Odd that you think this is a way of getting more money to public schools. If you count capitalization (school building) costs, the state and school district spend up to $17K per student per year. Every child out of public school saves taxpayers that much money. How, pray tell, would sending an extra 25,000 kids to public school make it somehow cheaper for taxpayers?

Yes, I know the liberal answer to this one — if everyone sent their kids to public school, those private-school parents would put their talents to use in public schools and would support referendums for more funding. Forget the lack of evidence to support this claim — it’s just like the twisted thinking from liberals that we needed a draft so rich people would have a greater stake in wars. Right. That worked so well in the Vietnam era.

Not to mention:

We want our kids to pray to the christainist god in school everyday and we don’t want our kids to learn about evolution and sex.

So ridiculously simplistic!

I’m not opposed to charter schools on principle, I prefer to consider their relative value on a case by case basis. But I find the idea that charter schools and vouchers are some kind of magical solution to all the problems of education to be quite comical.

The typical republican viewpoint on charter schools and vouchers seems to be this: the public schools are chock full of underachieving students (read poor black and hispanic students). We don’t want our promising youth (read middle to upper class class white and asian kids) to have to deal with that crap, now do we? So how about we create an environment where our promising students (see above) have the chance to excel (i.e. a publicly funded private school set up to keep the poor, black, and hispanic kids out). Or better yet why don’t we give ourselves the option to just send our kids to a real private school but not have to pay for it?

Sounds great except…what happens to the poor black and hispanic kids?

The republican response: who gives a fuck, their parents aren’t voting for us anyway…

That really worked in the District of Columbia.

Throwing money at a problem does not assure a positive outcome.

With the NEA and the Dems joined at the hip, how can we expect reform? What the educational establishment fears most is competition. Let’s have vouchers and more charter schools.

Great points.

Then again as someone who taught high school for a couple years and is now in the educational research biz (so to speak), the sheer ratios are something that have always struck me.

What I mean by that is this: when I taught high school, I had let’s say approximately 120 students for whom I was responsible (and that number is probably on the low side – 6 classes times 20-30 students each is the point). Just to make the math easy, let’s say I saw each of those students for 4 hours a week (5 days x 50 minutes per day for their class = 250 minutes, round down to 240 for time spent taking roll and doing other non-instructional stuff).

If you do a simple division that averages out to 2 minutes of individual attention per student per week.

In contrast, the average parent has what, 1-4 kids that they see for at least 3-4 hours a night during the school week plus many more hours on the weekend.

I guess my point is this. Yes we need qualified teachers who are talented in their craft. But we also need parents who (ideally) make some attempt to reinforce what the teachers have been doing and support their children’s learning OR (at a minimum) at least set up a home environment that produces students who are well equipped to learn when they get to school – i.e. well rested, sufficiently fed, appropriately clothed and supplied, etc.

Successfully educating a child is like making a delicious meal: The chef knows only the freshest, best ingredients will do. So when the store delivers spoiled and rotten provisions, don’t expect the best outcome.

Shorter: It starts and ends at home….wherever that may be.

I am not trying to stereotype an entire group but I from my exp with attending school board meetings, PTA meeting I have heard many excuses that the school has failed the child. It must begin at home. If we have stable home that in your words aren’t ‘lousy home lifes’ do you think that it would make a difference?

How about we stop stereotyping an entire group of children while patting ourselves on the back and pinning our self-appointed parenting badges on our chests.