal world I think all children should attend state schools. The money that is currently spent on private education could be funnelled back into the state system via fundraising drives and donations from those who could afford it. Children would mix with all classes, types and abilities at school and therefore get a better understanding of different classes, abilities and lifestyles. And those who wanted more for their children could supplement state education with extra curricular activities. The great and the good who care about their children's education would make far more of an effort to raise the standards of state schools if it directly affected their own children.

I know it will never happen, I know it's impractical on many levels but I also know it's similar to the way I was educated until I was 12 and it gave me a great start in life.

[DanaC]

Well said Sundae. I am totally opposed to private education. I am appalled that for every one parent who, faced with a child's education being mishandled, is able to pay to rectify that, there are thousands of parents who have no choice but to put up with it. If there were no such thing as private sector education, the state schools would be a damn sight better and a higher proportion of our children would recieve a better education than they currently do.

The results in Newark NJ were famous. Did you read it? Annoying. Yes - because reality is that blunt. State of NJ took control of the Newark Education system. They threw so much money into it that students in Newark had more money per student than any other state public school. And still the school system was not performing.

All you are proving there tw, is that more money and smaller class sizes do not, alone, a solution make. That in no way proves that extra funding and smaller class sizes have no effect. I don't currently have the info to hand, but this was something tackled during my literacy support courses and there is plenty of evidence to show that better staff : pupil ratios improves overall results.

I also, like everybody I know, was educated in a state school. There were problems, the funding was inadequate (in the days of Thatcher this was), the teachers were underpaid and striking intermittently, books had to be shared and the school had just sold off its sports block for use as a privately run gym. Nevertheless, I got a decent education: I didn't get to learn Latin, but I did get to learn French, German and a little Spanish. My history teacher and my English teacher were both awesome teachers and completely lovely people (proper teachers, y'know, suede jackets with brown cord elbow pads, khaki desert boots and the unerring ability to spot a pupil-led plot before said pupils had even fully formulated it). Back then, it really was a tiny percentage of pupils that attended private schools and the individual examining authority had a lot more say on curriculum.

Nowadays, we are rushing headlong into a deeply privatised education system, with failing schools being strong armed into public-private status and specialist and grammar schools being allowed to leech the most able and leave behind a school which gradually sinks until it can be forced into Academy status. The curriculum is centrally set, and the specifics of teaching more and more heavily prescribed. Changes to the curriculum and structure of children's education are effected in knee jerk reactions to adverse results. Wholescale alterations which throw the baby out with the bathwater, or seek to reinvent the wheel.

Faith based schools proliferate, furthering the divisions in our society, and exposing our children to myth dressed as science; sometimes replacing the local secondary school and drawing its pupils from families who are dismayed but trapped into the system.

We over complicate the system. Education is not a simple thing, but nor is it rocket science. Well-trained teachers, enough to fully staff a school; funding for materials and books and, dare I say it, musical instruments and the odd museum trip; enough flexibility for teachers to do what they are trained to do and enough authority control to enforce standards and allow accountability.

[Griff]

I went to a horrible public school. We were trained to have low expectations, keep our mouths shut, and stay in line. Based on the present conformation of American society, I'd say these lessons were well learned in many places.

Individual teachers, administrators, and philosophers do care about children, but the system's purpose is to create fodder for corporations and cannons. It is a creaky system left over from the first half of the last century when mass society demanded a uniform product of minimum standards. Much like our army we're geared to fighting the last war. Even now the national standards craze further consolidates power and stifles innovation. Our inflexible system is creating inflexible people.

It is true that parents will avoid being responsible for their children no matter what system is in place. The question for me is, who bears ultimate responsibility for children? Euros believe in socialism and public schools are the backbone of that system, unfortunately some of us see that system as another form of slavery.

[yesman065]

Originally Posted by Griff

What is the goal of education? The state has goals for your children, do you?

Absolutely! The states goals for my children and my goals may or may not be very different. My goals are for my children to be properly prepared for college and beyond. The state may recognize that some children may not have the drive, desire or whatever to go onto college and therefore their goals may be different. I recognize that in some places the goal is just to get them through - that is not all I want.