Superintendent debate revolves
around dangerous obsession
By Brad Warthen
Editorial Page Editor
AFTER THE debate Monday night between candidates for state superintendent of education, Republican Karen Floyd accused me of being obsessed with a “single issue.”
Say what? Moi? Hey, I was the very last person there to mention that issue. Her opponent, Democrat Jim Rex, brought it up. She vaguely touched upon it herself. S.C. ETV moderator Andy Gobeil pressed her repeatedly, but to no avail, to answer a simple “yes” or “no” question about it.
That issue, of course, is the one that has paralyzed debate over schools in South Carolina ever since Gov. Mark Sanford introduced it, and thereby attracted vast sums of money from out-of-state extremists determined to undermine the very idea of public education. It’s the issue of whether to abandon the concept of accountability for tax dollars spent on education, and instead throw money to individuals to spend on any alternative that strikes them as attractive.
Before the governor weighed in, parents, educators and policymakers were debating all sorts of ways to improve the quality of those schools that did not meet South Carolina’s standards — which, ever since the 1998 Education Accountability Act, have been among the most demanding in the nation.
The governor used his bully pulpit to change the debate from how to meet those standards to whether we should even try. He wants to take money that would be spent on that strict regimen of improvement, and toss it at parents in the vague hope that better options will naturally spring up to take their money.
And Karen Floyd is his candidate. In the year since he anointed her, she has presented no other convincing reason why she is on the ballot. She has absolutely no relevant experience. She has never improved a school system, or even one school, or one classroom. To my knowledge she had never publicly exhibited any interest in school reform of any kind before she decided to run for this statewide office.
Her opponent offers 30 years of experience in education, from K-12 through higher education, both public and private. Her response is to dismiss completely the value of his experience, airily proclaiming that what our schools need is an outsider’s perspective. She can boast an infinite supply of that.
Dr. Rex, product of “the system,” is the one telling the system that it needs to do some radical
things that lawmakers have never dared require — such as paying teachers by their performance rather than how many degrees they have, and empowering principals to fire the teachers who don’t measure up.
She says she’s for those things, too. But she doesn’t articulate them as well, possibly because she knows far less regarding what she’s talking about.
Visit her Web site. Under “Issues,” she offers four brief position papers. One is about tweaking the PACT — which is her most substantive foray into actual academic improvement. Another is about preventing violence in schools. The other two are about channeling resources to the private sector of education — one about contracting with “diverse providers” and the other “choice,” which is her and the governor’s preferred term for taking tax money away from public schools and urging parents to spend it on something else.
I don’t find all of Jim Rex’s proposals on his site, either. But I do find the kind of comprehensive approach you get from a thorough professional who is fed up with the status quo.
To back up her assertion that her version of “choice” is but one subtopic in a multifaceted plan, she had a campaign assistant draft a chart and send it to us recently. It’s on my blog if you’re curious. But I warn you: Your only chance of making any sense out of it is to look at it while you listen to the streaming video of her buzzword-laden elaboration during Monday night’s debate. Good luck with that, because it didn’t help me much.
So please excuse me if I identify her with the single issue that caused the governor to endorse her before it was known who else would even seek the Republican nomination.
But I’m the single-issue guy, right? I think I know where that came from. Even though I was the last one at the table to address vouchers and such, I was the one who did so in embarrassingly specific terms. She managed to slough off Mr. Gobeil’s several attempts to get a straight answer, but I was more successful back during the primary debate in the spring. It took three attempts, and even then she answered with great reluctance. Yes, she had said, she would have voted for the last version of the governor’s proposal considered by the Legislature.
OK, I said last week, so that means that rather than just advocating options for the disadvantaged trapped in “failing schools,” you favor giving these tax credits to anyone who is already sending their kids to private school or home-schooling them — because that bill did that.
She turned to the camera and gave another long nonanswer. (Along the way she cited Shakespeare as having compared legislation to making sausages. But it was Otto Von Bismarck, not the Bard, who said that.)
Let’s face it: When it comes to factors bearing upon her candidacy to preside over our state’s public schools, Mrs. Floyd is the single-issue candidate. She could dismiss it with a word if she chose, but she won’t. Consequently, that one thing looms over everything else she says or does.
And on that one issue, she’s wrong.
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If any state department ever needed an outsider to run it, it is the Education Dept. The current head ignored the department while aspiring for a two year period to be a senator. Now she is semi-retired on the job. Most of us have had our fill of insiders who came up via the “system”. Your problem Brad is you have primary focus on the system while Karen Floyd has primary focus on the students. That is why you cannot understand her stands on these issues. And should Rex win, shortly after the election you will have heard the last of radical reform, instead we will be back to the “need more funding” refrain. Bet on it.
Warthen, I can’t imagine anyting more totalitarian than forcing poor parents to keep their children in violent, dysfunctional schools so you and your fellow traverers on the left can feel good about yourselves. Moreover, you bring the same fundamental dihonesty to the issue of school vouchers that you bring to the nation’s immigration crisis. With immigration, your newspaper purposely engages in a continuous news black out of the negative effects of this invasion and population explosion on the welfare of American citizens and the eenvironment. You simply don’t want your readership to become exercised about the issue until it is too late for them to do anyting about it. Likewise you and fellow totalitarian Cindy Scoppi frame the entire issue of dysfunction schools as a money problem. Anyone who threatens the money flow to the educational establishment is the devil incarnate. You never mention the inverse relationship between money and sucessful schools, both public and priviate. More importantly you neve mention the fact that what really ails the public schools is a sucessfull decades long campaign by liberals like you to rid schools of ethics, standards, and accountability. In other words, you are so blinded by your left wing ideology, that you simply will not confront truthful solutions to problems. Instead you choose to launch personal attach after personal attach on those that realized in the 1970s that 1960s liberalism does not work and is, in fact, a continuing catastrophe for this nation. I would urge you and your comerades to enter the 21 century with a dose of reality and some fresh ideas.
The current head ignored the department while aspiring for a two year period to be a senator. Now she is semi-retired on the job. – Dave, any evidence to support this?
forcing poor parents to keep their children in violent, dysfunctional schools.
Currently, around $8k is spent per pupil in SC public schools annually. Heathwood Hall costs $12/year. These poor parents will come up with $4k per year? They will be able to provide transportation? They can pay for the books and fees?
What will happen to the students whose family can’t make up this short fall, can’t provide transportation, or don’t have parents or guardians who care enough to find a private school?
liberals like you to rid schools of ethics, standards, and accountability. In other words, you are so blinded by your left wing ideology
This is a pathetic and lazy analysis. Using your “logic”, Brad uses this same “ideology” to support the war and to endorse republicans as well.
You never mention the inverse relationship between money and sucessful schools, both public and priviate.
How about the strong positive relationship between family income and SAT score? The SAT does a great job measuring socio-economic level so how is it such a comprehensive measure of school performance? Your “fresh ideas” candidate has used this as the major indicator that SC schools are at the bottom, conveniently ignoring the fact that our middle and elementary schools score at or above most other states on the NAEP test. How about that for a “dose of reality”?
“1960s liberalism does not work and is, in fact, a continuing catastrophe for this nation.” 26 years out of the last 38 we’ve had a Republican chief executive, and liberalism is still casting its dark shadow over our [Home]land? My goodness, its evil doctrines must have some elements that prove intractable despite all assaults on it. Hopefully the electorate will confound the recent poll numbers and reinforce, nay, even increase one-party domination by the Republicans. Perhaps over time the biggest legacies of 1960’s liberalism (full and enforced civil rights for African-Americans and all races, unleashing of the creative/economic/dynamic energy of half our population—women—via the feminist movement) could then be rolled back. Yes, Marshall, indeed 1960’s liberalism was such a tragedy for our nation.
Oh, yes, Brad, you are totalitarian, indeed. I have seen your brown-shirted troops out in the street delivering the newspapers to us in the morning. Why, one of them wanted to force me to read it! Indeed, you and Cindi must be the most dangerous people in the whole state of South Carolina. Wow!
Yawn… this has reached the proverbially “grasping at straws” stage. Karl Rove and Lee Atwater would be proud of your attack tactics.
When Floyd and Sanford win, you will be left with two choices: either you are out of touch with the feelings of a majority of South Carolinians as it applies to the issue of altering an educational system with a variety of long standing problems
OR
you believe the majority of South Carolinians are too stupid to understand your argument.
I vote for the former.
Brad is obsessed with maintaining the status quo and letting professional politicians and career bureaucrats twiddle with every reform for decades.
Despite my usual misgivings concerning Brad’s editorial positions, I have to admit that Brad’s piece today represents first-rate journalism. Obviously, Brad has been paying close attention to a substantial threat to public education from outside moneyed interests. We should be grateful that The State has been carefully gathering evidence concerning the privatization of public education, and then addressing it in a form that voters can easily understand as Brad has so cogently done today. Admittedly, I had no idea of the seriousness and scope of the problem until The State repeatedly addressed the issue on its editorial page. In part, my lack of awareness has been due to the fact that I have not followed internal republican politics closely, so The State has provided a valuable public service for me in this respect.
Mark, inside money interests have kept the education reforms locked up for many years. Thank goodness there is outside money, by the way from American citizens, unlike the George Soros (Hungarian billionaire) money that the national Democrat party gladly uses to corrupt the election processes. Do you hear the State fuming and crying over the Soros money. Odd, isnt it.?
Brad,
Thank you for calling out Floyd. Her contention that the state of SC needs an outsider in the State Dept. of Education is blowing smoke. I’m a teacher. Do you think the lawyers of the state would welcome me to run for one of their state boards because I am NOT a lawyer? I doubt it.
Another concern I have: someone needs to ask Mark Sanford if his children still attend private school, and if they do, why is his support of vouchers not a conflict of interest? This has always bothered me. But then I guess he’d have to care what the public school teachers think, right?
Again, thanks for your commitment to public school education. Everyone seems to think he or she knows a lot about education because they once occupied a seat in a classroom. It’s like me thinking I can be a doctor because I watch “ER.”
Doug,
I vote for both. Brad is out of touch with the feelings of a majority of South Carolinians as it applies to the issue of altering an educational system with a variety of long standing problems
AND
he believes the majority of South Carolinians are too stupid to understand his argument.
Until recently, you could practice law or architecture if you could pass the boards, without having to earn a law degree.
You can practice, law, medicine, architecure, engineering, or teach college or law and not be “qualified” under law to teach in public schools. That is merely a job protection device for the teacher unions.
I might vote for Jim Rex, but he should have run less attacks on Karen Floyd, dropped that baloney ad about a huge tax increase for vouchers, and talked about his record of reform in his career. By avoiding his own resume, he raises doubts.
“Another concern I have: someone needs to ask Mark Sanford if his children still attend private school, and if they do, why is his support of vouchers not a conflict of interest?”
Susan,
that’s an easy one. His 4 sons still attend private school, the same one as my daughter.
There is no conflict of interest there at all. You see, Sanford, like me, has enough money that he can pay the tuition whether there are any vouchers or not. We don’t need the vouchers. The ones who really need vouchers are the people without the financial means to escape the educrat plantation. You know, the ones locked into failing public schools, with no hope of either getting an adequate education or of a way out. Those are the people who are really being hurt by our failed PS system. As always, people with money find a way out – people without money are simply stuck on the plantation!
Lex,
I understand what you are saying. My first year teaching was in a public school in Williamsburg County. I have been where many only can imagine. You’re right. Mark S. has enough money that paying is not a problem, and I agree that being stuck in the county of Williamsburg is a shame.
But how in the world are these children going to get to the private schools? Do you think a school bus will take them? These parents probably go to work at 7 AM (I know. I’ve worked that kind of job, too.). They can’t afford the time off to take the kids.
There are so many inherent problems in the plan. No one has really sat down and analyzed how this would be a reality. All we hear is from the “ideal” point of view.
If I thought ONLY the poor people would benefit from a voucher plan, then that would be different. As for now, I want accountability not only as a teacher but as a taxpayer and a voter.
people without money are simply stuck on the plantation! – Lexie
This is the same anonymous character who pointed out SC public education spends an average of $8k/pupil while he spends $12k to send his daughter to Heathwood. I guess either Sanford, Floyd, or the out of state lobbyists will make up this shortfall. Don’t forget books, fees, and transportation.
So, what happens when those on the “plantation” can’t make up the shortfall. What about the students who don’t have parents who care enough to get them to a private school? Guess they’re still “stuck on the plantation” and with greatly reduced public resources.
Great “plan”.
Randy,
I’ve posted the numbers before. There are plenty of private schools that do not cost $12K per year. And having vouchers available will more than likely lead to other private schools being created that will be more than willing to try and earn the $8K year… knowing that if they don’t meet the accountability standards of PARENTS, that the kids will be free to leave after one year.
Using Hammond or Heathwood as the only possible option in a voucher system is a red herring.
Lex,
Since you’re so concerned about getting poor kids off the “educrat plantation,” are you and Mark Sanford going to work to ensure that poor children struggling academically in public schools are granted admission to Heathwood Hall?
I’d say that’s a pretty important question as we look at private schools as the solution to helping things in SC.
Doug, tell that a parent in Columbia who’s trying to get his student into private school using the voucher plan. There are 4 major private high schools in Columbia: Hammond, Heathwood, CN, Ben Lippen. Hammond and HH cost around $12k plus books and fees. BL and CN are around 9, but they are affiliated with larger religious entities which helps reduce costs.
You also haven’t answered the question of what happens to students who don’t have the transportation or the parent/guardian who cares enough to get them to a private school.
There are many tough questions that are conveniently left unanswered – especially from those in the ivory tower.
Doug,
Randy’s (and his buddies) strategy is four fold
1. Stake out the most extreme position possible, and work all arguments from there. Their arguments forgo the possibility of compromise, or differing paths being chosen. They also seem to have a time line for complete voucher acceptance and implementation…apparently Nov 8th, 2006
2. They also love to throw out facts and figures, virtually all of which are produced by the education community for the education community. I don’t trust any of their statistic’s…
3. Demonize anyone that disagrees with the “anti-voucher” crowd. Refer to them as lunatics, sick, crooks, libertarians (oh, the horrors), out of staters…it matters not. Just demonize them.
4. Every issue is subservient to this issue. Never doubt it…if Karen Floyd wins the world as we know it will cease to exist.
This issue has truly become tiresome…
Someguy, good point.
Lex took his daughter out of public education so she would not be exposed to the “idiots who act up”. He and other ideologues suggest these private schools are the “solution” to the problems in education. Yet, these private schools haven’t dealt with the same population.
Lex has NEVER been able to provide an answer to this EXCEPT once he suggested “Heathwood is as diverse at public schools” [sic].
Referring to public education defenders, chrisw wrote They also love to throw out facts and figures [sic].
Lol, imagine that, using facts to justify an argument. Chrisw, why don’t you try it for once. What evidence do you, Lexie, or Floyd have that our elementary and middle schools are “at the bottom”? Surely you have some evidence…some data…anything?
Randy, so what you are saying is that those students are trapped in the system.
I don’t agree. I think if the government said that in 2008 each student would have a $8000 dollar voucher that could be applied toward the cost of education, you might find all sorts of entrepenurial folks willing to come up with solutions. Just as an example, I bet there might be someone who would be willing to create a K-3 school for say 100 kids total in the middle of the new Sandhills area in Columbia. With $800K, you could probably do pretty well in setting up 4 classrooms of 25 kids in each grade. I think that is where we would see the greatest impact of vouchers — with small niche, low overhead, highly focused environments.
Are you telling me that if some businessman came to you and said “We’d like to set up an alternative high school focused on math and science for 50 students. You design the curriculum. Your pay will be 10% above what you’re getting now plus a bonus based on the scores your students get on the SAT, AP, and ACT tests. Oh, and we will kick out any students who misbehave. They can take their money elsewhere”… would you not even stop to consider what you could do in that environment? What you could do that you can’t do now?
Doug — The market-will-take-care-of-things argument has some validity….at least some intrigue to consider. My guess is that some creative minds would, indeed, come up with new schooling options. And some of those might be good.
But I think there should be a good deal of caution as we ponder this.
First of all, education isn’t generally a for-profit enterprise. There are some exceptions, but mostly it’s a non-profit endeavor — and one in which those involved are paid not all that fabulous.
Secondly, most of the well-known private schools operate on FAR MORE than just tuition alone. They have endowments and private donors. To think that an upstart private school operating solely on the $8,000 provided by the state will be in a position to compete with well-heeled, nicely endowed private schools is pretty unrealistic, I think.
Thirdly, if $8,000 is the voucher amount, I think we must consider the impact on public schools. Even under a best case scenario of options being created, I think it’s likely that most kids — poor ones, anyway — will still be in public schools. With $8,000 per student lost, that will certainly have a negative impact on the public schools, I would think.
Yes, losing students will reduce costs, somewhat. But it’s far from simple. A school doesn’t save $8,000 each time a kid leaves transfers out. Losing one student — even losing 50 students split among 6 grade levels — may not be enough to lay off a teacher, cut the lights off in a classroom, reduce administrative costs, etc.
Anyone sincerely interested in the education of children would, I think, want to seriously consider the impact of taking money out of the system that is still most likely to serve most of the children.
Doug, from the ivory tower, it sounds great. So do diets in which you can eat all you want and lose weight.
You hit a great issue, “kick out students who misbehave”. Where do these students go? “Take their money elsewhere”, like where? Will other private schools be forced to admit them? What if they don’t have room?
So much is made of the performance of private schools vs public schools. The public schools HAVE to take in the problem kids, by LAW! It’s very difficult to kick them out. Even Lexie admitted he kept his daughter out of public schools so she wouldn’t have to deal with the “idiots who act up”.
Also, you haven’t answered the question, what about students who can’t get a ride to a private school or don’t have a parent who cares enough to choose one?
Each and every time your stubby trotters roam the keyboard of your Radio Shack computer, a little bit of reason and civility expires. Your weary and humdrum snippets of triteness are mind-numbing at best, soul crushing at worst.
Perhaps you could try a bit of style, something less blunt than a sumo wrestler on crack, and less strident than swine tussling for swill.
Randy, the point of bloging, one would assume, is to persuade. And my comrade, you ain’t persuading.
Facts from the Allendale District report card on the Dept. of Education site:
Cost per pupil (2005) : $10,651
Avg. teacher salary : $38K
Avg. administrator salary : $65K
You think someone could come up with an alternative school (including transportation) if you gave them $10.5K per student? I do.
Randy – there are people who will find transportation if the school is worth it. We have driven at least one of my three kids 20-30 minutes each way every day for the past seven years for middle school magnet programs. I would estimate that 90% of the students in those programs are car riders. How is that any different? Parents find a way to get kids to school when it seems worth the effort. They work out carpools, ask employers for flexibility in work schedules, whatever. In fact, I know many teachers in Richland 2 who use the school bus system to ship their kids from one school to the school where they teach in the afternoon. A nice perk that other parents don’t have access to…
You can call it the “ivory tower” if you choose… I’m looking for alternatives to fix the problem.
The statistics speak for themselves, and the stats concerning SC schools are awful. My personal experience has demonstrated the same…PS…if you would like to see some hard evidence… – Chrisw
educrats – Chrisw
Chris, you offered NO DATA. You refer to educators as “educrats”. You disparage the institution to which I have dedicated my life with little more than a “tiresome” scripted analysis then wonder why I responded as I have?
Provide some HARD DATA to support your disparaging remarks beyond interviewing a handful of high school graduates and maybe you’ll earn some respect.
Doug, from the same report card: 86% of students receive subsidized lunch.
From the census for Allendale County: median value of house 46k vs 94k for SC. Median household income: 11k vs 18 for SC. Less than 2/3 of residents have a high school diploma.
The entire COUNTY of Allendale has one high school.
Carpooling in Richland 2 and carpooling in Allendale are worlds apart.
Doug, I haven’t always liked what you’ve posted, but I think you make very solid and perceptive points and I do believe you are a problem solver.
I actually favor allowing the low income students choice as a piece of a comprehensive plan. The problem I see with Floyd, Lexie, and chrisw is they take a simplistic view of the problem. Choice is not a panacea. The problem kids Lexie avoids and who would be kicked out of school are kids I HAVE to teach, we have to teach by LAW. Choice does nothing to solve this problem, which I contend is the biggest problem.
Dearest Randy,
Actually, I have not endorsed vouchers. I have discussed them. I have suggested that they certainly have a position in a menu of possibilities, and perhaps should be experimented with…but as to your ridiculous supposition that I am a voucher devotee’, you are wrong.
I support Karen Floyd because I recognize she is an exceptional thinker, and administrator. I know she will be an agent for positive change in our school system. My experience as a business owner and community activist tells me that she is, as the cliché goes, just what the doctor ordered.
My sensibilities have been offended by the low brow criticism of anyone questioning the system. Karen is being “used as a tool”, contributors are “evil” and acting in a manner “harmful to the State”. They have “sick plots” …and the insults and mischaracterizations go on and on and on. This single issue has hijacked The State, and is an obsession with those inside the educational system.
Cooperation and enlightened thinking is what we require now, and I believe Karen will create an atmosphere that will allow for this. Her most significant problem is not winning the election, but cleansing the well of discontent and parochial thinking that exist at the Department of Education.
Chris
Randy,
They simply do not understand. I have students who wear the same clothes to school every day. There is no car in the household. The parents do not have the problem-solving skills or the desire to even try to solve how to pay the bills much less try to get a carpool together.
This state needs a good dose of Ruby Payne’s poverty course to understand about the penury in which many of our citizens live.
As long as I’ve lived here (11 years), The State has always had one crusade or another going on. Usually these things drone on and on for months and then fizzle out. School choice is simply The State’s jihad du jour.
“Her most significant problem is not winning the election, but cleansing the well of discontent and parochial thinking that exist at the Department of Education.”
Ain’t that the truth! Expect to see the educrats throw everything they have at Floyd, in an effort to destroy her. There will be a monumental battle between her and the educrat establishment and we can only hope that she’ll prevail.
Chrisw, why is the conclusion that you are a voucher devotee “ridiculous” considering your ardent support of Floyd? Her main focus is privitization and catering to the public school hater faction.
On her school bus ad she claims South Carolina schools are at the bottom. She basis this on two metrics used for high schools – drop out rate and SAT. Both are heavily confounded with societal influences so they aren’t the most accurate indicators of EDUCATIONAL performance. I have provided metrics for middle and elementary schools which show we are at or above MOST states. This undermines her credibility as she is either incompetent in making informed analysis or worse, she distorts the truth.
I admit there are terrible schools and bad educators in our system, but to use a broad brush to paint all as failing or bad is ridiculous. So is the demonization of educators who commit their lives to helping young people.
She has mastered a script for her one trick pony act. That is hardly what the doctor ordered.
Bob Staton, where have you gone?
Lexie, still waiting on your data to jusify your hate postings about middle and elementary schools being “terrible”. Surely you have some sort of data. Maybe one of your biased sources? Anything?
Randy Randy Randy…
Slow down and take a breath. Sip that stale wine cooler u have in the fridge, and step back from the situation.
an old saying…we see what we look for …is certainly true in your case. Karen has not committed to instituting a full voucher program for all SC students…but you seem to see that everywhere u look. It simply is not true.
So slow down, fear not. All will be well.
I re-post from words from above, in order that u might soothe yourself.
Randy,
Each and every time your stubby trotters roam the keyboard of your Radio Shack computer, a little bit of reason and civility expires. Your weary and humdrum snippets of triteness are mind-numbing at best, soul crushing at worst.
Perhaps you could try a bit of style, something less blunt than a sumo wrestler on crack, and less strident than swine tussling for swill.
Randy, the point of bloging, one would assume, is to persuade. And my comrade, you ain’t persuading.
Oh, go play in the road, troll!
You know as well as I do that our schools are at or near the bottom in the country. Just a couple of test scores in 2 subjects in one year out of four isn’t enough to disprove that.
In any case, the NAEP test are “heavily confounded with societal influences so they aren’t the most accurate indicators of EDUCATIONAL performance.” For one thing they are being taken before the educrats have had enough time to lower our kids’ scores to dead-last SAT levels.
Susan has a genuine concern about the poverty of many students, but our parents were even poorer during the Depression, and grew up to build the machines which won World War II, created the Space Age, and dominated the world economy for 40 more years.
Liberals need to ask themselves what they are doing to solve poverty. Are they
* speaking out against casual sex which causes 70% of black children to be born out of wedlock?
* asking candidates and school administrators why they are unable to keep 40% of SC students from dropping out of school?
* working to evict the 47,000 illegal aliens in our public schools?
* working to abolish income taxes, Social Security taxes, and oppressive regulation which rob the working poor of the ability to save money and start small businesses?
Randy,
I would be perfectly happy with a voucher program implemented only for those schools with an unsatisfactory rating combined with an income cap on which parent’s would have access to the vouchers.
I’d also favor a small tax credit (< $1000) for parents who homeschool (also with income cap) as well as eliminating the rules that prevent homeschoolers from accessing resources/extra curricular activities within the public schools.
Ain’t it awful when you’re reading a blog on your Radio Shack computer and your soul gets crushed.I HATE it when that happens!
If you really think education is important, why not give an unlimited tax credit to those who purchase education for children?
Why not give a tax credit for a rich person who wants to educate 10 poor children?
Vouchers for everyone!!! Busing for those who can’t make it to the private school of their choice.
Here are some ideas that need to be worked out practically but that are being done across the nation already
* Supporting private scholarship plans to fund private education for the poor
* Renewing the “paycheck protection” strategy that would make it much more difficult for the teachers’ union to spend members’ dues money on their own political agendas
* Creating more affordable private schooling options using technology to lower costs
* Encouraging and assisting families to home school their children
* Urging churches and community groups to be involved with teaching people how to live within their means, freeing up more families to be involved in homeschooling or traditional private schools.
More details? Here’s the article I got this from – it’s a few years old and based on CA’s situation they faced … but relevant to the discussion I think – with issues, particularly conservatives may want to think about more closely! I’m not saying I agree with everything – I’ve only skimmed it – but I think it brings up some things a lot of people haven’t considered in the voucher debate!
Here goes:
Many good people are taking a pro-voucher position before really examining the issue thoroughly. There seems to be an assumption here in California that all conservatives will be for this, and that the only opposition will be coming from the CTA and their supporters.
Not so! Voters should look long and hard before signing onto this initiative with its long-term dangers for traditional private religious schools and, particularly, for private homeschoolers.
In summary, the five most significant of my eight key points can be summarized:
· The voucher will require more regulation and oversight of all private schools, including homeschools.
· Homeschools will end up with a homeschool law that requires more regulation and prevents them receiving vouchers.
· The protections, despite good intentions, can be overcome or gotten around in other ways.
· Schools that refuse vouchers will lose students; many will face the choice of taking vouchers or closing their doors.
· The average cost of K-12 education at voucher-receiving schools will increase significantly.
1) Loss of freedom for private schools
Private school officials who think they will be able to take voucher money without inviting additional state intervention or oversight are buying into a false sense of security. The writers of this initiative have clearly tried to provide some protection for private schools from our radical legislators who consistently push their homosexual rights, anti-parental control, etc. agenda on families. While the efforts of voucher advocates are well-intentioned, there are several ways to get around the limited protections, as well as other problems that will be caused by the voucher.
A major problem for private schools will be developing dependency upon the higher level of funding. Once this initiative is passed, private religious schools are likely to become dependent on the voucher funds (finally paying teachers reasonable wages, beginning sorely needed building projects, upgrading their materials, etc.). A danger for these schools is that when the additional regulations do come (there are numerous aspects of the voucher that will require the state to provide regulations simply to manage the program), the schools will be so dependent on the funds they will compromise to keep the vouchers rather than reject the regulations and lose the funds.
A major step toward loss of autonomy is already included within the initiative. It requires voucher-receiving schools to give their students the same tests that are given to public school students. As these tests become more and more aligned with the national education goals, they will tend to drive the curriculum of private schools in the same direction as that of government schools. The reason for this is that few schools will be brave enough to ignore the test content, risking poor test scores which might show their school in a poor light compared to their neighbors. For example, schools that choose a rigorous, traditional or classical education might well find their students scoring poorly on math tests since they focus on basic computation mastery rather than probability, statistics, and graphing in the primary grades as is required by the new state and national standards and reflected in current standardized tests.
The fact that tests drive curriculum is so widely accepted that tests reflecting new educational standards are developed in advance of the curriculum. Poor test scores alert schools to changes they must make to “teach to the test.” Although pleased with increases in Stanford 9 test scores this year, few Californians are paying attention to the fact that this test is being replaced by new tests that align with California’s education standards beginning as early as next year. (“Standards test could eclipse Stanford 9,” Orange County Register, July 19, 2000.) To give advance notice to schools and teachers, student scores are also correlated with “California Content Standards,” generally showing that students are not doing well in knowing content demanded by the new standards. This means schools will have to continue to revamp their curriculum to produce good test scores on the revised tests. All nationally-normed tests are continually changing to align with both state and national standards, so private schools using any of these tests will also have to change their curriculum if they care about maintaining high test scores.
2) Overcoming the 3/4 vote requirement and the need for new regulations
The large amount of money involved in the voucher plan will invite the participation of unethical, opportunistic entrepreneurs who will participate “until they get caught.” A well-publicized instance of a shady entrepreneur collecting money for phantom students is all it might take to surmount the 3/4 vote requirement to enact new regulations for private schools.
Some doubt that fraud is likely since the initiative requires parents to apply for vouchers and schools to process payments for parents. I speak from my personal experience as executive director of a private scholarship program in Los Angeles. I witnessed numerous instances of attempted fraud and uncovered many more as we verified eligibility of students we “inherited” from a previous private scholarship program. School officials would sometimes “create” students, signing all the paperwork as if they were parents of students. Then they would verify that these non-existent children were enrolled in the school, forging the “parent’s” signature when necessary. To eliminate such fraud we had to request income tax returns which identified children by social security numbers, visit schools, and actually interview some families. As written, the voucher does not specify the sort of verification procedures that we found necessary to identify fraud, let alone prevent it. While most of us are averse to allowing the government that level of investigative authority, the alternative is to permit fraud.
Other behavior on the part of schools or school personnel might invite regulation: financial mismanagement, sexual impropriety, or radical teaching such as white or black racial supremacy. Fraud and impropriety will require a response from the legislature, and this will be easy to get. Even though this is likely to happen only in situations that most would agree are problematic, the fact is that additional regulation will be the result.
The 3/4 vote requirement is not insurmountable. When Michelle Montoya, a Sacramento high school student, was attacked and murdered by a campus custodian in 1997, urgency legislation requiring both public and private schools to complete background checks prior to employment was passed with no nay votes before the suspect’s trial was even put on the court calendar. The very next year, the hastily written Montoya Act was “fixed” by AB 2102 which also added a few new regulations, two of which directly addressed private schools. AB 2102 was passed by 93% of the Assembly and 90% of the Senate, again with no nay votes. Given the right circumstances, the legislature will muster the necessary votes. They will not want to be viewed as soft on fraud.
Prop. 38 is vague on the mechanism of the program, which means that regulations and procedures for administering it must be written. Among questions that must be addressed:
· How will the Superintendent of Public Instruction verify statements from private schools regarding their qualifications (e.g., that they don’t discriminate, that they don’t advocate unlawful behavior)?
· How will they determine if children actually exist instead of being fictitious “beings” created by a school?
· How will they deal with illegal aliens who qualify for vouchers under the language of the initiative?
· Where will the funding come from for the bureaucracy necessary to verify school and child eligibility, compute and process payments, and handle mid-year transfers and dropouts? (A sidenote: from my experience with the private scholarship program, I know that the voucher’s present language requiring checks to be made out to parents, then signed over to the school on a quarterly basis will be extremely expensive and impractical. We found that even getting parents to come to the school twice a year within a 1-2 week period to sign a check or form required significant work on the part of school staff, time which they did not have. Then, to prevent fraud by schools, ideally the controller’s office which issues the checks should also be cross checking parent signatures with original signatures on file with the county. If this isn’t done, how could anyone spot fraud by unscrupulous school officials who might forge parent signatures for children no longer in attendance at the school?)
· Since there are no specifics about how funds “banked” by parents to be used for post-secondary education are to be handled, what will the procedures and controls be for that part of the program? Will there be restrictions as to which colleges might qualify to receive the “banked” voucher money in the future?
· Since private schools that receive vouchers cannot contract with any person convicted of a number of “moral” crimes (Section 4), how extensively must they perform background checks on any person or company with whom they contract-will they need a background check on the owner of the company that supplies milk to the school?
Such questions indicate possible areas where additional regulations will be required simply to control fraud, keep proper records and accounting, and meet the requirements of the initiative as written. The 3/4 vote protection cannot prevent regulations to deal with such matters.
3) Difficulties for schools that refuse vouchers
Some voucher proponents suggest that schools that think vouchers are dangerous should simply refuse to take them. While many of us would consider that a wise decision, it puts non-voucher-receiving private schools at a serious economic disadvantage.
Most parents do not recognize the concerns over independence and autonomy that some private schools believe are serious enough to make them refuse vouchers. Many parents are not concerned that taking vouchers might work for a school in the short run but cause it tremendous harm four or five years from now. Consequently, many parents compare private schools, with price being a much more significant factor than the school’s autonomy. It is likely that a majority of voucher recipients will choose to put their children in private schools because such schools are safer or more academically sound than government schools. Such parents are not enrolling because they share and support the school’s religious or philosophical commitments. These parents will most likely urge private schools to accept even more government intervention rather than give up vouchers. As mentioned previously, most schools will have already made commitments to building funds and increased teacher salaries that are dependent upon maintaining the higher enrollment produced by vouchers. Schools are then likely to find themselves in an impossible situation with no room to turn back.
If a private school refuses to take vouchers from the beginning, it will immediately face the challenge of convincing parents that their school offers something worth $4,000 more than the voucher-receiving school down the street-a hard-to-impossible task for most schools. Schools that care enough about their mission to refuse vouchers are likely to suffer declining enrollment and will probably go out of business within a few years.
4) The cost of K-12 education will increase dramatically
There is an economic principle involved with vouchers: subsidy increases cost. Vouchers will change the tuition structure of K-12 private schools. There will be immediate jumps for aforementioned reasons as private religious schools make improvements. Nonsectarian, for-profit schools will probably try to position themselves in the middle of the market, charging more than religious schools but less than the $15,000/year “prep” schools.
Rather than keeping tuition at existing levels, voucher-receiving schools will have a tendency to increase tuition, lowering the parents’ portion from what it would be if parents paid full tuition themselves, while increasing the amount of money received by private schools. Once the initial “reorganization” is in place, there will be pressures from both schools and parents to increase the dollar amount of vouchers to keep up with rising tuition costs. Schools will continually readjust tuition charges to “whatever the market will bear.” Thus, we will almost certainly see a repeat of what has happened with higher education costs. “In 1943, the year before the G.I. Bill was passed, the average annual tuition at a private college was $2,570, in constant 1995 dollars. In 1995 it was $14,510, nearly a sixfold increase.” (“Vouchers and Educational Freedom: A Debate,” Policy Analysis, March 12, 1997, p. 36.)
5) Education entrepreneurs will diminish the voice of private religious schools
Another very real danger for private religious schools will be the massive entry into the market by educational entrepreneurs whose primary motivations are financial. Investors have put millions into projects such as the Edison Schools, Kaplan, National Heritage Academies, Nobel Learning, Cambridge Academies, and Advantage Schools. To take advantage of charter school laws and other government money, such schools align themselves with the national standards and support a purposeful religious neutrality.
Since such educational corporations are more likely than private religious schools to have investment capital, these are the type of schools that will likely spring into existence to take advantage of the vouchers. (There are not nearly enough empty seats in private schools at present to accommodate the potential demand.) With the voucher guaranteeing about $4,000 per student, per year, and with no limit on total tuition that can be charged by a school, the profit potential for such schools is significant. (If the voucher had been set at only $1,000-$2,000, the financial incentive would be unlikely to attract for-profit schools into the market. The growth would, instead, be among religious schools.)
The presence of a large number of for-profit, non-religious schools will seriously dilute the voice of religious private schools that would normally resist state mandates on issues related to morality, testing, and hiring. For example, nonsectarian for-profit schools are unlikely to resist laws that would reinstate non-discrimination regulations or laws regarding hiring homosexuals. The recent passage of such laws in California that forbid many private schools that receive government funding from discriminating against homosexual applicants for teaching positions is one of the primary motivations for many private religious schools to support this voucher. So, with passage of the voucher, private schools might ultimately worsen their ability to prevent such legislation in the future.
An insider who works closely with education venture capitalists comments that it is hard to see why secular, for-profit schools would not welcome government strings that would knock out their religious competitors and enlarge their market share as well as their “voice” in determining the future of private education in California.
6) Problems for homeschools
One of the most troublesome parts of this initiative has to do with the negative effects on private homeschooling. Some proponents have been dangling the $4,000/year vouchers in front of homeschoolers like the proverbial “carrot on the stick.” Since homeschoolers currently operate as private schools under present law, they too qualify for vouchers, and many are being enticed by the idea of the “free money.”
Longtime opponents of both vouchers and homeschooling are unlikely to allow homeschoolers to receive vouchers without a fight. There are several ways they can try to prevent this, but the most probable is that they will simply pass legislation to define homeschooling, taking it out of the private school category by creating a specific law for homeschooling. J. Michael Smith, president of Home School Legal Defense Association, opposes this voucher initiative, believing that it will likely result in a homeschool law. This would be very dangerous for private homeschoolers in California.
More than 30 other states have homeschool laws. California private homeschoolers currently have far more freedom than those in most states with these laws. Any homeschool law is bound to be more restrictive and intrusive than the present situation. Once homeschooling has been legislatively redefined as separate from private schooling, homeschoolers will not be able to get vouchers AND they will be saddled with restrictions and requirements not currently imposed on them. We realize that this is an unintended consequence, but it is almost certain to happen if the voucher passes.
Some rationalize that government officials can try to pass a homeschool law whether or not the voucher passes. However, this ignores the political reality of a current lack of incentive (money) and political grounds (fraud) to do so. It is important to recognize that homeschoolers have a much better position from which to mount their defense if they do not take government money. Once they accept vouchers, they are in a poor position to resist regulation. Even if no homeschoolers accepted vouchers, the availability of state funding for them provides the incentive for opponents of home education to push for a homeschool law.
7) Courts might bypass protections
There is no guarantee that courts will not throw out portions of this initiative while allowing the rest to remain. How well the protective clauses or any other language stand up in court remains to be seen. The Milwaukee, Cleveland, and Florida voucher programs have been continually challenged in the courts ever since their inception. We should expect the same in California. Resulting changes to this initiative could prove worse than the initiative as presented to voters.
8) Increasing dependency
Many people who believe in limited government think that all or most forms of transfer payments-welfare, social security, food stamps, etc.-should be reduced or eliminated. Generally, they would applaud those parents who take personal responsibility for educating their own children. Such parents are exhibiting more independence and self-sufficiency than those who rely on the government to pay for their children’s education.
Those who prefer limited government need to consider the effect of bringing formerly independent parents into financial dependence upon the government. At present, about 12% of families fund their own children’s education in private or home schools. While there will always be a small contingent of these parents who will never accept vouchers, nevertheless we are likely to see the percentage of self-financing families drop to as low as 1%. The irony is that many conservatives who believe in limited government are promoting a voucher that is likely to increase the number of families dependent on government funding for education from 88% to 99%.
9) But we need to do SOMETHING!
Many well-intentioned people are supporting Proposition 38 in the belief that “doing something is better than nothing.” While that might be true in some instances, it’s a very dangerous justification when it comes to legislation. Most voucher proponents are unaware of some of the harm this voucher will do. Some acknowledge it will do some harm, but they are willing to accept it as a tradeoff to accomplish other goals such as weakening the teachers’ union. Whatever their understanding, they seem to share a desire to rescue children from a failing school system. The voucher is the method most readily at hand.
However, there are better and safer ways to rescue children. For example:
· Supporting private scholarship plans to fund private education for the poor.
· Renewing the “paycheck protection” strategy to defund the teacher’s union.
· Continuing work to create more affordable, high-quality private schooling options using technology to lower costs.
· Encouraging and assisting families to homeschool their own children.
· Urging churches and community groups to be involved with teaching people how to live within their means, freeing up more families to be involved in private homeschools or traditional private schools.
Desperate solutions are rarely the best. The long-term harm to private schooling is likely to follow the negative pattern other such programs have followed in countries all over the world. Private religious schools gradually lose their religious character and their mission mindset. They make compromise after compromise to keep the funding until it’s almost impossible to distinguish private schools from government schools. (For evidence, see numerous sources such as Market Education by Andrew Coulson, Choice of Schools in Six Nations by Charles Glenn, and The Global Education Industry by James Tooley.)
There are additional principled and practical reasons to oppose Proposition 38, but perhaps some folks will pause to consider a few of these concerns before committing their support to this initiative.
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Copyright, Cathy Duffy, July 2000
Permission is granted to reprint this document in its entirety only.
Annee, the whole world has changed since 2000. And anything in California, from the land of fruits and nuts (human types) is suspect. My overall perception of this is that it is outdated and full of misperceptions.
Dave – did you READ it?!!
Lexie, do you have any evidence to support your statement that SC middle and elementary schools are at the bottom? – Randy
Oh, go play in the road, troll!
You know as well as I do that our schools are at or near the bottom in the country. Just a couple of test scores in 2 subjects in one year out of four isn’t enough to disprove that. – Lex
Let me interpret this for everyone:
“No Randy, I don’t. I only have extreme ideology so why do I need data?”
BTW, There are 4 tests: Reading, Writing, Math, Science. Which one of those four is meaningless Lex? So I have data, and you have a myopic opinion.
Chrisw has no data either, but he knows Floyd well and knowing someone is all that matters when making important decisions. Chris, the purpose of a blog is to convince others. Bragging about having talked to Floyd a couple times is not very persuasive…of course Lex is probably swayed.
Welcome to the he-man school hater club where insults and opinion matter, but not facts. Gentlemen, if you have ANY DATA, to support your hate, I’d be interested to see it.
Randy, Randy, Randy,
As Mrs. Floyd has been on the campaign trail for a year now, and has literally spoken to thousands of citizens, one should not consider it a boast for one to say one has spent time with Mrs. Floyd. As clubs go, it is not a very exclusive one.
I am interested in ideas. Ideas are the path to educational excellence. You are interested in data. The educational establishment produces data that support their cause on a regular basis. But as we know “statistics” are massaged, managed and manufactured on a regular basis. So I find them far less interesting that data of dubious origins.
Randy…please read what I say. I am not arguing with you. I am speaking about completely different issues than are you.
Please remember this as I don’t like to repeat myself.
Dave, that was your most useless comment yet. If you are not going to detail what you mean by a misperception, then don’t bother commenting. I don’t mind rabbit trails, as you know, I’ve inserted some myself. But it is irritating when people clog up the blog with put-downs without substance.
Try harder next time. And forget the pre-conceived idea that because something was not written in 2006, it is therefore not relevant.
I’d be curious to know how many of you “experts” have visited a public school? How many of you have had a substanative conversation with a teacher or building administrator? How many of you have stopped to think that public schools are required to teach all children, without being given a choice of taking some kids over others? Public schools are not some monopolistic entity as you proclaim. Public schools are not some socialist or totalitarian institution desgined to undermine the values of this country. Public schools are not in place to destroy family values or Christian sensibilities. Sadly, you have all fallen victim to manipulative and divisive dialogue foisted upon you by controlling politicians who are only concerned about getting what they can out of taxpayers.
When are you experts on this blog going to realize that schools are truly representative of societal issues in this state? The growing division between the rich and the poor is reflected in the schools. You say parents are not involved in schools? Probably because they are having to work two or three menial minimum wage jobs to make ends meet. You say students are terrorizing the hallways of local schools? Why is this not on the news every single night describing atrocities every single classroom?
Please, you experts, I beg of you, find some other cause to solve, like drugs, the federal government lying to us about WMD and controlling us with terror alerts, or whatever else you can find to do. Let the teachers do their jobs and help the parents and the students learn that they must put in a little effort to take advantage of the education that they are being offered. Stop beating up the teachers and find someone your own size to rough up.
Thanks Brad for your supportive column and for putting Ms. Floyd on the spot.
Stop twisting our criticism of waste by bloated administrations, hordes of their overpaid consultant cronies, and endless fads, into “bashing the teachers”.
The teachers, like the students and taxpayers, are victims of this corrupt system, who are constantly being pitted against one another by the politicians and educrats who don’t educate a single child, yet make a fat living for doing nothing.
Charles,
If I follow your writing properly, those that oppose you way of thinking are ill-informed, easily duped and perhaps a bit dim.
So…conversely, you are well informed, shrewd and very bright.
Thanks, but no thanks. Your line of reasoning is consistent with that of an educator…and my experiences demands that I pass on your judgments…an action similar to what the voters of SC will do on the 7th of Nov.
Lee, I take umbrage that teachers “make a fat living and do nothing.” That would be the politicians of this state. Don’t think so, check out the column from a few years ago written by Ms. Scoppe. Legislators make more in retirement on the taxpayers dime than they do serving in their part-time law-making jobs.
It is not the system that it corrupt. Teachers and students are not dupped by the system. Administrators are not sitting around sucking up money. Where do you people get these ideas?
And Chris, I never maintained that I am somehow smarter than the average person on this state. I just cannot comprehend how every Tom, Dick, and Harry can have a solution for education when they are not devoting thier life to it. I have flown in a plane before but that does not make me qualified to pilot one without any training. And I have seen heart surgery on television. That does not mean I can go out and perform a quadrupple by-pass on my front lawn.
Good grief!
When did public schools become monopolitic ventures? I don’t ever recall the market-place-will-take care-of-all-of-socities-woes-and-everyone-wil-live-happily-ever-after being applied to public schools 40, 30, 20, even 10 years ago?
It sounds just like a scheme to take funnel tax money to private, for-profit ventures. You scratch my back and I will scratch yours.
Here’s a long, fascinating article comparing private schools with public schools in 4 Third World countries. The results are the most fascinating. Despite the public schools having more government resources, the private schools are cleaning their clocks.
Moreover, the private-school advantage only increases with consideration of the differences in an unusually rich array of characteristics of the students, their families’ economic status, and the resources available at their schools. In Hyderabad, students attending recognized and unrecognized private schools outperformed their peers in government schools by a full standard deviation in both English and math (after accounting for differences in their observable characteristics). In Ghana, the adjusted private-school advantage was between 0.2 and 0.3 standard deviations in both subjects. Finally, in Kenya, where the raw test scores showed students in private and public schools performing at similar levels, the fact that private schools served a far more disadvantaged population resulted in a gap of 0.1 standard deviations in English and 0.2 standard deviations in math (after accounting for differences in student characteristics). The adjusted differences between the performance of public and private sectors in each setting were highly statistically significant.
In short, it is not the case that private schools serving low-income families are inferior to those provided by the state. In all cases analyzed, even the unrecognized schools, those that are dismissed by the development experts as being obviously of poor quality seem to outperform their public counterparts.
Oh come on, Charles, are you using that lame fallacy again? I’m not a auto worker either but if I buy a lemon, don’t you think I should be allowed to complain?
Thanks, but no thanks. Your line of reasoning is consistent with that of an educator…and my experiences demands that I pass on your judgments – chrisw
Charles, chrisw doesn’t believe in data. He believes in egocentric opinion for which he can induce broad sweeping judgements of educators and the school system based on the 5 minute talk he had with Karen Floyd and the handful of high school graduates he interviewed. Never mind that data and analysis are used throughout the business world which he wants for our schools.
Either that, or he’s parrotting what he hears others say about our schools.
Lex, that’s a very interesting article and I mean that.
There’s an issue that’s not addressed in this article though, discipline and motivation. A major problem in education are the students who disrupt classes but are mandated to be in class with educators mandated to teach them.
The same is true with students who don’t try. I have had many situations in which I’ve called parents repeatedly about missed homework assignments, but the problem continues. I’ve called because the students won’t use their notes and fall behind. Then I’m often accused of “picking on the student” by addressing these problems.
In the lower level classes, many students miss several days or are often tardy. It falls on my shoulders to catch them up.
My contention is the private schools do not have to deal with this nearly as much. You admitted you avoid public schools for your daughter because of the behavior issues.
Finally, you and the others have yet to answer this question. What happens to students in your system that are kicked out of school because of behavior? Does another private school HAVE to take them? What if there’s no room? Do they go to the public schools that are MANDATED to let them in?
Randy, the discipline/motivation problem has come up a number of times before and I obviously agree with you on that point. The problem I have is that the PS system makes little or no attempt to solve the issue.
Yes, you do have the “teach” the troublemakers even if they don’t want to be taught. But where does it say that they have to be taught in the mainstream? Why not give the troublemakers 3 strikes or something? If they persist in their misbehavior then off they go to reform school, bootcamp-type school or some other way to prevent them from spoiling the learning experience for kids who do want to learn? Make it unpleasant enough for the troublemakers and it would even provide major deterrence for other kids. In addition, that simple change all by itself would probably goose SAT scores by 50 points or more.
I’ll go out on a limb here but I think that many school-choice proponents would keep their kids in public schools if the educracy would maintain proper discipline. This is a major, major attraction of private schools and it’s beyond me why the public schools would cede this area so easily. I don’t know how much the system, not any particular teacher but the system as a whole, can do about this problem. I do know that they are in fact doing very little if anything. Sure, they do the mindless zero tolerance dance for absolutely minor crap but the real troublemakers play the system like a fiddle.
If the system doesn’t have the authority and/or resources to remove troublemakers from the mainstream, then it would behoove them to see about snagging some of the $100s of millions of windfall tax revenue our little piggies have been wasting on far less important things, and to get them to pass reform school legislation.
“Finally, you and the others have yet to answer this question. What happens to students in your system that are kicked out of school because of behavior?”
This has been answered several times before. One, just as we have subprime lenders for people with dodgy credit, so there would undoubtedly be private schools for troublemakers, and they would probably do a far better job than public schools. Two, why would you worry? Aren’t you a good enough teacher to be hired by one of the good private schools?
There are three major issues to consider when discussing discipline in schools. First, discipline starts with the school board because they set the tone and the guidelines. In Richland 1, students who had been suspended for 10 cumulative days remained in school because the board wouldn’t boot them. The board also takes schools and principals to task for booting too many kids. This is a political issue.
Second, some parents will threaten lawsuits for actions taken against their student. I had a girl tell me “f.u.”. I wrote her up. Her charged that I was being racist. I’ve seen this happen to others.
Third, discipline issues, aside from drugs or weapons, have to be dealt with in an incremental manner – interventions must be attempted before getting to suspensions and expulsions.
Here’s a typical example which happened to me once. A SENIOR girl was organizing her purse during lecture. I told her to put the purse away. She blurts out “What? I’m not doing anything! Why are you picking on me?” etc. I sent her into the hall for disrupting class. When we talked, she continued to question what the problem was. She tells her parents, they want a conference, and I spend half an hour defending and explaining myself as they give me the 3rd degree on my classroom management. This is not uncommon.
2nd paragraph: “her mother charged”
I hear you, Randy, I really do. But you’re begging the question. Why does the PS system tolerate this sort of BS, and why shouldn’t responsible parents prefer school choice or private schools, given that the public schools aren’t doing the job? Why should we have to waste lots of time and tons of money to fix the system when the whole thing could be accomplished much more easily by giving parents a choice? Competition works everywhere else in our economy – why not in schools? That one I never got a good response on from you or anyone else.
Trust me on this. I don’t want to spend $12K+ on a private school for my daughter (there’s lots of other things I could imagine spending that money on) but what choice do I have? If I send her to PS, she’ll have to put up with all the BS you so frankly described and she would probably learn half of what she could learn if the idiots weren’t around. And believe me, I wouldn’t be one of those parents second-guessing teachers – if my daughter ever were to get in trouble at school, she’d get a second helping at home. Why are we tolerating those parents who (1) don’t do their jobs and (2) accuse you of “picking on” their precious sweeties?
Bottom line is that teachers do have a tough job, often with little or no support from the hierarchy, and it’s that much more puzzling why you wouldn’t want a new approach. Lord knows we’ve already tried all sorts of other possibilities before. Let’s try this one!
Annee – I did read it but didnt have time to truly post on the details. Then, I jump back in and everyone has ignored what you posted. What gives? Except Herb, who chastised me for my trivial commnent. Herb’s point is well taken but I am still amazed that no one followed up. Here were your main summarized points:
In summary, the five most significant of my eight key points can be summarized:
· The voucher will require more regulation and oversight of all private schools, including homeschools.
· Homeschools will end up with a homeschool law that requires more regulation and prevents them receiving vouchers.
· The protections, despite good intentions, can be overcome or gotten around in other ways.
· Schools that refuse vouchers will lose students; many will face the choice of taking vouchers or closing their doors.
· The average cost of K-12 education at voucher-receiving schools will increase significantly.
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The author’s take on vouchers is that all kinds of new regulations will ensue because of the vouchers. I think this is controllable, maybe not in CA, but in SC yes. Ideally, with the voucher system, you let the free market regulate what happens with the educational entities. Why would home school come under more regulation? I just dont agree with these premises. How can spurring competition in the education domain lead to higher costs? That defies any knowledge or empirical evidence of basic economic theory. OK, now I posted on it. Happy, Herb?
Randy, I taught school some in Germany, and I can only sympathize with your statements on discipline. And ultimately, it isn’t the kids, it’s the parents and the homes where the problem lies, and what you are basically dealing with is trying to treat a brain-tumor with aspirin. And parents aren’t necessarily better at private schools, either.
Sometimes I think that the only weapon our schoolteachers are missing are the paddles that hung in the front of my elementary school classroom. My fifth-grade teacher had a baseball bat that had been flattened, with holes drilled into for optimal aerodynamic flow. I don’t recall her ever having to use it. Just the sight of it, and her, was all that was needed.
I had already had my share in the first grade, when I kept mouthing off with my buddy, Corky, in the back row. Corky was black, and I was white (still am), but there was no discrimination. We were both lined up with our heads over the water fountain, and the punishment administered to our posteriors. Posterity was helped by that, I think.
Come to think of it, I’d like to administer some of the same to people on this blog who keep telling Brad where to volunteer his time. Somebody gives them an open forum, and they can’t do any better but to make juvenile, asinine comments about the person who does all the work to provide them a public platform. If I were their dad, and I discovered what they were writing on the web, I think they wouldn’t have any time to sit at a computer and smart off.
And Dave, thanks. Apart from the arrogant presupposition that Californians are less intelligent than South Carolinians, that was an improvement. Now Annee at least has something to reply to, if she wants.
Lex, you make excellent points. Here’s the rub. I strongly believe that if you asked teachers what was the biggest stumbling block to learning, they’d say discipline is 1 or maybe 2 on the list. I don’t see Floyd addressing this (nor Rex).
She mentions cameras in the classroom. Here’s what that would do for us. Take the senior girl purse incident. The incident and meeting would still talk place. We’d review the tapes. Her daddy would ask why I didn’t address Johnny in the corner who wasn’t paying attention etc.
School choice will not address this issue.
Address this issue:
Why do public schools have so many students drop out?
Randy,
I can understand your frustration with dealing with discipline problems. We have developed a culture of “blame the teacher” and it’s only getting worse.
And yet, our school board and administration do not address the issue and will never even ADMIT that there is an issue. And next week, Richland 2 voters will more than likely vote in all the incumbent school board members because
a) they put out the most signs
b) they have the support of the administration that knows the board is basically a rubber stamp for everything
they want to do
Three of the incumbents have been on the board for 12, 12, and 16 years respectively. If you want to see change, why don’t you get your teacher peers to work to change the board?
Since I ran for one of those slots four years ago (and lost badly), I know a lot more about the people on the board than most. Three of the four incumbents are either incompetent, unethical, or pawns of external groups. One of the incumbents has had a child killed by the police while fleeing a robbery scene years ago. She claims to have invented “No Child Left Behind” and LOVES to take junkets on the taxpayers’ money — Hilton Head, Myrtle Beach…
All I can suggest is that you use the next week to get the word out to your fellow teachers to do something about the system.
“School choice will not address this issue.”
On the contrary. School choice will very much address this issue because it will finally give parents the option to remove their kids from this dysfunctional environment.
AAAA!! Thank-you for your more reflective reply this time around Dave! I do appreciate it.
My point, as I think you have understood, in posting the article was to provide some material to discuss that adds to the discussion on vouchers! But what was I thinking!! I suppose it’s far more important and relevant to bash Brad instead ANYWAY-
I did want to point out that we need to examine the issues closely that parties rally behind and we need to ask questions up front – rather than jump into something and find out later it just wasn’t as rosy as we thought it would turn out to be. I think Ms. Duffy brings up some points that those pro-vouchers ought to consider.
Ok so I’ll be a little more self-disclosing. I’m one of the few women that have posted on here, and am a mother of three small children – which I homeschool thanks to the support of a fantastic husband. I realize this is dangerous to reveal on this blog as it conjurs up all kinds of preconceived and prejudiced notions about where I stand politically etc., but I would urge anyone not to put me in a box – more than likely you will find I won’t fit in the box you put me in – I was raised to “think outside the box.”
Anyway – vouchers have the possibility of impacting my situation directly. I’m probably not going to turn down money for school books and curriculum etc., that our family could use a great deal. But I will take a close look at anything that might tie my hands in giving me the freedom to teach the kids what I want to teach them.
This is not unthinkable – it is already happening – there are many states that are far more stringent toward homeschoolers and have regulations and requirements in place that are, quite frankly, totally unnecessary and time-consuming (see http://www.hslda.org/laws/ for details). Which is amazing in and of itself since it has been well documented over the years that homeschooling is an extraordinary successful alternative to public schools.
I will say that I have a tremendous amount of respect for public school teachers, many of which are my friends. I’ll be the first to support a program that allows our nation to hire well-prepared, well-educated, morally responsible teachers.
But – thanks to college loans and some scholarships I was able to attend a private school for my graduate studies. The school allowed it’s students to apply for grants and receive loans. As a result the government tried to come in and stipulate certain things that could and could not be taught there. So the scenario Ms. Duffy speaks of is not unfounded in any way, but is happening across the country.
Let’s take a good look at what the negative side-effects of a proposal will do (and find out what research in other States tells us) before we jump on the bandwagon of something we understand only peripherally. This has been the problem for decades – Social Security being a prime example in my opinion.
Very valid worries. The primary motivation for the modern state to provide education is to mold the political attitudes of children, first of all to accept larger government control and less personal freedom.
“‘School choice will not address this issue.’
On the contrary. School choice will very much address this issue because it will finally give parents the option to remove their kids from this dysfunctional environment.” – Lex
The problem students are MANDATED BY LAW to be in schools. Floyd’s voucher plan does NOT address this. Very simple question: what happens to the student who is kicked out of a private school for behavior issues (as they do now)? Does another private school have to take him? Do they have room? If you let private schools boot students, then all the problem students will be channeled back to public schools.
I can read the reply now, create bootcamps as Lex suggested. I AGREEE! But Floyd does NOT make this part of her plan – she addresses VIOLENT students only. So someone explain to me what happens to the behavior problem students who are not violent in this panacea of a “plan”.
To Lex and others who posed this question: “Why aren’t students with behavior problems kicked out of school?” Just thank all of the parents and willing attorneys out there who love to litigate for nothing. Also, there is an attitude that it is better to contain these kids within a school rather than have the terrorizing your neighborhoods.
And to Lee: Why do public schools have so many students drop out?
Put simply, there is a disconnect between the curriculum that students have forced to take and the relevance in the world today. Look at the state curriculum standards, foisted upon the schools not by the educracy but by outside political forces. Also, despite the lip service that many people pay to the importance of education, there remains in this state a climate of low epxectations. Not many news stations around the state are devoting hours each week to covering honor roll students. Society as a whole in this contry has largely devalued education. Also, kids hear a lot more than we think they do. They see adults- from the governor on down- bashing education. If many adults in this state think the schools are crap, then the kids are going to follow suit.
And finally to Lee who writes “The primary motivation for the modern state to provide education is to mold the political attitudes of children, first of all to accept larger government control and less personal freedom.” You should be filled with glee as all of the thumpers and churchers have control of the government. This is exactly the type of system that should appeal to you.
“Very simple question: what happens to the student who is kicked out of a private school for behavior issues (as they do now)? Does another private school have to take him? Do they have room?”
This has been answered several times before, most recently 11 posts above this one on this very same thread!
One, just as we have subprime lenders for people with dodgy credit, so there would undoubtedly be private schools for troublemakers, and they would probably do a far better job than public schools. Two, why would you worry? Aren’t you a good enough teacher to be hired by one of the good private schools?
Your question raises a question of mine, though. What happens to kids who are booted out of public school right now? As I understand it, those kids are barred from attending any other school in the district, and many essentially spend the rest of the year at home because their parents can’t afford private school. If this is correct, why are you asking a school choice system to do something your own system doesn’t do currently?
Are kids expelled from private school switching to public school right now? If so, you are already accepting them and choice shouldn’t make any difference. Any kids switching to private school under a choice program shouldn’t be a problem at all because if they had stayed in public school and then been expelled, they would be in the public system anyway. In other words, you wouldn’t get any additional troublemakers that you wouldn’t have under the current system.
Lex, private schools can expell students with relative ease compared to public schools. At a midlands private high school, if a student cuts school they are booted. That is unthinkable at public schools.
This comes into play in a significant way in the voucher plan. Students who are explelled from private schools for behavior issues can and probably would be funneled back to the public schools. These schools would have to teach them. So you’re back to square one with a population of students that are in the care of the public schools.
You suggest the alternative schools which would arise from the private ranks. That’s NOT part of the Floyd plan. She does not address this because she either doesn’t know any better or it’s not important.
The behavior issue is simply NOT addressed. You send your daughter to private schools because they don’t have to deal with this. So who will?
Charles, are you aware that public education was originally instituted to inculcate a uniform Protestant Christianity to children?
Whe the Supreme Court began restricting state attempts to establish religion via public education, several New England states convened a convention to discuss seceding from the Union.
If “…there is a disconnect between the curriculum that students have forced to take and the relevance in the world today”,
… isn’t there a disconnect between the administrators and American society?
Lee, I am aware that schools were established in New England to “inculcate Protestant Christianity to children.” Catholic and Hebrew sschools would be later set up to protect their children from these situations.
I would like to hear how ther eis a disconnect between the administraots and American society. Pray, expand upon this.
Charles, since you claim there is a disconnect between curriculum and the real world, if you don’t think the administrators are responsible, who is?
I think the disconnect is caused by all of the outside forces trying to regulate and dictate what goes on in schools.
Do you have some evidence that the administrators have a superior curriculum and management plan for their schools which is being thwarted by the parents?
I would like to see their ideas. Why don’t they go public to sell their superior plan?
You may be correct in saying that private corporations would not last if they told customers to wait 12 years for improvement. Schools are not producing widgets. Public schools did not received “standardized raw materials”- they have to take whatever arrives at the door. There are students who sit in classrooms then go home and play 4-5 hours of video games and then watch 4 hours of television. Parents are more apt to be their child’s friend rather than a disciplinarian. And in this society of playing the blame game, it is much easier for a parent to blame the shortcomings of thier child on the school than on the disengagement of the adults at home.
Ultimately, this dialogue about vouchers and blaming the schools is most counter-productive. It is the product of the priveleged who now want to get everything they can from the system. They blame the social programs of the 60s and 70s from wasting their hard earned moeny. It is ironic that these people now have an attitude of entitlement. “I am entitled not to have to support the public schools.”
Let’s turn this argument on its ear. When will the single, the childless, and the elderly be exempt from paying for schools. Since I doubt I will see the new Kevin Bacon moving currently filming in and around Columbia, can I get a tax refund from the SC Film Commission? I don’t use the buildings around the state house where legislators work. Can I get a tax credit for that?
And why don’t educators go “public to sell their superior plan?” Because people like you do not value what teachers do, you don’t care what teachers need, and you think that all educators and administrators are in it to be mmoches off the tax payers.
I see no justification for SC Film Commission, except to create jobs for the children of the politically connected. Why do we need to subsidize millionaire movie producers and stars?
Try to find a better example of great things to spend tax money on.
I guess the bureaucrats don’t have any plan to fix the schools, or did you even bother to look for one?
Lee, why do you think that everything wrong with schools are the fault of administrators and teachers? Schools can have the highest standards (like the SC Curriculum Standards) and dedicated teachers, but the third leg in all of that is parents and students. Lee, please tell me, how can schools overcome this? Please, if you can come up with that, you will have something you can sell to every school in this nation.
I don’t think that everything is the fault of administrators, just most of it.
Today’s paper on page 1 has an article about the 2002 bond issue not being enough to finish construction of the schools, even though they now admit they lied about the costs to borrow an extra $40,000,000. That is not the fault of parent or students.
PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS MOST LIKELY TO SEND THEIR CHILDREN TO PRIVATE SCHOOLS
More than 25 percent of public school teachers in Washington and Baltimore send their children to private schools, a new study reports.
Nationwide, public school teachers are almost twice as likely as other parents to choose private schools for their own children, the study by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute found. More than 1 in 5 public school teachers said their children attend private schools.
In Washington (28 percent), Baltimore (35 percent) and 16 other major cities, the figure is more than 1 in 4. In some cities, nearly half of the children of public school teachers have abandoned public schools.
In Philadelphia, 44 percent of the teachers put their children in private schools; in Cincinnati, 41 percent; Chicago, 39 percent; Rochester, N.Y., 38 percent. The same trends showed up in the San Francisco-Oakland area, where 34 percent of public school teachers chose private schools for their children; 33 percent in New York City and New Jersey suburbs; and 29 percent in Milwaukee and New Orleans.
Michael Pons, spokesman for the National Education Association, the 2.7-million-member public school union, declined a request for comment on the study’s findings. The American Federation of Teachers also declined to comment.
Public school teachers in Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Chicago, Rochester, N.Y., and Baltimore registered the most dissatisfaction with the schools in which they teach.
“These results do not surprise most practicing teachers to whom we speak,” say report authors Denis P. Doyle, founder of a school improvement company, SchoolNet Inc.; Brian Diepold, an economics graduate student at American University; and David A. DeSchryver, editor of the Doyle Report, an online education policy and technology journal.
“Teachers, it is reasonable to assume, care about education, are reasonably expert about it and possess quite a lot of information about the schools in which they teach. We can assume that no one knows the condition and quality of public schools better than teachers who work in them every day.”
“They know from personal experience that many of their colleagues make such a choice [for private vs. public schools], and do so for good and sufficient reasons.”
The report says the school choice movement has begun competitively forcing public school improvement, particularly in cities like Milwaukee, called “a hotbed of school reform,” where 29.4 percent of public school teachers sent their children to private schools, the study finds.
“Narrow the search to teachers making less than $42,000 and the percentage enrolling their children in private schools drops to 10 percent. Because Milwaukee is a hotbed of school reform, it’s possible that teachers making less than $42,000 are beginning to favor the public school system.”
You still did not answer my question Lee: Schools can have the highest standards (like the SC Curriculum Standards) and dedicated teachers, but the third leg in all of that is parents and students. Lee, please tell me, how can schools overcome this?
Charles, Lee will dodge and perry. He dismissed public schools as socialist entities, but then suggested these same schools were responsible for the attendance of students who come from broken homes.
Charles – 70% of black children have no parents, so are you saying the government school system can just wash its hands for their failure?
Randy – do you have some facts to support your contention that the students without parents at home are actually attending school and not dropping out, and the the dropout problem is among students from good homes?
I don’t think you do.
And the word is “parry”, from the sport of fencing. It means to counter and deflect a weak thrust, as I just did with you.
Lee, I’d like to know the source of your data- “70% of black children have not parents.” I am not saying that the government school system can just wash its hands for thier failure. We have to find a way to help these students be successful in school and productive citizens. But like anything, being successful in schools requires some effort on the part of the student- Black, White, Asian, etc. Without dedication on the part of the student, nothing done in a public school or a private school or even a segregation academy is going to help educate those who are too bothered by what is being done in classrooms.
If failure is going to be blamed on the students and parents (who likely are not present), then why should we give more money to teachers and administrators who claim they can do nothing?
If it weren’t for the promotion of abortion, the rates for illegitimate births in South Carolina would be even higher.
http://www.newcoalition.org/Article.cfm?artId=767
Attractive California Meet Single