Louisiana Attempting to Overhaul Its Educational System - Thoughts?

My home state is FL and they did vouchers for a while (and they might even still do them). I don't know if there was actually any benefit. It's a tough call. My 1st teaching job was in Louisiana (we are a military family). I graduated from college in 2000 and started that fall. At my new teacher orientation I was SHOCKED to see that they still used corporal punishment. I, for the record, never hit a child--ever. Maybe LA schools need some help!

I say it all starts at home.

I think many of the responses so far are right on the money. It seems to me that it is overall a more complicated problem than many would have us believe and there are no simple easy answers or quick fixes. There are excellent teachers within lousy schools, so why punish them all? Why make standardized testing the benchmark by which schools are graded? But more importantly, why do we expect the schools to deal with all the problems kids have that start at home? If you have a child whose home life is very chaotic, unstable, parents are not involved in their education, are not providing a nutritious diet or are not around to help with homework or just are not being the positive role models that kids need, how are the schools supposed to fix that? Or if the parents believe their child is perfect and don't want to hear about how he or she is a discipline problem, or how the child's poor grades are their own fault, how is that helpful to what teachers are trying to accomplish?

Somewhere along the line, we decided that it was okay for parents to fail, and for schools and teachers to somehow pick up where parents were dropping the ball - it even has become somewhat expected for schools to provide all that students need to succeed, when they are not getting it at home - which is really where it should start in the first place. There is no personal accountability any more.

We had been going back and forth about deciding whether or not to enroll DD for kindergarten in our local public school system, or to consider private school instead. One piece of advice I got from many people was that no matter where DD went, she would do well, because we were parents who were involved, and cared about what kind of education she was getting. It's the kids whose parents don't seem to give a darn, or want to blame the school and others for all their kids' problems, who seem destined to not reach their full potential.

A friend of mine decided to enroll her oldest son in a different high school in a different district from the one he would have gone to based on where they live - because she was unhappy with the environment in the middle school he went to and that all stemmed from the other kids being discipline cases and not taking school seriously. It wasn't the teachers and it wasn't the curriculum - it was all the time that got wasted because the teachers are trying to teach, and the kids wouldn't pay attention or take it seriously. But then the parents blame the teachers for not doing more, or "picking on their kid" when their kids are getting failing grades. So how is any of this the fault of the school and why should the school be punished if their test scores are down?

I think the Chester Upland PA crisis is something we have to consider. Much of that school district's money went to vouchers, and the public school has lost so much.

http://neatoday.org/2012/01/11/educators-will-work-withou...

Vouchers do not actually reform education, in my opinion. DVMMOM was spot on in addressing that many of the schools which are considered 'failing' are some of the economically hardest-hit neighborhoods where parents of families have a harder time supporting their children's education. For a family where two parents are both working full time to barely make ends meet, a child's access to help with their education is much less available than a family where one parent has the ability to stay at home or when parents are able to hire highly qualified child care providers or caregivers to help their children.

I don't have a perfect answer, but I think the voucher system makes it easier for families to just move schools instead of lobbying their state and local government agencies for better education funding. It's been proven time and again that test scores do not accurately reflect *knowledge mastered and retained*, nor do they reflect the teacher's effectiveness at teaching in the classroom, and in some situations they might not be a good indicator of the teacher's classroom management skills.

The whole thing is incredibly sad. Our leaders and politicians keep clamoring for our children to be better educated, but nothing is done to facilitate that on the ground level. For so many families, sending their kids to school well-rested, well-nourished, healthy and ready to learn is not the norm. More than one school in our area does not send the kids outside to play on cold or rainy days, because the kids don't all have coats. It's not just a 'good teacher/bad teacher' problem. It's a national poverty problem.

Bottom line: The prospect of teachers losing their job for not DOING their job is incredible motivation. I like it and think it's fantastic. I hope Missouri is soon to follow.

BUT, I don't think it should be based on the school, but the teachers individually. My boys go to a very diverse school. My third grader has a wonderful teacher who really cares about her students' success. My fifth grader's teacher, on the other hand, is kind of detached and focuses, in my opinion, on things that are not going to help to prepare them for middle school.

Grades should be given to teachers based upon overall class performance. Parents should be able to look at trends over several years to see which teachers are excelling and which are falling short. Those teachers who fall short will not have parents choose to send their children there. So it will be "put up or shut up." Perform or find another job.

Let's get these crappy teachers out of our schools and reward excellence.

Right-wing politicians have been pushing for this for decades now.

I am basically opposed, but with some caveats.

In essence, this system takes taxpayer funds and directs them toward religious education, which is illegal under the First Amendment. (The vouchers won't even cover a fraction of nonreligious private prep school, which costs a whole, whole lot more.)

All this is done on the basis of notoriously unreliable tests. These tests A) don't give an accurate measure of what kids are learning, and B) cause kids to learn less, since their whole education turns into test prep.

Finally, schools that accept vouchers can turn away kids they don't like. So, what happens to the special needs kids, the kids with serious behavioral problems, the kids whose families, for whatever reason, can't get themselves together to apply for a voucher? The public schools become a dumping ground for these "leftover" kids, but the public school now has no money left *at all* and can't meet any of their needs. So, these kids become society's problem. Think prisons, lifelong, basically, which cost a whole, whole lot more than just giving public schools the MONEY they need to begin with.

So, I'm opposed. BUT, I do think most public schools in the US are falling down on the job. I do think we need to make space for creative, innovative teaching techniques. I do think kids deserve so much better, overall, than what they're getting now. I just think vouchers will make everything worse.

The county where I live did pass the voucher system. But the ACLU filed a lawsuit so the funding stopped.

I'm not sure of all of the politics, but I thought it was a good idea. The population it started to help was those with special needs kids. I knew several families who were able to put their special needs kids in specialized schools. It was wonderful, and then the lawsuit screwed them all out of it. They either had to find the money on their on to continue at the school, or further traumatize kiddos by switching schools again.

It's an interesting question! And our school system is outstanding, it was just a school choice option.

Schools which are struggling to perform struggle to attract top talent AND typically have children with the most needs - poor backgrounds, uninvolved parents, no support to excel educationally, etc. It seems to me you run the risk of punishing the wrong people - dedicated staff, dedicated teachers, and underperforming students with greater needs which won't necessarily be solved by giving them a pass to go elsewhere. I would also worry you would see more pressure on the staff to cheat to meet the federal standards. It is already an issue with the bonus systems tied to the standardized testing programs. Finally what about overburdening the good schools? Even the best schools only have so many resources to go around and there will have to be a balance struck in allowing voucher students to attend. A quota system maybe? How is the quota going to be allocated? The inequalities are going to start creeping back in.

Personally I don't have a school age child but when the time comes I would be more than willing to transport my child to an alternative school with a voucher if that's what was available to me. I am fortunate to have a job with enough flexibility to accomodate the potentially longer commute/drop off/pick up times. On the other hand at least one of SILs would be in no position to accomodate OR pay for someone to accomodate that. I can see her choices rapidly diminishing as she struggles to survive and get food on the table. Hers won't be the only family facing those tough choices.

People 'blame' right wingers but there is plenty of blame for both parties. The left think throwing money is the answer but that sure hasn't helped. The left also forces testing which takes away from education. Then lets throw in the Unions which has made everything worse.

I think this is such a complex matter like social security, healthcare etc, there isn't an easy answer. We send our kids to a Christian School. I hope we don't ever have to deal with public schools and getting a voucher would be nice! we pay a lot of money in property taxes for something we don't even use.

It would shake up a lazy education system and might be the boost yours needs.
Just talking about it might be all that's necessary.
They are forcing the schools (superintendents) to come up with a better plan OR implement vouchers.
I'm sure this has to be voted on, right?
I'm not sure what states are already doing this, you can probably find info on the web and school yourself with the current pros and cons and make your informed decision.

I don't think they need to give money to the to change schools I think they need to make the schools responsible. And it's not right to make the kids that don't struggle suffer. And if you are like me you would have kids in two different areas then. I have one that is very smart straight A's and then one that struggles. Why should my youngest get the option of a better education and not my oldest just because everything comes natural to him?

This is a very complex issue. The situation in LA makes it even more unique. I personally feel that vouchers are bad for the Democratic ideal of public education. It was started by people who did not want to pay taxes to educate other people's children and were paying high tuition at private schools. They tried to act like it was about the poor children "trapped" at the failing schools but the truth is if that same child showed up at their private school they would not be happy.
Public Education struggles in LA because so many people pulled out of the system and went to private schools in the first place. This left a low socio-economic population as the main ones attending public school. Whenever you have good, involved people pull out it damages the whole.
I think people should stay involved and work to make their neighborhood school the best it can be. Schools are not failing because of teachers they are just a reflection of the society that they serve. If you get too many wild, undisciplined kids with parents who are not involved you get a low performing school.