Yesterday's Seattle Times editorial: "A failed school board should resign, now". Yes, Seattle's school board is a collection of useless kooks who should all be forced out. But the district's problems are deeper than the school board, which doesn't really have much control over finances, the bureaucracy or the unionized workforce. The budget debacles, the board's pandering to labor, the poor academic performance, the decline in enrollment -- those are all inevitable consequences of being a government monopoly (Imagine what would happen if coffee shops were run like public schools).
The sensible solution is to dissolve the Seattle School District, let independent non-profits run individual schools and compete with each other for business, and give parents means-tested scholarships to send their kids to the school of their choice. That won't happen any time soon. But neither will meaningful improvements to Seattle public schools.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at November 13, 2006 10:17 AM | Email ThisJeeesh isn't it obvious?
Oh yeah, the kids come in somewhere after this.
Posted by: Right said Fred on November 13, 2006 10:53 AMThe prez of the national teachers union once said, "When the students start paying dues...I will start caring about them."
I' am laying 100 to 1 we will never live to see that day.
Forgetaboutit
In fact, its not even 10 grand a year! (It's 690 per month til the 5th grade)
If you look at NYC,they pay one of the top per student fees in the country, and their public school system is also broken.
People in this country sure have no backbone for expecting more for their kids. But I have long agreed that Seattle Schools should be dissolved, along with Lake Washington and all the rest of them; if they were companies, they'd all be long gone by now.
Posted by: Lauri on November 13, 2006 11:00 AMAs evidenced by allowing (requiring) students to take the WASL five times in order to pass. Now us taxpayers get to keep paying additionally for extra funds to teach the kids how to take that stupid test that measures NOTHING.
Head school honcho, Terry Bergeson, wont give up on her failed WASL no matter what, yet voter keep returning her to office?
Clearly, our "leaders" were educated in the public school sector - they are as dumb as the kids they are turning out!
Posted by: Lauri on November 13, 2006 11:26 AMhowever, the juggernaut of the system can not be disassembled immediately. it will take a bunch of spearate successes like trial schools in many districts.
and Lauri's right at 8--voters keep making the same dicisions to return these people. just rewarding incompetence. it's OUR fault.
Posted by: jimmie-howya-doin on November 13, 2006 11:33 AMTalk about a nonsense way of electing board members. You have to get the typical endorsements of all the special interest groups in Seattle. Same old BS.
Then, in of the last elections, there was a clique of board members who politicked for each other even when everyone knew a bunch of them were clowns. You know, the buddy system. What a mess!!
Posted by: swatter on November 13, 2006 11:34 AMSeattle Prep is one of the best:
http://www.seaprep.org/
and their tuition is only $9450:
http://www.seaprep.org/admissions/brochurefall04.pdf
and tuition assistance is available.
The Seattle Prep curriculum and academic rigor is known to prepare any child admitted for just about any university of their choice.
Posted by: Michael in Seattle on November 13, 2006 11:42 AMOh, wait, it was that car tab initiative. That's to blame for everything!
Screw Eyman. We need to elect more democrats!
Posted by: Eric on November 13, 2006 12:00 PMGive the class room teacher the $13K per student in their class, they then contract our for support services out of the money. Parents could put their kids in any teachers class, or pull them at any time and the money follows.
Bad teachers lose students and the money.
Posted by: JCM on November 13, 2006 12:23 PMHow about getting really, REALLY radical and giving each tax payer their damn money back and let parents pay for the children they conceive? Many are doing this now with private school while still paying for public. Why does a person who has no kids have to pay for a person who has 6 or 7 kids? Why does a person who has the politically correct number of kids (2) have to pay for the extra 4 or 5 that other couples feel they are entitled?
Posted by: G Jiggy on November 13, 2006 12:42 PMLook at it this way: the childless person won't have anybody to take care of them in their retirement. They depend more than those with children on the larger society to support them (whether from Social Security, or the rate of return on their private pension). A better-educated workforce is likely to be more productive and can produce more for its retirees.
Posted by: Stefan Sharkansky on November 13, 2006 12:49 PMI telecommute, therefore, I should not have to pay for roads.
I drive my own car, therefore, I should not have to pay for bus service.
I don't support the war, so I should not have to pay taxes to support the military.
I'm young and in good health, so I really don't need to be paying for county emergency medical services.
get it?
Posted by: Eric on November 13, 2006 12:52 PMAnd just to add to what Stefan posted, those 6 or 7 kids will most likely pay more in taxes in their lifetimes than the cost to the state of their education, which is a net benefit to everyone.
Posted by: Palouse on November 13, 2006 12:56 PMThis is somewhat selfish - the high school my children attend is an excellent public school. Families are already doing whatever they can to get in - lying about their address, renting apartments in the neighborhood, buying utility bills for a month, etc.
If we had vouchers, there would no longer be any guarantee of a neighborhood school. Part of the strength of the school is the parent community. That's why Seattle fell apart (well, one of the reasons.) Busing destroyed the natural community and discouraged parental involvement. I don't want to get squeezed out of my local school because there are so many worthless schools surrounding us. Those schools need incentive to turn themselves around.
Posted by: Janet S on November 13, 2006 12:59 PMWhere on earth does this garbage come from (other than Mao's little red book)? Are you proposing the government assigns the "correct" number of children to which couples are entitled? Would you also advocate cutting off welfare for any kids above the allocated number?
Posted by: Right said Fred on November 13, 2006 01:04 PMUntil then, it's full steam ahead into the iceberg.
Posted by: Jeff B. on November 13, 2006 01:07 PM
I'm betting it is less that what is currently set aside per student in our public schools...
Posted by: H Moul on November 13, 2006 02:07 PMI think you'd find that universal vouchers would produce exactly what you say that charter schools provide-schools having to provide excellent programs and doing what they had to do to attract and keep students, and their money. Granted, when such a system was first started, good schools would get overloaded, but other quality schools would appear quite quickly. Profit is a great motivator.
Such a system would also lead to higher pay for teachers, at least for good ones, as schools competed for their services. Now, bad teachers would be SOL, as would the union, since good teachers (or good workers of any sort) don't really need unions.
I think you'd also see a wider variety of different programs, including things that are now politically impossible, like year round school (summer vacation is a relic of an agriculture based economy, and something most of those countries who regularly make us look bad in the education arena have done away with.)
And you don't need geography to make for success-inducing 'parent communities'. All you need are parents who are committed to their kids' educational success.
Posted by: Heartless Libertarian on November 13, 2006 02:11 PMWhy is a Microsoft monopoly bad but a government monopoly good?
Our young people are simply being taught -- nay, recruited! -- to join the unions and share in the wealth of organized mediocrity.
If that's not education, what is? A bunch of hard math stuff and fancy-pants literature that none of our youthful I-podleians will ever think about again after WASL, anyway?
As long as we have illegal immigrants from Mexico to do our manual labor, and legal immigrants from India to do our engineeering, America is pretty much free to kick back, get fat, and enjoy the ride.
Who neads skools?
Posted by: Rey Smith on November 13, 2006 02:56 PMNCLB, if allowed to run it's course, will break up failing schools. School boards get taken over by the state, administration gets out and the state can remove any teacher they want to remove. The only problem is that we need the correct people in the state's education bureaucracy to make that happen in a productive way.
As for public education, we all have benefited from it one way or another. Washington is in the bottom third of all states for per-pupil spending although we are in the top-third in per-capita income. Research has shown that education plays an important role in future income, maybe when we compare to the rest of the states we are getting more for our dollars.
Granted, it's not enough since those dollars are directed where the Unions want them to go right now. However, Republicans will NEVER take control of the state houses if they publicly run on a platform of dumping public education or minimalizing it. They need to run on a platform of improving public education.
Posted by: Doug on November 13, 2006 04:46 PMmy kids are not learning even the basics of math- add, subtract, multiply, divide. I ask the six grader to do long division and I get this look that only a mother could love.
Posted by: swatter on November 13, 2006 04:49 PMTo a certain extent, there is competition in a public school system already. Open enrollment does result in some schools having more money than others because the state funds allocation per student. However, the big problem is schools are not infinitely scalable. Recreating the physical infrastructure of a high school isn't cheap, it is a $150 - 200 MM investment, and that's assuming the land is already owned by the school entity.
Ultimately the citizens of Seattle have to decide what they want, then elect a board that will do what they want.
Vouchers etc get to be very complicated, but one perspective comes from a cousin in Hawaii, where there are extensive native Hawaiian charter schools established in recent years, using state funding. According to my cousin, these schools are turning into propaganda machines, indoctrinating the students about injustices in Hawaii's incorporation into the US. Again this is one person's perspective, but the point is vouchers might or might not lead to outcomes we want.
Posted by: Stuart Jenner on November 13, 2006 04:54 PMIf the Education establishment is so deeply committed to the principle of Natural Selection, then let them demonstrate it by supporting School Choice initiatives in every state. The fittest schools will survive, and the fittest school models will reproduce and perpetuate themselves.
Charles Darwin wrote, "In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment."
I couldn't have said it better myself. "
TOO FUNNY!
Posted by: Ragnar Danneskold on November 13, 2006 05:20 PMPosted by: Organization Man on November 13, 2006 06:34 PM