I came from Bloomfield, CT. We were an integrated school system.
The difference was not the parents.
The difference was the superintendent of schools setting up a better curriculum. Teaching children with better materials and organization leads to exceptional results
We were ranked second in the state out of 169 towns.
The failure seems to be your opinions.
You think that my opinions result in 75-80% of Chicago students performing below grade level? Thatâs some pretty powerful mojo you think I got.
DB2
Anyone can be educated.
It is good mojo.
The top of the education system has to be intelligent for a school system to succeed. Many superintendents are not worth their pay.
This. There are ways we could do better without destroying the public education system. That will not work out well.
For the halibut, I pulled up a ranking of high schools in the greater Kalamazoo area.
Noticed something odd; the two public high schools in Kalamazoo, have a relatively low graduation rate, 75% and 78%, but two of the highest rankings for graduates being college ready, at 37.2% and 34.3%. Schools in the local burbs, like Portage, Vicksburg, and Gull Lake, have higher graduation rates, but lower college preparedness rates. I find that officially interesting.
https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/michigan/rankings/kalamazoo-mi-28020
Kalamazoo Central received some notice, a few years ago, for itâs high academic standards.
SteveâŚKalamazoo Central High, class of 71
Bob,
You should not perceive you are the insulted party.
We show up here with intelligence on topics or we do not. It is popular to blame parents or to want our team to succeed. That does not for one minute mean it is intelligent.
I believe in admitting when I am wrong. I wish you would get into that when you are wrong.
No religions should not get money from the government for education.
No a small number of students should not get money for education when others do not.
No it is not a better success when only a few kids get a paid for better education at a greater cost to everyone.
If you like to contribute lets us know when you are completely wrong.
Donât worry I wonât die. Because I wonât hold my breath waiting. LOL
Seriously it starts and ends with the superintendent of the school system.
I went to a large urban high school ( large in the sense that it was a Class-A size, actual city was medium sized ), and I liked it. Had kids from all walks of life, some very rich, some very poor. I was a really bad student, as were most all of my friends ( lol, correlation and causation ). We were not hoodlums, but approached hoodlumism, and knew a few who were thugs and hoods ( and they were all white, so no word coding meant ), most definitely became street smart, which is an education in itself. It was not the teachers fault that we were bad students, it was my fault. Most all of my friends have done pretty well post HS. I actually put myself thru college, amazing how much more you learn when one actually reads and participates. It was definitely a school of hard knocks for me, but that was my fault, not the public schools fault.
I very much have the same suspicions that you have in regard to private and voucher schools. Betsy Devos is a âcelebratedâ icon in west Michigan, and I canât stand her, can see thru her from a mile away. Iâm sure she has her good points, but she most certainly has been coddled and spoon fed her entire life, so I donât feel that her life experiences have any relevance to the rest of us. Have some friends that live in GR area, and have met some of their local friends that grew up in the area, they have some weird views on life.
When I went to Kal Central, the high schools in Kazoo were still segregated. Norrix had been built on the extreme south side of town. In 1960, the growing, white, part of town was the south side. The Norrix student body was near 100% white. The kids from the ghetto north side, the older neighborhoods near downtown, and west side boonies, went to Central. Centralâs student body was about 50% minority, with many of the rest being from poor neighborhoods. We had a couple riots each year. Had two riots in one week one year. Got my first snoot full of tear gas in high school.
I ran an RS in GR for a couple years, actually at 54th St and S Division, in Kentwood. Generally nice people, tho the Hollanders can be really tight with a buck.
Not like the guy that came in the RS in Kazoo, and started ranting about âthe one worldersâ. One of my grad school profs lived in Dowagiac, in the district that had been represented by David Stockman, before Stockman was tapped to be Reaganâs head of OMB. I commented to the prof that I saw one of the guys running for Stockmanâs seat. The prof said âoh, the Na2!?â
Steve
The locals Iâve met were nice. The odd to me part were the ones who were âreligiousâ, but threw out racial slurs on a regular basis, while regularly mentioning how they attended Church on Sundayâs. I was sent to Catholic school for 1st 6 grades, we read the Bible, and the overriding lesson I still remember is tolerance, and treat others how you want to be treated. So throwing out racial or homophobic slurs just doesnât seem like a very religious thing to do. And all people do that, I spent a fair amount of time being the âminorityâ and have heard a lot of racial slurs about white people. But the people spewing them were not claiming to be religious.
Nothing new under the sun department. The âSouthern Baptist Conventionâ broke off from mainline Baptists, then known as the " Triennial Convention" in 1845, as the Triennial Convention policy became more anti-slavery.
Nothing new under the sun, part II. My dad went to the Catholic lodge in Dearborn, in the 60s. Dad commented on how the Priests were talking about loving everyone, and speaking against the then rampant racism in Michigan, and how members of the congregation were complaining, with words to the effect âI came here to worship, not hear this liberal garbageâ. Fast forward to 2024, and I see articles about Priests and Ministers commenting that they give a sermon directly quoting Jesus, and the members of the congregation complaining about them spewing âwoke garbageâ. Several years ago, Westboro Baptist made it on to the Southern Poverty Law Centerâs list of hate groups. One of the most bigoted people I have known personally, was a guy working for me at RS. He was a âborn again Christian fundamentalistâ, when that was so fashionable in the late 80s, with the zealotry of the recently converted burning brightly. Kyle seems to hate everyone who was not in his little Assembly of God lodge.
We seem to have âcafeteria religionâ in the US, where people congregate where they hear the message they want to hear. If they want to hear bigotry, they go to a church that teaches bigotry.
Remember the flap over a TV commercial from the United Church of Christ? The ad talked about other churches, where only the white and straight are welcome. Those âotherâ churches didnât like the light being shown on them, even though the charge was sometimes true.
@steve203 That club looks wack.
Definitely seems like thereâs a growing Christian movement not in line with loving thy brother and sister. I bowed out early. Maybe I missed the part about JC being a mean spirited hate monger. Definitely weird.
If the majority of vouchers were going to disadvantaged students fleeing bad public education, youâd have a great point. Unfortunately, thatâs not the case.
But even if itâs not a majority (do you have some numbers?) why eliminate help for the smaller percentage? The government run schools in some place like Chicago are abysmal and have been for decades. Changing the superintendent as Leap suggested clearly hasnât helped.
DB2
Finland has super public schools. Why-How? because private schooling has been effectively outlawed.
The result is that the rich and powerful have an overwhelming interest in making public schooling excellent, and the politics are stacked that way. And guess what? The extra cost to achieve excellence is quite small compared to the result.
d fb
To be clear, Iâm not 100% opposed to vouchers, just opposed to the catawampus way theyâre implemented.
No matter the percentage, my biggest concern is that vouchers take money away from schools that desperately need it, and give it to private schools that donât need it.
Also, not all students will have the choice, or will want to choose private schooling, even if they get a voucher. To answer your question, helping some will hurt far more. More importantly, my opinion is that private education destroys the fabric of our society.
That said, Iâd be more open to students using vouchers to attend public school in neighboring districts. I also think more public school districts should offer school choice, instead of requiring students to attend their local school.
The magic solution! There should be no such thing as private schools or charter schools. Make public schools better! And certainly no tax money should go anywhere else!
JimA
Not a magic solution at all. Even if there werenât non-government run schools, think of the differences in scholastic outcomes between different public school districts. Those well off simply vote with their feet once they have children and move to a good school district.
DB2
Yes, let us think on that and fix it. Education should be funded at least as high as the state level, and possibly at the national level, as is the case in Finland.
As materials sciences advance there is no more valuable asset than education.
d fb
I guess the key word is effectively. Finland does have private schools.
Private education is not prohibited in Finland (aacrao.org)
And here is a good article discussing Finlandâs schools.
Truth For Teachers - 12 âmythsâ about education in Finland debunked
Thanks for the link. I wonder if these still hold up in 2024.
Hereâs another link describing the education system in a good amount of detail.
Hereâs the gist of it - Finland has a comprehensive education plan for all its citizens, the US does not.
Why canât middle and lower class also use the vouchers? There are tons of scholarships and grants for private schools that are specifically targeted to lower income families.