Rethinking American Education
American Thinker,
by
Dennis L. Weisman
Original Article
Posted By: Imright,
2/12/2021 5:27:54 AM
Public K-12 education in this country suffers from a lack of effective competition that prevents market forces from working the way they should. What would happen if there was school choice in America today? Parents who are dissatisfied with the educational product their public schools provide could vote with their feet and take their tax dollars and their children to schools that offer better value. Opposition to school choice is highly regressive because the wealthiest families have the ability to pay twice for their children’s education, first through taxes and second through private school tuition. This is not an option for lower-income households. The benefits of school choice
Reply 1 - Posted by:
franq 2/12/2021 5:55:37 AM (No. 693060)
Right now the education industry is on life support, no pun intended. I can't imagine trying to raise kids today. 2 of our children home school.
7 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
pros7767 2/12/2021 8:20:56 AM (No. 693153)
Never going to happen!
The Dem Teacher's Unions won't allow it!
4 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
coobr03 2/12/2021 8:48:20 AM (No. 693190)
I work with Catholic and charter schools in Milwaukee. Milwaukee Public Schools has 50 vacant schools that they pay to maintain, but refuse to sell/lease any of them to the private schools, because they can't stand the competition.
8 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
Ida Lou Pino 2/12/2021 8:52:38 AM (No. 693197)
Very, very simple solution - - - - -
End ALL government involvement with education. No more government owned, operated, or subsidized schools. No city, state, or local involvement at all. No politicians get near enough to put their corrupt, grubby paws on it.
Let parents decide when, where, and how their children get educated - - and pay for it.
On a local level - - dozens of different schooling options will be developed - - from "big box" schools to the kind lady teaching children in her living room. "School choice" won't be just a concept - - it will be the entire reality.
Let's do it!
8 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
IowaDad 2/12/2021 9:38:51 AM (No. 693269)
Strange that in the death throes of public education, educators at all level are desperate to teach “critical race theory”. This bogus theory is based on racial profiling, contains no useful content, and is intended to wrest power from well educated, hard-working people.
Shame on educators!
4 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
DARling 2/12/2021 10:12:51 AM (No. 693300)
Teachers are showing their true colors right now. They have no problem going to the grocery store or out to dinner, but try to convince us that going back to work at a school would be a death sentence. A pimple-faced Walmart clerk is essential, but educating our kids is not. I think the takeaway from this will be we can do better than sending our kids to public schools. I know those education pods have been scaring the dickens out of the education establishment. They did not get away with calling them elitist and damaging to public education. The unions publicly said that pods were not fair and that all kids should suffer equally during the pandemic. They are on record as insinuating that mass ignorance is better than having a few privileged kids get a leg up on their peers.
1 person likes this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
Mofongo 2/12/2021 10:17:33 AM (No. 693302)
Puerto Rico has an interesting approach. Taxes are low and, perhaps consequently, public schools are variable. Low taxation, however, facilitates a broad array of low cost, high quality private and parochial schools which offer an excellent and affordable education free of bureaucratic and union control.
2 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
MDConservative 2/12/2021 10:28:37 AM (No. 693311)
This pandemic offers entrepreneurs opportunity to found (and potentially franchise) affordable private education. Public schooling is expensive for a number of reasons, not least of which because there is no reason to actually run a financially/economically sound system. Hire a zillion dollar school super, surround with equally expansive "educators", salt in layers of administration to record and report meaningless stuff, cry there's not enough money, beg the community for supplies the schools "cannot afford", let buildings fall into disrepair, and raise everyone's pay while resisting any quality controls and peddling the political rubbish de jour.
What have we found during this pandemic? Plenty that says an effective education can be had for less money and with content controllable. now, where are the entrepreneurs, the school reform activists, the golden angels with capital to invest?
Well, like everything else, these are generally no more than rackets, the exceptions proving the rule. When there's money to be spent, they disappear...still taking their "meager" paycheck. Problems solved are good paying jobs lost.
1 person likes this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
PlayItAgain 2/12/2021 10:30:39 AM (No. 693314)
1.) The salaries of exceptional teachers would rise, while those of under performing teachers would fall and the least proficient among those would be driven from teaching altogether
This needs to apply to people in administration and governance as well.
2.) Nonetheless, on average, education majors do not rank in the highest percentiles on college aptitude tests.
I think this is just fine! A successful teacher will demonstrate perseverance, character and good citizenship as much as they do academics. Being a teacher should not require that you be the brightest bulb in the chandelier. Some of the most successful people I know did not do well academically in school. Pleasing the academic crowd at our major universities should be avoided.
Here in Arizona we practically insist that teachers return to college to get a Master’s degree. This serves no purpose beyond lining the pockets of the universities. Screw them, I say.
3 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
GO3 2/12/2021 10:37:16 AM (No. 693322)
#8, your first paragraph sounds similar to how the Pentagon runs things.
0 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
coobr03 2/12/2021 11:35:26 AM (No. 693400)
Chicago Public School teachers can retire at 55 and an average pension of $75,000 a year. Their own pension contributions are so small, they their contributions are completely paid off after five months of retirement: https://www.illinoispolicy.org/chicago-teachers-recover-pension-contributions-5-months-into-retirement/
0 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
columba 2/12/2021 11:41:20 AM (No. 693412)
The average American textbook for the 5th grade contains no mention whatsoever of marriage.
0 people like this.
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