Education is a Right that is easily compromised by teacher pay

When I'm wrong, I'll admit it. Not understanding what you said is not a mistake.

 

I don't trust the online charters at all. No accountability and I agree from everything I've seen their performance is atrocious.

Look at us bonding lol. FYI, in person I'm really nice but sometimes my writing is more direct and prosecutorial than I intend.

 

I think this is a fire that has to be lit under the office that actually is in charge of keeping them accountable. If you have legit proof of something you could also take it to the expose help me people at the tv news. I'm sure they'd jump all over it.

 

Public schools can expel students too and do so. The reason they often don't is they would lose money for that student. In some cases they would have to pay to send them to a behavioral program if it was a SPED issue. In NJ, charters have to pay those same fees to send a student to a BD or SPED school if the placement isn't appropriate for the student. They pay much more than they would be getting for the student.

 

I won't be dismissive of your argument because I think you haven't really understood what I was saying and your argument about infant mortality rate actually helps explain it better.

You can argue about what countries rank in the top 10 but most would agree it looks something like this:
South Korea
Japan
Singapore
Hong Kong
Finland
The United Kingdom
Canada
The Netherlands
Ireland
Poland

Do any of those populations compare to that of the United States? This is a great resource if you'd like to check, I used it for Model UN all the time: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/

Now back to your point about infant mortality. You may wonder why I chose to highlight that specifically. One serious reason it is so high is due to our diversity. A root cause of our high infant mortality rate is "a drastic socioeconomic divide existed even within the United States when it came to infant mortality. According to the CDC, African Americans had — and continue to have — almost double the rate of infant deaths as Caucasians, and babies born in Mississippi and Alabama are more than twice as likely to die in their first year of life as babies born in Massachusetts and Vermont. (The differences between states reflect, in part, differences in the racial and ethnic makeup of their populations.)"

It can't just be that alone though can it? Another issue causing our high rate is premature births. "The same socioeconomic divides seen in infant mortality rates are seen with preterm birth rates — mothers who are African American, live in certain states or experience high levels of emotional stress during their pregnancy are more likely to give birth preterm. And although fertility treatments and teenage pregnancies both raise the risk of preterm births, neither explains the diversity in infant mortality rates — states with high infant mortality have no higher rates of either."

Do you understand what I'm saying now? Our education system is affected by our diversity. While our diversity is a strength, it also requires more policy differences to exist in different communities. Changes that aren't being made fast enough.

I'm sorry if there are any mom's on here who have lost a child. We have had that in my family and I know it is a terrible thing to deal with.

 

Infant mortality calculations:

Different countries calculate this figure in different ways which grossly lowers their measure and raises the US measure.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/physic...a-successful-health-care-system/#10985a9d31f0

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4856058/

In some ways it is similar to the problems we have when we calculate poverty. Most often it is "relative" poverty rather than actual poverty. Yes, the poor in this country have it hard, but the truth is many have it easier than the middle class of some countries. I think the most difficult things about poverty in this country is the lack of community in the US and the distain for those who have less.

 

Actually, I found in my research that the differences in the calculations are trivial. When all things are equalized and they recompared America and every country in the EU were equalized, the rankings didn't really change.

 

Source?

I'd like to see how everything was "equalized" if they don't collect the data in the same manner.

 

I don't disagree with you, but the suggestion about not having highly performing minority schools just isn't true. There are plenty of examples, both public and charter.

In NJ, funding also isn't an issue because the state kicks in enough to equalize with some of the highest spending school districts. I could post data if you don't believe me. The societal factors are real though.

Where I will say there are the special schools for white and asian kids you mention are in our public magnet schools. These are county run public schools and at least in NJ are overwhelmingly Asian (including India) and white. All these schools require placement exams and are some of the top schools in the state and country.

 

It's where I stole those quotes from.

http://sm.stanford.edu/archive/stanmed/2013fall/article2.html

 

It may not be our diversity causing poor academic performance, but poverty. Poverty-related problems are about the same regardless of ethnicity. For example, poor whites in Mississippi and poor blacks are prone to unstable and stressful early childhood environments that lead to poor academic readiness and behavioral issues, culminating in higher dropout rates, crime convictions, and teen pregnancies.

Maybe we should cure poverty.

 

I'd also add in the cultural factor in our diversity. Most other 1st world countries are homogenous, for the most part, in their cultures. We have a lot more nuances.

So whoever brought up the laziness... that's a false term, I daresay most would agree.

But... some of the cultures in the U.S. place education, or various components of education, on different levels of importance. Sometimes they're good, sometimes they conflict general school importance culture.

Then we bring up poverty. People stuck in a culture of poverty struggle to leave it. They may not have the social skills to leave, they might get the right education but are affected by still supporting their families, they might simply lack the ability to pay for college/living in college despite getting into college, etc.

 

Tyler B. said mine more concisely...

 

Only way to curr poverty is through education. Even if you cured the ills of education, there will always be an underclass whether it's morally right is something above my payscale.

Look what has happened with the minimum wage. We all know the wage isn't enough to support someone but by demanding a large shift to $15, large businesses have started shifting to machines (the McDonalds renovated near me installed 4 self service kiosks where you order and pay, supermarkets have been doing this for years in NJ). All will soon shift to this to cut out the cost of human capital. Small businesses won't be able to afford this shift and will likely cut back on staff or close because of the cost of increases or they raised prices and aren't competitive with chains anymore.

There is a lot being written about what is going to happen to the low skilled labor market in the next decade and it is scary. Education is really the only answer. Those who don't take advantage will remain the underclass.

 

You have the cart in front of the horse. Finland was immersed in poverty following WWII. Now it has a 3% poverty rate and high performing schools. USA has a 23% poverty rate. Trying to fix schools so highly stressed children can learn better is no magic cure.

By saying it's the fault of the poor that they are poor releases you from responsibility for doing something about poverty.

 

The war itself is what destroyed Finland's economy and the country. They also had to give a chunk of it to the Soviet Union.

So you want a huge adjustment to be made to the way things are done in our society, just not in the schools?

 

Here is one reason why Finland does so well with students and the US fails in comparison:

http://hechingerreport.org/rethinking-special-education-in-the-u-s/

They are proactive in their approach to student struggles and the US is reactive or worse - blame the student/parent/poverty/etc rather than work at fixing the problem.

 

The article is from 2011 so their tip of the cap to us of RTI I would hope is happening in most schools. In NJ, we identify early and often. We are also required to get dyslexia training yearly. I also disagree with what they say about identifying reading difficulty in Kindergarten, at least as it was presented here. Kindergarten teachers will tell you, sometimes they aren't ready to read yet, and developmentally that's ok.

I'm a big believer in that there should be more fluidity in our basic skills programs which is basically what they are saying.

I don't see this as a huge issue impacting student learning. At least in my area.

 

AlwaysAttend, I am aware that only some US Districts buy curriculum. Again, going back to the question why in some US states are they having trouble retaining teachers, my view is that one contributing factor is the commercialization of education. When States are spending money on pacing guides and full programs (rather than textbooks or resources that tend to be less costly) there is less money for teachers salaries. So in my view one part of the problem is not how much money is being spent on education but where it is being spent.

As for your state, I thought we were talking about US states where keeping qualified teachers is a problem? So going back to my point, the problem I highlighted was as it relates to states where teachers are not paid enough and are not provided with what they need to want to stay in their jobs.

 

That's fascinating to me that they expelled 4 Grade 9 students at one time. To me 5 expulsions is really high. Is that reflective of public schools in your area?

Expulsions are very very rare in my province (even in school boards with demographics you describe) and most of the time expulsions are from a specific school (not the District). I don't know of a single expulsion from my District in the last decade. (I know of a few expulsions from individual school sites).

 

It was a Very. Big. Deal. In another country on a school trip. Involving that country's police. From what I understand, our administration had to finangle in a lot and expelling the kids for what they did was pure mercy. (Though the parents who scrimped and saved for years to send these kids on this trip probably weren't nearly as merciful).

 

Ask people here, just here, how RTI is addressed in their school. You will find that it was a great idea with horrendous implementation.

Yes, some kids take longer to read, but the deficits that are parts of reading disabilities are identifiable in K.

 

I would say that is absolutely cherry picking and the issue is that the charter should be responsible for having programming for that child. In essence, this leads me to think the system is inequitable. If charters can get rid of kids and Districts are required to create alternative programming there are inequities. The short answer is charters should be required to do what Districts do: take money out of their regular funding to provide alternative programming.

 

The conversation is free flowing and everything isn't directed to the initial question.

As someone who has helped prepare a budget, these costs are not drawn from the same budget accounts. You can't just move money around like that. If you decided to stop spending money from that account, it wouldn't be shifted into the salary account. To say the answer to the problem is to change are capitalist system is not a real answer because it will never happen. There will never be a time where they stop buying resources because whatever isn't spent from that account must be turned over to taxpayers as a refund. Next time the budget was being introduced, they would slash funding for that particular account. They wouldn't just shift it toward the salary account.

 

I think expulsions should be kept rare. At the same time, you need a system that doesn't allow for the "I can do whatever I want because expulsion is rare" mentality. I like the alternative things, where a student incapable of handling even an alternative behavior school has in-home schooling options.

 

I'm afraid you'll have to explain more to it than me.

So you're saying that any old public school should also be unable to remove the student from that school?

A solitary school a family chose to send their kid to isn't going to have the same behavior resources as a multi-school district.

 

And I guess that is my point. I can think of some very big deals too lots involving police and the bottom line is the District is still responsible for them. I don't see how a system that can just release kids like this can't be perceived as having an unfair advantage. Maybe I'm missing something but the way you are describing this sounds terribly inequitable to me.

 

I don't think you appreciate the difference between the size of the districts with alternative schools and a single charter school. Every district doesn't have an alternative school just like every district doesn't have a night school.

 

You are missing something. Public schools expell children too.

 

Yep. They do. In my area, if they aren't old enough to drop out, then the parents must either enroll them in the alternative school if the district will agree or find a private school willing to take the student.

 

Sure, but a district will still have multiple facilities one school in such district can reach out to. Each individual school isn't fully responsible for the student they expel--they just kick it up to the district.

I'm not saying charter schools should kick kids out willy-nilly. But I don't think they should be punished for keeping kids who can't handle the school system to a much higher extent than any other public school--who has district resources they can access. By law, a kid who was expelled from a charter school can simply enroll in the district.

 

To be specific about the school trip:

These kids went out of their way to attend a charter school rather than the local school. They went out of their way to choose to go on the 9th grade Spain trip. They went out of their way to sign a form saying they would obey rules. They went out of their way to break those rules and commit felonies in another country.

At what point are these kids responsible for themselves?

 

One of the big urban districts just got in trouble in my state for continuously suspendending primary school children. What exactly do you think they were doing with the hs kids...

 

AlwaysAttend, I'm finding the tone in this a bit hard to take. I do have an understanding of how budgets work. I think you completely missed the point I was trying to make but since my goal in conversing on these boards is to dialogue and not debate I'm not going to try to reframe it for you. A couple of times how you've interpreted what I meant was completely different from what I was trying to get across. I gave you the benefit of the doubt and assumed that maybe I hadn't made my point clearly but I don't have any energy to reframe this after the tone in this message.

 

Your point is we should live in a utopia. I understood but am more interested in realistic options. Thus my straight to the point tone.

 

I understand the point you are making about the size of a single charter versus a district. I actually think that is one reason why I think it would make far more sense to keep the money in the public system and run specialized programs (like charters) under the umbrella of the District.

To share my view on your question, ultimately, I think we are responsible for kids until they turn 18. I think if a charter expels a student they should be responsible for that child's education until 18. It sounds like this might be the case in some states but not others?

 

Why not 21 like disabled students? We can send them all to college for free too.

The specialized programs in pubic schools also happen to be the least diverse as I mentioned above with Magnets. That would be the equivalent.

 

No I don't think we should live in a utopia. But I do think how you speak to me sometimes isn't very nice. When you questioned my morality, I let it go. But I just don't think it is necessary for you speak to me like this: "As someone who has helped prepare a budget, these costs are not drawn from the same budget accounts. You can't just move money around like that."

To me this feels condescending. It's not appealing. It doesn't make me want to converse with you. To me it sounds like you are saying you have more experience with budgets and have a better understanding of budgets. It also implies that having that knowledge is something to hold over other people.

 

Expulsion is very rare here. We had four students expelled from our school last year. Due to the nature of their infractions, they were not permitted back this year. (8th graders) There are no other schools in our district. The parents were either going to have to homeschool or pay to enroll them in private school in an adjoining county. They are enrolled in virtual school.

I can't readily think of another expulsion in my 25 years in the district. There may have been some, though. It's very rare. I'm thinking these we had last year were a first for our building.

 

This is generally how charters already work. They fall under the jurisdiction of state or district.

You're still saying a charter should have more responsibility for an expelled student than any other school. I still don't understand why.

What suggestions would you have for a charter maintaining responsibility?