Teaching Capitalism in our Schools

[Genoobie]

What are you talking about? Tie money to the kid? In a free market system there would be no money "tied" to anyone. There would be no public education. It would all be privatized. Those families without money would simply get little or no education. That's fine. Then we could wall off large areas in most cities and just turn them into prisons.

Incidentally, if there's money to be made from the most challenging kids why don't the excellent private institutions of the area volunteer to take the most challenging students and show us all how it is done. Say make 15% of Nichols' or Canisius' student body, 9 through 12 grade right from the bottom performers in Buffalo. No enrollment, no lottery, just slice off a bunch of low performing students and show us all how this is done. Publish their test scores for all of us. Heck, send the full payment along with them. I'd love to see it. Sorry...what's that? That would never happen? You have some excuse? Right about everything as usual...

FYI, I never have blamed the parents. I do an excellent job with what I am given. I work my tail off to help kids whose parents likely never took math or science beyond 8th grade (even if they did graduate high school it was likely with a very low level of both of these subjects). However, I am not so naive to suggest that home life doesn't have any impact. Kids who arrive at high school with a 5th grade reading level don't get there solely because of poor teachers as you'd like to imply.

[leftWNYbecauseofBS]

What are you talking about? Tie money to the kid? In a free market system there would be no money "tied" to anyone. There would be no public education. It would all be privatized. Those families without money would simply get little or no education. That's fine. Then we could wall off large areas in most cities and just turn them into prisons.

You're taking a naive and extreme view of Capitalism. Nice try.

Schools could be privately owned and run for a profit. There is nothing saying that the US government could not purchase educational services from these private companies. The difference is, if a school no longer produces, their services would not longer be purchased.

Of course did not expect you to understand such a simple concept.

Incidentally, if there's money to be made from the most challenging kids why don't the excellent private institutions of the area volunteer to take the most challenging students and show us all how it is done. Say make 15% of Nichols' or Canisius' student body, 9 through 12 grade right from the bottom performers in Buffalo. No enrollment, no lottery, just slice off a bunch of low performing students and show us all how this is done. Publish their test scores for all of us. Heck, send the full payment along with them. I'd love to see it. Sorry...what's that? That would never happen? You have some excuse? Right about everything as usual...

Because in order to service the kids with the most needs you need to treat them differently. A typical, and very ignorant, suggestion is to put kids with special needs at Nichols or Canisius.

That is the point that you always miss. ALL KIDS DO NOT FIT INSIDE OF THE SAME BOX. Yet teachers have to sell this BS because they run the big box and simply want the money. If you really cared about kids...you (as in your union) would at least admit that you (as in your public schools) are not fit to educate a large portion of the student body and suggest alternatives.

But of course you do not do this because it would mean money leaving your box...leaving the table of your next contract negotiations and leaving your pension fund.

FYI, I never have blamed the parents. I do an excellent job with what I am given. I work my tail off to help kids whose parents likely never took math or science beyond 8th grade (even if they did graduate high school it was likely with a very low level of both of these subjects). However, I am not so naive to suggest that home life doesn't have any impact. Kids who arrive at high school with a 5th grade reading level don't get there solely because of poor teachers as you'd like to imply.

You have indirectly blamed the parents. Additionally, while the teachers are not solely responsible...they are the only ones who were compensated for failure.

If I were to send an invoice to a client for work that was not completed, I would not get paid. I would be fired and eventually I would not longer get jobs to perform the same task that I could not complete.

There are many possible solutions to the problem but the challenge is the current system does not allow for any solutions to be implemented. Since education is for the most part is 'owned' by the teachers unions, they are the only service provider to work with. This is why your union fights charter schools with such tenacity.

If charters were welcomed with open arms we both know the eventual arrival of boarding schools for the most troubled would exist. Eventually, these schools would put a serious dent in the challenges that you mention and lead people to question the public school system. It would become...if they can produce THOSE results with THOSE kids...what can be the results with MY kids where I am ACTIVE. In short, it is the string on the sweater that you are never to pull.

[Genoobie]

I don't think you really understand charters or the present system of education.

1) The state mandates for curriculum. That means every kid has to fit inside the same box. This is not a union generated mandate incidentally as teachers fought against the removal of the local diploma. There is presently only a regents diploma. This means charter schools can only appear to innovate curriculum, but ultimately they must fill the same role as public schools. Were charters forced to take a representative sample of BPS kids they would would not be able to compete with BPS. Why you may ask? Charter school teachers have a significantly higher teacher turnover (once teachers train at a charter they tend to leave for public schools) the turnover rates are usually beyond 20%. Don't believe me? Look at the NYS report cards.

2) Incidentally, suppose you compare a school such as Tapestry with Hutch Tech, you find that Hutch Tech outperforms Tapestry on state assessments with roughly the same demographic (Tech has a greater percentage of poorer kids though because BPS cannot exclude kids such as Tapestry does by not providing transportation). Granted, state assessments are not a great measure of a school's performance, but this is the metric the state has chosen (unsurprisingly).

If you were to say abolish state mandates and take make the charters not-for-profits with strong anti-trust laws, salary caps for administrators and limitations on the number of administrators per school, then I might get behind the movement for charters.

I wouldn't call my view of capitalism naive, the logical end of a capitalist system is a free-market economy. You want some kind of pseudo-capitalist system where the government is serving as a contracting agency. Well, the way to get contracts then is to lobby the government (a la Blackwater, Bechtel, Haliburton, et. al.). Why would you expect education to turn out differently? In fact, if you know anything about it, Pearson has already positioned itself to become the supplier of curriculum for the new "common core" to NYS. Providing assessments and data analysis (those are the expert consultants who will measure the teacher's performance).

Lastly, I think I am done talking with you. There are times you make good points but you do it in a condescending matter. You are arrogant and the reason you are arrogant is that you assume you must be correct. This discussion is supposed to be an enlightened debate. Suggesting that

Don't worry lefty, pretty soon the private companies will come in, suck all the money out of education and mostly turn out a product that nobody wants, except they won't close because they will be politically connected.

[WNYresident]

Don't worry lefty, pretty soon the private companies will come in, suck all the money out of education and mostly turn out a product that nobody wants, except they won't close because they will be politically connected.

But it will cost everyone else less and right now we see the results that are produced.

[leftWNYbecauseofBS]

I don't think you really understand charters or the present system of education.

I am not concerned with the current. The whole system is messed up. I am speaking of a hypothetical system.

The state mandates for curriculum. That means every kid has to fit inside the same box. This is not a union generated mandate incidentally as teachers fought against the removal of the local diploma. There is presently only a regents diploma. This means charter schools can only appear to innovate curriculum, but ultimately they must fill the same role as public schools. Were charters forced to take a representative sample of BPS kids they would would not be able to compete with BPS. Why you may ask? Charter school teachers have a significantly higher teacher turnover (once teachers train at a charter they tend to leave for public schools) the turnover rates are usually beyond 20%. Don't believe me? Look at the NYS report cards.

Are you suggesting the teachers union has no say in what the state does? Are you implying that the state comes to decisions without outside consideration? Again..I am not speaking about the current charter system. Everything in education is tainted.

Until the whole system is blown up and started from scratch...none of current results should be considered in a hypothetical conversation...especially since the basis of that conversation is to blow up the current system.

Incidentally, suppose you compare a school such as Tapestry with Hutch Tech, you find that Hutch Tech outperforms Tapestry on state assessments with roughly the same demographic (Tech has a greater percentage of poorer kids though because BPS cannot exclude kids such as Tapestry does by not providing transportation). Granted, state assessments are not a great measure of a school's performance, but this is the metric the state has chosen (unsurprisingly).

See above.

If you were to say abolish state mandates and take make the charters not-for-profits with strong anti-trust laws, salary caps for administrators and limitations on the number of administrators per school, then I might get behind the movement for charters.

Why do you care what an administrator makes. Why put a cap on it? Again..all that matters is the results. If a system is found to work where there are 50 kids in a room and administrators make $1M a year....why regulate against it? IT WORKS.

Your ideas are good example of teachers trying to inject ideas forged from a broken system into a new one. You don't do that. If technology worked that way...we would all be rocking hi-fi beta max players right now.

I wouldn't call my view of capitalism naive, the logical end of a capitalist system is a free-market economy. You want some kind of pseudo-capitalist system where the government is serving as a contracting agency. Well, the way to get contracts then is to lobby the government (a la Blackwater, Bechtel, Haliburton, et. al.). Why would you expect education to turn out differently? In fact, if you know anything about it, Pearson has already positioned itself to become the supplier of curriculum for the new "common core" to NYS. Providing assessments and data analysis (those are the expert consultants who will measure the teacher's performance).

The funny thing about it is people view the education system as being just as corrupt as Blackwater. Think about that for a second.

Furthermore, I do think education would be different as the accounting would be simple. Each student = $X. What more profits...do more with less of X but watch out because the X is not guaranteed. The contract is as simple as a parent registering for school.

By the way...do you think the Pell Grant system or Universities are like Blackwater?

Lastly, I think I am done talking with you. There are times you make good points but you do it in a condescending matter. You are arrogant and the reason you are arrogant is that you assume you must be correct. This discussion is supposed to be an enlightened debate. Suggesting that

Don't worry lefty, pretty soon the private companies will come in, suck all the money out of education and mostly turn out a product that nobody wants, except they won't close because they will be politically connected.

That is fine. Have fun with your toys.

But since you closed with one additional point. Just who do you think is sucking the money out of education today? I guess having a plastic surgery rider is not sucking out money but a company making a profit is. Got it.

[WNYresident]

Why do you care what an administrator makes. Why put a cap on it? Again..all that matters is the results. If a system is found to work where there are 50 kids in a room and administrators make $1M a year....why regulate against it? IT WORKS.

Your ideas are good example of teachers trying to inject ideas forged from a broken system into a new one. You don't do that. If technology worked that way...we would all be rocking hi-fi beta max players right now.

You have to. If you let gave someone the choice to set their pay we would have people in government making 150,000+ with very little accountability as it is. Opps... too late.