What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[Berkut]

Here is what I think and why:

1. Public schools are not, by their nature, problematic. We know this to be true because there are plenty of examples of very good public schools that do an overall excellent job.
2. The basic problem in many "failed" public schools has little or nothing to do with funding. We know this to be true because there are examples where schools that have similar funding levels have radically different results. This doesn't mean that there are not schools that are inadequately funded of course, and that will certainly impact their ability to succeed. Proper funding is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for success.

Case in point (anecdotal of course, but my arguments just needs a singular example). Rochester suburban public schools are, by and large, very good. They vary between good, to very good, to downright exceptional when it comes to standard metrics of success (completion rates, college placement, ACT/SAT results for graduating students, etc.). Rochester City schools, on the other hand, have terrible results. Yet RCSD spends more per student than almost any other school district in the entire country, much less in the Rochester area.

And spends a lot more per student than the suburban schools. On average, RCSD spends something like $20,000 per student per year. Contrast that with the lowest of the suburban districts, Victor, which spends around $12,000 per student per year. Yet Victor is a very high performing school district. On average, the suburban schools spend around $15k though.

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2015/06/03/rochester-school-district-per-pupil-spending-highest/28413437/

The problem here is NOT money! There is plenty of money being spent - New York, I think, spends more on average than any other state per student. So even with plenty of funding, you cannot fix poverty and its impact on educational outcomes with just throwing more money at it.

RCSD has been experimenting heavily with charter schools, with very mixed results, IMO. Some of the good ones are very good, but that bad ones are fucking terrible, and do a huge disservice to their students. Crap like schools closing down in the middle of the school year, and nobody knows where the money went, no real controls on how teaching is happening, etc., etc.

And you run into the same damn problem. The good charter schools, once they establish themselves, restrict entry to either high performing students, or at least students who are setup to perform well. The trouble students are not allowed in - so they stay in public schools, which then see their overall results decline even more since there are more concentrated problematic students.

The charter schools, from what I can tell, are not fixing the problem of how to deal with overall poor outcomes, but the good ones do give a place for medium to high performing students to get away from the problematic students, which I guess is good for them certainly, but doesn't change the overall poor results.

WTF happened to school desegragation? That, IMO, is the real problem. All us rich white people fled the desegregated city schools to our nice, high functioning suburban schools. You can lavish money on urban schools, but it doesn't change the crappy examples, and study after study has shown that the effect on the entire low performing population of being in a higher performing environment is profound. We are right back to segregated, separate but equal (even maybe separate but financially unequal in favor of the urban districts) schools. I feel like we (meaning us middle class whites) are basically paying to keep urban kids in urban schools, and damn the consequences, as long as we don't have to deal with them in OUR schools.

Again, I don't think you can over-state the cultural importance of just putting students in schools with other students who EXPECT to perform at a high level. Nothing to do with money, really (again, necessary certainly, but not sufficient)

My kids go to Penfield schools. Not the best of the area suburban schools, but very, very good. There are almost no black kids in their schools - a few, to be sure, but maybe two dozen in the high school total? And they are middle class black kids, who are socially and financially no different from my kids, and certainly have much more in common with our white bread kids than the urban kids going to RCSD schools. They have two parents, median incomes, etc., etc.

This is what I see as modern racism in America. Not any kind of active, or even conscious, racism, but just this passive, defensible desire to get our kids into excellent schools, and mostly white people fled the urban centers in order to do so. No active attempt to segregate schools, we just all moved away from the desegregated schools.

The result? Practical segregation, and right back to the problems that go along with that.

RCSD doesn't have bad outcomes, IMO, because they lack money. That is clearly not true.

They don't have bad outcomes because testing standards, or interference from the Feds, or that they have to teach to some common core. Those are all things that all the schools deal with.

They don't have bad outcomes because they have too much overhead and bureaucracy (although they almost certainly do have too much, because they are a large, public district, so that is basically inevitable).

They have bad outcomes because they are dealing with societal and racial problems that simply cannot be fixed by throwing the schools more money. And because people like me, mostly, don't want to deal with it, and we would rather pay the taxes so we can say "See, they have plenty of money! It isn't OUR fault!" when in fact, it very much is our fault, we just don't really know it. This is, to the extent it exists, the best example of what "privilege" means. A passive benefit that we enjoy without even knowing how much we benefit from it...

[derspiess]

Cincinnati has the same divide between Cincinnati Public Schools and the districts out in the burbs.  My brother live just inside city limits.  Both his kids are in a really nice CPS Montessori school, but once the kids are middle- & high school age, they are slated to go to some pretty crappy schools.  They're looking to sell their house and move into our school district this year.   

[grumbler]

If you allow charter schools to simply cherry-pick their students, then, of course, you are going to set yourself up for failure in the rest of your schools, just as you will if you allow anyone to set up a charter school.  NYC uses a lottery and a fairly high degree of charter school variety to improve student outcomes.  There, charters have a graduation rate more than 10 points higher than the public schools, even when comparing charter students with students who would have gone to them had they been luckier in the lottery.

Smaller, more focused schools are simply more successful, unless they are a scam or incompetently set up.  The data is quite clear.

[derspiess]

On the other hand, is it fair to keep well-performing, well-behaved students in crappy schools?

[Valmy]

On the other hand, is it fair to keep well-performing, well-behaved students in crappy schools?

Just as fair as keeping anybody else there I guess.

But even crap schools have honors track classes right?

[derspiess]

But even crap schools have honors track classes right?

Yeah, crappy ones

[Valmy]

But even crap schools have honors track classes right?

Yeah, crappy ones

Nah. You surround yourself with the other kids who give a shit and you will get a pretty good education no matter where you are.

Well I guess within reason. If the school is like that one in that movie before Morgan Freeman shows up then maybe not.

[CountDeMoney]

But even crap schools have honors track classes right?

Yeah, because not all of them can dribble or catch a ball.  #BlackLapsMatter

[frunk]

On the other hand, is it fair to keep well-performing, well-behaved students in crappy schools?

What about moderate performing well behaved students, or crappy performing well behaved students, or well performing poorly behaved students, or well performing moderately behaved students?

It isn't fair to the vast majority of students to be in a crappy school.

[derspiess]

Nah. You surround yourself with the other kids who give a shit and you will get a pretty good education no matter where you are.

I'll remind you that I went to public school in West Virginia.

[HVC]

Nah. You surround yourself with the other kids who give a shit and you will get a pretty good education no matter where you are.

I'll remind you that I went to public school in West Virginia.

were there actual bibles in the science class?

[alfred russel]

I went to Catholic school. There weren't bibles in biology class, but it was taught by a priest in a room with a crucifix over the door and was opened with a prayer.

I learned a ton--the priest was an awesome teacher who had left med school to join the seminary--and got a 5 on the AP bio exam.

[The Brain]

We've had school vouchers for a quarter of a century. Seems to work fine. The educational system has been in decay since the 70s, but that has to do with other factors.

[DontSayBanana]

On the other hand, is it fair to keep well-performing, well-behaved students in crappy schools?

What about moderate performing well behaved students, or crappy performing well behaved students, or well performing poorly behaved students, or well performing moderately behaved students?

It isn't fair to the vast majority of students to be in a crappy school.

Except if I'm reading Berkut's post correctly, he's asserting that the removal en masse of good students is what's making the school crappy in the first place, making it a vicious cycle that should be remedied by increasing retention of good students.

[derspiess]

What about moderate performing well behaved students, or crappy performing well behaved students, or well performing poorly behaved students, or well performing moderately behaved students?

It isn't fair to the vast majority of students to be in a crappy school.

Some kids are gonna be left behind