This is great news. Middle class and the wealthy already tend to have options in school or tutoring if necessary. Poor people never had those options. If this succeeds this will give poor people the same options that wealthier people have had.
I would also note that some Christian schools are top notch. There are also some terrible ones as well, but you probably shouldn't paint them all with such a wide brush.
I would rather have good private schools funded by the government than crappy public schools. This may or may not be the result from this bill, but it is one possible outcome.
What is your solution to fixing the public education system?
incidentally if you want to feel very uneasy, have a look at how many charter schools have just gone out of business in the middle of the school year.
we know how to have good public schools. it involves teachers that are well paid with a strong union behind them, for a start, which is another thing that corporations are historically bad at tolerating.
One of my parents was until recently a public school teacher in arizona. I have no confidence in whatever the governor says; what i think he actually wants is to cut loose and abandon any care over the education of people who aren’t rich and white, and i think that’s both entirely on brand for him, and completely beyond the pale and an utter abrogation of the responsibility of the state.
it’s also a horrible idea; a well educated and civically minded populace is one of the better things you can have, and it’s in your best interests to make sure you have one.
You can have nonprofits running schools as well. They don't have to be trying to maximizing profits. I agree good schools are a public good. Unfortunately, many public schools have been failing at that. Like I said, I don't know if this will succeed, but what we are doing now is not.
The government can also continue running public schools so if you don't think a private school will provide a good education you can avoid sending your kids there.
Unlike the current situation with public schools, private schools will lose students if they are bad.
I don't think they should have no oversight and as far as I know this bill will require some level of oversight. Perhaps more is required. I am not opposed to additional oversight.
>we know how to have good public schools. it involves teachers that are well paid with a strong union behind them, for a start, which is another thing that corporations are historically bad at tolerating.
If that is the case then why are the results so mixed after pay raises and increases to funding?
I don't think doubling the teachers' salaries will fix the issue. I think there has been a change in our culture that doesn't value an education. Look at what jobs kids wanted 20 years ago with today. The government is failing to change that culture back. Why should somebody care about education when they want to be a streamer or whatever?
Private schools may be able to change that. I am not sold that it will work, but there is a chance.
Do you have any solutions other than giving teachers more money?
>One of my parents was until recently a public school teacher in arizona.
One of my grandmothers was also a teacher in Arizona and than later in California. Not sure what it has anything to do with though?
>I have no confidence in whatever the governor says
I have no confidence in the government to fix the education system.
>what i think he actually wants is to cut loose and abandon any care over the education of people who aren’t rich and white
It is possible. I don't like to assume people are being malicious though.
>and i think that’s both entirely on brand for him, and completely beyond the pale and an utter abrogation of the responsibility of the state.
I can make a sweeping accusation as well. The government doesn't want its citizens to have a good education so they won't question them.
Maybe you should elaborate on your reasoning?
>it’s also a horrible idea; a well educated and civically minded populace is one of the better things you can have, and it’s in your best interests to make sure you have one.
And yet you haven't provided any proof education will get worse?
Here’s a premise for public education: Continuous investment and incremental improvement will yield better outcomes than starting from scratch, particularly where starting from scratch means providing a mechanism for public education funds to be funneled into private enterprise.
Setting aside the practical barriers for families to individually navigate providing quality non-public education for their children, which are substantial, this kind of approach introduces a whole range of new risks. If a family with five children is facing poverty, loss of housing, and financial instability, it might start to look appealing to take those five kids and sign them up for homeschooling so that the funds can be used for some education and for survival. Those aren’t the kinds of risks that financially secure families will ever have to face.
It is turning out kids who can hardly read and add. What we are doing is broken. It is possible that a change could occur that would fix the public system, but that hasn't happened yet.
>Here’s a premise for public education: Continuous investment and incremental improvement will yield better outcomes than starting from scratch, particularly where starting from scratch means providing a mechanism for public education funds to be funneled into private enterprise.
Please let us know what incremental improvement you are suggesting? Just saying let's make things better by making them better doesn't add anything to the conversation.
>Setting aside the practical barriers for families to individually navigate providing quality non-public education for their children, which are substantial, this kind of approach introduces a whole range of new risks.
I agree. I think we need to have standards and regulations around this. I am not sure if this specific bill will provide that or not.
>If a family with five children is facing poverty, loss of housing, and financial instability, it might start to look appealing to take those five kids and sign them up for homeschooling so that the funds can be used for some education and for survival.
I don't think that would be good. I imagine you can't spend this money on a mortgage and there would be validation to ensure it doesn't happen. If the bill allows abuse like this then a new bill should be passed banning it.
>Those aren’t the kinds of risks that financially secure families will ever have to face.
I think keeping poor kids in a crappy school where they will come out barely able to read will continue generational poverty and is a risk of the current school system.
I reviewed summaries from NAEP for reading and math [0] and found that across the board, public schools appear to outperform "public charter" schools. I understand that the received wisdom is that public schools are failing student. Certainly there are many public schools that don't increase, or actively harm, outcomes for some or all of their students. But the premise here is that the public system is fundamentally broken, and it should be substantiated.
> Please let us know what incremental improvement you are suggesting
The Hunt-Lee Commission recently released a final report for improving North Carolina Public Education Pre-K through University with 16 proposals[1], broadly categorized as "Build on what we have", "Invite and test new ideas", and "Implement proven solutions". Proposals such as these were what I had in mind when I originally wrote of incremental improvement.
> I think keeping poor kids in a crappy school where they will come out barely able to read will continue generational poverty and is a risk of the current school system.
Yes. The crappy school you mention should definitely be improved. But that's not what this bill does; this bill puts the burden on families to take their kids out of the crappy school and find a better one for them, leaving the crappy school in place along with the students of families who, for whatever reason, aren't able to move their own kids.
[0]: https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/dashboards/schools_dashboa... [1]: https://hunt-institute.org/news/hunt-lee-commission-releases...
I wasn't trying to say every public school is bad and failing every student. Some schools are great, others are not. Some students can do great in bad schools and some students do bad in great schools.
I think if there is a bad school parents shouldn't be forced to keep their kids in that school. This isn't ideal, obviously every school should be great.
>The Hunt-Lee Commission recently released a final report for improving North Carolina Public Education Pre-K through University with 16 proposals[1], broadly categorized as "Build on what we have", "Invite and test new ideas", and "Implement proven solutions". Proposals such as these were what I had in mind when I originally wrote of incremental improvement.
I only skimmed the summary not the entire report, but those seem like good improvements. The problem I have is we don't really know the full long term costs and benefits to them.
I don't think these need to be exclusive though. There is no reason you can't allow your changes and allow charter schools. If the changes to the public schools improve things parents will send their kids back to the public schools when / if things improve.
Keeping kids in poor public schools because we may in the future have some fixes to the public school system isn't great and is just going to continue giving poor kids a poor education.
>Yes. The crappy school you mention should definitely be improved. But that's not what this bill does; this bill puts the burden on families to take their kids out of the crappy school and find a better one for them, leaving the crappy school in place along with the students of families who, for whatever reason, aren't able to move their own kids.
The problem is many crappy public schools aren't improving. Allowing parents to put their kids in a different school may be beneficial in the mean time. Parents who can't or won't do research can keep their kids in the crappy school. There would be less kids in the crappy schools which would be an improvement regardless.