Comments on: School Wars

By: For Further Study : Stager-to-Go

For Further Study : Stager-to-Go — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 08:02:27 +0000

[...] Stager’s cover story, School Wars, from GOOD [...]

By: lilvig81

lilvig81 — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 20:42:20 +0000

I agree that this article is very telling of our education system. I am an educator who has worked at both public and charter schools. In my experience, the charter system has the right idea for creating a small school and making it a better learning environment for students, however, there are many flaws. Unfortunately, the teachers are usually in it for the right reasons and the good of the students, but the administrators were clearly businessmen in the business of education. When will the lawmakers actually listen to the educators who go into a profession that is completely selfless, instead of the man with the money who wants to make more by taking advantage of kids? Public schools are a great thing and can be even better with the right support of families and legislature. I often believe that the system is not fixed because policy makers need students to fail. If more students fail, its less competition for their kids to get into college and its more people available to supersize their french fries when they are hungry. People with money and power need people without it to serve them.

By: bfuentes

bfuentes — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 19:25:46 +0000

I am an educator, and Iwill say this is one of the best written articles on the state of education I have ever read. You are right in saying that the fun of teaching and learning has/is/slowly dying in our public school system. To me NCLB has set up public schools and children to fail, so that school unions and communites can fail along with them. In you article; “Charters are quasi-public schools that receive public funding but don’t have to play by the same rules; they have more latitude than public schools, including the freedom to use different curricula, employ non-credentialed educators, change the school calendar, ban unions, and be selective in student enrollment.” I have asked many people as to why Charters can “wipe” away the standards and all of the rules and regualtions to “start over” to run in the way they see fit…but public school are locked into this failing system. Why can’t public school have the latitude to change as charter schools do. No one wants to answer my question. Charters are being used more and more to give public control of school back over to private interests. The big sham is that people think Charter schools are the greatest things ever right now…if you look more in dept into them they are not. Government does not want to pay for schooling any longer…and this is there answer. Pass the bucket off to some corporation that has a large P.R. budget. Have fun with that folks!

By: dennisar

dennisar — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 15:36:10 +0000

The solution to so many of our social ills lies in a simple educational vision:

“… productive contexts for learning
in which the needs of each child are met as their talent, interest,
curiosity, and passion are amplified.” (School Wars, paragraph 3)I offer my thoughts on the issue in an Education Week blog post which you can link to here.

By: totalabw

totalabw — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 21:57:41 +0000

Interestingly, not only do charter schools operate within a different set of curriculum rules, they are non-union. If you think this is not a problem, consider that they are puppy mills for teachers. If a teacher can not produce exceptional test scores (”breed” them into students), they are let go. No charter school (KIPP, Aspire, etc.) worth its weight shows the true statistics of test scores and turn over of students and staff. Teachers at charter schools burn out considerably faster than teachers at reqular public and private schools. In addition, most teachers at charter schools are single (they “marry” their charter school) and younger than 30. Parents believe they are getting “choice”or something new, however, charter schools do not outperform public schools, they just have better marketing. If you go to various charter school web sites, you will notice no “noteworthy”news has occurred in a couple years that makes them stand out from their counterparts in regular public ed. Oh yes, I forgot, charter schools are not tied to providing special ed services since they get less proportionate money. Since charters are schools of choice, parents are asked to “waive” out of special ed programs (IEP, etc.). Most charter schools are so dysfunctional that if anyone looked at the true data over 5, 10 years, they would be appalled. We only see what we wish and clearly there are a lot of business people out there selling us what they think we need – I believe this is akin to American car makers – and we know where that industry is just now.

By: jenspunk

jenspunk — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 17:58:59 +0000

Special education was not mentioned once in this otherwise informative article, and these are the kids that suffer the most when a system is behind, or otherwise, as discrimination against those with disabilities is still alive and cancerous in its effect on all of us.

By: edkasky2

edkasky2 — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

This series of articles on education reminds me of how embarrassed I am of my own generation sometimes. There are those of us who would rather pay someone than to get our hands dirty with our kids. We would rather plop them in front of a tv screen in the back seat rather than have a conversation or sing silly songs. We would rather pay to put our kids into a private school than to actually get involved with our kids' education.

Both of our kids went through the public school system in Los Angeles and are doing just fine thank you. Our daughter graduated from one of the best small liberal arts schools in the country and is currently in her second year of a Masters program. Our son got his BFA in graphic design from one of the best art schools in the world. Hell, he even works for this magazine so he must have done okay!

They did well because we were involved with their education. We both had full time jobs but we made the time because it was important to us. If it's not important to the parents, then it won't be important to the kid. And if that happens, no school in the world will be able to fix it, no matter how much money you throw at it.