Posted on 08/13/2010 11:42:54 AM PDT by AccuracyAcademia
For years, education lobbyists have been crying for greater taxpayer funding while ignoring schools that do more with less rather than those that do less and less with more and more.
Examples of the latter abound and can be found in most metropolitan areas. Instances of the latter are perhaps less numerous but their experience is, well, educational.
“Eighty-seven percent of the school districts in Nebraska are categorized as rural,” Jessica Strutzel of the Platte Institute writes. “The schools in these districts generally serve small populations and do not have access to the same amount of technology or resources as urban schools.”
“Despite this, rural schools have higher high school graduation rates, a higher percentage of students who participate in extracurricular activities, and higher levels of parent involvement. Rural schools in Nebraska generate a greater percentage of high school graduates who are ready for college or the work force than do urban schools.”
Malcolm A. Kline is the Executive Director of Accuracy in Academia.
Anyway to find out the demographic breakdown of the students in these “rural “ areas? Let’s do a comparison of the demographics with dollars spent versus results in those categories and see what’s up....
You can throw as much money at the problem as you want, but until you address the cause, treating the symptoms won’t get you very far.
Lose the victim mentality, bring back personal responsibility and intact families. Bet that would improve the situation more than money.
Even though computers are now so cheap that almost everyone can afford one, especially if they are willing to buy one used, there are so many reasons for buying more, more, more:
1. The shiftless brother-in-law of the principal can be the supplier, and give the principal a nice kickback.
2. Something more for bad kids to steal. More money for them to buy drugs, and more work for the shiftless brother-in-law to supply more computers and fix the broken windows.
3. Now both Mom and Teacher have got to make sure that all of the blocks are in place to prevent viewing porn. One of them will certainly screw up.
4. Another screen to get the kids to stare at so teacher can catch up on ZZZ's she lost last night partying til 3.
5. Huge purchases justifies more administrative employees to file the grants necessary to get the money that might go to other districts. Now we can waste money on computers and the shills that acquire them.
6. Self-proclaimed business leaders who have no clue about education can make pompous speeches about the future of education while providing a justification for schools to buy their useless crap.
It's a win-win for everyone but the kids and taxpayers.
“Lose the victim mentality, bring back personal responsibility...”
That’s the point! The left wouldn’t survive long without these tenets of their religion.
That’s because there are more intact families in rural Nebraska unlike in the Diverse Community where the illegitimacy rate for babies is 70%! Rural families and communities aren’t quite as Socialized as the DCers.
Best I can determine, there is no relationship between per capita expenditure on student education and student performance.
Greatschools.com has a lot of data.
Get the union thugs out of the schools along with the incompetant teachers they protect and there will be immediate improvement in the schools.
PRIVATE SCHOOLS AND HOMESCHOOLS (ESPECIALLY HOMESCHOOLS) ACCOMPLISH FAR MORE WITH MUCH, MUCH LESS. No child should be in a government controlled school. The model is the mistake. End the government school system and you end the dominance and cripple the funding of the left.
Conservatives like to complain, but rescuing their children from the government schools, which is one thing they can do without anybody’s permission, is something that they generally won’t do. We like our middle-class education welfare entitlerment; we are addicted to aid-to-dependent -parents.
Rescuing our children is real work, unlike blabbering endlessly about politics. We are choosing ineffective talk and politics over effective, but demanding, action. Throw out the Ds? Fine, but they are replicating themselves every day in the minds of the children in government schools. So, winning an election doesn’t really mean much unless we are ALSO getting rid of government education.
Orwellian speak: “Parental involvement”
Translation: These parents of institutionalized children are “afterschooling”!!! Their home practices, home habits, and home study efforts, are the **same** as successful homeschoolers!
The only thing the government school is doing is sending home a free curriculum for the parents and child ( himself) to follow!
Education speak: Whose fault is it if there are low standardized scores? Answer:No parental involvement! It's the **parents** fault!!!
Whose takes the credit when standardized scores are high? YES! OF COURSE! The government school! :-)
My brother is a teacher. He was invited to travel to Japan a couple of years ago with a group to observe the Japanese school system. He said there were absolutely no computers in the classrooms at all.
It’s really very simple.
What happens if children attend godless, socialist-funded, government owned and run schools?
Answer: They become very comfortable with demanding and taking their neighbor’s money, thinking godlessly, and looking to government to be their redeemer and savior.
You hit the nail on the head.
It’s a good model.
Intact families — you betcha. The best teachers (we have a bunch in our rural school) can’t do much for kids who are exhausted, stressed out, malnourished and neglected.
Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" really did the job on that.
Now we have 70%+ illegitimacy in minority births.
Teaching in these urban schools really is a struggle due to all the family issues.
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