Posted on 08/29/2005 1:44:00 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Sarah Mahnke-Baum, Arthur Register and Julian Brastow became friends at their neighborhood preschool in San Francisco's Cole Valley. But as they march off to elementary school this week, they'll find themselves heading in very different directions.
Sarah, the daughter of a public school teacher, will attend kindergarten at a prestigious all-girls private school tucked between Sea Cliff and the Presidio with an annual tuition of $19,000. Arthur, whose family isn't Catholic, will attend second grade at a Catholic school in the Richmond District for $4,500 a year. And Julian will be a first-grader at the free public school just around the corner from his home.
In the often surprising, sometimes crazed world of school choice in the Bay Area, the options are seemingly endless -- but rarely easy -- and, some say, carry an impact far beyond the classroom.
.....Public enrollment declining
The choices can also be detrimental to the city's public school district. In San Francisco, 30 percent of children attend private or parochial schools, and the school district has been steadily losing children -- and thus, state dollars -- each year for many years. But others counter that market competition will encourage public schools to get better to lure middle-class families back to them.
Superintendent Arlene Ackerman said she hopes the new infusion of city money coming to the schools for libraries, sports, arts and music -- as approved by city voters in 2004 -- will help bridge the gap between what the public schools and private schools can offer.
"I never get upset with parents for making decisions they think are in the best interest of their children -- that's every parent's right," she said. "I just would like them to give the (public) school system a chance.''
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Keeping in mind test scores, discipline problems, rising spending, stagnant graduation rates and schools that fail to teach children the "basics," parents face a sometimes frightening prospect of enrolling their children in public school today.
Amid these fears, putting one's child on the school bus may appear to be the only option. Yet children entering, or already in, a public school system that is lacking in one or more areas have other, and often better, options. A 2005 Heritage Foundation report found "school choice is in high demand and growing," with voucher programs in 11 states, charter or magnet schools in most states and home schooling in all 50.
Opinions vary widely on what constitutes a high quality education, which is why competition and choice should characterize K-12 education today. Bureaucracy, substandard teacher certification and the stranglehold of teachers' unions do not make for a rich and diverse educational environment. Given greater freedom, educators, experts and parents can educate America's children with success and add to the ranks of those public schools that get it right.
............Parents needn't narrow their choices just to the local public school system. With each passing year, states can enact more flexible charter laws, vouchers and education tax credits can become available in more cities and allow students to attend private schools and resources for home schooling and charter schools will improve and continue to diversify........***
My wife is public high school teacher. With that said we both agree our daughters will go to a private christian school.
Imagine what the public schools are teaching in the city where Maoism is considered a little too right-wing.
Unfortunatly, I think no child left behind is now a part of the decline of public schools. Kids are no longer able to learn how to critically think or develop their own opinions as they have to learn how to take the standardized tests they need to graduate.
It is not about what the schools can offer. It is about what they teach, and the school environment. Money is not the answer, never has been.
I wonder how much of this is due to further declines in public-school quality, and how much is due to simple declining populations of school-age children overall. IIRC cities like SF, with their expensive housing (owing significantly to land-use restrictions) and general institutional hostility to families, are seeing declining child populations.
Just recently the NEA made it a point at its convention to urge a boycott of Wal-Mart, so it must be that Wal-Mart (somehow, someway) is the problem with public schools.
That is because they cheat, as spend the little time that they actually spend educating, teaching to the test. We homeschool and don't teach to the test, and my kids are off the charts.
This gives me the impression that a public school teacher in San Francisco gets a salary that would make my hair stand on end, out here in Mayberry.
Just to pass a test!
What ARE you thinking?
Hippies killed the golden goose. Condemned millions to less-than educations. Catholic school BUMP!
Same here.
If you are truly educated, no standardized test is going to give you much trouble.
However, since truly educating it too much freaking work, they generally teach the test instead of the topics. It's easier.
This isn't the fault of the test. Saying so is shooting the messenger. The test is just a measurement device.
Costs less, too.
Sarah, the daughter of a public school teacher, will attend kindergarten at a prestigious all-girls private school
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http://www.neoperspectives.com/charterschoolsexplained.htm
'Public schools no place for teachers' kids'
Washington Times - Nationwide, public school teachers are almost twice as likely as other parents to choose private schools for their own children, the study by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute found. More than 1 in 5 public school teachers said their children attend private schools.
In Washington (28 percent), Baltimore (35 percent) and 16 other major cities, the figure is more than 1 in 4. In some cities, nearly half of the children of public school teachers have abandoned public schools. In Philadelphia, 44 percent of the teachers put their children in private schools; in Cincinnati, 41 percent; Chicago, 39 percent; Rochester, N.Y., 38 percent. The same trends showed up in the San Francisco-Oakland area, where 34 percent of public school teachers chose private schools for their children; 33 percent in New York City and New Jersey suburbs; and 29 percent in Milwaukee and New Orleans.
Michael Pons, spokesman for the National Education Association, the 2.7-million-member public school union, declined a request for comment on the study's findings. The American Federation of Teachers also declined to comment.
Union members send their own kids to private school while lobbying to keep their monopoly on the public treasury.
ping
I would like to see the end of year test given at the start of the year, then again at the end. My prediction, most will pass both tests. Those who fail the first time will most likely fail the 2nd time.
I just cant help but believe that a 3rd grade test is actually (enough to barely pass that is)the minimum you should learn in the 2nd grade, etc.
That deserves repeating, so...
The test is just a measurement device.
The simple solution would be to broaden the test, and require essays instead of multiple guess. But then again, that wouldn't be fair, would it? ; )
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