With the exception of the less than religious extremist folks that wish to nuke the U.S., education is the most important issues impacting our country, local economy and quality of life here in SC. We cannot put folks to work because they can’t read, write et cetera… We have one of the worst graduation rates in the country, this affects the quality of life for all and if we don’t do something about it and soon you will realize this personally via increased rates in crime, higher taxes for more social welfare programs, more prisons.

So if you care about people period demand choice and real choice in education, demand are lawmakers on both sides of the isle do something about illegal immigration that steals good jobs from the poorer and less educated of Americans.

This, however, is simply incorrect: “If the child leaves, the money leaves, but so does the overhead associated with educating that child. Obviously, they don’t know math or business.”

If students leave in really large numbers, it could be the case that schools will be able to cut overhead. But I think it will generally not work that way. Here’s a scenario:

There’s an elementary school with 60 fourth graders split among 3 classrooms. If 6 of those students leave for a private school “choice,” then there are 54 fourth graders left. That’s a 10% transfer rate — pretty high, I would think — but wouldn’t be enough to cut a teacher’s job….unless you wanted to have 2 fourth grade sections with 27 students apiece. In that case, the “choice” program means that the students “left” in the public school must be in significantly larger classes.

If there was huge movement into private schools, then money could probably be saved in the public system. But if the movement is slight or only on the margins, then the public districts would clearly lose money.

Who knows what the transfer rate would be, of course. Choice proponents tout supply-and-demand forces. Hard to say how it would go in this arena, though the supply of private school seats is awfully small in most areas of the state. That’s a whole other argument that doesn’t need to be hashed out here…..mostly, I was just trying to get a handle on where Will was coming from on this business of PACT and NCLB and the e-mail that came out from Jim Rex’s staff.

In serving on the regional Workforce Investment Board, I help allocate millions of your tax dollars for training and adult ed programs that attempt to get right what the public school system didn’t.

But in all fairness, I can’t put all of the blame in the laps of the school system. Even the best teachers can’t exercise one-tenth the influence that their communities and mass media wield over the minds of school children.

I support school choice, and don’t buy the “taking money from schools” lie. If the child leaves, the money leaves, but so does the overhead associated with educating that child. Obviously, they don’t know math or business.

But I disagree with those choice supporters who say that choice alone will solve the problems. While some kids will certainly benefit by the opportunity to attend a more appropriate school, but the deeply rooted negative cultural influences that undermine the efforts of parents, educators, taxpayers, legislators, etc. will still be there.

Name-calling, as is evident from some of these remarks, is just more proof of what I’ve believed all along – some people are far more concerned about being “right” than doing anything about the problem itself.

http://thevoiceforschoolchoice.com/

And I was trying to clarify a few things, as well:

**Districts run by “local superintendents” don’t amount to a monolithic entity representing a bureacratic behemoth. Some districts — larger ones, especially — may fit this description or something close to it, while other districts may operate with a very thin administrative structure.

**Alignment of our accountability system with NCLB would, in fact, mean lowering our standard of “proficiency.” We can debate every angle of this matter, and I wasn’t stating advocating a position one way or the other; I just offering a point of fact since Will noted that our accountability set-up isn’t in line with NCLB.

Finally, I’m not sure I think the “failure” or “unsatisfactory” label on a school motivates elementary age students. But, again, reasonable people can disagree on how to label schools based on PACT or some other test.

Oh, and I am in no way asserting that school administrators are above criticism. I have worked in public education and certainly have my frustrations with those folks. But I think the notion — that you hear around here and in other pro-voucher circles — that principals and superintendents generally don’t care about success of children is pretty preposterous.

Just for the record, looking in broad strokes at Red vs. Blue states disproves his point. Blue states consistently come in looking better in literacy, education, poverty, teen pregnancy, and other indicators. Not saying Dems are more educated than Republicans, just saying it’s hard to believe that Republicans are more educated than Dems.