Miz, I wasn't talking about a metric based competition of schools. I say we leave it up to the families to decide for themselves which school is best for them. True, some conservative religious wackos will take advantage of this to get away from public schools as a knee jerk reaction. But any system will have some people making knee jerk reactions or scamming the system. Why are we hesitant to let individual families have the power to decide? As far as the accusation that charter schools are no better and tend to attract hucksters

1) Do we really have unbiased studies on that?

2) If there are hucksters involved in running charter schools or private schools with vouchers, is it because there are so many hurdles that idealistic educators do not feel like entering the fray and leave the field open to the tough hardcore businesspeople?

3) So what if some greedy people run some charter schools. Have you see the composition of many school boards? You think these board members are not looking out for their interests or personal agendas?

4) The burden should be on public schools to prove that they are better, not the other way around because the state is dictating where we can study .

5) If the alternative won't prove to be better in the long run, most families WILL stick with their public schools. Any voucher proposal will involve some kind of sacrifice by the family attending private school of their choice(assuming that private school follows some stipulations agreed upon as a condition for receiving vouchers). I know people in a good school district of MA who have the money to spend ona private school. yet they send their kids to a public school because they see no significant difference.

BUT THIS IS THE POINT. Any 'public school reform will NOT save the current crop of inner city elementary school kids all around the country. For those stuck in districts where the reforms haven't made an impact yet, we owe it to that family to get some government assistance to go to private schools. A lot of public school boards have lost the moral authority to run public schools. SO WHAT IS YOUR SOLUTION TO THESE FAMILIES? You have the luxury of waiting out reforms. These families do not. A voucher will help a poor parent do for her family what the state cannot realistically do for every citizen(there will always be holes in any system).

As vouchers become more common, there will be plenty of private schools that will cater to this market. If parents do not like this school, they will go out of business. It happens in India. i do not see why it can't happen here. Private schools at the university level do not seem any less education oriented than state universities.

"We MUST secure the existance of our people and a future for white children"

ONLY be re-segregating our public schools will we whites be able to get rid of the gangs graffitti, dope, crimes, metal detectors and constant criminal interruptions!

We NEVER had the problems when our schools were all white and we kept the inferior sub-humans and their non-english speaking socio-parasitical cousins separated.

Just goes to show that no matter where the niggers and wetbacks go, problems follow like a plague and our white children are the ones who suffer the most at their hands!

DD

I am in the history department there. I agree with you on the high GPA issue. We are critiquing the same things. The GPA requirement did screen out some students who would have been superb social studies education teachers.

I do think that elementary teachers need more math and science. The better they are at the subjects, they better they will teach them, and build a firm foundation for future learning. I do agree with this:

I think one of the questions we must ask ourselves to improve the public education system is, who would you rather be teaching your children: the private school educated teacher with the high GPA who can't wait to get out at 3:45, or the public school educated teacher with the average GPA who tutors until 7 every night?

The higher GPA is meant to address the issues of teacher quality and the stereotypes of teachers as poor students. It's ironic. I grew up in a segregated neighborhood, and there, teachers were understood to have been the best students, to be working for the good of the community. Teachers had respect and high esteem. Yet outside of that environment, teachers are treated very differently.

I also think that the "emergency credentialling" system needs to be overhauled. People with a history degree can get a one year certification that allows them to teach right now. They should be allowed to teach immediately under a master teacher, while focusing on methods classes.

If you are in the area, you may have figured out who I am. You may have had one of my classes. I wish you good luck, and suggest that you contact the history department or the education department about the one year credential. No honorable dream should be defered in the way yours was.

My GOD I have never read so much right wing tripe coming from the mouths of supposed liberals.

I was a special education teacher in a very poor inner city school for eight years. I worked with amazing, wonderful teachers who care, who know their stuff and who have high expectations for every single student.

To all of you who are so quick to denigrate teachers - from just implying we're too stupid to get a better degree to outright calling us illiterate - W. T. F. ? I thought this group was supposed to be too smart to fall for a Limbaugh-esque smear campaign, I guess I was wrong.

Teachers, the people who choose to teach children, are less respected by the readers of this magazine than prostitutes. Wow.

Salon used to be my happy place on the web, where I could count on intelligent, thoughtful discussions about a wide variety of topics. It's the one place where I thought those of us that value education enough to DEVOTE OUR CAREERS TO IT, might be seen as something other than a parasite trying to f*** your sons on a pile of your tax dollars.