@intparent Here is the article http://www.bridgemi.com/talent-education/michigan-shuts-down-bad-schools-leading-states-build-them
I think it is difficult to argue that parents should have but one choice for a school and that the choice is determined by their address. Poor people are allowed more discretion with their cell phone service.
I really don’t see why there is so much controversy about this subject, except for the fact that almost the entire population have been educated in public schools and have been conditioned to think that that is the best way to be educated. Michigan charters are doing at least as good a job as public schools at around half of the cost. They are not burdening the taxpayers with huge debts. Detroit public schools is in the hole for over $500 million even after their first bailout, and they are coming back to the state for more money. Charters don’t do that.
For example, public schools make a huge effort to get students to attend on ‘count day’. That is the day that determines how many students are enrolled and the schools state reimbursement. The schools hold parties and events just to get the students to show up. They don’t care about them for the rest of the year.
If you look at the actual textbooks used in the 1920’s in junior high schools, you will find that they are the rough equivalent of high school textbooks today. The curriculum is dumbed down to make the schools look better. In everything else, more choices means more competition, which always improves quality. We have had a public school monopoly for almost a century and quality has fallen dramatically, especially in the cities. New Orleans and Detroit are two prime examples of a system that experienced a shock (floods/bankruptcy) and was replaced with something more effective (charters).
Michigan charters tend to be concentrated in urban cores. Comparing their results with better suburban districts is unreasonable. They should be compared to urban schools. That is one of the reasons that they do not appear as high on the rankings. Another is that they do not teach to the assessments.
The US has the best college system in the world because there is so much competition. It seems odd that we want to maintain a union monopoly to feed it. Bad schools should fail. I am especially saddened that people believe that parents are not equipped to evaluate a school. That’s a pretty arrogant and paternalistic attitude typical of bureaucrats. Somehow people manage to make lots of other choices own their own.
Why do you call public school a “union monopoly?” Is you local police force then one too? What most people fail to see is the power they actually hold in their public schools in most places. I can not comment on all states, but I know how it works in mine.
We vote for our local school board. We can attend and speak at school board meetings. We vote on the budget that we have full access to. We have access to decision makers within the administration, including curriculum.
Yes, you can make a difference in your public school.
Not exactly if one actually looks at the history.
US colleges didn’t become the best in the world until during/after WWII due to the combination of massive brain drain from Fascist occupied countries in Europe and Asia from the 30’s and 40’s, massive US government funding of science and area studies programs(Roots of Eastern European and East Asian studies programs in Elite/respectable colleges), massive US government spending on hundreds of college campuses to send officer trainees for some university education/exposure(i.e. US Navy V-12 program), and of course…an influx of returning WWII veterans taking advantage of the GI Bill to enroll in hundreds of colleges across the country.
Before WWII, the best universities in the world were in Europe.
Some of the best research universities before the early '30s were in Germany. However, once the Nazis took over, their anti-semitic and intolerance for perceived political opponents meant most of the topflight Profs were forced to leave their jobs and emigrate. Most of them ended up here which benefited the US colleges system at the expense of the German universities where they were formerly employed. To a large extent, the German University system and the European universities to a lesser extent are still making up for the cumulative effects of Nazi policies/war/occupation to this very day.
A glimpse of this could be seen from this American Math Society article about how Gottingen’s status as a topflight institution in the world for the study of math precipitously declined once the Nazis came into power and imposed their antisemitism and intolerance for even a whiff of political dissent:
http://www.ams.org/notices/199510/maclane.pdf
Actually, in most other parts of the world, including societies with higher performing K-12 students, parents aren’t allowed to choose which public school to send their kids and up until recently…parents mostly did defer to the expertise of their educators. However, the academic standards by the centralized board of education for the public K-12 tended to be set very high.
One illustration of this was an older HS alum who left the ROC(Taiwan) after attending finishing 5th grade at a regular public elementary school in a working-class neighborhood. Despite being placed in the SP/gifted classes in US public elementary and middle schools, he recounted he literally learned nothing new in math or most other subjects except English and US history/social studies until well into second semester of 9th grade at our STEM-centered public magnet.
And his older brother who graduated from our HS a couple of years earlier than him had the exact same experience…except he coasted until his junior year of HS because he had a year or two of middle school which included lab sciences most US students take in HS(biology/chem/physics with lab).
Charter schools are fine by me–but they are not an educational panacea. They may do slightly better than a public school that takes “all comers” in the same area, but part of that is almost certainly due to a higher level of interest in education on the part of the parents who move their children into charter schools.
As far as the cost per pupil goes, the pdf document here:
http://www.michigan.gov/documents/PSAQA_54517_7.pdf
indicates that the charter schools in Michigan receive the per pupil base foundation funding through the State School Aid Act, and that it may not exceed the funding of the public schools in the same geographical region. Given that the vast majority of public schools in Michigan are at the “minimum” per pupil level and that a large number of the rest are between “minimum” and “basic” funding (see my earlier post for the numbers and dollar figures), it seems improbable to me that In Michigan the charter schools are educating students for half the cost per pupil.
Also, when it comes to special events to encourage students to show up for “Count Day” in the schools–did any of the parents on this forum let their chidden skip school, aside from quite rare events like Senior Skip Day or a mild illness where the go/no-go decision could have been close to call?
I don’t fault the families for having difficulty getting their children to school in general–though I don’t think it is typical for CC families–because I think the underlying causes are the socioeconomic circumstances that affect student performance in a whole host of ways.
Not surprising at all, imo.
While K-12 school choices are superficially analogous to college choices, in practice, the choice is far more dependent on parental factors for K-12 than for college.
- When comparing public, private, and charter K-12 schools, it is not always the case that common measures are available, so the comparison may be more difficult than for colleges. This can make it more difficult to become well informed about what schools are better fits.
- Few K-12 students attend boarding schools, and their commuting range is generally smaller (and more parent dependent) than for college students, which can severely limit what K-12 schools are available to them even in a theoretically free choice environment. I.e. a given family may not actually have that many choices when commuting range is taken into account.
- When private schools are included in the mix, some may have tuition that is not affordable (even after financial aid if offered), further reducing choice.
Of course, this does not mean that college choices are purely based on student merit and preferences. Even for colleges, parental SES is an extremely strong factor in college choice (mainly by affordability limitations) for students of similar academic merit. But it is likely to be even greater for K-12.
@cobrat, I work with Chinese international students applying to American colleges, and I’ve actually been surprised that the majority of my students’ parents seemed to have some choice about where they went to elementary, middle and high school. It’s apparently not uncommon for kids to “board” even as early as elementary school.
Mainland China is an exception due to the cumulative negative effects of the Cultural Revolution which reinstituted competitive examinations for universities and college-prep high schools with a vengeance combined with a new generation of parents, especially those of the newly created upper/upper-middle class feeling disenchanted with this competitive examination regime within the last decade.
Also, keep in mind the vast majority of Chinese international students…especially those applying to American colleges for undergrad are from the upper/upper-middle class MINORITY and thus, aren’t indicative of the average Mainland Chinese student.
Especially considering many are turning to going to the US/Abroad not only because of parental wealth, but also because their academic/national college entrance exam performance wasn’t good enough for the most elite tier or two of Mainland Chinese colleges. This was the case even with some Ivy undergrads that I’ve encountered that a visiting Chinese Prof happened to know of due to prior acquaintance*.
- Later found out said Prof knew the parents of those undergrads because they occasionally meet as senior tenured Profs from different universities in the same geographic region in Mainland China.
@WISdad23 I partly agree with your argument that the left always advocates for more resources. What I don’t agree with is the assertion that parents have no say in the kind of education their kids get. NOT TRUE!