So unions are out to protect the interests of their own members? What a big surprise that is. I really don't understand why everyone expects advocacy groups and unions to subscribe to some kind of moral and fairness policy. The NEA absolutely should use every legal method available to them to maximize salaries for their members, even if that means kicking some black people to the curb. What would be the point of their existence, otherwise? The NAACP does exactly the same thing for black people, and everyone seems to think that's OK.

The program's popularity has generated long waiting lists. A federal evaluation earlier this year said the mostly black and Hispanic participants are making significant academic gains and narrowing the achievement gap.

Yet next time the relative merits of public vs. private educatin come up, we'll hear again that the only reason private schools do better is because they can kick out poor-performing students. Evidently when they are presented with students that are performing poorly not only do they retain them, but those students make significant progress.

I agree completely, what amuses me is when people believe the Teachers unions have their kids best goals at heart. Individual teachers...maybe.

Xequecal; maybe you where being sarcastic, or was that your position. Sorry it was not one I associated with you. Perhaps I am confused

The main factor that determines how well the kid does in school is how involved the parents are and how much the parents care about success, not what type of school the kid goes to. If the parents willing to deal with the bureaucracy and drive the kid across town to another school, it's a huge advantage for that kid. Public schools have to accept the kids whose parents don't care at all, or kids with severe disabilities.

Once again, private schools pay their teachers less than public schools do. You can't possibly convince me that the best teachers are somehow willing to accept less money.

Seriously, you're saying that even though they supposedly have worse teachers private schools still do better because of the burden of poor or disabled students on public schools?

This is why public schools get a bad reputation. There is no incompetence amongst the teachers, they are simply forced to ignore the gifted/smart students so the rejects don't drag their average performance into the shitter and cause them to lose all their federal funding. The private school can simply expel them or refuse to admit them at all.

A private school would try for a year or two and then expel all the failures.

No, I have no evidence to back up my statement.

Except that most public schools in Europe the parents are free to choose the school and the funding follows the child instead of being mandated to a certain district by location which creates the entirely wrong incentives to obtain funding for a district.

Thats one improvement to make in a public school. That being said the education of this nation will always be worse if we have a public system than we would have with a private.

Of Oon beating me? you want picks of that?