Originally Posted by BeAChooser
How about the fact that about half of the kids in the public school systems of our big cities fail to graduate high school? ... snip ...
Wrong. The statistics you are referring to discuss the graduation rate after four years in high school.
You mean that the public school system can't do what the private schools somehow manage to do ... graduate students
on time?
The truth is that you can't actually tell us what percentage of students stick around to get diplomas in public schools systems after their first 4 years of high school ... because they apparently haven't been gathering that data ... at least according to this source:
http://www.centerforpubliceducation...ght_story_on_high_school_graduation_rates.htm . It isn't likely to be a very large percentage. I did find data for one city, Seattle. I read (
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/190687_grads14.html ) that in Seattle in 2002, 6.6 percent of students were still in school after 4 years but had not yet earned a diploma. In 2003, that number jumped to 10 percent. Officials were apparently unable to say how many of the continuing students would eventually earn a diploma. You can be sure that not everyone did. In fact, according to
http://www.ajc.com/traffic/content/metro/atlanta/stories/2008/04/01/graduation_0401.html "nationwide, the study showed, just 52 percent of the students in urban school systems
ever graduate from high school." Ever.
Now there are estimates of the percent who get a GED, mostly after leaving high school ... and that number is around 15 to 20% of the total often quoted as the average number with a high school (or equivalent) degree in the US (around 70-80%). But there is a problem calling those 15-20% of students success stories because GEDs simply do not give one the same economic benefits that a 4 (or 5) year high school diploma offers. In fact, according to numerous sources, GEDs offer little benefit to most who get one.
http://www.nber.org/reporter/2008number1/heckman.html
As others have shown, and we confirm, the most significant source of bias in estimating graduation rates comes from including GED recipients as high school graduates. GEDs are high school dropouts who certify as the equivalents of ordinary graduates by passing an exam. Currently 15-20 percent of all new high school credentials issued each year are GEDs. In recent years, inclusion of GEDs as high school graduates has biased graduation rates by upwards of 7-8 percentage points. A substantial body of scholarship summarized in our 2008 book shows that the GED program does not benefit most participants, and that GEDs perform at the level of dropouts in the U.S. labor market. The GED program conceals major problems in American society.
So in a real sense, those students have been failed by the system, too ... and I think we should blame the high school system for most of that failure.
Here's another source (quoting a major study) that agrees with the above ...
http://vdare.com/sailer/080101_dropout.htm
In an important paper with the bland title of The American High School Graduation Rate: Trends and Levels,
(BAC - see http://www.nber.org/reporter/2008number1/heckman.html ) Heckman of the U. of Chicago and co-author Paul A. LaFontaine of the American Bar Association report:
"The true high school graduation rate is substantially lower than the official rate issued by the National Center for Educational Statistics."
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But in fact Heckman and LaFontaine's exhaustive study of the widest array of data sources consulted to date finds that the high school dropout rate isn't 12 percent, but about twice that. And the racial gaps have been steady since the early 1970s.
Moreover, although the high school dropout rate improved steadily through the middle of the 20th Century, falling from 75 percent in the early 1920s to 20 percent in the late 1960s, it has worsened, by up to one-fourth, since then.
This was not expected, to say the least. The high school graduation rate should still be going up—because dropping out is ever more of a personal disaster. H&L point out:
"The U.S. high school graduation rate has declined at a time when the returns to completing high school have greatly increased."
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Why is the federal government’s favored measure of high school graduation
(BAC - referring to the 70-80% numbers often quoted by defenders of the public school system) as the American Average misleading? It’s biased in large part by counting as graduates those dropouts who subsequently pass the GED test (the "General Educational Development" exam, often referred to, incorrectly, as the "Graduation Equivalency Degree".) Heckman's earlier research shows, however, that the GED counts for less in the eyes of potential employers than does a genuine high school degree:
"Although GED recipients have the same measured academic ability as high school graduates who do not attend college, they have the economic and social outcomes of otherwise similar dropouts without certification."
Now maybe you don't see it, but something is seriously wrong with our education system ... and it's NOT a lack of funding as Obama and democrats claim. Nor is it the value of a high school diploma since that has been steadily increasing in value over the past 25 years.
No, the problem is the way our kids are taught and what they are taught. And like it or not, that is mostly controlled by the liberals who have long dominated the public education system. Plus, it's the lack of value put on education by certain groups in our society ... groups that I observe mostly vote democrat. That's a correlation that we ignore at the risk of our nation's future.
And by the way, the graduation rate is MUCH worse than 50% in many large cities. For example ...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23889321/
In Detroit’s public schools, 24.9 percent of the students graduated from high school, while 30.5 percent graduated in Indianapolis Public Schools and 34.1 percent received diplomas in the Cleveland Municipal City School District.
Each of those districts has been controlled by democrats for a long, long time and there is simply no rational way you can call those public education results success stories.
Even Chicago's school system, which Obama's new Secretary of Education ran for many years, graduates only about 51%. Now I will agree our new Secretary of State actually improved the graduation rate somewhat during his tenure in Chicago ... but 51% is still nothing to brag about. And most of that improvement wasn't the result of just throwing more money at the school system. It involved changing the way they did things. And one more thing ... high school graduation rates tell only half the story. The percent of students in Chicago schools who go on and successfully complete college is simply dismal, especially in math and sciences. So although they may have received a high school diploma, they apparently weren't sufficiently prepared to actually compete in college. So they fail. Again, a problem with what is taught and how it's taught in public schools.
Now how do private high school graduation rates compare?
Consider South Carolina. Public high school graduation rates are about 49%. In comparison, the
on-time (so we are talking apples and apples here) graduation rate for South Carolina's private high schools is between 85 and 95 percent ... nearly double.
And South Carolina is typical. In fact, the National Center for Education Statistics in it's 2003-2004 Private School Universe survey (
http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2006/2006319.pdf ) found that well over 90 percent of private high school students graduate
on time. In other words, private school graduation rates FAR exceed those in public schools.
And it's hard to argue that's just because private schools get the best and the brightest. According to
http://thevoiceforschoolchoice.wordpress.com/tag/graduation-rate/ with respect to the South Carolina results, "this massive disparity cannot be explained by differences in student composition. South Carolina’s 370 private schools serve a huge range of student types, from low-income African American students in urban Catholic schools to rural white students attending small evangelical Christian schools. A wide range of secular and independent schools such as Montessori and single-gender schools exist too."
In fact, 82 percent of private school students attend religiously-affiliated schools (
http://www.capenet.org/facts.html ). Those type of schools don't usually discriminate on the basis of socioeconomic status. In fact, that link states "In December 2006, the U.S. Census Bureau released data on the social and economic characteristics of students enrolled in the nation’s schools in October 2005. It turns out that of the eight million youngsters in grades K-12 who come from families with annual incomes of $100,000 or more, 80 percent (6.4 million) attend public schools and 20 percent (1.6 million) attend private schools." Since there are 6.1 million kids in private schools, the vast majority do not come from high income families.
There is another way of gauging which school system is successful. Despite the fact that private schools cost only a fraction of what public schools cost, on average, parents of kids in private schools are far happier with the quality of the education they provide than parents in public schools. Surveys show that a full 55 percent of parents with children in public schools would send them to private schools if they had the opportunity ... because in category after category, the private schools are doing a superior job. Yet Obama and the democrats are against any effort to give parents that choice.
So as far I'm concerned, you really don't have a leg to stand on in defending the public education system from criticism. It deserves criticism and the liberals who have dominated the running of that system for decades deserve criticism, too.
Sorry, but disabled students and English Language Learners often need more than four years to complete high school.
But the percentage of those students is relatively small ... no where near half the population. Surely you aren't going to try and blame this on a few disabled kids and ESL students? Are you that shameless? You really need to own up to the problem that democrats by and large have created in the school system and not try to blame it on the kids. They are the real victims here.
Also, you continue to simply miss the point. Utah's PUBLIC school system spends a third of what Washington DC's system spends. Yet they do better on SATs and other tests. Lack of money is not the problem. Obama is WRONG.
Libertarians and free market folks can't stand those who don't fit into their pre-conceived dream of everyone taking care of themselves.
And by the way, perhaps you don't know that conservatives are provably just as caring and charitable as liberals. In fact, the statistics indicate that conservatives are far more charitable (with their own money) than liberals. From
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/03/conservatives_more_liberal_giv.html , we learn that although liberal family incomes average 6 percent higher than those of conservative families, conservative households give, on average, 30 percent more to charity than the average liberal household. Bush carried 24 of the 25 states where charitable giving was above average. People who reject the idea that "government has a responsibility to reduce income inequality" give an average of four times more than people who accept that proposition. Now wipe the egg off your face.
And the largest school system in the United States....run by a Republican.
ROTFLOL! Now you are simply being dishonest. The largest public school system in the US is New York City's ... with more than one million students in 1,200 separate schools. You must be delusional to think it is run by republicans. First of all, the Board of Education of NYC consists of 7 members. Two are appointed by the mayor (Bloomberg, and if you think he's a conservative then you are truly are delusional) and the others are appointed (1 each) by Borough Presidents (who generally are liberals as well). And since 2002, the mayor also gets to appoint the chancellor of the system and has more direct control over many aspects of it. Again, control by a liberal. And note that democrats were against mayoral control of the Board of Education during Guilianni's term as mayor. Guilianni, you see, was a real conservative. So during Guilianni's term, the Board of Education was again controlled by democrats.
As for other cities and components of the education system:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2007-03-20-cover-mayors-schools_N.htm
More mayors move to take over schools
Updated 3/22/2007
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CITIES WITH MAYOR IN CONTROL
• Boston: Mayor Thomas Menino, a Democrat appoints a seven-member school committee, which then names a superintendent. ... snip ...
• Chicago: The nation's third-largest school system has been under mayoral control since Democrat Richard Daley took it over in 1995 ... snip ... State law allows the mayor to appoint seven people to the Chicago Board of Education without the city council's approval. ... snip ...
• Cleveland: The current structure took effect in 1998. The board of education is made up of nine voting members appointed by the mayor (BAC - a democrat). ... snip ...
• Los Angeles: The California Legislature gave Democratic Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa partial control of the nation's second-largest school district. ... snip ...
• Baltimore: Since 1997, the mayor and the governor have jointly appointed school board members. (BAC - both democrat) ... snip ...
• Harrisburg, Pa.: The 10,000-student school district has been under mayoral control since 2000. A five-member board of control, appointed by the mayor, acts as the governing body of the district. (BAC - the mayor is a democrat) ... snip ...
• Jackson, Miss.: The mayor appoints the school board, and the city council confirms the board. This system, in place since the 1950s, predates the current trend toward mayoral control. (BAC - the mayor is a democrat) ... snip ...
• Philadelphia: ... snip ... A five-member commission was created to replace the city's former school board, with two members appointed by the mayor and three named by the governor. (BAC - both the mayor and governor are democrats) ... snip ...
• Providence, R.I.: Since 2003, the mayor appoints a nine-member school board with the approval of the city council. (BAC - a democrat) ... snip ...
... snip ...
• In Washington (DC), Mayor Adrian Fenty is poised to gain control of the troubled school system next month. Under his plan, which most members of the city council have said they approve, the mayor would oversee the school superintendent and the system's management and budget. (BAC - Fenty is a democrat)
... snip ...
• In Hartford, Conn., where the mayor appoints five of nine school board members, Mayor Eddie Perez named himself to the school board in December 2005, three years after the troubled school district emerged from state supervision. Perez is now its chairman. (BAC - Perez is a democrat)
http://www.eagleforum.org/psr/2003/aug03/psraug03.shtml
Who Controls Education Policies?
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NEA Gears Up to Elect Democrats*
Tropical Storm Bill roared into New Orleans this summer carrying in its tailwind 10,000 convention delegates who purport to represent 2.7 million members of the National Education Association. They call themselves "the world's largest democratic, deliberative body," but the NEA's version of democracy is: majority rules, and the minority have no rights. The NEA accords no rights to the 30% of NEA members who are Republicans. Since 1976 when the NEA became a big player in national politics by supporting Jimmy Carter, the NEA has endorsed a Democrat for President in every election.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8427-2005Mar28.html
College Faculties A Most Liberal Lot, Study Finds
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March 29, 2005
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By their own description, 72 percent of those teaching at American universities and colleges are liberal and 15 percent are conservative, says the study being published this week. The imbalance is almost as striking in partisan terms, with 50 percent of the faculty members surveyed identifying themselves as Democrats and 11 percent as Republicans.
The disparity is even more pronounced at the most elite schools, where, according to the study, 87 percent of faculty are liberal and 13 percent are conservative.
Sorry, but any reasonable person will come to the conclusion that our education system is controlled by liberals. And failing in its responsibilities. And will understand that lack of money is NOT the problem. So Obama is again either lying or stuck on stupid.
