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The Rise and Fall of For-Profit Schools

newyorker.com

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Re: The Rise and Fall of For-Profit Schools

#101

Post by gjm11 »

notjoedimaggio wrote: post #100
wfo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it's a money issue. We pay teachers garbage for working harder than anyone else, who wants to do that job? If you got the A-types who go into finance or law or medicine into teaching you'd see a very different scenario play out. Right now it's essentially all-volunteer. People call it "a labor of love" but a double-time job paid at part-time wages is what they mean. Teachers don't make money or have respect…

"The BLS reports the median annual salary for high school teachers was $55,360 in 2013. The best-paid 10 percent in the field made approximately $86,720, while the bottom 10 percent made $37,230. Compensation is typically based on years of experience and educational level." [0] This ($57k) is right around the median household income in the US. Note that is per household, which may include multiple earners. Tough to l…

Teachers aren't randomly selected from the population; they more or less all have bachelors' degrees, and generally they have further qualifications in teaching. So the appropriate point of comparison would be something more like holders of masters' degrees.

According to http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm the median salary for an individual with a master's degree in the US in 2014 was $1326/week or about $69k/year.

Re: The Rise and Fall of For-Profit Schools

#102

Post by drumdance »

ThomPete wrote: post #81
drumdance wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My recollection from Freakonomics is they found that the children who lose the lottery still do as well as those who get in. The differentiating factor seems to be parents who care enough to enter the lottery in the first place. Their research was based on magnet schools in Chicago in the nineties. I don't know how well that model correlates with Success Academy.

It's I believe the Hawtorne Effect I believe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect

I don't believe that applies in the Chicago study because they just looked at data retrospectively. There were no observers when the events were taking place.

Re: The Rise and Fall of For-Profit Schools

#103

Post by dalke »

ThomPete wrote: post #98
dalke wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comic is an ahistorical portrayal of truthiness. You accuse me of cherry picking, so I get to point out your own cherry picking of history, or in this case, false portrayal of history.

Again. What you claim is wrong about the comic is not what it's claiming.

The comic says that in 1960 parents blamed students for poor grades, while in 2010 parent blame teachers.

Do you have any evidence that that's actually true? My examples demonstrate that it was far from universally true in the 1960s.

If was was true, when did it change? There are plenty of complaints in the 1970s complaining about how the parents are at fault. In fact, I can find complaints from the 1940s about how the young people these days have things given to them on a platter and never have to face any challenges.

If it isn't claiming an actual historical propensity, why does it use "1960"?

And if you think the highly unionized school teacher of the 1960s was effective, then why do you think unions are the problem now?

Re: The Rise and Fall of For-Profit Schools

#104

Post by dalke »

ThomPete wrote: post #99
dalke wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I gave links to the funding situation for charter schools in two different states. I can give more if you want. I don't think you can claim that I have not spent some time reading up on where charter schools get funding. You consistently respond by pointing to a single charter school. No one has ever claimed that there aren't some excellent charter schools. But why should I believe that Success Academy Charter School…

Those complains was based on a premise that most charter schools are like that which is what I took issue with. Again go back and read what this discussion started with. It was OP making claims about good charters beeing the exception. 1,198 charter schools in California only 6 of them are LTDs. And yes I talk about a single charter school exactly because I don't want claim what I have no data to back up with, which…

You'll also notice that California was mentioned in the link I gave, to https://www.the74million.org/article/whitmire-5-ways-to-stop... .

> Whitmire: 5 Ways to Stop Bad Charters from Derailing Education Reform

> 2. Charter advocates need to name names.

> That’s a sensitive one. Already, charters are under attack from teachers unions and many superintendents. Why pile on by naming the low-performers among you? That probably explains why so few state charter organizers single out charters for closure. But there’s an important exception: California, home to the most robust charter system in the nation.

> “About five years ago we realized we had a quality problem,” said Elizabeth Robitaille, who oversees performance issues at the California Charter Schools Association. By controlling for socioeconomic factors, the group could see that its schools tended to fall on opposite ends of a scatter graph — a disproportionate number of both high- and low-performers.

The critique is that most districts don't hold charters to the same standards as public schools.

You point out the only state where that isn't true.

And it was put into place to address exactly that critique.

So you can't defend charter schools as a whole from that critique by pointing to the one state which took that critique to heart.

Re: The Rise and Fall of For-Profit Schools

#105

Post by kraig911 »

Shivetya wrote: post #16
exelius wrote: post #7

This is a good thing for the country; the education provided by these schools is often on par with sources like Kahn Academy and Coursera -- at a much higher price. It seemed like many for-profit colleges are simply a way for "schools" to collect federally guaranteed loans that the students then have to pay back. The student assumes all of the risk. The other side of this industry are charter schools. These are for-p…

Oh please, get off this idea we don't put enough money into education. We put too much, so much so that they ended up hiring people other than teachers and the carry forward costs are too high. You want to fix education in the US, the money must follow the student. Until the school systems themselves are forced to improve by having students want to attend they won't. The recent issue with testing which they said was…

I've never read anything that was so incorrect and completely uninformed... I don't want to reply with a simple down vote I want to inform you that you're incredibly mistaken. In some districts it's at an all time low when in comparison to other costs which have rose the amount invested in education has been reduced...

Re: The Rise and Fall of For-Profit Schools

#106

Post by kraig911 »

notjoedimaggio wrote: post #100
wfo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it's a money issue. We pay teachers garbage for working harder than anyone else, who wants to do that job? If you got the A-types who go into finance or law or medicine into teaching you'd see a very different scenario play out. Right now it's essentially all-volunteer. People call it "a labor of love" but a double-time job paid at part-time wages is what they mean. Teachers don't make money or have respect…

"The BLS reports the median annual salary for high school teachers was $55,360 in 2013. The best-paid 10 percent in the field made approximately $86,720, while the bottom 10 percent made $37,230. Compensation is typically based on years of experience and educational level." [0] This ($57k) is right around the median household income in the US. Note that is per household, which may include multiple earners. Tough to l…

High school teachers are only a small sliver of the actual segment of teachers in the segment. What more they are not accurately documented because of unions, and vary greatly state to state. Here in my native state of Texas they barely get enough to cut it.

Re: The Rise and Fall of For-Profit Schools

#107

Post by kraig911 »

ThomPete wrote: post #13
exelius wrote: post #7

This is a good thing for the country; the education provided by these schools is often on par with sources like Kahn Academy and Coursera -- at a much higher price. It seemed like many for-profit colleges are simply a way for "schools" to collect federally guaranteed loans that the students then have to pay back. The student assumes all of the risk. The other side of this industry are charter schools. These are for-p…

As someone with a kid in a charter school (Success Academy) I have to disagree with the very premise for how you discuss them. Some charter schools is a response to the problem of amongst other issues, a way too strong teachers union and it's inability to develop contemporary learning environments for children. In California teachers union have in their agreement that they can't get replaced by new technology. The hi…

The issue is quality of education is not easily quantified and measurable beyond testing. People want to see their tax dollars working but then you have now a system in place to protect both the teachers, the schools, and the tax payers but NOT the actual students.

I've helped a few Charter Schools and religious ones, and while the kids are mostly behaved everyone I've been too they are way behind track academically. I think the actual lack of oversight creates a different problem.

Re: The Rise and Fall of For-Profit Schools

#108

Post by brockers »

kraig911 wrote: post #105
Shivetya wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh please, get off this idea we don't put enough money into education. We put too much, so much so that they ended up hiring people other than teachers and the carry forward costs are too high. You want to fix education in the US, the money must follow the student. Until the school systems themselves are forced to improve by having students want to attend they won't. The recent issue with testing which they said was…

I've never read anything that was so incorrect and completely uninformed... I don't want to reply with a simple down vote I want to inform you that you're incredibly mistaken. In some districts it's at an all time low when in comparison to other costs which have rose the amount invested in education has been reduced...

Nationally speaking money spent per student is at an all-time high ($11,749 according to figures from Figures in the Statistical Abstract of the United States.) Yet we are getting worse and worse results. Private schools, on average, spend significantly less per student ($7,171 according to the same source) but achieve significantly better results.

Some school districts spend almost $25,000 per student which is drastically larger than all but a handful of the most expensive private K-12 schools in the world.

Money is simply not the problem and every single statistical number I have seen shows it.

Re: The Rise and Fall of For-Profit Schools

#109

Post by brockers »

specialist wrote: post #34
ThomPete wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a parent issue first of all and can be solved without more money. http://i.imgur.com/LglSapk.jpg

Parental involvement is the number one factor for student achievement. Followed by socio-economic stuff, like food, household income, zip code. Make a ranked list of factors and teacher competency isn't even in the top ten. Which makes all this school reform chatter drive me nuts.

Neither is teacher salary. You are spot on in your factor rankings and it make me absolutely crazy every time people try to turn student failure into a teacher pay issue.

Re: The Rise and Fall of For-Profit Schools

#110

Post by dalke »

ThomPete wrote: post #24
partisan wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that gets lost in the comparison between charter schools and public schools is that charter schools get to cherry pick their students. The students not accepted into charter schools are sent to public schools. Public schools then have a higher concentration of underperforming students and therefore perform worse when compared to charter schools. If you are given the best students and money is thrown at you,…

Charter schools like Success Academy function by lottery so no cherry picking at all. And keep in mind it was started in Harlem not exactly the best base for the kids with the best resources. The reason why charter schools like Success Academy are popular is because it's strong focus and philosophy.

> The reason why charter schools like Success Academy are popular is because it's strong focus and philosophy.

Which from today's NYT at http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/10/30/nyregion/at-a-success-a... apparently includes pushing out any students.

That is, says Brown, principal at Success Academy Fort Greene: "Some of them needed an alternative setting with highly specialized services".

You know where those (expensive) 'highly specialized' services are? Public schools.

After 19 suspensions, this both with ADHD now attends "Public School 119 in Brooklyn, where Ms. Wimbish said he was very happy and had not been suspended once."

Is it really the parents to blame? Or a 'one size fits all' discipline model that just happens to select for the easier, most compliant children?

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