Educate me please DUers - if the Public Schools and Teachers Unions are the problem

[malaise]

then how come the majority of students at the best universities attended public schools?

[kristopher]

1. DO you consider that a valid test of the health of the system?

Sounds like faulty reasoning to me...

[EstimatedProphet]

2. Do you know they did?

Just asking. I personally fall on the supporting public schools side of the issue. However, the answer to your question may also be because of the fact that so many students are products of the public school system. If 99% of all high school graduates come from public schools, they will probably be the majority at any university simply as a function of large numbers.

[uncommon]

3. Could it be because most students attend public schools?

Next.

(To be clear, I don't have a huge problem with public schools. But your argument is foolish and makes no sense.)

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

4. Because the vast majority of all students attend public schools?

[melm00se]

5. they are not the sole reason

for the 'failures' of the public school system (they are certainly a part, along with parents, administrators and legislators).

The teachers (and thus their union) are the public face of education so they quickly become an easy target.

[Toots]

6. If they are not the Problem how do Republicans get elected?

:shrug: Critical thinking skills are no longer taught it would appear..

[Fumesucker]

8. They own the *real* educational system in the USA..

The media..

A child today spends far more time in front of the TV than in the classroom, there is simply no way teachers can compete in order to erase the false information given out by the media and then implant correct information.

[madrchsod]

7. simple..public schools and unions are not the problem

it`s the social conditions that influence the ability for teachers to teach and students to learn.

the right wing in this country has been on a crusade to break the teacher`s unions for years. now they have have a democratic president who doing what they never were able to do.

i will respect the office of the president but i`ll never respect nor believe in him again.

[leveymg]

9. There are some excellent public school systems - most just happen to be in wealthy, white suburbs

There's a direct relationship between mean household income and average test scores. Education starts in the home, and kids in houses with parents holding university degrees, lots of books, magazines, travel, art materials, musical instruments and other expensive, stimulating stuff tend to test better. Big surprise there.

Also, some kids get proper nutrition and medical care, quality early childhood education and enrichment activities, tutoring, piano lessons, trips to museums, organized sports, have parents who speak grammatically correct English, parents who read to them, parents actively involved in PTA and homework, parents who make sure that kids develop good study habits, parents who know where their kids are and who they are with 24/7, while many inner-city youth have few or none or these obvious advantages.

Okay, let's blame public school teachers and take away their tenure and pensions, sell off schools to corporations. That'll surely close the gap.

[malaise]

10. Excellent post

Bloomberg is on GEM$NBC blaming the public schools for all of America's economic woes.

[leveymg]

11. Bloomberg is smart enough to know better. This is about "restructuring" of the US, privatization

and the stripping away of public sector cost centers, and the sell-off for export of any remaining assets of real value at pennies on the dollar to multinationals, global hedge funds, and vulture capitalists.

Think Chile under Pinochet, or Argentina, and some of the Asian economies in the 1980s and 1990s, and you get the model for the next phase. Authoritarian rule is next. This is just the beginning . . .

[CRK7376]

12. Not the Schools or Unions

fault for the most part, but rather the student and his/her family. I spent 13 years teaching high school history in rural NC. There are always a few teachers that shouldn't be teaching and in the classroom next to mine was one who should not have been teaching. But by and large, the majority, 98% of students that I failed, failed because they took absolutely no interest or initiative to do any work, study for tests, complete assignments. I bent over backwards to help students succeed. Those that failed due to not understanding the material and were willing to work hard, stay after for help, do extra credit etc...I always helped. It's the kids that made no effort and many of their parents were not willing to help/force their child to do assignments/turn in work etc either. They were the problem. Teaching so a child can take/pass the End of Course exam was forced down our throats, didn't help either. Much of society does not hold the child/parents responsible anymore.

Parents don't turn off the tv or video games, even in my house, my daughter gives us fits about completing her homework, one of our boys was that way too. We win the arguements and confrontations, but it's ugly for awhile, still, we care about education. Today that son is a successful junior in college doing great, but his middle school and first 2 years of high school were challenging....Don't blame the teachers and the unions, it's mostly the kids and their parents fault. Flame on!

[Bitwit1234]

13. I don't think it is the teachers and the Unions I think

it is parent interference. We see daily where parents want this book banned. The parents want this subject not taught. The parents say they teachers are not fair to their child. etc etc etc. And what is so frustrating is the teacher is always ruled the culprit, not the parent who tries to get subjects, books etc changed. And mostly for the worst. If the officials didn't stick their heads up the parents butt and did not change the teaching procedures (unless they were really really screwed) the schools would have gotten better all along.