School Vouchers and Catholic Schools

[pnewton]

You’re basically setting up kids in la-la land until high school thinking that the world out “there” is rosie, white picket fenced, and pure. Wrong. It’s going to be a culture shock for the sheltered, naive, and spoiled kids when they enter the real world. What a rush that’ll be!

FYI - This post is the one thing I have the most serious issue with. Educators that think they know more about parenting than parents. By golly, if they think life is hard, they demand to have your kids so they can show them the hard knocks. This arrogance is found in far too many teachers. Hey, you want to control the up-bringing of kids, have your own. This was over the top.

It is no wonder this poster has such difficulty and demeaning things to say about parents. If I had a kid having to deal with this negativity and nonsense, I would be at war with him too.

 

[Elizabeth502]

pnewton, I don’t know that gh has issues with parents in general. He/she may or may not. I don’t know that one can conclude that from gh’s posts. However, what does come across (and this is the broader issue – not to pick on this poster – but what I do see in many public teachers, and my credentials are public, btw – I’ve had extensive experience in both public & private settings) is a little bit of stereotyping with regard to private school students and their parents.

Some public school teachers – I don’t know if this poster is one, but it’s possible – have the notion that “only” public schools give a child a slice of real life, that privates are “overly” protective and insulating. My response to that tendency on the part of some public school teachers (and many public school parents, actually) is:

(1) There’s an appropriate time to shelter a child. All children actually, i.m.o., deserve a certain amount of sheltering – or what others might call formation. I’m glad that my children didn’t hear about the sordid details of White House sexual activity in the '90’s. I turned off the radio and TV during those news stories. Some other parents thought that “children should be exposed to everything because it’s all a part of education,” and so they had “family discussions (!)” about what was going on in the WH, including hearing all the jokes/double-entendres about that. Except that this was about adult sexual activity, which is unnecessary for a non-adult (and distasteful for many adults) to hear about. I’m just giving an example, not accusing gh of having such an opinion.

A lot of what is talked about in public schools is not the kind of thing I wanted my own children to be exposed to before college: crude language, crude subjects. If most of their friends did not come from dysfunctional families, or families where the father had abandoned the household, that was a Plus in my book. (In my locality, very few students in urban publics come from intact families where there is no substance abuse, sexual abuse, precocious sexual activity on the part of teens, and where there is the direct instruction in values at home.)

(2) Students in private schools are not homogeneous – not economically, and not necessarily racially or even religiously.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

My union is NEA. The state chapter of NEA is CTA, California Teachers Association. And in our county, the Catholic schools do not use SAT scores, they use a test from the midwest for private schools, so comparing them to SAT isn’t possible here. I cannot address that. But I will say that there has never been any data to support that private schools are superior academically. Any observations you have are perfectly valid, but the data isn’t there.

I’m not going to start shedding tears about tax money and buy the idea that your kids are imprisoned in public education with no results. Not buying it. Most countries around the world have two systems: public and private. You want private? PAY FOR IT. You don’t? Go public. Simple math. And your theory that the public system is already broken if vouchers would harm it makes little sense to me. Sounding like a broken record, I’ll say it again: with private schools, they don’t have to accept any kid. The kid has to be tested to get in, right? So, English Language Learning-Mexican kids, retarded children, learning disability children, lower to middle-range kids, etc. would be marginalized most likely. Another reality would be the “business” mentality, treating kids like a product, a business bottom line. The low children and kids with serious challenges would be left to public. The bright kids’ parents would bail as well. Yes, that would break the system indeed. No high students, no leadership, no role models, low test scores, etc. It’s not difficult to understand. Empty the strength and resources and transfer them to another entity, the original entity is dead.

That is in California. In my town, the Catholic school is quite competitive with superior SAT scores. But that is not an issue. You say you are pro-union. Do you believe only teachers should be able to campaign for economic fairness? Do not tax-payers and parents have the same right? It is not justice that parents have no choice in school other than paying double for education, and being taxed on the extra payment. At least you acknowledge that the TEA is a union and not some professional association. That way when the TEA takes an advisarial position to management (taxpayers), the the public can be advisarial in good conscience without all the hie and cry for “the children.”

If any type of voucher, even partial or phased in, would ruin the public school system, the system is already broken. I do not think either is the case. I do believe a good argument can be made for how much and how fast things should change in order to maintain a good, albeit smaller, public system.

 

[FlyCatcher]

Sounding like a broken record, I’ll say it again: with private schools, they don’t have to accept any kid. The kid has to be tested to get in, right? So, English Language Learning-Mexican kids, retarded children, learning disability children, lower to middle-range kids, etc. would be marginalized most likely.

Of course private schools don’t take anybody. They don’t want the jerks.

You mean staying in your classroom is being marginalized? Why? i thought they loved you.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

You’re telling me I’m over the top? Kettle black comes to mind. Thanks for the encouragement to have kids, newton. I have three, a 4, 3, and 2 year old. I don’t appreciate the accusation of arrogance either. Have a civil discussion without mockery.

When did I say I want to control the bringing up of kids? You have a lot of guts saying that, buddy. I watch kids come to our school who have been raped by their step parents. I see kids who have been the victims of drugging parents on crack, meth, marijuana, alcohol, you name it. We have kids who have been abandoned to sit in their own feces in their diapers for days on end while their parents are off in a crackhouse. We have half our classes divorced or shacking up. Most of our parents don’t remember the teacher’s names, many don’t know where their kids’ classrooms are, many are covered in tattoos and wearing shirts with marijuana leaves on them. They cut their kids’ hair with mohawks and let them watch and listen to provocative music and movies. The problem is Newton, you haven’t a clue about education because you’re not in it. It’s like me getting on a mechanics’ website and telling the mechanics how to rebuild a transmission when I haven’t the slightest idea how and have never had my hands dirty.

I understand where you’re coming from. You haven’t stepped foot inside a classroom. You have never dealt with the parents or public that we deal with. You haven’t dealt with a class where only 60% of them turn in their homework and the parents won’t support you. You haven’t had a class where kids are absent 30-40 days a year. You haven’t had to teach rigorously all day material that is often way over the kids’ heads. You haven’t been in the hot seat where you get blamed for the ills of society. I get it. You are of the mindset that teachers aren’t really working. We just sit around doing coloring books and reading the paper eating a donut while the kids languish and suffer. We don’t have a ‘real job.’ We’re just collecting fat pensions, milking tax payers and having a great time with all these vacations as the children suffer no choices. You’ve been listening to the right wing media mantra that we’re all programming your kids to be brainwashed leftist hippies. I get it.

Do you seriously think parents are not highly-culpable in the education mess? Are you seriously of the mindset that only teachers and principals are the problem here? Do you have any solutions that make KIDS AND PARENTS accountable or just test, test, test, then fire the teacher if they don’t succeed?

So I’m to be held responsible if a parent pulls the kid out an hour early everyday and the kid misses 15 days of school per trimester missing the material because he ISN’T THERE? The test comes and he fails because he hasn’t seen the material? That’s my fault? Kids in broken homes. Again, my fault. Refusal to do homework with no ability on my part to stop it, yep, my fault. Kids coming from Mexico and can’t speak English so they bomb said test. You’re right, my fault again.

Just to let you know, I’m speaking about the negative aspects. My class tends to have the highest test scores of all the classes in upper grades. I’ve taken some hardcore low kids and moved them up a great deal. My kids have the highest attendance rate at our school. I’ve held the best attendance award at my school 7 out of 9 months. My kids are competitive. I had a ton of growth and success this year and had a wonderful relationship with my class. I always do.

But I would be dishonest if I told you that the low kids, the struggling kids, the challenged kids are often made so by lousy parenting.

I’m not lecturing YOU about how to parent. You’re not paying attention to what I say. If you want private school for your kids, knock yourself out Newton. Knock yourself out. I don’t care what you do with your children or their future. That’s your business. But I speak from experience and observation from 12 years in the field of teaching. I adore it, Wouldn’t change careers for anything, man. I’m built for this and love it. But I will say again, bad parenting and our culture are the biggest obstacle, not the fine men and women I teach with and highly respect.

FYI - This post is the one thing I have the most serious issue with. Educators that think they know more about parenting than parents. By golly, if they think life is hard, they demand to have your kids so they can show them the hard knocks. This arrogance is found in far too many teachers. Hey, you want to control the up-bringing of kids, have your own. This was over the top.

It is no wonder this poster has such difficulty and demeaning things to say about parents. If I had a kid having to deal with this negativity and nonsense, I would be at war with him too.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

Why don’t we put YOUR career, whatever that is, under a microscope and phase it out as obsolete. I’m a parent of three and husband and sole bread-winner. Damn right I care about my livelihood and who the heck are you to tell me to quit my job or not care about it! You have moxy…

I haven’t held any kids hostage. You don’t even know me. You’re living pie in the sky with this blame mentality deflecting all your parental responsibilities and cultural challenges, languages, and other problems away from me. It’s absurd. Maybe you’re jealous that I have a union that fights for me, gets me benefits, defends me in absurd situations, and negotiates livable pay. Yeah, those evil unions! They created weekends, paid leave, health benefits, livable wages. Yeah, evil!

Why you assume that they can only “thrive and live up to their potential” in a private system?
PLEASE SHOW ME YOUR DATA TO PROVE THAT I know several parents who pulled their kids out of the local Dutch Reformed, Catholic, and Anglican private schools because the kids were so behind in math and our public school were more competitive and rigorous.

When did I say I want to hold kids in a “rotten environment?” Interesting…That is your stereotypical assumption based on the ignorance and lack of experience with the system.

You might want to disattach the Rush Limbaugh Al Cresta brainwashing computers plugged into your head and start thinking.

Please show me where an 8-year-old has “sacrificed” himself for me? You’re hilarious! Priceless!

You don’t know ME, you don’t know my CLASSROOM, you don’t know my SCHOOL, you haven’t a clue.

Maybe you need to get another job. What do you do for a living anyway? Haven’t heard your “profession” yet. All you’ve done is beat up on mine. You seem fearful of education. And your post shows a lack of education as well. Go join a tea party and rant and rave, step off me…

This isn’t about you. You are going to be assigned a special ed class? So what? Who cares what you are left with? Get another job if you don’t like it. Kids education shouldn’t be held hostage to your occupational comfort. If you want to hold good kids in a rotten environment where they can’t learn, then you are the problem.

Let those good kids go to an environment where they can thrive and fulfill their potential, not yours or the jerks’. No eight-year-old has any obligation to sacrifice his education for your comfort or for the jerks who ruin the learning environment.

They love you? Do they know you want to hold them back by chaining them to the jerks, while any parent with sufficient funds has the brains to get their own kids out of that environment?

Give those kids a voucher so they can get away from both the jerks and the policy of sacrificing good kids to make life easier for teachers.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

Talk about reading comprehension problems, you didn’t read the post properly. Maybe you need to be tested! I can do that for you! I said that the kids would be marginalized from private schooling. They would be rejected from entry to your utopian schools due to their disabilities. Is that not marginalizing them?

Staying in my class is not being marginalized. Again, you don’t know me. It shows a serious lack of intelligence to be a person who judges, critiques, and analyzes a person’s classroom curriculum, delivery, technology, acumen, talent, and scores just from reading a few posts on a Catholic forum! You don’t my pathology or the school I’m in so you have absolutely no grounds or ability to judge or evaluate my talents. All you can do is rant tea-party style and yell and scream and make assumptions. I know you want a scapegoat. That’s ok.

And I find it funny that you call kids “jerks.” Truly worthy of the Catholic faith, the teachings of Christ, calling kids “jerks” and creating a system that keeps them out. Nice. Very nice. Sounds worthy of Nazi Germany. Hitler weeded out the Jews, the “Jerks,” the retarded, etc. and took care of business. Nice.

Of course private schools don’t take anybody. They don’t want the jerks.

You mean staying in your classroom is being marginalized? Why? i thought they loved you.

 

[Elizabeth502]

In a way, gh, I think you’re demonstrating (and I’ve demonstrated, I hope) that vouchers are not a panacea. I think we’ve used different emphases and tones to say that, but what I will say is that the best and worst of society are at publics, in terms of the parenting. On the low end one literally encounters precisely the examples you (especially) have provided. I could provide additional ones, but I don’t think they would be uplifting to our participants. On the high-productivity end one finds a combination of (1) outstanding, mentally healthy, caring parents (of all income levels), (2) neurotically driven parents, who drive their kids to distraction with their demands for perfection 24/7, and (3) neglectful parents who are rich enough to pay others to (sort of) do their work for them. (Btw, the latter group are my ultimate pet peeves; they should never have become parents, and have not a single sacrificial or even engaging bone in their bodies.)

The fact is, this country mandates K-12 education. (A minor can become “emancipated” at some point prior to that, but that requires an effort, and most kids can’t support themselves financially.) Because we mandate attendance, and because we have a tuition-free public system, we are guaranteeing as a country and as States that every child has a place to go to be educated. Therefore, the concept of competition has limited value in this context, because the marketplace cannot just obliterate publics due to perceived superiority of privates (in many cases).

Further, as gh, Julianna, and I have pointed out, most privates lack the resources to deal with SpecEd kids, and they absolutely lack the legal requirement to do so. And because capitalism is the basis of our economics, there is no way that a system could be adopted that would require all privates to accept any child who applies, and to serve fully any child who applies, including non-English-speaking, including students on the severe end of LD, including parents who want no role in schooling (a huge factor in Catholic schools), etc. Therefore, vouchers do not provide equal access. They would be challenged in a heartbeat, I think, in the courts. They would work if anything to advantage the students who are easiest to teach and which both publics and privates desire.

A clarification on Special Ed: SpEd kids are not “less desirable.” Rather, they are more difficult to serve professionally. They are particularly difficult to serve professionally since the explicit and de facto trend of mainstreaming. The problems I speak about when I drop the term “Treatment Facility” is that these children are not being served; that is the entire point. Imagine if you will an overcrowded ER which might include mental health patients who are acting out, and those patients being there without responsible adults helping them out. And what you have for all the patients in the ER waiting room is exactly one medical professional, who may be trained in general medicine, but not in psychiatry, family counseling, social welfare, and medical conditions requiring a specialist – such as a pediatric cardiologist or a pediatric oncologist. But you demand that this ER physician provide excellent care for everyone there, including timely care for the patients with routine needs, and that said physician take care of all of them simultaneously. So, applying this analogy, the public schoolroom is often masquerading as a treatment facility because they have agreed, unethically, to take all such “patients”/students. In reality, no one is being treated adequately, however.

The ray of hope for parents of SpEd kids, however, is that with since we have more accurate and more timely diagnoses now, we also have a larger identified SpecEd population, and in light of that, more and more Catholic schools are beginning to become aware, accepting, and responsive. Two Catholic elementaries in the region where I work have each put a qualified SpEd Resource person on staff. Mostly, though, this works for the milder forms of LD.

Again, I am not in disagreement with many of the criticisms of public education (including teacher unions). I just believe that vouchers, if they could pass the inevitable legal tests, will not solve many of the complaints. Vouchers do not address problems caused by parenting behaviors (absent, unprepared, abusive, immature), problems caused by disproportionate immigration impact on some regions more than others, problems caused by politically correct public administrators who insert their own agendas into the school day and school priorities, problems caused by social promotion to the next grade level, problems of curriculum content caused by activist state legislators who have their own political agendas for schools, problems of teaching efficiency caused by inappropriate assignment of parental roles to classroom teachers, without the enforcement options necessary to carry out such roles.

contnued below…

 

[Elizabeth502]

continuing…

The current model of the public schoolroom was designed for a very different, and largely homogeneous population, or at least segmented populations, plural. It was designed for a society consisting of responsible dual parents at home who spoke English and who reinforced academic English in the home setting. It was designed for a population of children who were supervised, in a society which acknowledged and supported the assumption of adult authority (school, home, law enforcement). For the time being in which those were true for society, that model worked. Now none of that can be presumed. So if we want success at the public school site, we need to make a new model, and/or enforce consequences for entire families, which might include penalties for non-compliant, non-responsive parents, and/or more of an institutional setting for non-cooperative students. (The money will come out of such parents’ paychecks to support an institutional setting for their children, which would include a long day where discipline is enforced – IOW, a gov’t model.) Obviously, this paragraph has nothing to do with SpecEd kids.

 

[FlyCatcher]

Why don’t we put YOUR career, whatever that is, under a microscope and phase it out as obsolete. I’m a parent of three and husband and sole bread-winner. Damn right I care about my livelihood and who the heck are you to tell me to quit my job or not care about it! You have moxy…

I haven’t held any kids hostage. You don’t even know me. You’re living pie in the sky with this blame mentality deflecting all your parental responsibilities and cultural challenges, languages, and other problems away from me. It’s absurd. Maybe you’re jealous that I have a union that fights for me, gets me benefits, defends me in absurd situations, and negotiates livable pay. Yeah, those evil unions! They created weekends, paid leave, health benefits, livable wages. Yeah, evil!

Why you assume that they can only “thrive and live up to their potential” in a private system?
PLEASE SHOW ME YOUR DATA TO PROVE THAT I know several parents who pulled their kids out of the local Dutch Reformed, Catholic, and Anglican private schools because the kids were so behind in math and our public school were more competitive and rigorous.

When did I say I want to hold kids in a “rotten environment?” Interesting…That is your stereotypical assumption based on the ignorance and lack of experience with the system.

You might want to disattach the Rush Limbaugh Al Cresta brainwashing computers plugged into your head and start thinking.

Please show me where an 8-year-old has “sacrificed” himself for me? You’re hilarious! Priceless!

You don’t know ME, you don’t know my CLASSROOM, you don’t know my SCHOOL, you haven’t a clue.

Maybe you need to get another job. What do you do for a living anyway? Haven’t heard your “profession” yet. All you’ve done is beat up on mine. You seem fearful of education. And your post shows a lack of education as well. Go join a tea party and rant and rave, step off me…

Of course you want to hold kids hostage to your career and the jerks in your classroom. You whine about how bad the parents are and how you can’t fix it, then object if responsible parents want to get away from your classroom and the jerks with vouchers. You whine that you will be left as a special ed teacher. So what? You don’t matter.You are the problem for those kids who want to get out and have the best chance they can.

I do tell you to quit if you have to keep kids chained to your classroom so you can have the work environment you want.

 

[FlyCatcher]

Talk about reading comprehension problems, you didn’t read the post properly. Maybe you need to be tested! I can do that for you! I said that the kids would be marginalized from private schooling. They would be rejected from entry to your utopian schools due to their disabilities. Is that not marginalizing them?

Staying in my class is not being marginalized. Again, you don’t know me. It shows a serious lack of intelligence to be a person who judges, critiques, and analyzes a person’s classroom curriculum, delivery, technology, acumen, talent, and scores just from reading a few posts on a Catholic forum! You don’t my pathology or the school I’m in so you have absolutely no grounds or ability to judge or evaluate my talents. All you can do is rant tea-party style and yell and scream and make assumptions. I know you want a scapegoat. That’s ok.

And I find it funny that you call kids “jerks.” Truly worthy of the Catholic faith, the teachings of Christ, calling kids “jerks” and creating a system that keeps them out. Nice. Very nice. Sounds worthy of Nazi Germany. Hitler weeded out the Jews, the “Jerks,” the retarded, etc. and took care of business. Nice.

I agree some will be kept out of private schools. They are jerks. Nobody wants them. They should be kept out. You have done an admirable job of telling us how they and their parents make a poor learning environment.

Of course I call kids jerks. I call their parents jerks, too. That’s why the responsible parents and kids want to get away from them. They don’t want to be around them. That’s why parents with the money get their kids away.

Catholic faith? What does that matter? Catholic schools keep the jerks out, too.

 

[pnewton]

You’re telling me I’m over the top? Kettle black comes to mind. Thanks for the encouragement to have kids, newton. I have three, a 4, 3, and 2 year old. I don’t appreciate the accusation of arrogance either.** Have a civil discussion without mockery**.

As you out it, “kettle black comes to mind.” You came to this discussion with guns blazing and are offended when anyone does not roll over on you. Your post is so full of wild assumptions about me that completely miss the mark. If you (or anyone else) wishes to objectively see who is relying on rhetoric over substance, go back and physically count in the posts, exclamation points, rhetorical questions, scare quotes and name-calling.

I see this issue as one of economic justice. I know I have to pay for education twice right now to give a child a moral education, avoid teachers that lack moral compass and bypass special interest brainwashing in the name of diversity. I just do not think it is right that I should have to do so. The odd thing is that in my state there is always a precedent for vouchers. Parents can, as an option, enroll a student in another district, as long as they take responsibility for transportation. All federal dollars will then go to that other district.

You are wrong about there being no objective criteria to measure private schools. SAT and other standardized testing are objective, by definition. The Catholic school here produces superior scores.

 

[pnewton]

Sounds worthy of Nazi Germany. Hitler weeded out the Jews, the “Jerks,” the retarded, etc. and took care of business. Nice.

Very nice indeed. Ever hear of Godwin’s law? I thought this topic would preclude such a stretch, but I guess I sold you short. So, yes, I think this is pretty good evidence you are over the top.

 

[vz71]

Pray tell, vz, have you ever read the tests or actually studied or taken them yourself? Do you actually know what’s in them? Do you realize that they don’t measure writing ability (except in fourth), history, geography, science (except in fourth grade and eighth) and there is no CONTENT KNOWLEDGE embedded at all. For example, you’ll never be asked “how many senators are there in the U.S. Senate?” or “who was the sixteenth president?” or “Which three gifts of legacy did the Greeks provide for us?” or “what elements combine to make water?” nothing substantive.

You failed (no pun intended) to answer the question.
How are we to objectively measure performance if not through testing?

What you get on the tests is TRICKERY. These tests are worded BACKWARDS. In other words, you read a LONG, boring, banal text about something like hungarian cabinet-making and then you answer a question like: “which of the following is NOT true about the tools needed for hungarian cabinet-making?”

This sounds like the rant of someone that has failed a test.

I think you’re assuming that teachers want to abolish testing. Absolutely NOT. I think it’s critically important to test, hold students to a high standard. Ask any of my students. I am 5 times harder than the other two sixth grade students.

Then why the antagonistic words towards tests?
Why words like “with all the insane amount of testing we have coming from the right wing, how will public schools get leaner and meaner?
…Don’t blame the teacher, blame the conservative test mentality.”
This sounds like objections to the test and not an objection to the content you are espousing now.
So which am I to believe? That you object to tests or that you object to the content?

We should have MULTIPLE MEASURES of assessment, not a make-or-break situation with one test for the entire year based on a few hour state test that is poorly-constructed.

OK, I’ll bite. Name some. I only know of testing to assess performance.
If you know of another method to assess performance without testing, please tell us.

Another thing is that these tests you laud so much do not really gauge many factors of growth.

I believe you may need to take a lesson from some of these reading comprhension tests yourself. I never at any point “laud” testing.

I have simply asked a question.

The answer tells some, your reaction to the question tells even more.

I don’t think you realize the scope of testing’s influence and stress it puts on educators and kids. Field trips have gone by the wayside in favor of test preping kids. Test prep, teaching only the BIG standards on the test while ignoring other crucial information, testing strategies, all this stuff has become the current state of affairs.

In my career as a student as well as a member of the workforce, I have found that the tests I had to take best prepared me for the rigors of working for a boss that is not necessarily the most reasonable.
Would you have us ignore this critical piece of experience in favor of some as not mentioned method of assessment that does not involve testing?

Please follow this link that I’m giving you and check out what our test looks like. These are released test questions. They are actual tests I have given during testing season for STAR in the past, no longer used, so the State released them for practice or examples for the kids.

cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/sr/documents/cstrtqela6.pdf

Scroll down a few pages and check out the questions.

I am still left with the politically charged comments you made earlier concerning testing as well as “the conservative test mentality.”
So do you, or do you not, object to testing?

 

[vz71]

You want private? PAY FOR IT. You don’t? Go public. Simple math.

Indeed many have.
But there is more to this equation then the “Simple math” portrayed here.

There is the question of being forced to continue paying into a public education system that the parent doesn’t want, need, or burden with any children.

It would seem the request you make is selfish and ill advised when one looks at all of these aspects. We should not be forced to pay for an education that is failing our children. It is proposed that introduction of vouchers would help the situation. And there seems to be a great deal of evidence to support that.

 

[vz71]

You don’t know ME, you don’t know my CLASSROOM, you don’t know my SCHOOL, you haven’t a clue.

Correct. We do not know you.
We only know what you have written.

Yet somehow you have gleaned enough from an equal amount of information on our side to make such rude and accusatory comments as:

You might want to disattach the Rush Limbaugh Al Cresta brainwashing computers plugged into your head and start thinking.

Perhaps someone should brush up on reading skills and not rumor skills.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

Here are a few examples of some observations I have had with private schools in my town:

My chiropractor pulled his daughter out of the $575 per month Anglican school because the fourth grade math teacher said she didn’t know how to teach math and the kids were so spoiled (mostly doctors’ kids) that they would make fun of kids whose parents drove up in anything less than a BMW or Benz or Lexus, etc. The kids are known for being jaded and spoiled there. The parents at that school bid for PARKING SPOTS in an auction each year for a fundraiser. Anyone who donates more than $2000 gets to park right by the office with their name on the parking spot. $$$ talks at that school.

At the Catholic school the music teacher threw a punch at one of the adult choir members I happen to know. He threatened her, cussed her out, and threw a punch at her. Luckily her husband came in.

At the same Catholic school I know a public teacher who put her son there (mostly for the Catholic religious ed she wanted) and there was a BULLY who beat up on her kid each day. She complained to administration. They told her the kid’s mom is a HUGE DONER to the Church and school so they couldn’t right well expel him or punish him. Money talks. Yet a month later another kid was in a fight less violent, was expelled. His mom was middle class. Money talks!

At that same school they were having PARENTS teaching classes when teachers went on leave. How would you like your kid being taught by parents!? No education either!

At the local Christian High School (Dutch Reformed) it is common place for 16 year old girls to get BREAST IMPLANTS as sweet 16 gifts! My friend went to school there and she said the kids are mostly from rich Dutch dairy farms and they smoke marijuana in the groves and on the dairies. They also have teen pregnancies, a rampant alcohol problem, and no data shows they’re any brighter.

At our Catholic high school 50 miles from our home they have a pregnancy, alcohol and drug problem. They’re famous for being a party school. And my other friend pulled his son out because the French teacher was teaching liberal sexual values and gay rights and other things to the kids! My friend put his son in the public school and he’s thriving now, in college at this point. I hear all the time about the catholic high school and its jade pot-smoking parties and the illicit sex there.

Bottom line is this:
Are private schools better than public? Some places probably many places it’s a lateral move or a drop in quality even. There is no data to support the idea that they’re brighter, better-motivated, better-behaved, more likely to succeed or be moral people. Some of the meanest and worst-behaved weird folks I’ve worked with in life and known were raised in private schools.

Pie in the sky is the idea of vouchers.

Why should my money go to Islamic education for some kid in a madrasa-style Muslim school? Why should my money to go pay for Jewish education for some kid in a Hebrew school as a Catholic? How do I know this system will work and doing any good? No data says it will. End of story

 

[vz71]

Here are a few examples of some observations I have had with private schools in my town:
…

I would ask that you not start a tit for tat argument of the qualities of private schools vs public schools.
I can assure you that there are many more on this message board that will cite numerous experiences that run directly contrary to yours.
There are also many that have experiences highlighting the failure of public education.
I myself can cite many examples from my own career in school.

All you are going to end up with is a full thread of anecdotal evidence and nothing addressing vouchers. Perhaps that is your intent?

Bottom line is this:
There is no data to support the idea that they’re brighter, better-motivated, better-behaved, more likely to succeed or be moral people. Some of the meanest and worst-behaved weird folks I’ve worked with in life and known were raised in private schools.

Pie in the sky is the idea of vouchers.

Why should my money go to Islamic education for some kid in a madrasa-style Muslim school? Why should my money to go pay for Jewish education for some kid in a Hebrew school as a Catholic? How do I know this system will work and doing any good? No data says it will. End of story

Not quite.
There is plenty of evidence to show that Catholic schools perform better then public.
Why should I be forced to pay out for a system that I do not utilize, do not believe in, and is failing kids?
Vouchers are not pie-in-the-sky. They work.

Oh, and you still have not answered my question.
How do you objectively measure performance without testing?
I realize the question itself causes a great deal of emotional distress for you, but please understand that is not my intent. I am truly stumped as to how we can objectively gauge performance without testing.

 

[pnewton]

I would ask that you not start a tit for tat argument of the qualities of private schools vs public schools.
I can assure you that there are many more on this message board that will cite numerous experiences that run directly contrary to yours.

Many more cases of public school teachers that abuse children could be brought up and that would prove nothing. But that is not the issue.

Gurney’s point it true in these stories. It is just not a point anyone disagrees with. Private schools are not an Utopia. Bad things can happen there. Parental involvement is just as key there. But then I think everyone already knows that and acknowledges that. In fact, it is a good argument for vouchers. Competition drives improvement. This is an economic principle that has been proven over and over.

For Catholics in a good Catholic school, there are many abuses that are bypassed. A parent won’t have to deal with teachers in a homosexual relationship that let this be known. Children do not get an immoral sex education. The kids get to attend Mass and receive Catholic instruction.

In any case, I do not mind providing for education in a Muslim or Jewish setting anymore than I mind paying taxes for those that want a godless public school system. I just do not want to pay my money for my child’s education in a public school and then pay again in a private school. That is why a voucher can never cover a full education.

 

[CPA2]

Government (“Public”) Education and Functional Illiterates

I divide people into two groups: those that can count change and those who cannot count change. This division is highlighted every summer when I take a vacation.

I empty my pockets of change every night before I go to bed. I take all of this change with me every summer when I take a vacation. I have learned the hard way never to give a cashier more than one dollar in change. They cannot count it. If I give less than one dollar in change, the cashier just puts it into the cash register without counting it.

Most things have been “dumbed-down” for our high school functional illiterates, even our state colleges. Forty percent of the freshmen in college either fail college algebra, or drop with an F. The same percentage holds true in sophomore micro economics. (These percentages come from the professors in our local state college.) Many college professors have resorted to all sorts of gimmicks to help raise the grade average of their students. Many professors actually have a review for the test, which is actually a veiled attempt to go over the questions on the test.

I guess we should expect this from a “public” educational system that is administered by the state governments. The cornerstone of accounting is internal control. Internal control exists in accounting for private business; however, there is no internal control in government accounting. Quality goes down and prices go up in public monopolies. “Public” education is no different. Efficiency and effectiveness are hallmarks of private business, not government administration. The highest ACT scores were in 1963, the year that prayer was taken out of public schools… ACT scores have been going down every since.