Not true. By any number of sources socialism is both a political and an economic system.
Communism/democracy are strictly political systems
Centrally planned/ capitalist are strictly economic systems
I too am a teacher and agree with the rest of your points. I was just pointing out to Blutzki that:
1. there are not large amounts of public resources being put into public schools
2. You have have to pay exorbitantly for post-secondary
3. neither are doing that well compared to education in other, more socialist countries
One reason for this may be that more socialist countries take a merit approach to education. If you are not motivated towards academic pursuits you are tracked to other types of training (like trades). So when kids in high school from other countries are compared to US high school kids they have the advantage of having weeded out poor academic performers at the middle school level in most cases.
Great theory but how do you hold these "private" schools accountable for quality.
See the conundrum. If you start regulating them, you are back to some system created by legislaters instead of educators.
Then guess what? NCLB
You could leave it market forces like competition. While this works to some degree, especially for the majority of kids, it puts special populations like minorities and sped kids at risk for not receiving the services they need.
TMTR, serious inquiry to something I want to know about NCLB:
Didn't Ted Kennedy co-sponsor that legislation? I don't understand it, but I thought it would do good. I take you at your word (and other teachers i know) who say it's counterproductive. Not sure I understand fully how the money gets lost to schools for supplies and such.)
Ted Kennedy did co-sponsor it and most Americans were for it because of the general promotion of it-"hold teachers and schools accountable for your children's education." "Make sure 100% of American children can compete on a level playing field." It all sounds good (like going after countries who harbor terrorists and have WMDs) on paper, but the reality is that there are children who will never be able to compete on a level playing field. Most teachers shunned it automatically as we are a set who does not like to be controlled, but I got my degree when the idea of providing standards was becoming popular and at first, I actually thought NCLB would be a good thing. (And for the record, I still believe in having rigid and measurable standards)
The deal is that general federal funding was re-routed to a program called Title I Reading with the onset of NCLB. Title I Reading is only in place in elementary schools and honestly I can't tell you what all it entails except that it provides textbooks, supplies, curricula, professional development, etc. in order to establish a solid foundation of reading skills. That funding is then linked to student performance on State mandated standardized tests at grade levels 3, 8, 9, and 10.
Let me clarify "standardized." This means that every student, regardless of race, gender, socioeconomic background, ELL status, mental capacity or test taking skills is required to be proficient or better on a multiple choice test of about 150 questions. Very few accomodations are allowed for severely handicapped students and non-English speakers.
So, if a certain percentage of students does not meet proficiency each year to increase exponentially to reach 100% by 2014 (AYP-Adequate Yearly Progress), Title I funding is revoked after three years of not making AYP. (After the 1st year, the government comes in and installs its own curriculum, after the second, it eliminates electives and makes all students who were below proficiency take multiple math and english classes- doubledipping.)
In the meantime, this re-routed general funding was taken away from other areas such as middle schools, high schools, technology departments, libraries, etc. so the schools have to creatively rearrange other available funding to compensate. And then when the Title I funding is revoked it creates a downward spiral of reallocating funds until there are no funds. I honestly operate on a budget of $137.00 a year.
Aside from what seems (to me) inherently flawed in the above description, I want to clearly point out a couple other things. 1. Funding given to elementary schools is revoked based on performance of high school students who never took part in the program in place at that grade school. 2. An ELL student is expected to pass the same test as any english as a first language student, even if the ELL student came to the United States the day before the test. 3. Students who choose not to come on testing day or refuse to take it score as a 0 in the school's average. 4. Schools cannot hold students accountable for taking the test, not even as an in class completion grade. I could go on, but I won't. Hopefully that clarifies it some.
Quote:
Originally Posted by heliodorus04
My query to you as a teacher:
Let's say we figure out based on all Federal spending for education, nationally, per-student funding is X dollars (someone probably has that number) before any buraucracy or anything. You know you have X billion dollars, Y million students, and that's the math ratio of money per student.
Would you listen to any serious ideas that came from our government that said "We're going to hand the parents a check that can be used in a federally accredited private school. (Accredidation would work similarly to the way my Veterans Administration college money worked).
Do away with public education and have all education handled privately. Why would that not work (assuming you can force parents to put their kids into SOME school, and they can't get cash in their hands if they don't spend the full amount on their kids' schooling costs)
As for privatizing education,making the government pay for it, and giving parents an incentive to participate? In a perfect world, this would be ideal. Some parents are paid a stipend to attend 1 parent/teacher conference a year- they always show up for that one.
I worked in a charter school for 2 years and due to how small it was (12 teachers; 85 students) and due to the low teacher to student ratio (about 12 to 1) I saw many things accomplished in terms of creating a solid, research based curriculum that proved successful in raising scores numerous times.
The problem with chartering and privatization is always funding. If the government would foot the bill, the state of education in this country would change dramatically. I'm sure of it.
OK- socialism is a politically-controlled economic system.
Feel free to clarify or fix any inaccuracies of my understanding of NCLB or Title I please.
Our entire economy would be more efficient if we had a merit based approach and steered certain children toward trade school at a younger age. Instead, places like Durango are actually eliminating the ag and mechanics focus in favor of pre-med and other "white collar" classes. This is their answer to NCLB- alienate an entire group of students so they drop out and can't affect scores.
Quote:
Originally Posted by elwood
Not true. By any number of sources socialism is both a political and an economic system.
Communism/democracy are strictly political systems
Centrally planned/ capitalist are strictly economic systems
I too am a teacher and agree with the rest of your points. I was just pointing out to Blutzki that:
1. there are not large amounts of public resources being put into public schools
2. You have have to pay exorbitantly for post-secondary
3. neither are doing that well compared to education in other, more socialist countries
One reason for this may be that more socialist countries take a merit approach to education. If you are not motivated towards academic pursuits you are tracked to other types of training (like trades). So when kids in high school from other countries are compared to US high school kids they have the advantage of having weeded out poor academic performers at the middle school level in most cases.
HELIO'
Why aren't you "philosophically horrified" by how much the ultra rich make in the first place?Do you honestly believe they ' earned ' the money?If the money making part was fair I'D AGREE WITH YOU ON THE TAXES PART.A consumption tax seems somewhat fair.If you had a theoretical'fair' system of earning you could simply divide the national budget[yearly expenditure] by the number of eligible tax payers equals your tax bill.
have always been an advocate of population control,but not by the draconian means you imply.By encouraging birth control and empowering women,if women have jobs and education they have less kids.The governments and UN should[imho] subsidize and promote birth control and family planning; offer cheap condoms and tube ties,vasectomies,ru 80?,etc.They could avoid pissing off the religious people by not subsidizing abortion,though it could still be legal.They could sponser more womens empowerment programs,it's cost effective in the long run.Every person compounds the worlds problems but you have respect peoples right to have kids,so encourage small families until we can straighten out environmental and social problems then if conditions improve you can be more fruitful.Not advocating laws ,yet,just voluntary and subsidizing ,stop letting the religious right muddy the issue.
Why aren't you "philosophically horrified" by how much the ultra rich make in the first place?Do you honestly believe they ' earned ' the money?
Why should I care about how much other people make?
Why should anyone say a person can make too much money?
Where do you draw the line, and why?
And more importantly, who gets to tell everyone "I've decided/we've decided no one should have/earn more than X."
I see that as the start of tyranny, and my entire political philosophy exists to minimize the risk of tyranny in virtually every conceivable way.
Do I believe everyone 'earned' the money? No. But they did make it. There's a great quote about fortune, and I can't remember whom it's by:
Quote:
Behind every fortune is a crime
Life cannot be about trying to ensure that every human being is treated justly by the universe, or even by other people. Indeed, the universe has no concept of justice, and only man seems to have needed to invent one to deal with the universe as it actually is.
I did nothing to deserve to be born into this country in 1968, and yet that happenstance is responsible for my wealth, such as it is, more than any other thing I've done in my life. Were I born in Myanmar (Burma!) in 1968, or Vietnam, my life would have been probably far more grim and miserable, and all of the intelligence and decency (or so I think myself) would have 'earned' me very little comfort.
None of us earn what we have, truly. What matters is what we do with what the fates, fortunes, and furies hand down to us.
__________________
Remember the dollar value to human life. Mine is priceless. Yours is negotiable. - unknown
You maximize tyranny when you give someone Power WITHOUT ACCOUNTABILITY.dO YOU NOT RECOGNIZE WEALTH AS A FORM OF POWER????????.
We have only ourselves to blame for the rich having power. The founders of this country set us up nicely for avoiding that situation and we blew it. The Federal Government was never suppose to have the control and authority that it does now. And we gave it to them. We even demanded it. When you give that type of authority to a central government, of course the wealthy will try to manipulate it. Now we want to give the Federal Governement more control, over healthcare for instance. You don't think the wealthy see this as a prime opportunity to assert more power over the rest of us.
The control we've given to the Federal Governement was intended to be delt with at the local level where accountablity and oversight is the greatest.
If we hadn't handed the keys to our freedom to a government controled by the wealthy, then they wouldn't have the power over us that they do. Sure, they would still control industry and business, and give you a job. But if you didn't like it you could just start your own business. As a recently self employed person, it nice not having an employer have power over me anymore.
Quit ripping on the rich. They are doing what they do. The blame belongs with us.
My bad there are people that morally bankrupt; sociopaths,libertarians and neo cons,to a lesser extent the average republican.
Blutski,your arguement doesn;t even make sense.You are proving my point that the rich have co opted government.They declared class warfare on us not the other way around,but wer'e the bad guys for fighting back? I agree apathy played a role,thats why I AM FOR GIVING A SHIT!~
i think I have emphasised in my arguements that the government is supposed to be The People not some seperate entity ,nor am I DEFENDING THE GOVERNMENT IN IT'S CURRENT FORM,because it's tainted already by your beloved greedmongers.My theory of the psychology that underlines why you guys defend these assholes,is because you want to keep the door open so that if you ever become rich you can emulate them ,the absolute shallowest of aspirations,not to mention highly unrealistic.
You can be a self employed person ,thats fine,but you can't compete with the entrenched power that controls all significant economic variables,all I am demanding is accountability from those who affect our lives,it is analagous to 'no taxation without representation',or 'if you impact my life I want some say in it.
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