Conservatives to Calif. parents: Leave K-12 public schools

[Firethorn]

The counterargument is that they won't be, because private schools can fire bad teachers, refuse to hire bad teachers, and refuse to offer service to customers they don't like, e.g. disruptive hooligans etc. When both systems are in place, I expect that some very good meritocratic schools will emerge, while bad teachers and bad students will precipitate at the bottom of the barrel, in a few bad public schools.

Actually, there's quite a market for schools that take the disruptive hooligans - many reform schools are private.

In principle, regulation may try to homogenize that somehow, but then all the parents in the mid-level and best schools will fight tooth and nail to prevent regression. Once the spirit is out of the bottle, putting in back in will not work. As the situation stands now, it is a dictatorship of a malignant minority (leftist bureaucracy, bad teachers, hooligans and retards, bad parents) over a disorganized majority which has no viable legal alternatives. Ergo, my point about breaking up the current power structure by the trojan horse of vouchers.

You have a point.

Another thought is that we're not just talking about the spawn of parents - we're talking about kids that are growing up.  While I'm all for parental responsability, fact of the matter is that people breeding aren't yet into their optimal earning years, and a good education(or any education in general) is essential to being a productive, independent adult.

Ergo - We're not helping out the parents with vouchers - we're helping out the kids.

Heck, I had a thought recently - given extended lifespans, longer maturity times, etc...  The fact that young adults - teenagers really, are actually best suited for having babies.  They're just not the best to take care of them properly.  I wonder what it'd be like for a theoretical society that the teens had kids, but their parents(the kid's grandparents) took care of them.  IE the parents are 16-21, grandparents 32-42.  The GP's are in the position to be able to do something about education.

[CAnnoneer]

All that's nice, but when they're teaching the same curriculum as the public schools, the quality of the teachers is secondary. A great chef can get a job at McDonalds, but there'd still only be crap on the menu.

That's why it should not be the same curriculum; such would defeat the purpose. Ironically, standardized tests, which are supposed to stimulate public schools, are an escape route from curriculum standardization for private schools. All private schools need to do is decisively beat the public-schooler proficiency expectations. How they do it would be up to them. A more efficient, rigorous curriculum taught by competent motivated teachers to competent motivated students will do wonders. It has done wonders under any educational system which supports or at least allows for meritocratic hierarchy with entry exams at multiple levels. Such developments also would play nicely into the conservative adage about students matriculating into science and engineering specialties. I am convinced that far more people would move into those if they were properly prepared by highschools instead of having to play a hard catchup game in college.

Vouchers, private schools, and standardized tests are the three pillars of a revolutionary rebirth in secondary education. It is also instructive to note who the insiders are that fight those changes tooth-and-nail.

[Len Budney]

All that's nice, but when they're teaching the same curriculum as the public schools, the quality of the teachers is secondary. A great chef can get a job at McDonalds, but there'd still only be crap on the menu.

That's why it should not be the same curriculum; such would defeat the purpose. Ironically, standardized tests, which are supposed to stimulate public schools, are an escape route from curriculum standardization for private schools. All private schools need to do is decisively beat the public-schooler proficiency expectations. How they do it would be up to them.

In the short term that's true. But remember, the folks who control the standardized tests are also the ones who want, ultimately, to control education both public and private. They can move the ball, add requirements, etc., until the private schools have no time to spare from teaching to their test. It's the path of least resistance; excellence will always be an uphill battle.

Not to mention the mischief they can make in the name of equality, multiculturalism, etc.

--Len.