A Response to Demagoguery

So, I just spent a bit of time responding to someone on our community forum who has annoyed/engaged/intrigued me. It's enough for one day, so I post it here.

The original conversation was around our district referendum, which passed. A lot of the comments that were like this, "I won't get into the debate about how the Public Schools are a cash sinkhole with poor results. There are plenty of comparative studies that bear this out, but this thread is not about that."
Hmmm...a debate on the efficacy of the US model of public education would clearly be beyond the scope of the forum. I might agree that the paradigm is broken, but this isn't the place to debate that issue. It is beyond the pervue of the Roseville school board or administration to really make the kind of changes that might be called for. For that debate, move up to the federal level and engage NCLB for what it really is. As an educator, I agree that there is something fundamentally broken about how we teach our kids; but I doubt that the CDH model is sufficiently different to really address that concern. A real paradigm shift requires more than attitudinal and rigor changes; it requires a basic examination of the pedagogy. Ironically, I would like to move on and get my PHD to engage this question, but worry about becoming mired in the EduCratic Bureaucracy.

In another moment, the writer suggested that the local private school cost half of what the public system spends on education.
Meanwhile, I can't resist the need to take issue with the numbers for CDH. Based solely on the numbers that I find on the web, I find that CDH appears to have about 1,240 students, with a total budget of $13,413,00. This resolves to a per pupil cost of $10,817 per student. Tuition may be $8,500, but that is not the total cost. Roseville appears to have (based on 2005 data which is available online) 6,328 students with a total cost of $68,793,00. This resolves to $10,871 per student. I am completely prepared to believe that the numbers I have found are in error, but on it's face the available data would suggest that the costs for the two institutions are similar. This is particularly interesting when you consider that something in the vicinity of 18% of the high school staff are in the Special Education Dept. I doubt that the percentage of federally mandated special education costs are in the range of 18% at CDH (though I could be wrong).

The writer went on to say that his children were underprepared for the private high school when they left the public system.
As for the efficacy of the two educational models, I can only use anecdotal evidence to suggest that the students entering my PreAP English 9 classes seem equally prepared whether they come form local private schools, RAMS, or Parkview. I don't doubt your own anecdotal evidence, but it remains only anecdotal. Like any product or service, Education is great when it fits your needs. There are 2,200 students at the Roseville High School. It's absurd to think that we are meeting all of their needs, and it is also absurd to think that we are completely ineffectual. The real question is what is the essential underlying purpose of public education, and whose needs are we really trying to meet.

He offered a tour of the local private school, which is what I had offered in a previous post.
I love the idea that we're offering comparative tours of the schools. I love my classes...I love my students...I believe in what we're doing. I have no doubt that CDH can claim the same. God bless educators for their beliefs...sometimes it's the only thing they have going for them.

By the way, the Superintendent's name is spelled Thein. ;)

Here's a few notes on the tone of discourse.
Lastly, and I'll be fairly direct with this since it's off the forum, your contributions to this discourse would be a whole lot more effective if you quit insulting people. Yes, you get everyone's attention that way, but it took me a week to decide that a conversation with you might be of value. I get that you're despondent, and maybe your experiences warrant your attitude, but after reading your blog I have to say that you would be considerably more effective if you had less in the way of random insults and more reasoned arguments. I suppose that's my prejudice as an educator, I prefer the five-paragraph essay over demagoguery. :) On the other hand, politics shows us that demagoguery is considerably more effective as a means of swaying the masses. sigh

I get that you are pissed off. But perhaps it would be useful for you to remember that the organizations at which you are pissed are filled with people who are working to make life better for people just like your kids, whether they choose to be in the public schools or not.

And then there were the complaints because the district underpays his wife for her job as a TA.
Also, I would suggest that the tragedy of TAs and Custodial workers toiling for obscenely low wages is less the fault of the school district than the conservative and/or liberatarian elements of our society. A living wage law, or some governmental requirement that compensation gaps between the haves and have nots be less egregious would go a long way toward making your wife's compensation more appropriate. As a sixth year teacher, my wages are adequate, but I agree that it is tragic that millions of citizens in this country work as hard as I do for wages that wouldn't pay for a two bedroom apartment. This is an issue that will only change when we loosen our worship for the libertarian belief in the market system.

Later...