With the right wing stigma attached to public schools, it would be worth looking into how unions really invented education in America and almost all the world's innovation. Many "unified" school districts have been organized by unions as it says in their names. The teachers have been a powerful force not corporations in education. Let's distinguish what Union Schools really are from what the parents are doing to public schools!
Dave B.
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Who thinks Rayhere was homeschooled by religious bigots? That homeschooling sure is paying dividends in his eloquent writing and his level and reasonable views.
It's no secret that public schools could be improved--a lot. Many have made the argument that private schools "do more with less money." I suspect that this reasoning compares all funding for public schools against tuition rates of private schools, and does not consider the sizeable donations from benefactors that most private schools enjoy. Regardless, the price tags attached to a private school education seem reasonable only because they must remain competitive with public schools. If we were to close public schools, private school tuitions would explode.
The counter-argument to this is free market economy, of course. Unfortunately, we tend to forget that one of the privileges in a free market is to simply choose not to buy a product. This is not an option with education. A child must have education, and for the vast majority of households that do not have the time and resources to homeschool, private school would be the only game in town if the public schools were to close. Look at the profit margin of other for-profit businesses that Americans are forced to patronize.
Everybody wants something for little or nothing. The fact of the matter is, some things are just expensive. They're expensive when they're privately run and they're expensive when the government runs them. As it is, anyone dissatisfied with public school has other options. The notion that someone shouldn't have to pay their share in taxes simply because that person chooses to send their child to a private school is absurd. The government must still assure that there are adequate public school facilities for every child, since every child has the right to go to public school.
That right, I believe, is part of the problem. Public schools are so resource-intensive because they must always cater to the lowest common denominator. Classrooms are dragged to a halt because teachers must spoon-feed the student with the least aptitude, or must take time out of the curriculum to address the behavior of a consistently unruly child. It appears that a good solution would be to allow a school to revoke a problem child's public school privileges. After all, why should so much time and resources be wasted on such a small fraction of children, when their parents all pay their fair share of taxes?
Unfortunately, allowing schools to selectively decide which students they will accept and which they will not would lead to some serious problems. At best, it would take a complicated web of regulations and auditing bodies to ensure that this privilege was not abused. I can well imagine the pressure that would be put on schools by parents to drop all students but those operating at their child's ability or higher to ensure that their child got the maximum benefit from their education.
Public school has been, and I believe still is, our best option. Though it is not a perfect system by a longshot, I cannot foresee a better one that caters to the needs of children better at a price that is more affordable.
Don M
The stigma attached to public schools is of their own making--namely their failure to educate students, of which you are a prime example.
A "unified" school district is formed when two or more separate districts are combined. The term "unified" has nothing to do with unions.
To call public schools "union schools" might be appropriate, though. It would serve as a warning to parents who want their children well educated, since teachers' unions are the main reason most public schools are performing so pathetically.
wichitaor1
1. Unions did not create public education. Public schools were created long before the rise of organized labor.
2. Public schools are created by the founding of a local school district, not by any labor union. I would bet that there is not a single public school district that was created by a labor union.
3. Unified school districts get their name by the fact that they are a combination of several schools. The title has nothing to do with unions.
4. Not all public school teachers belong to unions. Less than half of the faculty at my school belongs to the union; most of us belong only to the local organization and not the NEA.
You are really showing your ignorance with this asinine post.
righteousjohnson
Unions are the stereotypical Luddites. Innovation is the last thing they want. They will strike to keep automation out of the workplace (Textile Mills, Railroads, Elevator Operators, Longshoreman, the list goes on and on). Their focus is on protecting jobs, not improving productivity or quality.
Innovation is not the product of the collective. Never has been, and never will be.
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Fundies don't comply with the basics of Christianity, they comply with their possess self-interpretation of the Bible, which the Bible itself forbids. If fundies fairly did comply with the Bible as intently as they may be able to, they might be given:..... that Jesus based a Church, that St Peter was once its first head, that St Peter (as head of that Church) was once given the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven that anything St Peter and the his Church certain on Earth might be certain in Heaven. that anything that Church loosed on Earth might be loosed in Heaven that the gates of Hell might no longer succeed towards that Church that whose sins that Church forgave might be forgiven that whose sins that Church retained might be retained that the Holy Spirit was once poured out on that Church at Pentecost that that Church existed and taught doctrine for decades earlier than the entire New Testament element of the Bible was once written, that, that Church had the authority and divine concept to bring together the Bible now we have in these days from all of the writings to be had within the 4th century. that just one Church has all this provenance and historical past that Jesus' promise that gates of hell might no longer succeed towards that Church has been fulfilled, given that it's nonetheless with us because the oldest, continually, surviving Church on the planet. In different phrases, if fundies fairly did comply with the basics of the Bible they might don't have any choice however to become a member of the Catholic Church. They simplest continue to exist as separate entities through disagreeing with the customary Church of Jesus and the Apostles, and through mendacity approximately its historical past and doctrine.