Privatizing Education/Romney's plan

[sys]

In our world, you wouldn't even pay in to begin with.

 

[3maw]

should consider student population per country as well, it'd make it seem less.

note: Finland is hugely publicly educated. giving this responsibility to the private sector is NOT the only solution/not necessarily the friendliest to taxpayers.

[john "teach me how to" dougie]

should consider student population per country as well, it'd make it seem less.

note: Finland is hugely publicly educated. giving this responsibility to the private sector is NOT the only solution/not necessarily the friendliest to taxpayers.

 

[3maw]

infographs are fun, if you only use information that will help your case.

[john "teach me how to" dougie]

should consider student population per country as well, it'd make it seem less.

infographs are fun, if you only use information that will help your case.

This is why the first and most telling stat is per student spending. We spend FAR more than any other industrialized country and get the least for our money.

[the KHAN!]

Children are the future.

[Rage Against the McKee]

should consider student population per country as well, it'd make it seem less.

infographs are fun, if you only use information that will help your case.

This is why the first and most telling stat is per student spending. We spend FAR more than any other industrialized country and get the least for our money.

Those graphs tell us that Finland, Canada, South Korea, and Australia have elite school systems. They don't tell much else because you are comparing test scores of US students to other countries with a lower school life expectancy. Of course those schools are going to have higher test scores if all else is equal because their worst students are no longer in school dragging down the average.

It would also be interesting to see a comparison of teacher pay relative to the expected pay of professionals in other fields for each country.

[john "teach me how to" dougie]

should consider student population per country as well, it'd make it seem less.

infographs are fun, if you only use information that will help your case.

This is why the first and most telling stat is per student spending. We spend FAR more than any other industrialized country and get the least for our money.

Those graphs tell us that Finland, Canada, South Korea, and Australia have elite school systems. They don't tell much else because you are comparing test scores of US students to other countries with a lower school life expectancy. Of course those schools are going to have higher test scores if all else is equal because their worst students are no longer in school dragging down the average.

It would also be interesting to see a comparison of teacher pay relative to the expected pay of professionals in other fields for each country.

I think you have the school life expectancy backwards. The higher it is, the longer they stay in school. The US has a larger dropout rate compared to those countries. We just need to face that what we are doing now is not working and the US Dept of Education, a $90,000,000,000 bureaucracy,  has been making it worse since 1980.

[Rage Against the McKee]

should consider student population per country as well, it'd make it seem less.

infographs are fun, if you only use information that will help your case.

This is why the first and most telling stat is per student spending. We spend FAR more than any other industrialized country and get the least for our money.

Those graphs tell us that Finland, Canada, South Korea, and Australia have elite school systems. They don't tell much else because you are comparing test scores of US students to other countries with a lower school life expectancy. Of course those schools are going to have higher test scores if all else is equal because their worst students are no longer in school dragging down the average.

It would also be interesting to see a comparison of teacher pay relative to the expected pay of professionals in other fields for each country.

I think you have the school life expectancy backwards. The higher it is, the longer they stay in school. The US has a larger dropout rate compared to those countries. We just need to face that what we are doing now is not working and the US Dept of Education, a $90,000,000,000 bureaucracy,  has been making it worse since 1980.

Dropouts don't get tested. Those countries have a higher dropout rate than the US, hence the lower school life expectancy. Many students who do not drop out of US schools would be dropouts in those other countries, hence the higher test scores for those countries with the lower school life expectancy.

EDIT: I was not referring to the countries that I mentioned as having elite education systems. I was referring to countries with lower school life expectancy than the US and higher test scores, such as Japan, Russia, UK, and Denmark.

[Rage Against the McKee]

This is an interesting read:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Finland

Teachers

Both primary and secondary teachers must have a Master's degree to qualify. Teaching is a respected profession and entrance to university programs is highly competitive. A prospective teacher must have very good grades and must combat fierce opposition in order to become a teacher. About only 10% of applicants to certain programs are successful (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-02-28/highly-educated-teachers-the-key-to-success/3858612). The respect accorded the profession and the higher salaries than the OECD average lead to higher performing and larger numbers applying for the positions, and this is reflected in the quality of teachers in Finland.

Maybe the problem is that in the US, most of the money in our school systems goes into facilities (athletic and academic), techonology (laptops and ipads), etc. while countries with good education programs spend their money on the staff.

[husserl]

10 points is roughly equal to one grade level.  The pessimism is more than a little overblown. 

[Fake Sugar Dick (WARNING, NOT THE REAL SUGAR DICK!)]

should consider student population per country as well, it'd make it seem less.

infographs are fun, if you only use information that will help your case.

This is why the first and most telling stat is per student spending. We spend FAR more than any other industrialized country and get the least for our money.

Those graphs tell us that Finland, Canada, South Korea, and Australia have elite school systems. They don't tell much else because you are comparing test scores of US students to other countries with a lower school life expectancy. Of course those schools are going to have higher test scores if all else is equal because their worst students are no longer in school dragging down the average.

It would also be interesting to see a comparison of teacher pay relative to the expected pay of professionals in other fields for each country.

I think you have the school life expectancy backwards. The higher it is, the longer they stay in school. The US has a larger dropout rate compared to those countries. We just need to face that what we are doing now is not working and the US Dept of Education, a $90,000,000,000 bureaucracy,  has been making it worse since 1980.

Dropouts don't get tested. Those countries have a higher dropout rate than the US, hence the lower school life expectancy. Many students who do not drop out of US schools would be dropouts in those other countries, hence the higher test scores for those countries with the lower school life expectancy.

EDIT: I was not referring to the countries that I mentioned as having elite education systems. I was referring to countries with lower school life expectancy than the US and higher test scores, such as Japan, Russia, UK, and Denmark.

1. Is there some international standardized test that students in all these countries take that produce these results?

2. Shouldn't the DOJ be challenging this tests as inherently racist since the all white and Korean countries do well and those who have larger black and Hispanic populations do worse?

3. What exactly is it about NCLB that caused 'merica to become stupid and poor?

[3maw]

what is the percent of immigrants receiving public ed per country? the US has to be high up, if not the largest. There's no doubt at all that Finland's percent of finnish/swedish (as a primary language) speaking pupils is larger than america's english as a primary language. there's no doubt that this correlates to test scores in the least. I'm not saying that natural US citizens are elite and the immigrants are just bringing us down(no  here), but this has to be considered when comparing to other countries.

[3maw]

Maybe the problem is that in the US, most of the money in our school systems goes into facilities (athletic and academic), techonology (laptops and ipads), etc. while countries with good education programs spend their money on the staff.

I would say the greatest evil is technology.
facilities - you've got to have allotment for each student in a suitable work environment
but technology...my mom, 4th grade teacher in MHK, has probably $10,000+ worth of tech in her room. teachers just got ipads. not sure why. she doesn't know why. just to "keep up" with the evolving ways of education i suppose. so that's $10000 in goods, plus another $5000 probably in software, upkeep, power, replacement parts etc. per classroom, so: 15,000*3(teachers per grade, roughly, in MHK)*7(K-6)*8(elem. schools in USD 383)=around $2.5 mil, just for the elementary classrooms. add in computer labs, libraries... plus middle and high school, and i can see where our biggest problem is.

I don't want to make it seem like we need to trash computers and go back to slates, but we need to use technology more efficiently. don't give Mrs. AboutToRetire an iPad she does not need. don't do things like buy an elmo for each room. i don't know.
now, there ARE schools which use this technology efficiently and appropriately, but so many teachers are just not educated enough on the integration of technology that it just goes to waste, and therefore that is basically burning tax dollars.

[HeinBallz]

Maybe the problem is that in the US, most of the money in our school systems goes into facilities (athletic and academic), techonology (laptops and ipads), etc. while countries with good education programs spend their money on the staff.

I would say the greatest evil is technology.
facilities - you've got to have allotment for each student in a suitable work environment
but technology...my mom, 4th grade teacher in MHK, has probably $10,000+ worth of tech in her room. teachers just got ipads. not sure why. she doesn't know why. just to "keep up" with the evolving ways of education i suppose. so that's $10000 in goods, plus another $5000 probably in software, upkeep, power, replacement parts etc. per classroom, so: 15,000*3(teachers per grade, roughly, in MHK)*7(K-6)*8(elem. schools in USD 383)=around $2.5 mil, just for the elementary classrooms. add in computer labs, libraries... plus middle and high school, and i can see where our biggest problem is.

I don't want to make it seem like we need to trash computers and go back to slates, but we need to use technology more efficiently. don't give Mrs. AboutToRetire an iPad she does not need. don't do things like buy an elmo for each room. i don't know.
now, there ARE schools which use this technology efficiently and appropriately, but so many teachers are just not educated enough on the integration of technology that it just goes to waste, and therefore that is basically burning tax dollars.

I used to think this, but I've recently discovered this was a narrow point of view.  It's not that the schools are being given this technology.  Technology is a good thing if it's utilized.  What's wrong with this situation is school districts looking at some study that took place in some district not even remotely relevant to their own area and looked at results instead of methods.  They see Colorado retrofitted their entire school with laptops and test scores went up - so other schools follow suit.  This is the "throwing money at a non funding problem" mindset that people are pissed about.  Perhaps your district has shitty test scores because your students have parents that work at 5:00 in the morning and don't fix a good breakfast for their kids - leaving them malnourished with mumped up blood sugar levels rendering them unable to concentrate.  Why would iPad's fix this problem?    No the problem is decisions being made on a state or even federal level when they should be made on a classroom level.  Stop mandating teachers use iPads if the teachers know that their class problems are not related to technology.   This is why some private schools are sometimes more successful (not saying they all are or even there aren't public schools that are better)  But the schools answer to no one.   They isolate their problems & resolve them without so called "experts" in some capitol building telling them what they're doing wrong.

[Rage Against the McKee]

what is the percent of immigrants receiving public ed per country? the US has to be high up, if not the largest. There's no doubt at all that Finland's percent of finnish/swedish (as a primary language) speaking pupils is larger than america's english as a primary language. there's no doubt that this correlates to test scores in the least. I'm not saying that natural US citizens are elite and the immigrants are just bringing us down(no  here), but this has to be considered when comparing to other countries.

I can't speak for Finland, but most schools in Scandinavian countries teach English very well. That is why when you go to visit those countries, almost everyone you meet will speak English, often better than the average American. I'm not sure the second language thing holds up all that well.

[husserl]

should consider student population per country as well, it'd make it seem less.

infographs are fun, if you only use information that will help your case.

This is why the first and most telling stat is per student spending. We spend FAR more than any other industrialized country and get the least for our money.

This comparison is pretty misleading, considering teacher benefits are included in the U.S. average but not in countries with publicly funded universal health care. 

[Stellarcat]

I full agree about bad teachers.  That was my point about raising pay.  An $80k yr job attracts a lot of very qualified workers who work hard to keep that job.  A $30k starting salary attracts candidates who want to be finished for the day at 3:30pm and get summers off.

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I don't really see a problem with teachers starting at $30K for a 24 year old. If they are driven and enjoy teaching, having a performance based salary should allow for pretty quick increase. An employer matched 401K could also be a good incentive.

But eff all the kids in the classes of those teachers 1st & 2nd years of learning how to be a teacher - which is a fairly large amount of kids considering the flame out teachers who quit early in their careers.  Quality educators can make more money in their first 5 years with less standards running a day care with only 5 kids. Fact.


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I was a teacher for 13 years, mostly in KCK.  NCLB was doomed from the beginning.  The goal of having 100% of students test at a proficient level is ridiculous, because 100% of students are not capable of meeting that standard.  This includes special ed students, ELL students who have lived in the U.S. for a year, and students who are more worried about when they will be able to eat or have a bed to sleep in than if they can identify the text structure of a reading passage. 

Parents blame teachers for everything.  Tommy didn't do his homework?  Teacher's fault.  Tommy punched another kid?  Teacher's fault.  Kids ARE learning...learning how to  avoid responsibility just like their parents!

BTW, I didn't belong to the union.  I do think it is ridiculously hard to fire bad teachers, but it can be done if the principals document everything.  I don't think there is a fair way to reward teachers based on performance.  Reviews are too subjective.  Test scores don't reflect the quality of the teacher. 

[Rage Against the McKee]

I full agree about bad teachers.  That was my point about raising pay.  An $80k yr job attracts a lot of very qualified workers who work hard to keep that job.  A $30k starting salary attracts candidates who want to be finished for the day at 3:30pm and get summers off.

Sent from my MB611 using TapatalI

I don't really see a problem with teachers starting at $30K for a 24 year old. If they are driven and enjoy teaching, having a performance based salary should allow for pretty quick increase. An employer matched 401K could also be a good incentive.

But eff all the kids in the classes of those teachers 1st & 2nd years of learning how to be a teacher - which is a fairly large amount of kids considering the flame out teachers who quit early in their careers.  Quality educators can make more money in their first 5 years with less standards running a day care with only 5 kids. Fact.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I was a teacher for 13 years, mostly in KCK.  NCLB was doomed from the beginning.  The goal of having 100% of students test at a proficient level is ridiculous, because 100% of students are not capable of meeting that standard.  This includes special ed students, ELL students who have lived in the U.S. for a year, and students who are more worried about when they will be able to eat or have a bed to sleep in than if they can identify the text structure of a reading passage. 

Parents blame teachers for everything.  Tommy didn't do his homework?  Teacher's fault.  Tommy punched another kid?  Teacher's fault.  Kids ARE learning...learning how to  avoid responsibility just like their parents!

BTW, I didn't belong to the union.  I do think it is ridiculously hard to fire bad teachers, but it can be done if the principals document everything.  I don't think there is a fair way to reward teachers based on performance.  Reviews are too subjective.  Test scores don't reflect the quality of the teacher.

When you were teaching, did you not have a good sense of who the good teachers were? Why not elect a panel of fellow faculty to help give testimony that would be used to help set teachers' salaries?

[3maw]

I full agree about bad teachers.  That was my point about raising pay.  An $80k yr job attracts a lot of very qualified workers who work hard to keep that job.  A $30k starting salary attracts candidates who want to be finished for the day at 3:30pm and get summers off.

Sent from my MB611 using TapatalI

I don't really see a problem with teachers starting at $30K for a 24 year old. If they are driven and enjoy teaching, having a performance based salary should allow for pretty quick increase. An employer matched 401K could also be a good incentive.

But eff all the kids in the classes of those teachers 1st & 2nd years of learning how to be a teacher - which is a fairly large amount of kids considering the flame out teachers who quit early in their careers.  Quality educators can make more money in their first 5 years with less standards running a day care with only 5 kids. Fact.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I was a teacher for 13 years, mostly in KCK.  NCLB was doomed from the beginning.  The goal of having 100% of students test at a proficient level is ridiculous, because 100% of students are not capable of meeting that standard.  This includes special ed students, ELL students who have lived in the U.S. for a year, and students who are more worried about when they will be able to eat or have a bed to sleep in than if they can identify the text structure of a reading passage. 

Parents blame teachers for everything.  Tommy didn't do his homework?  Teacher's fault.  Tommy punched another kid?  Teacher's fault.  Kids ARE learning...learning how to  avoid responsibility just like their parents!

BTW, I didn't belong to the union.  I do think it is ridiculously hard to fire bad teachers, but it can be done if the principals document everything.  I don't think there is a fair way to reward teachers based on performance.  Reviews are too subjective.  Test scores don't reflect the quality of the teacher.

When you were teaching, did you not have a good sense of who the good teachers were? Why not elect a panel of fellow faculty to help give testimony that would be used to help set teachers' salaries?

because schools are the biggest water cooler of all time when it comes to gossip. and teachers form alliances, and play favorites... especially the admin. this system could easily be abused.

[Stellarcat]

Yes, I knew who the good teachers were, and the bad ones were totally obvious.  However, the water cooler point is true.  My principal loved me....and I'm pretty sure he wanted to get in my pants.  I would have received excellent reviews even if I had gone in and passed out worksheets everyday. 

[ednksu]

I really don't want to drop in on this thread too much other than to say:
John is a rough ridin' idiot with little to no understanding of the current education system and how it compares to international standards aside from what his latest talking point sheet tells him.
subpoint: Find out what tracking is
subpoint: Find out what the Scopes Monkey Trial was about and try to figure out why we need organizations to protect teachers, especially in states like Ks, Wi, etc etc

Point two: Stellarcat appears to be doing good work in this thread

[Fake Sugar Dick (WARNING, NOT THE REAL SUGAR DICK!)]

The problem is there are more administrators than teachers.  A subproblem is that there are also more paras than teachers. 

We've managed to turn something as simple as reading, writing, math and science into a bureaucracy that's more political than politics itself.  The entire structure is completely asinine and organized under the guise of "fairness"(at least we know who to blame).

[3maw]

plus, with private schools, we won't be able to see how little the teachers make in The Mercury each spring :/

[Cire]

http://www.kansasopengov.org/SchoolDistricts/PayrollListing/OlatheSchoolPayrollList/tabid/1593/Default.aspx


You have to go 17 pages until you get to a page with a majority out classroom teachers on it.