4 ms·

If you look into actual research on education (it exists), private schools and charter schools are no better at educating than public schools.* It is just a ma

If you look into actual research on education (it exists), private schools and charter schools are no better at educating than public schools.* It is just a matter of other pre-existing differences, like socioeconomic status (poverty), etc. As numerous people have pointed out - you want to fix education, you need to fix poverty and inequity. Sure, other things will help, too, like requiring all teachers have masters degrees and paying them like other professionals, as other countries like Finland do. That said, the article that is the subject of the blog complaint states that it is morally wrong to send your kid to private school. I disagree with that - even people who send their kids to private schools pay taxes that go to support public schools. It is a little more of a shame when parents send their kids to (some) crappy charter schools, which DO take away money from public schools, but sometimes it is because the public school really is bad, or because the kid isn't doing well in the public school and the only other alternative is homeschooling. * http://www.edline.com/uploads/pdf/PrivateSchoolsReport.pdf http://www.edline.com/uploads/pdf/PrivateSchoolsReport.pdf http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1670063,00.html http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1670063,0... http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/are-private-schools-better-tha.html http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/are-private-sc... http://www.nea.org/home/18142.htm http://www.nea.org/home/18142.htm

dnautics 13y ago
well at least crappy charter schools can be identified, and closed down.
- falk 13y ago
  Unless they cook the books. Which happens.
  - dnautics 13y ago
    which also happens in public non-charter schools.
    - falk 13y ago
      Yes, but you claimed that it was easy to shut down crappy charter schools. My point is it's not when they lie and they will lie to make money.
      - dnautics 13y ago
        you're missing the point. No system is failproof: Obviously I have no data to back this up, but I think it's probably easier to close down a charter school that screws up than a non-charter with an equivalent screwup.
newbie12 13y ago
Hey, Finland pays their teachers less than the U.S. does. http://www.cato.org/blog/no-teachers-finland-are-not-paid-doctors http://www.cato.org/blog/no-teachers-finland-are-not-paid-do... Also, charter schools are public schools. They just have more flexible management and curriculum structures.
- falk 13y ago
  Your argument is borderline dishonest. Teachers in Finland don't have to worry about a lot of things U.S. teachers do because they're taken care of by the government via taxes, which results in said utilities and services being cheaper. For example: health care. I also bet that Finland teachers don't have to spend their own money on buying supplies for their students, which is sadly really common here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_in_Finland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_in_Finland
  - briandear 13y ago
    Teachers in the US typically have full health benefits paid for by the government as well as a pension and other benefits. So using health care as an example is just inaccurate. Finland teachers also pay a higher tax rate than US teachers so their real income is even lower by comparison. The problem isn't compensation, it's that it's almost impossible to fire a bad teacher and therefore the personal incentive for individual teachers is less than it would be if teachers were paid based on outcomes rather than time in service. Teacher quality is unrelated to seniority. Yet pay scales are almost completely biased towards seniority rather than results. The rules of economics don't end at the schoolhouse door.
    - falk 13y ago
      Are you claiming that teacher's don't have copays? Because that's patently false. How about before Obamacare when you could be kicked off your insurance roles for having a "pre-existing" condition and then you couldn't find healthcare anywhere? Do you think that didn't effect teachers? People in the U.S. pay more for healthcare than people in Finland do when you take into account the amount of taxes they pay. When the costs of programs are spread among the public, things tend to be cheaper. Let's take a look at the Finland school system. They have strong unions that are allowed to take an active role in helping decide what's taught. They have seniority. They don't care about standardized tests, which differs dramatically from the U.S. They don't have any No Child Left Behind bullshit. The students defer drastically, as well. All the students in Finland have healthcare. When they are sick they can go to the doctor and not have to worry about a gigantic bill. They have a poverty rate of 5.3% compared to the U.S. which has a rate of 23.1%. I'm also willing to wager that a significantly larger chunk of their population believes in evolution and global warming compared to the U.S. It's hard to learn when your hungry and sick. http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/12/what-americans-keep-ignoring-about-finlands-school-success/250564/ http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/12/what-ame... http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/Why-Are-Finlands-Schools-Successful.html http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/Why-Are-Finlands...
tokenadult 13y ago
What actual research says is that cultural factors in the home and school effectiveness factors in the school matter even more than poverty as such in constraining educational outcomes. One thoughtful article on this point is mathematician Patricia Kenschaft's article from the Notices of the American Mathematical Society, "Racial Equity Requires Teaching Elementary School Teachers More Mathematics" http://www.ams.org/notices/200502/fea-kenschaft.pdf http://www.ams.org/notices/200502/fea-kenschaft.pdf Read the article, and see if you want any child from any neighborhood, rich or poor, to have elementary school teachers as poorly prepared to teach mathematics as the teachers Kenschaft found in New Jersey. Another interesting set of research articles are those by economist Roland Fryer, such as "Getting Beneath the Veil of Effective Schools: Evidence from New York City" http://scholar.harvard.edu/fryer/publications/getting-beneath-veil-effective-schools-evidence-new-york-city http://scholar.harvard.edu/fryer/publications/getting-beneat... or "Achieving Escape Velocity: Neighborhood and School Interventions to Reduce Persistent Inequality" http://scholar.harvard.edu/fryer/publications/achieving-escape-velocity-neighborhood-and-school-interventions-reduce-persistent http://scholar.harvard.edu/fryer/publications/achieving-esca... or "Teacher Incentives and Student Achievement: Evidence from New York City Public Schools" http://scholar.harvard.edu/fryer/publications/teacher-incentives-and-student-achievement-evidence-new-york-city-public-schools http://scholar.harvard.edu/fryer/publications/teacher-incent... Yet another good author on education policy is Caroline Hoxby, whose publications include "Competition Among Public Schools: A Reply to Rothstein (2004)" http://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/11216.html http://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/11216.html and "Would School Choice Change the Teaching Profession?" http://ideas.repec.org/a/uwp/jhriss/v37y2002i4p846-891.html http://ideas.repec.org/a/uwp/jhriss/v37y2002i4p846-891.html Sure, other things will help, too, like requiring all teachers have masters degrees Masters degrees in the subject taught, or masters degrees in "education"? There is no evidence in favor of the latter. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/19/us/19gates.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/19/us/19gates.html "He suggests they end teacher pay increases based on seniority and on master’s degrees, which he says are unrelated to teachers’ ability to raise student achievement." http://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/issues/2012/07/pdf/miller_masters.pdf http://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/issues/20...
- edtechdev 13y ago
jack-r-abbit 13y ago
Charter schools are public schools... and they actually get less money per student than the other public schools in their district. (Our charter school gets roughly $1200 less per student per year than the other schools in the district). The good ones still find ways to do more with less. (Ours has kept class sizes smaller than the rest. We still have music, art, foreign languages, etc... while other schools are cutting those programs.) A lot of charter schools require (well not require but strongly encourage) some level of parent participation (volunteering in the class, fundraising, etc). Since you are not just assigned a charter school based on your location (like traditional public schools) there is a certain amount of additional effort involved. I personally think this is the first filter that keeps "parents that really don't care" from sending their kids there. So I believe this gives you a higher concentration of students that come from homes that place a higher value on education. These kids are more likely to get additional support at home... which makes them more likely to do better in school.

dnautics 13y ago

well at least crappy charter schools can be identified, and closed down.

falk 13y ago
Unless they cook the books. Which happens.
- dnautics 13y ago
  which also happens in public non-charter schools.
  - falk 13y ago
    Yes, but you claimed that it was easy to shut down crappy charter schools. My point is it's not when they lie and they will lie to make money.
    - dnautics 13y ago
      you're missing the point. No system is failproof: Obviously I have no data to back this up, but I think it's probably easier to close down a charter school that screws up than a non-charter with an equivalent screwup.

newbie12 13y ago

Hey, Finland pays their teachers less than the U.S. does. http://www.cato.org/blog/no-teachers-finland-are-not-paid-doctors http://www.cato.org/blog/no-teachers-finland-are-not-paid-do... Also, charter schools are public schools. They just have more flexible management and curriculum structures.

falk 13y ago
Your argument is borderline dishonest. Teachers in Finland don't have to worry about a lot of things U.S. teachers do because they're taken care of by the government via taxes, which results in said utilities and services being cheaper. For example: health care. I also bet that Finland teachers don't have to spend their own money on buying supplies for their students, which is sadly really common here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_in_Finland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_in_Finland
- briandear 13y ago
  Teachers in the US typically have full health benefits paid for by the government as well as a pension and other benefits. So using health care as an example is just inaccurate. Finland teachers also pay a higher tax rate than US teachers so their real income is even lower by comparison. The problem isn't compensation, it's that it's almost impossible to fire a bad teacher and therefore the personal incentive for individual teachers is less than it would be if teachers were paid based on outcomes rather than time in service. Teacher quality is unrelated to seniority. Yet pay scales are almost completely biased towards seniority rather than results. The rules of economics don't end at the schoolhouse door.
  - falk 13y ago
    Are you claiming that teacher's don't have copays? Because that's patently false. How about before Obamacare when you could be kicked off your insurance roles for having a "pre-existing" condition and then you couldn't find healthcare anywhere? Do you think that didn't effect teachers? People in the U.S. pay more for healthcare than people in Finland do when you take into account the amount of taxes they pay. When the costs of programs are spread among the public, things tend to be cheaper. Let's take a look at the Finland school system. They have strong unions that are allowed to take an active role in helping decide what's taught. They have seniority. They don't care about standardized tests, which differs dramatically from the U.S. They don't have any No Child Left Behind bullshit. The students defer drastically, as well. All the students in Finland have healthcare. When they are sick they can go to the doctor and not have to worry about a gigantic bill. They have a poverty rate of 5.3% compared to the U.S. which has a rate of 23.1%. I'm also willing to wager that a significantly larger chunk of their population believes in evolution and global warming compared to the U.S. It's hard to learn when your hungry and sick. http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/12/what-americans-keep-ignoring-about-finlands-school-success/250564/ http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/12/what-ame... http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/Why-Are-Finlands-Schools-Successful.html http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/Why-Are-Finlands...

tokenadult 13y ago

What actual research says is that cultural factors in the home and school effectiveness factors in the school matter even more than poverty as such in constraining educational outcomes. One thoughtful article on this point is mathematician Patricia Kenschaft's article from the Notices of the American Mathematical Society, "Racial Equity Requires Teaching Elementary School Teachers More Mathematics" http://www.ams.org/notices/200502/fea-kenschaft.pdf http://www.ams.org/notices/200502/fea-kenschaft.pdf Read the article, and see if you want any child from any neighborhood, rich or poor, to have elementary school teachers as poorly prepared to teach mathematics as the teachers Kenschaft found in New Jersey. Another interesting set of research articles are those by economist Roland Fryer, such as "Getting Beneath the Veil of Effective Schools: Evidence from New York City" http://scholar.harvard.edu/fryer/publications/getting-beneath-veil-effective-schools-evidence-new-york-city http://scholar.harvard.edu/fryer/publications/getting-beneat... or "Achieving Escape Velocity: Neighborhood and School Interventions to Reduce Persistent Inequality" http://scholar.harvard.edu/fryer/publications/achieving-escape-velocity-neighborhood-and-school-interventions-reduce-persistent http://scholar.harvard.edu/fryer/publications/achieving-esca... or "Teacher Incentives and Student Achievement: Evidence from New York City Public Schools" http://scholar.harvard.edu/fryer/publications/teacher-incentives-and-student-achievement-evidence-new-york-city-public-schools http://scholar.harvard.edu/fryer/publications/teacher-incent... Yet another good author on education policy is Caroline Hoxby, whose publications include "Competition Among Public Schools: A Reply to Rothstein (2004)" http://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/11216.html http://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/11216.html and "Would School Choice Change the Teaching Profession?" http://ideas.repec.org/a/uwp/jhriss/v37y2002i4p846-891.html http://ideas.repec.org/a/uwp/jhriss/v37y2002i4p846-891.html Sure, other things will help, too, like requiring all teachers have masters degrees Masters degrees in the subject taught, or masters degrees in "education"? There is no evidence in favor of the latter. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/19/us/19gates.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/19/us/19gates.html "He suggests they end teacher pay increases based on seniority and on master’s degrees, which he says are unrelated to teachers’ ability to raise student achievement." http://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/issues/2012/07/pdf/miller_masters.pdf http://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/issues/20...

edtechdev 13y ago

jack-r-abbit 13y ago

Charter schools are public schools... and they actually get less money per student than the other public schools in their district. (Our charter school gets roughly $1200 less per student per year than the other schools in the district). The good ones still find ways to do more with less. (Ours has kept class sizes smaller than the rest. We still have music, art, foreign languages, etc... while other schools are cutting those programs.) A lot of charter schools require (well not require but strongly encourage) some level of parent participation (volunteering in the class, fundraising, etc). Since you are not just assigned a charter school based on your location (like traditional public schools) there is a certain amount of additional effort involved. I personally think this is the first filter that keeps "parents that really don't care" from sending their kids there. So I believe this gives you a higher concentration of students that come from homes that place a higher value on education. These kids are more likely to get additional support at home... which makes them more likely to do better in school.