Tag Archives: School Choice

News

Melanie Phillips asks why incompetent teachers can’t be fired

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Melanie Phillips

Story here in the UK Daily Mail. (H/T Wes Widner)

Excerpt:

For years, head teachers have complained that one of their main problems was that the terms of teachers’ contracts with local education authorities meant they were unable to sack those who were not up to scratch.

Now Panorama is apparently reporting the shocking fact that, instead of being removed from the profession, dud teachers are merely being recycled by being given good references in exchange for agreeing to look for work in alternative schools.

According to Mick Brookes, leader of the National Association of Head Teachers, this is a common practice which he says causes heads serious problems.

The classroom teacher unions, however, think it is perfectly justified.

Well, there’s a surprise. In fact, it is an absolute betrayal of the children for whom school represents their one chance in life.

And a bit later:

The most successful teachers have always understood that children need to be inducted into a body of knowledge, to be taught in a structured and disciplined manner, to be corrected when they make mistakes.

But for decades, the predominant educational ideology has ordained that children effectively teach themselves, with teachers taking a back seat as mere ‘facilitators’.

What children feel about themselves has been deemed to be more important than what they know.

Achievement was bad —because it made others who didn’t achieve feel bad about themselves.

This led to the collapse of the teaching of reading and the dumbing down of virtually every subject on the curriculum. Indeed, it eroded the very basis of teaching as the transmission of knowledge.

The first thing we need to do is pass a law that allows teachers to work without having to join a union. The best teachers will be able to command much higher salaries when they don’t get dragged down by the union. That should cut into the union’s political power, and then we may finally get some decent school choice laws passed – like vouchers – so that parents can choose where their children go to school. That will create pressure on schools to perform – and that means that bad teachers will be fired.

News

Public schools hand out condoms to 5-year olds without parental consent

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The story is here.(H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

An elementary school in Provincetown is constituting a controversial condom distribution policy…

The new policy, which the school board voted unanimously to pass, requires students in the elementary school and the high school to speak with a school nurse or trained counselor before receiving a condom.

This will allow students of all ages to learn information on proper use.

The policy also directs school leaders not to honor demands from parents who object to their kids receiving protection.The school feels that this would infringe on the kids’ right to inform parents.

“We’re talking about younger kids. They have questions they need answered on how to use them, when to use them,” School Superintendent Dr. Beth Singer said.

The video within the story is a MUST SEE. The superintendent explains why 5-year olds have a right to privacy, and that parents have no right to stop the schools from doing this.

Remember, parents are forced to pay for these schools – they have no choice. And if they have no choice to prefer an alternative to mandatory funding of public schools, then the public schools have no reason to care what parents want. They get paid anyway. Service/product providers only care what consumers want when consumers can walk away from the deal and go to a competitor. Public schools are a monopoly – they don’t care what parents think. They get paid anyway.

Watch this:

Parents are not trained professionals with 4-year degrees in “education”, you know. So just leave your children to the educational experts, will you please? Leave the education of your children to the “experts”. Just drop your money on table and walk away from your children. The Nanny State will take care of everything – just trust them.

What about Canada?

In liberal Quebec, the liberal Ministry of Education is appealing a judge’s decision to block them from indoctrinating children in all schools including private schools in religious pluralism – that all religions are equally sound – and moral relativism – that all moral points of view are equally valid. They want to teach this to children in all schools, public and private with no opt-out for taxpaying parents. Understand? You are paying for public schools and education bureaucrats to indoctrinate your children and your neighbor’s children with epistemic and moral relativism, not to mention religious pluralism.

I think the problem with people who vote for more funding for public schools is that no one ever looks into what these unionized educrats really believe and school administrators really believe.

And this is why money matters to a family. You need money to afford private school tuition or homeschooling. Money doesn’t grow on trees, you know. And the higher the tax rates, the more you pay, and the less freedom you have to fight the system.

Videos

NJ Gov. Christie smacks down reporter who accuses him of being “confrontational”

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This is a must-see I found at Hot Air.

He’s not my favorite Republican, but that is pretty funny.

And he supports school choice

Although New Jersey is dominated by teacher unions, the Republicans passed a school choice bill.

Excerpt:

A Senate committee approved legislation today creating scholarships for students to attend private schools during a raucous hearing held in front of the Statehouse Annex building.

Hundreds of demonstrators, mostly students from private and charter schools, gathered to rally for the bill. Supporters said it provides students a chance to leave failing public schools, while opponents said it undermines the public school system.

The bill (S1872) could fund $24 million in scholarships for up to 4,000 children the first year. After five years, up to 20,000 children would receive $120 million in scholarships, they said. More money would be set aside for grants to public schools. The funding would come from donations by corporations who would receive tax credits equal to their contributions.

[…]A similar bill has previously failed to gain traction in recent years. Now it has bipartisan backing in the Senate — it’s spearheaded by Lesniak and Sen. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Union) — and Gov. Chris Christie’s support.

[…]African-American churches, led by Black Ministers Council Executive Director Rev. Reginald Jackson, held a press conference earlier this morning to support the legislation. He said people need to decide whether to support school institutions or the children.

“Why do we insist on supporting a failing system?” he said. “When are we going to decide our children are more important.”

The only people who don’t like school choice are unionized teachers who don’t want their customers (parents and children) to have a choice to fire them if they don’t perform. Would you like it if you could only buy one kind of shoe? Or one kind of gaming console? Then why do you put up with government-run monopolies when it comes to your children’s education? Let teachers who are good be paid more, and let teachers who are bad be paid less. That’s just common sense.

Must-see videos on education policy

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