Crisis in Suburban Schools

Campus Report Online ^ | 12/13/2006 | Wendy Cook

[achilles2000]

Talk of high property taxes and fraud in the administration probably cause you to think of issues on Capitol Hill. Well, not in this case. These are two major problems facing suburban school systems nationwide.

According to a recent Yankee Institute of Public Policy study, the cost of suburban schools has risen far beyond the rate of inflation because of an opportunistic relationship between parents and the public educators they are supposed to be regulating. Parent PTA members and school board members can vote on issues that directly affect their families, such as: subsidized trips abroad, full paid sabbaticals for teachers, and athletic, technology and curriculum perks.

“It’s not an exaggeration to say that public schooling in the suburbs is a form of upper-middle-class-racketeering,” Lewis Andrews of the Yankee Institute writes. Parents and educators collaborate under the banner of “advancing education” to serve their own narrow interests at the expense of the broader taxpaying community.

[johncatl]

There are practically no illegals at elite suburban schools. That is not the topic under discussion.
Nonsense. Wherever there are apartment houses or high density housing in a suburban district you'll have illegals. It causes the average of the school to go down into the "needs improvement" category requiring more resources.
We need school choice...now!

[napscoordinator]

Oh so true. Plus to miss Deal or No Deal would be tragic. lol.

[durasell]

What we're seeing is the fall of the community based on geographic proximity. Many kids no longer stay in the communities in which they were raised, people no longer feel any particular connection to their neighbors (particularly if those neighbors happen to function under a different political or religious belief system) and society as a whole is more mobile.

So, why invest in the future of a community when the object of that investment may leave town or you may leave town?

[achilles2000]

Which decisions? Local control of school districts is a chimera today. The important decisions are made neither by taxpayers nor the PTA. Federal and state legislation and regulations, numerous state and federal court decisions, and, of course, the ed establishment working through the Ed schools and unions long ago rendered most of what happens locally unimportant. A good deal of what a superintendent does today is supervising reporting and the filling out forms for other levels of government and agencies. The only important decision parents can make today is whether their children are in or out of the government schools. Parents don't need "a voice" in how their children are educated, they should control it.

[wintertime]

"growth plan

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Is this "newspeak" for the old communist re-education camp?

[achilles2000]

Probably a combination of re-education camp and Chinese water torture. Administrators want the competent, motivated older teachers who carry an institution memory of different practices and standards to go quietly into retirement or resign. Those memories are embarrassing to current school leadership and implicitly challenge the leadership's competence.