Burnt Orange Report

I just watched that show and I noticed that it totally glosses over the failures of charter schools in some cities. Teacher's unions are counterproductive in many instances, but to blame them for every failure is totally moronic.

And note, this is just the beginning (apparently) of a string of FOX "documentaries" about over-hyped "crises" full of right-wing schtick padded with touchy-feely bits about "the one good liberal teacher" or what ever.

Now you know how we've felt for decades now being assaulted by similarly biased and underinformed left-wing crap from CBS/ABC/NBC/PBS/NPR/NYT.

the teachers unions are violating campaign finance laws since their political activism often dovetails with the Democratic Party agenda.

The IRS certainly takes this charge seriously.

Jim,

Whatever bias you might attribute to this program, it is nothing compared to the documentary that CBS (I think, it might have been ABC) released recently "The Dark Side of Homeschooling," which found two families of homeschoolers where the parents or children had gone nuts and murdered their children/siblings and used that to insinuate that homeschooling leads to these kinds of circumstances. Never mind the fact that it had no statistical validity whatsoever, picking two non-random families out of the millions of homeschoolers. It would be like someone claiming that Columbine proved that public schools turned kids into murderous zombies because they were run by the government. (For the record, I went to non-charter public schools too) It was utterly absurd, and exponentially more biased than anything run on Fox, and yet there it was, broadcast by CBS.

As for the rest, studies differ on the effect of vouchers. Most studies show that the Wisconsin experiment ahs been a success, and the results are "mixed" for a private voucher program in NY. Some studies show it has been a success, particularly w/minority children, but others funded by teachers unions and left-wing groups show otherwise. The results on Charter schools vary (unsurprisingly) from state to state and district to district, depending on how the Charter law is structured in that state.

As for the teachers unions, I haven't seen the Fox documentary, but my understanding is that the issue is that on their tax forms the teachers unions claim they spend nothing on political activities, which matters because political activity is not tax exempt like other union operations are. This is absurd. Come on, guys, you know the teachers unions spend millions on political campaigning and electioneering. They are one of the largest and most influential interest groups in your party. It is hardly bias to point out the ahem, discrepancies, between their tax forms and the real world.

Sherk

VOUCHERS DO NOT CREATE SCHOOL CHOICE, and it is painfully simple why. Their advocates claim that little Johnny can get his ca. $4,500.00 voucher and enroll in the private school of his dreams, the St. Mark's. Hockadays / Greenhills (Dallas), St, John's / Kassadys (Houston) / St. Stephens (Austin) of the world, or at some of the very fine religious schools (Jesuits, etc.).

If any of you have kids, you know how insanely competitive these schools [and actually EVERY private school, not just the very best ones] are - they already turn away several students for every one they accept.

So Johnny is going to show up at their door and say "Here Iam reasdy to enroll!" In fact, Johnny is not going to show up alone; several thousand of his friends would come with him, all looking to enroll. The admissions officer is going to say, "Well sorry Johnny, but we do not have the space; we already have a 15% admission rate" (Put completely aside the issue of whether the private school actually wants to accept these kids. I have spoken to several private school administrators who want to have nothing to do with vouchers because of the government oversight that will come with them. Again, this ignores whether some private schools sill reject these kids out of hand for more insidious [racial] reasons - why do you think white flight occurred in the first place?)

Ah, but voucher advocates claim, "if you fund it, they will build." (Apolgies to the field of dreams movie) If you fund vouchers, private entrepreneurs will build more schools for Johnny and his friends. WRONG. The cost of tuition at a private school is considerably more expensive than the upper limit of the value of vouchers as currently proposed. In fact, the vouchers as proposed might cover half the costs, with the parent to cover the rest. BUT, the tuition is only about half the cvost of education in the child, the rest (in private schools) come from endowments, alumni gifts, etc. Schools R' US will not have access to this money - hence no building boom of schools. What you will have are hokey, fly-by-night schools much akin to the Beauty Colleges that sprung up to take Pell grants, that are nothing more than a scam.

Then Johnny is forced to go back to his public school, which by now, has half its budget, which means even more crowded classrooms, less facilities, etc.

So the REAL beneficiaries of vouchers are poor kids with bad schools - those that need the most help. It is: (i) upper middle class people who already send their kids to private school and would get a tuition break, so they can buy another SUV to emit further green house gases; and (ii) religious schools who will seek to increase their influence. Both solid Republican constituencies.

HOMESCHOOLING IS CHILD ABUSE.

One of the key components of any educatition is learning to interact socially with others. We do not live in a bubble - kids need to learn how to interact, just as much as they need to learn reading, 'riting, and 'rithmatic.

I know several people that were and are home schooled, and every one of them is SERIOUSLY lacking in social skills - some of them so much so that they have gone on to become criminals. This is not just what conservatives would call a liberal whiny rant of, "You need to be exposed to people of different colors, classes, etc." No, you need to be exposed to other people period. At some point, the umbilical cord to mommy needs to be cut.

Of course, there is the other issue of whether the parents are qualified to teach their child the full panoply of a middle school, let alone High School curriculum. I ran across an example the other day of a mother who dropped out of school in the 9th grade. She was homeschooling her child by buying work books from Wal Mart, and just letting her daughter go through the workbooks. This is far too common, and this is at the extreme. Even the colege educated mother - can she teach chemistry, foreign languages, (at which the majority of Americans are woefully inadequate), etc.?

In sum, homeschooling is a symptom of one of the dark sides of Republican philosphy - "Every man for himself." (as opposed to the Democratic belief that "We are all in this together.") Home school parents are so intent on withdrawing into their cacoon that they dare not send their children out into the world that it inhabited by THEM. It is no coincidence that home schoolers are often radically religious to the point of seeking to destroy all secular institutions (wait that was Al-Qaeda, or was it Pat Robertson?) The only thing they are destroying, however, is their children.

The "social cocoon" critique of homeschooling may have been pertinent a generation ago, but no longer. The exponential growth of home schooling has led to a wide network of support structures to facilitate interaction between homeschooled kids - they even have sports teams, for Pete's sake.

I have spent all of my school years from kindergarten to the present (at UT) in Texas public educational institutions. I am not anti-homescooling, I think that ABC or CBS or whoever is just suffering from the same disease that all TV news does- it sucks and it'd rather show some sexy story rather than numbers and facts. I am, however, opposed to vouchers. Even if they worked somewhat, I think that the prospect of defunding our public education system, which is exactly what this is, is despicable. America is the strongest, freest, most successful and wealthiest nation on earth b/c no matter who you are you are not only allowed to get an education, you are required by law. Vouchers are simply a way of defunding education, particularly in those areas that already have a hard time paying for it.