School choice

[beej]

This democrat is pushing the party to embrace school choice which has a 73% favorability rating among democrat voters. Democrats should embrace it and back away from the teachers union that is failing our children.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2023/08/15/democrats-embrace-school-choice-education-reform/70587999007/

But Democratic voters have been unequivocal in their support for choice. Recent polling shows 73% of Democratic voters have a favorable opinion of public charter schools, and this strong level of support holds true across various demographics: Blacks, Latinos and parents.

blacks, latinos and Parents? how did parents become an ethnic group? but whatever...

but what he doesn't understand is why parents want something different for their kids and why that scares democrats. It's not about education success it's about this, from his own mouth

As Democrats have failed to coalesce around this issue, Republicans are filling the vacuum and advancing a private school agenda, which would not protect the rights of students and would skirt accountability standards.

The horror of it all!! If we don't do something we won't be able to control what they teach!! eh...maybe that's why republicans are opting out of the public school system in the first place.

[CNCAppsJames]

'... accountability standards.. "

As if ANY of that bullshit helped ANY student anywhere, ANY time. 

Fuckin' Teacher's Unions.

[JParis]

Dem politicians will never largely support "School choice"....that's a walk down a plank they are not will to take in pissing off the teacher's unions...

[Jim at Gentex]

The 'accountability standards' need to be applied to the teachers first. 

But yeah, JP is correct.
The teachers' unions have been a large, solid voting bloc for Dems, both locally and nationally, for as long as I can remember.

They probably aren't wanting to rock that particular boat too much. 

I have said it before and I will say it again...
I am thankful that my daughter is able to home school my three grandkids, who are all achieving test results far above their chronological grade levels.

Not sure if my youngest daughter will go the home schooling route yet because her son is only a year and a half old, but I hope she considers it when it is time for him to start school.

[neurosis]

How does school choice work out in cases of already underfunded schools? 

One of my biggest complaints (and there are many) about the Democrats running Washington State is that they're constantly complaining about schools being underfunded and then use specific low income districts as examples. They convince voters to pass levies and then very little money, if any, goes to those low income schools. It's all lip service.

[gcode]

Democrats should embrace it and back away from the teachers union that is failing our children.

Never happen
The teachers unions take money by force from their members in the form of union dues and funnel it
straight into the Dem party treasury. There is too much money involved.
 

[Tim Johnson]

One of my biggest complaints (and there are many) about the Democrats running Washington State is that they're constantly complaining about schools being underfunded and then use specific low income districts as examples. They convince voters to pass levies and then very little money, if any, goes to those low income schools. It's all lip service.

Around here in Michigan the local voters inside of the school districts makes the choice of whether the they get what is requested and the money would come from the district's tax payers. If the school district is inside of a poor neighborhood they can petition the State for money. I'm pretty sure that it would come out of the Michigan general funds but I could be wrong.

[mowens]

Another issue is lack of teachers. Some districts are giving provisional teaching licenses to almost anyone with a degree.

[beej]

Another issue is lack of teachers. Some districts are giving provisional teaching licenses to almost anyone with a degree.

my daughter went to college to get a degree in elementary education. When she got to do her student teaching, she got so discouraged from what teachers were telling her about school administration policies, political agendas, and lack of disciplinary action against troubled students. That she dropped out of college, and vowed not to put her children in the public school system. She sent them to private schools for a little while and then decided just to home school them.

I think that when we hear about the shortage of teachers, we don't have a full picture of what's driving that.

[gcode]

I think that when we hear about the shortage of teachers, we don't have a full picture of what's driving that.

Yes.. many of our public schools are real horror shows, nothing more than very expensive day care that utterly fails
to educate children. The covid lockdowns only made a terrible problem even worse.

[mowens]

my daughter went to college to get a degree in elementary education. When she got to do her student teaching, she got so discouraged from what teachers were telling her about school administration policies, political agendas, and lack of disciplinary action against troubled students. That she dropped out of college, and vowed not to put her children in the public school system. She sent them to private schools for a little while and then decided just to home school them.

I think that when we hear about the shortage of teachers, we don't have a full picture of what's driving that.

My wife has been a teacher for over 30 years; she retired from public schools and now teaches at a private school. She can confirm what your daughter observed. The best interests of the students are not a top priority, no matter what the school district says.

[Jim at Gentex]

my daughter went to college to get a degree in elementary education. When she got to do her student teaching, she got so discouraged from what teachers were telling her about school administration policies, political agendas, and lack of disciplinary action against troubled students. That she dropped out of college, and vowed not to put her children in the public school system. She sent them to private schools for a little while and then decided just to home school them.

I think that when we hear about the shortage of teachers, we don't have a full picture of what's driving that.

I have a nephew who was also interested in teaching as a career, and I think he would have done well.
He enrolled at Penn State as an Education major, but they lost him pretty early on when they started teaching the teaching students how to teach Common Core Math.

He became so frustrated that he switched majors to IT, but then he eventually dropped out of school altogether.

He now has a job as a Network Specialist with a company that installs and maintains those systems you see in restaurants where everything is automated and the wait staff enter your order on a tablet or iPad.

He loves the job, travels alot, eats for free alot at some really nice restaurants, and has ZERO regrets that he changed his mind about being a teacher. 

[beej]

I have a nephew who was also interested in teaching as a career, and I think he would have done well.
He enrolled at Penn State as an Education major, but they lost him pretty early on when they started teaching the teaching students how to teach Common Core Math.

He became so frustrated that he switched majors to IT, but then he eventually dropped out of school altogether.

He now has a job as a Network Specialist with a company that installs and maintains those systems you see in restaurants where everything is automated and the wait staff enter your order on a tablet or iPad.

He loves the job, travels alot, eats for free alot at some really nice restaurants, and has ZERO regrets that he changed his mind about being a teacher. 

teaching really isn't a great career choice. To come out of school with those kinds of student loans and make around 50K a year, is a terrible decision. My daughter went to school on a division 2 soccer scholarship. So she ended up with some student loans, but not much by comparison.

I wonder how often kids are discouraged from getting in to teaching because of that alone.

[CNCAppsJames]

How does school choice work out in cases of already underfunded schools?

There are no "underfunded" public schools. There are only schools and their districts that misuse public funds. EVERY school district gets the money it needs. Exactly how they choose to spend the money is the problem. Kommieforniastan, which has one of the highest per student spending numbers in the nation, CONSISTENTLY is one of the lowest performing states.

Schools don't have funding problems, they have spending problems.

[neurosis]

There are no "underfunded" public schools. There are only schools and their districts that misuse public funds. EVERY school district gets the money it needs. Exactly how they choose to spend the money is the problem. Kommieforniastan, which has one of the highest per student spending numbers in the nation, CONSISTENTLY is one of the lowest performing states.

Schools don't have funding problems, they have spending problems.

This is something that I would mostly agree with you on.  Funding is wasted on an unnecessary number of do nothing administration when it should be going toward quality teachers. 

State funding, at least in this State, doesn't get distributed to the schools that need it. Like everything else, it goes to schools in affluent neighborhoods to fund sports, new fields, etc. There was a huge protest here over one of the "underfunded" schools that even after making local news and radio, the State attempted to sweep it under the carpet.  To put it another way, The Democrats in this State don't give any more of a shit about poor neighborhood schools than anyone else.