Obama/ Arne should allow all students to attend the public school of their choice

[apples and oranges]

A student's zip code should not determine where he or she goes to school. That might do a lot to level the playing field for all students.

What do you think?

[aquart]

1. So you're in favor of school busing?

Have fun.

On edit: How do you plan to work it out when all the kids want to go to one particular school? And it's out of state?

[apples and oranges]

7. I was thinking parents would have to provide their own transportation

for schools outside their zip codes, but if the state would pay for it through busing, that's even better. I don't have a problem with a student having access to the best education available. Why would you?

[MattBaggins]

17. Your idea is great for upper middle class folks

Please explain to me how working parents will drive their kids three counties over to attend the prestigious white academy.

[apples and oranges]

23. Is that what this boils down to?

people not wanting their childrens' schools to be mixed with poor and minority students?

[uncommon]

30. I think it comes down to local funding - poor people don't have money to fund better schools, so

they get shitty community schools.

Requiring parents to transport their kids far and wide to get to better schools is not realistic for most poor people - a lot of parents don't care or don't have the means.

[uncommon]

2. I think it would point out the disparity between rich and poor school -

in more stark relief.

But it makes more sense to improve the schools that are doing poorly.

[MadHound]

3. Oh, yeah, that's a great idea,

Force the school district to waste more time, money and resources transporting students hither and yon.

Tell you what, here's a better idea. Fully fund each and every school, and start treating teachers like doctors rather than like pond scum, including paying them a six figure salary. This seems to work in the countries that are the two leaders in education, Japan and Finland.

If you want a quality education system, you've got to pay for it.

Allowing students to go to whatever school they want is just going to suck more resources away from actual education.

[alcibiades_mystery]

13. "If you want a quality education system, you've got to pay for it. "

Indeed. I like Jonathan Kozol's point on this: the same Republican assholes yelling that we can't "throw money at the problem" have no problem paying $30,000 and upwards a year for their own children's private schools. By some miracle, the schools with the exorbitant tuitions end up being awesome, even when it's just local upper middle class families "contributing" money to their public school for art programs and the like.

Oh lawd, it's a miracle!

[hughee99]

27. $$ won't automatically fix a failing school,

but it will get your child into one that's already working.

[alcibiades_mystery]

29. Automatically? No. In short order? Yes.

[DrDan]

4. how would you suggest a school board plan for this

there are a limited amount of classrooms in each school

[apples and oranges]

12. see post 9. thanks

I didn't expect this much resistance to an idea which could help students in the worse off schools.

[DrDan]

16. it's not so much resistance as a realization of the immense logistical problems

increasing classrooms requires years of preparation and budget work. It is not done overnight. Capital budget is tight.

Helping students in "worse off schools" is something we would all like to fix. Perhaps supporting funding shortfalls would be a start.

[MattBaggins]

18. Resistance?

It's people pointing out an absurd idea, not resistance.

[apples and oranges]

24. "Keep those kids out of our schools!!!"

but make sure no teachers are fired!!!

:sarcasm:

[dipsydoodle]

5. Be a bit odd

if a kid with an FL code wanted a school in MO. Wouldn't it ? :shrug:

[no_hypocrisy]

6. Do you need to build new space for the influx of new students?

Who pays for their transportation to the new school systems? Who pays the tuition of non-local students: the district(s) where they originated or the district where the school is situated? Do the non-residential students and their parents have any influence over the curriculae?

[apples and oranges]

9. Popular learning centers would obviously have to be expanded to accomodate

additional students. They could maybe have a quota each year of how many non-zip code students would be accepted in order to keep up with the growth.

[no_hypocrisy]

14. Who pays for it? The local taxpayers, the towns/cities where the students

originate, the federal and/or state governments?

[alcibiades_mystery]

8. How long have you worked in educational policy and organization?

I'm sure you have a much more extensive post indicating logistical solutions to your policy idea, and you're just planning on posting it later. I especially look forward to reading the way you link the existing studies to your proposal, and the way you point to successful pilot programs and cost issues.

This should be awesome.

[SheilaT]

10. There are any number of school districts

where students, at least in theory, can freely attend the school of their choice. In practice, if a school is full up, new students can't get in.

Some school districts, like Kansas City, MO, have a magnet school system where students (read: their parents) choose which school the kids will go to. Transportation to and from school is often a nightmare for that school district, because practically no students are attending their local school, and they have to get to school and back home again somehow.

The other reality is that the vast majority of school districts aren't that large, don't have all that many different schools, and chances are that all the schools in that district are more alike than not alike.

How about small towns where there is one school and one school only within any kind of reasonable commuting distance?

The real answer is to go ahead and fund schools, all school at about double the per-student amount they are currently funded. Pay teachers better. Hire enough staff at all levels so that teachers can concentrate mostly on teaching and have the time they need to do class prep, paper grading, and the like. Make sure that all the supplies kids need are supplied to them. Don't make them pay extra for this and that. Okay, maybe they can be required to bring their own lined paper and pencils & pens, but the huge long lists of things kids have to bring to the school (including often the kleenex for the classroom) is outrageous.

Fund both special ed and gifted programs fully. Make sure that all of the kids in the vast middle have good teachers, small classrooms, clean bathrooms, and so on.

[femmocrat]

21. +1

:applause:

[LWolf]

11. I think, with some supports, and some limits, that would be great.

Supports? Pay for the transportation. One of the purposes for the neighborhood school and for school zones is the cost of transportation. Fund what it would cost to provide transportation from any neighborhood to any school, and it becomes possible.

Another support? Get rid of high-stakes testing and authoritarian standardization in the public school sector and allow districts and schools the flexibility to customize schools' programs.

Limits? Limit the schools people can choose from to schools within a district, or to schools within a reasonable distance, so that it can be possible to fund transportation. Cap enrollment so that no school has to take more students than the building can serve appropriately.

[SheilaT]

25. Yep. All of those are

sensible limitations, restrictions, what have you.

The real issue is how committed we really are to quality public education in this country. And the answer is, I'm afraid, not very much. all too often people who don't currently have children attending public schools think any money spent beyond the utter basics of a classroom, a blackboard, and minimal textbooks is money wated. I'll see some seventy year old person say things like, "Well, in my day we didn't have computers in our classrooms and we learned just fine.: But they're being (perhaps deliberately) oblivious to how totally different the world is from when they went to school more than a half century ago.

There's also a constant cry about the supposed waste in the public schools. I've no doubt there is at least some money poorly spent in many school districts, human nature being what it is, but for the most part school systems do incredibly well with what they have.

Another issue, not often addressed, is that teaching is one of those fields where burn-out is all too common. Never having been a classroom teacher, I can only guess at the reason, but I suspect it is generally a combination of overwork and lack of support from parents or administrators. Most of the overwork could be addressed by adequate funding. Lack of support is a more complex issue, one not easily resolved.

But let me say this: I have two grown sons, and they, between them, attended several pre-schools, all private, good public schools in two different states, and then an excellent independent school. All along the way I noticed that the majority of teachers were truly dedicated to their jobs. Yeah, there were one or two less than wonderful teachers along the way, but most of them really cared about the kids and cared about doing a good job. But the first time I went to the back-to-school night at the independent school, what struck me the most was how happy those teachers were. Even though they earned less than their counterparts in the public schools, they had the support of the parents and the administration, and they had much smaller class sizes to deal with. What a concept!

[LWolf]

26. Teachers enter the profession to make a difference.

It sure isn't for the pay, lol.

That means that teachers are invested in trying to serve their students well. Even those those that are weaker than others still care, for the most part. I think you are right about burnout.

Burnout is a reality. So is being on the defensive. How do people under constant attack react? Positively? I think most of the cases of teachers that seem to be disconnected from their students are probably cases of burnout.

You nailed how to address that burnout. Fully fund schools. The general public doesn't seem to realize that, well before the latest round of budget cuts, teachers work more hours, and have more responsibilities, than just standing in front of a classroom during the school day. Putting in hours well above and beyond those specified in the contract is a norm. So is spending some of our salaries on school supplies. Long hours, little support, and constant hostile attacks from the public takes its toll.

Parents and students that partner with teachers make the job a joy.

I am glad to say that the first day of school is always my favorite, because, despite all, I'm always really glad to see my students walk back through the doors. As long as I'm glad to be with them, I'm hanging in there.

[SheilaT]

31. I have to say I would not, as someone who

never taught in a classroom, understood so well about funding and class size had I not had the immense good fortune to send my kids to the independent school. It's so easy for us older folks to say, Well I was always in a classroom of at least thirty (and in my case usually 35 and one year as many as 40) kids, and I learned just fine. But back then there simply weren't the many special needs students, there wasn't much awareness that different kids might have different learning styles and it might be a good idea to try to work with them. There was a lot more rote memorization, and even though some aspects of school truly have been dumbed down, others have not.

The h.s. chemistry teacher my kids had (fabulous man, one of the all-time great teachers out there) often commented that he was teaching stuff to his students that he didn't get until upper division chemistry classes when he was in college.

There are any number of jobs out there where burn-out is a problem. Law enforcement is another. Nursing is another. I was for ten years a ticket agent at National Airport in Washington, DC. Before de-regulation, and it was often bad enough then. At least in those days when passengers were being difficult or even downright hateful, I could remind myself that in a week or so I'd be off on vacation, flying in first class for free, and it made putting up with the garbage worth it. I also have to add that I observed in my time there that the best agents were almost always the ones who took the most advantage of the travel benefits. Partly because we got away, got to experience some luxury, but also because we were experiencing life as a passenger, and speaking for myself it made a difference in how I treated my passengers.

Sometimes I think there are jobs in which either a sabbatical or being required to leave ought to be a mandatory.

[dkf]

15. How do you provide funding for that?

Arent school taxes local?

[femmocrat]

20. The state reimburses some transportation costs.

At least in PA. Of course, that is tax-payer money, too.

[femmocrat]

19. I don't believe that Obama/Arne are forbidding anyone from doing that.

Their push for charter schools would in fact allow students to abandon their neighborhood schools to attend a charter (if they can get in through the lottery).

Two problems that come to mind: 1. Transportation, as many have already addressed.

2. Draining the public schools of all the highly-motivated students will leave behind the discipline problems and non-achievers, making those schools spiral downward even more. Of course, maybe that is just what they want in their quest to destroy public education as we know it.

[hlthe2b]

22. Here's the problem...

(in principle I agree) I live near one of the most sought after public elementary schools in the Denver area and have had countless numbers of friends and mere acquaintances (who are you, again?) ask to use my address so that their child can go there. The school has a long waiting list and give priority to those returning students who live in the vicinity and can prove it. Now, I care about their kids' education and am not above trying to help where I legally can, but to do so would invite the school's administrative crew to my doorstep to document that these people really live there and for me to lie to them, which may well carry all kinds of repercussions-- the extent of which I am unaware. (Yes, they actually DO show up in person to verify if they are uncertain).

So, each year as the summer moves closer to the school year and parents hear that they have been denied admission to their public school of choice, I get bombarded with requests to help. My refusals are usually met with understanding, but occasionally with outright anger, most often (ironically) from those mere acquaintances whose names I barely remember. :shrug:

[Viking12]

28. Here in WI, we have open enrollment which allows exactly that.

There are, however, some limitations. There is a lengthy application process and the schools still have fixed capacity so if the desired school is already maxed-out, they do not have to accept more students.