EZ, i don't know where to begin to address your attack on charter schools and other variations on school choice, w/o writing an essay as long as yours. so i will limit my rejoinder to three elements. 1] you question 'how much choice will there really be for the poor?' well, how much choice do they have in your ideal system? i know that m…
EZ, i don't know where to begin to address your attack on charter schools and other variations on school choice, w/o writing an essay as long as yours. so i will limit my rejoinder to three elements. 1] you question 'how much choice will there really be for the poor?' well, how much choice do they have in your ideal system? i know that my kids have a choice as to where they send their kids to school. i had choice of where to send my kids to school, back in the day - my guess is you and your wife did, too. why? because we had income and/or assets that put us in a position to choose. don't like your kids' school? move somewhere else, where the school[s] is[are] better. w/o charter schools and other schools of choice, poor people don't have choice - they're stuck with their attendance area public school. - the vast majority of which in big cities fail to educate children at a basic level.
2] you suggest we should get the best and the brightest working on improving public education. let me clue you in - the best and the brightest have been working on improving public education for decades. and the current public education system? WYSIWYG. public education in big cities has been a gross and egregious failure, also for decades. we can discuss/debate the reasons - but it's not due to a lack of effort by concerned citizens, grantmakers and many others to develop models that work, including and specifically for minority children from low income families. there is one answer that is a total non-starter: more money. the real [not just nominal] per-pupil expenditure for public education in big cities has far outpaced inflation over the course of many years. academic achievement is no better, maybe worse - far too high a percentage of kids in those schools can't read even close to grade level, can't write literately, can't do even basic math.
3] last, having known many parents of low income families over the years, almost all people of color, i know that they want school choice for their kids. and i know that they are competent to make that choice. will some make a mistake of choice? of course - the upper middle class and wealthy sometimes make bad choices for their kids' education. but, as i stated earlier, people with income and/or assets always have choice.
Thank you for injecting these very material points to the discussion on school choice.
More school funding is certainly not the answer. Presently, Chicago public schools are funded about $29,000 per student and the teachers are among the most highly compensated in the country. Yet, student test scores continue to decline with a horrific number of students now unable to read and do math at grade level. Ever more funding would be simply throwing good money after bad.
My wife and I fostered a black CPS student through her junior year at Senn High school. When she first came to live with us we were horrified to learn that she read at a third grade level, could not even do the 2's of her multiplication tables, told us matter of factly that she had never done homework in her life, yet was receiving A's and B's for obviously no academic performance at Senn. I sat with her every night at the kitchen table after dinner to do worksheets and attempt to get her caught up, but I fear the little bit that we were able to accomplish was not nearly enough to offset the criminal neglect she had experienced in CPS all her life.
Conversely, we had the opportunity to mentor a black youngster from the inner city who was given an opportunity to transfer out of CPS and to attend Loyola High School through the Boys Hope program. His freshman year at Loyola he struggled because he had so much catching up to do. But we supported him, he worked incredibly hard and by his sophomore year he won an award for the most improved student. He graduated with excellent grades and received a full scholarship to Drake University which he subsequently completed and is now living a very productive and happy life. This was very unlikely to have occurred if he was unable to get out of CPS.
Many inner-city children are born into very disadvantaged circumstances through no fault of their own, and they truly deserve every opportunity to be able to succeed in life. If we really care about these children, school choice is something that they must have.
I hear you. I just wish that to the extent some charters have a secret sauce when it comes to otherwise low-performing students -- and it seems that some do -- we could spread the magic district-wide. I share Zorn's concern about the wider population and worry about a chaotic process whereby children, for the choices (or non-choices) of their parents, are left behind.
Thanks for your reply and thoughts on this jake. Unquestionably, there are some disadvantaged children who are not going to be helped by school choice, either because of disability requiring special education, or by the total lack of parental involvement and support for education which tragically seems very widespread in the Inner city has witnessed by the abysmally high chronic truancy rate. We witnessed this first hand with the girl we fostered through her junior year as we learned that her mother (no father present in her life) had never attended a single teacher conference in the child's life.
These children are going to require additional support and resources from our public education establishment, and the funding should allow for delivery of these resources. But, we cannot and should not allow that to hold back the majority of children who will take advantage and be able to succeed with school choice. We also witnessed this first hand with the young man who we mentored and achieved exceptional success first at Loyola Academy and then at Drake University.
There is no question that all children are now suffering from deficient education while they are enslaved to the failing inner-city public schools without any other options available to them.
hundreds of thousand of students are being left behind by CPS every yr. choice is not exacerbating that problem - if anything, choice is shining a light on that problem.
EZ, i don't know where to begin to address your attack on charter schools and other variations on school choice, w/o writing an essay as long as yours. so i will limit my rejoinder to three elements. 1] you question 'how much choice will there really be for the poor?' well, how much choice do they have in your ideal system? i know that my kids have a choice as to where they send their kids to school. i had choice of where to send my kids to school, back in the day - my guess is you and your wife did, too. why? because we had income and/or assets that put us in a position to choose. don't like your kids' school? move somewhere else, where the school[s] is[are] better. w/o charter schools and other schools of choice, poor people don't have choice - they're stuck with their attendance area public school. - the vast majority of which in big cities fail to educate children at a basic level.
2] you suggest we should get the best and the brightest working on improving public education. let me clue you in - the best and the brightest have been working on improving public education for decades. and the current public education system? WYSIWYG. public education in big cities has been a gross and egregious failure, also for decades. we can discuss/debate the reasons - but it's not due to a lack of effort by concerned citizens, grantmakers and many others to develop models that work, including and specifically for minority children from low income families. there is one answer that is a total non-starter: more money. the real [not just nominal] per-pupil expenditure for public education in big cities has far outpaced inflation over the course of many years. academic achievement is no better, maybe worse - far too high a percentage of kids in those schools can't read even close to grade level, can't write literately, can't do even basic math.
3] last, having known many parents of low income families over the years, almost all people of color, i know that they want school choice for their kids. and i know that they are competent to make that choice. will some make a mistake of choice? of course - the upper middle class and wealthy sometimes make bad choices for their kids' education. but, as i stated earlier, people with income and/or assets always have choice.
Thank you for injecting these very material points to the discussion on school choice.
More school funding is certainly not the answer. Presently, Chicago public schools are funded about $29,000 per student and the teachers are among the most highly compensated in the country. Yet, student test scores continue to decline with a horrific number of students now unable to read and do math at grade level. Ever more funding would be simply throwing good money after bad.
My wife and I fostered a black CPS student through her junior year at Senn High school. When she first came to live with us we were horrified to learn that she read at a third grade level, could not even do the 2's of her multiplication tables, told us matter of factly that she had never done homework in her life, yet was receiving A's and B's for obviously no academic performance at Senn. I sat with her every night at the kitchen table after dinner to do worksheets and attempt to get her caught up, but I fear the little bit that we were able to accomplish was not nearly enough to offset the criminal neglect she had experienced in CPS all her life.
Conversely, we had the opportunity to mentor a black youngster from the inner city who was given an opportunity to transfer out of CPS and to attend Loyola High School through the Boys Hope program. His freshman year at Loyola he struggled because he had so much catching up to do. But we supported him, he worked incredibly hard and by his sophomore year he won an award for the most improved student. He graduated with excellent grades and received a full scholarship to Drake University which he subsequently completed and is now living a very productive and happy life. This was very unlikely to have occurred if he was unable to get out of CPS.
Many inner-city children are born into very disadvantaged circumstances through no fault of their own, and they truly deserve every opportunity to be able to succeed in life. If we really care about these children, school choice is something that they must have.
I hear you. I just wish that to the extent some charters have a secret sauce when it comes to otherwise low-performing students -- and it seems that some do -- we could spread the magic district-wide. I share Zorn's concern about the wider population and worry about a chaotic process whereby children, for the choices (or non-choices) of their parents, are left behind.
Thanks for your reply and thoughts on this jake. Unquestionably, there are some disadvantaged children who are not going to be helped by school choice, either because of disability requiring special education, or by the total lack of parental involvement and support for education which tragically seems very widespread in the Inner city has witnessed by the abysmally high chronic truancy rate. We witnessed this first hand with the girl we fostered through her junior year as we learned that her mother (no father present in her life) had never attended a single teacher conference in the child's life.
These children are going to require additional support and resources from our public education establishment, and the funding should allow for delivery of these resources. But, we cannot and should not allow that to hold back the majority of children who will take advantage and be able to succeed with school choice. We also witnessed this first hand with the young man who we mentored and achieved exceptional success first at Loyola Academy and then at Drake University.
There is no question that all children are now suffering from deficient education while they are enslaved to the failing inner-city public schools without any other options available to them.
hundreds of thousand of students are being left behind by CPS every yr. choice is not exacerbating that problem - if anything, choice is shining a light on that problem.