The Glade 4.0

Facism is not a school of thought, it is a racial slur.

Don't you think it would be a bad thing if we went for fully-private, optional schooling and wound up with a 75% literacy rate because the other 25% had parents that either couldn't afford school or didn't care?

But then, its interesting that the private school which my son attends kicks the living **** out of the local public schools (especially in the middle and high school ranges), yet the annual tuition is only slightly higher than the average cost per student at the public schools (if you use the direct numbers the school system releases only, and don't include the indirect costs, which are hidden and put the public cost higher).

As I've said a bunch of times, private anything is more efficient and cost effective than public anything. You just have to be willing to accept the fact that some percentage of society won't be able to access the private system.

Don't you think it would be a bad thing if we went for fully-private, optional schooling and wound up with a 75% literacy rate because the other 25% had parents that either couldn't afford school or didn't care?

Don't we already have more than a 25% functional illiteracy rate?

19 Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prostitute in Egypt. 20 There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.

Are you sure that the private school isn't getting grants from either the state or federal government?

If you pay private tuition you're still paying public school taxes, remember.

If you give an inner-city school kid a voucher for his annual education dollar amount, he's not going to be able to get much for it, because it's a pittance. Even if the private school he could attend with that money is say 25% better than the public school by virtue of being private, it's still a completely **** education.

I'm not sure you are following the concept of the voucher system, at least as it has been described here. Your voucher isn't based upon the taxes you individually pay, but upon the cost to educate that particular child. There are obviously some flaws and potential for abuse, but the concept is that if it takes the school district $X to educate a child for 1 school year, then the parents of that student can take those dollars to any school as tuition, whether is a different "public" school that they perhaps don't live in the right zone for (the local school district probably has 10+ of each range, elementary, middle and high school), or to a "private" school.

It is still wealth redistribution, as you get an equal share of the collected taxes for education, but it attempts to introduce accountability by creating more accessible competition.

Don't we already have more than a 25% functional illiteracy rate?

In comic strips the person on the left always speaks first. - George Carlin

Facism is not a school of thought, it is a racial slur.

As I've said a bunch of times, private anything is more efficient and cost effective than public anything. You just have to be willing to accept the fact that some percentage of society won't be able to access the private system.

Don't you think it would be a bad thing if we went for fully-private, optional schooling and wound up with a 75% literacy rate because the other 25% had parents that either couldn't afford school or didn't care?

It's higher than that ... I don't really have any studies, but my experiences indicate functional illiteracy is actually what those studies call literacy.

People who are functionally illiterate have some ability to read and write, but not enough to be able to fully function in everyday life. They have difficulty with crucial tasks such as filling out job applications, reading maps, understanding bus schedules, reading newspaper articles, etc.

In comic strips the person on the left always speaks first. - George Carlin

As I've said a bunch of times, private anything is more efficient and cost effective than public anything. You just have to be willing to accept the fact that some percentage of society won't be able to access the private system.

Don't you think it would be a bad thing if we went for fully-private, optional schooling and wound up with a 75% literacy rate because the other 25% had parents that either couldn't afford school or didn't care?

People who are functionally illiterate have some ability to read and write, but not enough to be able to fully function in everyday life. They have difficulty with crucial tasks such as filling out job applications, reading maps, understanding bus schedules, reading newspaper articles, etc.

Facism is not a school of thought, it is a racial slur.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan said last week that the Obama Administration will ramp up investigations of civil rights infractions in school districts, which might sound well and good. What it means in practice, however, is that his Office of Civil Rights (OCR) will revert to the Clinton Administration policy of equating statistical disparity with discrimination, which is troubling.

OCR oversees Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination by race, color or national origin in public schools and colleges that receive federal funding. In a speech last week, Mr. Duncan said that "in the last decade"—that's short for the Bush years—"the Office for Civil Rights has not been as vigilant as it should have been in combating racial and gender discrimination." He cited statistics showing that white students are more likely than their black peers to take Advanced Placement classes and less likely to be expelled from school.

Therefore, Mr. Duncan said, OCR "will collect and monitor data on equity." He added that the department will also conduct compliance reviews "to ensure that all students have equal access to educational opportunities" and to determine "whether districts and schools are disciplining students without regard to skin color."

The OCR under the Bush Administration rightly focused on reacting to actual complaints of discrimination and issued guidelines to help school districts comply with the law. By contrast, Mr. Duncan plans investigations based on the disparate impact of a school policy, even if no one has alleged any discrimination. Schools and districts that don't have enough blacks taking college prep courses, or don't suspend enough whites for fighting, could face litigation or have federal funding withheld.

Inevitably, pressure will be put on districts to get their numbers right and avoid federal scrutiny. Safety is already a major problem in many larger urban schools, where it's not uncommon for students to pass through metal detectors each morning. If districts are afraid to suspend students for fear of an OCR probe, a bad situation is made worse. And if AP classes will now be monitored for racial balance, schools will resort to quotas, lower standards or no longer offer the courses.

Roger Clegg of the Center for Equal Opportunity also notes that Mr. Duncan's disparate impact approach to civil rights enforcement may be constitutionally suspect. In a 2001 Supreme Court decision, Alexander v. Sandoval, the Court reaffirmed that Title VI prohibits only disparate treatment and not disparate impact. "There's no statutory basis for this," says Mr. Clegg.

Mr. Duncan does minorities no favors by suggesting that racist policies are causing the achievement gap while ignoring the impact of culture, family structure or failing schools. He would do better to focus his department's energies on improving educational choice, promoting performance-based pay for teachers and other reforms. Parents want better schools, not social engineering.

If you give an inner-city school kid a voucher for his annual education dollar amount, he's not going to be able to get much for it, because it's a pittance.

Apparently, I need to motivate myself to find you some inner city vs. suburban per-student spending statistics. We throw *tons* of money at urban schools; it's the prime example of why money != success.

If you give an inner-city school kid a voucher for his annual education dollar amount, he's not going to be able to get much for it, because it's a pittance.

Apparently, I need to motivate myself to find you some inner city vs. suburban per-student spending statistics. We throw *tons* of money at urban schools; it's the prime example of why money != success.

The following links will take you to tables that list districts within each state along with their enrollment figures, number of full-time equivalent K-12 teachers, per-pupil spending, and labor costs for the 2006-07 school year (based on U.S. Census Bureau data). The tables also contain the percentage changes in each category since the 2001-02 school year:

Here's the problem ...

1. That's not functional.

2. Those standards aren't even close to literacy.

In comic strips the person on the left always speaks first. - George Carlin

Here's the problem ...

1. That's not functional.

2. Those standards aren't even close to literacy.

In comic strips the person on the left always speaks first. - George Carlin

Can you expound on what a better standard of literacy would be?