We Don’t Need No Department of Education

Bravo. There are more important things to discuss than the latest fits of whining and lies from the dishonorable John McCain.

Since WW2, America had an economic advantage among Western powers. We had largely escaped the horrors of two world wars. While the other powers were rebuilding, we shot ahead of them. Now that the world has seen a period of relative peace, other nations are catching up economically.

If we are to maintain our position as an economic powerhouse, we'll need educated minds creating and running our industries.

Education for inner-city children is the issue most important to me.

McCain is ready for the debate. What liberals have done to the mostly African American kids in the cities for generations is nothing short of criminal.

With only 1 in 5 students graduating in D.C. and Detroit, with only a fraction of those being able to read and write at grade level, highlights how the democrats sold out to the teacher’s union at the expense of these kids.

Obama can’t defend the indefensible. Let the debate begin.

I agree, let the debate begin. A debate on ISSUES for a change instead of hot air.

jwest, if you feel yourself blowing around in the breeze it's because you're too far out on a limb.

Of course, if you eliminate standards and refuse to test children, it is kind of hard to determine if any of them are learning. I love how after spending $10K plus per child that the local school districts are insulted that the federal government actually expect them to teach children to read with an additional $10K from the Feds.

Of course, during the Clinton Adminsitraiton, the Democrats totally ignored education and that even in the blue states, the Democratic leadership refuses to send their children to public schools. After years of being a community activist and a state Senator, Senator Obama has so little trust of the public schools that he sends his own daughters to a private school that is over 85% white and Asians.

I did not hear one proposal that would make the public schools more like the the Chicago laboratory School. Also, given the relationship that Democrats have for putting social engineering before academic learning, there is little that will be accomplished in a Democratic adminstration. When given the chance, the Democrats in Louisville and Seattle put bussing and diversity ahead of academic learning.

Of course, McCain is offering nothing on education because the Republicans gave up thinking about it years ago. The Repubicans decided that there is no way to talk about education without being called a racist, so they just stopped.

Issues like lipstick and dead fish. [snicker]

Note to Chris "bravo" WWW. One needn't even leave this site to do the remedial work you've needed to do rather than lie and call my correct statements "brazen assertions."

Look at the bright side, J. West, that sadly many on here cannot see and grasp: At least currently, the worst of the lot are not infesting other schools as well, such as has been done before not only with misnamed "AIDS education" but in the 1980s, as with one book I saw recently in downtown Detroit for resale (I declined to buy it) by Educators for Social Responsibility (Cambridge, MA), a book of lesson plan hints about teaching children in the 1980s about nuclear war (and the big, bad USA that was led by evil Ronald Reagan oppressing the sweet, innocent, misunderstood, morally and economically superior Soviet Union). Remember "nuclear education"? The worst of the worst has often infected schools outside our old central cities.

That (and warped environmentalism, for example, sometimes nowadays as well an activist condomanical "sex education" if permitted) is what kids are in danger of being taught rather than making them literate and numerate.

Spence,

This is my issue, so I’m ready for anything.

In D.C., per pupil expenditures are over $16,000. I’m being dead serious when I say it’s a damn shame that the kids can’t make change for a dollar or, for that matter, spell dollar.

Though naïve, liberals have good hearts. It’s for that reason that I firmly believe when they finally figure out what has been happening, they will spend the balance of their lives apologizing to everyone they meet for their previous democrat votes.

Superdestroyer -- I heard the following on NPR. Tell me who the reactionaries are, as usual since 1980.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?st...

Note to Chris "bravo" WWW. One needn't even leave this site to do the remedial work you've needed to do rather than lie and call my correct statements "brazen assertions."

DLS,
You here to lecture us on how the left is anti-science again? I'm sure you can come up with some quotes from the Discovery Institute to back you up.

"Though naïve, liberals have good hearts."

Many don't even have good hearts when they are wrong and told that they're wrong.

Many have resented the 1980 rejection of liberalism to this day. (I roll my eyes every time I hear Thom Hartmann say things were great prior to 1980, "then along came Reagan..." It's much bigger, and better, than that, sir.)

More amusing is his hard-core true modern-liberal-since-the-true-origin-of-modern-liberalism world view: If people judged solely on the issues, "There would not have been a Republican president since 1880 [eighteen-eighty]." That was today's gem on the radio during 12:00-12:30 Eastern time.)

Here's what I love - how the right abrogates any responsibility for the education problems in this country while they rail about it, and yet their presidential campaigns depend so much on an electorate with limited critical thinking ability. Interesting dichotomy there.

Chris, what I wrote is self-explanatory, unrelated to your illogical response.

Is Palin's boosting of the GOP still too hard to face? What if it gets "worse"?

ChrisWWW,

During the Clinton Administraiton, there were several controversies due to the refusal to release the raw data used to determine toxicity of population. The Republicans pushed a bill forcing the government to publish the raw data. The Democrats opposed using sound science for toxicity modeling because it would show that many common pollutants were really not that dangerous. Since then, I have a hard time believing that the Democrats really care about science. Also see genetically modified foods and food irradiation.

Since then, I have a hard time believing that the Democrats really care about science.

Stem cell research.
Evolution.
Global warming.
Alternative fuels.
Air quality.
Water quality.
Censoring data from NASA.
Censoring data from the EPA.

vs.

"the raw data used to determine toxicity of population"

As Chris shows, (and this surely must be obvious by now) the argument over which party considers science to be optional in the formation of policy is NOT one that favors the republicans.

If you ask me (of course no one did, but I'll say it anyway), when you finish peeling the onion, the fundamental problem is that many people don't prize education. These days you're labeled an elitist if you go to good school -- the better the school and the better you do in it, the more elitist you are. It used to be that an elitist was a person that got into a good school by virtue of legacy, got gentleman Cs, and still ended up a captain of industry or political power-broker. Now even over-achievers are considered elitists.

It used to be that science and high technology were recognized as the engines of innovation which propelled us into the future. Now they are often viewed with suspicion, if not downright ridicule. When I was growing up everyone wanted to be an astronaut or an engineer at JPL. Everyone wanted to be an Albert Einstein or a Thomas Edison. Now they just want to make money. Education doesn't trickle down anymore, only money does.

Perhaps I'm exaggerating, but I suspect it's not by much. It has been a long time since I heard someone extol the virtues of education for the sake of education. Rather, far too often these days the pursuit of higher education is driven by the profit motive -- assuming it is pursued at all.

Many things have been attempted to get our schools back on track. NCLB is just the latest. But IMO those attempts address the symptoms, not the disease. The disease is that education has been seriously devalued in the last couple of decades.

[I step back down off my soapbox]

Many simply want this issue kept at the state and local level where it really belongs. A nicely shrunken federal government would be well overdue (without transferring current functions to other departments before some departmehts were eliminated, of course).

It remains to be seen if the recent upsurge by the Left has stamina; if it does, not only does this reinforce Obama's strong prospects for victory this year (and other Dems going to Congress in place of Republicans), but it does raise the question of to what extent the federal government will increase what it does "for" and often to its citizens.

Our education system needs a complete overhaul. First off, school should be year-round with 200 class days per year instead of the current 180. Have 4 10-week sessions with a 3-week break in between. The last quarter of the academic year would also include 1 week for standardized tests used to evaluate individual student performance and teacher effectiveness. All teacher in-service days can take place in the quarterly breaks and this way the kids actually retain everything they learn instead of spending the first month of every school year reviewing what thet forgot over the Summer.

We have to offer bigger salaries to our educators and school administrators, particularly in city schools. Give bonuses to teachers with 10+ years of experience who take jobs in tougher schools.

Do not allow students to move on to the next level in a subject they haven't passed. There will always be other students available to volunteer as tutors (it looks great on a college application) so matching up failing students with peers is a free and effective way to help them succeed.

Set up a diverse curriculum that includes physical education, fine arts, and foreign languages as well as English (grammar, spelling, and literature), History, Science, and Math at all grade levels.

Allow for concentrations at the high school level. Kids who show a lot of promise in certain subjects should be able to take more of those classes if they can test at a passing level in another subject. For example, if a kid can pass the standardized 11th grade English test at the beginning of the school year, s/he should be able to bypass that class in favor of taking an extra course in Math.

When it comes to inner city schools, a lot of times it isn't the money that's the problem, it's the neighborhood. There are gangs, drugs, broken families, and a whole host of other problems that make it next to impossible for kids to succeed. In Baltimore, they're running an experimental charter school program at two levels. The first is keeping kids at the school until 5pm or later through various extra-curricular activities and homework labs. The second is opening a public boarding school. Instead of going home to an absent parent or drug-dealing older sibling, the kids can just stay in dorms at the school during the week. This keeps them occupied and out of trouble, giving them an opportunity to succeed. I would advocate implementing similar programs in any district with similar problems.

" limited critical thinking ability"

You DARE ignore the Democrats' notorious Ignorance Bloc vote and so many whom the Democrats routinely exploit that the Republicans cannot and do not?

You've been incorrect or exhibited a distortion of many things, but that was especially bad lately. I guess Palin's current successes have many more upset than I previously thought...

DLS, take a break from the willful ignorance long enough to think about which candidate is trying to stay issue oriented (Obama) and which is bloviating and spinning like a top (McCain). Now consider this in light of target audiences. Next, revisit your silly question.

Amanda, that is a great analysis of what is needed in our educational system. It's clear you've given much thought to this issue and I wish your post was mandatory reading for the candidates.

ChrisWWW

You may want to look up Chlorine in water, food irradiation, medical research in general, vaccines, genetically modified foods, gulf war illness, or even cloud seeding. The left has a long string of anti-science positions without even getting into the nature versus nurture argument since you wanted to mention evolution.

Amanda, If the public schools run year round but the elite prep schools run on a tradiational schedule, the prep school kids will have all of the summer internships, summer camps, and travel that make them look good on a college application.

Year round school will help inner city schools a little, will not affect middle class schools but would definitely hurt the suburban public schools that are able to compete with the private prep schools.

Chris,

The problem lies with:

Reading
Writing
Arithmetic

Forget everything else until these are solved.


Amanda,

Good thoughts, but still it’s just nibbling around the edges.

Think of what could happen if the schools were eliminated in D.C. and Detroit as a pilot program. Every one of them, regardless of age or condition. Bulldozed to the ground whether they are 80 years old or the ribbon was just cut yesterday.

No schools. No administration. Nothing but a voucher for the full amount previously spent on education. The only way a voucher can be cashed is to present a child who can pass the test for their age each year.

How would you handle it?

I come from 3 generations of public educators and actually went to school during the Clinton administration, and it's pretty well agreed upon that the Clinton years were the best in many decades as far as public education goes. Nobody ever advocated during those years (or now) that we should get rid of standards or testing, but right now, an elementary school student goes through something like 5 times the total testing hours than in the 80s, and the way the system is currently set up encourages cheating by the students and by the teachers, not to mention simply giving up the profession entirely if your area of expertise and interest is in teaching the lower-level kids who need the most help.

As an example: under a system that rewards teachers on test scores only (like the current system), a teacher who has gone into teaching advanced classes (GATE, AP classes, magnet programs) will do very well, getting the smartest kids, most of whom have white, well-off parents who put pressure/give help to their kids to do well in school. That teacher may not even need to put in a lot of extra hours, or have any problem getting parent involvement. But a teacher who is really awesome in getting goof-off kids to finally buckle down and learn something, or a teacher who specializes in second-language students or special ed, will never get test scores like the GATE teacher, even if they are excellent at their job, put in tons of extra hours, have little to no parental involvement, have fewer resources, and may be fighting against other factors like their kids' poverty or legal status.

In other words, I just think a lot of people have no idea what it's like to be in education, and I'm always amazed that people think they're experts because they happen to be educated. As if having had a lot of medical work makes one an M.D.

Oh, geez, I so wish I hadn't gone up the thread to see the argument about which party is actually "pro-science". I think my head just exploded. Really, DLS? REALLY??? Holy hell.

jwest -- I'm really curious about when you went to school, and what they taught in school at that time. I mean, the 3 R's of course should make up the basics, but have you ever tried to get 35 8-year-olds to do nothing but drills for 8 hours? It's not helpful to the kids, it's impossible to do, and there's no balance there. Some of the things that Amanda was suggesting -- art, music, PE, foreign languages,etc -- greatly enhance the 3 R's, break up the day, make things actually enjoyable for the kids and the teachers, and make for well-rounded and curious little people.

I support improving education but feel that the standards, resources, and responsibilities lie with the state and local governments working cooperatively. If a collective of states want a common standard, that is fine as well -- but the power shifts from being top-down to bottom-up.

One of the first things that needs to thrown out is the definition of the word “teacher”.

Think of an analogy to a singer.

It doesn’t matter how much specialized education someone gets in music, if the result you are looking for is how well someone sings. On one hand you can have a person with a PhD in music who can’t deliver a note to her audience, then on the other hand have a Barbara Streisand (who I personally think of as an idiot-savant) who has no formal training but is one of the best in presenting a song.

Teaching is an art. It takes a remarkable talent to be able to transfer concepts and knowledge to someone else in a way that makes the student want to learn. People with this talent should be rewarded far beyond what they are today.

On the opposite side, having degrees in education and advanced training has no bearing on how well some are able to deliver results we all seek. If the talent isn’t there, it’s just a waste of time and money.

Some would like to blame the students, parents, society, buildings, neighborhood, sun spots, etc. etc. Of course, we all agree that rich, white, two parent students from a good suburb are easier to teach, but that doesn’t mean that inner-city kids are incapable of learning.

The system doesn’t need to be “fixed”, it needs to be scrapped. When you have results this bad, it’s time to start fresh with an out-of-the-box method.

How could it possibly be any worse?

I must say that Amanda and Ricorun's comments are absolutely spot on.

No schools. No administration. Nothing but a voucher for the full amount previously spent on education. The only way a voucher can be cashed is to present a child who can pass the test for their age each year.

An unmitigated disaster. Who will take under-achieving children. No one because this system makes them worse than worthless. What standards will be met? Do you expect all parents to be able to tell a good charter from a bad?
I have no problem with charter schools, but any one size fits all approach will fail, like our energy problems we need variety. And no, throwing money at the problem will not make it go away.

My vision of education doesn’t allow for 35 8 year olds.

I doubt with a new system, any more than 10 kids of that age would ever be taught by one person. On top of that, it would probably be the norm for a teacher to take the same group of kids from pre-school through 3rd grade.

In my world, if a kid left the house at 8:00am and walked to school, he would be in his desk no later than 8:05. This is all possible by eliminating our failed public school system.

It would be hard for teachers in this new education environment to not to make in excess of $100,000 per year – from day 1 of their careers.

On the other hand, there will people who have spent their entire life as a teacher who will starve for lack of work.

Think of the possibilities.


Ryan,

Don’t think of this in the same old frame as before. Think new and different.

You talk of underachieving students and who will take them. What you’re referring to is 90% of the students in both of these cities.

Special education students would of course have more money to work with.

jwest -- you have no idea what you are talking about. Just none. I don't know what you do for a living, but I actually put myself through college by singing -- it's something I've loved doing since I was 5. And let me tell you, there are the lone savants out there who are just born with it, but if you look at people as successful as professional broadway stars, most of them still go to their singing teachers weekly. Even casual singers who just do it for fun can learn a lot by taking lessons, learning control, extending their range, learning to connect with an audience, fixing pitch problems. In other words: your analogy is quite apt, but all the conclusions you draw from it are just totally, totally wrong.

Of course inner-city kids are capable of learning. That's the whole point. But to be an effective teacher (or an effective school system) for them requires a different skill set, a different cultural understanding, a different set of challenges, from teaching little rich white kids at a well-funded suburban school.

jwest, if I had unlimited funds and could do something like that - truly start from scratch - I would. But even with vouchers, there aren't enough private schools around to hold those kids. Also, what happens to the kids who don't pass the test? Do we just ignore them?

superdestroyer - opportunities for volunteering, internships, and extra-curriculars will still be available to anyone who goes for them. They'll be shorter-term positions or after school. Or, in some cases, there could be work/study programs where students go to class half the day and report to their internship for the other half and have the work experience count as school credit.

And, er, who, pray tell, is going to pay for that? "What you're reffering to is 90% of the students in both of these cities" doesn't make any sense to me as far as who will take the lower kids. Of course, there's always the option of just giving up on them, letting them take to the streets...that sounds super.

Roro80,

Everyone can sing at some level. Those who can make a living from it have talent, those who don’t have talent starve.

That is how teaching should be. If you have the talent to do it you should prosper and continue in that field. If you suck, you should get out and find a fish market to work in.

As you can see, I have no sympathy for any teacher who cannot produce results.

Roro, the kids today are being left behind.



Amanda,

You don’t need private schools. As a matter of fact, toss the whole concept of “schools” out of your mind.

Imagine you are a teacher in Ohio and you believe you have the talent to teach kids. You hear of this new concept in D.C. and decide to give it a try.

All you would need to do is move to D.C. and convince about 10 parents that you are the one who can get their children to learn. You try to get 10 that live in the same neighborhood.

First thing you’ll need is a place to teach. Rent a storefront or an old house. Fix and equip it the way you like. Plan on feeding these kids at least twice per day, maybe three times – that’s part of the deal with the parents.

Where’s the money? Vouchers at $15,000 per kid.

Rent – 20,000
Catering - 12,500
Supplies – 5,000
Utilities – 6,000
Other – 6,500

Salary – 100,000

Not only are you a teacher now, you’re a small business person.

While acknowledging this conversation has gotten off track and has gone on too long, I've still got to say that most professionals have some sort of formal training that helps them get good at what they do. You don't just wake up one morning and say, "gee, I think I'll be an engineer! I think I might have talent for that," and then go start an engineering firm the next day. Why you think that scenario would work for teaching is beyond me. Which is not to say, of course, that there aren't bad teachers out there who have been through the necessary school. Not to mention that your proposed "small business person" model still doesn't account for the lower-level kids, who never would be accepted into these little businesses because their success is tied to the teacher's salary -- that pretty much turns lower-level students into a known poor business investment.

jwest: As you can see, I have no sympathy for any teacher who cannot produce results.

I presume you're not limiting it to teachers, right? If not, I agree -- everyone should be offered millions of dollars in severance pay (and stock options) if they prove unable to make the grade.

By the way, what results are you talking about? That becomes especially relevant if you espouse some kind of voucher system. I'm not ruling it out, because I think competition is important. But it has to be real competition, don't you think? What good is it if private schools are not required to answer to a standardized requirement?

Roro,

The first thing you need to accept is that what we have now in D.C. and Detroit is not working for 90% of the students. It has not worked through every tinkering change for decades. It’s not a lack of money, it’s a failure of the model.

To perpetuate this fraud of an educational system on these kids is a felony. What could you do that is worse? To want to rob these children of a chance at life just to perpetuate the salaries of teachers and administrators is an evil I have a hard time imagining.

Anything…..I repeat, anything is better than what they have today.



Ricorun,

The results are standardized tests for proficiency in the basics. There would be a test each year carried out by a third party. Test results are posted on the web (without student names) for each teacher.

As for special needs kids, a monetary provision would be made to make it profitable to work with them in smaller numbers or even one-on-one, if the need be. Testing would be commensurate with the disability.

Ricorun,

I forgot about the question of who gets axed initially.

Everyone.

No severance, no nothing for teachers, administrators, janitors, bus drivers, everyone.

Out on the street. Not a dime.

If the teachers want a job, they need to convince the parents of a few kids to hire them.


Remember, all the schools, from oldest to newest are bulldozed on day 1. It is an important symbol. When you burn the ships, there is no going back.

jwest's philosophy of education reinforces my belief in the modern conservative movement being the belief system for sociopaths. And the hopelessly ignorant. We do not live in the times of Aristotle. A system like he proposes could never teach the sciences in a hands on way. The cost for laboratory equipment and space would be prohibitive.

Jim,

Try to think in these terms.

What good is lab equipment to a group of kids from D.C. and Detroit of which 90% can’t read, write or do simple math.

Let me teach them enough to have a little dignity in life and then I’ll turn them over to the liberals for the interpretive dance class.

Every year for past 40 years we’ve heard the totally democrat run cities and school districts say “give me more money and we will fix the problem”. The money is there. D.C. spends over twice the national average and Detroit is close behind. This system has failed. If you care at all about these people, it’s time for a radical change.

Continuing to throw ever more money blindly at education conforms to the one definition of insanity, repeatedly trying the same thing and expecting different results.

The false premise that all children are equally gifted, and differences in their academic results only reflect differences in their opportunites is another falsehood we refuse to acknowledge.

Changing away from the teaching methodologies used successfully for generations, starting in the 60's, that had allowed for the greater percentage of our brightest students to reach their maximum potential in favor of methods that brought everyone to a common level , but lower for the top students, is another factor. A related development was the decline of the vocational education tracks and schools.

Creating the current Federal college funding program has led to the combination of spiraling college costs, and more, but mediocre, colleges and universities trying to achieve the goal of a college degree for the greatest number of people by debasing the quality of those degrees, is yet another.

Meanwhile, in China and other countries, the traditional teaching methods, and value of a true quality education, continue to be maintained, and we fall further and further behind.

And yes, I know that our top colleges are still among the top in the world, but our own students (with in general the exception of children of first and second generation immigrants) find it more and more difficult to gain admittance to those schools without the playing field being tilted in their favor.

jwest, your plan is insane. Teaching kids to read, write, add and subtract might be ok under that system, but what happens after 3rd grade? Do they have to find a teacher who happens to be an expert in literature, chemistry, history, biology, and geometry? And what makes you think anyone with a solid skill set like that would open up a school in a low income neighborhood when they could go to the suburbs and charge even more? Or work in an entirely different field? What about school libraries, planetariums, computer labs, science labs, and gymnasiums? What about art classes, theatre productions, band, chorus, sports, and clubs? There's a heck of a lot more to school than simple basics. Tearing all of that down is such a waste of valuable resources.

Amanda,

The free market and common sense will take care of the grades past 3rd.

Try to think out of the box for a minute.

Remember, I’m not advocating bulldozing the schools you went to that are working. I’m talking about two areas that are demonstrably failing in every sense of the word. Libraries are only important to the kids in these cities as a place to sleep when they are homeless. Let’s teach them to read.

In my scenario, don’t you think some enterprising educator might design a plan for 4th through 8th graders, perhaps with larger class sizes, more interaction with other educator’s groups and with shared amenities?

How about in the higher grades of 9th through 12th? Is it possible that someone would see the marketing (to parents and students) benefits of combining with other specialists in all the areas you mentioned to provide a well rounded education?

The best real teachers will flock to these two cities for a number of reasons. One is that they could make more money than anywhere else. Two is the challenge and the feeling that they are really making a difference. Three is the freedom they would have to actually teach as opposed to stuctured mess they have today.

If you can just get past the idea what we have now is the only model for all students everywhere, I’m sure you will be able to see the unlimited possibilities of this “insane” plan.

You get that you're basically describing a small private school, right? A group of teachers pooling resources and banding together to give students a well-rounded education.

Inner city schools don't fail because they lack resources. They fail because of the cultures surrounding them. I went to public school in West Philadelphia for 5 years - the kids who fell behind were the ones who lived in the scariest neighborhoods, who had the most pressure from gangs, and who had the most messed up family lives. When they showed up to school, they acted out, caused trouble, and brought their dangerous home lives into the building to affect everyone else. Giving them vouchers and telling them to find their own teachers sure as hell isn't going to work for kids like that. It doesn't matter how good the teachers are if the students never show up.

Your "plan" doesn't address that at all. Voucher or no voucher, kids who get mixed up in gangs or drugs are not going to show up ready to learn every day to a teacher's office. And forcing the teachers to go it alone or band together in small groups does not address the need for organized extra-curriculars - something that has been proven to keep kids out of trouble.

DC throws $16000 per student into the mess every year, but they don't address the real source of the problems in their school system. Why not spend that money on restructuring the schools? Set up dorms for public boarding schools. Recruit volunteers to organize more extra-curricular activities. Anything that keeps the inner city kids away from violence, drugs, and everything else that prevents them from succeeding in school.

Instead of tossing the whole system, why not look at places where it works? Montgomery County, just outside of DC, has a hugely diverse student population including a lot of recent immigrants and people just barely getting by financially. Yet they have a very successful education system that includes a lot of charter schools, tons of extra-curriculars, and increased student involvement in school decisions. They consistently rank among the top districts in the nation for SAT scores, especially among minority students, and in graduation rates. What do they do differently? And how can we implement those changes elsewhere?

Thank you, Amanda, for a breath of sanity on this thread.
jwest -- First, I think you're wrong that 90% of kids in public school right now fall through the cracks. There are many, and that needs to change, definitely. But let's not get rediculous with the numbers here. Second, things were way, way better 8 years ago. No Child Left Behind was the worst thing that could have happened to education. I and many my age and older got an awesome education through the public system, but I graduated before NCLB. Third, As Amanda points out very well, your system is crazy. It's not a matter of being beholden to the system, or some inability to think out of the box. It's just that your idea is terrible, awful, unworkable, and pretty much would kill any chance this country has of having an educated population that can compete in the world.

Amanda/Roro,

If you check my posts, you will see that I’m speaking of D.C. and Detroit city schools, not the ones you have fond memories of. In these two school systems, the graduation rate is 20%, but half the kids who graduate can’t read or write at grade level.

Yes, the plan is for small, privatized operations. I realize how crazy this must sound to liberals who have backed the current school systems for everyone, regardless of if it works or not.

Since I’m familiar with the numbers, I can tell you that the actual performance of the schools was worse prior to NCLB. You might have seen a slightly higher graduation rate, but in terms of people who could actually read the number is lower.

So, here we are. My plan is insane, your plan insures more generations of inner-city kids will be functionally illiterate. Should we just agree to write these people off?

Wait, I know……How about you two help the democrats promise to fight terrible things like NCLB and promise to improve the schools in these two cities. Even though there has not been a local or federal election in past 40 years that the same promise wasn’t made, maybe this year it will change.

Or, perhaps one of you has an idea that hasn’t been tried in a hundred variations before. I’m open to any idea that will work.

jwest, your plan doesn't address the fundamental cause of inner city school failure. It's worse than just throwing good money after bad on the system as is because it takes away all of the extra resources teachers have now that can help them at least try to reach these kids. It also makes the assumption that the kids who are slipping through the cracks now are actually going to follow your plan, which they won't. They drop out because they're poor and need to work, or they get mixed up in gangs, or they start using drugs, or their parents are beyond neglectful or abusive. Sending that kid a voucher for $15 or $15000 isn't going to make a damn bit of difference because he's not going to use it.

Instead of shutting down what doesn't work for 80%, why don't we figure out what makes the other 20% successful? Those kids come from the same neighborhoods, so why are they graduating while their neighbors drop out? Maybe if we kept the at-risk students actually at the school for more hours and more days, they'd have fewer opportunities to slip through the cracks. Maybe setting up boarding schools, providing meals, setting up work-study programs, and offering free tutoring services will make it possible for them to stay in school and finish their education.

Stem cells in an organism of the adult person are developed by a bone brain. It is their basic source, but it is far not the unique. Also stem cells are found out and in a fatty fabric, a skin, muscles, a liver, lungs, an eye retina, practically in all bodies and organism fabrics. They provide restoration of the damaged sites of bodies and fabrics.