I say lengthen Chicago's school year to 10 months (for students), hire Kaufman staff for one month just before standardised tests get given, and let regular teachers do as they please for nine months.

America's educational system produces entrepreneurs, lawyers, financiers, athletes, reality TV stars, and world-class drug dealers, not to mention enforcers who make it big in places like Iraq or Afghanistan. How do you think America keeps everyone else in its thrall?

What percentage of all U.S. high school freshmen graduate from high school again?

My counterproposal (aside from hiring Kaufman test prep instructors for one month per year) would be hiring more occupational guidance counselors and giving students some rationale for completing high school that made sense to them.

Of course, public schools don't have enough money for that, do they? I wonder why they fail?

Of course, public schools don't have enough money for that, do they?

The United States spend more money per student than anywhere in the world save Switzerland.  

Funding is not the issue, teachers who don't do their damn job is the problem and hiring more guidance counselors (who are pretty much the most useless people on the planet) is nothing more than shoveling even more money into a black hole.

America also spends more money on health care "than anywhere in the world save Switzerland". No wonder so many Americans think they have better health care than anywhere else. Too bad they can't sell themselves that same bill of goods on education.

And yet you seem to think that the US should spend even more money on education rather than fixing the issues with the current amount of funding.  

What's the definition of insanity again?

Expecting to be able to educate non-whites?

Closing all schools and starting over from scratch?

Spending more money on charter schools and less on regular schools?

Letting state school districts experiment with alternatives in education?

I don't know, how do you figure cutting money spent without any deep thinking about what went wrong to begin with qualifies as sanity?

Expecting to be able to educate non-whites?

Absolutely should be expected and if the teachers were any good at their jobs, it would certainly be the case.

Closing all schools and starting over from scratch?

Excellent idea.  Get rid of all the useless losers who aren't bothering to show up for their jobs in Chicago right now.  They can re-apply for a teaching position on the new terms if they like.  Or they can sod off, I don't care either way.  They clearly don't give a rat's ass about doing their job properly, just suckling at the taxpayer's teat.

Spending more money on charter schools and less on regular schools?

Letting state school districts experiment with alternatives in education?

Both are great ideas, neither requires a budget increase.

"shoveling even more money into a black hole"

You almost stumbled into an insight.

You couldn't possibly be implying that all black children can't be educated. After all, you explicitly denied saying that in another post.

The graduation rate for blacks and Hispanics is around 57 percent nationally.

Wow, so you support Chicago's teachers? Who'd have thunk it?

Thanks. But when I depart from orthodox TnT libertarianism, I seem to run smack dab into Alf's "you can't expect to educate blacks and Hispanics" rhetoric, which I find even scarier.

Thomas Sowell addressed minority education in one of his book, I believe "Economic Facts and Fallacies" - pointing out that Washington D.C. used to have an amazing public school system that served minorities very well, until it was dismantled by liberal academia.

Alf's claims are simply racist.  Sure, even if you buy into the idea that there is a genetic basis for intelligence and that the IQ of minorities is on average lower than that of the IQ of whites and asians - it doesn't change the fact that these are averages - and the difference is something like 5 IQ points.  So yeah, the high end is going to be more thinly populated and the low end more densely populated, but the vast middle is roughly identical and should be just as educable.

The white-black difference is 15 points, average black IQ is 85. It's also possible Chicago's blacks are below average blacks.

Actually more recent evidence has shown that the gap has narrowed.

If you are referring to Dickens and Flynn's claim the gap has narrowed by 4-7 points, their results aren't compelling at all.

With higher graduation rates than average?

As for anyone who would say that IQ gaps have narrowed between blacks and whites, you wouldn't find anything you disagreed with "compelling". Most people call that sort of thing evidence of "narrow-mindedness", but that presumes "mindedness" to begin with.

I notice with amusement that every time you post something obviously racist or white supremacist, someone almost immediately mods you up. No one ever comments about your remarks, so we can only guess whom your up-modding BFF might be. I wonder if his moniker starts with Zed?

After all, it couldn't possibly be YOU modding YOURSELF up, since both you and Mr. Zed insist you don't have multiple IDs...

Or you could just click the rating.

What fun would that be?

Paranoid and a dunce.

Humourless rabid dog.

I clue you in on how the site works which means you no longer will embarrass yourself with your paranoid moderation fantasies and instead of a thank you that's your response. You have no manners.

Manners? MANNERS? Since when do people around here have manners? Since when do YOU have manners? If you had manners, you wouldn't gratuitously insult people.

Thank you for "cluing me in" on how this site works. I assure you, however, that I will continue to embarrass myself in all sorts of ways. Too bad I just don't care, any more than you care how YOU come across to other people. Why SHOULD I care?

"I will continue to embarrass myself in all sorts of ways"

Agreed.

By comparison, you remain beyond any embarrassment, even as you ought to be ashamed of yourself. You will continue to show no "manners" of any kind. Obviously. As with most entirely self-absorbed people, "manners" only apply to how others treat you, never with how you treat others. Karma couldn't possibly catch up with YOU.

Sort of like complaining about "free speech" in Canada or England when you wouldn't accord others free speech if YOU were in charge of anything. You champion Mussolini and Qaddafi, while BFF calls Hitler "progressive", yet you can't figure out why civilised societies don't value your freedom to spew hate.

Over time, as you take yourself more and more seriously, you become more and more fun to mess with.

Careful, novy. That statement could just as easily be applied to you.

;-)

[I'm not that guy.]

Zyx already messes with me whenever I mess with Alf, so it plainly does apply to me.

I think a fair paraphrase of her comments would be that what they teach or do not teach is none of our damn business, be we the Mayor, the parents or the taxpayers.

I didn't get that out of your link.

No doubt. I always took Gordo as a trust fund kid.

I have a trust fund kid neighbor who will tell anyone who will listen how brilliant he is to be where he is today. As far as I can tell, he surfs about 200 days a year and has never worked a single day in his life.

All whites don't have "white educational outcomes" any more than all blacks or Hispanics have non-white educational outcomes. Pretending all whites have high scores and all non-whites have low scores might be gratifying to you (sort of like imagining that all Texans own ranches and cattle and wear 10-gallon hats), but in America, I understand people get judged based on INDIVIDUAL ACCOMPLISHMENT, not based on what group(s) they belong to.

"Pretending all whites have high scores and all non-whites have low scores"

Provide a link to where I did that.

I don't parse words with you or Zyx any more. No point, really. Implications of what you say don't count, since you routinely deny them. Romney should hire you guys to help him with his campaign.

You claimed I said something, I'm asking you to provide a direct quote.

When you say "I don't expect non-whites to have white educational outcomes. Those that do are delusional." most people would read that to say what I interpreted you as saying. But since neither you nor Zyx cares to be clear about what you intend to say, forget it.

Why have you been answering me, though? I thought I make you crazy.

It's "just deserts", stupid, deserts means something deserved. Just Desserts is shop that only sells cakes and pies.

Provide links to where I claimed otherwise.

You gratuitously insulting, self-absorbed, personality-challenged, hillbilly cracker. (Just lobbing your serve back to you.)

Nota bene? Why keep denying your Catholicism?

Our non-whites have "white educational outcomes". We must have better teachers than you do.

This piece from the Washington Post explains the $76,000 per year figure in more detail. That particular number is probably too high, with the reality more likely to be about $67,000 per year, which is still pretty good. If you follow the pdf cited in the WaPo story, you will find that according to Chicago School Board figures, the lowest salary in 2011 was a bit over $47,000, and the highest that year was $88,000. The lower number is for a full-time new teacher with a bachelor's degree, while the higher one is for a teacher with a doctrate and at least 14 years in service (see page 206 of the pdf)

Those salaries are very good.

Especially considering that they're earned by people with just a Bachelors, in education, and they're for only about 36 weeks of the year.  Weekends off, multi-week vacations throughout 9-10 months of the year, multiple single-day holidays, and at least two months off in the summer.  

Hmmm, it'll mean a drastic salary cut, but baby-sitting is starting to look pretty damn good.  That might be a decent fall-back option if my early semi-retirement doesn't pan out.

the secret to happiness is to have you pay for my cocaine and mountain climbing-p0157