From: joec@fid.morgan.com (Joe Collins)
Subject: Re: The lie of "school choice"
Keywords: sham
Organization: None
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 19:59:34 GMT

In article <1992Aug31.123606.6371@iscsvax.uni.edu> fay@iscsvax.uni.edu writes:
>I'm going to guess that most people in favor of school choice as a solution to 
>all of our educational woes come from cities.
I support it..I live in the suburbs of NYC, population in my town is about
14,000. We have 3 elementary schools, 1 middle school and 1 regional HS

>I grew up in western Wisconsin, from a town of less than 1500.  There was only
>one school in town--in fact, we had students bussed in from two other towns and
>a lot of farm routes to get my graduating class up to 80.
>
>If I had wanted to go to another school, how would I have gotten there?
My son attends elementary school in NY State (I live in NJ). Its about 30
minutes each way. We drive part and he takes a school bus the rest of the way.

>1)  My folks both worked, my mom starting at 7am.  I suppose I could have sat
>around for an hour or two before school and the same after school.  I suppose
>that if I wanted to be in an extra-curricular activity they could have gotten
>me even later.  (My school had extra bus-times for extra-curriculars).
My SO doesn't work. Our school has *one* bus.

>2)  Wait, of course the school that I choose will pick me up, right?  Let's say
>they get kids from 50 different towns wanting to go there, they'll just find
>the money somehow, right?  Of course, that may mean that they run short, so
>thjey cancel some of the programs that were the reason I chose them in the
>first place...
We pay $500/yr for the bus.

>If schools compete, on what will they focus?
On what Parents want....

>1)  Certainly no school board in the country right now is more concerned with
>how good the football team instead of having textbooks less than 30 years old. 
>No schoolboard will make extra efforts to have good jocksmanship instead of
>high academic standards.  Never would such a thing happen.
Sports are nice but education is the more important of the two.

>2)  In my area, I'm sure that competition means that all of the science kids
>would go to Osceola, all the future farmers to Grantsburg, all the artistic
>ones to Somerset, with no confusion or muddle at all.
The kids go where the Parents feel its best for the kids/family.
>
>Let's be realistic here.  For those of us not in urban areas with a large
>number of schools in close proximity, school choice is a sham and a rip-off.
Why? But we have choice in almost every aspect in out lives, except in choice
of public schools.

>Do you know the real reason why education is in such sorry shape in this
>country?  The biggest single reason is because we don't give a damn about it. 
Very true....force parents to make a choice and they may just start giving
a damn, instead of just dropping them off at school.

>"Eggheads" and "wonks" and "brains" are all nerds and losers.  Character is
>more of a political issue than having enough brains to make rational decisions.

>P.S.  Instead of asking people who stayed in education why they stayed, you'll
>get more insight asking people who left.  I hear thinks like parents who don't
>care if their kids are learning as long as they pass.
God help America.....

My son is expected to work to the best of his abilities
and not just pass. He is not expected to be the best, just do his best.
We feel he is capable of being near the tops of his class and we keep
friendly pressure on him to do that.

>being told that they've never done "real work" in their lives (including by the present VP), and a
>slary that works out to less than the minimum wage when you figure in all the
>real hours spent.





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