Stupid in America - 20/20 report on public schools.

[Eziekial]

I was going to post something but Ralph pretty much owned this thread.

[Adivina]

I remember my music teacher in elementary school was an evil evil witch and always had a horribly strong rum smell coming from her breath and from her coffee.

Turns out she was always drinking on the job. Combine that with the 10 or more sexual deviants and predators that I remember throughout my school years, which the school NEVER fired, and they had a previous public record of sexual crimes.

[Harrison]

I was going to post something but Ralph pretty much owned this thread.

QFT

[Zanchief]

School is a joke in this country and until the capitalists ie: Libratarians and Republicans take back control from the socialists (democrats) are kids will continue to be fat, lazy and stupid.

our

[Ouchyfish]

School is a joke in this country and until the capitalists ie: Libratarians and Republicans take back control from the socialists (democrats) are kids will continue to be fat, lazy and stupid.

our

oh fuck for a minute i thought I was reading the prexus board.

[Darcler]

My sister slept with out English teacher. He left the next year.
I dated my drum instructor. While he wasnt paid by the school system, he was still a "paid employee" of the band, so we couldnt be seen out together without him getting fired.

Not that they were sexual predators or anything, but that is still a big no.
Oh, my Physics teacher came to class high. He also had a breakdown in my class and was had a "permanant substitute" for the rest of the year. Come to find out, towards the end of his stay, he never graded any papers and some of them he just threw away, so we had to redo a whole term of work in about 2 weeks, then take a final that we learned in about a week. We were graded on a curve because of this.

My kid is going to an academy if she is smart enough and private school if she isnt. The one on one teaching is much better at both than public school, they will actually allow you to take higher end courses if it suits you instead of keeping a Freshman in regulars English when she should have been in the IB program.

[Lyion]

I like this article:

The Education Borg
In Florida and Wisconsin, teachers unions crush educational opportunities.

Sunday, January 29, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST

Teachers unions keep telling us they care deeply, profoundly, about poor children. But what they do, as opposed to what they say, is behave like the Borg, those destructive aliens in the "Star Trek" TV series who keep coming and coming until everyone is "assimilated."

We saw it in Florida this month when the state supreme court struck down a six-year-old voucher program after a union-led lawsuit. And now we're witnessing it in Milwaukee, where the nation's largest school choice program is under assault because Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle refuses to lift the cap on the number of students who can participate.

Milwaukee's Parental Choice Program, enacted with bipartisan support in 1990, provides private school vouchers to students from families at or below 175% of the poverty line. Its constitutionality has been supported by rulings from both the Wisconsin and U.S. Supreme Courts.

Yet Mr. Doyle, a union-financed Democrat, has vetoed three attempts to loosen the state law that limits enrollment in the program to 15% of Milwaukee's public school enrollment. This cap, put in place in 1995 as part of a compromise with anti-choice lawmakers backed by the unions, wasn't an issue when only a handful of schools were participating. But the program has grown steadily to include 127 schools and more than 14,000 students today. Wisconsin officials expect the voucher program to exceed the 15% threshold next year, which means Mr. Doyle's schoolhouse-door act is about to have real consequences.

"Had the cap been in effect this year," says Susan Mitchell of School Choice Wisconsin, "as many as 4,000 students already in the program would have lost seats. No new students could come in, and there would be dozens of schools that have been built because of school choice in Milwaukee that would close. They're in poor neighborhoods and would never have enough support from tuition-paying parents or donors to keep going."

There's no question the program has been a boon to the city's underprivileged. A 2004 study of high school graduation rates by Jay Greene of the Manhattan Institute found that students using vouchers to attend Milwaukee's private schools had a graduation rate of 64%, versus 36% for their public school counterparts. Harvard's Caroline Hoxby has shown that Milwaukee public schools have raised their standards in the wake of voucher competition.

Mr. Doyle says he will agree to lift the cap to 18%, but only if it's tied to a change in the school-aid formula that he knows would never pass the Republican legislature--particularly in an election year. So instead of building on this education success, Mr. Doyle and his union allies are poised to close the book.

The unions scored a separate "victory" in Florida three weeks ago when the state supreme court there struck down the Opportunity Scholarship Program. Passed in 1999, the program currently enrolls 700 children from chronically failing state schools, letting them transfer to another public school or use state money to attend a private school. Barring some legislative damage control, the 5-2 ruling means these kids face the horrible prospect of returning to the state's education hellholes next year.

The decision is a textbook case of results-oriented jurisprudence. The majority claimed the program violates a provision of Florida's constitution that requires the state to provide for "a uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools." Because "private schools that are not 'uniform' when compared with each other or the public system" could receive state funds under the program, the majority deemed it unconstitutional.

This is beyond a legal stretch. Not only have courts in such states as Wisconsin and Ohio rejected similar bogus "uniformity" challenges to school voucher programs, but so have other Florida courts. The logic of the ruling could also apply to charter schools, which are public schools that are able to live by non-uniform rules. That's the entire point of school choice--to break out of the stifling monopoly that traps so many poor children in "uniformly" awful schools.

What the Milwaukee and Florida examples show is that unions and their allies are unwilling to let even successful voucher experiments continue to exist. If they lose one court case, they will sue again--and then again, as long as it takes. And they'll shop their campaign cash around for years until they find a politician like Jim Doyle willing to sell out Wisconsin's poorest kids in return for their endorsement. Is there a more destructive force in American public life?

[Captain Insano]

democrats love government controlled catastrophies like unions.

It's a shame parents are too fucking stupid to demand that voucher systems be put in place so that their kids don't end up 22 year old retards busting tires for a living.

[ClakarEQ]

I've not read all the posts but the ones I've read I agree our school system here sucks.

At the same time going to parent / teacher meetings and seeing the amount of homework my 1st grader brings home, I can't say if, for him, they're on the right track or not.

He has homework everynight, the wife and I are diligent on getting through to him and completeing it. Sometimes a struggle, other nights not so much, but about an hours worth every night.

I don't recall having homework in 1st grade, to long ago to recall or just didn't have any.

At the same time I've got 2 friends that are teachers, 1 teaches high school kids. Some of the crap she's told me is crazy, the disrespect kids have for the adults is almost unreal. One bad kid in one classroom can easily make the entire classroom suffer, they are a terrible distraction, and drag the entire class down the drain with them.

Vouchers or not, if kids can't respect the teachers, or, if one bad seed is in a classroom, the entire class is screwed. That is why I'm not sure if vouchers would really work. To get that one bad seed out of class it takes an act of god, otherwise the teacher is charged with favoritism, or some other BS. Hell the one friend was threatend she'd loose her job because she grabed the wrist of a student to escort them into the hall for a "talk". Just because she "touched" him, she was acused and threatend by the parents and principal. I'm not defending the teachers as alot are just plain shit, but what can a teacher do if they have no power to control.

Alot is the parents but alot is general disrespect and contempt that kids have towards adults.

[Eziekial]

Actually, I went to private school from k-7th grade and there are no "bad seeds". If your kid acts up, you get a call from the school to come pick him up. If it happens a again, you keep him home a few days. At the end of the day, if you kid simply won't behave, they tell you to keep your money/voucher and find some other school for the brat. There is no "mandate" to keep your kid at any particular school.

[Kramer]

i like going on man dates....


I think I am moving to the desert near Baja and starting a commune, we will learn to eat buggies and lizards and educate our children inthe ways of love and the intraweb....

[Captain Insano]

Actually, I went to private school from k-7th grade and there are no "bad seeds". If your kid acts up, you get a call from the school to come pick him up. If it happens a again, you keep him home a few days. At the end of the day, if you kid simply won't behave, they tell you to keep your money/voucher and find some other school for the brat. There is no "mandate" to keep your kid at any particular school.

i love the idea of sending kids home when they act up from school. That kid gets sent home once or twice and dad has to leave work to pick him up I would guarantee beatings would ensue...And everyone knows that beating children is the way to true discipline.

Oh and the homework comment...Most homework is busy work where kids don't learn shit.

[Martrae]

Homework is so parents can explain things to their children that the teacher should have gotten into their heads while at school.

[Ouchyfish]

Half of the teachers these days can't even teach as well as your average parent.

[Eziekial]

This is being re-aired Friday 9/1 at 10pm EST/PST on ABC.