We didn't get very far on this, so I will put it out there again.
G2A Why Neighborhoods Decline?
Repeatedly the Conservative folks point at the "Government" and "Public Schools" as social systems that are failing the Poor citizens of our country. In fact, often it seems that they believe these entities are causing or encouraging the poverty.
Often their solution is to make it easier for the Lucky kids to segregate from the Unlucky kids. (ie open enrollment, vouchers, charters, home schooling, etc) All this being above and beyond the normal means. (ie living in more affluent communities, private schools, etc)
So how does this all apply to our local RAS community? We have elementary schools where the majority of the kids receive free and reduced lunch, and many are not meeting academic expectations. Many middle class and affluent families have run already or they are flocking to the Magnets. This chicken or egg discussion seems pretty important if we intend to reverse some the decline we have been experiencing. Thoughts?
Can a school really compensate for the situational realities of these students and communities? Do we need to do something else above and beyond the schools? Or are we just in the gravitational pull of a growth and decay cycle that most inner ring communities experience?
See Pg 9 of this Link for a Graphic View
For more detail see the links in this post
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23 comments:
I think you're mis-characterizing the Conservative point of view. We hold the government and its bureaucracies tend to serve themselves, not their customers. Any comic can use "DMV" in a joke and get immediate recognition and response from the audience.
That some demographics or neighborhoods see significantly different average results is a separate question. Minnesota's "poor" do significant worse than similar cohorts in many other states, often despite less funding.
A healthy dose of reality all around is needed. Do we measure educational results that we can't control or educational opportunity that we can, for example. A good start is for districts to stop promising answers every fall (to gain enrollment) and excuses every spring.
Though I understand the DMV note, amazingly I am usually highly satisfied with the folks at the Hennepin County service centers that I go to. They seem to do pretty well with the mass of unique requests and characters that show up at their door.
As for bureaucracies serving themselves. Do you think they intend to do this? Or do they believe their actions are necessary to better serve their constituents and customers?
Regarding Conservatives, I just find it interesting that they seem to say that things will be better if we get rid of the Govt / Support Services. Yet they give no solution regarding how all these Unlucky folks will survive or improve. At best they offer the "some charitable org" will fill the void statement...
I whole heartedly agree with this statement. "A healthy dose of reality all around is needed."
I had a creative idea. How about we convert all but 2 of the RAS elementary schools to Magnets? And the only way students can get and stay in is by having Parents that are willing to prove their academic support of the child. This way we can co-locate all the unsupported kids in the 2 "community" schools. Thoughts?
Not stumped, just busy, and rejecting entirely the premise and formulation of your question.
Yes, conservatives point out that government [anti-poverty programs] and public schools are failing the poor citizens of our country. But what else would you call it when government has spent, and continues to spend, an average of $75,000 per poor family on eradicating poverty and we have more poor people than ever before? What else would you call it when some public schools graduate less than 50% of incoming students, and when only 25% can pass a simple basic skills test? You cannot have this outrageous level of failure, over many decades, and not be considered the primary CAUSE of the failure. If government doesn't know how to fix it, which obviously they don't, they should get out of the way and let somebody else fix it.
it seems like you are trying to blame the non-poor for trying to escape the effects of government devastation on families, neighborhoods and innocent schoolchildren. Odd, that's exactly what the liberals in government, who have presided over this failure, want you to believe.
J. Ewing
But what else would you call it when government has spent, and continues to spend, an average of $75,000 per poor family on eradicating poverty and we have more poor people than ever before?
Possibly an impossible task... (ie lottery winners broke after 1 yr...)
Or maybe it takes $100K / family to break them free... (ie not quite there yet)
Or possibly the end of our Industrial era and entrance into the Service/Knowledge era is creating poor folk faster than the system can retrain them. Or the jobs just aren't there because we have sent them elsewhere...
J, Now I know you are aware of the difference between causality and correlation. I agree that there is some correlation going on, but I am far from finding the causality with any certainty. Too many factors changing in this crazy globalized and competitive world.
No, I do not think people should necessarily feel guilty for their personal choices. However I don't think they should stick their heads in the ground and rationalize that they were not part of the problem.
If you move from New Hope to Orono for a less challenging student body, accept that you made a choice for the good of your family and that there were likely some negative consequences for your old community.
As compared to blaming it on the school, community, some incident, etc. Take responsibility for your choices.
Continuing with my creative 2 schools for unsupported unlucky kids concept. I assume based on historical data that the free and reduced lunch number would be 95+% in these schools.
Now with this in mind... Should the:
- class size still be ~30?
- cost/student be the same?
- level of security?
- same hrs to results?
- same expected results?
Seems hard to believe this could be the case. I mean the other schools will have students that are ready for school, want to be there, have supportive parents, less disruption by peers, etc.
I must be missing something here...
I am probably misremebering but I recall that the Pawlenty administration at one point set a goal to determine what a good(adequate, excellent?) education costs per student with the expectation that costs for some students (i.e. ELL) would be higher than for other students.
I am pleased to note that MN gets high marks for funding urban learners, with their greater needs, at a higher level than suburban, rural districts. My own suburban rep would like to level this a bit in this time of tight budgets. I think it is a discussion that our policy makers should have.
If it were up to me I'd mix John's so called lucky and unlucky students together as much as can be done in a common sense way. In an inner ring suburb with a good mix of students the unlucky students would get more small group instruction, a longer school year and maybe even an extended school day. Many of these things are done already (i.e title 1) but these programs could be funded to a higher level as the current level of funding is not getting the job done.
Charter schools do more of these things, as they stretch their dollars farther by paying their teachers less.
I ran the numbers when my son graduated high school, 40 years after I did. His education cost just over double what mine did in real dollars. If you factor in economy of scale, my class about 6 times as many students, it's even worse than that.
Where did all that additional money go, for approximately the same output?
Hey Speed,
Would you comment with or email me the numbers so I can better understand the comparisons you have described. (ie your cost, his cost, assumed discount rate, your class size, his class size, your location, his location) Thanks
I think the two biggest factors in increased costs of education are special ed. and benefits for teachers (i.e.high cost of health insurance)
Also some suburban districts have built fancy new schools (especially high schools.) More administration could be a factor also. I can't think of anything else.
All,
Here is a useful reference doc if you are not familiar with it, though it does not go back to the 1960's. MN School Finance Guide Pg 10 does go back to 1989.
Starting with what I know about Speed, he would have been in High School in the mid 1960's. Therefore after adding ~40 yrs, his son would have been in HS in the mid-2000's. With this in mind, here is some brainstorming regarding what could have driven the costs faster than can be accounted for by typical inflation.
- Special Education big time. I agree with Laurie. Each student can cost 2 to 6+ times what a typical student would.
- Healthcare costs. Again I agree with Laurie.
- Change or difference in student demographics.
- Law suits / societal changes: Teachers would call a Parent and the child would be in trouble. Now, Teacher calls a Parent and Parent threatens a lawsuit.
- Students could drop out earlier? Less money spent teaching / tracking those that do not want to learn.
- Newer technologies are more expensive to teach? Teaching more content during same time frame?
- Education can not make as full of use of cost saving technologies as other industries, therefore it will increase faster than the CPI.
Others?
Minimal accountability and testing in 1960's? Schools could just pass the kids through whether they learned or not.
"J, Now I know you are aware of the difference between causality and correlation. I agree that there is some correlation going on, but I am far from finding the causality with any certainty."
You are correct, and the more appropriate word might be "responsibility," except that after some point in time, when the failures become manifestly obvious and those responsible do NOTHING to fix the problem except spend more money on it, you have to say that they are deliberately and knowingly CAUSING the failure, by not fixing it.
"No, I do not think people should necessarily feel guilty for their personal choices. However I don't think they should stick their heads in the ground and rationalize that they were not part of the problem."
Sorry, but I'm not buying it. I am not responsible for the failures of people who wanted the job (education or poverty elimination), DEMANDED that I pay them handsomely to do the job, failed miserably at the job and KNOWINGLY continued to fail at the job, by their own measures. THEY are completely and solely responsible for the mess. All I did was to avoid it, and feel compassion for those who, being of lesser means, cannot. And I wouldn't have to do even that.
J. Ewing
Speed,
I agree that there are wastes in the Public school system, my list above is just a reminder that we are not comparing apples and apples.
J,
That is about the response I would expect.
J-
I met a man who had me thinking of you the other day. The appraiser for refinancing my second mortgage gave me an earful of conservative viewpoint for nearly an hour as he stood by my door. He was highly knowledgeable on pretty much everything. When the subject turned to criticizing schools I threw in one of my very few comments about how students today need more time/resources to learn as many of them are ELL. His response was along the line of damn straight they should be learning English which segued into his thoughts on (illegal) immigration.
Now I know that you only present very logical arguments based on facts, stay on topic, and probably differ on many views with this man. Mostly the conversation made me wonder are such strong convictions typical of conservatives (I know very few) and in your experience do many liberals spout off like this with little invitation or dialogue?
(my tone is meant to be good natured chiding. sorry if my comment has offended you)
Laurie, no offense taken. I'm sorry if you were offended by this man's unprofessional, impolite and probably unwelcome harangue. You will excuse me, please, if I read your "good-natured chiding" as an actual question.
I have generally found that there are generally only two kinds of people in this world – those who lump people into two general categories and those who don't. So I will say that, in general, conservatives hold stronger opinions based on having studied the issue and come to a conclusion, while liberals hold even stronger opinions as an unassailable bulwark against facts and logic. In general, conservatives tend to be more quiet about their opinion in "mixed company" because spouting facts and logic in front of a liberal is a most grievous social offense and will get your parentage questioned. Get conservatives together, though, and you can't shut them up!
I am afraid that this sorry episode is all your fault. :-) Whatever made him think that you were a conservative?
J. Ewing
"J,
That is about the response I would expect."
What does /that/ mean?
J.
J,
I am thinking of how to best clarify my comment. (ie the response I'd expect) And I am really unsure where to go with it.
In summary, your responses seemed to villify and blame those in the "Teaching, Social Service and Helping" fields. And seem to imply that they are knowingly and intentionally failing the students/unlucky to somehow better their situation. Then you explain that you have paid money and are in no way responsible.
All I meant that this seems to be the tone you have carried in your comments for as long as we have been posting.
The following potential answers that I posted earlier seem to be beyond consideration in your fixed paradigm of the situation... Which I found interesting.
"Possibly an impossible task... (ie lottery winners broke after 1 yr...)
Or maybe it takes $100K / family to break them free... (ie not quite there yet)
Or possibly the end of our Industrial era and entrance into the Service/Knowledge era is creating poor folk faster than the system can retrain them. Or the jobs just aren't there because we have sent them elsewhere..."
I think we are talking past one another, but please let us continue to the point of understanding if not agreement. R-Five said it best, right at the top. "I think you're mis-characterizing the Conservative point of view. We hold the government and its bureaucracies tend to serve themselves, not their customers." It is the government itself that is failing, rather than any of the millions of well-intentioned, hard-working individuals within it. The way I would normally phrase that is "good people in a bad system produce bad results."
There is nothing wrong with your attempt to explain poverty and the factors contributing to it. Any good analyst tasked with solving the problem of poverty would look to the contributing causes, and then look for ways to ameliorate the situation by remediating the causes. We ought to be able to assume, at this point in time, that the government DID look at these factors and conclude that the thousands of programs they now have for eliminating poverty, adding up to over $75,000 per family, was the solution. We, with the benefit of hindsight, shouldn't be going by wonderful intentions, but looking at the miserable results and concluding, quite reasonably, that the government has failed to eliminate or even reduce poverty, and that therefore the solution must lie elsewhere.
The same logic applies to the schools. Government took on the job of educating every child to their full potential. They keep throwing more money at it, including a Byzantine state aid formula that "fully compensates" for all of these demographic factors yet produces vastly differing results based on student demographics – the dreaded "gap." we can look at the miserable student achievement numbers and say we have a prima facie proof that some public schools are failures, and we need to look at some other means of educating these children. We do not and should not concern ourselves with why these schools are failing; it is far too late for that. There are schools that work far better, often with less cost and with the same student demographics. Public schools refuse to become those schools, so we need to stop sending children into them.
J. Ewing
John,
I was discussing know it all conservatives tonight and you came to mind and were mentioned as a notable exception to this rule. Just thought I mention that and also that I sometimes look at things differently from reading your posts and comments.
That conservatives "know it all" is the rule? That we tend to rely more on facts and value more the lessons of history might give "know it all" progressives that impression, I suppose.
The sum of all these comments is that we all want a better education for all students. Even some of us conservatives would agreed to pay still more to get if past increases had produced any results. As conservatives we have been more than patient with progressive thinking and approaches like the new math, whole language, social promotion, lower standards, and relaxed discipline, all fruitless to date. But of course, progressives know it all.
I have found that the "Know it all" concept crosses all social and age boundaries. And the typical "Know it all" will reason that their beliefs are based on better reason and fact than their opponent. This is a self supporting and perpetuating belief system.
For a more serious look at knowledge and learning. QNET Blog
For a lighter look at it, check out Dilbert 1/5/12
I am still waiting for a "know it all" liberal to make a truly elegant defense of any liberal proposition, using only facts and logic. No offense to anyone intended.
J. Ewing
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