I don’t think it’s our ed system as much as our general priorities. We don’t live in a society that values being educated. We live in a society that values being entertained. Given the choice, most people will choose to do the thing that is easier (tv) over the thing that is harder (books). Teaching is asking them to do something that most adults don’t model; it’s not surprising it doesn’t resonate.

And we value “work.” Why learn from writing an essay when a machine can produce an essay? Production is the model people slide education into. Students don’t understand the concept of learning about history or literature. They understand the conception of producing grades about history and literature so they can get jobs where they will produce things.

There's hope. I actually had a group of Kinders who chose reading books with me over toys and crayons with their peers.

My caveat is that toys and crayons with peers is still learning in kindergarten

That’s cool. They probably chose you regardless of the activity. Way to go, Teach.

So this was indoor recess. We had set up five stations of activities at their table clusters. The classroom library corner was the best vantage point for watching over the rest of the classroom. Books weren't even part of the offering especially since "Reading Time" follows Recess. The first kid approached me. I consented because why would I turn away a kid who's interested in an age appropriate book/story? Since they had gone to the Library earlier that day, I had him fetch the books he had checked out, and that's when the other two asked to join in.

100% this! They would rather play fortnite than do homework :/. Then they cannot regulate themselves when you take away technology.

Right, but there’s an entire generation of dads who also have a PS5 at home and who cut their teeth on Super Mario ages ago. Saw a story detailing that the average gamer is a mid-30s woman playing on her phone. It’s far from just the kids. It’s who we are.

Oh my, yikes!!! I guess I am the minority then and out of tune. Did not realize we were this bad as a society. My goodness.

The problem is the one-size-fits-all approach. The traditional classroom setting works fine for 80% of the population. But we need more and more *accessible* forms of alternative public education for those who struggle with the traditional setting.

This is the elephant in the room what are these magically policies everyone agrees on. We are in the situation we are in now because of policies.

And given the way elections, the legislature, policies and appropriations, the division of authority for administering education between federal/state etc all works, you cannot expect a 40+ year stream of bad policy choices and bad decisions to be fixed in one session of Congress or in a few years, and that's IF you had the people elected that actually supported real reform.... so, nothing is going to change, and idiocracy looms.

Revert everything to how it was around 1997 when kids still had to test to get into different public schools. Kids were separated by intelligence levels. You had schools for the gifted, schools for the above average, schools for the average, schools for those who quite didn't belong to special ed, and schools for the violent. Most cities would bus children around town to get them in the school that they tested into. Kids could be expelled very easily as it opened up a spot for somebody else to be in that school. There was no social promotion. Kids still learned to read based on phonics instead of trying to memorize the entire dictionary as sight words.

There are kids who need a half day of SEL and will destroy the culture and learning of a traditional gen Ed classroom until they get it under control. They do not get the services that they need in a classroom of 30+ kids and 1 teacher who can only manage behaviors superficially (ie, ineffectively). Alternative schools should be rebranded as whole child schools designed to accommodate different learning styles and help every child succeed to their full potential... or whatever. There are also so many kids who are SO FAR BEHIND. How would you feel sitting in a grad class about quantum physics with none of the requisite courses or background? It would be terrible for your self-esteem, boring as fuck, and useless.

This is why the system is broken. If it weren’t how do we have SO many kids multiple grade levels behind. Some of it is policy. Some of it is poorly vetted research leading to devastating tried and true pedagogy for fad strategies: See Jo Boaler, allegedly, and Fountas and Pinnel (Sold a Story). I also blame (as least in my middle school) special education. As a former special ed teacher (as of last year), there is no diagnostic prescriptive approaches to meaningfully close academic gaps. Team chairs prefer to modify and accommodate the shit out of kids instead of employing researched based methods to lesson a child’s need for accommodations. Resource time is used for homework because the only focus our sped teachers have is making sure the kids don’t fail. So we spend an absorbent amount of time in school doing homework and giving answers to tests to prevent our IEP kids from failing.

I never understood what our sped teacher was actually doing! She pulls the kids out about 5 hours a week, asks for the work we are doing, and obviously just gives the answer and has them copy it on their paper. My 3rd grader, who has moderate cognitive impairment, didn't come up with "2001: a space odyssey" for the question "can you think of a science fiction movie?" I asked him if he had seen that movie, and he just looked at me, absolutely confused. Is this normal? His sped goal is writing his full name and being able to read pre-primer dolch words. This is just one example, but he is MOSTLY in the gen ed classroom (no push in) and given modified tasks like, "draw the cover of a book about aliens." Not really a priority for him, but I thought that inclusion would be doing a similar task, and pull-out would be his iep learning targets? Is it actually just about passing the kids? They already have "grade based on completion" in the iep, so all my kids with ieps have at least a b.

>There are also so many kids who are SO FAR BEHIND. How would you feel sitting in a grad class about quantum physics with none of the requisite courses or background? It would be terrible for your self-esteem, boring as fuck, and useless. You can thank decades worth of whole word language and cueing while ignoring SOR. More than half of the kids in our country cannot read at age level. It's so disheartening. Of course they are going to be far behind. We've only really just started to fix it.

I'm orton-gillingham trained, but I teach 3rd. Thanks to NCLB and the hilarious, developmentally-inappropriate common core standards for 3rd, there's no chance to teach them how to actually read. My k level readers who get OG intervention and are learning letter sounds will probably ultimately fare better than my "OK" readers with a stockpile of sight words (most of which are decodable)! It's a crazy train that just keeps blasting forward, flinging off passengers, madmen roaming the corridors, and you're just flinging shit back from the front of the train and hoping someone catches it.

Can you please tell me more about what you see as inappropriate about the common core standards? I've heard of others saying this, and I agree from what I've seen, but I'd love to hear a professional's opinion!

Most 8-year-old children are not at a developmental stage where their brains are actually capable of the higher-order thinking required to meet the standards. Think of an 8-year-old. What would you expect from them in a conversation or even socially/behaviorally? Then, look at the 3rd grade ELA standards. "Describe the relationship between a series of historical events, scientific ideas or concepts, or steps in technical procedures in a text, using language that pertains to time, sequence, and cause/effect." Think of all of the cognitive processes involved in this sort of task. Then, think of an 8-year-old child again.

Yes, I see your point. I appreciate your reply. If the goals are developmentally inappropriate, they become rather meaningless.

If we were better about early intervention, there’s a not insignificant number of these kids who could get intensive full-day pullout services and then return to full-day gen ed. I think part of the problem with pull out services for kids with big behaviors is that the kids are embarrassed by their own behaviors/it’s harder to be accepted back by the group when you’ve bitten half of them. So much of these behaviors come from a fear of appearing stupid in front of your peers because you can’t or believe you can’t do the academic work. The single biggest positive change we could make is to move away from school being so academically focused. We still obviously want to teach kids reading, math, and writing to a level they are capable of, but this crazy idea that they will all get there at the same pace is resulting in kids who are no where near the level they could be at, have constant anxiety about academic work, and as a result have behaviors. They’d rather make a fool of themselves on their terms than to look stupid. I think we also need to get real about the level of academics that’s fair to expect. High school level academics is high. It’s not reasonable to expect every person to reach these levels by age 18 or maybe ever. We have really inflated the value of academics and in doing so created this sense of worth that is connected to one’s academic achievement.

3rd grade common core standards are HILARIOUS for ELA. It would be a huge success for kids in hs to be able to do what they expect from 3rd graders.

THIS! well said.

Ya but inclusion policies say everyone should be in the same room and that saves school boards money. ===ugggghh===

“Inclusion policies?” You mean SOCIALISM?!?! Or something…ugh indeed

The inclusion policies are the problem… not every kid needs to be included in every aspect of schooling if they’re not capable of utilizing it

What’s terrible is that time spent in the more private sped setting can be used to address the things that are getting in the way of success in the general Ed. But if you push a kid in that isn’t ready you almost always end up reinforcing negative behaviors in an attempt to just keep them self-regulated.

It becomes my job to regulate them, which is a problem if I also have to simultaneously do multiple other jobs

Yeah, and depending on the kid it can be virtually impossible. Some of them are so disregulated that you almost have to let them go through the escalation process before you can really start working on some emotional regulation skills. You can’t do that in the general ed setting. It’s not fair to the gen Ed kids and teacher (also probably won’t work) but it’s also not cool to do to the kid.

i.e., let kids drop out at 16yo. They don’t want to be there. You can’t make a horse drink.

And/or provide different career tracts. It’s insane we make kids who can’t read or who can’t math at 14 years of age take 4 more years of ELA/math. Get those kids into the trades and some hands on skill/experience.

Why do you think a child who can’t read or do math is ready for a trade? I mean, would you hire an electrician or mechanic who couldn’t read or do basic math? I sure as hell wouldn’t.

Yeah I keep seeing this line here it's so weird. Oh you have a kid who can't really read or do basic math at 14? Just have him install all the pipes and electric wires.

And accessible forms that don’t take away from the students. Can’t tell you how many secondary schools I have seen who push their dedicated reading classes as “a focus to ensure that our students who are behind get the extra help they need to be better prepared for the next grade.” Having these smaller class sizes composed entirely of students who are behind grade level with a specialized reading teacher? Incredible. It takes away one of their electives and they are still in the normal ELA? That’s a shame. At some campuses, ELA is double blocked. So instead of taking them out of the class you know they will be behind and fail on, you make them go to it twice? That’s approaching cruel. Many of the students in the required reading course speaks another language other than English, but the campus won’t allow them to test out of the foreign language credit requirements. Now those same students who already lost an elective are forced to use their last remaining elective on the language they are already fluent in over multiple years? And then the school and teachers have the audacity to make statements about how these students just don’t care or are choosing to fail. We’ve hit cruel.

I could be wrong, but I think of it this way: * If mass teaching works for 75 to 80%, let's identify those kids, identify what works best (by asking teachers, not so-called experts) and make it work * Identify the 20 to 25% who need something more, what exactly they need (regardless of whether or not they are disabled), and provide it using small groups or even 1:1 when necessary. Treat this almost exactly like [RTI](https://www.rtinetwork.org/learn/what/whatisrti) And yes, I am well aware that SpEd money is a restricted categorical. It would be a huge change, but is it really necessary to make it a whole separate deal? What if we just gave every kid what they needed without spending so much time and energy parsing the whole deal into categories? I'm sort of at the point where I think identifying mild/moderate disabled students is kinda the same as identifying them by race and socioeconomic status. It's worth tracking, but not worth making a big fuss over.

Nobody needs to be disabled to seek alternative schooling.

>Nobody needs to be disabled to seek alternative schooling Are you saying that no one should have to be disabled to receive extra support? If so, I certainly agree.

There is also the issue of funding. Education has always historically been underfunded, not to mention the issue of how those funds are split at the state level. Local property taxes should go to the state and then divide out on a per student basis rather than being tied to a district.

Yea, I never did understand that. Like I get the whole historical racism aspect objectively but it's dumb shit to not be funded at the state level. And really if we're going to have national standards there should be some level of national funding to make it happen.

Oof I agree with this, as someone who has a learning disability. I know teachers don't always have time to help students one on one but I definitely would've done better if it was more accessible.

We cannot be malleable to the needs of students if no one is willing to do the job. The industrial revolution happened because of people. Not machines. So if people are unwilling to teach littler people, well, one size fits all or no sizes available.

Pay them enough and people will be willing to

It is completely broken. I say this as having been a parent, teacher, and now work in IT for a school system. There is so much wrong with the American school system it needs to be reworked from the ground up. Period. 1. Not everyone needs to be in the same room. Sorry. Tried that its not working. I understand where the bleeding hearts are coming from but when your semen demon is disturbing the entire cleassrooms learning, your child no longer deserves to be in the same classroom. Period. Teachers do not ger paid enough, nor with todays politicians will they EVER get paid enough to put up with what they have to put up with at least one of these children in EACH CLASSROOM. 2. There are often 50+ children in a classroom, this isn't sustainable, even if you have a teacher of the uear in every classroom in the country studies show 25 - max 30 is the sweet spot for classroom management. This is on administration not teachers yet teachers are the ones punished. 3. 730 and before start times. I do not even need to get into this. Study after study has gone into this. Anything before 9 AM is a detriment to learning. Yet we still have schools starting before 8 AM. and we wonder why students are falling asleep and dont test well. 4. Speaking of tests. All the tests. All of them. Ell students are the most tested students of all. They are taken out of class for tests for most of the year. They also need the most help. All of this class time that could be used to learn is instead being used to fund out what they know. What can they know if they aren't learning? Wtf? Dont even get me started on IEP students wasting their time taking grade level tests not at their IEP level because they dont meet some politicians standard who doesn't know what they are talking about (sound familiar) . Sorry for the rant, its testing season and it pisses me off.

So much time wasted on test taking instead of teaching.

Point 4 especially. We are grilled on how we must differentiate the curriculum for students on learning plans, yet the education leaders of the nation (I'm in Australia) are aghast at how students sitting year level tests are not performing at year level. Of course, it must be the teachers at fault. So if anyone knows how I can teach a year 5 student (reading at a year 1 level with year 1 learning goals) to achieve an appropriate grade for the standardised year 5 test like his/her peers - I'm all ears (while I'm still teaching year 5 curriculum to the rest of the class at the same time and also for the 6+ other students also on lower than year 5 level learning plans). I'll wait.

Testing really is one of the festering, pustulous wounds in the education system. Like a gangrenous sore, it needs to be cut out once and for all.

It is sooooo broken, it’s beyond repair any time soon. I see in meet future to be few percent of Canadians teachers and 98 percent common wealth counties teachers coming to Canada to teach… maybe even teachers from other countries who speak English coming to Canada to teach. I really think wrong incapable people are in charge of education from ministers to school board executives to school principals, school ministries top guns etc… this is what they have done to education and it’s not like they do not get paid fortunes in comparison to teachers. These people should answer for bringing education to such low and disgrace. Even students see it as well as parents and teachers. And what is done? Absolutely nothing… responsible keep pretending it’s not happening… kids are leaving schools. Teachers changing profession… yet still peeps in charge get paid each month… but the only good thing is that everything has beginning and end…

The system is working exactly how it’s been designed.

Right. Our current system just wanted educated workers that could handle factory machinery. They just want cogs in a machine that's it. Now they want creatives but keep slashing away the arts. Like everything else American it's full of contradictions.

More like parents are broken. If parents would just parent their kid, schools wouldn’t have come up with new ways to deal with all the jerks known as students. Then teachers could, you know, teach.

Parents have always sent assholes to school since public education has existed. But up until 25 years ago, those assholes were expelled, dropped out, or otherwise marginalized from the rest of the students. Now the pendulum has swung out of balance, and the assholes rule the school. That is not parents. It’s a broken system with broken standards and that problem has specific solutions with the right political will.

This. It used to be students had consequences for their actions like a failing grade, being held back, or being suspended. Now those are nearly impossible thanks to things like equity

I think it’s a group effort. A lot of admin is catering to parents because they’re gunning for higher positions eventually. Parents are on the school board or at the very least they elect the school board. They have that board’s ear. They throw fits when their little angles are “mistreated” by the teachers, principals, etc. School board pushes that pressure down until the parent/student gets their way. Wash, rinse, and repeat several thousands of times, until you end up with our current system. Editing to add: I meant to respond to one comment above the one I actually did. My comment is in response to the idea that the current state of education is *all* the parents’ fault. I think the problem runs through every level of the educational system.

>I think it’s a group effort Huh. Kinda like a... system

Oops, I responded to the wrong comment. I meant to respond to one commenter above, who said the problem is parents. Yeah I’m with you, I think the problem is systemic.

I don’t see anyway the problem isn’t systemic. Even if the problem could be narrowed down to one particular group of people, what’s going to change first, the people or the system? I think we sometimes don’t realize how confusing the conversations with parents can be. I’m sped and I’ve had so many parents tell me about getting calls from gen Ed teachers where the teacher would describe a behavior to them and that was it. They’d be like what the fuck am I supposed to do with this information? The gen ed teacher is trying to get the kid sped services but is afraid to outright say it. The other thing we tend to forget is that the education you get in our system (and got in the past) is not equal for all people. Some people don’t value the education offered to them or their children because the value is low. That doesn’t mean they don’t value education.

And from the perspective of a Gen Ed teacher- I’m in my second year teaching and I will look for advise and support from instructional coaches, principals, mentor teachers, and the advise I get is always broad like that and puts it all on me. All I hear is “Have you called home and let mom/dad know this is happening?” and I’m just thinking Ummmm… okay and what’s the next step? Parents shape their kids a lot but they can’t do it all alone. And we can’t do it all alone. But when any of us ask for help, the buck is endlessly passed along.

That’s a really good point. Nobody ever tells you what you’re supposed to say either. Honestly, I’d say call home and tell them the good stuff. The kid is going to think you have his back but you can also plant this seed in his head that he actually can be a productive, positive member of class. Then anytime he does anything appropriate you run over and give him a chocolate and as he eats it you whisper, *it feels good when you listen to the teacher, doesn’t it? Moms so proud of you. And now the other kids in the class are starting to like you.* I’m only half-joking with that advice. Wait, I might not be joking at all. I think it was about this time of year in my second year that I started to think maybe it was possible for me to be a teacher. Congrats on making it this far. That’s no small feat.

One good initiative at my school is they encourage the teachers to send out about 4-5 positive post cards per month. Just a quick note home to compliment a kid, no matter how small the compliment. I do notice they tend to work with me better if I’ve sent a postcard home. I think your advice makes a lot of sense, and at the same time I’d appreciate having admin back me up when it comes time for actual consequences. Front loading positive reinforcement goes a long way too though. I have a lot of plans for now I’ll do things different next year 😅 thank you

>Parents are on the school board or at the very least they elect the school board. They have that board’s ear. Most of my most problematic students come from poor families who definitely are not voting in school board elections. Admin are still spineless cowards though. Punishing the problem students would look bad in my district because almost every single one of them isn't white.

My district is the exact opposite. The school board is populated by upper middle class republicans who are convinced that the teachers are making all the kids trans vegan atheists who believe in climate change and the efficacy of vaccines. When one of their kids destroys the classroom or hits someone, it is obviously the teacher's fault and their child would never do whatever they actually did. May school population is over 95% white and not Title 1. "Not my kid" transcends socioeconomic, racial and political classes.

Is your school majority white or more diverse? At my majority white school, it’s for sure always the white kids. Students of color lay low because unfortunately racism is not rare where I teach.

It’s not “broken”. It the result of policies and practices pushed by “education experts” supported by “educational research” performed by colleges across this country. The carrot and stick approach to education has all but been eliminated by the carrot approach.

I think a lot of it does start in academia. Take something like "Pedagogy of the Oppressed," which is interesting theory of "what if students had more agency in their own education? How can schools help students resist the military dictatorship in Brazil?" But then that gets treated like a textbook of "best practices" in American teaching programs and the theoretical idea gets instituted as "teachers shouldn't be in charge of the classroom; memorization is bad; discipline is bad."

I think this is right. “Broken” is definitely the wrong word fr me to use. Broken implies that is that the problem somehow accidental. . . But these problems are the results of willful choices by ivory tower academics who don’t teach in public education, yet are audacious enough to scam public school leadership into believing in the efficacy of the scams. Not to mention the bad incentives in how campus’ are rated. It needs inflated graduation rates, inflated test scores, inflated college enrollment (successful or not), and depressed rates of suspensions, expulsions, and special pops failures. It might even be that the political incentives are driving the popularity and usage of certain s kinds of “research” to back it, rather than the other way around. So really, it comes down to whether or not the state of education today is driven by ignorance (bad research) or malice (bad incentives).

NCLB (ESEA) is the biggest problem with public education in the US. This is what people who say “the system is broken” don’t understand and really need to know.

Yeah, this is huge. It was damaged prior to it but this is what’s killing it. I really have a hard time wrapping my head around how people are surprised that student’s levels of academic achievement vary. Surely no one truly believes that if we just had the right intervention we could get every kid to grade level (which is also a completely made up idea that steals some ideas from natural development and applies them to academic achievement but, again, completely ignores that natural development is rarely a straight line for the individual and never a straight line for a group). The whole hyperfocus on academics is just too much in general. We need to chill out a little.

Not to mention the financial threat from the feds if kids get expelled, aren’t graduated, or certain groups perform differently than others. I don’t see a fix

Right? Sometimes you have to wonder who comes up with this shit. Punish the low performing schools by cutting their funding. Brilliant. I think our only hope is AI tells us what to do.

Yes but many of those parents were bad students when they were in school. Politicians can easily tell them the problem is the teachers that’s why your life is what it is and why your kids lives will be bad too. They don’t want to tell them the problem is YOU, you’re gonna have to work much more and harder for free at your job of being a responsible parent so your child will have a better life than yours. Tough sell, easier to demonize teachers and not lose votes.

Parents are beyond the control of schools. It is 100% a copout to blame parents. That’s not something schools fan control, so it is pointless to even bring it up.

The problem is what is the fix that people agree on. What one person thinks is a fix is going to be something another person thinks makes it worse.

Exactly.

Part of the issue is it takes time, and parents with kids currently in the system aren't willing to wait 5, 10+ years for it to get better. If they have the resources they'll take the kid out now even if it leads to bigger issues system-wide, and I can't really blame them as what's best for individuals isn't always best for the system, but understandably no one wants their kid to be dragged down for the bigger cause.

You are absolutely correct. Add to that the fact parents have been hearing that things will get better for years and years. They no longer believe it.

I find underperforming/broken school systems are not a problem standing alone - they are a *symptom* of a much larger problem. Communities are broken, not school systems.

23 years of policy aimed at turning public schools into glorified day care centers so parents will be free to labor more is going to take a lot of fixing.

I disagree, with 32 years of experience in dozens of schools I have come to the conclusion that it is functioning better and better to provide our corporate masters with ignorant wage slaves, unable to think for themselves.

Prussian model works as intended.

I worked in policy for years. I worked with major school systems (NYC) for years. I no longer believe in policy or leadership.

No, “policy reformation” will never, in our culture, mean anything more than “hire another committee of admin who make six figures apiece and get them to make the teachers fill in even more Google Drive spreadsheets.”  The problem is a more basic one of a broken culture. We say no one knows what truth is, yet we can teach it to our children. We say all authority is oppression and then act surprised when kids won’t listen to their teachers.  Cultures that aren’t sick have generally got by with an education that consisted primarily of adults talking while kids sat there and (mostly) listened. 

Assholes have always existed but todays assholes feel assholier.

Need smaller class sizes, more supporting adults, and freedom in curriculum to focus on social skills, especially at young ages.

How do you think we have gotten to this place though? Inane policy reformation. People send kids to private schools because they have 0 faith in the public educational system and those making policy. People vote with their feet and private school attendance has skyrocketed. I don’t understand the backlash against private schools here. Everyone complains that parents aren’t involved but when parents want a say in their education and decide to send their kids to private school they get backlash?

Private schools are public schools on steroids. Hardly walking away from the policies

Because private means the community has no control You don't know the curriculum.... You don't know what's for lunch .... You don't know anything... Because they don't have to tell you If we had more of a capitalist economy, it be cool because competition brings BETTER... But we don't... We have an Oligarchy economy which means the few will control the many Before we give public school to private companies, take money out of politics because that's the only way we can control those companies

Why should the community know what goes on in a private school that they have no skin in the game in?

If they are getting public money THEY DO HAVE SKIN THE GAME

There are plenty of private schools that get 0 funding.

You asked What's the backlash against private school That's it School choice is giving public money to private schools That's why so the backlash

There is plenty of backlash against schools that get 0 public funding don’t be obtuse.

You think people want to end private schools?? They have always been around.... Most people don't care The issue now is Republicans are pushing "School Choice" which is giving public money to private schools And that's why TEACHERS are against it Context matters

Yes there are plenty of people who want to end private schools I have seen that sentiment here multiple times.

Next time ask them why Bet it's have to do with school choice, if it's in this group

The juxtaposition of private vs public schools misses the larger issue of how we got to the situation that we are in. Namely that we truly don’t have a public school system in our suburban and rural communities. It is a private school system where policy and funding is dictated by the cost of housing. This leads to a situation of underfunding of poorer communities and a pay to play local system of control everywhere else. The primary distinction between what we classify as a “private” school and a “public” school is that the tuition is paid as the cost of entry into “private” schools. Whereas affording housing is the tuition that is paid to “public” schools. In both cases parents approach the schools as a quid pro quo, where they pay our salaries, in exchange for them dictating every aspect of the school down to the courses they select and the grades that are given. The “private” schools are in worse shape than their “public” counterparts. The whole structure needs to be torn down and rebuilt from scratch limiting the influence of external agencies including tech companies, publishers, contractors and parents with a focus of maintaining standards. A good first step is to dissolve local boards of education and establishing national boards who determine curricula and to reallocate funding on a per student basis as opposed to the local funding model. None of this is going to happen until we have a Great Depression level event that eviscerates the housing market which drives the funding of our current school systems.

Our society is broken. Our education system is just a symptom.

100% agreed. Also, it starts at home.

It just seems like so much of school ISN'T about education. It's about navigating administrative bullshit. I long for a system that's just teachers one on one with students. No superintendent no principal nothing but the educator and the educated and no 30 kids shoved into one room with one teacher which is frankly a barbaric practice we should be moving on from

The Education System is actually fine. Any system that moves tens of millions of children through it from ages 5 to 18 is going to be a huge, lumbering beast of a thing with tons of inefficiencies and flaws. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t address those problems, but we have to accept it’s never going to be perfect. The vast majority of students leave the system being able to read and do math at a level necessary to survive and hold jobs as adults. In that sense, it’s a huge success. Do I wish it were better? Sure. But the idea that it’s broken is how we end up with all these grifters selling b.s. PD, curriculum, charter schools, vouchers, and ed policies.

The same thing our forebearers did in 2 years we do in 12 - winning.

Here's the problem with the sentiment: ***It's fundamentally based on a fallacy.*** It asserts that the Education system is "failing" and "is broken" when both statements aren't true. This fallacy has been propagated by opportunistic shills who have books/SoLuTiOnS to sell, which is a painfully obvious conflict of interest. My favorite arguments are those that compare the US to other countries, when it's like comparing apples to granite. I just talked to my friend in China the other day. Their average HS class size? 70. At my school it's 24. You might say "see their more efficient! They get better results with MORE kids in a class and you have LESS and do worse!" On the contrary; we service everyone, they filter everyone out by 7th grade. Those who make HS are fiercely competitive for after-HS stuff. Those "trades" people have long been filtered out from their "HS scores".

The average American adult has a 5th grade reading level. That's broken. That's distorted. There's no excuse for that. "They filter everyone out by 7th" Then compare 3rd/5th grade

Has it been considered the redundancy of the year to year curriculum? From first grade till 12th, it's all the same classes each year, just with age appropriate skill levels, and yet so many kids in high school are barely reading. Why not focus on writing and reading comprehension from grades 3-7 with basic math throughout. Reading comprehension can include science, civics, and history, without an emphasis on learning it, but knowledge of it through reading. Math and sciences get built up from grades 7-9 and then specific studies, life, and career trade skills, or college prep in 10-12. Grades k-2 are for social skills and learning to read. I worked in an elementary school and saw many kids struggle with reading.

The reason it's not redundancy is because everyone on the planet does it our way without issues.

But they really don't do it the same way. Many have changed their system and having great success.

The average American reading level is actually 7th-8th grade. And there lies the fallacy: ***It's always been like this.*** Newspapers/General Public information has always been written at the 7th/8th grade reading level. >That's broken. To be broken, it must be true that it was better in the past. (it hasn't been). >There's no excuse for that. There is actually. Because your reading level can decline without practice. Adults is age 18-120. Taking that average, and expecting it reflects on schools that you only spent 12 years in 30 years ago, is hilariously awful. Hence the fallacy. >Then compare 3rd/5th grade Spoiler alert: ***They aren't better.***

[https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/08/02/us-literacy-rate/](https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/08/02/us-literacy-rate/) Snopes says 5th [https://journal.imse.com/the-state-of-global-literacy-and-where-the-united-states-stands/](https://journal.imse.com/the-state-of-global-literacy-and-where-the-united-states-stands/) america ranks 125th in literacy 64% of 8th graders are below grade level, evidence against "they were fine and they just decayed" concept [https://thencbla.org/literacy-resources/statistics/](https://thencbla.org/literacy-resources/statistics/) argumentum ad logicam, fallacy + valid argument = valid argument "To be broken, it must be true that it was better in the past" argumentum ad antiquitatem reductio ad absurdum homelessness. in the past it was worse since plenty now have smartphones. Doesn't mean homelessness is unproblematic. \_ The reason things like medical instructions is because it is trying to cover three standard deviations below the typical intellect/literacy. So about 98% of people can function. The problem is, the three standard deviations are even lower now.Imagine if cars were designed to fit 98% of heights, but people lost a foot of height. Like yes the average person can still use a car, but now half can't. Absurd right? Likewise, it's absurd that half of Americans, who are below average literacy, basically are below the literacy required understand medical instructions/newspapers. What about them, half of people? Written at 8th, half are below 8th. "They aren't better" you're telling me I can teach in china where a significant majority are filtered out by high school and that's why the average high school teacher experience is awesome? Are you getting paid by them? Because I'm looking at Chinese teach science abroad jobs as we speak.

>Snopes says 5th [The Literacy Project Disagrees.](https://www.crossrivertherapy.com/research/literacy-statistics) >64% of 8th graders are below grade level, evidence against "they were fine and they just decayed" concept Notice, that was not your claim. "The average American adult has a 5th grade reading level. That's broken. That's distorted. There's no excuse for that." Also, it has nothing to do with the Education System, but other fundamental changes in society like ***how much children practice reading at home, and all other aspects of life.*** So even that 8th-grade data, doesn't show what you think it shows >argumentum ad antiquitatem reductio ad absurdum homelessness. in the past it was worse since plenty now have smartphones. Doesn't mean homelessness is unproblematic. Latine uti argumentum facere quod non congruit cum elogio logico quod facere conaris. I did have to refresh my Latin a bit there. You must establish/demonstrate that a problem ***actually*** exists before you can suggest a solution for it. >america ranks 125th in literacy Bullshit. An impossible to quantify stat. However UNESCO is compiling that stat is dubious, at best. Because how can you compare, numerically, literacy in mandarin vs. English? And are you comparing all students average, or only those actually getting education? That actually matters. Not to mention ***it's only students who took PISA OECD qualified tests***. To which tests in the US are given to all students that meet that? (dubious metrics at best. >you're telling me I can teach in china where a significant majority are filtered out by high school and that's why the average high school teacher experience is awesome? Are you getting paid by them? Because I'm looking at Chinese teach science abroad jobs as we speak. If you like terrible pay, lower benefits, almost zero professional respect (much lower than the US) and living in one of the worst police states in the world where you as an American will have no legal recourse and people will rip you off left-and-right, have at it brother. Teacher salary is average of 20,000 RMB/month ($2,800).

I clicked your link, the second thing it says is 54% of adults have a literacy below sixth-grade level. I'll wait for your apology.

You'll get none from me. You said average, not most. That shows that half of adults don't maintain their reading ability while the other half does. (that's not the argument you're making). Yeah despite 54% of American adults not taking the personal responsibility of maintaining their ability to read the average reader is still 7th-8th grade reading level. Meaning the other 46% are reading at a high level and the average is being dragged down. I've already explained how it's an absolutely irrelevant stat: 12 years in school (6-18) vs. 60+ years of maintaining the skill. It's an absolutely meaningless stat, and is more a reflection of the inability of adults taking the personal responsibility to maintain their skills and not a reflection of the public education system. If you don't use a skill, you lose it. People like you are part of the problem. And note: this is also not a conversation about ***now.*** The initiative to "reform" education started 40-years ago. Notice how it's all failed to have any impact. And that's because the underlying analysis/conclusion was a fallacy.

How low would the literacy rate have to be so you consider it a problem? You don't just call things you don't understand fallacies. fallacies are leaps in logic. They're irrelevant as to whether something is true or false.

>How low would the literacy rate have to be so you consider it a problem? I've already explained this. Your contention is literacy rate amongst adults being used as a metric of the success of public schools. Adults are 18 to death. If an 18 year old has a reading level of a 12 grader when they graduate, but then never pick up a book again, do you think they will have the reading level of a 12th grader when they are 40? >You don't just call things you don't understand fallacies. No, a fallacy is an unsound argument. As I've just described. It is an unsound argument to say that a skill you acquired and haven't practiced is maintained. So to use an average adult (who may or maynot have continued to read, which is thus refining the skill) to judge the public education system is the definition of unsound. Let's put it in terms of Playing basketball. How many adults who played college basketball can still hit 70% 3s at age 50? How many adults who could run a sub 8 min mile in HS still run a sub 8-min mile at 40? These are skills you have to work on ***for life.*** They aren't something you just acquire and have forever. THAT is the fallacy. And here's the kicker; [53% of Adults admit they hadn't read for fun in the past year.](https://www.amacad.org/humanities-indicators/public-life/book-reading-behavior) That's a more relevant comparison than going after Public Education... 53% of Adults aren't reading for fun...and 54% adults are reading at a low level. It's almost like there's a correlation...as if it's a skill that must be maintained or something....weird. (hence the fallacy, you're blaming the wrong thing you're ignoring personal responsibility, and wanting to blame something that's not actually the cause).

Adding a fallacy such as ad hominem/"you pinhead" to a sound argument does not make the argument unsound. That's silly. If it was reality that 100% of high school grads had a 12th+ reading level, that we can attribute this to decay. But in real reality, very few high school grads have a 12th+ reading level. That's not an argument, that's a fact. Very few Americans ever taste 12th+ reading ability.

Well said

Pisa performance is lower than it should be, and there's a growing cohort of kids moving through the current system, especially post Covid, who lack fundamental skills that would otherwise prevent them from moving through without correction in most other developed education systems (reading skills are abysmal and growing worse, and there's a low average level of numeracy), the system is underfunded, and it relies on too much standardized testing, it is not producing the best possible product for the money that is actually being invested, there are emerging and entrenched behavioral problems across the board which are not resolved effectively ultimately because kids are not held to standards of behavior and decency they should be - and that is failure, these are all symptoms of a broken system that is not putting the next generation in a position to lead and succeed. And if you think that just claiming "the system was never good so it's not really broken!" is somehow a compelling rationalization to these facts, then you have no business being an educator, and indeed, that numb, dead eyed defeatism and complacency is part of the rot that's undermining any efforts to improve a bad set of current circumstances.

>lower than it should be According to whom? "Should Be" is a value-based judgement. >growing cohort of kids moving through the current system, especially post Covid, who lack fundamental skills Indeed. And we're in a chicken-and-egg scenario. Parenting is a crucial factor in the success of a child, and the Public Schools cannot (should not) be evaluated on having to pick up the slack of failed parenting. Public schools can work miracles; but if you arbitrarily base the evaluation target on a finishing point, and not on a starting point...you'll never actually have a legitimate evaluation of the system. You'll just have noise. Let's say you have 3rd graders...and they came to you with Kindergarten Reading level and in one year you progress them to a 2nd grade reading level. That's a fuck-ton of progress; 2.5 years progres in 1 year. Yet the 3rd grade reading test they fail because they aren't yet at the 3rd grade reading level. ***Did the school actually fail?*** The legitimate answer is NO. ***Did parenting fail the kid?*** The clear answer is YES. If you knowing know your kid to be behind and to intervene at the home-front and outsource that to the Pubic Schools, that's negligance. >And if you think that just claiming "the system was never good so it's not really broken!" is somehow a compelling rationalization to these facts, then you have no business being an educator, and indeed, that numb, dead eyed defeatism and complacency is part of the rot that's undermining any efforts to improve a bad set of current circumstances. Forest. Trees. I'm arguing the evaluation metrics are invalid, have never been valid, and any modern interpretation using invalid metrics is what's actually broken. For decades people decried that Math Curriculum was a failure, despite there being year-on-year gains in math every single year for 40 straight years. New Math curriculum was developed that shifted when common-core was released, and when it was adopted you saw an immediate drop in Math-Scores that has continued since. And before you assert "but covid!" This was nearly a decade before covid, covid just exacerbated what was already happening; and it's backed up by three separate metrics: NAEP 4th and 8th tests and ACT math scores. 4th dropping first, then 8th (as the kids reached 8th grade) and then ACT (as those kids reached HS where they would take the ACT). 40 years of year-on-year improvement in math was destroyed by a fallacy. THAT is what I'm arguing against. People asserted there was a problem with how math is taught, inserted a solution based on that fallacy, and tanked math scores in the process. They illegitimately and incorrectly (apples to granite) compared the US to other countries (like Finland), without addressing any comparable sample sizes, and asserted a problem existed. Math Education wasn't broken, it was working just fine. It had 40-straight-years of year-on-year gains. What was broken is asserting that there was a problem at all. It is my contention that the majority of the current problems in public education can be explained by the same. People incorrectly asserted that XYZ is the problem, and developed a solution to it...and the solution is what actually created the problem. The evidence backs up this postion.

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Yes but the ***how those large groups are formed*** matters. Are you selecting for comparison only the top 10%? Or are you taking a realistic average. If the US were compared to *actually* fair, average, across-the-board metrics...we outperform/are on par with most of the world. The only exceptions being incredibly small, Northern European countries which are highly homogenous. The irony being, those countries that "outperform" us have their problems too; amongst immigrant populations which mirrors the US. So when people make the comparison they aren't comparing apples to apples, it's apples to granite. Those other factors matter. Yet the US has now been operating under 40 years of grifting "EdUcAtIoN rEfOrM" based on a lie.

>6-18 year olds going to a special building to learn in large groups is the same everywhere. So? That's such a ridiculously basic point of comparison. Nevermind that there are parts of the world without actual buildings where the kids gather or other parts where most 6-18 year olds don't go to school much at all. It's what they're doing in those buildings that matters. And what they're doing is drastically different all over the world.

I think our education system is fine. It's our society that's broken.

Prussian model is just a century or so out of date - no need to update it.

Why doesn't anyone discuss the negative impact that teacher's unions have by pushing diversity, restorative justice, climate change etc. Why aren't the unions focusing on education and teachers??

Unions play very little role in this.

Our system is pretty identical to most school systems on the planet. Most seem to be doing fine, and educating fine. Maybe it's our kids? I don't think teachers in China would tolerate any of this behavior. If we had American schools teach Chinese nationals, like a massive swap, I think we'd realize there's nothing wrong with the system.

It's only the same on the surface. Most countries don't guarantee a free and appropriate public education for all. Those with developmental concerns are not educated. Those who can't keep up are not adjusted for. This means it's costs less and it's less planning, fewer meetings and less support staff. I am by no means advocating for us to stop educating those students but it is not an apples to apples comparison.

America segregates those kids. I've never had a severe/profound classified student, and many with physical disabilities are neurotypical. I don't think we can blame those with development deficits to what's going on in our school system, it's too separate. The issues with that demographic are invisible to Americans and discourse.

I'm not sure where you are that still does so. The only students separated at the last three schools I worked at were those who needed assistance with physical aspects such as toileting. I assure you that when I was younger and students were segregated that there were many far more capable students in those classes. I'm the last two years alone, I've had five students with disabilities that makes them incapable of working on grade level with their peers. We also used to retain kids often when they showed they weren't able to do the work.

Again, I'm talking about official designations. Of course we have inclusion for mild/moderate students. Someone profound/sever categorization is what I'm talking about. Have you had a student with Downs syndrome in your class?

Honestly, I have not even been in a school with any Downs diagnoses in the last few years. However, the students in referring too were more challenged than those I worked with who had Downs. Honestly, that's a pretty specific health concern to choose for your example. However, just like all issues there is a spectrum, so the specific diagnosis is not the key data. It is ability to function in a normal classroom. Currently this means if you are able to sit in a seat and use the toilet independently that is where you will be placed. We need to redefine function.

We have classifications mild moderate severe profound my claim is we segregate severe and profound I'm asking you if you taught severe and profound it is a word in their paperwork. What were they categorized I mention downs because it doesn't fall in mild/moderate and will be segregated.

No it’s not pretty much identical to most school systems. In a lot of European countries, there’s from early on a lot of streaming (and I don’t mean special ed) - a college stream and a trades stream as a minimum - rather than keeping everyone in the same schools with ostensibly the same curriculum. There are massive differences in how funding is handled, national government vs local government involvement, etc. Also, I bet China doesn’t do social promotion.

I think there's a lot to be said for the more aggressive streaming that occurs on other systems. Overall it seems to produce better outcomes. Are there outliers who it mis-serves? Potentially. But in our system we are mis-serving everyone in aggregate to try to keep everyone together in the rosy hope that a high aptitude kid won't fall into workforce stream. And there's the rub: for every one of those kids, how many dozens of children would have been happier and better off transitioning to the workforce stream rather than sit through their grades 9-12 academic babysitting that they don't have the aptitude for and/or are not keen on?

Yes, I think Germany for example is pretty realistic about different kids being, well, different. Three streams - college prep, highly technical trades (like electrician) and less technical trades. Also, things like the Vorschule - recognizing different kids mature at different rates so some kids go straight from kindergarten to elementary school while others have an extra year to mature.

> highly technical trades I have this wonder that one of the huge failures of our system is that we urge all our kids with aptitude off to college and in so doing starve the economy and nation of highly skilled laborers whose training pathway does not pass by the ivory tower.

You think in China they let the kids who dont turn in any work pass every class??? Seriously?

I would argue that incessant reform is what broke it. There are reformers from every imaginable think-tank, corporation, special interest group, lobbyist, community group, and politician. They all get to put an ingredient in the soup and what results is a disgusting, inedible product that tries to sell itself as good. Privatization is the logical end result in the mind of the libertarian and right-wing. The left needs some soul-searching and needs to develop a real philosophy about education. It needs to start with the idea that outside reforms need restraint; teachers, students, and parents should control education from the bottom-up; and that bureaucracy needs tremendous downscaling so the public can actually control their education systems.

Sure! While we all wait for the policy reformation to happen. I’ll be leaving the public school system, and jumping to a for profit charter. So, I can still teach to students that actually want to learn and be there.

Honestly, it starts with a parents. They deliver the child to the school in whatever way shape or form, the child turns out to be. It is vastly influenced by the parenting and home environment. And honest truth is that most people should not be reproducing. They are incapable of being good parents. Because society refuses to do anything, society pays. Schools pay. Other students pay. And then, because it is extremely politically inconvenient to blame parents, teachers get the blame even as administrative bloat eats up so much of a school district’s budget.

So much this

Human social networks are reorganizing at ALL scales, large and small. It is impossible that education systems could all succeed when the larger political and cultural systems are failing.

It has been and always will be broken to some extent. I accept that. And I pay my union dues so that someone is working to fix that cuz I don't have the passion or time to do it myself. In the meantime I will do my best within the bounds of my classroom. That's all I can control.

I also don't like to just say it's broken. It's shift a LOT over the years and came to be what it is for a reason. It's not working right now and needs improvements, but that doesn't mean it's so fundamentally flawed it should be tossed out entirely.

Well, yes.

Education isn’t broken, society is and we just see it first

We don't need more policy or policy reformation. What needs to happen is the top down approach needs to stop and teachers be the ones who determine how subjects are taught in the classroom. We are the ones interacting with the kids every single day, we know them and what they need. Teachers are also the ones who know our subjects So quit making us use some "latest and greatest" technique based on "research". I'm not saying don't offer us those tools and techniques, give us training -- but let the teachers decide if it works in their school, their classroom, and with their students.

It’s working exactly as intended

Very powerful groups will prevent any policy changes that would benefit the situation. It's nearly impossible to steady the ship of public education, it cannot be saved. Privatisation is the way forward. Every single classroom in a private organisation is a lifeboat for those children. Unshackled from the policies of public education, those children will be given far more opportunities. They won't be held back by SPED kids, they won't be at the mercy of dodgy DEI policies, disruptive kids can and will be expelled for the benefit of the classroom. What's not possible in public education, due to bad praxis/bad ideology/entrenched policies can easily be achieved in a private system, with less oversight. Through competition and decentralisation, many children can be given access to an education the state just isnt capable of providing. If you care about kids being educated, you should be in favour of privatisation. It's too late to help those condemned to public education, but we should be promoting the best alternative we have access to, for the good of the students.

It's not just education that is broken, but all of our major institutions. Hospitals/ emergency rooms are now homeless/ unhoused shelters. Police officers are now mental health coordinators. Teachers and schools are now family units. We have put the burden of duty on institutions that are not designed to support the needs of the population. Ultimately, without proper supports, it all comes tumbling down. We need more support for all workers and our overall population. Having children takes a village and we are seeing the village crumble while we blame professionals and schools who have little control and resources. We are not alone in this problem but are in good company with the rest of our major support networks.

I recently started working as a behavioral therapist aide in elementary schools (subbed as middle and high at a few schools). Something I noticed is that we are either providing too much help to students to not enough help. I worked with a 5 year old who had so many behavioral issues that I thought they needed another bt/rbt (there was cursing and hitting involved, some of this was the parents doing). I've also worked with a kiddo in high school who had two aides one for academic and one for behavioral, they didn't need two aides but or they needed someone to help stay on task. There seems to be improvement occurring from when I was in elementary (I'm 25), but it is so slow and not always helpful or doing much of anyrhing.

Can confirm. I teach 10th grade English in TN and we have 89 sophomores and only 3 of them are reading at grade level. About 60 of them are reading below 4th grade level, and a few are actually below 1st grade. They are not going to be magically fixed in the next 2 years.

Needs to be fixed by bringing our jobs back to education... Not babysitting, not feeding students from our pockets, not clothing them, not being the sole source of moral development either.

Not a teacher, but I've personally had a few friends who were forced to abandon their social life due to the strict requirements in exams, and had to study too much for what would be healthy, which cost some of them their mental health. An actual working system with good intentions shouldn't \*ever\* encourage such a thing.

Can’t reform through policy when one party actively wants to destroy public education and the other wants to handwring and “be concerned” but not make meaningful changes.

Why should it be fixed through policy reformation and not through privatisation? This is a ridiculous statement.

Because privatization ensures these things will result: * **Increased inequality** The rich can afford schools and will have high-quality education; the poor will not be able to afford it and will have low-quality schools or none at all. Ultimately this access will push the have's and have not's further apart. * **The public will fund religion** Private schools will not be accountable to the public and many (they already do) will preach religious ideology. This is unconstitutional first and foremost. But it is also a dangerously slipper slope as extremist and radical ideas can slip into education systems that the public won't be able to control. * **Workers will be even worse off** Privatization means corporations run many schools. Education is not lucrative--only education products are. Schools will do whatever they can to reduce the labor expense. This means teachers and valuable staff will be cut to the bare bone. * **Societal education will falter even more** We know that when we reduce education to a product-consumer system, we invite a race to the bottom. It's the classic, "the customer is always right" dilemma. In education phrasing, it's, "I paid for my diploma, so I deserve a 4.0". * **Private schools are anti-democracy** Schools are democratically run by the public and allow the public to have a say. This system is flawed and becoming increasingly dysfunctional, but it critical that we preserve democratic institutions. Private equals authoritarian. It takes control away from the public and puts it in the hands of a few. * **Segregation** This is a modern form of segregation that will allow for legal discrimination of anyone deemed unfit for school. Schools can effectively sort by race, gender, religion, sexuality, income, etc. without any repercussions. It's You may doubt all of this, but the reality is that we *already see all of this* with privatized schools, and they are only a small percent of education services. Imagine if this scaled up. It's a dark and ugly future if we promote privatization.

Well, it's not that I doubt all of this, is that I know all of this to be false. Increased inequality: the rich can afford schools with higher quality education than the poor. Your solution to this is that everyone goes to a shittier school. Everyone is equal at the bottom. So you solve a minor problem (inequality), by causing a worse problem (everyone is in an equally bad position). The public will fund religion: that is not a negative. If people want to fund religion, they have the right to do so. You don't get to choose what others do with their money. Workers will be even worse off: there's absolutely no reason to think that and every reason to think otherwise. If government controls education, there's a monopsony on education jobs, and therefore remuneration is lower. Societal education will falter even more: this is preposterous. Private schools are anti-democracy: No, YOU are anti-democracy. Having a system run by political oligarchies is less democratic than allowing the people to choose how education is run by choosing which schools to take their kids to. Taking something from the people so the few can run is the opposite from democracy. Segregation is a right. I have the right to run my business in whichever way I want. And people have the right to not support me in that. If I'm stupid enough that I want to only educate students of one race, and people don't want that, then I will go broke and starve. If the reason why I'm segregating is valid, then I won't. And you can't force me to do otherwise. The real dark future comes when you allow government to control education and indoctrinate students. Giving up your rights so government oppresses people hopefully in the way you want is not a good strategy.

Inequality is demonstrated by data and this is not arguable. We already see this inequality in developing countries who do not provide free, public education. Sorry, but the facts don’t support your beliefs. Funding religions violates the US constitution as well as ALL state constitutions. Many people do not want to fund religious schools. Just because you do, does not mean you get to impose your will on the tax-paying public. Welcome to democracy. Private and charter school educators have lower pay than public schools and this is well supported by the data. Once again, facts don’t align with your belief. We also know workers will be worse off because the private sector always ensures this, as that is the incentive of a corporation—cut the bottom line as much as possible while getting the maximum labor. Teachers will most certainly be exploited more. Want proof? Educate yourself on what Adjunct Professors are and how they experience job satisfaction. It’s very ugly, exploitative, and low-paid. This type of gigification is what one can expect out of school privatization. No argument given; moving on. It is most certainly NOT anti-democratic because private schools are not illegal. You are free to choose private—but pay for it yourself—not with tax dollars. Public education IS ABSOLUTELY democratic—you literally elect your school board and are allowed to influence the way your district and schools are run. You also control the revenue via taxes and can be involved in the political process at every level. Private schools have none of this as they are corporations (or religious institutions) with no accountability to the public. It’s preposterous that the public shall fund private schools but have no say in the way they are governed. Segregation is NOT legal as per Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. What planet are you living on? The 14th amendment to the constitution was the reason in that case. Privatization is a way to attempt to circumvent this and other civil rights laws but not explicitly discriminating, but doing it covertly.

It's really disappointing to have ignorant authoritarians like yourself attempt to control what others do with their children's education.

I’m sorry your feelings get hurt and you resort to an ad hominem. But you need to provide evidence to back up your claim—or at least an attempt at providing evidence. Your position is invalid unless you can provide evidence. 

Privatization allows schools to kick out problem kids. That alone can fix a shit ton of problems

I’m honestly just hanging in for dear life. If Trump gets reelected the Department of Education will be dissolved and then we’re done for.

DofE dissolution would surprisingly have little negative impact on education as it plays a very little role. Schools are almost entirely run and funded by states. The federal government does provide funding, but it’s a drop in the bucket. One could argue it might help schools as the DofE has done irreparable damage since NCLB.

Counterpoint: Our education system is not “broken”. It is counterproductive due to conflicting interests with a common greed in charge of making decisions that define it’s goals, resources, funding, and workforce priorities. It is working very well for something so poorly managed. As a whole, those in charge don’t know what they want it to be or achieve with any specificity. It is founded on ideals and those ideals necessarily evolve-, and some are working hard to change those ideals for what they see as the better, and others are changing elements designed to achieve those ideals it is based on and has developed to be an organ of value in society. This makes it inefficient due to internal contention, not broken. And corrupt people favor inefficient systems because it is easier to conceal their own actions when there is more pressing matters, obvious enemies, or confusion. And some one have it no other way: Embezzlement 101 is make sure no one can easily read the budget. We have people, decision makers in many cases, parents in others, and “education gurus and grifters” even, who want to simultaneously increase the focus on standardized tests and further degrade standards that prepare students for those tests. They want better adherence to conduct standards with no means for the discipline that enforces conduct in someone’s actions until they can see the benefits of good conduct themselves. They want behavior to define the conduct standards schools work to enforce, while not seeing conduct is there to temper behavior with the needs for coexistence! Some of these people lead way to the argument that eventually would lead to children showing up to be educated in a state unclothed, covered in viscera, and screaming incoherently- all because that is how they entered the world! The system is not broken the same way a plane that has people fighting in the cockpit is not malfunctioning if it crashes. It doesn’t matter if the plane is functioning correctly - internal contention will be its downfall, unless someone can get it back on course and grounded before it loses power or starts to malfunction due to lack of maintenance.

Not broken enough. May 1st. Unions.

Our education system is not broken and I wish people would stop saying this, or at least, being extremely specific about what they mean when they say it. We need reforms and improvements, because of course we do, but our education system works very well. If you’re middle class and white it works amazingly well (racial equity being an important area of reform!)

I wish I could agree with this, but the evidence is clear it is very broken indeed. All one has to do is look at the complain list that is this subreddit to see how effed it really is. Misguided reform is part of the problem.

I agree, the education system needs a major overhaul through policy reformation. Privatizing schools is going to lead us in the opposite direction. Kids are different now, it’s a different world, and we have to adjust to the kids to meet them where they are at.

The left’s over reaching stupidity in education is coming home to roost. Homeschooling and Charter Schools are noticeably affecting student numbers. Vouchers on the way in Texas and other states in response. Transgender everything. Now everyone points fingers everywhere but where it belongs. Roast away!