Educators particularly welcome to comment!

To get the discussion going, part of what I said on the previous thread was:

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I don't have kids. I probably won't have kids. And yet I happily pay taxes to, among other things, support public education.

... A fundamental tenet of a civil society is education. If the public education system isn't working, it is the responsibility of citizens to fix it. That includes people like me who have no kids and therefore no direct interest, but who realise that raising a generation of children includes the development of civic understanding and personal responsibility.

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Edited to remove unnecessary hard return!

[ 24 March 2006: Message edited by: Tehanu ]

One of the issues that got lost in that discussion is women's roles in this.

I don't have children either, but if someone told me that I would have to not only bear and raise them but educate them, give up whatever it was I wanted to do to spend years of my life in minute control of the little dears -- not to mention having to find a suitably well-off partner to support all of us -- well, I wouldn't.

Forbye the fact that most mothers must work whether they have a partner or not, what would a non-public, privatized education system mean to single mothers? Free public education is one of the greatest boons of modern society. It frees up half the population to contribute in ways other than purely maternal.

I won't write out the whole of the same old boring statement I always make on this subject, but I start from this premise:

No one is born a democrat.

And no one grows up to be one, either, without some direction. There is nothing "natural" about many of the principles that democrats are required to defend. No four-year-old believes in giving the other guy the benefit of the doubt, eg, and few human beings would develop that understanding all on their own without teaching.

It was when I was reading some of the C17 and C18 writers who were trying to hammer out the necessary principles and structures of modern democracy that I grasped how central to that project the creation of a public-school system must be. Some of those writers grasped it too, and were just alight at the thought of teaching everyone all of what it takes to be a genuine citizen.

We still don't have perfect democracies, I think, and I'm prepared to believe there are lots of things wrong with our current school systems. (For one thing, if we are graduating a lot of people who think that democracy = voting and nothing more, there is something very wrong with our school system.) But that's only because we're not there yet, eh? As Stephen Harper would say, does that mean we cut and run?

I don't think so.

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Originally posted by Tehanu:
Hey, Cartman, what's the formula for a straight line?

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We must bear in mind that the Canadiam education system is designed simply to make our young people employable.

Surely in this complex culture we live in there are a lot more important subjects students need to have in their core curriculum.

Subjects such as becoming effective communicators, proficiency in problem solving strategies would go a long way to ensuring we have a healthy and more functional community than we see today.

With all the overbearing institutions that dominate a persons existence in Canadian culture perhaps part of the core curriculum needs to include a comprehensive understanding of the systems of law, politics and governance
that will dominate their very existence upon graduation.

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I don't have kids. I probably won't have kids. And yet I happily pay taxes to, among other things, support public education.

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In my case I'd have to modify that somewhat.

I don't have kids in the public school system. I won't have kids in the public school system. And yet I happily pay taxes to support public education.

I have to say that I honestly believe a functional public education system is extremely important. On the other hand I'll be the first to say that the system is damaged and may even be broken. Regardless of how much time and effort is spent trying to fix the problems, it will be years until things are functional (I hesitate to say again because there have always been problems, they just seem to be worse now). Speaking personally, my kids' educations and futures are too important to sacrifice to an ideal. That's why they are in private schools and that's why they'll stay in private schools.

[ 24 March 2006: Message edited by: Polly Brandybuck ]

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Just wondering. From a quick glance at this and the previous thread, it seems that most of the pro-public school posters do not currently have children in the school system?

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Looks that way. As I've said, while I believe that a strong public school system is important, I'm not willing to have my kids be sacrificial lambs on the altar of political correctness.

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Just wondering. From a quick glance at this and the previous thread, it seems that most of the pro-public school posters do not currently have children in the school system?

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Parent teacher interview days ( which are very crowded in any school I have ever been involved with) had DAD show his face for the first and usually only time all year.

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I resent that. I do admit that I don't do lunch duty since I can't promise that someone won't call me fifteen minutes before I'm supposed to be at school and drag me into a two hour conference call. I won't disappoint my kids by not turning up nor will I leave the school in a lurch because I can't promise to be available. After school and weekend activities are different - as long as things won't fall apart if I'm travelling once in a while I'm there. The same holds true for most of the fathers I know.

I actually think my kids' teachers are generally great.

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Usually kids leave the private system when they enter high school levels

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In my experience it's the other way around. There are actually a number of the local public schools that are excellent at the grade school level but when you reach the highschool level there isn't a public school that I'd allow my kids to attend. That one isn't even open for discussion.

By the way, my problems with the public school system have more to do with the attitude of students (and to a lesser extent of parents) than it has to do with anything else.

[ 24 March 2006: Message edited by: abnormal ]

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I resent that.

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It wasn't about you.

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faith,

I realize that.

Fortunately for my kids, the public school in our area is pretty good. The local parents contribute a lot. Our area is mixed both culturally and economically. Some of the parents are quite well-off, and stage fund raisers to pay for extras. Sometimes they even make donations to another public school a couple of miles from here that is in a more economically-disadvantaged area so that those kids can have extras too.

In the long run, though, I'm not sure if private school kids do any better. There are advantages, like smaller class sizes, but what about the cultural disadvantages of having your kids go to school with all those rich kids? I'm thinking of the rampant materialism, like having your eight-year-old pressuring you to buy an ipod or those $200 sneakers with the wheel in the heel.

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By the way, my problems with the public school system have more to do with the attitude of students (and to a lesser extent of parents) than it has to do with anything else.

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Math and reading/writing skills are in general down since the 70's - talk to any older university prof about this one. Or take out any of your old school tests if you have them kicking around, and compare them to current tests. Like a few other worried parents, the last few years I've spent an hour every weekday evening tutoring my kids on math and reading/writing. And of course, their marks have shot up in response (despite my questionable teaching skills). What do parents do who have to work a second job just to make ends meet?

I don't think the solution is to put more money into the public school system - the solution lies in finding a way to raise the standard of living for everyone, so parents can afford to spend time helping their kids with their homework ... even in subjects they might know nothing about (like my French). Just being there and showing an interest does wonders.

[ 25 March 2006: Message edited by: retread ]

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what about the cultural disadvantages of having your kids go to school with all those rich kids?

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That's a disadvantage??? +

Actually a number of years ago my previous employer was desparately trying to move me to Switzerland. Part of the deal was that they'd pay all school fees (tuition and room and board at any school of my choice plus a per diem for my kids). They pitched this as a huge plus because the kids would make connections they never would elsewhere. Turning that one down was incredibly tough - my wife and I spent a lot of time agonizing over whether or not we were short changing our kids by not offering them this chance. Sometimes I still wonder although the reason is more language based than anything - after ten years in a real Swiss school would anyone ever be able to figure out what my daughter's cradle language was?

On a more current note, some thirty odd percent of the students in my daughter's school are on full bursaries (the majority of which are needs based). I know because I'm one of the ones that actually attends every single PTA meeting and get to walk through the details of the school's budget (no names, just numbers). The other observation, because of uniforms you really can't figure out which kid is on a needs based bursary and which one's parents have a $20 million annual income. Having said that, you can't stop kids talking about their vacations and even if you don't know the parents it's not hard to figure out which ones go skiing in Switzerland every winter and Chile every summer.

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Not going to school, or going to a 'special' school makes kids weird. Kids don't want to be weird. Kids want to play with other kids and not have their bloody mother around all the fricking time.

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There are a lot of weird ones in school too!

You think not sitting in a classroom 7 hours a day, 5 days a week, and doing mindless homework all the time makes kids weird?

it is DOING that kind of stuff all the time that makes us weird. I figure it took about half a decade to even RECOVER from school.

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retread wrote:

the solution lies in finding a way to raise the standard of living for everyone, so parents can afford to spend time helping their kids with their homework

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Absolutely. Children who get a lot of one-on-one eye contact with their parents at an early age get a substantial life-long boost in raw IQ. That's not possible in a classroom environment. Anyone who has ever been in love understands the power of close one-on-one eye contact.

Kids who spend little time with their parents can wind up emotionally bonding to daycare workers and teachers to the point of seeing them as parent substitutes. Then the kids are repeatedly emotionally hurt when these parent substitutes are suddenly completely removed from their lives. The kids become incapable of emotionally bonding in later life for fear of being hurt again. Everybody needs at least one solid, long-term person in their life in addition to the stream of people who move in and out of our lives.

Whenever there is talk of parents being able to spend more time with their children, it's often interpreted as an attack against women and women's careers. But most normal fathers would like to work part-time and spend more time with their kids too.

Why do both parents have to work full-time in so many families? In Vancouver, the time/money costs of housing and transportation are driving a huge wedge between parents and their children. Housing and transportation alone can easily consume the entire earnings of a full-time job and then some.

Few young parents can afford to pay a million dollars for a home anywhere near their downtown jobs. Both parents have to work full-time to barely qualify for a $350,000+ home in the outer suburbs. Then they spend an additional $20,000 per year to operate two cars, plus two hours per day each travelling back and forth to their downtown jobs. This leaves very little time to raise their children. If they use public transit, they can save a fair amount on their $20,000 per year automobile costs, but then they'll each spend four hours per day on the road instead of two, leaving zero time for their kids.

So what to do? A good start is to reduce housing and transportation costs to sane levels so it's feasible to raise a family on the incomes of two parents who are both working part-time. Foolish governments should stop punishing people who try to live closer to where they work, shop and learn. Real estate sales taxes should be abolished and replaced by steeply-progressive annual land taxes with a generous exemption at the low end and the middle to facilitate home ownership near jobs by working class familes. Elimination of real estate sales taxes will make it possible to sell an old home and buy another one closer to a new job without paying a big tax penalty. Better access to health and education services plus jobs can be offered through videoconferencing in small towns where real estate costs are low enough to be easily affordable by young families.

It's ironic, even hypocritical that education taxes are largely derived through highly-regressive property taxes that hit poor and middle class families very hard, forcing both parents to work full-time and travel long distances to their jobs, leaving them little time for participating in the education of their kids. It's a downward spiral. A steeply progressive land tax can attack this problem from two directions by reducing the tax burden on average families while making land hoarding and speculation by the ultra-rich unattractive, thereby compelling ultra-rich land-hoarders to sell-off their land at reasonable prices to average families. The nice thing about a steeply-progressive land tax is that ultra-rich land hoarders can't threaten to leave the country and take their land with them! Their only option is to sell downtown land at a reasonable price to working class families who are currently living way out in the suburbs.

Unions can do a lot to give parents more free time to spend with their kids by arranging a job swapping mechanism that allows seniority to be transferred from one bargaining unit to another. One of my neighbors here in the Vancouver suburb of South Delta works at Vancouver City Hall, which is an hour's drive away during peak traffic periods. Delta City Hall is only a few blocks away, within easy walking distance. If my neighbor quit his Vancouver City Hall job to work at Delta City Hall, he'd have an extra two hours per day to spend with his kids and he'd save up to $10,000 per year in transportation costs. But he'd lose his workplace seniority. Meanwhile, there are Delta City Hall workers living in Vancouver facing the same problem. The same thing happens at school boards and just about every other unionized job site.

If union bosses, government bureaucrats and other employers want to stop being part of the problem and start being part of the solution, they will go all-out to encourage intelligent job swapping by getting rid of the tax punishments and seniority losses while allowing prospective job-swappers to cross-familiarize each other with their new jobs and temporarily swap jobs to see how it will go before committing to a permanent swap.

Not only can job-swapping benefit the workers and their children, it can also benefit the employers by helping new ideas move from one organization to another along with the workers. It's especially ironic that lack of seniority portability inhibits job-swapping between unionized jobsites where narrow, rigid job descriptions have turned workers from individuals into fungible commodities anyway.

[ 25 March 2006: Message edited by: Cycling Commuter ]

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If union bosses, government bureaucrats and other employers want to stop being part of the problem and start being part of the solution, they will go all-out to encourage intelligent job swapping by getting rid of the tax punishments and seniority losses while allowing prospective job-swappers to cross-familiarize each other with their new jobs and temporarily swap jobs to see how it will go before committing to a permanent swap.

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Good idea commuter -- But - What is a "union boss"? Seems to me an oxymoron. In my union the members get to vote and the president leads, does not boss. The bargaining teams and their chairs get a mandate and follow it. Seems some people need a little "education" about unions.

I am all for public education. But I doubt education and school have anything to do with each other. Especially for children under 10.

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Originally posted by fern hill:
One of the great pushes has been to get ALL kids in regular schools. There were no handicapped kids in my school. I never met any handicapped kids. Not going to school, or going to a 'special' school makes kids weird. Kids don't want to be weird. Kids want to play with other kids and not have their bloody mother around all the fricking time.

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...I doubt education and school have anything to do with each other. Especially for children under 10.

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[ 25 March 2006: Message edited by: nonsuch ]

For instance: at any given time, what percentage of the population have children in school (pre-school to grade 12/senior matric)?

We all, always, pay education taxes. Some of us are glad to do that, too.

Some of the parents on this thread, though, sound as though they don't quite grasp that shared bond. They write of the education of their own children in terms of wanting to secure "advantages" for those children, as if they owned their children.

If you think that way, do you not see that the corollary is that no one but parents should be paying into any educational system?

I don't begrudge whatever part of my taxes go towards the public school system. I don't now, I didn't before I had kids, and won't when my kids have finished the school system. As I've said before, I do believe in a strong public system. I also said that the public system has too many problems for me to be willing to risk my children's education by putting them into a public school. I voted with my feet, and my checkbook (there are no government subsidies whatsoever for private schools here).

Growing up I remember lots of mothers volunteering in elementary school and very few fathers. After elementary there were fewer parental volunteers but most of them were fathers. Why? Don't know.

The ignorance most English-speaking North Americans have of other languages is utterly appalling.

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In the meantime, whatever part of my taxes goes towards education goes to the public school system and I don't use the system at all.

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Y'see, abnormal, I consider that an appalling thing to say: "I don't use the system at all."

What do you mean, you don't USE the system? I don't USE the system. Most people who are paying for it don't USE the system. The system is not there for any of us to USE.

The system is there to create the next generation of citizens of this country. That is why it is there. And that is why I am happy to pay for it, because otherwise we'd have a lot of anti-democratic little brats on our hands. Wouldn't we.

It wasn't that I didn't want my kids to be schooled in Switzerland, it was that I didn't want the position I was being offered there. In addition to the fact that that office is an incredibly political place (it's not fun watching your back all the time) I was actually proven right in that the position they would have been creating for me doesn't exist anymore because the entire unit was shut down and all of the senior people there are gone.

There were other personal factors in addition a job I didn't want (things like elderly parents) but they weren't the deciding factor.

I really did struggle with the decision because, while I didn't really want the job we really did feel we were shortchanging the kids. Given how young they were (5 and 1)I'm sure that by this time you'd be hard pressed to figure out what was their first language.

I do know they wouldn't have lost their English. If you really want you can send your kids to the American School in Zurich where they function totally in English (I know people that have lived there for years and neither they nor their kids speak a word of German) - personally I think it's a bad idea and one of the big benefits to be gained by sending them to school in Switzerland is the exposure to multiple languages.
===========================
skadl,

I don't think I'm any different than any other parent when I say I want the best for my kids. I'm sure everyone wants the same for their kids. No matter how much I believe a good public school system is a necessity and no matter how desirable improving the sytem is, I'm not willing to take chances with their education.

Consequently they are both in private schools and will stay there until they graduate. If that's undemocratic, so be it.

[ 25 March 2006: Message edited by: abnormal ]

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The system is there to create the next generation of citizens of this country. That is why it is there. And that is why I am happy to pay for it, because otherwise we'd have a lot of anti-democratic little brats on our hands. Wouldn't we.

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Originally posted by abnormal:
I have to say that I honestly believe a functional public education system is extremely important. On the other hand I'll be the first to say that the system is damaged and may even be broken.

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You know why it's broken?

Because people like you are more interested in taking the easy way out and dumping your kids in private school than in getting down to brass tacks and getting rid of people who are interested in breaking the public system for their own gain.

It wasn't even a hundred and fifty years ago that rich people argued against public education because they believed poor people were just naturally too stupid to be worth educating. They didn't go away; they just hid themselves until Reagan and Thatcher came along and proclaimed that being a disgustingly rich self-absorbed snot was the epitome of human existence.

[ 26 March 2006: Message edited by: DrConway ]

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Originally posted by DrConway:

You know why it's broken?

Because people like you are more interested in taking the easy way out and dumping your kids in private school than in getting down to brass tacks and getting rid of people who are interested in breaking the public system for their own gain.

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Originally posted by Polly Brandybuck:
Just wondering. From a quick glance at this and the previous thread, it seems that most of the pro-public school posters do not currently have children in the school system?

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I think that a lot of the pro-public school posters from the other thread suddenly got very busy for a few days when their kids came home from school Friday afternoon.

It strikes me that with public vs private schools, once kids from 'middle-class' families (families who have just enough money to send their kids to private school hoping for some kind of an advantage, and not really rich and connected families) finish their high-school education, they are presented with exactly the same opportunities and possibilities as kids who have gone through the public school system. I went to school with lots of private schooled kids - including several from a very tony institution in Sherbrooke - and I must say that they largely didn't stand out for their academic achievement, creativity, discipline, or whatever other advantage they supposedly had. Some of them were serious, some did well, some were goof-offs and some dropped out or changed programs - just like anybody else. It is possible that they were better represented in the higher achieving end of the overall spectrum, but that would only be expected, since after all private schools tend to select on that basis.

I found it slightly sad that so many parents had sacrificed a lot of personal income to put their kids into private schools that ultimately didn't make much difference, and simultaneously weakened the public system through their absence.

He continued at local public schools in Europe through the equivalents of elementary and junior high (collège), very happily

then he hit a speed bump at adolescence, bombing out totally, misbehaving grotesquely, and coming perilously close to flunking a grade for the first time anybody had done that in my family since about Confederation

anyways: one solution, another school

the school we found was private (no regional public alternative) and there, he has recovered like crazy; the thing costs a bloody fortune at exactly the wrong time for our personal finances, but that is our choice

everybody should have access to some non-public, semi-public choice to their regional public school -- merit-based, religious, classical, whatever - should the public schools not work for them

no threat to the social fibre that a minority can choose that option

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Originally posted by Geneva:
everybody should have access to some non-public, semi-public choice to their regional public school -- merit-based, religious, classical, whatever - should the public schools not work for them

no threat to the social fibre that a minority can choose that option

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In theory, I have absolutely no problem with that. I have also seen very good options exist within an accessible public school system; for example, here in Quebec public schools are encouraged to offer programs for highly motivated kids, academically gifted kids, kids who crave outdoor activities, kids who love the arts... not to mention the very successful 'sports-étude' program which pretty much ensures that Quebec will be well represented on any Canadian Olympic team. These options can and do exist within the public system - not everywhere, granted, but the possibilities are there.

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then he hit a speed bump at adolescence, bombing out totally, misbehaving grotesquely, and coming perilously close to flunking a grade for the first time anybody had done that in my family since about Confederation.

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brebis noire:

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here in Quebec public schools are encouraged to offer programs for highly motivated kids, academically gifted kids, kids who crave outdoor activities, kids who love the arts...

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Another subject that keeps coming around:
Do you really think that the public education system is hurt by the absence of middle-class kids who attend private school? Why? I mean, it can't be a huge number - and the parents are still paying their taxes. What if the same middle-class people had fewer children, or no children, to begin with? Would a 1% decline in the birth-rate make public schools worse? A 5% decline? Doesn't a period of low enrollment just mean fewer portables and smaller classes? Isn't that good?
How does it hurt the public schools? The Catholics, who have always had an option, and the upper class, who have always sent their kids to private schools, don't seem to have made any difference. Why and how is disaffection by a few middle-class, non-religious families making a difference now? Would it help to set up Fundamentalist schools on the Catholic model, and fund them similarly, so that people who want a particular set of values taught to their children didn't have to yank them out of the system?

I really want to know the logic behind that [some middle-class people sending their kids to private schools hurts the public system] position.
Because, i don't see this is a with-us or against-us question. I see it as much bigger that that. I see it as complicated questions about what we want for our own children, what we expect public school to accomplish, what we believe it accomplishes now that private and/or seperate school doesn't, and how to get from what's actually happenning to what we would like to happen.

[ 27 March 2006: Message edited by: nonsuch ]

I am sympathetic to parents who must choose the best school for their child, and select private school rather than working to change the public school. Change takes too long to be a factor in making decisions about an individual child. Should a group of parents band together to improve things, by the time change happened several years of the child's life will have passed. I can see how in some situations a parent would genuinely believe that a private school is the best choice for her child, and that she can't afford to wait for change.

But to take the second perspective, that public education is a pillar of a democratic society, means that parents are not off the hook once they pay their taxes. They still have an obligation to support their school system and work for change, so that children from families without the same advantages don't get screwed in an inadequate system. That, I think, is where much conflict arises.

I would never begrudge a parent sending their child to private school if that is what is best for the child. But when the entire upper class of an area all sends their children to private school, and cuts ties with the public school system (beyond paying their taxes), then I question their commitment to a democratic society and to social equality. If the system is so bad that you think your child must attend private school to receive a quality education, then how can you stand by and let other children whose parents can't afford private school receive that education?

The promise of compulsory public education is that it allows each child a fair, equal start in education. That goes a long way towards a fair, equal start in life. I know that things don't work well now, and many children aren't getting that. But I do believe it works well in some places, and could work well everywhere.

I know some parents will spend more time teaching their children at home. Some parents will be neglectful. Some worse things will happen, and no school system can level out those differences. If every child in the country were guaranteed to be able to read, write and do math at a tenth grade level, however, that would go a long way towards giving every child a fair shot at a good life. That would open so many doors for employment, higher education, and participation in civic life.

We like to say "well, some parents just don't read to their children so they will never achieve." The great promise of public school is that it doesn't matter if the parents don't read to the children! It doesn't matter what their background is, how much school the parents completed, whether the child had breakfast that morning! The promise of public school is that all children, no matter how disadvantaged the background, will learn academic skills to proficiency, because we will teach them all.

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Originally posted by v michel:
There seem to be two perspectives on public school here: one, that it is a commodity to be consumed by parents; two, that it is an essential democratic structure.

[snip]

The promise of compulsory public education is that it allows each child a fair, equal start in education. That goes a long way towards a fair, equal start in life. I know that things don't work well now, and many children aren't getting that. But I do believe it works well in some places, and could work well everywhere.

[snip]

The premise of public education is to give something positive to each child, not to take anything away from parents or families.

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Another important premise of public education is, I think, its universality. We all have opinions on school, because we all went to several of them.

I learned so much more than the 3 R's. Exposure to all kinds of kids was great. Different religions, incomes, traditions, classes.

A family I know sorta did an experiment. The father remarried and had another batch of kids 20+ years older than the first gang. The first gang all went to public school and turned into a doctor, a lawyer, an economist, and an artist. The second gang all went to private schools and have turned out to be spoiled wastrels.

Ok, different mothers, different circumstances. But, illuminating.

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Originally posted by fern hill:

I don't have children either, but if someone told me that I would have to not only bear and raise them but educate them, give up whatever it was I wanted to do to spend years of my life in minute control of the little dears -- not to mention having to find a suitably well-off partner to support all of us -- well, I wouldn't.

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If you wouldn't be willing to take responsibility for raising your children, then I am glad you don't want any.

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Beautifully put, v michel.

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Now, we're getting somewhere!
It's not enough to say, "You selfish bastards are the problem."; we must also define the problem and figure out a solution, step by logical step.

One big part of the problem is that all public schools are not equal. Democracy demands that a child from a successful, secure, prosperous family get the same education as one whose mother dropped out at 16 and is raising that child alone, on welfare, in a dangerous neighbourhood. That is far from true.

In fact, the parents who opt for private education are rejecting a very good (by current standards) public school, while the people who have no such option are stuck with a very bad one.

So, in the long-term interest of democracy, middle-class parents should not be volunteering - tutoring, monitoring and fund-raising - in their own neighbourhoods, but in areas where the schools are far more in need of improvement.

What we should be working toward is not widening the gap in quality of education, but closing it.
What we should be working toward is a system of funding that puts more enrichment programs in schools where the the parents have few resources of their own.

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Originally posted by Gir Draxon:

If you wouldn't be willing to take responsibility for raising your children, then I am glad you don't want any.

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The enemies of public service have a simple formula: chronically underfund, underpay, alienate the stakeholders, and create a sense of permanent crisis.

Healthcare is crumbling before our eyes. If the Ontario conservatives had been re-elected public education would be on its knees.

At one time there would have been terrible poitical prices to be paid for messing with important public services like education and health care. Today, they are fair game.

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What we should be working toward is a system of funding that puts more enrichment programs in schools where the the parents have few resources of their own.

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I firmly believe

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Private schools are not without their own very serious problems. At least when I lived in Ontario (until '96), the private schools were much less accountable in terms of the the standards applied to grades and the qualifications of teachers. My cousin managed to make it to the age of 18 in the swankiest private schools that Ontario had to offer and be almost entirely illiterate (as in, could not spell words longer than three words in length or write a coherent sentence). When someone else I knew wanted to apply to university with an average of ~65%, the parents went in to see the administration, and with the stroke of a pen, the private school added 15% to the average that was reported to the universities. It seems that when mommy and daddy are paying big bucks for their kids to be coddled, private schools are not as likely to speak truth to power.

[ 28 March 2006: Message edited by: Dex ]

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Originally posted by Dex:
A lot of the perceived 'success' of the private school system is largely that of something nerds refer to as adverse selection and not due to the inherent superiority of the private system. It is the parents who are most interested in their children's education who send their kids to private schools, leaving the vast majority of dead-enders (as well as a lot of less privileged and stellar students) back in the public system. [ 28 March 2006: Message edited by: Dex ]

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I think the problem with that line of thought is that no child is a complete dead end. While parents who are invested in their child's education may raise children who are more likely to succeed, every child can learn. That is the principle behind standardized public education, that it should not matter where the child came from. The child can still learn, and should still receive effective instruction.

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Originally posted by v michel:
I think the problem with that line of thought is that no child is a complete dead end. While parents who are invested in their child's education may raise children who are more likely to succeed, every child can learn. That is the principle behind standardized public education, that it should not matter where the child came from. The child can still learn, and should still receive effective instruction.

I would be interested to see that study. I would draw a different conclusion, though. To me, it suggests that those children did not receive effective instruction at school. If parental involvement trumps school placement in determining a child's success, then the school is not doing a very good job. I mean, we know how to teach kids who have disinterested parents or who are disadvantaged. There's been a lot of research into learning disabilities and economic disadvantage that demonstrates the effectiveness of certain methods and curricula. These students can learn. They aren't dead ends. We just aren't teaching them well in most instances.

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As for the study, I think maybe I wasn't clear about the two groups. One group went to good schools. One group went to bad schools. Because of the random selection of the lottery, we have an experimental condition. Remember: all of the students in the comparison had applied to go to the good school. When comparing the two groups, the performance on standardized tests was indistinguishable between the two groups. In other words the students at the bad schools did as well on the tests as the students from the good school, so long as the parents had actually tried to get their kids into the good school.

Edited for clarification. Sorry.

[ 28 March 2006: Message edited by: Dex ]

One thing that has bothered me in recent years regarding the debate on public versus private schools is the on going assumption that all private schools are those elitest snobby upper crap schools like UCC, St. Andrews, Bishop Strachan etc.

Some schools which are deemed to be private since they do not collect public funds are faith based schools whose parents are middle class and make a choice to send their children to those schools.

The parents who send their children to faith based schools are not the rich elitests like those who send their kids to UCC.

Maybe i am dreaming in technocolour but I wish the debate would seperate the term private into the faith and elitiest schools.

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Originally posted by Gir Draxon:

If you wouldn't be willing to take responsibility for raising your children, then I am glad you don't want any.

Don't get me wrong- public education is important. But parental responsibility MORE important- if someone is not willing to do anything for their children that could comprimise theirr career, they don't have the right priorities to be a good parent.

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Didn't score very well in reading comprehension, eh, Gir? I said I wouldn't want to educate them in addition to raising them, as brebis pointed out. Thanks, brebis, but I think my original statement was clear enough for those who don't have their heads up their bum.

edited to fix tpyo

[ 28 March 2006: Message edited by: fern hill ]

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Originally posted by johnpauljones:
Some schools which are deemed to be private since they do not collect public funds are faith based schools whose parents are middle class and make a choice to send their children to those schools.

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Originally posted by Dex:
At least with UCC, they are ultimately interested in churning out world class students. .

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yes world class snobby elitest sobs who know nothing of the world or the problems that exist.

Public schools compete for students. In some areas, you can go to a school so long as you can get transportation there. Better schools get more and better students, worse schools get fewer and worse students. When families move within a city or to a new one, one of the primary motivations in choosing an area is the quality of schools in that area. Far more obviously, the public system competes with all available private and homeschooling options. If private schools can be said to compete, how is it possible to say that the public system-- however flawed it may be-- does not compete in return?

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At its heart, animosity toward the public system and attempts to privatize or provide vouchers or to subsidize private schools is fundamentally an anti-poor and ultimately racist proposition.

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Public education provides a public good. We all benefit from a literate, well educated populace and the best way to deliver education to as many people as possible and to mix all races, social groups, and economic classes is through public education.

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The families who flee the public system are the wealthier, most academically-oriented ones.

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Again, no. The people who will flee the public system are those who can and borrowing and debt will not be a barrier if it helps avoid the stigma of poverty.

Public education is for everyone regardless of background.

[ 28 March 2006: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]

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Originally posted by johnpauljones:
yes world class snobby elitest sobs who know nothing of the world or the problems that exist.

They are the types of people we need in Ontario

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My point is that i have a problem with generalities like that.

I am sure that UCC and Faith school 123 both graduate great and shitty students.

As far as homophobia i am sure that for every Kings their are 2 or 3 public schools.

If you aren't willing to concede that the average income of a private school student's parents is higher than that of the average public school student's, then I'm afraid this conversation won't be very fruitful. Wealth and education tend to go hand in hand. Higher levels of parental education tend to be associated with higher levels of their children's education. The whole point of talking about the study was to show that the types of families leaving the public system are precisely the ones that we need to keep in the public system.

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Again, no. The people who will flee the public system are those who can and borrowing and debt will not be a barrier if it helps avoid the stigma of poverty.

Public education is for everyone regardless of background.

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Originally posted by fern hill:
One of the second batch at about age 12, turned to the artist half-sibling and asked: 'Why are you poor?' The artist was stunned and didn't know how to answer. First, the kid thought the artist was poor. And second, the kid had no notion of why there might be poverty. This kid, I think, has been very badly treated by parents who shoulda known better.

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That's a very telling anecdote. I think it explains, to some degree, why rich people honestly don't seem to understand that their self-interested manipulation of the political system we have, has caused problems that transcend the gains they have made.

Since they honestly can't make the connection between the tax breaks they get and the increase in poverty that results from smaller government spending, they can't even begin to grasp the concept of the social contract.

This reminds of a magazine article I read about ten years ago, that discussed the presence of what was then termed an "overclass" of people who didn't want for money and thrived on the uncertainty of the "new job market" in existence since the late 1980s. There was an anecdote there too - the article quoted one person as naively speaking of laid-off steelworkers, "Why don't they just go back to school?"

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Originally posted by johnpauljones:
Dex my point is that while I support the public education system I have a problem with those who think that only the rich snobs send their kids to private schools. I have a problem with the assumption that the grads of the rich elitest schools are better than faith schools.

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As far as homophobia i am sure that for every Kings their are 2 or 3 public schools.

the public system can be as racist and homophobic as the private.

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Originally posted by pookie:
One undercurrent to this debate that has bugged me, is the focus on "parents'" responsibilities to the public education system. So it is parents who send their children to private school, who are responsible for the deteriorating system. And it is "parents" who should volunteer in public schools outside their neighborhood.

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Why not extend that obligation to everyone? Especially if the benefit provided by public education is nothing less than the continuing vitality of our democracy?

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Originally posted by Frustrated Mess:
No it's not. Sorry, but I must disagree. First, I think such an argument creates a false dichotomy. "Public schools are for those people who can't afford private education in the same way public transit is for those who can't afford cars." If you instill that into the minds of people some will flock to privte schools merely for status.

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Originally posted by Frustrated Mess:
Again, no. The people who will flee the public system are those who can and borrowing and debt will not be a barrier if it helps avoid the stigma of poverty.

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Um, yah. Having a private car is a status symbol, and many people DO put themselves in debt to own a private car, so they don't have the stigma of poverty associated with public transit. Except for those that can't afford it, and can't get financing. Do you really think that everybody would be able to ignore debt barriers to access a private education? It simply isn't accessable.

On to the real topic, though, is it really that much of a problem in other places? I can only really from personal experience about Edmonton, but I don't know of any private schools. I'm sure there are a few, but I know of none. There's public schools, there's catholic schools, and nothing else. I don't know a single person who went to a private school (which I suppose was probably implied, since if I knew somebody who went to a private school, I probably know about the school). There simply is no debate, you go to a public school, and I think they're adequate for their function, and if you don't find the school acceptable, there's other public schools you can attend.

What I don't understand, though, is why does anybody feel that their children deserve better than everybody else? Clearly, if the public system is inadequate, your child isn't being dis-advantaged from competing in life on a local scale, so what's the problem? Try and better the situation, Inadequate education isn't acceptable simply because it's equally inadequate, but why does any one child deserve better treatment in such a situation than any other, especially based on financial status of their parents?

[ 28 March 2006: Message edited by: Raos ]

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babble

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Originally posted by nonsuch:
Another subject that keeps coming around:
Do you really think that the public education system is hurt by the absence of middle-class kids who attend private school? Why? I mean, it can't be a huge number - and the parents are still paying their taxes. What if the same middle-class people had fewer children, or no children, to begin with? Would a 1% decline in the birth-rate make public schools worse? A 5% decline? Doesn't a period of low enrollment just mean fewer portables and smaller classes? Isn't that good?

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I'm quite sure that my gut reaction to these questions comes from the particular situation I experienced as a kid.

I went to one of those public 'experimental schools' of the early to mid-70s; it was in the suburbs, and there was an awful lot in our favour - the student population was very diverse both racially and socioeconomically, and we had the wide-open spaces of a suburb that was still built with the idea that people shouldn't have to have cars to go to the grocery store (no, it's not like that anymore.) The school had excellent, highly motivated and mostly young teachers, it consciously applied as many progressive policies as it could think of (such as encouraging men to teach in lower elementary grades); there were no walls on the classrooms; and we were given a lot of freedom to explore (e.g. semi-directed free time. We learned to play chess.) There were lots of extracurricular artistic, theatrical and sports activities, plus a gifted program. Reading was strongly encouraged and we were separated into small groups according to reading ability, so that everybody's level was addressed.

However, progrogressively, changes happened. Some were inevitable, such as walls being built between classrooms...but gradually, extracurricular activities were less available, there weren't as many plays and operettas being put on, and finally, just as I was entering my last year in that K-8 school - it was closed. It was the first time in my life I heard about "budgets, cutbacks, school board making difficult decisions..."

I firmly believe that a lot of the upper middle class parents in that neighbourhood took a cue from that event - a lot of my friends ended up in private school - all of the different 'Saint' schools in various places far away from our suburb. I lost touch with a lot of friends, and it was disconcerting as a kid to work through the implications of some kids going to private school while others didn't, for whatever reason. What am I missing out? Why don't my parents send me there? Are we poor? What kinds of opportunities are they getting that I'm not?

I can only imagine that the parents were figuring that if public schools weren't being adequately funded, then their kids weren't going to pay the consequences. Funny, though - all of the kids that I kept track of probably would've ended up in the same jobs with the same salaries as if they'd continued in the public system. Did they think they were going to create an alternate universe for themselves?

From that experience, and the ones I've had since, I can only conclude that the private school system is by and large just another racket.

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Are you actually reading my posts or just trying to make an argument out of nothing? I don't think I'm the enemy that you think I am.

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I haven't suggested you are anyone's enemy. I think you are wrong, however, to characterize private education and the underfunding of public education as racist and anti-poor.

One reason being that by making such a characterization it plays into the creation of a stereotype about public education that is neither true nor widely held. And despite what other people might say, if such a stereotype were gain hold, people would be willing to suffer all sorts of financial pain not to appear "poor" by sending their kids to private schools. In other words, such a perception would drive an exodus from the public school system.

Secondly, it is just plain wrong. The proponents of private schools are just as willing to sell education to people of color as anyone else. And they will happily provide lower cost (read quality) education to the poor. What concerns them is profit and the ideological belief that everything, including education and health, is a market commodity.

That the poor and immigrant communities might be hurt most by private education is a given. But that doesn't mean the motivation behind it is racist and anti-poor.

And if I have observed anything about human nature in the society in which we live it is that if people think something does not negatively impact them directly, they can overlook it until it does. So if you characterize public education as an issue of greater importance to immigrants and the poor, then it is of lesser importance to those who can afford private schools.

Public education is a public good that benefits all of us and pays off with a higher quality of life, a healthier population, and less social disparity and conflict.

That is something we can all relate to.

[ 29 March 2006: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]

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"a lottery process will be used to select the grant winners"

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edited because UBB was acting up

[ 29 March 2006: Message edited by: Lard Tunderin' Jeezus ]

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Originally posted by Frustrated Mess:
...I think you are wrong, however, to characterize private education and the underfunding of public education as racist and anti-poor.

...That the poor and immigrant communities might be hurt most by private education is a given. But that doesn't mean the motivation behind it is racist and anti-poor.

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The proponents of private schools are just as willing to sell education to people of color as anyone else.

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And they will happily provide lower cost (read quality) education to the poor. What concerns them is profit and the ideological belief that everything, including education and health, is a market commodity.

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...And if I have observed anything about human nature in the society in which we live it is that if people think something does not negatively impact them directly, they can overlook it until it does. So if you characterize public education as an issue of greater importance to immigrants and the poor, then it is of lesser importance to those who can afford private schools.

Public education is a public good that benefits all of us and pays off with a higher quality of life, a healthier population, and less social disparity and conflict.

That is something we can all relate to.

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Edited for rogue slash. My god, what I'd give for a preview function!

[ 29 March 2006: Message edited by: Dex ]

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I'm not particularly interested in making this distinction.

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So why did you?

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The law was not explicitly directed toward only black people, but legislators knew full well that it would disqualify disproportionate numbers of African Americans from voting.

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If there is increased stigmatization of the public system, you'll see kids being pulled from it in droves, government support will dry up, and you'll have a ghettoization of the public system and of all of the students left behind.

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Which is the point I am making if you had comprehension skills.

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Businesses don't generally produce products or services for people who are unwilling AND unable to buy their products. That would be why I have been arguing against the privatization of the school system.

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I pretty much have no idea what you're talking about

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and yet you keep trying to portray me as saying that we should only care about immigrants and the poor

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you denounce my claims that wealthier people are more likely to send their kids into the private system and then proceed to contradict your own self on that matter in the very same post.

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I did neither. If disagreeing with you on one issue is the equivalent of "denouncing" you, then you have issues far deeper than anything being discussed here. And probably requiring professional help.

[ 29 March 2006: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]

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And probably requiring professional help.

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Originally posted by Frustrated Mess:
So why did you?

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So then it was directed toward black people even if not explicitly so?

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Is it not possible for the goverment to privatize education delivery?

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Really? Where?

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sez me: "you denounce my claims"
sez Frustrated Mess: I did neither. If disagreeing with you on one issue is the equivalent of "denouncing" you, then you have issues far deeper than anything being discussed here. And probably requiring professional help.

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[ 29 March 2006: Message edited by: Dex ]

My point was to suggest to you - not to "denounce" you, not to get into a heated debate with you, not even to question your state of mental health (complain to the mods if you want) but merely to point out - that the goal of undermining public education is not directly aimed at non-whites or the poor.

It is no contradiction to acknowledge that poor and immigrant families will be disproportionately hurt as an indirect result of private education. No more so than acknowledging that the poor and new immigrants are disproportionately hurt by any number of public policies that don't directly target them.

I don't think it is rocket science.

My only criticism of your comments is that associating public education as for being for poor people and non-whites is to feed a stereotype that is untrue and not widely held. And that may not have been your intent but that could become the result if such an argumet was given a wider airing.

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I can only imagine that the parents were figuring that if public schools weren't being adequately funded, then their kids weren't going to pay the consequences. Funny, though - all of the kids that I kept track of probably would've ended up in the same jobs with the same salaries as if they'd continued in the public system. Did they think they were going to create an alternate universe for themselves?

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* And nobody had better tell me that i can change this with my vote. The bastards lie. During the election campaign, they swear on their mothers' sainted heads that they won't touch education or health-care, but the minute they're in office, they begin to slash both - and, for all i know, their mother's coiff, too.

[ 29 March 2006: Message edited by: nonsuch ]

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Originally posted by nonsuch:
What kind of jobs the kids end up doing is not necessarily the only, or even the primary, concern for a parent. For some, the most important thing is their child's happiness and/or fulfillment. (I know this, because my kid was in one of those suburban experimental schools for a while, and it worked for hem. The regimented classroom structure did not. If a Waldorf school had been handy, i'd have shifted that kid over there in heartbeat. Not because i wanted the kid to grow up into a rich banker, but because i hated to see hir miserable and repressed.)

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True, nonsuch. I do tend to see a person's eventual job/trade/profession/career as a kind of indicator of their school experience and the way their motivation to learn was or wasn't properly fostered. But a person's job isn't necessarily an indication of meaningful fulfillment, and sometimes it's quite the opposite. But the fact is that many parents see private school as a kind of traced-out pathway to a highly-paid profession or career.

But a kid's enjoyment of school is usually a function of things like class size, the teacher's ability/personality/morale, and the behaviour of the other kids in the class. I've seen my son have radically different experiences in three years of elementary school already (in one single school, though the group hasn't always been composed of the exact same kids) -but the difference seems to me to be largely a function of the teacher's ability to inspire and control a classroom of kids. It's hard for them to do that if they are continually being undermined by government and school policy, in all kinds of ways. I honestly don't know how private schools manage to maintain teacher morale, because for one thing salaries are lower and social advantages aren't that great.

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Originally posted by brebis noire:

True, nonsuch. I do tend to see a person's eventual job/trade/profession/career as a kind of indicator of their school experience and the way their motivation to learn was or wasn't properly fostered. But a person's job isn't necessarily an indication of meaningful fulfillment, and sometimes it's quite the opposite.

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But the fact is that many parents see private school as a kind of traced-out pathway to a highly-paid profession or career.

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But a kid's enjoyment of school is usually a function of things like class size, the teacher's ability/personality/morale, and the behaviour of the other kids in the class.

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I think we might be 'luckier' here in Quebec for teacher morale - I've talked to teachers from Ontario, and their frustration with the government (this was back in the late 90s) was palpable.

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[ 29 March 2006: Message edited by: nonsuch ]