About Two-Thirds of US public school students not proficient in reading and math

[1bad65]

How do you know the report is damning if you haven't read it?

Theodore summarized it, and pointed out key part(s).

I keep up.

(Remember; "meat and potatoes")

Theodore, like you have done in the past, posted an article without reading the full report the article references. I read both the article and the actual report, which is why I know certain things about it you guys do not.

That isn't digging in, that is just me being more educated on the subject matter because I took the time to read the information provided.

Don't mind-read. Leave that to guys like MCC and SafeSpace, please. It's nonsense, and gums up discourse.

The fact is it refuted the simplistic 'just throw more money at it and things will get better' line all too many people trot out.

1. More money is a viable fix if its used correctly.

2. Agreed. This just reinforces the point that its where the money is spent rather than not providing any money at all.

This is good. We are making head-way.

What would, in your eyes, be more "correct" ways of using the money?

3. Once again you are reinforcing the point that money needs to go into the classroom to really make a difference.

But again, it is already, and some kids don't care.

You can put up a state-of-the-art school, complete with anything and everything a student needs.

If the kids are part of a culture that mocks education and just drops out to "keep it real", the money was wasted and the test scores aren't going to move.

If your point is less should go to infrastructure, teachers salaries, and amenities, I agree. If your point is stop providing money at all, then I disagree.

Close.

I say we don't give them a dime more until, and only until, changes are made that show improvement.

We can make improvements now with the billions we spend.

If I see improvement, then I'd be ok giving more money, to the programs/ideas that led to the improvements.

It's like investing. If your stocks aren't reaping you adequate benefits, you don't just jack up the amounts you invest and put it all in the exact same stocks.

You pick different stocks that are performing better.

Right??

[Theodore]

I don't think you read the report but instead are running with the excerpts from the article you posted. Give the actual report a read.

More resources would've helped had they been used the right way by people who knew what they were doing. The students failed because less than half of the money made it into the classroom where it could have directly affected learning. Why didn't it go to the classroom? Because the more they failed the more money the district got.

You cited this experiment. it shows clearly that the problem wasn't the money but the people spending it. It also clearly shows the reason the kids did poorly is because doing poorly rewarded the district with more money.

Had the money been spent on textbooks instead of a swimming pool then maybe the kids might have done better.

Yes there are non financial factors that money can't address, but those are related to community and family poverty. Research shows the strong link between education and financial resources.

Cultural values and norms had very little to do with anything relative to the KC experiment. As I showed earlier with sources in poor areas, dropouts rates are consistent regardless of race or culture.

Yes I do.

Firstly, you said not enough financial resources went into these schools. Well, I provided a source that plenty of financial resources went into one of these schools. In fact, it has become the poster boy for libertarians and conservatives to use, the Kansas City School experiment.
An excerpt of the report itself:

The situation in Kansas City was both a major embarrassment and an ideological setback for supporters of in-
creased funding for public schools. From the beginning, the
designers of the district's desegregation and education plan
openly touted it as a controlled experiment that, once and
for all, would test two radically different philosophies of
education. For decades critics of public schools had been
saying, "You can't solve educational problems by throwing
money at them." Educators and advocates of public schools,
on the other hand, had always responded by saying, "No one's
ever tried."
In Kansas City they did try. A sympathetic federal
judge invited district educators literally to "dream"--
forget about cost, let their imaginations soar, put together
a list of everything they might possibly need to increase
the achievement of inner-city blacks--and he, using the
extraordinarily broad powers granted judges in school deseg-
regation cases, would find a way to pay for it.
By the time the judge took himself off the case in the
spring of 1997, it was clear to nearly everyone, including
the judge, that the experiment hadn't worked. Even so, some
advocates of increased spending on public schools were still
arguing that Kansas City's only problem was that it never
Page 3
got enough money or had enough time. But money was never
the issue in Kansas City. The KCMSD got more money per
pupil than any of 280 other major school districts in the
country, and it got it for more than a decade. The real
issues went way beyond mere funding.

Money was never the issue, because it got plenty, more than plenty to be exact. An exorbitant amount was spent.

Secondly, you then moved the goal posts and said the money was spent wrongly. If it was spent wrongly, it wasn't white people that's the problem. Since most of the school staff and higher ups were black.

The biggest problem faced by KCMSD superintendents was
that they didn't have a free hand when it came to personnel
decisions. In Kansas City the two largest employers of
middle-class blacks were the post office and the school
district. Just the rumor of a dismissal sent tremors
through the entire black community--there was no other place
to go; the community needed the jobs. At the same time,
school district employees were the mainstay of the black
churches. (Kansas City mayor Emanuel Cleaver, a Methodist
minister, had 200 teachers in his parish.)
The black
65
preachers closely monitored the district's hiring and promo-
tion practices, with the result that the district essential-
ly couldn't fire anyone.
66
Since it could do nothing about inadequate teachers,
the district sidestepped the matter by simply raising every-
one's (including cafeteria workers' and janitors') salary 40
percent.
But that didn't so much attract better teachers
67
as convince poor teachers to stick with the district as long
as they could because they were getting salaries they
couldn't get anywhere else.

Despite intense and unrelenting effort, the district
also found it impossible to eliminate almost-all-black
schools. The reason wasn't racism, either--the district had
a black school superintendent, a majority black school
board, and a black school board president.

Ain't the fault of the white guy.

[The Big Dunn]

Theodore summarized it, and pointed out key part(s).

I keep up.

(Remember; "meat and potatoes")



Don't mind-read. Leave that to guys like MCC and SafeSpace, please. It's nonsense, and gums up discourse.

The fact is it refuted the simplistic 'just throw more money at it and things will get better' line all too many people trot out.



This is good. We are making head-way.

What would, in your eyes, be more "correct" ways of using the money?



But again, it is already, and some kids don't care.

You can put up a state-of-the-art school, complete with anything and everything a student needs.

If the kids are part of a culture that mocks education and just drops out to "keep it real", the money was wasted and the test scores aren't going to move.



Close.

I say we don't give them a dime more until, and only until, changes are made that show improvement.

We can make improvements now with the billions we spend.

If I see improvement, then I'd be ok giving more money, to the programs/ideas that led to the improvements.

It's like investing. If your stocks aren't reaping you adequate benefits, you don't just jack up the amounts you invest and put it all in the exact same stocks.

You pick different stocks that are performing better.

Right??

He did no such thing. He posted a slanted piece from the dailymail and then highlighted the writer's opinion that he agreed with.

I'm not mind reading. Your comments show you didn't read it. The study did no such thing. Theodore posted the opinion of the article writer, he didn't read it and post anything about the actual study. Read the study and its clear they were not addressing student achievement or learning but district segregation.

Spending it on "in classroom" things like textbooks and computers or paying insurance premiums so classes like auto shop and other trades can be taught. I agree Money can't fix the kids that don't care. Let's not overexaggerate the percentage of kids that do poorly because of this reason.

The report I posted earlier showed 27% of drop outs did so because they didn't care. So we might be able to help the remaining 73% of students with more money.

You should study the individual school system to determine the primary causes of the problems in that district. then use the resources in the areas you can have the most impact on child achievement and learning. I wouldn't agree with your stock analogy because there are many different ways to invest ;there is no one right way.

[DreamerUSA]

My kids still take handwriting so I completely get that. Let me explain my point better. Basics used to be reading, writing and math. Typing was an "elective".

In today's society typing has become a basic given everything we work on involves the computer keyboard. Now kids are also required to take a foreign language and other core requirements.

In poor and urban areas there often isn't enough time for parents to teach basics. Nowadays with people working 2 and 3 PT jobs I imagine there is even less time to do that.

I agree there are a number of contributing factors and money alone will not solve the problem.

I'm cool with typing being part of a kids core education, but typing skills are useless if you can't read. The amount of functionally illiterate kids we are churning out is ****ing horrifying, and no amount of computer upgrades or typing classes is going to fix that. Look, I'm all for space age classrooms with all the cutting edge technology, but again, its useless if a kid can't read. Hell education is one of the few things where I won't rail government because I feel its one of the areas it does a reasonable job, when they stick to educating. Again like I said in an earlier post this is a problem you can lay at the feet of parents and I've yet to see or hear of a government program that can address the core problem.

[The Big Dunn]

Firstly, you said not enough financial resources went into these schools. Well, I provided a source that plenty of financial resources went into one of these schools. In fact, it has become the poster boy for libertarians and conservatives to use, the Kansas City School experiment.
An excerpt of the report itself:


Money was never the issue, because it got plenty, more than plenty to be exact. An exorbitant amount was spent.

Secondly, you then moved the goal posts and said the money was spent wrongly. If it was spent wrongly, it wasn't white people that's the problem. Since most of the school staff and higher ups were black.





Ain't the fault of the white guy.

No, I said not enough financial resources went into the classroom, not into the school. do you understand what I meant?

I meant the resources went to things like pools, teacher's salaries and trips rather than textbooks and computers and things that help students learn and achieve.

At no point did I post or imply not enough money was spent.

I didn't move the goalpost in any way. WTF, where did I post or imply it was white people that spent the money poorly or it was the white people's fault?

You made up things I posted for some reason. why?

[-Kev-]

Almost everyone knows US public school system from pre k-12 is a joke. The sad souls who think we’re on top at everything need to do some research. We’re not even top 20 in pre k-12 grade public school system.

[1bad65]

Let me cite another example of culture being the biggest problem

In Austin there is a school called Johnston High.

It's in the ghetto.

But for years they put the Fine Arts Academy there. Kids outside the ghetto who were in that Honors program went to Johnston.

Why aside, they finally moved the Fine Arts Academy out of Johnston.

Test scores plummeted. So bad, that Johnston failed mandatory tests and according to the law was facing closure.

The solution, simply changed the name of the school to East Side High.

It's still open, and the test scores still suck.

No amount of money is fixing problems like this.

[1bad65]

He did no such thing. He posted a slanted piece from the dailymail and then highlighted the writer's opinion that he agreed with.

We're passed that now.

Theodore showed that when a test program was initiated that threw tons of money at a district, it didn't get better.

I'm not engaging in an attrition battle over something adequately sourced.

We're moving on to viable solutions.

Do you have any?

[1bad65]

I'm cool with typing being part of a kids core education, but typing skills are useless if you can't read. The amount of functionally illiterate kids we are churning out is ****ing horrifying, and no amount of computer upgrades or typing classes is going to fix that. Look, I'm all for space age classrooms with all the cutting edge technology, but again, its useless if a kid can't read. Hell education is one of the few things where I won't rail government because I feel its one of the areas it does a reasonable job, when they stick to educating. Again like I said in an earlier post this is a problem you can lay at the feet of parents and I've yet to see or hear of a government program that can address the core problem.

When i got bussed, the ghetto school had a nice computer lab.

All the ghetto kids did was figure out how to load them with games so they could play video games all class.

You can lead a horse to water,......

[PACnPBFsuck]

No surprise