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Donald Trump picks billionaire Betsy DeVos to be education secretary
- Thread starter Makonero
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They'll be kept dumb and thus easily courted as voters. That's all they're interest in.
Lightning_Roller
Banned
This. They want people who can be easily lead, people who will just listen to the words and not think any further. Basically, they want sheep to herd and nothing more.
Karsticles
Member
No, charter schools absolutely cannot get rid of kids who underperform grade wise. However, as charter schools are places families choose to send their children to, students who are extremely low performing sometimes result in meetings that ask the parents whether this is the best school for their child to go to. The charter school can't force the kid to leave, though. I've only seen those kinds of meetings happen for students who are mentally impaired to the degree that they have no chance of success.
When students sign up for my charter school, they must sign a contract regarding certain policies of the school. If students continually violate those policies, the school issues disciplinary action like any other school - suspensions, etc. If the situation is extraordinarily severe and beyond remedy, the school will give the student two choices: disenroll from the school, or face an expulsion hearing. Most students will choose to disenroll because they to not want the expulsion hearing on their record. However, we have numerous students in our school who are here because they were expelled from other schools - two of my students have been in jail and have parole officers. They might get kicked out of my school, and then they'll just continue to ping-pong around other schools.
My experience with public vs. charter quality is the opposite of yours. I am a remedial math teacher, and my students come to me from public schools without any idea of how to do basic math functions. I whip them into shape and try to repair all the damage done by public schools. I'm not trying to say that public schools are bad, but I would like you to realize that public vs. charter quality is a regional issue. Where I live right now, the public school system is horrid, and my charter school provides an alternative that helps a lot of students succeed where they would not be able to otherwise. When I was a child, I went to a horrendous public middle school that taught me nil, but then I went to a fantastic high school that had a load of AP classes. There are definitely charter schools out there that are scammy and/or low quality experiences, but let's not make generalizations about what "charter schools are".
We definitely do not get to choose our kids...lol. No one would "choose" some of these students. :-/ I encourage you to look up "failure factory" schools to see why charter schools might be an important option for some kids.
You think Billionares and the GOP wants an educated country? hahahaha
People with no education are more easy to handle and suppress, billionares need workers and the GOP needs dumb voters to follow them, if they let education only accessible to privileged people they will assure that the same people, them, will always be on top.
Aaronology
Member
Appreciate your insights on this topic, Karsticles.
Republicans no longer have any unifying strategy, its just a Frankenstein of over abused rhetoric(like less government, more military, private always beats public) and legislation that caters to the wealthy and private business interests.
So yeah, you often end up with odd counteracting and counter-intuitive forces at work simultaneously.
There is nothing inherently preventing Charter schools from being high functioning or being better then alternatives. The problem is there is very little quality regulation in many places to ensure their overall quality, efficacy and stability.
And there is no indication that Charter Schools are in anyway inherently better equipped to educate then a well run pubic school.
Like you say, with a system that is so dispersed and localized, its hard to say what is right in one area is right for all. Due to certain failures, adding some charter schools that are well run may be a positive. Then again so might a better investment in reforming the public system.
robertsan21
Member
I feel so bad for you americans. this is horrible news.
Chuck Norris
Banned
Trump is really doing a good job to ensure he is the last President of the USA as we know it
Less educated population is more controllable, easier to believe that america is great even if it lacks basic stuff it had in the past
Aaronology
Member
I feel worse for nonAmericans, who will invariably be impacted by our collective apathy, bigotry and ignorance at some point in the future while having had no say in the whole fiasco. At least Brexit was relatively more localized a tragedy.
shinra-bansho
Member
So, the Times says that Trump campaigned on "steering $20 billion in existing federal money toward vouchers that families could use to help pay for private or parochial schools, perhaps tapping into $15 billion in so-called Title I money that goes to schools that serve the countrys poorest children."
This is news to me. To everyone probably. Maybe it should have been news before election day.
This is news to me. To everyone probably. Maybe it should have been news before election day.
Ofcourse. Charter schools are designed to extract money from the poorest to pay for the well off.
I live in New Orleans, this place has the same hell hole schooling system. World class charter school with admission system designed to benefit the well off, with some of worst public schools in the country.
It wasn't always like this, the GOP schooling system was perfectly implemented after Katrina.
It allows the city's well off to have great free education, and not worry about the decimated school system for the rest.
I thought this was general knowledge at this point lol.
Karsticles
Member
You are welcome - feel free to ask me questions, but also keep in mind that I can only share my experiences teaching at two charter schools in Colorado. I'm looking to work at a public school next so I can have a greater ability to see both sides of this situation.
I agree entirely - it's a really messy situation. On one hand, it is nice to have a thought like "let's just fix our public schools", but you have a lot of public schools that have been failing for decades and look to retain that path for the foreseeable future. We just had a thread here on GAF about how 47% (IIRC) of Detroit citizens are functionally illiterate. That's horrendous, and South Chicago has similar statistics.
However, part of the problem is that the people in charge of these schools are often corrupt and/or uneducated themselves.
Proof of problems with corruption in Detroit public schools:
https://www.google.com/search?q=det...1j0i67k1j0i131k1j0i20k1j0i22i30k1.AbVTwaPoPAs
Proof of low education even in the administration:
http://www.byroncrawford.com/2010/0...ard-president-is-a-functional-illiterate.html
I mean...I don't know how this stuff happens, or is allowed to happen. Trump becoming our President certainly sheds light on it, though. :-/
That is awful news.
Screwing up education means less educated people. Less educated people means more republican votes.
Why do you assume anything Trump or the GOP does is to help your country, when the far more obvious reason is that their actions are designed to keep them in power.
Just like Gerrymandering.
Just like Voter Suppression.
Just like everything else.
DontBeThatGuy
Member
Well, less educated white people means more Republicans votes. That, combined with a whole bunch of media(and other entities) catering to them in very specific ways, and that's how a terrible asshole running a terrible campaign stands a chance.
Ether_Snake
å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®
People saying "it's to keep people dumb so they are easier to control", that's the wrong answer.
The proper answer is they are trying to prevent future generations from becoming increasingly liberal in states that are currently voting majoritarily conservative. It's all about preserving their electoral college wins.
The proper answer is they are trying to prevent future generations from becoming increasingly liberal in states that are currently voting majoritarily conservative. It's all about preserving their electoral college wins.
Keeps the power concentrated at the top for and by the rich/white.
Whatever you want to call it, the end goal is ultimately the same.
People in the US, including people on GAF, are fine taking money from programs aimed at the poorest in society and giving it to people better off.
Psychoward
Banned
Is that not the same thing
GhaleonQ
Member
I hesitate to post on NeoGAF anymore and especially in OT, but, to clarify, the vouchers are ALSO exclusively for low-income (or around low-income; it varies by state) children. The change here is portability, not the money pot.
I work at the best school for African American children in Wisconsin, which is in Milwaukee (heavily segregated) and is a Lutheran voucher school. Voucher programs are different in the states that have them, but the charter rules Karsticles says apply equally to Wisconsin voucher schools. Children can even leave the religion class if they want to with no penalty to their grades, legally.
So, if you want something to freak out about in the short term, freak out about separation of church and state (even, as I wrote, should be less of a concern because they probably won't HAVE to take religion class if that's a bigger deal to you than educating low-income families, plus it's been ruled constitutional already https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zelman_v._Simmons-Harris ).
If you want something to freak out about in the long term, freak out about education savings accounts. Instead of money simply following families to schools, money follows children to programs. So, it's like a voucher except it can also be used for other programs the way, for example, college students learn. Someone mentioned that there are NOT charter and private/voucher schools in more rural areas. Correct, so these accounts could be used for a smart farm kid to take an engineering course online if her high school sucks, and so on. However, that, to some, would be the privatization of education.
It's what conservative and some moderate reform people really want, and want I would want to eventually see. The fear is that it's rolled out to ALL people immediately, in which case (as people here also mentioned), there's a giant catastrophe as all children immediately try to enroll in good schools, poor children get pushed out of the good ones even with lotteries, and bad district/private/charter schools sit empty and cost states tons of money in legacy costs. Ideally, it would roll out to people at 300 percent of low-income levels, then lower-middle, then middle and so on over the course of a decade or so to ease the transition.
If any of you have questions, I am happy to answer them. I just wanted to clarify Kate Zernike's bad writing and reporting. She does this a lot. Here's a better story. http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2016/11/trump_20_billion_school_choice_plan.html
That's literally the same thing.
The NY Times has an economist weigh in on Devos' potential appointment.
You think the GOP cares about peoples' well-being?
PhoncipleBone
Banned
Fixed that for you.
MightyHedgehog
Member
An increasingly illiterate and under-educated electorate relies solely on sketchy video news journalism for what they see as credible information sources and views about their world and how it works, which is perfect for entertainment-news outlets everywhere and all future politicians who are all flash and no substance. It's bad enough that funding is scarce for education across the nation, but choosing someone who wants to further divert that money toward the few is only going to accelerate the downward spiral we're in at our public school level. Leave it to the insane and self-serving conservative to leave us feeling the fucking over for years after their damage is dealt as we're likely looking at an entire generation going backward. This administration is going to end up driving us quickly off of a cliff while only the well-off have parachutes to comfortably escape the immediate results. I wish I could be optimistic, but the more I see about his choices for the new administration, the less light there seems to be at the end of the tunnel. Darker times incoming.
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