John Adams Posted June 12, 2012 Share Posted June 12, 2012 I doubt that the Romney voucher plan fixes a lot in the public school system in the US. The root problem in education is parents who don't care. But at least vouchers give people some control over where their kids can go to school and it will help the motivated students. This would destroy the dropout factory schools, driving them to become the worst schools imaginable. Any decent students will leave. Whoever remains will be the worst of the worst, and with the worst families. This is not going to help those schools at all (and I have no idea how you even could help those schools short of dropping an apathy bomb on the parents of kids in those schools. NY Times story Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justnzane Posted June 12, 2012 Share Posted June 12, 2012 I doubt that the Romney voucher plan fixes a lot in the public school system in the US. The root problem in education is parents who don't care. But at least vouchers give people some control over where their kids can go to school and it will help the motivated students. This would destroy the dropout factory schools, driving them to become the worst schools imaginable. Any decent students will leave. Whoever remains will be the worst of the worst, and with the worst families. This is not going to help those schools at all (and I have no idea how you even could help those schools short of dropping an apathy bomb on the parents of kids in those schools. NY Times story The education system here is in completely cash strapped at the moment due to retired teachers collecting incredible pensions (while current teachers are getting scraps in comparison), unfunded mandates from No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top, and many states limiting districts on how they can raise funds while cutting aid to them. Generically speaking, your lowest performing schools are in areas of higher poverty, crime, and drugs (Buffalo, for example). A big problem with our society is that many parents are working multiple job, addicted to drugs, and/or in out of the correction system. By creating a voucher system, underperforming schools have been shut down, while well performing schools take in an influx of students at their own discretion. So a lot of the kids formerly of the underperforming schools that are victims of circumstance are shipped to another school together and bring down a school that was formerly at an acceptable level. In essence, the voucher system masks a lot of problems instead of fixing them. The best solution is to tackling the woes of our society: put more funding back to the schools and programs from kids like the Boys and Girls clubs, provide a higher living wage/ rebound the economy, and invest more into trades programs for kids that aren't cut out for school. In other countries that have fixed these problems, their scores on international tests have increased dramatically. Though to be fair, we have average results, and are among the few countries that mandate that all students take part in education through 12th grade (and still count dropouts in our results), but I digress. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chef Jim Posted June 12, 2012 Share Posted June 12, 2012 The education system here is in completely cash strapped at the moment due to retired teachers collecting incredible pensions (while current teachers are getting scraps in comparison), unfunded mandates from No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top, and many states limiting districts on how they can raise funds while cutting aid to them. Generically speaking, your lowest performing schools are in areas of higher poverty, crime, and drugs (Buffalo, for example). A big problem with our society is that many parents are working multiple job, addicted to drugs, and/or in out of the correction system. By creating a voucher system, underperforming schools have been shut down, while well performing schools take in an influx of students at their own discretion. So a lot of the kids formerly of the underperforming schools that are victims of circumstance are shipped to another school together and bring down a school that was formerly at an acceptable level. In essence, the voucher system masks a lot of problems instead of fixing them. The best solution is to tackling the woes of our society: put more funding back to the schools and programs from kids like the Boys and Girls clubs, provide a higher living wage/ rebound the economy, and invest more into trades programs for kids that aren't cut out for school. In other countries that have fixed these problems, their scores on international tests have increased dramatically. Though to be fair, we have average results, and are among the few countries that mandate that all students take part in education through 12th grade (and still count dropouts in our results), but I digress. You may want to reword the highlighted part. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justnzane Posted June 12, 2012 Share Posted June 12, 2012 You may want to reword the highlighted part. What I mean in particular is that there are many single parents that have to work 60-80 hours/week and aren't able to be parents to the kids as much as the kids need to be. Nonetheless, there are many parents that abuse a substance which degrades their parenting, and obviously, any parent in jail is providing a poor example of how to live for their child. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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