Doxa

Bill Moyers's show (PBS), he has a great show it's always about how we are losing democracy. There's a movement in America to save democracy. That's how far things have gone, there's actually an official movement to save it.

this was about the school systems. public school being privatized. There are Billionaires who take over school systems and privatize them. There are major cities like Detroit and Philadelphia where they might not have a public school system soon.

Dallas Mayer is trying to get the county to take over DISD so they can make it a charter school system. that means privatized, ran by private industry. The guest on Moyer's show was a woman who had been a leader in the charter school movement and is now trying to kill it. She said "no child left behind" got all the schools hyper concerned with testing so that that's all they teach about.

Charter schools don't outperform public schools. But rich guys run charter schools and they can keep problem kids out. So public schools become a dumping ground for problem kids.

As I see it the strategy has been for a while to starve the public school system - to break it in order to say that it's broken and it doesn't work, therefore we have to replace it with private enterprise.

Magritte wrote:As I see it the strategy has been for a while to starve the public school system - to break it in order to say that it's broken and it doesn't work, therefore we have to replace it with private enterprise.

Yes I agree. It's really destroying the fabric of society.

My cousin posted this on Facebook today:



Immediately, I thought of this thread.

He was saying that we need more charter schools and home schooling. He is a conservative, though, so i'm not surprised.

JBSptfn wrote:My cousin posted this on Facebook today:



Immediately, I thought of this thread.

He was saying that we need more charter schools and home schooling. He is a conservative, though, so i'm not surprised.

what do we need them for? So they teach bad science?

So achievement is either holding steady, or improving slightly as in the case of science? Great, there goes the argument that the schools are failing and need to be replaced.

We'd need to see a breakdown of what staff is being hired where, what money is being spent where - and also a socioeconomic breakdown. Is a lot of the increase in spending in "good" schools in "good" neighborhoods? Not sure about American schools but in Canada the schools are mostly funded by the municipal tax base. I'm guessing things like number of teachers per student and quality of physical facilities vary widely from suburban to inner city schools.

Also, some of this could be the result of "mainstreaming" - putting kids with psychological, social and neural problems into regular classes, which often requires a "shadow" - an extra person assigned to just that kid. That can increase the ratio of staff to students without necessarily improving the situation in the classroom. I have mixed feelings about mainstreaming.

The conservative dream is education for those who can afford it, and below-subsistence slavery for those who cannot. Don't have wealthy parents who can send you to school? Here's your life: https://medium.com/editors-picks/fa4c36eb306b Good luck getting that GED while you're struggling to make rent on 35 hours a week at Wendy's! Ha ha, lazy poors!

Magritte wrote:So achievement is either holding steady, or improving slightly as in the case of science? Great, there goes the argument that the schools are failing and need to be replaced.

We'd need to see a breakdown of what staff is being hired where, what money is being spent where - and also a socioeconomic breakdown. Is a lot of the increase in spending in "good" schools in "good" neighborhoods? Not sure about American schools but in Canada the schools are mostly funded by the municipal tax base. I'm guessing things like number of teachers per student and quality of physical facilities vary widely from suburban to inner city schools.

Also, some of this could be the result of "mainstreaming" - putting kids with psychological, social and neural problems into regular classes, which often requires a "shadow" - an extra person assigned to just that kid. That can increase the ratio of staff to students without necessarily improving the situation in the classroom. I have mixed feelings about mainstreaming.

The conservative dream is education for those who can afford it, and below-subsistence slavery for those who cannot. Don't have wealthy parents who can send you to school? Here's your life: https://medium.com/editors-picks/fa4c36eb306b Good luck getting that GED while you're struggling to make rent on 35 hours a week at Wendy's! Ha ha, lazy poors!

I read that. You have to pay 120 dollars for a GED? What a joke.

Bill Moyer's thing on that, the woman who was essential to the beginning of the charter movement and has now come to lead the movement opposing them, says that the studies show they do not have it over public schools. their accomplishments are not a vast improvement but they are actually out schored by public school.