By Antonio D. French
Filed Wednesday, March 28, 2007 at 9:27 AM
St. Louis University High School recently made news by adding to its number of students that have received perfect scores on the ACT. According to the Post-Dispatch, in the past three years, eight SLUH students have received perfect 36's on their college entrance exams. Labels: Schools
While the all-boys high school remains one of the top in the state academically, it is also making gains in its reputation as one of the most expensive. The St. Louis Business Journal notes in its latest issue that SLUH is raising its tuition next year to an eye-popping $10,500 a year — that's over $40,000 for a high school education!
By comparison, the University of Missouri's 2006-2007 tuition is $7,308 per semester. And Columbia College in Chicago's annual tuition is just $16,328.
In the near future, will St. Louis parents be forced to pay near-college tuition rates for a quality high school education for their kids?
40 Comments:
Ummmmm.....
SLU's $10.5K next year compares very, very well with SLPS average expenditure per student, without the economies of scale. According to this (page 20, footnote 6) SLPS per-pupil expenditure in the 2003-2004 school year was $10.6K.
I cannot believe, Antionio, that you want to compare state-subsidized tuition against unsubsidized tuition. There are a dozen ways to slice this data but it is clear that MU's tuition covers about half of the costs that could be attributed roughly to "education". See the table on page 30. MU System has about 65,000 students, and I call $1B the "instructional budget" so to speak.
St. Louis parents (and other residents) already are forced to pay the same tuition as SLU students' parents are, they simply don't know it. But they do know they are not getting nearly enough for their money. This is what the whole fight is about.
And the SLU parents are paying it twice! There is no justice in this at all.
t
3/28/2007 2:45 PM
SLUH boys are at a college prep; not a regular high school. Therefore, the skills they gain in the classroom and outside of it supersede those of even college students. There were texts I used in a 200-level Saint Louis University theology course that I recommended to a friend who is on faculty at the U. High for his sophomores who clearly can handle such sophisticated material.
I'm particularly biased as I went to a private Catholic all-girls school (go Markers!) that afforded me many opportunities in college, including passing out of pre-requisites in order to take more advanced college and graduate level courses.
I'd like to cite SLUH's webpage:
It should be noted that although tuition for 2006-07 is $9,400, SLUH will actually spend $12,762 per student. Tuition alone does not even cover the cost of our faculty salaries. The difference between tuition and actual cost - $3,362 - is made up with charitable gifts from parents, alumni and other benefactors and with income from the school's endowment.
SLUH also has an Ignatian Grant Program and a Work Study Grant program for financial assistance and admissions are done "need-blind." So a young man is accepted or rejected on other criteria aside from finances.
3/28/2007 4:39 PM
I went to a college prep school as well. Even though I hated it with a passion, the educational value was far better than the local public schools, per my anecdotal experience as a college freshman. That said, I do not believe we should abandon public subsidized education simply because their is a bureaucratic or BOE failure. Education is a public good. When the quality is high, society benefits. When quality is low, the results are obvious. The answer is definitely not privatization of our public schools, but fixing what we have.
3/28/2007 5:58 PM
SLUH has quite a nice endowment. While $10,500 per year may be the sticker-price at SLUH, a large amount of the students (including me when I went there) receive need-based work-grant aid.
The $10,500 figure may be a little misleading. I doubt that a majority (or a significant minority) of the students at SLUH pay full tuition.
3/28/2007 7:13 PM
SLUH was the best experience of my life. It was expensive but I'm confident in saying I learned more at that school than I ever did at any of the colleges/universities that I attended. 25% of the students do receive financial aid and the average aid is over $3,500. I feel very fortunate that my parents were able to make the financial sacrifice to send me there.
3/28/2007 10:39 PM
As someone who is paying for school twice (taxes and private school tuition), I know Tom Leith has got it right. I just wish the tuition at the private primary and secondary schools my children attend was as low as SLU's.
Anyone interested in discussing the merits of vouchers?
How's this for a start? Break the cycle of failure in SLPS, break the stranglehold of the teachers' union, AND educate ALL our children--that's a triple play that would make us all proud.
Government schools are not the answer!
3/28/2007 11:07 PM
> Education is a public good.
By what definition?
Perhaps you mean something like "The public benefits when people are well-educated." But the public benefits when people are well-fed too. We don't say therefore that groceries are a public good. (Yes, yes, I know. Too many of us are too well-fed, and this burdens the public.)
t
3/29/2007 12:44 AM
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3/29/2007 10:50 AM
No, I define education as a public good, not simply that the public benefits when the quality is good, although that is true. Public education is given to all, and is financed by the public, for the purpose of economic growth, civic life, and as it's in line with the American Dream. These goals are hindered when districts under perform, yet they are achieved when the opposite occurs. Public education is essential therefore is currently a public good.
Private education, like other private goods, are a supplement or alternative to the public system. Individuals who have the means are able to pay extra for private services which may or may not be of higher quality. While I do understand that those who are using private education are paying double since they finance public education through taxes, it is essential that they do so. Public goods are available to all and paid by all, even by those who may not use the service. Society at large benefits from this public good, even those private education customers who do not use it personally.
You pay for National Defense, Parks, Transit, Roads, etc., even though you may not use them personally or agree with them politically. If they didn't exist our society would not function. The same is true for public education.
Moreover, if those parents who choose private education remained in the public system, and were as active, I am sure many of the SLPS issues would not exist. Socioeconomic status and civic participation is highly related.
3/29/2007 10:57 AM
Doug Duckworth writes:
> Public education is essential
By public education I understand you to mean educational services provided directly by the government.
Can you show that provided directly by the government is an essential property? It seems to me that if it were, private schools would've vanished from the scene long ago. Can you argue (not simply assert, but argue) that without Public Education, distinct from an Educated Public, that our society could not function?
It seems to me parents who have abandoned government schools have primarily done it for two reasons:
- The government schools do not teach what they want their children taught; or
- The government schools do teach what they do not want their children taught.
Or both.
Parents should be free to educate their own children in the way they see fit, and so a compulsory system of government schools unjustly makes them less free. You may not personally or politically agree with the way some of these parents would choose educate their kids, but you surely would not be so authoritarian as to deprive them of the freedom to do so. Would you?
t
3/29/2007 1:03 PM
ATTN Tom Leith and CWE guy:
It was the vision of Thomas Jefferson, the founder of American Public Education that the blessed and wealthy of society should fund the education of the poor. “The expenses of …schools should be borne by the inhabitants of the county, every one in proportion to his general tax-rate. This would throw on wealth the education of the poor." (Thomas Jefferson: Autobiography, 1821. ME 1:70).
In fact, he saw part of the very purpose of public education to be to mitigate the power of wealth and privilege in society. “Worth and genius would thus have been sought out from every condition of life, and completely prepared by education for defeating the competition of wealth and birth for public trusts." (Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1813. ME 13:399).
It never occurred to him that the blessed of society would consider it burdensome or unfair to fund the education of the poor. On the contrary, he saw it as a matter of investment: “The tax which will be paid for this purpose is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance." (Thomas Jefferson to George Wythe, 1786. ME 5:396).
Perhaps instead of feeling slighted for helping to pay for the education of the poor, you should feel grateful to be so blessed in life that you are ABLE to do so. The idea that nobility and wealth obliges one to do right by those around them who do not have such resources is a lost and dying concept. It has been replaced by pettiness and greed and “I got mine, too bad for you.” THIS ATTITUDE, more than ANYTHING else has led to the problems in education and society today.
Tom Leith: Your argument challenge is meaningless. There is no way to produce an "educated public" without "public education". The existence of public education does not negate any parent's right to provide the kind of education they choose to provide for their children. IT'S NOT ABOUT THAT. IT'S ABOUT PROVIDING EDUCATION FOR THE MASSES OF THE POOR WHO CANNOT MAKE THE KINDS OF CHOICES YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT. Public education does not exist for the public to subsidize the wealthy in sending their children to private school. It has always existed for the purpose of providing a way for the children of the poor to compete and contribute in America WITH the children of privilege. Once upon a time, Americans understood that was a good thing--one that made us stronger.
3/29/2007 2:09 PM
Well said ariel!
Noblesse Oblige!
3/29/2007 2:20 PM
==It never occurred to him that the blessed of society would consider it burdensome or unfair to fund the education of the poor. On the contrary, he saw it as a matter of investment:==
Ariel, you have condenmed TJ to an eternity of having to listen to his good buddy's words ringing hollow in his ears. Ben Franklin. "Waste neither time nor money, but make the best use of both."
I crave a good school district and money well spent on education.
Yeah, yeah Kjoe, I know. Some Billionaire is behind this mess.
3/29/2007 4:27 PM
The notion that it never occurred to Jefferson that the blessed of society would consider it burdensome or unfair to fund the education of the poor is laughable. Here we see the great Champion of Liberty proposing a tax! He's not begging for contributions, he's in favor of extracting cash at the point of a bayonet because he knows better what to do with it than they do. Not that it is necessarily wrong to do so, but it sure disproves the assertion made, and demonstrates the "complexity" of the man.
I would be thrilled to death to see the return of a sense of noblesse oblige. First of all, this regognizes standards of nobility. Secondly, it recognizes reciprocal obligations. Traditional concepts both.
> “The expenses of …schools should
> be borne by the inhabitants of
> the county...
It does not follow from this that the government ought to run the schools, but only that their "expenses" ought to be covered out of public funds. Until the 1840's, most of the schools in the USA were private, and especially in the East, often subsidized with public funds.
Although Jefferson lobbied hard for the establishment of government schools, even he did not consider them essential:
"Education not being a branch of municipal government, but, like the other arts and sciences, an accident [i.e., attribute] only, I did not place it with election as a fundamental member in the structure of government." --Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1816. ME 15:45
Meaning that even the venerable St. Thomas knew that public education (i.e. government run schools) howsoever useful is not necessary at all.
And most people agreed they were not necessary until Horace Mann in the second half of the 19th century began his campaign to create a Protestant hegemony through a program of compulsory "public education".
Mann's creation has been coopted to to create a new hegemony by a new class of elites, psuedo-scientific Naturalists of whom Jefferson would no doubt approve. To further the views of the elites is what "public education" is about, from Jefferson to today. Noblesse Oblige indeed. But that is a story for another day.
For now I assert that public funding does not necessitate government control, we have a history that proves it, and that government control has robbed generations of kids of a good education by foreclosing feasible choices for poor and even middle class parents.
t
3/29/2007 6:47 PM
Government control has robbed generations... what?
You believe that the economic power of the United States would be greater if we didn't have public education?
I would say that one of the biggest problems with public education is the property tax. If we had a revenue sharing, then the more affluent areas could help the financially constrained. This would allow the downtrodden to compete in terms of teachers, thus raise the quality of education.
3/29/2007 10:01 PM
Moreover, there has always been a choice. You send your kid to private school. and you fund public schools. Again, education is a public good and is funded by those who do not use the good directly.
Don't like it when the public schools fail?
Like everything else, enter the political arena and make a change.
3/29/2007 10:08 PM
I'm a fairly simple-minded guy. It seems to me that why does anyone care who educates society's children? The goal is to get them educated, isn't it? If the city of St. Louis is paying $10,600 per student, wouldn't it make sense to give a voucher worth that to every parent in the city? Let the market (parents) decide who teaches best. Parents could choose the best school for their child, be it Soldan, Clark, Metro, Crossroads, New City, or MICDS. Could you imagine how quickly families would move into the city if each family recieved a voucher to use at any school of their choice? The thought of it just makes me plain giddy...
3/29/2007 10:53 PM
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3/30/2007 1:25 AM
And public dollars would be going to religious schools. You already have a choice, send your kid to private schools. I fund many services but to I use them all? In the same manner, send your kid to private schools even though you fund public.
3/30/2007 1:27 AM
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3/30/2007 1:47 AM
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3/30/2007 1:47 AM
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3/30/2007 1:48 AM
> Government control has robbed
> generations... what?
Yes. At least three generations. My own preparation was dismally bad, but better than most. Before you were born, I worked in the remedial math lab of a community college near here when I first got out of high school. To this day I cannot believe who was let into high school, much less out: there were kids who couldn't add 1/2 & 1/3 together to save their lives. What's worse, some of them didn't know which one was bigger, and whether they should expect a sum greater than one or less than one, or what that would even look like on paper. I was asked to work in the language lab as well, and things were just as bad over there: semi-literate high school graduates pretending to go to college. (Yes, if they were rich enough they might've gotten into Yale, I know. But fie! on Yale for permitting it.) The frankly illiterate of course couldn't get into even the community college, and so I didn't see them there. Elsewhere in the community, but not there. Your parents had the good sense (and resources) to buy you a better education than could be had at public expense wherever you lived. And it seems the majority of us commenting on this thread are not victims of the SLPS. Strange how so many would keep it intact to "help" the current crop.
With respect to the aim of education: economic power is neither the highest good, nor the greatest power. We have made a horrible and historic mistake by behaving as though it were.
> I would say that one of the
> biggest problems with public
> education is the property tax.
Something else to thank Thomas Jefferson for.
Whatever can you mean when you say that with more money, the district could "compete in terms of teachers" and "thus raise the quality of education"? You are not saying the teachers are incompetent, are you?
A few years ago, the Post Dispatch published a piece showing the per-student expenditures for every school district in the Metro area. The SLPS wasn't the highst, but it was far from being the lowest. How much more money do you think the SLPS needs? And based on what? Current performance? Please! The district has already $10.6K per child. Many school districts succeed on 60% of this, as do most private schools.
> Again, education is a public
> good and is funded by those who
> do not use the good directly.
Proof by Repeated Assertion. I hope your professors don't let you get away with this. My favorite author once quipped "I am not urging a lop-sided idolatry of the past; I am protesting a lop-sided idolatry of the present." Education is what we make it. It was not a public good, then we made it one (on your definition), and we can re-make it. There is no is here.
> enter the political arena and
> make a change.
Great advice. I am pretty sure you will not like the change that I and cweguy prefer to make. I am also pretty sure that the great majority of parents in the City of St. Louis would like the change that I and cweguy prefer to make if they thought it could be made soon enough. Parents like Mr. Wiese might even opt to stay in the City of St. Louis instead of fleeing to Old Webster where he can be reasonably assured that his daughter's teachers and classmates share his own values.
"Profesional Educators" have been "fixing" the SLPS for as long as I have been paying attention. They haven't got it done. The new bunch probably won't manage it either, and certainly not soon enough for the parent of any six year old. I prefer they not try. It is long past time for a different idea, and maybe an old idea is just what is needed.
t
3/30/2007 1:49 AM
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3/30/2007 2:21 AM
> And public dollars would be
> going to religious schools.
Oh! The Horror! Next thing you know, kids will think their lives might have a purpose beyond selfish hedonism, and believe there is a reason why they should love and respect one another. Couldn't have that. No, sir, no way. It'd be bad for the economy.
Public dollars go to religious schools every day -- SLU is a great example, what with Pell Grants and federally guaranteed loans, research grants, and what-not. The republic has not ended.
By far the greatest number of public dollars go to the esablished Church of Psuedo-Scientific Naturalism, because the game has been rigged by the Faithful of that Church. But this too shall pass.
> You already have a choice
Yes, evidently cweguy has. And he is generous, wanting others to have the same choice. But there is only one choice you will extend to the great bulk of St. Louis families...
t
3/30/2007 2:26 AM
So why don't we bring in the real issue which is suburbanization and the Team Four Plan? Yes, as the more affluent middle class whites and blacks move out of the core so goes their tax dollars. Public services are limited severely by a lack of revenue and thus the leaders chose the Triage Method of cutting services to the needy and concentrating on the affluent neighborhoods.
Wouldn't you agree that a large amount of the problems in the SLPS are systemic and connected to the community? Wouldn't you agree that if the Team Four Plan was not enacted then our downtrodden neighborhoods would be in much better shape thus our schools due to property taxes? If we concentrated our public resources in addressing the problem neighborhoods 30 years ago, instead of pulling out and building racist Berlin Wall street barriers, then the present outcome would be different?
I happen to agree with Slay as he really describes decades of failure accurately, which we can blame on Federal Policy but also local leaders like Dick Gephardt, Vince Schoemehl, and other influential leaders like his father and former 64th District State Representative Francis R. Slay. Those that did nothing or had a swift hand in past policies are responsible for the 52nd City of today.
3/30/2007 2:48 AM
> So why don't we bring in the
> real issue which is
> suburbanization
I am happy to talk about this, but for now it feels to me like you're changing the subject. We should learn from what has happened in the past, but not even God can change the past. We must deal with the current situation.
t
3/30/2007 10:22 AM
Tom Leith:
Jefferson WAS complex, to be sure, but he saw taxes as necessary and quite simply as a way to collect and distribute resources, not something to be avoided like the plague and considered an affront to one's freedom--particularly in regard to education: "[Surely no] tax can be called that which we give to our children in the most valuable of all forms, that of instruction... An addition to our contributions almost insensible... in fact, will not be felt as a burden, because applied immediately and visibly to the good of our children." --Thomas Jefferson: Note to Elementary School Act, 1817. ME 17:422
Your primary assertion was "that public funding does not necessitate government control". No one here is trying to argue on behalf of government-controlled education. The debate has been about money; government-funded education. Trust me when I say I am the LAST person who would come down on the side of government-run schools. When the locally elected board and its voters are disenfranchised and government-appointed people are brought in to run things--well, government-run schools are just what you have, and I firmly agree that this is not in the best interests of anyone.
I am glad you agree that noblesse oblige needs a comeback, and I agree that there is reciprocity involved. I would point out though, that the obligation to BEGIN the process rests also with the nobility.
As to the rest of your assertions about the importance Jefferson placed on public education, I can only say I believe you are entirely mistaken. "I have indeed two great measures at heart, without which no republic can maintain itself in strength: 1. That of general education, to enable every man to judge for himself what will secure or endanger his freedom. 2. To divide every county into hundreds, of such size that all the children of each will be within reach of a central school in it." --Thomas Jefferson to John Tyler, 1810. ME 12:393
Jefferson understood, as many do today, that there are a GREAT MANY children whose parents ARE NOT concerned about making good choices for their education or even their health and safety. Splintering public funds away from the education of the poor leaves these children out in the cold. The public education system was created primarily for THEM. And yes, they ARE more expensive to educate--even than SLUH students. As you look at per-pupil-expenditure numbers, consider that SLPS serves more special education students than the Special School District, and for FAR, FAR LESS PER PUPIL. These expensive, poor, advocateless children are the ones public education primarily exists to serve.
Jefferson considered that without commitment to public education of the poor, the republic would eventually be controlled by the wealthy and privileged alone, and that the poor would have shed their blood on behalf of a government that did not represent them...
To this I would add the reciprocal: that if the wealthy and privileged wanted to take total control of the republic, destroying the public schools of the poor would be an essential first step.
3/30/2007 1:27 PM
Ariel said:
> No one here is trying to argue
> on behalf of government-
> controlled education.
Ariel. You have argued on behalf of government-controlled education every time you have spoken here. There is more than one government in our republic, and the school boards you evidently think are not government bodies are in fact creatures of the state government.
You have combined "public funding" and "government schools" into one concept. Does it have to be this way? No. And this is no gedankenexperiment: we have proof from our own history, and even current practices in many areas. For example, there is "public funding" for our Medicare beneficiaries, but they do not see "government doctors" or go to "government hospitals". These ideas are entirely separable.
t
3/30/2007 3:59 PM
"You have combined "public funding" and "government schools" into one concept."
From my perspective, this seems to be what YOU are doing. I AM making a distinction between government control of schools and public funding of schools. The issue is not about control of schools, but CONTROL OF PUBLIC MONEY.
With public funding comes a measure of government oversight for administration of it, and locally elected school boards provide the closest reasonable relationship between the taxpayers who fund the schools and the administration of those funds. To the extent that control is removed farther from the voters/taxpayers, the measure of government control increases and the representation of the public becomes less and less. A state takeover of a school district represents an INCREASE in government control of the schools. However, the most extreme form of government control is occurring under Reading First, where the Federal government has assumed control of a large part of the operation of public schools. (See my post on stlschools.org/forum dated March 9.)
What some seem to be advocating as "choice", particularly through vouchers, is to put public funds into the hands of private citizens directly, with NO government oversight of how those funds are spent. Charter schools do much the same thing, since they receive public funds but are not held to the standards set by the government for other public schools.
The public trust for the education of American children is for ALL American children, and many, many children do not have parents capable or willing to make responsible choices about their children's education. Many do not even provide adequately for their health and safety. It would be equally foolish to put these children's medicaid payments into the hands of their parents and "trust" that they will make good "choices" for their children medically, and allow the "market" to dictate which doctors and clinics survive. We understand taht the public trust for the healthcare of poor children requires oversight and standards to ensure that the children receive adequate services. So does education.
A locally elected school board is the least invasive form of oversight without abandoning the public trust to the whims of market and chance.
3/30/2007 5:54 PM
Ariel writes:
> Charter schools ... are not
> held to the standards set
> by the government for other
> public schools.
And yet so many urban parents prefer them. Strange, that.
> A locally elected school board
> is the least invasive form of
> oversight without abandoning the
> public trust to the whims of
> market and chance.
No it isn't. There are plenty of counter-examples, even in the education arena: there is no elected school board, for example, to oversee the spending of Pell Grants at Washington University. But there is appropriately unobtrusive oversight.
The whims of market are radical democracy in action -- buying it, every person votes for what he thinks best in his feasible choice set. But you want to make sure there is only one item in most people's feasible choice set. And if by chance the one an only choice is poor, maybe you'll get `round to fixing it in thirty years by electing the thirty-first local school board. I am so reassured.
> many, many children do not have
> parents capable or willing to
> make responsible choices about
> their children's education.
Oh really? How many? Out of how many? And how do you measure the capability or willingness of someone to make a responsible choice when he hasn't got a choice? How shall he develop a capacity for responsible choice when he hasn't got a choice, and you will not trust him enough to give him one? Seems to me you have confused noblesse oblige with white man's burden, the very worst sort of elitism.
t
3/30/2007 11:57 PM
Mr. Leith,
I am enjoying the debate here, but are you questioning that there are
"many, many children do not have
parents capable or willing to
make responsible choices about
their children's education"?
You ask for numbers and further proof?
Are we still at the point that pro-voucher advocates still deny that problems exist with parenting in a significant number of families? (Blame it all on the schools and teachers?)
I don't think further proof is necessary. If you are going to take your argument back to this level, then please don't get involved in the SLPS, because we cannot afford to go back to square 1 again.
3/31/2007 9:55 AM
Mr. Heger,
Thank you for your comments.
I do not see how it is possible to blame it all on the teachers when the problem is with a significant fraction of parents, so I don't quite understand the thrust of your remark. And I did not take the argument to this level, Ariel did with the quantifier "many, many".
It seems to me that public policy ought to address broad problems that cannot be solved by ordinary families. Some extraordinary families will have no problems, and other extraordinary families will have severe problems. Neither of these should be the subject of broadly-applied public policies.
I do not deny that any family, or even a non-negligible fraction of families is thoroughly dysfunctional and incapable of making good choices on behalf of their children. I do deny that broad-brush public policies ought to be employed to solve their particular problems because public policy is a very blunt instrument and the equal protection clause has been abused beyond the point of absurdity.
I further assert that Poverty + Ingorance does not equal Stupidy + Indifference. The great majority of parents, even economically and educationally disadvantaged parents, can and will make decent choices when given a choice. They may not be quite the same choices you or I would make, but that does not make them bad choices.
For the fraction that cannot or will not make decent choices, some policy will have to be made. These will require some kind of one-on-one intervention probably best supplied by a church or social service agency. Not an ordinary school, or (worse) a school district. Every teacher I know (about eight, all in public schools btw) quite agree on this point.
It is objected that the existence of extraordinary programs for extraordinary needs stigmatizes those in extraordinary need because the beneficiaries say they feel stigmatized. My favorite author says "pride does not come before the fall, pride is the fall". If being singled out for special treatment makes someone feel bad, I say "Too bad. Cooperate, and grow out of the need that makes you feel bad. You can justly take pride in that." This is of course no excuse for haughty or abusive behavior on the part of anyone. I do understand there will be a residuum that simply cannot be helped out of great need, and will require a lifetime of "palliative care". How they may feel about this is beside the point.
What do you do when you get lost? What I do is go back to some place where I knew where I was, and try again to find my way to where I want to go. I go back to Square 3, so to speak.
Going back to Square 3 is what I am in favor of now that we all are lost. For me, a program like Jefferson's represents Square 3 -- it was quite radical, and clearly not Square 1. I am in favor of public finance of education. I am in favor of Thomas Jefferson's curriculum as being a reasonable minimum; especially the study of Greek and especially Latin, without which one will never fully understand the greatest civilization the world has known. I am in favor even of compuslory education with respect to this curriculum, with the emphasis on education and not on attendance at some institution. But I am not in favor of limiting publicly financed education to Jefferson's curriculum. I do not think he was either, but Ariel will probably say otherwise with another proof-text.
t
3/31/2007 2:11 PM
The thrust of my remark is this:
You say..."Oh really? How many? Out of how many? And how do you measure the capability or willingness of someone to make a responsible choice when he hasn't got a choice?"
These comments question the existence of a significant number of children whose parents are unable or unwilling to make responsible choices about their education.
I say they DO exist in significant numbers and assumed society had already come to this conclusion a long time ago (Square 1).
We should now be dealing with it (Square 2) not questioning its existence. Pulling children out of the system may be the right of the parent, but it is NOT dealing with the problem.
Trying to keep it from happening again is Square 3.
3/31/2007 5:30 PM
Jim Heger writes:
> We should now be dealing
> with it (Square 2)
OK. For me, your Square 2 is on a different board. Extraordinary needs should not be addressed in the ordinary system. I think we have good evidence this cannot work.
t
3/31/2007 10:00 PM
Tom Leith: You said, "For the fraction that cannot or will not make decent choices, some policy will have to be made. These will require some kind of one-on-one intervention probably best supplied by a church or social service agency. Not an ordinary school, or (worse) a school district."
YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT. The difference between your viewpoint and that of JH and myself is the SIZE of that fraction. You believe it to be a small fraction; an extraordinary circumstance. JH and I are teachers in SLPS. We KNOW what a LARGE fraction we are talking about. If it WERE a small fraction, perhaps things could work as you envision them. The TRUTH is that it is NOT a small fraction at all.
JH: I am afraid we ARE back to square one.
TL: The quote from you above is important. You seem to understand that schools and districts are not equipped to handle the sort of social problems that may exist in your "fraction"--and indeed should not be expected to do so. I would ask you to imagine, just imagine for a moment that the "fraction" of which you speak is 50-60 even 70% of your school population. Imagine a school or district trying to educate these children with NO recognition or resources from society that these social issues REQUIRE the kind of one-on-one social interventions of which you speak. You will have imagined SLPS.
Perhaps you should visit some of the neighborhood schools yourself if you do not believe the numbers so it will not remain a "thought experiment" for you.
Incidentally, as a Girl Scout I learned that when one is lost, one should STAY IN PLACE and concentrate on survival, not go roaming through the woods for "squares X,Y and Z".
4/01/2007 5:49 PM
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4/01/2007 9:24 PM
> I would ask you to imagine, just
> imagine for a moment that
> the "fraction" of which you
> speak is 50-60 even 70% of your
> school population.
I shall have to think about this. Thank you for proposing it.
> as a Girl Scout I learned that
> when one is lost, one should
> STAY IN PLACE and concentrate
> on survival
Me too, except I'm a boy ;-) This advice presumes someone is coming to rescue you, doesn't it? What if you are the rescue party?
t
4/01/2007 9:29 PM
First off, I think I have understood Mr. Heger's blame the teachers comment he made earlier. He thinks voucher/charter advocates "blame the teachers" for every condition of the school, and want to escape the teachers only. I don't think this is the case. These parents want to escape the school including its philosophy of operation, its political constraints, and not least a student body that does not model or reflect the parents' values. Yes, I am aware of the history here. I think most parents understand at least vaguely the problems SLPS teachers face, but as Ariel intimates, parents who don't model or value study, who permit their kids to entertain themselves six hours a day with whatever electronics they can afford, who may be emotionally distant from their kids, may suffer all manner of dysfunction themselves, or who are simply exhausted by the circumstances of their lives may want to "blame the teachers" because they're been sold the every child is equally educable political philosophy without understanding their own role in the child's education. Does this get it?
> The difference between your
> viewpoint and that of JH and
> myself is the SIZE of that
> fraction.
I hope so, but I doubt it. I think we have more differences than this.
> just imagine for a moment that
> the "fraction" of which
> you speak is 50-60 even 70%
> of your school population.
I don't think this circumstance fundamentally changes anything I have said. If you're right about the numbers, then under a public policy like I have in mind, somewhere between 30 and 50% of the students will be at least free to find an education somewhere else; to escape the school without necessarily passing judgment on the faculty. There is no reason to effectively mandate the ruin of the school experience for these kids by trapping them in a system "optimized" for kids with characteristics they don't share, to enculturate them into the dysfunction that has claimed the rest, or to deprive their parents of the freedom to educate them in a way that reflects their own values.
Can we agree to this?
The remainder, howsoever large, won't make another choice because the parents are somehow incapable of making it. Presuming the Public School is the default choice, it makes the Public School frankly a social service agency for the children of the dysfunctional (as distinct from the merely poor), which seems to be what Ariel thinks its primary mission is anyway.
At this point, it is probably best not to call it a school. This will change the expectations of the agency in a fundamental way. It has a different mission now: namely to make its young charges ready for school. This will focus everyone's attention, and the management won't have multiple constituencies. Will this new agency attract sufficient political support? I do not know. With our history, I have serious doubts. Even if it does attract sufficient political support, will it solve every problem these kids face? No, of course not. Is it an improvement? I'd say it is for the kids who escape. Is it worse for the rest? I don't think so -- the school system isn't serving them anyway because for public policy reasons it can't begin to address their problems. NB: this is not the fault of the teachers in the trenches: it is the fault of the "educators" making the policies alongside the legislatures. And we have the legislatures we have because so many have forgotten or have not received a good, solid Jesuit education.
What I think this sort of scheme will do is de-fuse the situation with the parents who are engaged, who want to choose how their kids are taught. They won't be wrestling with the school board and each other over methods and curriculum anymore. I think it will also de-fuse the situation with non-parent taxpayers who see Urban Public Schools as failures who take kids, any of whom can be educated to a high level (so they are told), and then fail to educate them to a high level. Is every child treated equally under this scheme? Nope. Is it two-tiered? Yep. Does it give up on the “we’re all in this together” idea? It was never true anyway, and there’s no harm in facing reality.
Most importantly, we won't have to wait some number of years to find out that the Next Great Elected School Board Hope fails to deliver, and thereby lose another whole generation of kids when we could've salvaged half of it.
t
4/02/2007 4:57 PM
Tom,
I don't think you do understand my "Blame the teachers..." comment.
Did you happen to notice the question mark? Denoting uncertainty?
Perhaps the point of the posting was not obvious. My point about
blaming the teachers was a question that if we don't accept "bad parenting" as at least a SIGNIFICANT (whatever the fraction is) factor in the SLPS' problems, does that leave bad teachers as the only cause of our problems? (inadequate funding also)
(And please don't tell people what I think. Tell them what I say, not what I think. Just a pet peeve of mine.)
4/06/2007 3:00 PM
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