Danny Westneat's column today about parents who stretch the rules to get their kids into a popular public school completely misses the point "Parents set bad example"
In two cases, parents went to extremes to game the system, which admits students based on how close they live to the school. These families lived too far away, so they rented apartments nearby that they had no intention of using.Actually, the sad, sad statement is that the Seattle School District treats parents as nothing more than a captive source of revenue. If the public schools treated students and their parents as customers who had to be catered to, more parents would have quality options available to them and wouldn't have to bend the district's arbitrary "rules" to get a decent education for their kids."It's a sad, sad statement," said Jay Glover, an enrollment analyst with Seattle schools
This week's Seattle Weakly has yet another example of just how badly the unaccountable tax-extracting monopoly "public" education bureaucracy and its brainless apologists in the liberal media misunderstand the problem --
many middle-class and affluent students, who tend to require fewer resources and perform better academically, have fled the public system for private and suburban schools, leaving the public schools with less state money. In simplest terms, Seattle's public schools are struggling in part because not all parents send their kids to them.Why don't all parents send their kids to public schools? The obvious answer is that public schools treat most parents like crap.
Seattle school officials have long recognized this "market share" issue. School Board member Irene Stewart, who has been prodding district staff to do something about it ... The idea of courting better-off students is politically sensitive. "I'm not talking about catering to upper-income families," Stewart quickly addsOf course she's not. And that's precisely the problem. Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at June 17, 2005 10:51 AM | Email This
But your a member of the Rush flying monkey right wing extremists that prefers a weaker America and tax cuts for the ultra rich to a balanced budget and sane truthful leadership.
Posted by: Rosi Lost GET OVER IT on June 17, 2005 11:14 AMIf it's owned by the private sector, it needs to be taken down and taken apart.
***
A pox on all monopolies!
Does anyone see anything wrong with this statement? Whether one sends his/her kids to private school or not, the funding to public school doesn't change since there is no voucher system. If schools are funded in per-student aggregate basis, it is true that a given school would get less in total budget, but then that doesn't reduce per-student money. In fact, I contend that per-student allocation would increase because the money that would have gone to those who bailed from public school would have been distributed among those who still remain since the total budget for the school system wouldn't change whether someone goes to private school or not.
When will we ever implement voucher system so that we can afford to bail from failing schools?
Posted by: C. Oh on June 17, 2005 11:26 AMSarcasm aside, this is not just King county. I lived in Lewis county/Centralia for several years, and fought huge battles with the schools and teachers at their high school. Every problem, be it poorly or inadiquately trained teachers or the poor quality/lack of teaching materials were blamed on financial problems. I might have had some sympathy, but the previous two years there were two huge bonds passed for the school, and they were whining and crying because the third got shot down when they couldn't demonstrate where the money was going. I can only imagine that problem is 100x worse in King county with the larger school districts.
Posted by: Disgruntled IT guy on June 17, 2005 11:29 AMThe Seattle schools treat parents like dirt. Academic performance is not even on the radar screen. The focus is on the "fuzzy wuzzies", so discipline and dress codes are not enforced.
Money is not the answer. If it was, Washington DC and other big cities would be turning out merit scholars by the dozen. Also, homeschoolers would not be taking top honors in scholastic competitions.
A high free lunch percentage is not an acceptable copout either. The "No Excuses" campaign proved otherwise.
An ethnocentric curriculum doesn't work. Check out the academic scores for the African American Academy.
To fix the system, the district needs to return to neighborhood schools, bring back real academic curriculum, and enforce behavior and dress codes. For students who don't like following the rules, a special set of buildings with bootcamp type rules should be made available.
The district will never do this because it means having to face up to the fact all of their social engineering has failed. Those in charge
will keep insisting that more funding and socio-economic awareness is all that is needed. The administrators will never be able to face the fact that the standarized testing proves the system is failing the students and, ultimately, society.
Personally, I would like to hear the head honchos tell the high school graduates "So sorry you can't read and write well enough to get a good paying job or succeed in college, but at least you have high self esteem to handle the disappointment."
Posted by: Burdabee on June 17, 2005 11:30 AMSure--there is some registration trickery. I don't condone the address games, but it is a glaring symptom of comsumers voting with their feet and doing a "quasi-voucher" thing. Like prohibition. They found the speakeasys anyway despite the law. Also true with the underground economy. Why would one risk this unless there was some good payback--like a good education? Again--I do not condone the school shell games. It's a waste of all of our collective time.
However, the school, unions & edu. system conditions that MAKE these 'abuses' ripe are not being discussed nor solved to the public's satisfaction. Go ahead, school boards--keep ignoring the "ripping flattus in the quiet church."
Posted by: Jimmie-howya-doin on June 17, 2005 11:34 AM
My local schools don't understand that I like the idea of public education, and I like my kid's teachers. However, I hate, hate, hate what they teach, and I am not talking about sex ed here. I mean I hate the way they teach math, reading, literature, and history. The educational philosopy our state has bought into is that teaching kids competently in a subject matter is not the goal of education. Well, I want it to be, and if I can't get that with them, I'll have to go where I can.
Posted by: California Dreamer on June 17, 2005 11:48 AMWhat's really sad about this is that it's an argument for and from the bottom of society. This guy doesn't want anyone to use their brains, muscle, influence, money, talent -- whatever -- to try to get ahead in school, society, and life. This guy is making a case for the lowest common denominator. His belief is that if anyone is on the bottom, we all need to go to the bottom. This is precisely where the liberals continue to move further and further into very strange intellectually bankrupt territory: absolutly anything and everything is a problem and there are no solutions. Instead of seeing motivated parents who want to do the best for their kids and enriching society, they somehow see it as a sign of evil. How on earth could a parent who loves and cares about their children so much be a bad thing? This guy doesn't see it that way. In fact, it never even occurs to him. He only sees problems. He only sees it from the institutional perspective. We on the other side, however, see it from an entirely different one: we see it as consumers, entrepeneurs, those who love choice and freedom; those who worship and respect talent and quality because we know it when we see it and we love and crave it the more we get of it; we want our children to be better than we are. And we want our kids -- all kids -- do get a great education and do great things to make this world a more fun, interesting, satisfying, enriching place for everybody. But this guy doesn't want to understand that it all starts with the one-on-one relationship between an adult and a child. Ultimately a kid has to teach themselves everything they will ever know in this world. As adults we can only try hard to steer them towards those things that are good and right.
This is sheer idiocy from an idiotic newspaper. We conservatives will take a certain daily dose of garbage from the NY Times because, extremely liberal and union-run as it is, at least it's well edited and written. And they have killer arts stories, great (yes great!) sports writers, and a terrific food section. But to take this from the STimes? This is why people don't buy their daily rag anymore. This is why people are migrating towards these blogs. We're starved for something interesting and intelligent to read. The STimes will never give you that, based on my short exposure to it. We all make fun of the NY Post because it, too, is a rag of sorts. But the Post is a good rag and a fun read. And that's why the Post will survive. Ten years from now, the STimes will not exist, but that's not sad and it's not a problem, even though this guy would argue it is. Liberals would tell you that losing the STimes for the PI is a problem. But we know that it creates an opportunity for something better.
Sorry about the ramble but these people are totally insane.
Posted by: NYC transplant on June 17, 2005 11:53 AMBlaming the poor performance of public schools on middle class and affluent students going to private schools makes absolutely no logical sense.
The public school system gets its huge share of property taxes whether students attend or not. With parents who can afford to get out of the soviet system of public schools sending their kids to private schools, THERE IS MORE MONEY AVAILABLE FOR THE KIDS THAT REMAIN.
And, that maybe is as it should be, because lower income kids need more attention in order to overcome the obstacles they face due to their family's circumstances.
It is not as if having a middle class kid in the class is going to somehow raise the academic performance of the lower income kid just because the middle class kid is there! Education does not occur through osmossis from one kid to the next. In fact, there is a case to be made that lower income kids are better off with people similar to them, instead of seeing the snotty affluent kids looking down at them all them. And, it's not like humans are capable of socialism of the mind, where those with less can take some of the mind of those with more!
Really, the public school system ought to be celebrating the fact that so many parents send their kids to private schools, because of the resources they leave behind. (Obviously, not because of kids leave because they suck).
This is one of the reason I have NO TOLERANCE for the constant complainst of public schools. Improve the ability of the public schools to actually educate kids, and allow parents to choose which school their kids goes to based on their own kid's needs, and I'd support more $.
Now, it just goes to the WEA and state administration idiots who do worthless studies and attend conferences and summits.
Really, I feel bad for the teachers, many of whom care a lot about the kids and education. It surprises me that more of them, all of them, don't protest how poorly the schools are managed.
Posted by: BananaLand (aka Iguana) on June 17, 2005 11:57 AMAbsolute power corrupts absolutely.
Posted by: jmw on June 17, 2005 12:10 PMThese teachers have never complained about lack of money, either for themselves or their classrooms. They complain about getting called on the carpet for making incompetent colleauges look bad, they complain about poor curiculum and educational practices being forced on them, and they complain about their opinions and recommendations being ignored.
Heaven help us when they all leave.
Posted by: California Dreamer on June 17, 2005 12:16 PMNo, schools that drop enrollment do not get the same amount of money. In fact Washington is recognized nationwide as being one of the best states at ensuring that money is evenly distributed among the districts. So Seattle schools dont end up with 10k per student while those in the Tri-cities are struggling with around 1k per student.
Right now we are working with roughly 6k per student. The problem is, when you have a few enough number of students that may not be enough for facilities operations. You know, stuff like keeping the lights and heat on. Those costs have nothing to do with number of students and thats what is eating the school budgets.
I agree that there is a problem here, but private schools arent the answer.
BTW, to continue my thoughts on ha yesterday, that research took a grand total of 6 minutes (I timed it). Would you people start actually thinking and checking facts rather than just bleating the last thing you heard. I swear washington state IS going to the dogs, well at least to the parrots and the sheep. This total lack of critical thought lately on both sides of the isle is getting annoying.
Posted by: bill on June 17, 2005 12:20 PMFirst of all, let me point out that there is nothing inherently democratic about the Democratic Party; to the contrary, they have become one of most anti-democratic organizations around.
Secondly, please note my usage in the preceding paragraph. "Democratic" (capital D) "Party" (capital P) is their title, and thus is a correct usage. "Democrat" (capital D) "party" (lower case P) is also a correct usage, as it refers to what they are: the party of the Democrats.
Posted by: ewaggin on June 17, 2005 12:21 PMI took a look there, the figure given for per student spending is $8300 per year.
This is a more than sufficient amount of money to get the job done, the problem is that the public schools are no longer capable of doing it.
They are unaccountable, in thrall to the teachers' unions, and lead by people who are intent on enforcing the "politically correct" agenda, no matter how much it hurts.
If you are willing to consider the views of a Nobel Prize-winning economist on this subject, try reading "Free to Choose" by Milton Friedman.
It is written for the layman, and does an excellent job of explaining why government (that is, We The People) has an interest in funding universal education, but should restrict itself to encouraging the effort, rather than choosing the means.
Posted by: ewaggin on June 17, 2005 12:48 PMHow does she define "catering to upper-income families"? Does that mean providing a good education?!!
Back to planning my homeschool curriculum for next year.
How far will you go to let the public school system off the hook?
That’s the question buzzing around groups of people who actually think through a problem.
The school system is so bad that people are willing to pay extra “rent money” to get their kids out of bad schools and into ones which actually do the job they’re supposed to do … teach. Instead of fixing the problem, the school system reacts like petty dictators to prevent people (with the means) from fleeing.
“It’s a sad, sad statement.”
The Soviet Union put up a wall, barbed wired, mine fields and armed guards to kill those people with the desire for something better. When a Soviet citizen actually *did* manage to escape, we all shared their glory and joy. They were shining examples of the drive it took to escape … to yearn for a better life … to succeed.
On the other side of the wall, the Soviets had the State run Press to tell the Comrades that the system is perfect and that the dissidents and escapee’s were bad. Here in the US we have Liberal/Socialist columnists eager to do that job.
Instead of vilifying parents for “escaping” a bad system, why isn’t the school system doing more to fix the reasons they want to leave? Why doesn’t the school system treat their kids and parents as customers rather than trapped animals to be shot for wanting to escape?
Why aren’t you focusing on why the parents are leaving in the first place? Rather than being a mouthpiece for the State Press, do some work for a change, investigate and document the reasons for their “dissidence”. Look for solutions to the problem.
To use an entirely different metaphor … be a doctor, not a quack. Help to solve the sources of the “disease” and stop blaming the patient.
Posted by: lee egg on June 17, 2005 12:58 PM>If you are willing to consider the views of a Nobel >Prize-winning economist on this subject, try >reading "Free to Choose" by Milton Friedman.
You can use this link:
http://www.friedmanfoundation.org/schoolchoice/
I've admired Milton Friedman since I met him when I was a kid. My father's an economist and taught on the Friedman model.
Posted by: Shannon K on June 17, 2005 01:38 PMState support is based upon attendance. Local levy support is a fixed amount. If a student leaves the public schools for private or home schooling, it doesn't affect the amount of money the levy produces.
Posted by: South County on June 17, 2005 02:10 PMWhen my eldest girl started school, they were going to bus her from North Seattle to Coleman in South Seattle. When I complained, the answer I got was, "why are you complaining? More people are being bussed from the Central District than from the North End." This asinine comment was immediately followed by, "if your daughter is going to be in the Seattle school district, she's going to Coleman."
We've been paying the freight to keep her in private schools ever since.
Posted by: Larry on June 17, 2005 02:23 PMThis would be federal funding, and it may only apply to certain categories of students.
Posted by: ewaggin on June 17, 2005 02:28 PMTheir UK take on declining quality of U.S. education and the whack it's taking on the less fortunate in this country:
"The first [problem with education in the U.S.] is that the schools the poorest Americans attend have been getting worse rather than better. This is partly a problem of resources, to be sure. But it is even more a problem of bad ideas. The American educational establishment's weakness for airy-fairy notions about the evils of standards and competition is particularly damaging to poor children who have few educational resources of their own to fall back on. One poll of 900 professors of education, for example, found that 64% of them thought that schools should avoid competition.
"The second is the politics of education reform. The Democrats have much deeper roots in poor America than the Republicans; they also have much greater faith in the power of government. But they are too closely tied to the teachers' unions to push for sensible reforms, such as testing and school choice. Their notions of improvement seem limited to pouring in more money.
"The third reason is the most powerful of all: that the educated classes still do such a superb job of consolidating and transmitting their privileges. This goes far beyond the New York Times's “Sunday Vows” section, which lovingly chronicles the pairings of Princeton-educated bankers with Yale-educated lawyers at the very top of the tree. America's college-educated class is now a much larger share of the population than it was.
"The New York Times has supported its series on class with editorials condemning Mr Bush's tax cuts. But even if the paper's argument is correct, it ignores the basic fact that so many people have become so good at passing their educational privileges on to their children. That is not something that is going to go away with a mere tweak of tax policy; after all, they are only doing what comes naturally."
Posted by: ineg on June 17, 2005 02:34 PMAnd I already hear the obvious response, so what that means that folks will vote with their pocketbooks and leave the bad ones. Thats mostly true. The problem is, we are assured by our state constitution that all students will get an education. So what happens when someone uses a voucher at a religious school? One that teaches facts that the average person disagrees with?
You may be right, I am coming from a non-christian faith, and partly thats an objection that I have with ME paying money for a school to give religious instruction in a religion I dont belong to.
But whats to stop al-quida from opening a school that teaches that the US is an empire that destroyed culture around the world? Can I get your tax money to open a Wiccan high school?
And whats to stop schools from charging over and above what the vouchers pay? Nothing, folks have a right to pay for more than basic services, but where does that leave small town washington?
If all schools are private schools that get funding based solely on vouchers, ran as businesses, why would anyone in their right minds ever open a school in a small town with a small population of children. If there are 10 kids in town, youll go broke trying to teach them. I just dont think private schools are the answer. At least I am not yet convince.
South County, levys make up just 19% of the maintenence and operations cost.
Posted by: bill on June 17, 2005 02:36 PMWe have sent two of our three kids at time to private schools--we couldn't afford to send all three at the same time. It has cost us $10-20 thousand a year for the last six years, but it is worth it to get them the education they need and to be in a situation where the students and teachers are motivated to be there. Public education needs to be forced to compete! Vouchers are definitely the way to do that.
Bill H
Posted by: Bill H on June 17, 2005 03:10 PMBut that is exactly the point.
If they do a bad job, they lose students. Because parents are not coerced into sending their kids there, the schools have an immediate financial incentive to do a good job.
In contrast... name a high-quality product or service that comes from a monopoly. Go ahead. Don't be shy.
Posted by: Bostonian on June 17, 2005 03:19 PM
It's Rossi, not Rosi, so either get your own spelling act together or stop carping on us when we say democrat party. Your a bunch of democrats so you are the democrat party.
And Rossi won twice,by the way, which is more than you can say for the occupant of the governors mansion.
"But whats to stop al-quida from opening a school that teaches that the US is an empire that destroyed culture around the world?"
Your tax dollars are already supporting schools that teach that the US is evil. Just look at most public universities and big city public schools. It would behoove you to check out what actually goes on in the "social" studies departments and student papers.
As for the Wiccan school, you can be like the homeschool and private school parents and pay for a curriculum like the one offered at The College of the Sacred Mists (ain't Google grand)
All kidding aside, you are missing the whole point. Check out the acheivement test scores for the Seattle high schools. Now, you can carry on about how tests aren't fair, but most good professions these days do require some sort of test, whether it's successfully completing a degree or taking the exams necessary for professional certifications and licensure.
Most of us have no problem with tax dollars being spent on public schools. We do have a problem with schools that don't do their job. If you were looking to take a plane trip for a vacation, you would probably think twice before booking on an airline that only completes 1 in 7 flights successfully. So why do you think a school disctrict that only has 1 in 7 graduates able to read and write at the 10th grade level is ok?
Posted by: Burdabee on June 17, 2005 04:23 PMThat is the whole point. Private schools ARE accountable to those paying the bills. They have to produce a quality product or they become unemployed. The Seattle public school system is apparently accountable to no one at all. The teacher's union sticks together like glue and consequently, once hired, it is next to impossible to get rid teachers and principals for poor performance or even criminal behavior.
They certainly don't respond in any way to parential concerns.
Posted by: Larry on June 17, 2005 04:37 PMI am saying that vouchers is not the solution. From an economic point of view competition makes sense, but we are talking about children, not cable tv. Before you decide that a company has crappy enough service to leave, you have to endure their crappy service. Do you really want to bounce children from school to school trying to find that 'right place'.
You are right, I could home school. My question is, if you allow vouchers to religious schools that has religious instruction for the children there, are you willing to include vouchers to a Wiccan school with the same?
Requiring annual certs for teachers is a good start. Public dicipline of teachers (or transparant dicipline) is another good way to go. [ie, make all dicipline related documentation public records] Actually failing students who fail would be a good thing, and getting sports the hell out of the school system would be ideal. But youve not yet convinced me that vouchers would do it.
Posted by: bill on June 17, 2005 04:45 PM
As for the religious schools, quite frankly if you could get your Wiccan school certified and let the free market take it's course for attendance, than I would have no problems with vouchers going for that. My tax dollars have to fund a curriculum in Seattle that is so one-sided and politcally correct it would be funny if it wasn't such a sad situtation.
And academics should be the priority, not sports. Sports should be true extracurricular activities, not an excuse for letting academics go to the wayside.
As for the failing students, a lot of them are passed because the parents threaten to sue or report the teacher.
The first step in the right direction would be for the Seattle school administration to ask why parents are unhappy and to do so in a public forum.
Our children are our future, so here's to hoping we can get things fixed!
Hear-hear, I think thats a sentiment we can all get behind.
Does this hypothetical Wiccan school actually teach the children how to read, write, and think? My understanding of the religious schools that public school defenders rail against, is that they exist to TEACH FUNDAMENTALS, but to do so in an environment that does not directly undermine the religious values of a family. And yet we're supposed to make some sort of logical connection between Liberty Christian School and an Al-Qaeda boot camp or something..?
That's the problem with "separation of church and state" when taken to the extreme. As with many things, what can be perfectly rational in moderation becomes unreasonable IN THE EXTREME.
Private religious schools have existed for a long time, but shockingly I have yet to see the mobs of unruly Christians tearing up the Constitution as they march on DC. So I guess that means I'm either blind to the coming apocolypse of flag-burning Christian Crazies, or maybe, just maybe.. I'm a realist. One who thinks that throwing good money after bad is not a solution.
Posted by: RookieRick on June 17, 2005 07:33 PMDoesn't that tell anyone ANYTHING?
There's no magic to fixing this: set up some competition via vouchers and let the improvement begin. In the mean time, I'm with Shannon, working on the homeschool plans. And paying $4K a year in taxes toward a broken education system.
Posted by: Patty on June 17, 2005 10:11 PM