From: mamstein@swvgs.vak12ed.edu (Mike Amstein)
Subject: Re: US Public Schools: Get Rid of All the Bureaucrats!
Organization: Virginia's Public Education Network (Pulaski)
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 92 15:50:31 GMT

joec@fid.morgan.com  writes:
> In article <l9050rINNm9m@spim.mips.com> mpolen@gelato.mips.com (Michael Polen) writes:
> >In article <1992Aug17.202017.17578@fid.morgan.com>, joec@fid.morgan.com (Joe Collins) writes:
> >|> >In article <1992Aug6.013932.29133@s1.gov> lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) writes:
> >|> >	My solution to the US public schools' problems:
> >|> >	Get rid of all the bureaucrats!
> >|> I agree 100%
> 
> >|> US Public schools have FAR more administrators than private/independent
> >|> schools. But US public schools do a much worse job of educating America's
> >|> kids.
> 
> >|> We outspend the Japanese by 2-to-1 on money spent per student, yet their
> >|> students are far more educated than ours.
> >|> On an international basis, we rank last among 13 nations in math/science.
> 
> >|> Its time do do something - I support school choice.
> >|> 
> >Interesting.  The Japanese don't agree with you.
> 
> What makes you say that?
> 
> I obtained the above information from various sources including:
> NY Times (Sept 91), US News and World Report (fall '91), Newsweek (various
> issues), Wall Street Journal (various issues).
> 
> Regarding the Japanese, its been published that the AVERAGE Japanese
> student would score in the 90% percentile on US Standardized tests, i.e.
> their average student is scores better than 90% of our students.
> 
> The SAT board puts out annual reports showing how US students do,
> organized in various ways. MY reading shows that good predictors
> of student achievement include the following:
>  1-Parental Education level
>  2-Parental Involvement
>  3-Asian descent
>  4-Household income
> 
> Bad predictors include money spent on education, student/teacher ratio,
>  # of Administrators, etc
> 
> If I recall correctly, Private schools (i.e. Catholic) send 85% of their
> students onto College but do it with far less overhead. For example,
> In Washington DC, there is one adminstrator for every 54 kids in their
> public schools. In the Catholic schools in the same city, there is
> one administrator for every 2500 kids. 
> 
> I think about 45-48% of public schools kids go onto College, nationwide.
> 
> The best schools are independent schools (i.e. neither public or religious).
> They send close to 99% of their students onto College. 
> 
> Interestingly, public school teachers make significantly more (on average) 
> than non-public schools teachers.
> 
> Again, I support school choice - only then will the public schools
> feel the pressure to improve (from outside competition). And its only
> fair - right now the wealthier folks have school choice since they can afford
> to send their kids to tuition-based, nonpublic schools. What about the rest 
> of Americans?
> 
> Joe Collins
> joec@morgan.com
> Usual disclaimers apply...
> 
> 
What is the socio-economic levels of students attending private
schools? I believe that you are talking about two diversely
different populations of students. You need to also look at
educational levels of the parents.
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