@GearHead...What exactly are you rejecting? This is not the union resisting, but 150 years of cultural tradition. Test scores don't tell the whole story. Just look at the voucher school test scores in Milwaukee. More importantly it is a question of reforming the system we already have and not turning the clock back to a time that didn't work.

Lyle .. So did they fund these first public schools by force .. BY forcing people thru taxation on thier income??

@J.B. Schmidt...Since when has primary control of local schools moved to the federal government? School boards remain the governing body and you can't get much more local than that.

I am not even going to address the teachers' unions. Again you are validating my point about fiscal conservatives.

Finally, I couldn't agree with you more about educating for college. I have been a strong proponent of vocational education.

Two other issues; our socialist education system worked well for over a century. In fact, schools were more socialistic in the past. What worked in the past wouldn't work now because the environment has changed. Technology is forcing us to adapt or become a secondary society when compared to the rest of the world. We are no longer an industrial manufacturing economy, but yet we are still educating for a long passed economy. This is precisely why we need to reform the system and mission, not abandon it.

@Lyle
The drive by the national government to demand a certain level of test scores or academics to qualify a state for funding has had an impact on how the school boards conduct business. Not to mention draw money out of the local economy via taxation to be redistributed. Oh wait, there I go again arguing for fiscal responsibility.

To blow off Chicago is ignorant. The teachers are not teaching in a Democrat controlled area of the country because have decided to sacrifice the education of 400k children in order to fatten their wallets and you cry fiscal conservatism? If the events in Chicago haven't begun to even cause some libs (as yourself) to question the true need for greedy public sector unions; then you are to far lost in your own rhetoric.

"What worked in the past wouldn't work now because the environment has changed" is an easy excuse given by liberals for everything from welfare, to SS, medicare and energy policy. Do you simply purchase a new car because it has more advanced technology and sacrifice a solidly running older car? The fact is, since the early 1900 we have added months to the amount of education given a child in 1st through 8th grade and as a result have not increased any test scores. It was in the 1970's when the teachers union began supporting presidential candidates and also when the Department of Ed was formed. Since then test scores have fallen even further. It is easy to logically say they were not needed, hence get rid of them.

@J.B. Schmidt...There is a clear attempt by the federal government to assure a minimum level of education. You are much too young to remember when the feds weren't redistributing funding. Wisconsin was a strong economy and supported education. Whereas, states like Mississippi and others severely suffered in the quality of education due to lack of funding. There is nothing wrong with standardizing expectations. Expectations don't tell you how it's to be done, but what the end product should be. Wisconsin redistributes funds to schools to help provide a quality of education to all citizens.

I think, that the teachers in Chicago have stepped across a reasonable boundary. This is why the restriction of public employees from striking in Wisconsin was a good feature of the state statutes. If the public unions continue in Chicago and other jurisdictions, then they should limit their ability to take job actions.

We all have a vested interest in a literate society. People realized that in the past, hence the increased time spent in school. The old instructional model that you refer to prepared citizens for limited literacy needed only for an agricultural society. As the true needs of the industrial society were revealed, more education was required. You also are not addressing the need for universal education to help solidify an American identity. When the process began, we had immigrants from all over the world and within at least two generations they had been assimilated.

J.B. Schmidt...(continued) Universal education has done much to create an environment for the nation to progress to become a world leader. Also, the universal public education system promote a single American identity; irrespective of race, gender, religion and ethnicity.

Test scores are not the only indication of how a system is working. If we go to a diverse approach to education, then testing will become just about the only measure and then only at the end of the education experience. Education service providers will further divide the nation accentuating our differences rather than focusing on our similarities and unifying principles. I have yet to see any proposals that will do as good a job as we have. The only thing proposed by conservatives is to scrap the system in attempt to reinvent the wheel without putting forth the necessary resources.

@Lyle
Where is the proof that increasing the amount of education increases the overall level of society? We have been handing out billions in government loans and education funding to poor areas and college students to what result? Do we not still have the same level of poverty that we had in 1950? Hasn't the gap between rich and poor increased as we increased the availability to education?

As for redistribution, I am against any redistribution of wealth done by the federal government. In order to believe that redistribution works, you need to assume the American people are unable to make good choices and the government is solely responsible for saving people. Not to mention, Mississippi still ranks last in education. Which again brings me back to my point, how has any changes (ie federal government standards, teachers unions or redistribution) had any positive affect on education?

Minimum levels of education assumes a) all kids can be educated to that level b) our society needs all kids educated to a specific level. The education system of the early 1900 did what was needed, produce a workforce with a basic level of education. At the same time, we still produced doctors, scholars, etc. Hence, it did it was designed for. While occupations have changed because of technology, the same path to an educated workforce can be taken by simply changing the classes.

Again who wants to reinvent the wheel? I thought we wanted to turn back the clock?

"For a lot of Milwaukee kids, the school is their haven and in more than 80% of the population, they receive reduced or free lunch and breakfast, the only meals they may have during the week. It also provides cultural experiences that enhance quality of life and also a social common grounding. What some call "waste" is the difference between a transformative life/educational experience and one that is at best perfunctory, if not lacking."

*****************

This places unrealistic expectations on the school system. Schools are not meant to provide shelter, sustenance and safety in addition to an education in those areas where the same is lacking due to the economic circumstances of those in the district. We've tasked schools with being the provider of first resort in many areas while not allowing them to discriminate between those truly in need and those taking advantage of the provisions simply because they're available. You can't expect any school system to function properly given that kind of extra burden. If anything, we need to free up the schools to get back to what they were intended to do originally - educate. If the decision is to provide social services to all comers, regardless of demonstrable need, then set up a separate system (or systems) to do so.

Absolutely right Bob. And the reason why is because the safety net has been shredded, private charity is not enough, jobs have been sent to the burbs or overseas, and so the only alternative is the school house.

That's certainly one simplistic way of looking at it.

Without ulterior motive? LMAO!

You really made yourself a fool with that one liner, Brent. Wow, just wow... To say something as flat out stupid as that as Chicago Union Thugs want a 30% increase in pay... wow, just WOW!@!! LMAO IDIOT!

@ Bob McBride, The Finnish have a model that provides meals, and health care in the schools. I don't think America is ready to actually follow success stories that cost money though. But they do get results. Look at their International standing. I especially like the fact that there are no private schools in the country so there is an incentive to make things work rather than move to private schools. That seems fair in the sense that everyone gets an equal shot at education.

How about a system whereby meals are provided at home and healthcare is provided at medical facilities? That wouldn't involve private schools or the expense involved in setting up and operating a duplication of what's readily available now and utilized by most of the population already. Nor would it put an additional burden on a school system that's struggling to provide the basics of education successfully.

@Michael
The problem with comparing the Finish system with ours is that in Finland you have a isolated homogeneous culture. As such they have a different work ethic and community involvement mentality then we do in America.

Also, teachers have an exceptional amount of freedom when deciding class material. They are not bound by the US demand for teaching toward the test score. As such teacher stay abreast of the latest teaching material. All the while they spend less time actually teaching the students.

Our system is bloated with a federal government bureaucracy, unions that wag the dog, school boards in bed with unions and other politicians and parents unable to implement change when they see a problem. The unions, politicians and other public workers would prevent us from making any meaningful change toward a system like Finland or they would attempt to legislate the Finland environment and make a bigger mess.

@Michael

It's pretty simple minded to compare Finland to the US. Look at the population difference alone, not to mention the demographic differences.

You are not even comparing apples to oranges, you are comparing apples to machine screws.

@ Bob McBride. I respect your opinion of doing things the same way we have always done things. My point is that there are other models and the one you suggest doesn't really help impoverished neighborhoods. I have a problem with the quality of our education mainly from the perspective of what isn't taught.

Schools should be teaching, not be providing social services based on a system that essentially says if you show up, you get them. They're schools, not taxpayer funded day care centers, community health centers or soup kitchens. If we're going to go that route, then we might was well turn them all into taxpayer funded boarding schools because the same arguments used to suggest we need to provide free food and healthcare in the schools could also be used to suggest that we need to provide free shelter and other living related amenities because the homes from which some students come don't provide those things adequately, either.

As has been pointed out, we're not Finland. We're dealing with different problems and a different population.

As for private or charter schools, their emergence as a more widespread alternative has been relatively recent. On the other hand, the problems with our public school system predate that. Private schools are nothing more than the latest scapegoat for a system that's been failing for many, many years in certain parts of the country while having boatloads of money dumped into it and producing substandard results.

In truth, the problem is really not with the schools. It's with the communities some serve. We've allowed to develop a population that's dependent on government handouts to the point where a large portion of that population knows no other form of existence or really has much in the way of motivation to seek one out.

@ Bob McBride, So you think that the Finnish results are bad too? Or just about the way they go about educating? I certainly respect their results. And I really like the notion that at one table, government, business and educators meet to collaborate on needs, ideas and the education that business is looking for. That being said they look beyond the next quarter and they are not continually at odds with each other. This approach seems to be in the best interests of everyone. Especially the students.

What I'm saying, Michael, is that charging public schools with providing food and healthcare isn't going to provide enough of an (if any) improvement in student performance to warrant the expenditure in terms of both time and money involved in having them do so - claims to the contrary based on what happens in Finland not withstanding. This isn't Finland. The populations and problems associated with them are not the same. Here, you wouldn't be addressing a problem. You'd be further enabling a dependency brought on by similar attempts to address problems by throwing money at them and calling it a day.

@CowDung...You illustrate my point. Why move backwards if we know the public school model works for a majority of citizens. We do have fiscal issues and have pushed schools to perform tasks more than just educate. The problems with low performing schools isn't just teachers or education infrastructure. It is time to look beyond the symptoms and look at the real social issues. I believe in school choice to the extent that parents should be able to move their children from problem schools to better performing schools. I don't want to create more problems by privatizing education, extending and expanding the voucher systems.

If we need to extend or expand the voucher systems in order to allow parents to move their children from problem schools to better performing schools, then I'm all for it.

I agree that there's societal issues behind the failures of MPS. While choice programs cannot address all of the issues, it can get students into a better learning environment and help reduce or eliminate the sense of hopelessness that is often felt by inner city parents.

@H.E. Pennypacker....You are not stating a fact, only a generality. There are plenty of examples that refute your statement.

@ OCR ---- every once in a while it is helpful to hear from someone like you, to remind us all that there are people who are incredibly ignorant and bigoted and they will never change, just a burden that the rest of society has to bear.

Glad to see that the Pantywaist Choir of Liberal Males is awake so early in the morning.

Not to dig too deep into your penchant for sodomy, Taoist, but why all of the projecting? Is your over fed wife not doing it for you anymore?

@ HE/OC - at the end of the day, we, what was is again? - Pantywaist Choir of Liberal Males really aren't homophobes. This means accusing us of homosexual acts really isn't an insult - as there is nothing wrong with homosexual acts committed in a loving menogomous relationship.

The difference is you are a homophobe - meaning any slight or inferrence leaves you screaming and braying like stubborn, ignorant mules.

@David

Dude your haircut freaks me out, stop posting so I don't have to look at your profile pic!

David Tatarowicz is another one of these liberal goof balls who think that paying their bills is someone else's responsibility. CCAP this mofo.

@oak creek resident...You didn't disappoint me with your ad hominem attack, it is fully expected. Fortunately, others like to be challenged, resulting in deeper discussions and the fine honing of thinking.

@Oak Creek Resident: your comments are what make Patch.com fail to achieve its communication goals of providing a forum for constructive discussions. You ought to climb back into that cave from which you emerged. Your bigotry and failure to investigate the important, crucial aspects of American, Wisconsin, and Milwaukee life are the worst examples possible of public communication.
Education is critical - more so than when I left high school at the end of the '60's. Sure, I agree: College or University education is not the answer for everyone.Diminishing higher education or moving to "privatized education," however is so closed-minded as to be reprehensible. Life-long education for all has now become mandatory.To lay "blanket-blame" on public schools on one particular, or any limited number of, issue(s), also is a flawed. that,tendency to see only point A and Point Z is the Republican-way, however: genuinely dishonest.Education is a community issue.It must involve parents, grandparents, teachers, students, administrators, the private and public sectors, in helping to drive forward, n frame what education most will serve their particular needs. Even people such as yourself, @Oak Creek Resident, should be involved and help to attend to our young. Respectfully, however, with your closed-minded biases and immature manner of expressing yourself -U can sit it all out.
Go have another drink; watch a hate film; do something to stimulate more venom; and, then, keep it to yourself.

@St. Swithin
1) And the Chicago teachers aren't doing it for greed?????????? I pay a high tax rate and I also have good schools. However, to increase my taxes for a new state of art basketball court, football field or to give teachers a better compensation package then any other member of society while not judging them based on performance is foolishness.
2) Removing religion creates a void in beliefs being taught that must be filled by something. Currently it is secular, amoral, YOLO (You Only Live Once, teen slang) that is having detrimental affects on our youth. Removing God only replaces it with a worldly god.
3)Racism is liberal finger pointing when they aren't intelligent enough to come up anything based in the real world.
4)What is wrong with for profit school? Most Charter schools in the middle and high school level do better.

Please tell me who is trying to kill the public school system. Most conservatives want the administrative/bureaucratic/public sector union BS removed simplifying education and giving more freedoms to teachers and individual schools.

My kids attend public schools. I am in favor of giving vouchers to the underprivileged in order to lift up the bottom of society, I believe it is you libs trying to force them back in to the gutter schools of MPS.

@J.B.
1) It's always interesting to see you justify a position by saying "the other side does it". If you actually research the Chicago strike you will see it is not really about wages.
2) You prove my point.
3) I used to live in Georgia. My county had one private high school. It was started the year after Georgia's high schools were ordered to desegregate. It was called "Heritage".
4) No, most charter schools do not do better. Furthermore, if there is a better way to run a public school, the solution is to use your funds to implement the better way at that school, not hand the money to a private school without the same level of oversight while starving the public school of funds.

@Swithin
Your right. The teachers in Chicago are striking because they don't want their pay to be affected by the work they produce. That's not greedy.

It is nice to see you are OK with an amoral society. Yet, you demand we pay more taxes in order to fulfill our moral obligation to poor. Hypocrite?

As for Georgia, wasn't that state controlled by Democrats during that point in history? Again, liberals can't base race accusations in reality.

Oddly enough the charter schools are still teaching in Chicago. The performance of charter school varies heavily on the administration. The problem that creates poor schools within the charter and voucher system has nothing to do with the existence and everything to with the parents not taking advantage of the free choice they have. If parents sent their kids to the well performing schools, other school would step up in order to attract the student. The competition that should exist and should create a better system for voucher and charter schools, is the same system that is lacking for public education and stifles growth.

@ J.B. 4)What is wrong with for profit school? Most Charter schools in the middle and high school level do better.

Louisiana has a long enough history with privatizing schools. Seems like corruption has become a problem there. Curious to hear why you think profits in education is in our best interest.

@Michael
I am not completely in favor of turning the system over to a for profit system. However, most liberals (ie Swithin) are opposed under you same presumption that they will by default become corrupt. It is more a hatred of private sector profits then the schools themselves.

Obviously, the problem everywhere is parent involvement. What I like about he choice program and private schools is it offers parents the freedom to choose the best. It introduces competition into the system. If parents took that role seriously and chose school of good quality and upstanding character, the choice program and private schools would be a success. In turn they would strengthen the public school system as it would need to step up to improve.

We can only change the system through parents demanding the change.

I can live with $100k per student when the failing charter school experiment keep doing it for $6k.

And yes. I will then promise to stop, what was it again... crying like a girl and whining like a child.

When I do, you need to stop braying like a mule.

You just proved our point. Stop cutting and start increasing. The GPA will sky rocket - guaranteed

Nothought Troy obviously is a leach as he thinks throwing money at the problem will fix things.

I guess if I were a 20 something loser living in my parent's basement, with no education and job, I wouldn't care about wasting money either.

Right troy?

Good one O/C - gooood one. You got me.

Never mind I worked my tail off for my University Degree working from kitchens and waiting tables in restaurants to third shifts in a factory to pay for it, and am on a lunch hour to my professional employement I earned through my education.

But you know me so much better.

Throwing money at the problem may or may not solve the problem. Cutting all the money off and cutting education from our priorities have only created more problems...

... like say, your ignorance.

@FreeThought Troy: "You just proved our point. Stop cutting and start increasing. The GPA will sky rocket - guaranteed."

Actually, Governor Walker and the Republicans just proved you can trim ALOT of fat from your budget without hurting student learning, provided you have a good school system in place.

Obviously, MPS and RUSD DO Not have good school systems in place.

Brian Dey, I think it's time you ran again for a seat on the RUSD Board of Education.

Yeah O/C: A lot of republicans believe unions the alpha and omega to all problems. Never mind 95% of what unions fight for are working conditions to help educate kids better.
BAH - Privitize it!!! Like everything else. The market is the alpha and omega to all of our solutions!!!
Yeah-yeah - the market crashed leaving millions with no retirement and charter schools have proven to be a lost endeavor, IT DOESN'T MATTER
Keep on doing the things proven wrong and run away from things proven right - the Republican Way!!!

MADDNESS/INSANITY 2012!!!!

@Nothought BOY

Dude for the past 30 years we have been throwing tons and tons of money at education. Teacher pay and school funding increasing at 2-3 times the rate of inflation or cost of living.

And you think we've been cutting this whole time?

I guess if you truly did go to college, Iike I did, you surely have not gotten your money's worth if you don't understand the history here.

Goes to show, throwing money at the problem, in this case Nothought Boy's ignorance, doesn't solve anything... now does it, Boy?

Remember that Mrs Ruble is the head union goon for all of the MSW types in Milwaukee County. Lyle' mouth is firmly attached to the teats of the taxpayers as is his lazy union thug of a wife. All government is good for this clan.

@Greg....The current education system works for the majority of children. The question to be asked is why doesn't it work everywhere. Why doesn't work for those who are the most impoverished? We focus on areas like Milwaukee and Racine, finding only disappointment, when it works everywhere else. What is the difference?

I think I covered that in part 2. I don't think is so much the education system as it is society, after all it does work for some of the impoverished. There is no stigma or consequences for being a failure. Students in these districts that want to get ahead in life do it. I think it is unfortunate that the schools have to focus on those that don't care about getting ahead.

I'll jump in here--it's because of the racial/economic achievement gap. Children of parents with English literacy gaps have an average of 25 hours total reading time when they enter K5; children from higher income, English proficient families range from 1,000 - 1,700 hours of reading time. (Sitting side-by-side reading a book or hearing books read.) That's a staggering disparity. A five year old with 1,000+ hours of story time has developed phoneme awareness (what is a letter, how it helps to make a word). Home life is probably more stable if parents have time to devote toward childhood literacy.

Remember that teachers cannot control what happens outside of the classroom. A kid might be enthusiastic about a writing or science assignment and come home to find they have to babysit and the homework doesn't get done. Or they have to miss school for the same type of reason. If the parents don't ensure there is an education-inducive atmosphere it's not going to happen. So many teachers actually go to visit children who have spotty attendance or homework production, to identify causal factors and address them. I know teachers who have started evening adult literacy programs at the public school because important papers aren't being signed and returned because the parent can't read or can't read English.

That's why there are disparities between schools in high poverty urban centers and suburban school districts.

Then why were the education results better in the past? Why did children who had immigrant parents in the 1930's learn? Why do many Asian or other foreign (just an example, don't read anything into it) students do so well, when many have non-English speaking parents? How is it that some kids, the poorest of the poor, have done well?

There are several answers to this question: Part of the reason is better reporting; a high poverty, highly migrational student population, etc. Teachers may start the school year with 30 children in the seats; by the end of the school year there might still be 30 but a percentage of children are different. Children in MPS move frequently, including out of state and out of the country; they may stay for one semester and leave; others arrive mid-year; it makes program logistics very difficult to assess/track.

There are always going to be exceptions, part of the answer is cultural. Intergenerational households may provide grandparents who watch children and ensure homework is being done. Expectations may differ across communities. A retired MPS principal of my acquaintance was very frustrated by parents who made clear that their expectation was that the school would provide ALL learning. Thus their children began school unprepared and were guaranteed a complete lack of parental guidance/support at home. This attitude crosses the socio-economic spectrum. It's astounding how many parents I have met (middle and upper income) who believe children are a required appendage, to be dealt with, scheduled, and lived through at their own convenience.

There are underprepared and undernurturing parents out there. Does cutting school programs empower their underserved children? No!

O/C MAN - I would like to see some figures to back up your claim.

You are Conservative. There is a history of making numbers up out of the blue just to prove your point.

Your a little boy, look them up yourself. Having payed taxes for the past 20+ years I watch closely just how much of my property taxes is gobbled up by the school districts, and how their annual spending increases are no where even close to inflation or cola.

So instead of being ignorant and dismissing facts by saying they are "made up", do a little research for yourself.

Translation: I made the numbers up and don't know what I'm talking about. I have now turned to insults because Troy caught me in my lie, and I don't know what else to do.

Just drop it O/C. Your argument is tired.

@Troy

Here I found this is 10 seconds with Google. Some guy used #s from MPS's very own documents to make that table, and it shows the outrageous budget increases each year.

Spending per student has nearly doubled in 10 years. Yet sheep like you continue to say we are cutting too much and need to spend more per student.

Thanks for helping me prove both you and your point irrelevant and false.

http://www.sequenceinc.com/fraudfiles/2008/10/milwauke-public-schools-obscene-property-tax-increase/

Don't you mean too bad that if someone brings up a fact, that you immediately call them a LIAR if they don't provide backup immediately? Get with it kid.

Also, those figures were more recent than 2007. Get with it kid.

And lastly, get with it kid.

Apology accepted. In the future, please do a little research ON YOUR OWN before falling for the lies that your liberal MASTERS are telling you, kid.

FreeThoughtTroy
1 hour ago
Ace and O/C, you are right, I stand corrected.

This person is an imposter. One week ago 'someone' used my screen name to say things I would never say to embarrass me, and I suspect the same tactic here. For shame, whoever you are.

Yes, it happened to me awhile back, too. Patch advised me to uplink a unique image that would distinguish me from poseurs. The only issue is that sometimes the images don't load.

I uploaded an image as well, but as you can see it doesn't appear all the time. I alerted my local Patch editor about the impostor, and that account was suspended.

Even though I know that the above is a fake Nothough Boy, as the real Boy wouldn't have the ability to comprehend that he's wrong, it is still none-the-less enjoyable to read.

You are officially excused and allowed to leave the room, Nothought Boy. :)

I have a feeling he's still in the room, OCR.

Exactly right. I guess we all learned that Lyle has so much interest in sucking from the public teat that he feels the need to go on here to post a blog full of bullSH*T, to protect his public money hog-trough from which he feeds.

If Lyle had one bit of integrity and honesty, he'd admit that the union is a backwards monstrosity that stands in the way of almost every new way to teach kids.

Reaaaal progressive huh? He's been exposed.

We didn't used to. In years past, aid to education came from the federal and state governments -- money raised through income and sales taxes. With the cuts in income tax and the 'savings' at both the federal and state levels, the school districts have had to rely more on the local property tax levy. Just remember that the next time a Presidential or gubernatorial candidate promises to cut taxes and spending. It will end up costing you.

Randy- In Wisconsin, check your history. School funding has always come through property taxes at the local level equaling about half up to 1996. Then funding from the local level dropped to 33.3% gradually while state funding went up to 67.6% by the state by 2006. Federal aid has never amounted to more than an average of 5% and local boards had the right to levy higher through referendum.

Is that the case for every district, though?

Yes Randy, that is the case in every Wisconsin district. Funding use to come primarily through the local school board, and the past 14 years, it comes primarily throught the stae and federal govt. provides the smallest piece of the pie, yet they have the costliest mandates. That is why many conservatives want the feds out of it completely and controlled funding by the states and the school boards. To bring the money closer to home so there is more public accountability.

"Funding use to come primarily through the local school board, and the past 14 years, it comes primarily throught the stae and federal govt. provides the smallest piece of the pie, yet they have the costliest mandates."

I think you need to rephrase that sentence. Does state and federal funding provide the smallest piece of the pie or does it not? And is the percentage the same in the 'rich' districts as it is in the lower property value areas like Racine and Milwaukee?

I agree that if the Feds impose a costly mandate they need to pay for it.

@Brian Dey....(continued) As an institution, education is closely tied to the other institutions including the institution of business and economics. I will not disagree that like all bureaucratic institutions, education has become inflexible, especially concerning the defense of the institution's survival. I have long advocated that the large school districts should be broken up into smaller entities with more local governance. That would also break up the bureaucracy that has developed in the large districts.

What you and others seem to fail at recognizing is that school outcomes are nothing more than symptoms of deeper social problems and dysfunction. Solve the base issues and the schools will begin to change reflecting the desired state.

@Lyle Ruble... Sez" What you and others seem to fail at recognizing is that school outcomes are nothing more than symptoms of deeper social problems and dysfunction. Solve the base issues and the schools will begin to change reflecting the desired state."

---------
That sentence or two should have been a part of your original post.

A larger social issue....Nifty concept.

Lyle,

I have to agree with Jay's observation above. However, the problems that families in places like Chicago have are not surmountable with resources available, unless they are willing and determined to be masters of their own destinies. The best we can do is try to reach out to people when they are about to be parents and give them basic guidelines for raising healthy and relatively successful kids. One tip would be to point out that people who move out of those environments have the greatest chance of success. If they can't move out, they should try to create an alternative environment, including avoiding public schools. Of course, there are other things that can be done that will help those families, but their problems can only be totally solved of they embrace what I have already described. ( I speak as one who has witnessed. )

Two movies made by liberals worth watching are "Waiting for Superman" and "Won't Back Down." The former is a documentary that has been out for a while and the latter is yet to be released. Both find fault with the unions, among other things.

Fifty years ago, Milwaukee and Racine had factories with good, middle-class jobs.

@Brian Dey....Where do I begin? In the last fifty years a lot of water has gone under the bridge. Fifty years ago S.E. Wisconsin had a much stronger industrial base contributing money to the local economies and satisfying the tax needs to support model education programs. The demographics were much different, with high employment and middle class paying jobs. Beginning in the Rust Belt Recession of the early 1980s, S.E. Wisconsin experienced a major contraction of industry supplying middle class wages. The tax base began to shrink and needed revenues shifted from local to state, all the while mandates were growing from regulatory agencies. In keeping with my basic premises, you are taking the approach of the fiscal conservatives.

If you would have read the article carefully you would have seen that it was all about the motivation by the political right to force education into a different mold. In the current set of circumstances, the government is blocking the goals of the right. Therefore, the right is making an end run through privatizing education to avoid government intrusion. In this piece I have not addressed the role of unions or anything else that is used as the rationale of the right. Education in Wisconsin began a steep decline when previously employed people were left without employment and forced into the safety net. This has created a permanent culture of poverty. There is almost a 1:1 correlation between poverty and poor school performance. (continued)

@Brian Dey -- What do you think a good school is? A fancy building? Freshly published textbooks? Or good teachers? You consider teacher compensation to be taking something away from the children?

Randy- Why is that the REAL Charter School, with funding at a little better than a third the funding, can produce the highest test scores, the highest graduation rate and the highest placement in career or advanced education in RUSD? The have a per pupil spending of $5,400, while the general population of RUSD has a per pupil rate of $14,000.

Because they concentrate on educating the basics; reading, writing and arithmatic. Longer, more intense classes through block scheduling. Offering a few important electives rather than a plethora of over 900 different courses. But it all starts with attitude and less bureaucracy.

Every time a teacher or administrator makes an excuse for the kids; i.e. poverty, poor home life, etc..., the kid also has an excuse to fail. A good school, or a good school district starts with the premise that every child can learn. It's not about the building, or fancy curriculums. It is about believing in the kids and not making excuses. Sounds simple, but it has worked in schools like West Ridge and Jerstad in Racine, and districts like Baton Rouge and Charlotte-Mecklenberg with over 70% poverty rates and high concentration of minority students.

@Brian Dey -- Charter schools can cherry-pick their students. There is also, I think, difference in attitude between the families that send students to charter schools rather than sending them to public schools simply because it's the law. I agree with you about focusing on the basics. Without the ability to process written symbols into words and ideas there IS no ability to learn the Humanities, the Sciences, the Arts. Arithmetic/Mathematics is the same. It's a basic.

I don't recall very many electives in my elementary education. We learned to read, write, and work with numbers. Some of us did better than others, because that is the nature of human intelligence. The 'electives' offered were history, social studies, history, and some very basic art. You're telling me this has changed?

Where I would fault my public school elementary education is that it managed to drive the love of learning completely out of me, and I never recaptured it until adulthood. Perhaps this is what all those 'useless' electives are for -- to teach a child that learning can be joyous.

@Nick

Hate to say it Nick but the jumbled crap you post makes my posts look like love letters. "Hate films"? LOL where would I find one of these besides in your messed up liberal head???

@Michele -- I disagree, in part, that family situation is the result of choice. It's more about a culture of literacy in the home, which some parents never learned. Learning doesn't come from books alone, and television can at least provide young children with the example of proper spoken English. Some cable channels like National Geographic and The History Channel can still impart knowledge. So can the internet. It just depends on what the viewer/user chooses to take from those sources.

@Randy
What TV do you watch that shows proper English that kids are also watching? How many kids are out there on their own turning the channel off Sponge Bob and onto the history channel?

Michele I think nailed it by explaining that we have allowed the moral decay of our inner city to pollute consecutive generations. Teens today have a new term, YOLO, You Only Live Once. It exemplifies the amoral approach to teaching liberals have pushed on our culture in order to avoid any accidental religious reference. Unless we as a culture decide we need to condemn behaviors and hold people personally responsible, nothing will change.

@J.B. Schmidt -- "What TV do you watch that shows proper English that kids are also watching? How many kids are out there on their own turning the channel off Sponge Bob and onto the history channel?"

The news? PBS? When my son was little we found cable programming that could interest us both. Not that he needed examples of proper English. He learned his first double negative in the first grade. I don't know what Nickleodeon is like now, but it used to have some good children's programming on it.

Kids won't do it on their own -- it's the atmosphere of culture in the home, and as you say, there's the problem. Please, what does religion have to do with it? Some of the most outwardly religious people I have known were utterly lacking in the empathy and 'do unto others' concept that is the core of any morality.

As a parent of young kids, Nick or any other kids channel offers little education. PBS is ok, but only kids under 3 actually watch it. As for news, they only present one side of an issue and rarely present a true unbiased approach to history or current events.

If the problem is in the family, how do we establish the morally correct way to have a family? While you and your family had chosen a successful path, it may not work for another and under what obligation are they to follow your path. My point is who is the moral authority to say that proper way to raise a child (a side from obvious abuse and negligence). There is a lot of gray area in parenting.

The current role of the public schools has been to present an amoral approach to life. The teachers let the children decide their morality, with the assumption the parents will step in. However, after raising a generation of amoral public school graduates; they have decided to follow the foots steps of the public school that taught them and run houses that are also amoral. Thus we have the cultural collapse we are seeing in the inner city. How are we to reverse this? Who gets to now decide what is morally acceptable family behavior? To do so would create a religion within the public education system. As I stated above, as the country has done its best to pull religion out of public education completely, that void in beliefs has been filled with an amoral respect for life.

@J.B. Schmidt -- At least the nightly news and other TV shows generally present people conjugating their verbs correctly, not using double-negatives, and using 'big' words that the parents in the household may not. Our culture is spread to all 'classes' in a way that it could not have been during Victorian times.

But now you contradict yourself by saying that no one can dictate the 'proper' way to raise a family and then decrying the 'amoral' approach of the schools. Which way do you want it?

Besides, morality or amorality has nothing to do with the intellectual content of a home. They're two different issues.

@J.B. Schmidt....I have to challenge your statement that schools are amoral. You seem to be confusing secular concepts with concepts of religious morality. Schools teach morality, but it is morality without direct religious foundations. For example; schools teach or reinforce that it is wrong to steal. This is a societal moral principle as well as a select religious moral principle. Schools teach that violence or threats of violence is unacceptable; again a societal moral principle. Morality turns out to be the societal rules. If we followed your meaning, then how would we explain someone who is moral, but raised as an atheist from birth?

Interpretation of moral principles is also influenced by cultural values. For example, out of wedlock births in your moral framework is a violation of a moral principle and an error; but, many in the African-American community see a birth, no matter what, as a blessing and not necessarily a moral error. Both are moral positions, but one fails societal expectations, which prefers birth occurring only after wedlock. This is precisely why the term illegitimate birth was dropped, including terminology of classifying someone born out of wedlock as a bastard. In the case of a baby who is born out of wedlock, is he worth less than the child born within wedlock?

Actually, Lyle, we prefer births occurring to stable family units, legally married or not. I personally think it's more immoral to marry, have children, divorce, and move on to the next family than to stay together for a lifetime and raise children without benefit of clergy. It's the commitment, not the paper. But I'm one of those amoral agnostics.

@Lyle
Schools teach civil law and not morality. A person can live a life and never break the law and yet be a vile immoral person. For example, Rape is illegal; however, is joking about, making light of or pretending to cause rape illegal. No. Is it immoral? Most would agree it is, but why? Try explaining to teen, whose sole purpose in life is to buck authority that making a joke is immoral because society frowns on it. That only makes the joke funnier.

The schools teach that breaking big laws is immoral (murder and theft); however, leave the grey area up to the kids. Kids who have no understanding what the secular idea of societal morality is. Since we have a couple generations of this, the parents have adopted the same policy to grey areas at home. Hence, kids aren't ever getting the morality required to fill in the grey area. Your point about black culture is a perfect example. Since the the blacks value children as blessing, we can't condemn the action that has destroyed the inner city. Why? Because it falls into that grey area of morality.

Therefore, my point is, how can you demand a family maintain the moral obligation to their child's education when in fact parenting is that grey area? Suddenly Liberals what to force parents to accept that morality requires education. Even if the lack of an education can be just as detrimental to your future as having children out of wedlock.

@J.B. Schmidt -- You completely misunderstood what Lyle was saying. There is a universal basis for morality that is quite apart from the religious ones. We don't rape because of the pain it causes other human beings, not because it angers Jehovah or Buddha or whoever. Same for stealing, murder, or just plain cruel behavior that may or may not be illegal.

@Randy
You are trying to tell me that it is wrong for me to impose a morality on others because it is associated with a religion. Yet, you are attempting to define and impose your own morality via the public education system. If you wish to impose some sort of "Golden Rule' morality as the basis for what societal beliefs, why do others have to agree to it? As Lyle points out, blacks have adjusted their morality to find out of wedlock births acceptable. Could you not say the same for the drug dealing culture of our society, that they have adjust their morality to accept survival of the fittest?

Or if we as a society find murder to be unacceptable, why do we not sentence a mother to life when she sleeps in her child? Maybe because as I have been saying, your morality is loaded with grey area we allow individuals (and children) to make out by themselves.

I am asking how we change the inner city culture without imposing morality, that as I have pointed is taught subjectively and with a fluid core. You want all children to learn and be educated and make it immoral to raise a child without it getting educated. How can you claim it is immoral while you allow other actions, just as devastating to society exist as moral?

@J.B. Schmidt -- Whereas your religiously based morality has no grey areas at all. Is it really immoral to eat meat on Fridays or wear buttons or go out without a head scarf if you're a woman?

So you're blaming the 'liberal' public schools for not teaching your particular form of morality.

@Chris
Please quote for me which conservative (exclude the wing nuts Oak Creek or Ace as they represent hate and not conservatism) wants to eliminate public education completely?

JB...that was my entire point. Lyle is taking this stance, yet the only places that conservatives are looking for change are in school systems that are failing...so perhaps it's not that we (conservatives) dislike public education, it's that we want an effective solution to a problem that's only growing.

@Chris....You've got it!!

@Chris
Sorry, I miss understood.

Has the Lyle Ruble character been hijacked too?

I've never seen Honey Boo-boo, but I assume that most people watch it for the train-wreck aspects. I did the same thing back in the day when my high-school age son and I would occasionally catch an episode of Jerry Springer. At the end I'd ask him what better choices the people appearing on the program might have made so as not to end up throwing chairs and yelling obscenities on TV. His reply was usually, "Not be complete a**-h****s, to begin with."

From what I'm able to find out about the family, they've spent most of their time (prior to TLC honing in on their money-making potential) on government assistance. If anything, they're an example of why throwing government funds at a problem (in this case, the problem appears to be that they're comfortable with their lifestyle and have no realistic ambitions beyond taking advantage of their circus freak appeal) doesn't work. Education has very little to do with it and, given the survival mechanism they're employing, it probably isn't even on the radar screen.

About the only tenuous tie to education this show seems to exhibit is that it, in a way, disproves the words of Dean Wormer when he advised that "fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life".

As for the people who watch it, you'll probably find that it has a big following amongst college students.

If you prefer your white trash a little grittier and less sanitized, I recommend "The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia", which I think is available on Netflix. You can find excerpts from it on YouTube, along with related videos concerning the family and some of its more celebrated members. Informative, entertaining and depressing from a number of angles.

TC, please explain the Ayn Rand connection.

People say I look quite a bit like Honey Boo Boo

Randy Boo Boo?

Ayn Randy Boo Boo?

"Randy1949
43 minutes ago
People say I look quite a bit like Honey Boo Boo"

My clone is back. Note that the profile's home is Wauwatosa rather than Brookfield.

"Randy1949
43 minutes ago
People say I look quite a bit like Honey Boo Boo"

My clone is back. Note that the profile's home is Shorewood rather than Brookfield

@ Fake Randy1949 -- What purpose does imitating people and speaking nonsense have? Do you have anything to add to this discussion or is your mind firmly back in middle-school?

Everyone else, please note, my account is based in Brookfield and I have a unique userpic.

I give up.

Don't ask me about RUSD. It's not my district. I don't know what McTighe teaches, but it seems to be strategies for overcoming the cultural attitudes that are a barrier to learning. Perhaps McTighe's speech to the RUSD staff was just the kickoff of the program that would have the trained teachers passing on their knowledge to the rest of the staff? I don't know, so don't ask me to explain it.

I hate to say this, but the large urban districts seem to be fighting the widespread attitude that education and learning aren't 'cool'. I'm sad to say that I see it in my own step-grandchildren, who were products of MPS for their first years.

Lyle,

I agree that the real question is how do you convince people that THEY can raise themselves up. The opportunities are already there.

If a horse doesn't drink the water you lead them to, who's responsible? Sometimes there isn't a way to convince the horse that it is in his best interests to drink the water, no matter how hard you try.

A truly hungry person will enjoy the taste of any food...what they won't enjoy is when they used to get free steak, and now are forced to eat the fish that they have to work for to catch.

I think this quote by Benjamin Franklin says a lot.
"I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer." - Relating to prices and the poor, 1766

Honestly exchanged? You made such broad generalizations about the "political right" that it's difficult to know where to start!

I eventually tried: http://caledonia.patch.com/blog_posts/why-does-the-political-left-seem-so-intent-on-killing-public-education

@The Anti-Alinsky....I never claimed that education was for the teachers. However, teachers are a part of the education institution and the huge bureaucracy. I have noticed that the smaller school districts tend not to have the same kind of issues as the large urban districts. The argument about education is the wrong argument. Education failure is symptomatic of greater social failures. We should be discussing the breakdown of social order that is being manifested in the public schools.

http://caledonia.patch.com/blog_posts/why-does-the-political-left-seem-so-intent-on-killing-public-education