<p>The grants rise to match the actual costs of those who go, but increasing numbers can't afford to go at all. THAT'S the issue. Let's not be so quick to blame the victims, not when the nursing program at the local community college has gotten more difficult to get into than Harvard - doesn't sound to me like poor people don't want to attend! In other words, we may be spending the money, but failing in the mission. (hey, didn't that happen with the war, too? oh, let's not go there.)</p>
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<blockquote> <p>I will unashamable embrace this me-first attitude until the vast majority of people in our once great country wake up and understand what is happening, ie the richest 5% of us are getting more and more wealthy at their expense.>></p> </blockquote>
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<p>Originaloog, I respect you a great deal and have learned a lot from you but I have to ask - On another thread you said that you had enough money to pay for your son's education but that he received merit awards. Due to the merit awards he will graduate with a tidy sum in hand because the money you would have spent for his education will not be used. If you feel so strongly that money should be deployed equitably, shouldn't you have turned down that merit money so that it could go to someone else who needed it more? I am just playing devil's advocate here, of course, but I hope you see my point - most people ARE looking out for their own and their family's interest's first. It's simple human nature for most of us. To pretend otherwise is disingenuous.</p>
<p>Mini - I agree, access is an issue. But it's a different issue than affordability to a certain extent. Talking about "the nursing program at the local community college being harder to get into than Harvard" is different than saying "the nursing program at the local community program is more EXPENSIVE than Harvard."</p>
<p>I feel uncomfortable asking this because it is a difficult question that I really don't know the answer to but:
Looking at where Pell grants are being used, they are primarily NOT being used at 4 year private colleges like Harvard et. al. They are being used at community colleges, 4 year public schools, and proprietary institutions (ie. for profit schools like vocational schools) - Is our goal to increase access and affordability for low income people to 4 year private schools or is it to increase access and affordability to education that will help people get jobs so they can rise beyond the poverty level? Or is it both? If the first, then we are probably not doing a good job. If it is the latter, then it appears we may not be doing all that bad a job - there are a variety of options being underwritten to some extent. It's really a philosophical question, I suppose. What is the best way to lift a large majority of people out of poverty - is it to send the majority to 4 year private schools or to more job focused training? (I hope no one is offended by this question - just musing here.) In either case, my thought is that our primary focus and spending priority needs to be on k-12 education (and I am not sure we have our spending priorities straight there yet) - again, what good is paying for someone to go to college if they have never achieved basic educational skills in k-12?</p>
<p>"Mini - I agree, access is an issue. But it's a different issue than affordability to a certain extent. Talking about "the nursing program at the local community college being harder to get into than Harvard" is different than saying "the nursing program at the local community program is more EXPENSIVE than Harvard."</p>
<p>It is saying that 1) we don't nearly have enough resources (though we have plenty for Halliburton), and 2) that we are using our resources poorly. It is saying that the local cc is less available to poor people than Harvard (as weird as that is - actually, I should say Penn, which has a nursing school.) Since the community college nursing program is not available for 9 out of 10 poor applicants, their next best option is to apply to the nursing program at the University of Washington. However, the Pell Grant that would have helped them at the cc is a drop-in-the-bucket at UW, where tuition has skyrocketed, and Pell Grants haven't come close to keeping pace.</p>
<p>The Harvards of the world use Pell Grants simply to offset their financial aid awards, and since they admit so few to begin with it isn't a big deal there. At Smith or Occidental it is a big deal (Pell Grant recipients at Smith likely receive approximately $2 million in Pell dollars.) At the big UCs, it is huge!</p>
<p>Most college admissions (though you'd never know from these boards) today are "job training" -- accounting, supply chain management, nursing, various forms of engineering, etc. Current public policy accomplishes neither of your two ends particularly well.</p>
<p>"I suppose. What is the best way to lift a large majority of people out of poverty - is it to send the majority to 4 year private schools or to more job focused training? (I hope no one is offended by this question - just musing here.)"</p>
<p>What would you want for your children?</p>
<p>Well, I guess I would want for them no less than what I had. My parents were lower middle income - neither had a college degree. They couldn't afford to contribute a dime to my college education but were supportive of my goals. That was the important contribution they made, one I don't think most kids could make it through school without. I worked throughout high school at mininum wage to save up a few thousand dollars, took free AP classes and community college classes while still in high school to build up credits, wanted to go to a private college but didn't get any financial aid so I ended up at a SUNY school with a pell grant, a REgents merit scholarship, and a work study grant. AFter two years, I transferred to a private school with a grant, loans, more work study, etc. Took a semester off after my mother became ill with cancer and medical bills mounted into the four digits. I worked full time to help pay off the medical bills and save up for the final two semesters. I remember total annual cost of that private school was $12,000, more than 2 times my parents annual income before my mother became sick. Is it harder today? Yes, absolutely!
But in a way, I wish my kids would have to work as hard as I did to get their education. In another way, of course, I am grateful that they don't.</p>
<p>By the way, an interesting link here - a senate committee report on college affordability with testimony from college financial aid officers and others:
<a href="http://frwebgate4.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/waisgate.cgi?WAISdocID=1676247311+8+0+0&WAISaction=retrieve%5B/url%5D">http://frwebgate4.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/waisgate.cgi?WAISdocID=1676247311+8+0+0&WAISaction=retrieve</a></p>
<p>Carolyn:
I agree with Originaloog. The SYSTEM is the SYSTEM. I am not happy with the situation either, however, if our family did not take every advantage that the system afforded us, We would not be able to afford our kid's education. </p>
<p>I would argue that when one considers a college education- IT IS NOT ABOUT THE COST! but the knowledged gained. Sometime you get a lot of knowledge for very little cost and other times its going to cost you alot. Only until one examines the options are you able to determine the true VALUE. </p>
<p>Would anyone turn down merit aid if offered? IF one school offers more financial aid than another, which school would you choose? If the schools are the same caliber? If the school were of different tiers?</p>
<p>If you take the analogy concerning your personal taxes, You'd be foolish NOT to take every tax deduction and advantage afforded to by law, wouldn't you? And if friends and family (other people, tax accountant) knew that if you DID NOT take tax advantages, they would think you stupid rather than generous(?)</p>
<p>Would you also apply the same self-sacrificing attitude for admissions to the college of your choice and let some other person take your kid's place?</p>
<p>I assure you that when it comes to $$, even the best educated, barely have a clue. Two examples; The time to do FAFSA is two years prior to entering higher ed, because FAFSA looks back 2 years. Are you doing a 529 to get the your state's tax deduction, whether your kid needs it or not, and regardless of your [parent-EFC] contribution. I would also say that the best educated THINK "they know it all." </p>
<p>And perhaps the only way to change the SYSTEM is to do so from within.</p>
<p>I'm not even sure today that a college education is of real value. Mini, is nearer the mark when she says that college is vocational school. People are going to college/school to get a job/ better job, and hence a better life. Is this the reason why we send our kids to college?</p>
<p>Dunno. OH WELL.</p>
<p>Hi Carolyn and thanks for the thoughtful post. It was our son's choice to persue merit aid because we agreed that he would be totally responsible for paying tuition, academic fees plus books and spending money. He probably could have been accepted to colleges such as Cornell or Wesleyan but chose the likes of Case, RPI, Allegheny and Wooster because of the merit aid considerations.</p>
<p>As a family we did not try to "hide" any funds and the fact that our son had a UGTM accout in excess of $75k clinched the deal regarding need based aid. We did not even file the requisite CSS form with Oberlin because we did not want to be considered in any way for need based aid.</p>
<p>In addition our son worked hard during HS and earned the right to be considered for merit aid. $15k of his merit aid was for the Rensselaer Medal which was awarded to him by his HS junior year. The prior year nobody was even designated and he was the first Medalist to attend RPI in 4 years.</p>
<p>My selfish attitude following the recent election comes from utter frustration with many of my fellow citizens and their unwillingness to understand the long term damage that is occurring to our great country. It goes against my nature and was a painful choice. I would rather be taxed more to make our country a better place for those with greater need and for the future of all our children. But that is not the world we currently live and the only way to marginalize the Norquist's of the world is through the ballot box.</p>
<p>But Carolyn I understand your point.</p>
<p>Originaloog, I totally agree with you and your son's decision - in fact, that's what we have already told our kids who are in a similiar position: get merit aid and the "savings" to us will end up being yours after graduation. I was just playing devil's advocate, as I'm sure you understand. </p>
<p>I am trying to put my thoughts on educational funding specifically into order. I do believe we need to spend more money on k-12 education, or perhaps spend what money we are spending more efficiently. I am not convinced that Bush's "No child left behind" strategy is the way to improve k-12 education but I haven't yet figured out what would improve k-12 education. I think I would prefer to see more money actually going directly to under-performing schools that serve high populations of low-income and non-English speaking students. As the No Child system is stacked right now, it seems like those schools are being punished for what is beyond their control to a certain extent. However, I am also against the idea of school vouchers - I do not believe that taxpayer money should be used to pay for private school education, in particular for religious school education (although both of my children do attend religiously-affiliated schools).</p>
<p>But, ultimately, my priority for education spending lies in k-12 funding over college funding. I know it is difficult to get a college education or vocational training if you come from a low income (or even middle class) family, but college age students are adults, they have options in terms of choosing a less expensive school or job training path, being able to work, go to school part time, take out loans, apply for other forms of financial aid, etc. that children in k-12 do not have. Therefore, I believe the federal government's responsibility to offer aid to them, especially in the form of out-right grants like the Pell grant, should NOT be considered an automatic entitlement. But, as usual, that's just my opinion. ;)</p>
<p>Carolyn--you seemed to have silenced the Bush haters with the facts. Nice work and I am pretty sure you are not a big Bush supporter.</p>
<p>let me tell you a horrifying ancedote about vouchers. I was talking with a parent who son graduated from UChicago and signed up with Teach for America for three years as a way to get some of his loans waived by teaching with a high risk population.
He taught 5th and 6th graders in DC, virtually all very low income, virtually all minority.
Very tough crowd these kids. School didn't have a lot of resources. DC apparently has vouchers as a good chunk of kids begin the year at private schools using vouchers. Unfortunately, by October those kids have been "exited" from the private schools, are back in the public school, the catch is that their money for the year has stayed with the private school, leaving the public school even farther in the hole than they were in the first place!
To make matters even worse for this young man who was determined to stick with teaching at this school for three years, after he finished and was hoping to get some of his school loans forgiven, he was told that "oh sorry we cut that program". So zero money for him. To his credit he is determined to continue his education anyway, and is now at the UW in their masters of ED program.</p>
<p>What an eye-opener, Ek!</p>
<p>And no, Lovejoy, I just don't feel like arguing with Carolyn.</p>
<p>"To make matters even worse for this young man who was determined to stick with teaching at this school for three years, after he finished and was hoping to get some of his school loans forgiven, he was told that "oh sorry we cut that program". So zero money for him."</p>
<p>Well, he could enlist....</p>
<p>Garland, I'm sorry to hear you use the term "arguing." I thought this was a discussion, not an argument. </p>
<p>Lovejoy, no, I am not a huge Bush fan on many issues. But then I am also not a huge fan of the "other side" on many issues either. I believe that nothing is set in stone, however, so I like to try to sort various issues out for myself with research, thought, and open-minded discussion. Ultimately makes for a very strange mix of political beliefs on my part. :)</p>
<p>Emerald, you have touched on another of my fears about educational vouchers - once we start moving money out of the public educational system, control of its use is lost. I also believe that many private schools will just continue to serve their traditional populations, not necessarily open their doors willingly to serve the students who really do need and want other options. Most private schools are set-up to serve students without learning difficulties, taking in students who need remedial help because the public school system has failed them will not be an attractive enticement to them. </p>
<p>I have mixed feelings about the concept of "choice" within the public school system, where if a school is below a certain point in test performance, parents have the option of moving their child to another, better performing public school. On the one hand, for individual children, that's obviously a good thing. But, on the other hand, it abandons the poorly performing school - and whatever children are not able to move (i.e. after school childcare reasons, transportation reasons, etc.) - by taking money away from the school. </p>
<p>I have been closely following and have been impressed with a pilot program that is underway here in San Diego at UCSD. It's a public charter school on the UCSD campus, specifically for low income students in grades 7-12. The class day is longer than in the typical school and the emphasis is on developing college prep skills, even though many enter needing remedial help. UCSD students participate as in classroom tutors. The students at the school also benefit from interaction with UCSD counselors right from the get-go who help them understand what they need to do to prepare for college, why achieving is important, what their options are if they work hard. The underlying benefit, of course, is that students are exposed on a daily basis to being on a college campus. They take part in campus cultural and research opportunities, interact with students, have professors as guest speakers, etc. The program is still young but has had an excellent track record so far - most kids graduate, go on to excellent four year schools. I think that what low income kids need is more of this type of program - not necessarily to be shuttled off to private schools where they may or may not get additional support and encouragement. Would it be so far-fetched to imagine colleges and universities across America participating in such a program, receiving some sort of state funding for the use of their facilities and participation?</p>
<p>I am serious about wanting to discuss these educational issues. Let's see if we can put aside political issues for a second and talk about education in philosophical terms. </p>
<p>1) Which do you see as more important - k-12 education or college education - and why?</p>
<p>2) Assuming you were in charge of doling out the federal education budget, would you put greater emphasis on k-12 spending or college program funding - and why? In a perfect world (which granted we may never have) how would you approach educational spending?</p>
<p>3) How do you feel about school vouchers? Public school choice? Do you have any other ideas for how we could improve k-12 education at the federal level? At the state level? At the local level?</p>
<p>4) What role do you think the federal government should play in improving access and affordability to college education? What, if anything, should colleges and students be willing to give up in return?</p>
<p>Let's try to keep partisan politics out of this for right now - reply as if your guy won the election - let's just brainstorm and see what we can come up with. Points off for the first person who uses any of these words in this philosophical discussion about American education: liberal, elitist, republican, bush, kerry, enlistment, iraq, halliburton, christian, right wing, left wing, democratic, blue state, red state.</p>
<p>Here are my thoughts on vouchers. I believe that blindly handing out public vouchers that can be used for students attending private schools is both wrong and dangerous for public education.</p>
<p>If public vouchers are to be used the playing field must first be leveled. So I would propose the following conditions. Private schools could accept voucher students only if they were willing to unconditionally accept all students wishing to attend. If there were more students wishing to attend than the school could accomodate, the decision of who would attend would be done by lottery, open to the public and overseen by both the private school and representatives of the public school board. Students paying their full tuition would not be subject to the lottery nor would they be eligible to participate in the lottery. Also, private schools would have to accept and then provide comparabe services to students with physical, emotional and developmental handicaps. Students could be expelled for misbehavior but the pro rata share of the voucher payment would be returned to the public school. And finally, private schools would have to provide its students with the same performance testing as the local school district and publically publish their results.</p>
<p>I am satisfied that with these provisions in place, the public and private schools would be faced with a relatively level playing field. Privates would not be able to skim off the best students and would have to provide a comparable level of support for special needs students.</p>
<p>An interesting note, I read today that an extensive study found that charter schools typically underperformed the public schools. I need to reread the article to see if the comparison was between charter/public schools in the same community.</p>
<p>Found it! NY Times article</p>
<p>November 23, 2004
Charter Schools Fall Short in Public Schools Matchup
By SAM DILLON and DIANA JEAN SCHEMO</p>
<p>new study commissioned by the Department of Education, which compares the achievement of students in charter schools with those attending traditional public schools in five states, has concluded that the charter schools were less likely to meet state performance standards.</p>
<p>In Texas, for instance, the study found that 98 percent of public schools met state performance requirements two years ago, but that only 66 percent of the charter schools did. Even when adjusted for race and poverty, the study said, the charter schools fell short more frequently by a statistically significant amount.</p>
<p>The study added new data to a highly politicized debate between charter school supporters, including senior Bush administration officials, and skeptics who question the performance of the publicly financed but privately managed schools.</p>
<p>Deputy Education Secretary Eugene W. Hickok minimized the report's significance even as he released the results. But academics who have been critical of charter school performance called it an important contribution.</p>
<p>"In five case-study states, charter schools are less likely to meet state performance standards than traditional public schools," the report said. Those states, Texas, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts and North Carolina, all have made significant public investments in charter schools.</p>
<p>The report's finding appears to present a new complication for the Bush administration as it seeks to carry out the No Child Left Behind law, which says that public schools failing to meet achievement objectives over several years may be converted into charter schools. </p>
<p>"How can we consider charter schools to be an option for dealing with failing public schools when this study, commissioned by the Department of Education, shows that about half of them don't appear to be doing any better at meeting performance standards than other public schools?" asked Gary Miron, a researcher at Western Michigan State University who has written a book on charter schools. </p>
<p>The study also provided new statistical data showing that charter schools, which tend to be located in cities, serve higher percentages of minority youths than traditional public schools, but fewer special education students. African-American students made up 27 percent of charter school students in the 1999-2000 year, compared with 17 percent in regular public schools, the report said. Some 21 percent of charter students were Hispanic, compared with 15 percent in regular schools, it said.</p>
<p>Paul E. Peterson, a professor of government at Harvard who has written frequently of the benefits to parents of offering new choices, including charter schools and vouchers, called that finding a significant contribution to the educational debate that "confirms that charter schools are identifying and serving a disadvantaged population." </p>
<p>Dr. Peterson cited the high number of minority students in charter schools as evidence that they are not "creaming," or recruiting a preponderance of easy-to-educate, talented students. Their higher populations of minority students, he said, help to explain the report's conclusion that charter schools were less likely to meet state achievement standards than regular schools, he said.</p>
<p>"When you have targeted a needy population, you will have more difficulty reaching state standards," Dr. Peterson said.</p>
<p>The report found that in two states, however, Texas and Colorado, even when allowances were made for race and poverty, the charter schools were still less likely to meet state standards than regular schools.</p>
<p>Charter schools have gained considerable popularity among some parents and educators since 1992, when the first one was created in Minnesota. A new survey, by the Center for Education Reform, a Washington group that supports charters, says there are now about 3,300 of the schools, operating in 41 states, educating nearly one million students. Still, they are a relatively minor force in the nation's overall kindergarten through high school education effort. There are about 90,000 traditional public schools, educating more than 50 million students.</p>
<p>The new study is the third and final report on a broad examination of charter schools, commissioned in 1998 by the Department of Education in the Clinton administration. Conducted by SRI International, a research firm in California, the final report was delivered to the department in June, its authors said. The department did not make the 127-page report public until Friday afternoon, after The New York Times filed a Freedom of Information Request last month to obtain it.</p>
<p>Susan Aspey, a spokeswoman, said the department had released the report "as fast as we could."</p>
<p>Dr. Hickok, in a statement accompanying the report, said, "As can be evidenced by their growing popularity, charters are an important educational option'' for the students who attend them. . Noting the finding that charter schools were less likely to meet performance standards than traditional public schools, he said the study "does not mean that traditional schools are outperforming charter schools or vice versa."</p>
<p>"The study is a snapshot, and it is impossible to know whether charter students are catching up or falling behind," Dr. Hickok said. </p>
<p>The study follows several recent efforts to track charter performance, including a report by the American Federation of Teachers, which showed students in charter schools lagging behind their public school peers on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Advocates of charter schools, including Education Secretary Rod Paige, criticized that report for generalizing about charter schools, which offer extremely varied educational programs in states from Massachusetts to Oregon.</p>
<p>Partly in response to the A.F.T. report, a Harvard economics professor, Caroline M. Hoxby, sped up release of a study she had been conducting comparing students in charter schools nationwide with students in the nearest neighborhood school, and with the closest public school with a similar racial makeup. </p>
<p>She found charter students were 4 percent more likely to have mastered reading and 2 percent more likely to have mastered math than students at the neighborhood schools. The proficiency levels increased by one percentage point in each subject when she compared charters to local schools with a similar racial makeup. Dr. Hoxby's strongest findings were in Washington, D.C. </p>
<p>Her report also provoked debate, with charter supporters praising her methods and findings and other researchers, who have tried to replicate her data, criticizing her for excluding some Washington charter schools from her study set and using a lower measure to determine success in charter schools. </p>
<p>Another recent study of charter schools in Washington, where 17 percent of publicly educated students attend charters, found that charters were somewhat more likely to enroll low-income students than regular public schools, less likely to enroll students with limited English, and as likely as traditional schools to enroll disabled students, said Mark Schneider, a political science professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and a co-author. The study was financed by the National Science Foundation. </p>
<p>The new Education Department report found that 43 percent of charter students were from low-income families, compared with 38 percent in regular public schools nationwide. Nine percent of charter students were disabled, compared with 12 percent in regular public schools, it said.</p>
<p>The new report attracted immediate criticism from groups representing charter schools. </p>
<p>Dan Gerstein, a spokesman for the Charter School Leadership Council, an umbrella group, said it "sheds no light on the actual performance of charter schools or the value they add to student learning" because it did not include measurements of the evolution of student achievement over several years at charters. </p>
<p>"In this respect it probably clouds the picture rather than clarifies it," Mr. Gerstein said.</p>
<p>Originaloog, Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I think I agree with you about vouchers and private schools. The fear I have is that vouchers would mainly be used by the people who are already benefiting from private schools, so your solution of a lottery system makes sense. But then again, I wonder if private schools would be able to achieve the same results if they were not able to be so selective and kick kids out who did not meet standards of performance. </p>
<p>The article about charter schools is also very interesting. Could it be that part of the issue is that charter schools may teach in different ways that do not fall easily into being measured by "state standards?" For instance, in San Diego we have a charter school, High Tech High, funded partially by the Gates Foundation, that stressed an inter-related curriculum and handson exploration of technological related topics. It's quite the "hot" school to get into - kids tend to do very well on the SATs and have been accepted to great schools (MIT, UC's, HArvard). But, friends whose son entered there in the 8th grade were shocked when his math standardized state test scores dropped 50 points. Seems the school does not teach "algebra" "geometry" "calculus" but rather a more integrated math program, depending on what students need to know for projects and research they are doing in other classes. Now, these are kids who as sophomores are doing internships at Fortune 500 firms and winning intel science fairs. They may not be getting math according to narrow topic areas, but they come out - so the school says - with the full body they need. But they aren't do well on state standardized tests that are designed to measure "algebra" "geometry" "calculus" on a unit basis. My friends decided they couldn't risk it, and moved their son back into a "regular" school.</p>