The Goat Pen

Ecat nailed it.

Bklyn wrote:I didn't say underfunded. I think I used the term "broken" and "inefficient." So, that's a bit of a topic pivot for me.

Sorry, misread you.

It just seems hard to change the inefficiency of the current system without a serious deconstruction. Morbidly, Louisiana was given that opportunity and it is working better for them.

I don't know what the solution is but we can't fund a public school system and have 60% of the kids that leave not be ready to jump into a vocation that pays them a living wage or post education. That is just lunacy to me.

multiple people shot at the Empire State Building (per Drudge). No story yet.

sardis wrote:

Owlman wrote:Create increase demand to private schools, cost will increase. Voucher costs will increase as a result. Public school costs per student increase. Politicians then increase the voucher program because the middle class now has increase private school costs and they are the ones that vote.

If you have the voucher means tested to benefit low income families, tuition will not increase at most private schools, especially the parochial. If the private schools increase their tuition even 500 dollars over the established voucher, low income children won't go. Public schools will not be decimated because most low income families, even given a total free ride, will stay with public schools. Why not give those poor kids who want to better their situation an option to better themselves?

That is what was said about student loans and Pell Grants effects on college costs have skyrocketed since they were instituted. Is that the sole reason the costs rose? No, but it has been an important factor.

Here is my issue with public education: the administrative structure at the local/county level is redundant on its best day and overflowing with overpaid dumbasses on its worst. At least it is like that in the local area, and I suspect that it's like that in many places.

NCLB was a fucking disaster, but there needs to be testing and accountability.

I'm sure this is simplistic, but schools are good when schools are competing with each other. Public universities in this country are generally excellent, and they generate competition amongst each other for the best students, and among the students to fight to get in.

The magnet type schools in public schools in Houston seem to benefit the same way. When you just hand over a chunk of money to a geographic area and hope for the best doesn't seem to work that well.

I dont necessarily agree that handing over money to private schools is any answer, find a way to open competition for students among public schools.

I felt like the education I got at public school was pretty good...

Me two

hedge wrote:I felt like the education I got at public school was pretty good...

my school was pretty basic, I mean we offered calculus, physics, French but in comparison today, my daughter is taking Cantonese in the 7th grade, my son is taking French II as a freshmen, she has a technology class for computer science and he took a CAD modeling class last year.

My school had money for new sports and band uniforms every 2 years as well as purchasing the necessary equipment, we took field trips and had good food to eat. The bathrooms were always stocked and building was well maintained. I know that wasn't true of all rural schools at the time but we weren't a wealthy community by any means. We weren't considered a middle class school. We were in rural Kentucky for god's sake.

My kids school is constantly on the verge of laying off 20 or more teachers, eliminating busing, pay for play sports has been in place for years and I had to pay over $200 in school fees even though all their text books are online. They are required to bring a years supply of kleenex, paper towels and clorox bleach wipes for themselves.

The area we live in is probably 15K more average income by current comparison to where I grew up. I'm in a community with an ethnic population of less than 4% that is a suburb of a mid size city.

There has to be a correlation between vastly increasing the scope of education being offered and the efficiency of paying for it.

Yep. That's what I was going to post earlier. Many of us have personal stories about the changing state of education for the worse, whether it's with their own kids, close family or are involved in the educational system.

I do think aTm is right that magnet schools are one option and charter schools seem to do extremely well too. It appears, on its face, that many school systems have a bunch of bureaucratic waste & short-sighted leadership. I just don't know all the angles. Since I've had kids, though, I've been thinking about it more.

I keep meaning to watch Waiting on Superman.

[On the shooting, yeah it seems it was a disgruntled worker who killed his supervisor...the aftermath with police is where all the other shootings came from]

Ruh Roh Raggy

A laid-off women's accessories designer shot a former coworker to death near the Empire State Building, causing a chaotic showdown with police Friday in front of one of the world's best-known landmarks. Police killed the suspect and at least nine others were wounded, some by stray police gunfire, city officials said.

Oops. They were aiming at the homo

Yeah, when I saw that the guy was a designer, I thought it was one of those "Milk" situations. Then, the media reported the shooter was a tee shirt designer who was laid off a year ago.

Once I saw that, I backed off my mental allegations of it being "Brokeback Fifth Avenue." A tee shirt designer is MUCH different from a dude making bangles and chokers.

Then, I saw the media report that the shooter lived on the Upper East Side, was single and had two cats.

Yeah...gay. I don't know if that meant it was a lovers' quarrel gone bad, but the tea leaves tell me...

"I'm just tired of the Republican Party being the stupid party."

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/20 ... ef=general

Kim Jong-Un visits North Korean family for a photo op...



loving the hairstyle on that kid he's holding. Loving the look on the terrified (and probably starving) members in the front, as well as that totally pimping hat the officer is rocking.

Bklyn wrote:

"I'm just tired of the Republican Party being the stupid party."

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/20 ... ef=general

Read the responses afterwards. Many of them are missing the point. Just trying to figure out a way to defend.

Now, some of these stats are skewed because China & India are both roughly 4 times our size, but the message still holds: We need to do something about our educational system as we move to the next generation. It's beginning to feel like that joke regarding the really smart kid minding his business studying and one of the kids just sitting around doing nothing says "yeah, but can you fuck me up?"

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/25/opini ... future.xml

holy shit, the empire state shooter didn't get off a single shot and the police shoot 9 bystanders killing this guy