School Debate

[dustindow]

Well with the recent reforms of school around the nation....It is becoming more and more clear of the absolute ignorance the government has of public school system.......

The out of touch nature they are placing on schools. With Bush re-election I think we will se some more drastic changing of the school system.


This is just a topic to go on for now........this is more open ended debate.

[Wiggles]

Hello I'm not a dixie, what exactly has bush done to your public schools (and does public MEAN public, it doesn't where I live for some stupid class-fuccking reason).

[Rage Against The Lavigne]

Where I live 'public' school means a publicly accessible, tuition paying school.

Nice to see you again Dustin.

[PerpetualBurn]

What exactly has happened to American schools?
Also, in England a "public school" is a private school.

[iceland_is_mine]

American schools sux0rs. I'm very pro-American, but I must admit that our schools blow. It may also have something to do with me living but 20 miles from Detroit, but hey.

[goldenchimp]

i think schools should not be funded by property taxes, it leads to very different situations in public schools. rich neighborhoods get better schooling than poor neighborhoods, which in turn gets the more equiped kids into better colleges and subsequently better jobs, so they can do the same with their kids. vicous circle of doom for the poor

[grifterdan]

in texas we have independent school districts, which i agree with cause i live in a good district. sucks for the poor kids though, whihc i guess is why they instituted robin hood. for thsoe who are not familiar, robin hood is a program that takes money from richer school districts and gives them to poorer school districts, at which point the poor school usually squanders it on pointless ****. this year, robinhood took 1/4 of my schools budget. its just a watered down form of communism

[KKKKKocaine]

in texas we have independent school districts, which i agree with cause i live in a good district. sucks for the poor kids though, whihc i guess is why they instituted robin hood. for thsoe who are not familiar, robin hood is a program that takes money from richer school districts and gives them to poorer school districts, at which point the poor school usually squanders it on pointless ****. this year, robinhood took 1/4 of my schools budget. its just a watered down form of communism

So if your school has more than enough money and another school is struggling to replace textbooks, It is wrong to take some of your schools money to allow others to have a basic education?
Do you think that a rich man with more food than he can eat should let it go to waste whilst another man starves in the gutter?
My college recently bought about 30 copies of Cubase SX 3.0 (thats about £18,000)
Now before we had Cubase VST, we could have learn't on that, Had there been a robin hood program in my area, a poorer school or college would have received 18,000 to improve facilities and buy essential equipment, rather than it being spent on equipment that we don't need so much.
There is nothing wrong with taking a surpluss and redistributing it to those who require it.

[grifterdan]

So if your school has more than enough money and another school is struggling to replace textbooks, It is wrong to take some of your schools money to allow others to have a basic education?
Do you think that a rich man with more food than he can eat should let it go to waste whilst another man starves in the gutter?
My college recently bought about 30 copies of Cubase SX 3.0 (thats about £18,000)
Now before we had Cubase VST, we could have learn't on that, Had there been a robin hood program in my area, a poorer school or college would have received 18,000 to improve facilities and buy essential equipment, rather than it being spent on equipment that we don't need so much.
There is nothing wrong with taking a surpluss and redistributing it to those who require it.

well, you obviously dont live and texas and dont have a grip on whats going on

we didnt have more thatn enough to begin with, we were just right, and that was before they took a quarter of our budget. n ow we have all the defecits we need to figure out how to get rid of. and the school recieving the money, they might as well be wasting it. one school bought brand new laptops for all of the students and faculty, and another bought a giants inflatable football helmet for there players to run out of at the beginning of the game. we filed lawsuits on the constitutionality of robin hood, and so far it looking better for us

[chrisb0109]

So if your school has more than enough money and another school is struggling to replace textbooks, It is wrong to take some of your schools money to allow others to have a basic education?
Do you think that a rich man with more food than he can eat should let it go to waste whilst another man starves in the gutter?
My college recently bought about 30 copies of Cubase SX 3.0 (thats about £18,000)
Now before we had Cubase VST, we could have learn't on that, Had there been a robin hood program in my area, a poorer school or college would have received 18,000 to improve facilities and buy essential equipment, rather than it being spent on equipment that we don't need so much.
There is nothing wrong with taking a surpluss and redistributing it to those who require it.


yes, there is a huge problem with that. People pay money for the education system which their kids will go to, not some kid halfway across the state.

[Reaganista]

My school district was fine.

[grifterdan]

forgot to add this to:

due to the budget cuts, we cut our teacher salary. this made alot of our experienced longterm teachers leave because they needed more money, and they were replaced by rookie teachers, so we get taught by a buch of n00bs. literally. plus no good teacehrs ever want to teach here because the pay is bad and were always short on supplies

[PerpetualBurn]

yes, there is a huge problem with that. People pay money for the education system which their kids will go to, not some kid halfway across the state.
That kid somewhere halfway across the state is potentially the surgeon that save your life one day.
I know that's an extreme example, but that's what it boils down to.

[chrisb0109]

That kid somewhere halfway across the state is potentially the surgeon that save your life one day.
I know that's an extreme example, but that's what it boils down to.


regardless of who it is, money I pay should go to the education system my kids are in. Its not my resposibility to pay for everyone elses kids.

[PerpetualBurn]

regardless of who it is, money I pay should go to the education system my kids are in. Its not my resposibility to pay for everyone elses kids.
Yes, it should go to the education system that your kids are in. It does, it funds the SYSTEM. If you've got plenty of money then buy your kids an extra textbook, hire them a tutor. There are 100's of ways a wealthy family can give their child privileges that other don't get.
As far as a state funded school goes, everyone should have the same opportunity. You can't penalize a child for what their parents don't have. To suggest otherwise is just plain wrong.

[chrisb0109]

Yes, it should go to the education system that your kids are in. It does, it funds the SYSTEM. If you've got plenty of money then buy your kids an extra textbook, hire them a tutor. There are 100's of ways a wealthy family can give their child privileges that other don't get.
As far as a state funded school goes, everyone should have the same opportunity. You can't penalize a child for what their parents don't have. To suggest otherwise is just plain wrong.


Ok, let me rephrase. It should go to the school my kid is in. It is my money, therefore it should benefit my kid.

[grifterdan]

im all for iving money away, as long as it doesnt lower the educational opprutunities of the kids. in the case of my school, it is

[Dave de Sylvia]

well, you obviously dont live and texas and dont have a grip on whats going on

we didnt have more thatn enough to begin with, we were just right, and that was before they took a quarter of our budget. n ow we have all the defecits we need to figure out how to get rid of. and the school recieving the money, they might as well be wasting it. one school bought brand new laptops for all of the students and faculty, and another bought a giants inflatable football helmet for there players to run out of at the beginning of the game. we filed lawsuits on the constitutionality of robin hood, and so far it looking better for us

So, it's not as much that funds are being taken away, but that there's not enough funding total for all districts? Are Texan schools fee-paying?

[rekker]

Here is my suggested solution to this dilemma.

If property taxes are providing the revenues for schools, then each state should pool all of its property taxes. Then distribute the property taxes to the schools based on a quota system - x amount of dollars per student enrolled, making adjustments for cost of living and bussing, etc.

That way its truly a publically funded system where each student has equal access to resources. This avoids both the stinking rich schools that can buy anything they want, and the dirt poor schools that are falling apart and can't afford to buy books.

If anyone thinks this is unfair, you're already using this system for your other services. It's called income tax.

[Steerpike]

Another solution would be to divert a few billion tax dollars away from our gratuitously gigantic defense fund and put them into education. As of 2003, the US government spent 400 billion dollars of our money on the Pentagon's budget. Put together the defense budgets of Russia, China, and the so-called Axis of Evil, and we still have enough military strength to kick their asses twice over and still have enough to blow up the world.

Another problem is the current mindset being negatively reinforced among the youth of modern American culture that basically says: learning things = bad. I left public school to be homeschooled because the high school sucked. The parents insisted that they use the new renovation budget to put in a new football field first, and the school didn't even have that good of a team. When I left the school, classes were still being held in trailers because the real classrooms hadn't been finished. They didn't even get their new computer lab until about three years into the renovation.

And the students were perfectly okay with this. They cared more about a new gym and weight training room than new text books. Hardly any of them bothered to learn a **** thing. Several people who would have been in my graduation class had I stayed there actually dropped out in their senior years.

The problem is that America has no priorities to education and is breeding a culture of apathy and lethargic ignorance. I've actually heard people in my hometown saying that community college is the way of the future. What the **** is that supposed to mean? I guarantee the liberal arts college I'm going to is much better for me than any community college.

When finished high school in a private school, my life turned for the better. My parents had to make some big sacrifices to send my brother and I there, but it was worth it because that place worked. Why did it work? Not because it was an expensive institution. It worked because the average classroom size was 6, making it easier for students to get individual help. It worked because where the teachers lacked official sources such as text books, they had the freedom to improvise and draw from other academic sources to aid in the lessons. It worked because the students didn't see it as a prison or a punishment, but a neutral environment where the only enemies were the ones you consciously made.

The American school system could do so much better by following that example. But, that would require people to get off their lazy asses, stop finding scapegoats for their kids being dumbasses, and do something constructive to remedy the situation. So it's not likely to happen in the near future.

[sandbox magician]

Ok, let me rephrase. It should go to the school my kid is in. It is my money, therefore it should benefit my kid.

Thats almost like kids being born into a caste system. That will do nothing to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor.

[JimbobTheSquirrel]

Here is my suggested solution to this dilemma.

If property taxes are providing the revenues for schools, then each state should pool all of its property taxes. Then distribute the property taxes to the schools based on a quota system - x amount of dollars per student enrolled, making adjustments for cost of living and bussing, etc.

That way its truly a publically funded system where each student has equal access to resources. This avoids both the stinking rich schools that can buy anything they want, and the dirt poor schools that are falling apart and can't afford to buy books.

If anyone thinks this is unfair, you're already using this system for your other services. It's called income tax.

Unfortunately, there's problems with that, too. I'm pretty sure it's the system we have in Ireland, but my school is pretty broke, because we're really small. This means the school standard goes down, which means people don't come, which means less money. My school was really in trouble for a few years, there are only 16 people in 2nd year, although things are picking up now. There were other factors; our building was condemned and the board of management were pretty bad, but the capitation grants system didn't help.

The other problem with this system is it encourages schools to cram in pupils, they get a lot more money for it. Plenty of studies have shown that small class sizes are better, and the atmosphere in my school is definitely better than that of some of my friends. All the teachers know pretty much most of the pupils' names, and theres a friendly environment.

These are definitely smaller problems than the ones you've described, though.
The answer probably is to just spend some of your ridiculous defense budget on education, like Steerpike said. It's so high, you'd still have the best army in the world.

[Katana]

There needs to be federal mandates for funding. If the states can't do the job of funding schools, there is no reason as to why the federal government shouldn't intervene.

Instead of invading Iraq or giving tax cuts to rich p33ps, we could've bolstered our future.

Regardless, there are places where money is going, and those places don't need any more. Take a look inside many of America's schools, and there's some great places where more funding would be appreciated.

[dustindow]

Okay sorry for the delay been busy with school....

The reform of the public school system that Bush is the cause of is the NCLB act. BEcuase of this Act my school district, along with my state (MO) has addded a manditory class called B.O.S.S or Block Of Student Success.....or what our school refers as Block Of Stupid Sh!t.....It is a clss to focus on the bettering of Standerdised test scores our district seems to be so low on.

So due to the NCLB Act we are forced into a class that it 1/8th a credit and none of our teachers know how to teach. It seen as a last minute and desperate, not well thought out, way to try to get better test scores for more money to the school. This is stressed and preached to us so much that they want us to get higher test scores for money to the school. Our school always says "so the school can get more money". The value of the students excelling has lost its value.

It all boils down to the money factor. Schools work like this. Better scores more money. Lower scores less money. Example of the failing of this is in St. Louis. A School in St. Louis has so little money that the sewer system has backed up and flooded the school causing cancellation of school for that day. Might I aslo mention that the sewer problems comes from the kitchen for they don't have bathrooms. Can't afford them.

Now another example of the failure of the score-to-money ratio is in my home town of Kansas City, where a downtown school has recieved the biggest grant from the government. Now they recieved enough money to totally redo the school. They have a pool and etc..Basicly it's huge. Now Harverd did a study on that school and came to the conlusion that money does NOT mean better schools. A harvard study showed that. The teachers at that school still are treated like crap. There is no control over the classroom and thus nothing has changed besides the look of the trashcans.

The problem of these schools is the outdated methods of teaching implied by schoolboard members who have no clue what is actually going on in schools. As my American Gov teacher said " We are in the biggest social experiment, and that is public school system". Wich is very true because of these dramatic changes I have experienced the past 3 years. My class schedule has been very different.

But as I mentioned that method of teaching is very outdated. Homework is a crude tool to be used. Worksheets are no longer affective. Taking notes are not a good way of learning. Let face it Society is progressing while the teaching method is trailing behind. The only newest renivation sp? is the use of TV. Which still in itself a poor method.

Schools are created to "produce" an upright functioning citezen. Emphasising on creative individual and abstract thinking. Help a person succeed in the working world in there own professional and personal feild. Rather schools do more of following orders abid by the school board wich focuses on the money aspect of the children. More bang for your buck you could say.

The Public Shool System of long over due for a Reform, a Reform for the student rather the Schools.

[grifterdan]

So, it's not as much that funds are being taken away, but that there's not enough funding total for all districts? Are Texan schools fee-paying?

i dont think so. its not that theres not enough money, its that the poor schools are getting too much money. so they blow it useless crap while we are short on supplies and being taught by ****ty teachers

its ok though, im out of here in a year

[SeattleZac]

My main problem is that teachers start at about 23k where i live, and i made more then that my senior year working 30 hours a week. It's pathetic really, the teachers need more incentive, and the job needs more money so better people will be teachers.

A ****ing just raise taxes for it, IT"S CLEARLY WORTH IT

[Dave de Sylvia]

i dont think so. its not that theres not enough money, its that the poor schools are getting too much money. so they blow it useless crap while we are short on supplies and being taught by ****ty teachers

its ok though, im out of here in a year

What do they spend it on?

[griftadan]

What do they spend it on?


wtf is this ****?

oh well anyways, i already graduated a while ago so it doens't bother me any more. anyways, they would spend it on **** likelap tops for every single student, new sports feilds, new scoreboards, even a fukcing inflatable football helmet for their players to run out of before games. not new teachers or better paid teachers, not even new learning facilities.

[PerpetualBurn]

Slowest response to a post ever?

[Dave de Sylvia]

ffs dan you've passed out drunk one too many times now

[PerpetualBurn]

The thread had been bumped by a bot, but the post's now deleted, making Dan look a bit of a pillock.

[griftadan]

The thread had been bumped by a bot, but the post's now deleted, making Dan look a bit of a pillock.

yeah thats what happened, except its impossible to make me look like a pillock.

[Reaganista]

LOL

[thursdaythrice]

American schools sux0rs. I'm very pro-American, but I must admit that our schools blow. It may also have something to do with me living but 20 miles from Detroit, but hey.


Its funny because I live right next to Detroit in Windsor and its funny because Detroit is filled with poor black skinned people.

[dustindow]

Its funny because I live right next to Detroit in Windsor and its funny because Detroit is filled with poor black skinned people.

is it really funny?