Why have 1,000 students in one school? Is there any what that this helps their education? All that travel time, the great distance away from home, with so many neighborhoods feeding the same school. Speaking of feeding, here's a school that in order to accomidate so many students, at lunch time some have to eat on the floor.
Only two reasons justify having high schools larger than elementary schools:
1. After learning basic reading, writing, and math in elementary school, now what to do with teenagers? Teaching them advanced writing, reading, and math would require educated and hard-working teachers. Lazy and uneducated teachers prefer teaching easy elective classes, like business and career awareness. You need lots of students to fill lots of stupid classes.
2. The more students, the better the sports teams! And the better you want those students to perform, the less time you need them working on advanced intellectual courses. Instead, fill their schedules with "electives".
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
2007-06-14
"By Any Means Neccessary!"...
...except school vouchers. Newark's government school system gets $17,000 / year per each kid in tax funding, with results that rank among the nation's worst, adding to the overwhelming proof that "lack of funding" cannot explain why so many government K-12 schools fail. The city's hip, young new mayor wants to address this problem via vouchers, proclaiming, "I'm the Malcolm X of education — 'By any means necessary'." However, political considerations block him from using the word "voucher."
2007-05-25
Charter School Disaster Recipe
This charter school in Detroit is getting praise, but I foresee disaster for it. I'm happy to learn that the rich white guy in Plymouth (fancy Detroit subburb) now gets to spend his $200 million building charter schools in Detroit. (Previously, Detroit's school board and mayor rejected his offer, which would have pulled more students from the normal public schools. In response, we learn here, state legislators implemented a law that disregarded that rejection.) I am sad to learn that this source of funding is getting spent on this school, University Preparatory Academy High School, which doesn't issue grades and calls its teachers "councilors". I notice that this article omits any standardized test results for this school, which I predict will be low. The school disdains "book learning" for "project based assignments." Nobody would accept such lack of rigor for a basketball team, and with good reason. Why with academics are so many of us susceptible to various easy way outs? The results are going to make charter schools look bad, I predict.
Detroit Teachers #1 Goal: Themselves (part 2)
This article blasts"tax-supported public schools independent of the city school district," which, we learn, also includes the local school board. We learn here that employees of the Detroit Public School District (DPS) are fighting to keep student enrollment from dropping from the current paltry 116,000 below the 100,000 threshold that would eliminate any cap on the number of charter schools in Detroit. Above that threshold, individuals and organizations hoping to open independent charter schools face a cap.
DPS employees -- overpaid and overly numerous administrators, plus teachers and members of the school board -- are taking extreme measures to keep their jobs. No, I don't mean eliminating useless and counter productive levels of bureaucracy, slashing administrative salaries and perks, cleaning up rampant money corruption, or overhauling the curricula to focus on the basics. No, instead they are going door-to-door to explain to parents why they should stick with DPS, and holding abandoned, vacant DPS schools unavailable to charter schools for purchase or leasing.
The article doesn't mention that charter schools get less per pupil govt dollars than do DPS schools, that they have to pay for facilities which DPS gets free from the city, and that DPS is failing despite receiving more per pupil bucks than most metro suburban districts (to which DPS students flee!).
As always I must state my view that charter schools can only truly work if they use their relative freedom from govt regulations to institute back-to-basics education taught by truly qualified academicians.
(Part 1)
DPS employees -- overpaid and overly numerous administrators, plus teachers and members of the school board -- are taking extreme measures to keep their jobs. No, I don't mean eliminating useless and counter productive levels of bureaucracy, slashing administrative salaries and perks, cleaning up rampant money corruption, or overhauling the curricula to focus on the basics. No, instead they are going door-to-door to explain to parents why they should stick with DPS, and holding abandoned, vacant DPS schools unavailable to charter schools for purchase or leasing.
The article doesn't mention that charter schools get less per pupil govt dollars than do DPS schools, that they have to pay for facilities which DPS gets free from the city, and that DPS is failing despite receiving more per pupil bucks than most metro suburban districts (to which DPS students flee!).
As always I must state my view that charter schools can only truly work if they use their relative freedom from govt regulations to institute back-to-basics education taught by truly qualified academicians.
(Part 1)
2007-05-15
Detroit Teachers #1 Goal: Themselves
Detroit teachers and school board members have one primary concern, and it's the best possible education for resident children. Rather, it's merely saving Detroit's dying school system, which means for the board members saving the institution that they run, and for the system's teachers and admins, it's saving their jobs. As these people fight to save their fiefdom, their customers -- the students and parents of Detroit -- continue to flee, and the government school system dies.
Consider that this system gets from local, state, and federal taxes pools a total of about $12k per student each year, and all its facilities are paid for. That amounts to $240k for a single 20-student classroom. How are these people managing to produce failure with such a huge budget?
Simple: As this article demonstrates, these people ensure that only they can spend this money. They use all of their waning powers prevent anybody else from taking that money and seeing if they can succeed where Detroit's government school officials have failed. This article reminds us that some racist honkey in the suburbs a few years ago offered to donate $200 million to build a set of private schools-of-choice in Detroit for Detroit residents, provided that (1) these schools operated independently of Detroit's school board; and (2) the schools received for their students that $12k per student budget. Response from those presiding over Detroit's bankrupt (literally) school system, including Mayor Kilpatrick: No.
If they had accepted, I wonder how many Detroit parents would have given it a chance.
Here's an article that touches on the corrupted spending practices of this outfit: A few months ago a new superintendent got ousted, and he says it's because he tried to expose thieving.
Consider that this system gets from local, state, and federal taxes pools a total of about $12k per student each year, and all its facilities are paid for. That amounts to $240k for a single 20-student classroom. How are these people managing to produce failure with such a huge budget?
Simple: As this article demonstrates, these people ensure that only they can spend this money. They use all of their waning powers prevent anybody else from taking that money and seeing if they can succeed where Detroit's government school officials have failed. This article reminds us that some racist honkey in the suburbs a few years ago offered to donate $200 million to build a set of private schools-of-choice in Detroit for Detroit residents, provided that (1) these schools operated independently of Detroit's school board; and (2) the schools received for their students that $12k per student budget. Response from those presiding over Detroit's bankrupt (literally) school system, including Mayor Kilpatrick: No.
If they had accepted, I wonder how many Detroit parents would have given it a chance.
Here's an article that touches on the corrupted spending practices of this outfit: A few months ago a new superintendent got ousted, and he says it's because he tried to expose thieving.
2006-09-22
Detroit Public School Failure: Money, Racism? No!
Clearly money and/or racism cannot explain the continuing implosion of Detroit's public school system. For 30 or so years blacks have run the system and all city government. The fleeing of students from the system for at least 20 years has been all "black flight", as the district is 90% black, and has lost about 60,000 students between 2001 (160k students) and today in 2006 (about 100k). According to this article, DPS "enrollment dropped 23 percent between 1994 and 2005 but its per-pupil revenue increased 94 percent." In absolute terms, "Detroit received $11,631 per full-time student in state, federal and local cash -- more than several suburban districts."
I am attempting to verify that figure, and identify the "several suburban districts" that receive less per-pupil funds than does DPS (the Detroit News article's reference is vague). Many appolgists for failing public school systems claim that the failing systems get unfairly starved of funds, and that this at least partially explains their failure.
If these figures are accurate, they present more evidence that the failure of TODAY's black-majority public schools do not result from racism or lack of funding. As presented before on this blog, one of the nation's worst public schools is DS's, which also is the highest-funded and tied for most dominated by black municipal and school officials and teachers.
RL readers know that I believe US schools in general, including private schools, are slipping into medicrity, as are its students in general. But black students in particular, and the schools where they dominate, are on average performing much worse than average. Those school, and those students, more than any others need the reforms that I have articulated for solving all academic problems:
1. Require teachers to have BS and BA degrees in academic fields; eliminate "Education" as an accepted field.
2. Eliminate electives and all non-academic classes from the curricula.
3. Require non-english seconary language for all students every day K-12. As a practical matter, we won't fire all the Education teachers. But we will stop hiring them. And we'll stop increasing salaries for teachers who get advanced degrees in Education, but instead for scholarly degrees.
4. Require musical instrument every day K-12 for all students.
5. Eliminate inter-scholastic athletics from schools; shift those to local Parks and Recreation departments.
6. Transform some high schools to trade schools for students who prefer learning trades to earning a High School diploma. Take these facilities seriously, so that graduates with a "Trade Certificate" have something of value. Include some mandatory classes in reading, writing, and math, the sort of watered-down classes that dominate most of the current failing schools.
7. Declare some factilities as daycare holding pens for students who refuse to participate at either High Schools or Trade Schools.
8. Eliminate all non-academic activities from the school day: No AIDS Awareness or Career Awareness assemblies; no visits from local professional sports teams; no Just Say No rallies; no field trips.
9. Extend the school day, and reduce homework. When kids leave at 4:30pm, they should be ready to have fun and participate in sports. With all the above reforms, students will spend more time on scholarly matters, under the tutalidge of subject matter experts. Eight hours of serious scholarly work should be enough!
10. Eliminate junk food, and replace cafeteria foods with nurishing foods.
11. Eliminate mandatory attendance. Students who refuse to participate productively will get shifted over to the Daycare Holding Pens, where they will have options to earn their way back to schools. We cannot let refractory children ruin the sacred teacher-student efforts! Preachers and coaches would not tolerate such behavior, and teachers must not either!
12. Vouchers! And not just partial vouchers, or only vouchers for peopel below a special income level. Full vouchers... for everyone! Let Detroit parents have the full $11, 000 to spend were ever they like. The market will demonstrate who makes the better schools.
Black schools and black students need these reforms, on average, more than anybody else.
I am attempting to verify that figure, and identify the "several suburban districts" that receive less per-pupil funds than does DPS (the Detroit News article's reference is vague). Many appolgists for failing public school systems claim that the failing systems get unfairly starved of funds, and that this at least partially explains their failure.
If these figures are accurate, they present more evidence that the failure of TODAY's black-majority public schools do not result from racism or lack of funding. As presented before on this blog, one of the nation's worst public schools is DS's, which also is the highest-funded and tied for most dominated by black municipal and school officials and teachers.
RL readers know that I believe US schools in general, including private schools, are slipping into medicrity, as are its students in general. But black students in particular, and the schools where they dominate, are on average performing much worse than average. Those school, and those students, more than any others need the reforms that I have articulated for solving all academic problems:
1. Require teachers to have BS and BA degrees in academic fields; eliminate "Education" as an accepted field.
2. Eliminate electives and all non-academic classes from the curricula.
3. Require non-english seconary language for all students every day K-12. As a practical matter, we won't fire all the Education teachers. But we will stop hiring them. And we'll stop increasing salaries for teachers who get advanced degrees in Education, but instead for scholarly degrees.
4. Require musical instrument every day K-12 for all students.
5. Eliminate inter-scholastic athletics from schools; shift those to local Parks and Recreation departments.
6. Transform some high schools to trade schools for students who prefer learning trades to earning a High School diploma. Take these facilities seriously, so that graduates with a "Trade Certificate" have something of value. Include some mandatory classes in reading, writing, and math, the sort of watered-down classes that dominate most of the current failing schools.
7. Declare some factilities as daycare holding pens for students who refuse to participate at either High Schools or Trade Schools.
8. Eliminate all non-academic activities from the school day: No AIDS Awareness or Career Awareness assemblies; no visits from local professional sports teams; no Just Say No rallies; no field trips.
9. Extend the school day, and reduce homework. When kids leave at 4:30pm, they should be ready to have fun and participate in sports. With all the above reforms, students will spend more time on scholarly matters, under the tutalidge of subject matter experts. Eight hours of serious scholarly work should be enough!
10. Eliminate junk food, and replace cafeteria foods with nurishing foods.
11. Eliminate mandatory attendance. Students who refuse to participate productively will get shifted over to the Daycare Holding Pens, where they will have options to earn their way back to schools. We cannot let refractory children ruin the sacred teacher-student efforts! Preachers and coaches would not tolerate such behavior, and teachers must not either!
12. Vouchers! And not just partial vouchers, or only vouchers for peopel below a special income level. Full vouchers... for everyone! Let Detroit parents have the full $11, 000 to spend were ever they like. The market will demonstrate who makes the better schools.
Black schools and black students need these reforms, on average, more than anybody else.
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