Stupid In America Special Pushes School Vouchers

[musicman]

1. Let's say there is a small-to-medium sized district - District A. If the parents generally do not like what the district is teaching and decide to go to charter schools, then there would be a district-wide decrease. I believe this is what is happening with North Forest ISD.

to be honest, not sure whether parents know what district is teaching. seems like wayne dolcefino and the state are the ones causing the increased attention.

2. If you are referring to the way English-and-Spanish bilingual programs are taught, would you say the underlying problem is with the parents, the district, or both? What incentive should the state deploy to ensure that the children are taught English at a reasonably quick rate?

As a reference about bilingual education, I found a listing of Texas laws related to it: http://www.tea.state.tx.us/curriculum/biling/tec5164.html - while all of the links to the specific codes are dead, one can use web.archive.org to access old pages.

combination. in general parents are less involved than 20 yrs ago. the older generation of hispanics in general believed it was important to learn english, now this just isn't the case, esp among the uneducated. districts just don't have the incentive to minimize the program because they are getting money for having it.

i'm not sure this is a state issue but district specific.

What incentive should the middle schools use for feeder elementary schools which prepare children with English-language knowledge?

from the district standpoint, what incentives are there?

[VicMan]

Spanish TAKS ends at Grade 6. http://www.tea.state.tx.us/student.assessm...t/overview.html The middle schools may want kids to learn as much English as possible before they go into Grade 7, when TAKS is only offered in English. In addition Texas "Bilingual" programs are only in elementary school. If students do not receive enough preparation prior to middle school, the middle schools will feel overwhelmed. Is this happening in the East End?

to be honest, not sure whether parents know what district is teaching. seems like wayne dolcefino and the state are the ones causing the increased attention.

combination. in general parents are less involved than 20 yrs ago. the older generation of hispanics in general believed it was important to learn english, now this just isn't the case, esp among the uneducated. districts just don't have the incentive to minimize the program because they are getting money for having it.

i'm not sure this is a state issue but district specific.

from the district standpoint, what incentives are there?

[musicman]

Spanish TAKS ends at Grade 6. http://www.tea.state.tx.us/student.assessm...t/overview.html The middle schools may want kids to learn as much English as possible before they go into Grade 7, when TAKS is only offered in English. In addition Texas "Bilingual" programs are only in elementary school. If students do not receive enough preparation prior to middle school, the middle schools will feel overwhelmed. Is this happening in the East End?

and other places in houston.

so what incentive(s) does the school district have to entice children to learn english at a faster pace?

[VicMan]

In that case, the school district *could* have higher performing middle schools that aren't overwhelmed by the lack of preparedness in students if it encouraged students to learn English at a quicker rate. And as a consequence the high schools would have better prepared students.

Speaking about low income schools, a man who taught in Berendo Middle School in California wrote this webpage documenting his years at Berendo Middle School in Los Angeles in the 1990s: http://www.rjgeib.com/biography/inner-city...s/innerblu.html

and other places in houston.

so what incentive(s) does the school district have to entice children to learn english at a faster pace?

[VicMan]

Also: This Chronicle story proves that students being proactive can lead to changes in the administration. In 1989 two students at Austin High School in the East End decided to start a walkout to protest scheduling issues and a lack of textbooks: http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl?id=1989_660169

HISD ended up firing the principal.

Also, Musicman and I talked in PM about solving school problems. I asked him for permission to reproduce some of his PM posts. I think it would be interesting to talk about how to solve in particular low parental involvement and low student interest in school - Vouchers and alternative public schools do not attract these students. The main story I read about that ended with the teacher quitting school. I see this as a gargantuan problem and I don't see how to largely solve it. I do not believe that vouchers will solve this problem, so this is the reason why I am against vouchers in this instance. In the cases of districts with severe problems like North Forest the population is declining as the people who want to get out are leaving. (HCBU has talked about this)

This page: http://www.rjgeib.com/biography/inner-city...s/innerblu.html is a Los Angeles schoolteacher's story about poor performing schools in Los Angeles - I think this is an enlightening read

[SkyEye]

And we all know what a resounding success the charter school program has been in Houston.

[musicman]

I think it would be interesting to talk about how to solve in particular low parental involvement and low student interest in school - Vouchers and alternative public schools do not attract these students.

you'll never get any school district to support vouchers cause it's not in their interest to do so.

[VicMan]

The statement was not addressing whether a school district would support vouchers (of course it wouldn't) - it's about how to deal with parents who do not participate in education and students with a lack of interest in education; what I said is that charter schools, magnet schools, and vouchers typically do not attract those students and parents.

you'll never get any school district to support vouchers cause it's not in their interest to do so.

[LTAWACS]

How do kids in 3rd world countries get smart when all they have is a dirt floor schoolroom with a broken chalkboard? They study. Yeah, crazy concept.

Schools have nothing and everything to do with what's wrong with education in America. They have everything to do with it because they have a mandate not to fail kids so they don't give out homework that they know kids won't do which would risk giving them a bad grade. They have a mandate to pass kids on stupid government tests so all they do is teach to a specific tests. They have nothing to do with it because when a kid goes home without homework it's the parent's responsibility to teach.

On the other hand, kids in other countries get smart without all our tools because when they go to school, school is what they do day and night because they are taught from an early age that an education means everything. American kids are taught from an early age that when the afternoon bell rings it's party time, time to drop the books, turn on the ipod, and start calling all your friends for the latest gossip. After that it's time to go home and get on the Internet to chat with the same friends you were talking to on the phone.

Truer words have never been spoken. Too bad most parents these days are too ignorant to know any better. Then we have all the welfare cases having kids left and right when they clearly should not.

This is what happens when you let people run around and do whatever they want.