So let me get this school choice thing right.

[dude1394]

So here is a report card on Wisconsin's school choice program. It started with 341 children but now has grown to 15,000 poorer children attending 120 private schools.

But somehow the democrat party thinks getting 15,000 poor children into private schools is a BAD idea. The democrats continue to damage the very people they espouse to protect. As the Harvard Economist in this article states. "Harvard economist Caroline Hoxby has found that the more competition a public school faces in Milwaukee from private school choice, the greater its academic improvement."

But the democrats say....can't have that, we're too beholden to the NEA to care about actually educating children.

My fervent desire is that the complete public school system is dismantled in favor of a voucher system. Why you could even send your child to a school that did NOT have football (sacrilege I know in texas) but maybe it would be a school that focused on math contests instead. Huh...

...................................

school choice

SCHOOL CHOICE:
LESSONS LEARNED

By SCOTT JENSEN

April 30, 2005 -- FIFTEEN years ago this week, Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson signed into law the nation's first urban school-choice program, letting poor parents use public funds to choose their children's schools.

The state's poorest children were locked into a failing public-school system in Milwaukee where one-third of the children were failing all of their classes and fewer children could expect to graduate than in any other major city in America. So a conservative small-town governor joined with Rep. Polly Williams, an African-American Democrat and Jesse Jackson supporter, to build a narrow bipartisan majority to give Milwaukee's families a new choice and a new hope for their children's future.

Over 15 years, the merits of the Milwaukee program have been argued by academics, litigated by lawyers and both promoted and pummeled by politicians. Looking back, some clear lessons appear:

The Market Works: Markets encourage innovative products to meet consumers' needs while flushing out poorly run businesses and inferior products. In 15 years, the Milwaukee program has grown from an experiment involving 341 children attending seven private schools to a well-established program of around 15,000 poor children attending nearly 120 private schools. Next year, more than 170 private schools hope to participate, reaching or exceeding the cap limiting scholarships to 15 percent of public-school students.

Some of Milwaukee's poorest neighborhoods now host a building boom of more than $100 million in new private school construction. A handful of "scandal schools" failed, but no longer exist because parents moved their children to better schools. Critics point to these school closings as a sign of failure, but I see them as confirmation that the market works. In the public system, underperforming schools stay open.

Competition Improves Public Schools: Former Superintendent Spence Korte has credited choice with providing the pressure he needed to force long-needed changes within the public school system. "Like many other monopolistic operations, you get a little complacent when you're the only game in town," he said. "We needed to be able to compete, to really get better." Present Superintendent Bill Andrekopoulus has said that this "competitive nature has raised the bar for educators in Milwaukee to provide a good product or know that parents will simply walk."

Test scores have climbed each year from 1997 to 2004 in 12 of 15 grade and subject areas. Harvard economist Caroline Hoxby has found that the more competition a public school faces in Milwaukee from private school choice, the greater its academic improvement.

Parents and Voters Like Choice: Each year, thousands seek to enter Milwaukee's school-choice program. Polls show 60 percent of voters statewide back school choice and support nears 80 percent in some of Milwaukee's poorest neighborhoods. The program is popular with taxpayers because it saves money — one credible estimate places property taxpayer savings at more than $100 million.

Children's Lives Are Transformed: In one central city intersection where a horrible shooting occurred years ago, three innovative schools now stand: one attached to a Baptist church, a Lutheran grade school with a public Montessori kindergarten inside (taught by two public school teachers who are union members) and a public elementary school down the street. All three have recently experienced academic improvements and new capital investment, thanks to the choice program. Some of the kids in these schools will go to Messmer High School, the stellar Catholic school where 83 percent of students go on to college despite growing up poor in a minority neighborhood.

Freedom Is the Future: Today, 15 years after the fragile start of Milwaukee's school-choice experiment, hundreds of thousands of children in 11 states and the District of Columbia have the freedom to choose a school that will transform their lives. This year, a record number of legislatures are considering school-choice programs in their state.

I am confident 15 years from now we will marvel that schools were once chosen by bureaucrats, not parents, and that only children from wealthy families were permitted to attend the best schools in their community. Fifteen years from now the lessons learned will be just as clear: In the end, freedom always wins.

[MFFL41]

Democrats are dumb, that's all im saying

[Epitome22]

Originally posted by: dude1394
So here is a report card on Wisconsin's school choice program. It started with 341 children but now has grown to 15,000 poorer children attending 120 private schools.

But somehow the democrat party thinks getting 15,000 poor children into private schools is a BAD idea.

They think no such thing. They are adverse to stripping funding from Public schools.

The democrats continue to damage the very people they espouse to protect.

They aren't damaging anyone. They are doing their best to ensure the promise of a free public education.

As the Harvard Economist in this article states. "Harvard economist Caroline Hoxby has found that the more competition a public school faces in Milwaukee from private school choice, the greater its academic improvement."

Well Duh! Democrats know school choice and competition improves performance, That's why they are in favor of public school choice and individual school autonomy by favoring charter schools. Democrats even experiment with vouchers. They do not however support stripping funds for public schools for some redistributive project.

But the democrats say....can't have that, we're too beholden to the NEA to care about actually educating children.

As always, you are high on rhetoric and low on facts.

My fervent desire is that the complete public school system is dismantled in favor of a voucher system.

For some reason I'm not surprised, and I suspect this was the primary motivation of you bringing this topic up.

[dude1394]

Sure it's my fervent desire and so what? It's typical of yourself to continue to defend the status quo no matter the outcome. It does play to another of your constituencies, NEA and labor unions.

For some reason I'm not surprised that you are willing to kow-tow to the NEA and labor unions no matter the cost to childrens education.

[Epitome22]

Originally posted by: dude1394
Sure it's my fervent desire and so what?

If it's your fervent desire, fine. Many on the hard right such as yourself would like nothing more than to bankrupt the public education system and prevent others the opportunity to get ahead. Just don't pretend to dress it up as something it isn't.

It's typical of yourself to continue to defend the status quo no matter the outcome.

This is another tired meme, often repeated by you. If someone proposed a system of single payer universal health care and you objected and railed against it, would that make you a reactionary defending the status quo? Please employ new cliche and rhetoric.

For some reason I'm not surprised that you are willing to kow-tow to the NEA and labor unions no matter the cost to childrens education.

It doesen't surprise me that you would dress up your hatered for public education and desire to see it dismantled as fake compassion for underprivileged kids in urban areas.

[dude1394]

Hmmm....why would I not want a system that allowed parents the choice of sending their children whereever they wanted? The same dollars would be spent but spent wisely instead of having the large amount of overhead and waste that acoompanies public schools.

Why do we rank so high in spending per capita yet do not see the results of that spending?

Your solution is the solution of the democrat party... Nothing.....More money to the NEA and Unions and governement workers. No matter that it continues to be a failure. It's typical of liberals who place their own children in private schools to deny their constituencies the same opportunity.

[Epitome22]

Originally posted by: dude1394
Hmmm....why would I not want a system that allowed parents the choice of sending their children whereever they wanted? The same dollars would be spent but spent wisely instead of having the large amount of overhead and waste that acoompanies public schools.

You already do. You have your free choice of public and private schools. Find one. Senc your kid to one.

Why do we rank so high in spending per capita yet do not see the results of that spending?

Obviously spending more money (or less money) on education isn't having any direct effect on the woes of our National Education. The source lies somewhere else.

Your solution is the solution of the democrat party... Nothing.....More money to the NEA and Unions and governement workers.

Not that that is my solution at all, but even if it was, crude cliche stereotype and all, even it would be morally sound compared to your position of simply abolishing public schools.

No matter that it continues to be a failure. It's typical of liberals who place their own children in private schools to deny their constituencies the same opportunity.

Liberals aren't denying you the ability to do anything. You wanna send your kid to a private school, send em to a private school. Nobody is stopping you. If certain liberals want to send their kids to private schools, fine. They aren't going to stop contributing funding to public schools so kids who don't go to private schools can't get an education. They aren't that selfish.

[dude1394]

You already do. You have your free choice of public and private schools. Find one. Senc your kid to one.

Great, good advice for those folks who can't afford it. Also good advice for those pulling the cart. Yup...

Obviously spending more money (or less money) on education isn't having any direct effect on the woes of our National Education. The source lies somewhere else.

Well....dontcha' sorta think that might be my point?

Liberals aren't denying you the ability to do anything. You wanna send your kid to a private school, send em to a private school. Nobody is stopping you. If certain liberals want to send their kids to private schools, fine. They aren't going to stop contributing funding to public schools so kids who don't go to private schools can't get an education. They aren't that selfish.

Sure they are... Instead of providing those tax dollars to someone and have the market provide better schools, they trap lower income people into crappy public schools with no recourse. You wish it were not so but it is. Keeping people on the public dole is the business of the democrat party and liberals.

[Epitome22]

Originally posted by: dude1394

Great, good advice for those folks who can't afford it. Also good advice for those pulling the cart. Yup...

for those that can't afford Private school, and that's alot, that's why we have public schools. You know, the concept that everyone is entitled to a Free Public education no matter their economic status?

Well....dontcha' sorta think that might be my point?

As far as I could tell, your point was public schools are bad and should be destroyed. I didn't see anything relating to more or less spending.

Sure they are... Instead of providing those tax dollars to someone

Provide tax dollars to who'm?

and have the market provide better schools, they trap lower income people into crappy public schools with no recourse. You wish it were not so but it is. Keeping people on the public dole is the business of the democrat party and liberals.

They aren't trapping lower income people into anything. Quite the contrary. They are providing for the general welfare of those who cannot afford private school, a free public education, in a situation where they would otherwise have none.



Let's stop all this nonsensical back and forth and I'll pose a simple question. Would you, as a tax payer be comfortable with the money you use to pay into general tax revenue, being used to fund several kid's education and allow them to pick a public or private school of their choice, even if they otherwise wouldn't be able to afford to go to said school? Or are you proposing something different?

[dude1394]

Let's stop all this nonsensical back and forth and I'll pose a simple question. Would you, as a tax payer be comfortable with the money you use to pay into general tax revenue, being used to fund several kid's education and allow them to pick a public or private school of their choice, even if they otherwise wouldn't be able to afford to go to said school? Or are you proposing something different?

Yes in principle. What I believe is that the dollars that are collected by the federal government as well as the local state could be more effectively utilized if those dollars were provided to students to use in the school of their choice. I believe the schools would be better and the parents would be more involved, with much less beauracracy and politicking by the school boards of large and small cities.

Issues would have to be made for challenged children but I would have no issue with an increase in vouchers for those children.

[Epitome22]

Some proponents of school choice simply want to eliminate publically funded education but the type of voucher program described in this article (I admit I didn't read it thoroughly the first time) Is one I could definitely support. Some people believe that vouchers make public schools underperform by gutting their funding and saddling them with the kids the private schools don't want. If such a program implemented resulted in underperforming public schools I might reconsider but if it can repeatedly improve public school performance as well as letting market forces improve education then I am all for it. If you are for such a program as described in the article then I apologize for calling you selfish and take that insult back.

[dude1394]

Apology accepted. I've always been for public financed education as it's one of the great levelers.

Also it's one of the reasons that I have not been upset as a conservative with NCLB, even though it's increased federal dollars for public schools, i've had heated discussion with other conservatives who make a valid point that it should be state based only, but I feel that getting measurable results is worth it. Unfortunately the voucher section had to be basically removed to get democrat support.. IMO all politics as poll after poll shows that the democrats core constituencies, blacks, the poor want school choice and vouchers..

[MFFL41]

epitome, the federal governemnt shouldn't have been involved int he public school system in the first place. It should have been the state's responsibilty. What's so hard about giving children and their parents choices, just so the public schools don't get more money to srew around with. If the schools aren't doing their job like they should, then people should have choice. Democrats are the pro-choice party, but when it comes to taxes, education, etc, theres actually no choice.

Do you know that America is somewhere near the end of the worlds best education systems? Somethings not working. Feeding a machine millions and milions of dollars and it not reaping benefits is just retarded.

[MavKikiNYC]

May 6, 2005
Tuning in to Jon Stewart, and Britney Schmidt
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Many authors hate to go on grinding book tours. But I've always found it a useful way to be a foreign correspondent in America and take the pulse of the country. Here are the two most important things I learned from a recent book tour:

First, many educated people seem to be getting their news from Comedy Central. Say what? As any author will tell you, the best TV book shows to be on have long been Don Imus, Charlie Rose, C-Span, Tim Russert on CNBC, "Today," Oprah and selected programs on CNN, Fox and MSNBC. They are all still huge. But what was new for me on this tour was the number of people who also mentioned getting their news from Jon Stewart's truly funny news satire, "The Daily Show." And I am not just talking about college kids. I am talking about grandmas. Just how many people are now getting their only TV news from Comedy Central is not clear to me - but it is a lot, lot more than you think.

Second, and this may be related to the first, there's a huge undertow of worry out in the country about how our kids are being educated and whether they'll be able to find jobs in an increasingly flat world, where more Chinese, Indians and Russians than ever can connect, collaborate and compete with us. In three different cities I had parents ask me some version of: "My daughter [or son] is studying Chinese in high school. That's the right thing to do, isn't it?"

Not being an educator, I can't give any such advice. But my own research has taught me that the most important thing you can learn in this era of heightened global competition is how to learn. Being really good at "learning how to learn," as President Bill Brody of Johns Hopkins put it, will be an enormous asset in an era of rapid change and innovation, when new jobs will be phased in and old ones phased out faster than ever.

O.K., one ninth grader in St. Paul asked me, then "what courses should I take?" How do you learn how to learn? Hmm. Maybe, I said, the best way to learn how to learn is to go ask your friends: "Who are the best teachers?" Then - no matter the subject - take their courses. When I think back on my favorite teachers, I don't remember anymore much of what they taught me, but I sure remember being excited about learning it.

What has stayed with me are not the facts they imparted, but the excitement about learning they inspired. To learn how to learn, you have to love learning - while some people are born with that gene, many others can develop it with the right teacher (or parent).

There was a great piece in the April 24 Education Life section of The New York Times that described Britney Schmidt, a student at the University of Arizona who was utterly bored with her courses, mostly because her professors seemed interested only in giving lectures and leaving. "I was getting A's in all my classes, but I wasn't being challenged, and I wasn't thinking about new things," she said.

She had to take a natural science course, though, and it turned out to have a great professor and teaching assistants, who inspired her. "I was lucky," she said. "I took a class from somebody who really cared." The result: a scientist was born. Ms. Schmidt has since been accepted to graduate school at U.C.L.A. in planetary physics and the University of Chicago in cosmo-chemistry.

I just interviewed Craig Barrett, the chief executive of Intel, which has invested millions of dollars in trying to improve the way science is taught in U.S. schools. (The Wall Street Journal noted yesterday that China is graduating four times the number of engineers as the U.S.; Japan, with less than half our population, graduates double the number.)

In today's flat world, Mr. Barrett said, Intel can be a totally successful company without ever hiring another American. That is not its desire or intention, he said, but the fact is that it can now hire the best brain talent "wherever it resides."

If you look at where Intel is making its new engineering investments today, he said, it is in China, India, Russia, Poland and, to a lesser extent, Malaysia and Israel. While cutting-edge talent is still being grown in America, he added, it's not enough for Intel's needs, and not enough is being done in U.S. public schools - not just to leave no child behind, but to make sure that the best students and teachers are nurtured and rewarded.

Look at the attention Congress has focused on steroids in Major League Baseball, Mr. Barrett mused. And then look at the attention it has focused on science education in minor-league American schools.

That's the real news out there, folks. And it's not funny.

[MavKikiNYC]

May 6, 2005
In Kansas, Darwinism Goes on Trial Once More
By JODI WILGOREN

TOPEKA, Kan., May 5 - Six years after Kansas ignited a national debate over the teaching of evolution, the state is poised to push through new science standards this summer requiring that Darwin's theory be challenged in the classroom.

In the first of three daylong hearings being referred to here as a directdescendant of the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial in Tennessee, a parade of Ph.D.'s testified Thursday about the flaws they saw in mainstream science's explanation of the origins of life. It was one part biology lesson, one part political theater, and the biggest stage yet for the emerging movement known as intelligent design, which posits that life's complexity cannot be explained without a supernatural creator.

Darwin's defenders are refusing to testify at the hearings, which were called by the State Board of Education's conservative majority. But their lawyer forcefully cross-examined the other side's experts, pushing them to acknowledge that nothing in the current standards prevented discussion of challenges to evolution, and peppering them with queries both profound and personal.

"Do the standards state anywhere that science, evolution, is in any way in conflict with belief in God?" the lawyer, Pedro Irigonegaray, asked William S. Harris, a chemist who helped write the proposed changes.

When a later witness, Jonathan Wells, said he enjoyed being in the minority on such a controversial topic, Mr. Irigonegaray retorted, "More than being right?"

If the board adopts the new standards, as expected, in June, Kansas would join Ohio, which took a similar step in 2002, in mandating students be taught that there is controversy over evolution. Legislators in Alabama and Georgia have introduced bills this season to allow teachers to challenge Darwin in class, and the battle over evolution is simmering on the local level in 20 states.

While the proposed standards for Kansas do not specifically mention intelligent design - and many of its supporters prefer to avoid any discussion of it - critics contend they would open the door not just for those teachings, but to creationism, which holds to the Genesis account of God as the architect of the universe.

For Kansas, the debate is déjà vu: the last time the state standards were under review, in 1999, conservatives on the school board ignored their expert panel and deleted virtually any reference to evolution, only to be ousted in the next election.

But over the next few years anti-evolution forces regained the seats. And now, the board's 6-to-4 anti-evolution majority plans to embrace 20 suggestions promoted by advocates of intelligent design and are using this week's showcase to help persuade the public. "I was hoping these hearings would help me have some good hard evidence that I could repeat," Connie Morris, an anti-evolution board member, said in thanking one witness.

Sighing was Cheryl Shepherd-Adams, a physics teacher who took an unpaid day off from Hays High School to attend the hearings. "Kansas has been through this before," she said. "I'm really tired of going to conferences and being laughed at because I'm from Kansas."

The proposed changes to the state's science standards would edit everything from the introduction to notes advising teachers on specific benchmarks for individual grades. Perhaps the most significant shift would be in the very definition of science - instead of "seeking natural explanations for what we observe around us," the new standards would describe it as a "continuing investigation that uses observation, hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, logical argument and theory building to lead to more adequate explanations of natural phenomena."

Local school districts devise curriculums in Kansas, as in most other states, but the standards provide a template by outlining what will be covered on the statewide science tests, given every other year in grades 4, 7 and 10.

Even as they described their own questioning of evolution as triggered by religious conversion, the experts testifying Thursday avoided mention of a divine creator, instead painting their position as simply one of open-mindedness, arguing that Darwinism had become a dangerous dogma.

"There is no science without criticism," said Charles Thaxton, a chemist and co-author of the 1984 book "The Mystery of Life's Origin: Reassessing Current Theories."

"Any science that weathers the criticism and survives is a better theory for it," Mr. Thaxton said.

But the debate was as much about religion and politics as science and education, with Mr. Irigonegaray pressing witnesses to find mentions of the theories they were denouncing, like humanism and naturalism, in the standards, and asking whether they believed all scientists were atheists. He largely ignored their detailed briefings to ask each man if he believed Homo sapiens descended from pre-hominids (most said no) and how old he thought earth was (most agreed on 4.5 billion years.)

"These people are going to obfuscate about these definitions," complained Jack Krebs, vice president of the pro-evolution Kansas Citizens for Science, whose members filled many of the 180 auditorium seats not taken by journalists, who came from as far away as France. "They have created a straw man. They are trying to make science stand for atheism, so they can fight atheism."

Convened 80 years, to the day, after John Scopes was arrested for teaching Darwin's theory to his Dayton, Tenn., high school class, the hearings were cut back from six days when the evolutionists decided not to present witnesses.

Beaming from a laptop to a wide screen, the scientists showed textbook pictures of chicken, turtle and human embryos to try to undermine the notion that all species had a common ancestry. Diagrams of complex RNA molecules were offered as evidence of a designed universe. Dr. Harris displayed a brochure for his Intelligent Design Network, which is based in Kansas, depicting a legal scale with "design" and "evolution" on each side and the words "religion" and "naturalism" crossed out in favor of "Scientific Method."

"You can infer design just by examining something, without knowing anything about where it came from," Dr. Harris said, offering as an example "The Gods Must be Crazy," a film in which Africans marvel at a Coke bottle that turns up in the desert. "I don't know who did it, I don't know how it was done, I don't know why it was done, I don't have to know any of that to know that it was designed."

Across the street, where the evolutionists tried to entice reporters with sandwiches and snacks, Bob Bowden, an agricultural researcher at Kansas State University, denounced the hearings as a "kangaroo court."

"When the power shifted on that board, we knew on that day that we lost," said Dr. Bowden, who has children in the 7th and 12th grades. "It's bogus."

But Linda Holloway, a member of the 1999 state board that dumped evolution, said the mainstream scientists' failure to participate in the hearings signaled that "they're afraid to be cross-examined, they're afraid to defend their theory."

Erika Heikl, 16, one of 14 students from Bishop Seabury Academy, a Christian school in Lawrence, Kan., who attended the hearings, said she believed in evolution - and that the standards should be changed to include its detractors.

"Your views won't change just from being taught that," Erika said. "You'll understand it more."