KOMO’s John Carlson and I were doing a show with other alleged journalists on the Seattle Channel yesterday and talking about, among other issues on the ballot, renewing the Families and Education Levy. It would raise $232 million over seven years for projects including early learning and student health care, but it wouldn’t be formally part of the Seattle School District budget. I’m for it; he’s against it. Carlson says we’re spending more per student each year and that past levies haven’t closed the achievement gaps they were supposed to close. On the other hand, I contend that the state has failed to meet its constitutional obligation to fund basic education (a judge agrees on this point) and that the city needs to supplement schools with local levies.
I said that it’s hard to close the achievement gap when the legislature is “systematically cutting back on funding for K-12… every year.” Carlson shot back that “they added to the K-12 budget every year, even during the recession.” He went on to claim, apparently switching to a city school district figure, that we’re spending “more than $12,000 per student.”
But Carlson is playing a numbers game, and those numbers are just wrong. State funding for basic education has remained fairly steady from the 2008 to the 2011 biennial funding cycles, dropping slightly from $5.1 billion to $5 billion, according to the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. That’s not quite as dramatic a decline as I phrased it, admittedly, but the K-12 budget hasn’t gone up every year of the recession as Carlson insists. However—and this is what I’m getting at—the demands on that lean budget have gone up: The state now reports 11,000 more students, from 980,000 in the state to 991,000 in the state. So while the state isn’t significantly slashing the dollar amounts (and conservatives love to cite dollar amounts instead of the demands on that money), the state now has less money per student. For another metric of diminishing resources, consider that the state also lost 1,150 teachers in that time frame. So we are cutting funding by failing to keep up with growing enrollment.
Why else are costs up? In short, inflation. But the cost of paying for certain services also outpaces the consumer price index. Chris Barron, a spokesman for OSPI, explains, “Maintenance levels have continued to increase (outpacing revenue). … You can see the budget has basically been the same, but costs have risen.”
Even if Carlson were referring to the Seattle School District (which enjoys several levy supplements), he would also be wrong to claim the district added to the K-12 budget every year, even during the recession. In Seattle, the Seattle School District’s general fund cost per student has declined for the last three school years (’08, ’09, ’10), from $12,127 to $11,761, says district spokeswoman Teresa Wippel. Meanwhile, the percentage of funding is coming less and less from the state (down 3 percent) and more and more from other sources including levies (up 3 percent). This helps prove my point: We rely more and more on local levies, while the state contribution to students declines.
Carlson also said that other school districts are spending 20 percent less per student than Seattle. While I couldn’t compare the cost per student of every district, one fact is clear: Seattle collects an average of $5,542 per general education student annually from the state. That’s only seven percent more than the state average of $5,168 per general education students.
Lots of other issues come into play when comparing an urban school district to suburban or rural districts (socio-economic challenges for urban populations that can affect achievement). Put another way: Rich kids do better in school because they live a privileged life; kids from poorer families urban public schools don’t have that advantage. So it’s not apples to apples, as Herman Cain would say. But it’s obvious the state is sending us less money than they did before. And we’re relying on levies more and more. So now is a great time to pass the Families and Education Levy.
Great, another levy to stop baby mama from spreading the clap. Guess that’s what passes for educating ‘da yoots’ today.
Simple acid test: compare yourselves to Bellevue.
They collect half the tax revenues per capita, yet they have something like 11 schools in the top lists of American public schools.
Yet Seattle, for all its esoteric programs and charter schools…has none.
Holy shit!! This comment thread is gonna get juicy !!!
Dominic,
This isn’t hard to understand.
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_…
We spend more money than anyone — and get crappy results, because there isn’t competition and incentives for the systems to perform.
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/chart-of-…
Their only interest of Education Industry is more money.
If Stranger wants to be progressive, how about addressing the true Pro-Choice agenda of school vouchers, and free the poor from their crappy – and in fact, over-funded – public school oligarchies
Bellevue has no South side.
@3: I’m sure your gorilla comment has nothing to do with you being a racist. It’s just a poor choice of words, right?
No, because the school year should be longer than 180 days.
In Bellevue, 33.1% are foreign born. And 34.5% of the population with children 5 years and over speak a language other than English at home. No, Bellevue doesn’t have “A south side” – because as a community, they generally don’t let their kids slide.
Seattle is chock-full of excuses as to why people can’t succeed, because that’s the quickest train to project funding.
Dominic, why don’t you address why – in whitest-of-white North Seattle – over 40% of families now send their kids to private schools? It’s not racial flight. It’s because no amount of money can fix a system that has no real interest in fixing itself. It’s a jobs program for unions and bureaucrats, not an education system. A the Democrats are complicit in holding-back the most disadvantaged among us.
Zok raises important questions (I could swear that’s a line from an episode of Star Trek).
How are we not spending enough on education when we’re spending three times per-pupil what we were 50 years ago (in inflation adjusted dollars)?
How are we not spending enough when a 10% increase in education enrollment in the last 40 years is matched with a 95% increase in education employment?
Mr. Vel-DuRay and I always vote for the school levies. We have no children, and are home owners, so it’s probably against our best interest for us to vote for them. It’s mostly just the selfish joy we get from irritating people like our troll.
Of course, if it were up to me, there’d be free abortion services in every high school, along with free birth control. That would really make some heads explode.
First of all, it’s not the damn unions fault. I know it’s a favorite punching bag for the trolls on here but I went to a small rural high school (450 students) and of my graduating class of 98 students 13 or 14 went to the ivy league and another huge swath went to private colleges and universities. And guess what, all of our teachers were proud union members and did a fucking amazing educating us for the most part.
Secondly, private school is an option for the working class how exactly? Have you seen the tuition of sending your kids to private school? Holy shit fuck people! Talk about the 1% trolling on Slog…it’s no wonder my comment about the guillotine pissed so many people off earlier today. And I live in North Seattle and yeah, a lot of the parents do send their kids to private schools and you know what? I wouldn’t classify those people as the working class, probably upper class or on the low end upper middle class. Vouchers have only been an excuse to get the rich parents out of public schools and to take away as much funding from public schools as possible. Again, another old right wing tactic.
But thirdly, and this will piss of the liberals on Slog, you can’t put enough money into the Seattle School District to save it. Spend $12K per student or $120K per student…it doesn’t matter. (Have you SEEN our school board meetings that have turned into fucking spectacles of asininity??) Seriously, the school district in Seattle needs major reform and right now no one on the right or the left has ANY solutions. And there is a reason for that:SCHOOL REFORM ISN’T A FUCKING POLITICAL ISSUE!!! It’s called an educational issue. And it’s a problem that needs NON-POLITICIANS to solve and …here’s a crazy thought…solutions from educators. Political types are not invited.
Mr. Roger Powaliz who was one of my English teachers in high school once said that our public schools were working just fine until politicians realized that the Department of Education could be used as a political football against their opponents.
Yeah I have typos in my posting…get over it…..damn internet… and I’m fucking pissed after reading some of the racist shit on here too. GRRRRRRRR!!!!
“there’d be free abortion services in every high school, along with free birth control”
Actually I agree! Stopping these people from breeding would be the best start. Hell, throw in a free rims for the first abortion, a free XBox for the second. That’ll have the baby mamas lined up down the block. Cheaper than what these fuck-ups cost society.
So glad we can agree. Abort the poor!
“private school is an option for the working class how exactly?”
Vouchers.
Private catholic schools turn out far better educated students for less than $12k a year. That’s affordable for many northside families, cheaper in fact than daycare.
Sadly political correctness means all the smart kids from families who care about their kids’ educations have to be thrown under the bus of ‘social justice’. Why do you morons think northside families pushed so hard for an end to busing and make neighborhood schools instead?
Btw since Rainier Valley HS is severely under rolled but spends more per student than northside schools (and that’s excluding levy money) how come white liberals aren’t lining up to enroll their kids there? Do as we say, not as we do. The racism of low expectations.
Spending more on our current school system is like spending more on our current prison system. Both are fundamentally flawed and broken money pits that no one wants to admit are the wrong way to do things. Hell, a good portion of schools are built by the same people who build prisons. They even look like prison. No wonder bullying is such a problem. It’s prison rules.
I’m all for education spending but not on glorified kiddie warehouses. We need to look at fundamentally different ways to educate our kids.
There are two very good things to be said for Catholic schools:
1.) They produce great handwriters. They may not be able to spell, but they write like a dream.
2.) They are incredibly effective at getting young people to not be Catholic.
(although, since there is almost no clergy left – most of them being dead, in jail, or so old they are basically doorstops – they may have slipped a bit)
Plus, Catholic college boys will do ANYTHING in the sack. Probably the girls too.
@18 FTW
Vouchers have only been an excuse to get the rich parents out of public schools and to take away as much funding from public schools as possible.
This is demonstrably false.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZhhS716d…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2eyte4oM…
There are lots of ways to fiddle with the way voucher programs are implemented so that families who need them most are using them the most. Every family deserves to have a way out of a school that is either unsafe or academically unsatisfactory.
People who say that funding doesn’t matter always sing a different tune when their kids’ school gets the chop.
You can throw all the money you want at schools, but it won’t make ANY difference unless parents start parenting. Education begins and ends at home. Interested parents = interested students. Disinterested parents = disinterested students. It’s that simple, and yet NO politician and NOBODY in the media will ever bring that up.
On the contrary: The only people that think that a lack of money is the problem are the people who are relying on the school system to raise their children. Free education should include setting kids free from shitty schools. Vouchers Now!
@22, there are hypocrites in any given group of people. But there are lots of people with kids in public school who look at the numbers and reasonably conclude that the problem isn’t funding, but rather spending.
@23, I agree that parents are the first and most important resource in any child’s education. But there are countless cases of poor parents who are very interested in their kids’ education, but are trapped at a dangerous or otherwise unsatisfactory school.
This guy Dominic . . . watched a bit of the video . . . jeesh, what an ugly-looking and irritating-sounding nerd.
Conservatives hate children once they’re born, unless they help them outsource US jobs overseas.
@28 How the fuck does criticizing public schools equate to hating children? Do you even have kids? My youngest does great in public school, but my oldest does not fit the mold. We are looking at a private alternative school for her but it is 20k which we could not afford. Now if I took her out of public school and the state gave me a check for the 11k or so they spend on her now and I put that towards the private school I could come up with the 9k myself. Why anyone would not agree with this is beyond me.
@29: Because taking money away from public schools hurts more students than it helps.
@30 Forcing parents to send their children to schools that are not fit hurts more students then it helps. You are living in the 1950’s.
It is not racist to make socioeconomic observations.
It is not selfish to vote no or yes on a levy. It’s your right.
And, nobody hold the copyright on loving children. All good people do.
The immaturity on Slog amazes me.
#2 – the top high schools list is primarily a count of AP classes. Not of how good a school is.
More spending?
1) more testing. We have state tests and now our district has the MAP test which is given 2-3 times a year. That’s a big cost right there.
2) we pay administrators more. You should see how many people in SPS make more than $100k? It’s amazing.
3) In SPS, we have some good/great schools and a lousy administration.
4) The people who say it’s parents? You’re right. It’s parents AND society. When did it become a bad thing to be smart? Why did Bush feel free to say he got Cs and became president? Why is Gates always called a geek or a nerd in profiles? We need to value education in this country, treat it like matters and pass this onto our children.
@18 – have you been to an SPS school? They don’t look like prisons (especially the newly built ones).
You people with voucher ideas? No way. If you want private school, pay for it. Want better public schools? Work for it.
And by the way, the majority of the Seattle School Board is up for reelection. Don’t like the way it looks? vote Buetow, Martin, Peaslee and Martin.
You people with voucher ideas? No way. If you want private school, pay for it. Want better public schools? Work for it.
Is this what you tell a poor parent whose kid goes to a school with violence? Is this what you tell a poor parent whose kid has special needs? How are they supposed to “work for it?” They go to the PTA meetings. They go the school board meetings. They meet with their kids’ teachers.
Are you really going to look into the eyes of these parents…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2eyte4oM…
and tell them, “Pay for it. Work for it.”
That’s what ideologues have been telling poor parents for a few decades, now. It’s a compassionless, conservative attitude.
There is little question of the overwhelming impact of culture and affluence on student academic achievement. Poor students and students from certain cultures under-perform in school. This is commonly regarded as the academic achievement gap.
Here’s how I have come to see the debate over the “achievement gap” or, more precisely, the “opportunity gap”.
Folks pretty much break down into two camps of thought.
One camp says “Hey, if you don’t read to your kids, feed them properly, support their education, enforce discipline, check their homework and attend parent-teacher conferences, then don’t be surprised and don’t complain when your kids fail in school.” These folks see the academic failure of poor and minority students as just and right. They see the children as chattel, the property of their parents. If the parents fail to properly invest in their little possessions then those children fail to show value. That’s the way the world works. They don’t seem to recognize that the children aren’t the ones making these choices. They don’t seem to recognize that the kids are the ones who suffer from this neglect, not the parents.
Then there is another group of people who see the children as full human beings in their own right who, by the grace of providence and Good Ol’ American Values, are entitled to a fair opportunity to achieve. These folks say that we need programs to feed, house, clothe and educate children living in poverty because – no matter what you may think about their parents – the children are not responsible for their condition and are worthy of our help to get the baseline necessities for a start in life.
I happen to be a member of the latter group. I also happen to among those who believe that the primary determinant of a student’s academic achievement is the active involvement in that student’s education by an adult in the child’s home. If there are families who do not support their children’s education (or nutrition, clothing, health care, shelter, etc.), then we, as a society, in the interest of fairness and in the interest of the value of human potential, should step forward and provide that child with the necessary support.
The folks who decry any spending on anything outside of the three R’s, or decry any spending on those expenses that they (perhaps rightfully) believe that parents should provide clearly have the “children as chattel” view. They think the children should rightfully suffer for the choices made by their parents. Or, perhaps, they think that the children should, somehow, miraculously, at the age of eight, rise up, defy their upbringing, and dedicate themselves to their education. This is, of course, an insane expecation. You can’t pull yourself up by your bootstraps if you don’t have any boots.
The Families and Education Levy is supposed to provide those services outside of Basic Education that are needed supports for children who are not getting that support from their families.
I’ll say it again. These are things that children absolutely need to do well in school. If you or your children have them from family resources, that’s wonderful. Many children do not, so we, as a society, must provide it. Yes, there is the rare case of a child who out-performs all expectations and achieves despite disadvantages. They are the exception rather than the rule and their stories should not be the basis for policy.
The curious thing about people who are against school vouchers is that they act like the torrent of money being thrown into the system is actually helping educate students (when there is no evidence), that there’s light at the end of the tunnel (no evidence), and that a free market alternative like vouchers will rob schools of resources (while ignoring the fact that it also removes the cost burden of the kid who leaves). Simple economics, that.
Why is public schooling the ONLY social benefit (incl. unemployment, food stamps, social security, Medicare, etc) that prevents you from shopping for the goods that you think are best for you?
Because the schools aren’t for education. They’re simply a jobs scheme for politicians.
Pro-Choice for Schools!
LJM –
Which public schools in Seattle are so terrible that a child cannot get an education from them?
Zok, you’re a vouchers advocate. Tell us how it would work.
People would be free to take their voucher and enroll their child at any school, right? Only the schools don’t have infinite capacity. So when the popular schools, like Garfield High School, are over-subscribed – as they surely would be, how do we decide which students are admitted and which students are turned away.
And where do the students who are turned away go? Won’t they simply have to settle for whatever school they can gain access to?
Who will pay for transportation as these students travel all over town for their education?
Do you imagine that private schools will suddenly pop up out of nowhere to meet the demand fueled by the vouchers? What evidence do you have that this would happen? Where would these schools be housed? Who would teach in them? How would students reach them? What reason do we have to believe that they would be any better than the public schools available to those students?
You seem to forget that Seattle has tried school choice. I will admit that the District didn’t do it properly – they didn’t intervene when schools failed to attract students – but people, by and large, didn’t like it. They prefer the predictability they get with the current neighborhood assignment plan with significantly reduced choice.
Here’s the real problem with the idea of schools competing: the rules that work in the private sector work because they are all driven by the profit motive. The profit motive is not at work in the public sector, so those private sector models all fail.
@35 Your characterization of two classes of people is so simplistic as to be laughable. It’s no doubt pleasing to your own self-identity, that are dark and evil forces, and only good an righteous people as yourself can save children through the societal havens you’ll create in “schools.” But gimme’ a fuckin’ break with the hysterics about chattel and enslavement.
More specifically, many of us think that children who aren’t properly clothed, fed and nurtured should be helped. But we don’t think that’s the role of the schools system, and redundant of other failing (and allegedly under-resourced) social service agencies. And while those resources are needed, there are many ways to provide them (through the enforcement of funded family courts, wage-garnishment laws, etc.) rather than yet-another-levy. Over time this alleged helpfulness creates a greater sense of cultural dependency on institutions, not the independence and self-responsibility that inures productive citizenry.
And as for the kids who are interested, and whose parents do care – Why sentence them to classrooms full of disruptive, disinterested kids who prevent them from getting an education? Why are you forcing their association to a culture they can’t escape, through geographic school assignments so limited that they aren’t seen anywhere else in the developed world? What’s the agenda behind that – and how fair is that to the individual that wants to succeed?
Your kind have had the ball for 30+ years in American education — and you’ve done nothing but move the team backwards for each of those 30 years. Not even your pals Clinton and Obama put their kids in public schools, despite the fact that Wash DC spends more money on education per kid (nearly $30,000 per year) than the elite private schools chosen by the Democratic leadership — now that they got theirs. By robbing public schooling of the resources tied to his kids, is Obama in the “kids are chattel” class? Are the 40% of families in North Seattle who have put their kids in private school unjustly abandoning the other left behind in public schools?
Oh! And for those who think our public schools provide crappy results, look again. Our schools are just fine. Seattle schools outperforms the state average on statewide tests.
When comparing US schools to those in other nations please compare apples to apples and only consider systems which, like ours, attempt to provide universal access to a college-prepartory curriculum K-12.
And for those who talk in terms of average spending per student, this includes Dominic and John Carlson, you’re using a meaningless statistic. The average spending per student is not representative of the spending per typical student. The average is heavily skewed by a few students who are spectacularly expensive to educate. Instead, consider the amount allocated to educate a typical student – one who is not disabled, who speaks English as a first language, and who is not eligible for free or reduced price lunches. You will find that the allocation for such students is significantly lower than the average spending per student.
LJM wonders why spending on education has outstripped increases in enrollment over the past 40 years, but there are students in our classrooms who would not have been there 40 years ago. There are poor, minority, immigrant, and disabled students – all of them costly to educate – who simply were not in the classroom in 1970.
In addition, before 1970 highly capable and educated women did not have the same career opportunities that they have today. It was pretty much mommy, nurse, teacher, or secretary. Today, those same women can have careers in the trades, as doctors, lawyers, and executives. Until the glass ceiling was shattered school districts were able to hire incredibly over-qualified women for second-class wages. Those days are over.
Any comparisons of school costs from 1970 to school costs today is simply pointless.
The profit motive doesn’t work in the public sector? Tell that the teachers unions, the thousands of for-profit curriculum consultants, the $400 an hour education leadership consultants, the for-profit political Levy consultants, the hundreds of bureaucrats racking-up pensions, the school bus manufacturers and for-profit service contractors etc. Jesus, get real.
It’s seemingly impossible for you to believe that school choice works — and yet it works tremendously throughout much of the world. (Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, France, Germany, Scotland, Canada (Ontario), Sweden, Chile, etc….)
In this scenario “Garfield’s” institutional leadership (and other schools) would each decide what it wants to offer in terms of non-core academics, extra-curriculars, campus amenities, and culture (uniforms, traditions, standards). It’s all a trade-off based on the resources (students) that each school can attract. As needed they can offer an entrance exam and/or lottery. It could then pick the best student or the lucky students. Each school decides. Students would then have an incentive to behave and perform (knowing there were other kids are lined-up to take their place), and parents would be forced to stay involved, because if the kid doesn’t stay engaged, the next school might not be as convenient or good.)
For the parents who couldn’t get into “Garfield” — but valued what it offered — they could then collectively influence another school (public or private) to emulate that offer.
Instead of laying-out the treatise, lemme’ just say: It works everywhere else in the world. It works in the private schools.
Yet somehow it can’t work in Seattle?
Yes. The parents who are choosing private school are abandoning the ones left in public school. So what? They are doing what they think is best for their kids. If they choose that, they need to be OK with the idea that they are not fully participating in our democracy, but are instead choosing a feudalistic construct as their ‘practical’ philosophy of life…instead of getting defensive. You get to make the decision, but you can’t pretend there are no results of your actions.
My high school student as received an excellent education in the public schools. He was actually recruited to attend several private boarding schools on the east coast. Why would we want to choose that when he is getting an excellent education right here in Seattle. i reject the idea that all Seattle schools are bad..or even most of them.
The comment about how much we have increased funding appears to leave out the rising costs of education and the fact that Washington state has one of the lowest spending per child rates in the nation. I think it was 43rd the last time I looked.
Don’t want to vote for the levy – fine. Find some other way to help. I find it cheaper and more efficient for me to vote for the levy and pay the taxes rather than look for and actively participate in volunteer programs. Just lazy I guess.
Seattle schools “are just fine.” Really?
http://reportcard.ospi.k12.wa.us/summary…
30% of student aren’t meeting the state-mandated proficiency in reading each year, 40% – 50% failing math; 40-45% failing science…
But we’re fine — compared to Yakima and Gray’s Harbor.
Unfortunately, we’re not competing with Yakima and Gray’s Harbor in a global economy. Compared to China, Brazil and Germany our proficiency standard is laughable — and we’re failing that.
Thank you Charlie Mas, for single-handedly making the best case for why people should be able – through vouchers – to escape the illogic and asininity of Seattle Public Schools and their apologists.
Charlie, I believe your question (@37) is meaningless. Let me explain.
A parent is unhappy with the school her child is attending. Maybe there’s a bullying issue. Maybe there’s a teacher issue. Maybe the child has special needs. Maybe the child is bored stiff. The proper response to this parent isn’t, “So, you’re saying your child can’t get an education here?” That’s not the issue. (Of course, the very definition of the word “education” and how it is achieved is thoroughly unsettled. But that’s another and more complicated discussion.)
It’s like asking, “Which used car lot in the city is so terrible that a person can’t buy a used car there?” Well, of course you can buy a car. Just not the kind or quality of car different people want.
The way we educate our children is a profoundly personal decision. When you imply that parents have no right to be dissatisfied with a particular school (because, hey, it’s not like they’re not getting an education!), you reject the very natural and healthy impulse to personalize our education and the education of our children.
Everyone, not just the rich, deserve to have a choice as to how they’re kids will receive an education.
And Charlie, you’re asserting that kids 40 years ago were easier to educate than kids are today, hence the three-fold increase in spending. There is zero evidence to support this, and, speaking as a former teacher, it’s a fairly ridiculous claim.
@Zok 39,
Wow! You fill my mouth so much with your words that there is barely any room left for mine.
Here are some of your words for you to chew and swallow:
“children who aren’t properly clothed, fed and nurtured should be helped. But we don’t think that’s the role of the schools system, and redundant of other failing (and allegedly under-resourced) social service agencies.”
Then who do you think is going to do it? Wage garnishment doesn’t work when there aren’t any wages to garnish. Are you saying, Zok, that providing a social safety net is not a proper role for the government? If that’s what you mean, then please say it clearly so we can know you for what you are.
And if the government, as the democratically elected representatives of our society, does not provide this safety net, then who will? And will they provide it to all who need it?
Your heart bleeds for the motivated students who have to share a classroom with un-motivated students. Your solution is to offer them an escape to some other school or some other classroom free of those who would drag them down. And what is to keep the un-motivated from also using the vouchers to follow the motivated students to the new school? Oh! Right! You want to give the schools the opportunity to kick out students who don’t meet their high standards.
You are perfectly willing to abandon the un-motivated students to their fate (something you comicly accuse me of doing) – but then you decry the poor performance of our schools where students aren’t passing the statewide proficiency tests. Tell us, please, how grouping all of the unmotivated students – the “disruptive, disinterested kids” – together is going to help them achieve passing scores on those tests.
Zok, you first blame the students for the poor results of the system and then blame the system for the poor results of the students. Please make up your mind. If those “disruptive, disinterested kids” cannot be helped, then don’t blame the schools when they don’t perform on the tests.
Despite your contention to the contrary, geographic school assignments are the norm all across the country and throughout most of the world. Again, school choice was tried here in Seattle. It failed.
There’s no need to respond to the rest of your screed in #39 because it just doesn’t apply to me. All of your presumptions (not to mention your facts) were wrong. Please try to pay attention to what is written instead of what you imagine.
Please let’s compare our student outcomes with China. What percentage of children in China graduate from high school? Do you know? What percentage in Brazil? Not the percentage of high school students who graduate – the percentage of all children. They are not attempting universal education in those countries, Zok. They aren’t even close.
Finally, if you count me among the apologists for Seattle Public Schools then you really are clueless.
@42, yes, education costs are rising. When a 10% increase in enrollment is met with a 95% increase in employment, costs will rise. That’s the problem.
And moving kids out of a public school is no different than moving out of a neighborhood you don’t like. To suggest that someone is not fully participating in democracy simply because they take their life and/or the education of their kids out and away from a local system they find dissatisfying is outlandish hyperbole. Go tell it to the poor people who would love nothing more than to leave their violent neighborhoods and/or failing schools.
It’s awesome that your kid did great in public schools. Lots of kids do. But different people live in different circumstances and shouldn’t have to have their options limited simply because some people are well served by a system that doesn’t serve everybody as well.
LJM, the children are no harder or easier to educate today than they were 40 years ago, but 40 years ago we didn’t even try it.
LJM, please do not re-state what I write. I wouldn’t mind so much but you get it wrong.
I did not imply that parents have no right to be dissatisfied with a particular school. I said no such thing. I suspect it would be easier for you to argue against that idea, but it isn’t the one I put forward. Nor do I reject anyone’s effort to personalize their child’s education. You’re very creative to invent that.
Seattle allows families to change schools. Seattle has choice. What choice do people want that they don’t have?
It’s true that schools have finite capacity, so not everyone who wants the popular schools can gain access to them. School choice would not increase the capacity of those schools. In fact, those schools had smaller enrollments under the choice plan. They are being crammed full under the neighborhood assignment plan.
What choice do you want to make available that isn’t available now? The choice to go private? Go ahead, but if you want a voucher you’re going to have to answer to Zok who doesn’t think that providing that kind of support is the proper role of government.
And you’re going to have to explain to me how those schools are going to also suddenly expand their capacity to accomodate all of the new students who want to enroll.
Charlie, what do you mean by, “we didn’t even try it?” We didn’t try to educate poor and immigrant kids? (Bear with me, I’m easily confused.)
And, seriously, what do you tell the parents in the videos I’ve posted? Do you tell them that they really don’t need to have a choice as to which school their kids go to? Do you tell the mother of the autistic boy that they should just make do with the unsatisfying education he’s receiving? Do you tell the poor mothers that they should just tell their kids to be happy at schools they don’t enjoy attending?
What voucher opponents say is, “Work with the school. Volunteer. Let them know you’re dissatisfied. Work to get more funds allocated. Things will improve.”
They’ve been doing that for decades. While their children either finish or drop out never having enjoyed the educational process.
I honestly don’t know how people can be against giving parents (especially poor parents) choices for their kids’ education. How is being anti-choice a compassionate or liberal position?
Charlie, apologies for misinterpreting your statements. But, surely, you can understand that when you respond to the fact that there are parents who are unhappy with their schools with, “Which public schools in Seattle are so terrible that a child cannot get an education from them?” it implies that as long as a school is offering an education, there’s really not a problem.
Then you say you’re not an apologist for Seattle schools after you’ve written, “Our schools are just fine.” This is confusing, since it’s rather obvious, that, despite the obvious fact that all schools offer an education, the schools aren’t “just fine.”
And, yeah, since I do believe in universal education, I think vouchers are fair. There are lots and lots of different ways to do vouchers. But the most important thing is to give poor parents the ability to put their kids in schools that make them happy. Seattle offers limited choice. The less limited the choices are for poor parents, the better.