Literacy Rates of High School Graduates

[Josh]

The simple reality is:

- Parents don’t want public schools anymore. They will choose homeschooling (which has grown explosively in the last 2 years), charter schools, private schools, any option they can.

- Democrats and teachers’ unions are militantly opposed to vouchers. They want to force parents to stay in failing public schools. They don’t want parents to have choices.

- Public school teachers don’t want to work. They are coming up with every excuse to avoid in person classes, like claiming to “fear for their lives”. They expect to still get full pay anyway. They all got paid with benefits last year when many hard working Americans lost their jobs. But parents were expected to make sure their kids could do virtual instruction, meaning parents had to stay home from work or pay for daycare. No wonder parents are choosing homeschooling.

- Public schools are very expensive: $14k per student five years ago. Costs are even higher now.

- Public schools are violent, crime-ridden war zones where children get introduced to drugs and fornication at young ages. They are simultaneously run like prisons, with on site cops ready to arrest children for minor offences with “zero tolerance” policies. Discipline is nonexistent.

[temporal1]

A few months ago i spoke with a local Walmart manager about teens and math.
Her response was immediate, “We teach them basic math here so they can do their jobs.”

2021 Illinois Min Wage = $11/hour.

[joshuabgood]

The simple reality is:

- Parents don’t want public schools anymore. They will choose homeschooling (which has grown explosively in the last 2 years), charter schools, private schools, any option they can.

- Democrats and teachers’ unions are militantly opposed to vouchers. They want to force parents to stay in failing public schools. They don’t want parents to have choices.

- Public school teachers don’t want to work. They are coming up with every excuse to avoid in person classes, like claiming to “fear for their lives”. They expect to still get full pay anyway. They all got paid with benefits last year when many hard working Americans lost their jobs. But parents were expected to make sure their kids could do virtual instruction, meaning parents had to stay home from work or pay for daycare. No wonder parents are choosing homeschooling.

- Public schools are very expensive: $14k per student five years ago. Costs are even higher now.

- Public schools are violent, crime-ridden war zones where children get introduced to drugs and fornication at young ages. They are simultaneously run like prisons, with on site cops ready to arrest children for minor offences with “zero tolerance” policies. Discipline is nonexistent.

Bullet 1 - An overstatement. Some parents for sure are tired of the Covid restrictions and the gender bending. There are plenty of others though that love what they see as their community schools.

Bullet 2 - Mostly true - though there have been prominent Democrats that support school choice. Unions not so much...the the UFT did have their own charter, which failed.

Bullet 3 - An overstatement. I personally know a ton of very hardworking public school teachers. And great teachers...

Bullet 4 - Mostly true. Public schools are expensive...really all education is. It just depends who pays it...

Bullet 5 - Not sure what to do with this one but "violent crime ridden war zones" ... seriously?

[Josh]

All education is expensive?

My brother pays tuition of around $4000 per family at a Mennonite school. That’s a long shot from $14000 per child. Of course, wealthier families are expected to participate in fund raisers.

His school offers aid to someone who can’t afford that and they take in non Mennonite families who make up the majority of students now.

Homeschooling is even cheaper. No wonder so many families are switching to it.

[Josh]

Meanwhile, in public school, students get to ensure both police officers watching their every move plus being subject to violence, drugs, and fornication. Why would anyone choose that?

[ohio jones]

But I’m not sure why teachers should be paid more than fast food workers.

In general, you get what you pay for. If you're satisfied with fast-food-quality education, pay fast food wages.

This is where church-related schools often struggle. They feel they can only afford to pay fast food wages, but expect (and often get, at great sacrifice) meat-and-potatoes education. And wonder why they have difficulty finding teachers.

Of course, there's also the opposite problem of teachers being paid steakhouse wages and delivering a fast food education.

[RZehr]

In Oregon public schools I suppose you could now graduate students without them knowing how to read or do math; But teachers would probably be fired if they didn't use the correct pronouns. Upside down and inside out and backwards priorities.

[Josh]

But I’m not sure why teachers should be paid more than fast food workers.

In general, you get what you pay for. If you're satisfied with fast-food-quality education, pay fast food wages.

This is where church-related schools often struggle. They feel they can only afford to pay fast food wages, but expect (and often get, at great sacrifice) meat-and-potatoes education. And wonder why they have difficulty finding teachers.

Of course, there's also the opposite problem of teachers being paid steakhouse wages and delivering a fast food education.

Indeed, what teachers are paid, and the quality of the education provided, seem to have almost nothing to do with each other.

Of teachers I know, their main priority is the social life and social opportunities afforded by the place they are moving to. Teacher pay is not a terribly high priority - as long as it's enough to pay the bills. Most school boards provide housing, health sharing plan, and take care of minor car repairs etc. so the teachers don't really need to think about anything except teaching.

[joshuabgood]

All education is expensive?

My brother pays tuition of around $4000 per family at a Mennonite school. That’s a long shot from $14000 per child. Of course, wealthier families are expected to participate in fund raisers.

His school offers aid to someone who can’t afford that and they take in non Mennonite families who make up the majority of students now.

Homeschooling is even cheaper. No wonder so many families are switching to it.

I work at a school like your brothers. It is a great place to work. That said...there are many unseen costs that people are nonetheless paying. We have outstanding quality teachers, with Bachelors and Masters degrees, working for 30 something thousand a year (and that is in Lancaster). Suffice it to say, expecting a head of household to live on that and raise a family of 6 say comes with a substantial cost. There are no benefits with regard to health insurance. Further, students usually don't have the ideal lab resources or access to other enrichment activities (instruments for band etc).

While homeschooling works for some families, I can tell you, as a school leader that takes in homeschool students every-year, it doesn't work for every family.

[Ken]

I was curious so I looked up the demographics of the public school population in the US. The latest statistics I could find were from 2018 from the national center for education statistics. Here are the numbers for racial/ethnic percentages: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cge

In fall 2018, of the 50.7 million students enrolled in public elementary and secondary schools, 23.8 million were White, 13.8 million were Hispanic, 7.7 million were Black, 2.7 million were Asian, 2.1 million were of Two or more races, 0.5 million were American Indian/Alaska Native, and 186,000 were Pacific Islander. Between fall 2009 and fall 2018, public school enrollments among White students decreased from 26.7 million to 23.8 million. Similarly, the number of Black students decreased from 8.2 million to 7.7 million. In contrast, the number of Hispanic students increased from 11.0 million to 13.8 million.

And here are the estimates for poverty: https://ncee.org/tucker-writing/child-p ... n-the-u-s/

Both the standard measure of poverty and the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM), which takes benefits and cost of living into account, show that about one in six children in the U.S. is poor. (The current official poverty level is $25,750 for a family of four.) While there are poor families all over the country, the averages are misleading, because the poor are usually concentrated in clusters.

When educators think about poverty among their students, the measure that comes first to mind is the percentage of public school students eligible for free and reduced-price lunch, which is available to children in households with incomes at or below 185 percent of the federal poverty level. In the 2000-01 school year, 38.3 percent of public school students were eligible. That figure climbed to 48.1 percent in the 2010-11 school year, 51.8 percent in the 2014-15 school year and 52.1 percent in the 2015-16 school year. But these figures, like those for poverty overall, are often far higher where poverty is concentrated and its effects far worse and much longer lasting there.

If you plan to have any kind of educated productive populace in this country you need to figure out how to design an education system to serve over 50 million students of which growing majorities are both non-white and poor. At a 20-1 student teacher ratio that means 2.5 million public school teachers along with millions more bus drivers, custodians, maintenance workers, counselors, special education aids, administrators, substitutes, school nurses, etc. etc.

No amount of small private rural Menno schools, home schooling, urban charter schools, private online schools, etc. etc. is going to ever educate more than a small fraction of the total number of children in this country. If you want to talk about education policy in this country you have to come to grips with that fact. You need to design a system that can reach and educate a predominately non-white and predominantly poor student population that exists in the tens of millions in every single corner of the country. And not just educate them to 19th century standards for literacy and mathematics like the Amish might do. But educate them to participate fully in the modern global economy of the middle of the 21st century.