There is a lot of stuff far more important than guns.

[sirs]

There is a Public Education system...its payed for by our tax dollars....period. 

If you want to get schools that supposedly have more of our tax dollars than others, and don't need it as much, to share them with those that supposedly need more, then by all means, go for it.  But you don't get a blanket "we need more money", when we already spend MORE money per pupil than nearly every other country with their own version of a public/Government education system

[Plane]

There is a Public Education system...its payed for by our tax dollars....period. 

If you want to get schools that supposedly have more of our tax dollars than others, and don't need it as much, to share them with those that supposedly need more, then by all means, go for it.  But you don't get a blanket "we need more money", when we already spend MORE money per pupil than nearly every other country with their own version of a public/Government education system

    Ok,.......... but Xo s right about how the education system is divided and that most of the money for schools is from local and state taxes.

  This is a legacy from the situation that prevailed early in our history, and schools were often established by land grant .


   Some good comes of local tax support, highly populated areas need more money and tend to have more money.

   The downside is that some districts are poorly run and some are low on resources.

   Unions are doing what Unions do, someone has to be responsible for asking for more someone else is responsible for demanding quality and refusing waste.


     Federal money isn't the majority of the money , but it is a lot, and is a useful boost even where there is already plenty. By offering this money with conditions Congress claims a measure of national control.


    I think all of the parts of education spending and implementation are negotiable, and times are ripe to make big changes, better efficiency would be good , but so would a more individualized experience for the student.

      Debate is fun and necessary in the process of change , also necessary but a lot less fun is the drudgework of observing what does and doesn't work and deriving real science for the question.

       It would be silly to keep everything the same when there are clearly wasteful and ineffective parts , how do we make the changes , and how do we ensure that the changes are positive and effective?

[sirs]

Oh, I'm fully aware that Federal tax dollars aren't the bulk.  In fact, I think I made it pretty clear that its a public education systen, as in tax dollars at all levels.

The 1st thing about addressing any change is to localize the primary vs 2ndary/tertiary problems.  Addressing the 1st generally fixes the 2nd.  Addressing the latter generally guarantees a perpetuation of the primary problem, with more cries to .....fix the 2ndary problems

[Plane]

  Look at the Toyota method.

   Which derives from the Deming method.

    There are small improvements , and there are big improvements, the point being to ensure that they are genuinely improvements and that they happen as frequently as is possible.


    Never settle into a rut.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Again, there is NO American Public Education system. There are thousands of Boards or Education that are mostly funded from property taxes. When you have a lot of rich old retired people who came here to avoid taxes, they tend to not give a damn about the children of the Black and Hispanics who have most of the children, and they starve the public school districts. This is a problem in Florida, but even more of one in Arizona and parts of California. Hawaii has avoided this by using sales taxes more and property taxes less, I think, and as a rule, the schools are pretty good there.

[sirs]

and again, I never claimed there was an organization referred to as the American Education System.  What I have said is that there IS a Public Education System in this country, supported by our tax dollars.  Tax dollars spent more per pupil than nearly every other country

Deflection duly noted     

[Xavier_Onassis]

But what you say is false. There is no system that is unified or organized in any way. There are thousands of systems, and perhaps when there are national standards, then  improvements can be made that mean something.

Until then, it is just plain stupid to blame it all on unions and evil teachers.

[sirs]

Per your parameters maybe.  Since I never claimed everything was run out of DC, kinda debunks the whole deflection attempt to begin with.  Union leadership however can squarely be blamed for much of our education system maladies

[Plane]

But what you say is false. There is no system that is unified or organized in any way. There are thousands of systems, and perhaps when there are national standards, then  improvements can be made that mean something.

Until then, it is just plain stupid to blame it all on unions and evil teachers.

So abolishing the Department of Education would make only small difference?

[Xavier_Onassis]

Probably it would be possible, but it would be a very, very bad idea. It is the only part of government by which we will ever have national standards, which we need.

[Plane]

  Why?

    What do national standards do?
    What would we miss without them?

[Xavier_Onassis]

They are useful in attracting and retaining businesses that require educated people.
If we seek to compete with other countries, and we do, then the knowledge base is an important component.

I can;t see how anyone could be opposed to national educational standards.

[Plane]

  Aren't half of our schools below the average?

   It is more difficult to raise the low standard than it is to spoil the high standard.

    So I have an intuition that a national standard must necessarily be lower than the present level of excellence that half of the schools already achieve .

      The party that needs to be motivated to demand excellence is not the government , but parents.

       There is a definite reason that "good enough for government work" is funny.

      People seem to hand responsibility to the government and loose interest in the subject because it is not their problem anymore.

[Xavier_Onassis]

If you ask Americans, most will say that want every school in this country to have Word Class Educational Standards.

I agree with that.

But it is not possible at all to have world class standards on anything unless you know what standards exist in the US.

You cannot know what standards exist unless you have standards.
You can set the standard that the average student should be reading at grade level.
You can set the standard that every student should be able to do the times tables up to 12 X 12 by the end of Grade Three.
You can  set the standard that every student can explain, in essay form, how a vaccine works.

To say, as some do, that somehow Mississippi students should not be required to attain the same standards as students in Seattle or Des Moines. But this is bogus, because we have a very mobile population. People leave Mississippi for other states all the time.

[Plane]

  People that move see a lot of difference.

    If you want to see standard , take a look at MacDonald's, the golden arches men the same thing in Oregon as Georgia, Montana and Maine .

    And this is a good thing for getting the standard mass production adequacy.

    Now could you point me to the five star restaurant MacDonald's?

     Enforced standards are alright when it is more important to have little substandard product and strict standards are an impediment to surpassing excellence.

      Whatever schools are having tough times or mismanagement would be good to have intervention and uplift.

       Where ever schools are already above the median , they do not need to be pulled down to it.