Trump’s reelection

[z31maniac]

So, you can indulge us on the Charter vs public school debate a bit?

Don't take this the wrong way, but the big bad gov't isn't much more than a money machine interested in only profit....

I thought Charter schools were just the Republicans way of getting public funding to schools, for the evangelicals that can't afford private school, that teach things not allowed in public schools.

Like Evolution.

[ForcedFirebird]

welcome to capitalism. everything is a profit stream, or it dies. this is what happens when you put monetization before results.

i don't have too much of a problem with charter schools existing. but that opinion is born more out of resignation than anything else. if they didn't exist in their current form, those who can afford to give their kids the yellow brick road to the ivy league schools would find another way.

LOL! Some of us wish they had yellow brick roads. We pave the way with hard work, dedication, ethics and pure fucking drive.


My daughter had NOTHING handed to her, yet has 2 majors, and a minor in 2.5 yrs of FSU, zero debt, and doing her internship in Madrid while maintaining a 4.0 GPA since the 6th grade. Have 3 more coming up after her to boot.



No silver spoons here buddy.

EDIT: My mom raised us boys on a waitress salary and in the 80's that pure sucked. $2/hr plus tips. lol. A gallon of milk and 2 packs of ciggs was about $3. Back then she could send us to the store with a "sick note" haha. Society as a whole is a bunch of pansy asses who cry about nothing and get nothing in return. Meanwhile, I am opening shop at 5am :p

[decay]

So, you can indulge us on the Charter vs public school debate a bit?

Don't take this the wrong way, but the big bad gov't isn't much more than a money machine interested in only profit....

welcome to capitalism. everything is a profit stream, or it dies. this is what happens when you put monetization before results.

i don't have too much of a problem with charter schools existing. but that opinion is born more out of resignation than anything else. if they didn't exist in their current form, those who can afford to give their kids the yellow brick road to the ivy league schools would find another way.

[ForcedFirebird]

uh, nope, i ran 24/7 saas ops on a platform that served hundreds of districts. a little different than showing up at the teacher’s desk and plugging in ethernet and usb. you basically just said the guy working at the gas station and the guy managing the refinery are doing the same job.

but i like how you accuse me of being the IT equivalent of a ditch-digger in the next breath after you claim i was making that statement about you (protip: i wasn’t).

So, you can indulge us on the Charter vs public school debate a bit?

Don't take this the wrong way, but the big bad gov't isn't much more than a money machine interested in only profit....

[decay]

You set up some networking in some classrooms good for you.

uh, nope, i ran 24/7 saas ops on a platform that served hundreds of districts. a little different than showing up at the teacher’s desk and plugging in ethernet and usb. you basically just said the guy working at the gas station and the guy managing the refinery are doing the same job.

but i like how you accuse me of being the IT equivalent of a ditch-digger in the next breath after you claim i was making that statement about you (protip: i wasn’t).

[ForcedFirebird]

You literally just contradicted your argument in the second sentence. Why do you think schools have to pull music/arts in favor of math/science programs? It's because they can't afford to do both. Funding... I get that you don't believe one should be prioritized over the other, but the reality is that prioritization is a necessity given that no one is working with an unlimited amount of money to make all things happen.

If you can find it, what is the cost per student spent by the public school and the charter school that you speak of? I'd be curious to see who has more funding and where they have decided to devote those resources in relation to the students.

In more affluent areas, common core and federal standards aren't even spoken about because the local populace has embraced funding their schools far beyond what the federal government would accept. This has created students that achieve grades much higher than the common core standards so teachers and districts are not beholden to those standards and therefore are free to teach in whatever method they feel will get results. The results are there so no one has an issue, least of all the federal government, who has next to nothing to do with these high achieving localities.

The only areas that decry common core and federal intervention are those where students underachieve and people aren't willing to spend on the education of the next generation (and I'm not just talking in monetary terms anymore, I'm talking parents that don't want to be involved with the process of educating their children). In those areas I fully support Charter and private schools for those families that do value the education of their children and are willing to sacrifice more of themselves to achieve the best for their kids.

Yes, fat fingers plus hunt and peck typing don't mix well, unfinished thoughts.....

I will get back to this thought once more data has been collected for a more comprehensive post. Not an easy task to hunt down budgets all the way to expenses/receivables (lots of raised funds coinciding with gov't funds) to give an accurate perception of cost per student, specially since Charter schools are actually privately owned institutions. Wife and I are very involved with our youngin education. Hell I built the park benches surrounding the school yard. So many "parents" these days view school nothing more than daily baby sitters.

I based the reply on real world experience. Been raising 4 children for the last 20yrs, had my "baby" in 2006. I will be damned if they follow the typical "family model" of the common (core haha) household. Next generation to carry my name will be functioning members of society. Not some jackass watching television or playing video games until they are 30.

Edit: Shit, my grandma is alive and well. She was 39 and 11mos old when I was birthed. She is about to see her 5th generation, and had 8 children "el_natural" Gotta love us Irish-Americans haha. Too bad whiskey is our kryptonite

[mrsleeve]

You set up some networking in some classrooms good for you. I grew up with my mom grading papers at the kitchen table till midnight 6 nights a week, spent more time schlepping, supplies, visual aids and most anything else she needed in and out of classrooms after school or practice and days of summer vacation helping her get her room cleaned up and ready for the next year. Taking shit to other teachers classrooms or bringing it back to my moms I spent hours watching tv in teachers lounges until I was in my teens, and even into my early 20s when I was visiting tucson AZ. I spent lots of time after school in my moms building helping her and other teachers fix old shoddy equipment to keep it going, or building stuff they needed assembled for their classes.

When my mom passed away there were 20+ teachers and admin staff in her house at any given time for 3 days prior to her passing, 17 years worth of colleges and friends (they were her family) paying their respects while she was still around to receive them, but also talking about their kids for the year, and bitching about all things teachers bitch about when around other teachers. Though its thorough my mothers life, not my own, the life of a public school educator is one I know and understand very very well and is a big reason why I am the person I am.

By the way, if your going to try and use the "ditch digger" as an insult, I suggest you come out and try it for a little while its not as simple as that. Let me know when in your current position (not your military experience) you hold 1-50 plus people lives on the tips of your fingers. Or the integrity of a multi billion dollar jobs main assets in your eyes, in which a fuck up can cost the company hundreds of millions, and people like you walking down the street or live close to the assets their lives or property..... Your attempt to use the term in a demeaning way just shows how ignorant you are about what your taking about. ;)

[decay]

I have likely forgotten more about the politics and issues involved with public education than you will ever know, reading slanted Hufpo articles on the subject......

one of the startups i worked at for more than a year had the mission of using technology to equalize access to education.

so, try again on that point, sweetheart. you may be good at digging trenches and laying pipe but that doesn't grant you any credit in this lane.

[mrsleeve]

^

Trust me Mbonder and I are in near lockstep on this topic, My mother was a public school teacher for 30+ years, and all but passed away at her desk in her classroom. She was still grading papers in the hospital undergoing palliative care for stage IV cancer....

I have likely forgotten more about the politics and issues involved with public education than you will ever know, reading slanted Hufpo articles on the subject......


Edit:
This said, in many ways your correct, the better the neighborhoods normally the better the schools, this is why the school of choice programs were instituted to help mitigate this when there was availability at better schools. Look at the state of NJ where average expenditure per student annually was something on the order of 12k a decade ago, yet still suffer from the same problems as anywhere else where some areas are a left behind. This becomes more of a cultural problem of the community in which the school is located in where no value is placed on education by the families or the children.

Getting the feds involved in the ways in which they did, like so many other well meaning but failed govt programs, its done nothing but hinder gifted, talented, smart kids that can excel and hold them back, by dumbing down content so more kids pass the test to keep funding coming in. And by passing slower learners on up the ladder to keep the funding coming in, so as not to effect the pass fail ratio.

[decay]

this is how it was done pre bush no child, and now our education system is teaching to the standardized tests and kids are dumber year over year when they get done

as mbonder said, you have completely missed the point.

state's rights would be an improvement over what we have now, which is a system where schools are funded largely by property taxes within their students' districts. but that doesn't mean it's the right solution.

breaking it down barney-style for ya: this means wealthy neighborhoods get really good schools, and disadvantaged neighborhoods get shitty schools. so if you're from a poor family; sorry, you don't get access to good education.

arguing about whether or not we're teaching to some universal standard is avoiding the discussion of the actual problem: fair and equal funding.

[mrsleeve]

my brother (middle school math teacher) would be more of a subject matter expert than i. meeting with the family for a BBQ on sunday- i'll pick his brain then and let you know what he thinks. i can tell you that he's not a fan of common core.

my current opinion: using the states' rights argument to handle the responsibility of educating children will result in economically disadvantaged states (looking at you, midwest and south) delivering an inferior educational product/experience, further entrenching these states in a higher-than-average poverty level.

this is how it was done pre bush no child, and now our education system is teaching to the standardized tests and kids are dumber year over year when they get done

[mbonder]

It's not money that makes a good school. It's the national standardized crap that is forced on the local schools that causes things like music/arts to be puled from curriculum, and that's what hurts the smaller city/rural schools financially.

You literally just contradicted your argument in the second sentence. Why do you think schools have to pull music/arts in favor of math/science programs? It's because they can't afford to do both. Funding... I get that you don't believe one should be prioritized over the other, but the reality is that prioritization is a necessity given that no one is working with an unlimited amount of money to make all things happen.

If you can find it, what is the cost per student spent by the public school and the charter school that you speak of? I'd be curious to see who has more funding and where they have decided to devote those resources in relation to the students.

In more affluent areas, common core and federal standards aren't even spoken about because the local populace has embraced funding their schools far beyond what the federal government would accept. This has created students that achieve grades much higher than the common core standards so teachers and districts are not beholden to those standards and therefore are free to teach in whatever method they feel will get results. The results are there so no one has an issue, least of all the federal government, who has next to nothing to do with these high achieving localities.

The only areas that decry common core and federal intervention are those where students underachieve and people aren't willing to spend on the education of the next generation (and I'm not just talking in monetary terms anymore, I'm talking parents that don't want to be involved with the process of educating their children). In those areas I fully support Charter and private schools for those families that do value the education of their children and are willing to sacrifice more of themselves to achieve the best for their kids.

[ForcedFirebird]

You guys realize that public schools are funded by the locality that they are in right? The Department of Education attempts to create standards across all states by funding states that comply, however, that money isn't given on a school by school basis, it's given to the state governments and then they appropriate it to the local schools. Additionally, the total funding provided by the Department of Ed to the states is only 8% of the overall budget for public school, which means that 92% of all funding for public schools comes directly from the individual states. The funds are also directed by the states themselves, so as far as I can see, education is still in the hands of the states.

Given the overall inequality of funding here, I don't see why people think the Department of Education holds a great power over the states, in reality, many states have the ability to do what they want given that they hold a majority of the funding for their schools. It's no surprise that states with higher taxes and larger populations end up with better schools. Massachusetts, Virginia, and New Jersey are often the three best public school systems in the country, and there should be no surprise because they spend the most per student on education. This spending was voted on in each locality in the state by the individuals that send their children to the public schools. Seems pretty "states rights" to me.

The justification for the Department of Education is that the government in the Commerce Clause of the Constitution is supposed to provide for the protection of the economic interests of the country (not the exact words in the Commerce Clause I know, I'm paraphrasing cause I'm lazy). An educated populace is more creative, innovative, and constructive, creating a stronger economy as a result, the Department of Education was created to foster a strong economy.

The EPA was created to protect the resources that everyone shares and no one owns. I don't see why people would argue against this. Certainly you could argue that the EPA has gotten to the point of regulating smaller and smaller details in a specific subset of industry and this might be harmful to that industry, but remember, remove the EPA and you remove all constraints on pollution, which seems like the fastest way to completely destroy our world. If you think that individuals or individual states will regulate pollution and that'll be better I've got dozens of lakes east of Ohio and Pennsylvania that would beg to differ; acid rain from coal-fired power plants without scrubbers turned those lakes into dead lakes because the pH of the water is now too low to support life.

It's not money that makes a good school. It's the national standardized crap that is forced on the local schools that causes things like music/arts to be puled from curriculum, and that's what hurts the smaller city/rural schools financially.


My youngest requested to go to the local fully public school over the local charter, so he could be with his neighborhood elementary friends. They made simple math so confusing that I couldn't even help him with it! He actually was failing tests due to the simple fact he could do the problems in his head, and not showing how (and that very strange common core thinking). He is also was far more intelligent than his classmates, but he was forced to be on their level, causing extreme boredom. Boy, that whole thing was a mistake. Very pleased he will be going to 6th grade this year (a 6-12grade charter) where my oldest was the first graduating class (now in college). I will now have 3 of the youngest attending the same school (oldest is graduating FSU with a 4.0gpa in dual majors and a minor after 2.5yr).

[mbonder]

You guys realize that public schools are funded by the locality that they are in right? The Department of Education attempts to create standards across all states by funding states that comply, however, that money isn't given on a school by school basis, it's given to the state governments and then they appropriate it to the local schools. Additionally, the total funding provided by the Department of Ed to the states is only 8% of the overall budget for public school, which means that 92% of all funding for public schools comes directly from the individual states. The funds are also directed by the states themselves, so as far as I can see, education is still in the hands of the states.

Given the overall inequality of funding here, I don't see why people think the Department of Education holds a great power over the states, in reality, many states have the ability to do what they want given that they hold a majority of the funding for their schools. It's no surprise that states with higher taxes and larger populations end up with better schools. Massachusetts, Virginia, and New Jersey are often the three best public school systems in the country, and there should be no surprise because they spend the most per student on education. This spending was voted on in each locality in the state by the individuals that send their children to the public schools. Seems pretty "states rights" to me.

The justification for the Department of Education is that the government in the Commerce Clause of the Constitution is supposed to provide for the protection of the economic interests of the country (not the exact words in the Commerce Clause I know, I'm paraphrasing cause I'm lazy). An educated populace is more creative, innovative, and constructive, creating a stronger economy as a result, the Department of Education was created to foster a strong economy.

The EPA was created to protect the resources that everyone shares and no one owns. I don't see why people would argue against this. Certainly you could argue that the EPA has gotten to the point of regulating smaller and smaller details in a specific subset of industry and this might be harmful to that industry, but remember, remove the EPA and you remove all constraints on pollution, which seems like the fastest way to completely destroy our world. If you think that individuals or individual states will regulate pollution and that'll be better I've got dozens of lakes east of Ohio and Pennsylvania that would beg to differ; acid rain from coal-fired power plants without scrubbers turned those lakes into dead lakes because the pH of the water is now too low to support life.

[ForcedFirebird]

I can't stand public schools, either. I can't afford fully private, but I can say the Charter schools here are superior to fully public.