yes, or no?

I say yes.

Do it for the children.

Vote Yes.

As we know it, yes.  Local counties should be able to have general schools for basic education only.  Private enterprise works everywhere else why not education.  80% of my state's budget goes to education and they spend $6000 per student per year not including property tax to build the schools.  Planerench out.

I thot Pumlik skol edecashun had ben limenated wen they done away with paddlin..

Do some quick math:

If you pay $18,000 in total taxes per year and let's say 1/3 of that goes to your state you are only contributing $6000 towards road work, schools, and everything else that goes on that would be considered community property upkeep.  

Even if you had the full $6000 to put towards the schooling where will the rest come from to make up the difference in these $8K-$20K/year private schooling facilities?  Oh yeah, that is per child too.

The state wouldn't have the upkeep of school's but the private sector has the same land/asset concerns.

Just not so quick to jump on yes here. I also have lived in a county, all my life, that is considered to be in the top three every year in public schooling.  So I may not see the "other side".

Ed

The term should be changed. They should call it "Goverment Education".

In Colorado, it is actually cheaper sending the kid to private schools than to goverment schools. It is $9000 per student in my county.

Right, but my guess is the average tax payment for each citizen for state tax comes nowhere near $9000.  Some of that cost per student is absorbed by the businesses who pay taxes too. [noclue]

There is no way in hell my kids will attend government schools.  I'll work my ass to the bone to put them through private school or home school.  

I vote yes, end it and stop the immoral wealth redistribution in the name of "education".

What is the yearly payment in Oregon for one child?

The primary reason that private schools are cheaper than public schools is that they can pick and choose which students they take and they are free to decide what the curriculum is.  Public schools are required by law to educate all children, which means they must educate mentally and physically handicapped children that require special care, and also have special schools for delinquents.  In addition, their are curriculum requirements and extracurricular activity requirements on public schools that private schools don't have.  If put on a level playing field, public schools would likely come out cheaper than private schools.  I would like to see parents and families take more responsibility for their child's success whether they are in public, private, or home schools.

Yes, especially because it's CRAP.

Yes, but it has to be done gradually to work. New private schools need to be constructed to take the place of some public schools. Most public schools, at least in this state, are one large school for a wide area. For private schooling to work the best, we need a larger number of smaller schools to provide choice. I believe private schools are entirely capable of being cheaper then public schools, even if they aren't now. Think about it - most private schools now seem to cater to wealthy or religous people. They would do even better if they were educating everyone. The voucher programs are a decent way to get started. But the hardest part will be to get the local governments to cut taxes when they aren't supporting public schools anymore.

NO, but public funding of the internet should be.

Your prices for private schooling are a little high.  My mother successfully paid for me to go to private schools from 6th grade on a rather meager income from the IRS (she was a computer programmer).  

The Catholic primary school I attended was about $4,000 a year, plus another $250 or so for uniforms.  The first high school I attended was also a parochial school, one of the best Catholic high schools in VA, and it only cost $5,200 a year, plus about $500 for uniforms (I had a full-ride scholarship though).

Military high school was another story entirely.  Boarding student fees were about $16,000.  Day students paid substantially less, about $6,000.  Uniforms were $1,500, but most of my uniform items lasted all four years.




You are also forgetting home schooling.

Yes

In what county in Virginia? Here in Fairfax County this year K-3 at Browne runs $8000 tuition.  This is not the most expensive one.

Ed

I disagree. I think the major reason goverment schools cost so much is paying for the top heavy administration and the union wages of teachers.
My private school only had 1/3 the administration of the public high school with the same class size. Plus the goverment administrators were paid twice as much.

Specifically in my mind were the large businesses here in this area of Northern VA, like Lockheed Martin {um, I'll take one $40million fighter jet--nope I can't buy from them}, CACI {Can they build me a Patriot missile system -- nope I don't pay them either}, SAIC, EDS, etc etc etc.....

When I say big business I mean big businesses.  Please don't attempt to tell me about accounting and economics.  I am an internal accountant for a small government contracting company.  I see what the combination in county and state taxes costs us in conjunction with federal taxes.  This is just speaking of the taxes we pay on assets, not even sales tax or any other tax.  We are only $80Million and yet we pay over $1 million in property tax alone.  That goes to fund education in the county, roads, etc.  I'm sure that $1M could be better spent on hiring a few more programmers, engineers, and able bodies, but instead it funds a tax burden.

Ed

Public school is a damn joke,I send my kid to school for $4k per year but the public school but heads say it costs them $10,000 per kid every year.

Point is private schools are cheaper and do a better job the idea of public school is totaly obsolete.

I wish the people who get so up in arms over me putting my kid in a better school could understand that I pay for there kids too!

Wow! this was a test! I am studying to get my Teaching Credential to teach in public schools.
I currently do a lot of substitute teaching.
There are so many problems..not just with different school administrations, but the Administration in different school districts all the way up to the State Level.

Some teachers are great, others are rotten. Some of the problems are due to the kids or the teachers. Some are due to the kids parents.

There are language problems, cultural problems with regards to communication and expectations by the student, the teachers and the parents.

It is really too complicated.

However..I did vote YES. Public Education Should be ELIMINATED.

(there would go my future job security!)

You see: Private Schools just handle Bad Students and Bad Teachers better. They get weeded out faster than in the public system. They also handle bad administers, and bad text books.

For example, I live near the highest performing Public High School in my School District. It is an "award" winning school of "excellence".

You look at the test scores and compare them to other public schools and the State Averages, and you think "WOW!" This is a great public school.

Unfortunately there are several very small, and poor private schools whose students AVERAGE 20 POINTS HIGHER than this "high achieving" public high school.

What is going on here?
Partly it is the textbooks being used in the different schools.

Partly it is due to the fact that the real trouble makers are KICKED out of the private school and problem kids are not let into the private school.

Part of it is due to the fact that the private schools spend time teaching their students how to construct grammatically correct sentances and then how to write papers. Whereas the public schools take a wholistic approach to English (ie. place little emphasis on grammar)

Part of it is due to the fact that the administrators at the private schools keep a sharp eye on the performance of their teachers as measured by test scores on standardized tests.

Part of it is due to the fact that there are fewer English as a Second Language Learners at Private Schools.

And part of it is due to the fact that the students and the parents actually "care" more about their education and are more involved with their children's performance in school as well as what they are learning and how they are learning the material.

They have to, because they are directly paying for their children's tuition.

So..yes, Public Schools should be eliminated.
There will always be students who are complete write offs, or at least they will be "write offs" until the mature and grow out of their behavioral patterns.

All it takes is for about 5 or more very disruptive students to prevent 25 - 30 other students from studying and concentrating in a classroom. I've seen it first hand and had to deal with it. (one of the problems is that there are a lot of Special Ed students who are being "mainstreamed" that is: put into a regular classroom) Some of these students are incredibly disruptive.

Some students are violent, others show clear symptoms of having been sexually abused.

There are so many things it is not a simple fix. But eliminating public schools and having only private schools, where school officials and teachers have the power to expel and discipline students, and teachers being able to choose the text books being used, would go a long way towards solving problems with education in this country.

Here in PA our taxes are going up 33% due to public education. You might think that the money would be used for more books, technology or gay rights clubs.  You would be wrong. The 33% is to replenish the teachers pension fund that lost money in the stock market. The best part is that during the boom the pension was increased 25% for teachers and 50% for administrators.

So not only did I lose money in my IRA I get to pay to make sure others do not. Due to PC, corruption, etc. I voted a big phat YES. It is quite possible that my children will be going to a private school.....if I can afford it.

At the very least, the Federal Dept. of Education should be disbanded. That alone might allow [b]some[/b] state education programs to become successful. Get the Feds out first, then adjust more if needed.

I and my six siblings have been homeschooled since birth, and I am convinced that we are all the better for it for many diverse reasons.  By the horror stories my mom and dad tell us about public school, I'm SO glad they didn't send me there.

My cousins and my older siblings are all right around a 4.0 GPA right now in college, and they all were home-schooled.  The last three semesters I barely read any of my textbooks, hardly studied, and missed a few miscellaneous small papers (I suck at doing things that aren't fun), and I still have a 3.04 GPA.  I got on the dean's list in the first semester (3.53).

My parents refer to public school as the "meat grinder".  You put in turkey, pig, cow, chicken, etc., and all you get is hamburger.

No, but only because I went to a good high school.

You are right about calling them Government Schools.

There is nothing wrong with them they are operating exactly as the Gov't wants them to.

They are adding to that great renewable resource called the "Taxpayers" dumber more docile easy to manipulate.

I voted yes.. I'm from the class of 2002. Lots of stuff wrong with public school, at least from what I've seen. Kids that don't want to be there disrupt so badly that teachers can't do thier job, and it's to the point now where the kids aren't even punished!

Some teachers don't know the damned material any better than the students. WTF is up with that? And I'm not talking about substitutes.

Some classmates from my graduating class have trouble reading the most basic reading material.. I've seen those who can't find thier own fucking state on a map! One girl(Junior in HS) was utterly confused when I explained to her that St. Louis was infact a city, not a state! That's just sad.

Only classes I ever learned anything from were Social Studies.. and about 98% of the students thought it was a waste of time, and didn't know why they had to take them at all? I especially loved U.S. History. Our teacher was a Navy vet from the 50's. Nice old man. Honestly, I never read much of our textbook.. Yet on every test and on the final exam I did better than almost everyone in the class, and they all *studied*.. lol! Many of them were disgusted to learn I actually enjoyed learning about history and do it on my own time more so than in school..

I don't really know what should replace public school.. But the private schools sound interesting.. Students that actually have parents that want them to earn an education are the only ones who would go. Would be a better environment for kids who WANT to learn... Not controlled by the government.. Sounds good to me.

Not a thread hijack, but what about elimination of funding for State Universities and CCs?


I also was class of 2002.  i graduated 9th in my class of 320 because of my own laziness.  I could have probably been valedictorian, but I elected to have a little bit of fun and screw off, and didn't let an A- bother me like some of the dipshits (we had FOUR valedictorians in my class) in my class.  I was the second highest male, with a 3.93 gpa and 32s on my ACT in the important subjects. (math and science)

And ya know what?


I was BORED SHITLESS!!!  I never studied, I did my homework usually in the five minutes before class or whenever I felt like it.  I didn't have to work to get those grades.
I can recall exactly two classes that I cared for: humanities and Robotics&Automation.

I emphatically vote YES.  Public Education only serves morons with little motivation.

I'm sitting here at MSU, doing alright.  I'm getting to take courses that I want and will benefit from.  I'm enjoying it, to say the least.
But even here there are idiots and incompetents, especially in the administration.  I am trying to get a small-bore rifle team restarted and run into nothing but thick-headed liberals who question why I would want to learn how to and I quote "kill people better."

It's the same everywhere there is public schools, regardless of level.  I wouldn't mind going to a private college, now that I think of it.

Read the book THE BALLAD OF CARL DREAGA by Vin Suprynowic.  Great book with a chapter on this very subject.
 
I'm a sophmore at a public high school aka Youth Propaganda Camp.  We are taught to "accept everyone", enviromentalism is right, guns are bad, and above all else liberalism is right.  
 
In english we are learning about how the bomb dropped on hiroshima is wrong, that Japan surrenderd a month before it was dropped and Pearl Harbor is not mention ONCE.  I have to take f***ing spanish.  In science we are learnig that man is a plague to the earth and that evolution is how we were formed.
 
My friends and I were talking about OBL a couple weeks after the 9/11 atrocity when a muslim girl breaks in our conversation and says that we can't say that because we don't know he did it.  I call her a terrorist, she files a compaint and I get suspended for 10 days and sent to the superintendent of schools.
 
There are nothing but anti-gun books in the library.  The magazine rack is filled with copys of Rosie magazine with that lesbo hugging another woman.  There are no truck magazines or hunting magazines.  
 
All the computers have filters on them that won't let me reach this site unless i use jobrelatedstuff.com and i can't even go to keepandbeararms.com for pro-gun research.
 
Well, got to go do a couple hours worth of homework.

-DEERSNIPER
[sniper]
   

Edit: put into paragraphs

Get rid of public schools. Those who claim that tuition will be too expensive are eliminating the possibility that tuition is a variable cost, and subject to normal economic supply and demand. Sure, if you live in the DC metro area,NYC,L.A.,etc. prices will be set by the relatively higher incomes in that area. On the other hand, when, like my wife, you teach in a rural county where private school teacher salaries barely top $11k(in 2000), tuition doesn't need to be that high. Forcing lower income students into a new education market will provide a huge demand for lower priced private schooling. Will it be equivalent to the quality of all current public schools? Not always. Certainly some students will not have the resources that they once had. What they and their parents [i]will[/i] have is a choice-as will the rest of us.

DEERSNIPER,

Very very sad.. I feel for ya..

It wasn't nearly that bad at my school(But of course I'm talking about very rural Vermont).. 3/4 of the school was raving about killing terrorists after 9/11.. LOL! Only a few morons even spoke against it...

Freshman year in Civics class we studied the Constitution and Bill of Rights in full, INCLUDING the mighty 2nd [;)].. One of the few classes I enjoyed, as I mentioned earlier.

I used to read gun magazines in the library daily, and they even had subscriptions for Field & Stream and one or two others.. On the pc's (well.. Macs..ick.) I'd research firearms and look on manufacturer websites.. and surf a few different gun forums. heh.

When my highschool turns into the liberal infested shithole I've heard about elsewhere.. I'll know the world is doomed for sure. [:(]

As a whole though, it still wasn't the greatest place to actually get an education...

Public school is definitely a waste of money - plus it produces a lot of substandard students. I was homeschooled for 8 years, attended a private school for two years, and did my last three years of high school at a public school. Academically, I was on the same par as other kids when I went to a private school. Upon entering high school, I was way ahead of other students in many subjects - namely English and History since my mother stressed it so much growing up. Granted, a homeschooled kid may not have as many "social skills" - but this all depends on the situation. Most so-called social skills are a waste anyway. If I could do it again, I would have never gone to a public school. I think I actually got dumber there and had to associate with some of the lowest life forms known to man - seriously it seems like half the kids in public schools are f#cked up for some reason. Tax dollars supporting public education is a waste - not to mention our tax dollars are going towards socialist brainwashing - teaching Johnny its "OK to be Gay" and other sick liberal sh#t. The goverment doesn't have the right to legislate morality and people often cry about seperation of church and state. But look at our public schools - where the Rosie O Donnel crowd legislates THEIR moral codes on children.

The primary school was in Fairfax County.

The first high school was in Arlington County.

The military school was in Augusta County.


Browne is one of the more expensive schools.  Try taking a look at what the Catholic schools charge, most of them are substantially less.  I knew plenty of kids who weren't Catholic who went to them (including myself, although I was eventually baptized).