Arizona education advocate Edward F. Berger sees through the selfishness of the wealthy masquerading as education reformers and calls them to a very Christian notion of serving the community:
If those who have great wealth can stop believing that because they have amassed dollars, they have divine rights and insights, they can stop holding back the less fortunate. The answer to those who now lead the movements to destroy public schools, those who orchestrate the attacks on teachers and those living in poverty, is to do unto other children as you do for your children.
Make certain that every child has the basics necessary to grow and prosper. Build school programs from the child up, not by coercion and top-down decisions that always make matters worse. Build by addressing the peculiar needs of each child in her environment. Know the child’s needs and provide for each child like you do for your own. Hunger, fear, home situation, medical problems, clothing, and nurturing are human needs that must be addressed if education is to take place.
Schools are not assembly line factories where parts are attached to kids and tests are devised to eliminate failed products and assembly line workers [Edward F. Berger, "The Only Effective Way To Change Our Educational System," personal website, 2013.06.02].
Of course, if justifying strong public education from a Christian perspective makes you queasy, you can always default to enlightened self-interest: making sure every child has access to free, quality education ensures that you will have smart workers to serve your coffee, pave your roads, buy your products, and vote for decent candidates to keep your economy and society humming along.
The key word here Cory is "all" children. people pushing vouchers want good education for the ones who can afford it and a poor education for the ones left over.
In our country all the children deserve a good education and a chance in life.
Exactly Berger's point, Owen. School "choice" is code for letting the rich pick what they want and leave everyone else to their own devices, which will never provide others the same choice or opportunity.
@Owen Are you kidding me? So because I support the parents and the child's right to decide where they get educated, I somehow want some other children to get a poor education? First off, isn't that insulting to public educators as you are effectively saying a public education is a poor education as that is what is left over, and studies show the vast majority will continue to go to public schools in rural areas like SD.
"In our country all the children deserve a good education and a chance in life." But according to you, not all children deserve to live.. Shouldn't that be the first thing we should work on, and then work on giving the parents and the children the right to decide how those children are educated? or do you too believe that government owns our children?
Stace, as a parent, I like having choices. Parents have a right to decide how their own children should be educated. But we have to draw that line when they try to extend that personal right to taking away the resources that ensure every child gets a free and fair education. The government does not own children, but we as the government have an obligation to all children.
Stace people can educate their kids at home or in private schools. That's there choice but I don't want to pay for it. Vouchers will only take money out of edcation-which is already short on funding.
I never said not all children deserve to live. Where did you get that? Parents can decide how they want to educate-that's fine. They shouldn't get a tax break to do it.
Again your putting words into my mouth Stace. You didn't like it when I did it to you I don't like it when you do it to me.
Teachers will and continue to do a geat job educating kids. They do it now for little or nothing. Private schools will be able to hire the best and the brightest, but that doens't mean what's left is poor.
What I'm saying is the funds left over won't help education and the people who least can afford to send their kids to private schools or home school won't get the same chance. To me thats not fair and not what our forefathers want.
My beef with vouchers has always been the tax deal. I am all for parents having a choice what I am not for is my tax money going to private schools in which I have no representation. Problems with taxation without representation is what brought about our nation in the first place.
Well said Barry. Like Cory said education is afor all the kids not the annointed few
here's a good article on this subject.
http://www.salon.com/2013/06/03/instead_of_a_war_on_teachers_how_about_one_on_poverty/
Different states have different situations, but they created their own situations.
I had a brother in law who taught in the Phoenix public schools a few years ago. They outlawed homework because eighty percent of the kids did not do it anyways. That disgusted parents so bad that they started one thousand charter schools. Not all states have that bad of education. Not only Christians started private schools, but anyone with the money to do it got their kid out of the public schools. So in Arizona, the rich kids get an education and tough luck to the others. So we can not react to our situation by looking at theirs. Then I heard of a report that all the kids in the Phoenix schools were learning at the same level. They did not admit that it was a very low level. They made it look like they did well with the poor kids when they were not.
In Minnesota where I grew up they started tax refunds to the parents of us kids in the Christian schools and that was done by the Democrats who then controlled both houses and the governor. They tax more so they could afford it. Here in South Dakota there is a real good point that the public school kids would suffer if they did vouchers. But that is not because vouchers are bad, it is because the state does not tax enough to educate the kids. They believed in helping all the kids the same and they did.
Here is the key: "Build school programs from the child up, not by coercion and top-down decisions that always make matters worse. Build by addressing the peculiar needs of each child in her environment. Know the child’s needs and provide for each child like you do for your own. Hunger, fear, home situation, medical problems, clothing, and nurturing are human needs that must be addressed if education is to take place." Finally, some sense is being said.
Most of the "educational reformers" are disconnected from reality of the student and the classroom. The "reformers" are top level educational bureaucrats or top level corporate executives/managers. They have very little experience with classroom reality, and don't concern themselves with much of the students' realities. Reality is something every classroom teacher experiences every day, yet the one thing the reformers never consider is to respect and use the experience of the classroom teacher and the students in to improve education.
Not surprisingly the "reformers" approach education with the usual top down tools---standardized tests and standardized teaching, merit pay, and other concepts borrowed from managing bureaucracies and corporations and adjusted to fit a small subset of the educational experience. That approach never even considers the whole student, and it rarely deals with a real classroom with sometimes vastly different students with vastly different learning styles and abilities. If you think kids are just widgets to be pounded out with certain minimum tolerances, you will follow the educational reformists' top down approach, as has been followed in various guises for thirty years. You will have repeated failures, and repeated programs to fix the failures, and you will never, ever improve education. The top down approach is now proved a failure. The question is how long we will keep repeating this pattern of failure.
Note Donald's comment about detachment from reality and failing to consider the whole student. Education reform as currently practiced views the school system as a machine all to itself. Education reform fails to view the connections school has with broader society that affect school's performance. That's Berger's point: to improve school performance, you've got to improve all sorts of social conditions that you can't solve solely by fiddling with levers and gears within the school system. You also can't solve those broader problems simply by abandoning the public school machine. Private school is not a solution for the working-class majority in our democracy.
"Teachers will and continue to do a geat job educating kids. They do it now for little or nothing.'' Geez Owen, I hope that's an exaggeration.
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We know Corey's salary at 37K plus overheads is well over 50K and he's low man in Speartown. Is that little or nothing for a summer off with 9 months employment which would be over 63K based on a 12 months term.
""Teachers will and continue to do a geat job educating kids. They do it now for little or nothing.'' Geez Owen, I hope that's an exaggeration."
It is Les-to a point. I think you have to compare teachers salaries with other professions that require a 4 year degree and the same amount of experience. My wife has taught for over 30 years and she isn't making what Cory makes. Granted Cory is in a bigger system though.
The summer off has always been used but my wife has and will be taking classes this summer for credits toward recertification. Unless she gets lucky and can get a free credit she has to pay for it herself. She also has to pay for her own transportation and is she has to a motel room.
She is paid for 12 months Les.
She does this because she enjoys teaching, obviously.