Privatizing Public Schools

On your last paragraph about luxury items like coffee and the latest cell phones, and then complaining about local taxes for schools, we agree.

The school day should be extended, and in some case boarding schools might be more appropriate for those who have to return to dangerous and stressful neighborhoods, which is not conducive to learning academic material. (Negative stressor like becoming of victim of violence. has been linked to killing brain cells)

But also accountability in terms how how that tax money for schools is allocated needs more transparency, and the money for "schools" in all those campaign ads, needs to be clearer, because legally money going to "schools", might mean it's being diverted into administrators rather than classroom materials, teacher salaries. In fact many times tax money gets earmarked for non-essential projects, and the public gets a bait-n-switch politically when they go to the voter polls. So that has to stop, and certain core essentials in education funding need to be identified so money doesn't get earmarked for stupid stuff.

On the other hand, schools need leverage over irresponsible parents, who have truant children, or children who aren't being studious.

Individual brings up a very good point that schools should not "babysit" problem children who refuse to study and decide to get attention from peers with bad behavior.

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As for rating teachers, they're quality can be measured by their knowledge base of their material, the ability to convey that material in lecture in more than one format, and fluidly adjust between formats, and their ability to handle being "trolled" by students.

Teachers quit, because they feel stuck between a rock and a hard place, and there isn't much they can do to counter bad parents, the system is set up for them to just endure, with little pay. That also has to change, have the parents be fined or have their student get put in on-campus suspension if it gets bad.

If teachers were making 80-100K net, after taxes, I bet they'd reconsider quitting so fast.

 

Well disagree I think, that both aspects of critiquing teachers, and school administration staff actually balance each other out, and that each suggestion alone, doesn't work because there's not check-n-balances in rating/feedback systems for self-improvement.


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Also on a related tangent:

The Geographical location of WHERE schools are located in relation to other parts of a city, also needs to be taken into account NATIONWIDE AT A FEDERAL (NOT STATE) LEVEL.


Take Texas for example:

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show

^Specifically the news report story in the broadcast of April 17th, 2014 titled: "No new safety rules since West, TX explosion"


One must question, why our national's children are located near pollution emitting factories and industrial facilities.

Ms.Maddow's News report cites that thousands of schools are within 1 mile! (ONLY 1 mi.!!!) from facilities like the one that had an industrial explosion that hurt people and property.

In, TX's case, because it's a Republican state legislature that generally frowns on federal regulation, there's nothing of consequence or change that the State or Federal government can impose in reaction to the explosion that did a lot of destruction to local schools there.


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This impacts education because now those (parents, students, and teachers alike) in the blast zone, probably have hearing problems, PTSD, and the impacts on a school's budget, is not meant to endure 3 local schools getting leveled. I don't think "rainy day" funds even entertain contingency plans in the case of such a financial setback.



But also generally speaking, how is the pollution of being in such close proximity of industrial areas, impact the brain's ability to learn, and memorize, and produce a good behaved person, specifically like our young students.

Is such pollution causing learning disabilities, and other developmental disorders that is going to impact future labor forces?

So this is another aspect of our educational system in the USA that needs to change as well, and this topic is FAR from done because I don't even think we've discussed this yet.

 

Two words: Eminent domain.

Should be used in this case for the most vital resource of any nation. It's children.