I don’t have a problem with this position as long as you support making the state portion of dining portable with the student. Otherwise it’s just seriously callous to kids from poorer families.
How will the new MS freedom eduction bill affect public/private school sports, teachers ect?
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From what I have read, it is very similar to what passed in my state a few years ago.
- privates have consistently jacked up costs to cash in on this 'free' money. 25% tuition increase is the average from a recent report.
- school districts are now educating a higher % of students with need, which cost more per pupil, because privates aren't able to take all kids with high assistance needs and have the ability to decline students. Districts don't have that option.
- the cost to the state is 30% higher than initially estimated for these first 3 years.
- this has mostly just been a windfall for parents who already enrolled their kids into private schools.
- privates are not required to account for public tax dollar spending like publics are, so it can be spent however and without oversight.
It's been 3 years and I have yet to see any data that shows there is an overall educational benefit to children(you know, the ones being educated).
Yes, this is exactly what happened in year 2 of the voucher program in my state.
Private schools all over the state announced tuition increases at all grade levels.
Some have increased it by the free money amount. Some have barely increased. Many have increased part of the way.
It's an average if 30% in tuition increase already, after just 2 completed school years.
For the same reason why taxes are paid for all sorts of services and amenities you may not use.
What a selfish and ignorant question to even ask. Surely every adult with a family already knows the answer to such a question.
From what I was told in a presentation about this topic, was the school as to have an opening for a student to transfer. That will count out most of the Desoto County Schools. I asked if you have 10 kids apply for 2 spots how is that decided? GPA or test? (I see lawsuits coming) The answer was school or district will determine the rules. You know coaches will use this to recruit kids and I think it will affect schools in less populated areas as opposed to schools like Desoto County with full schools. I’m glad my kids are finishing this year.
As of today, you are correct. And the House may still be in question. If it passes the House, it will fail in the Senate out of spite.
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Private schools ALWAYS look for money.
Edit: Never mind that question. Thinking private Donor which doesn’t apply here.
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One of our local districts said they will deny every requested transfer in across the board.
Fact:
When someone tells me their child went to public school, I like to say “Oh really? You can barely tell.”
Same here. "We are at maximum capacity (accounting for expected natural growth resulting from new students moving into the district) and we will accept no students seeking to transfer in from another district."
Something else I found interesting: the cost to educate one student is essentially double the amount of the state's appropriation (the amounts given to me were $6,300 from the state annually; $13,500 cost per student to educate). The upshot is that allowing the state portion to travel with a transfer doesn't move the needle at all. The local tax base will have to "cover" the shortfall left by the difference between the state funding and the total cost to educate.
Regarding students transferring from one public district to another public district, that has been in existence in my state for at least 20 years in varying ways.
- it used to be that there was a window for application to ensure district budgets could be set and the rug wouldn't be pulled out fromt under he districts by kids transferring out after being accounted for. That was a good thing.
- Republicans changed it about 5 years ago and you can now transfer at any time through the year. It has caused a mess for districts for multiple reasons, as a result.
- a student's full coat allotment transfers when they move. So if $11k is spent per student in their home district, that is what the new district receives for student funding, even if the new district spends less per student.
- a district can decline open enrollment students due to capacity, but it isn't easy and it is reviewed by the state's Dept of Ed.
- the obvious result has been city districts have lost enrollment to suburban districts. The post students are almost all geographically on the border of that suburban school's boundary.
- if you open enroll, you have to provide your own transportation. This significantly limits open enrollment for many lower income families.
- there has been some moving due to the sports, but it just isn't a big deal in my eyes. The 3 recent bigger examplest I can think of are all suburb to a suburb or nice rural to nice rural transfers.
We open enroll. My oldest open enrolled for 12 years and my youngest has open enrolled since preschool and has a few years left.
Their open enrollment is a less common enrollment from the suburbs into the city. It's odd on paper, but in practice it s an incredible opportunity that many suburb families seem to not even know about.
- it used to be that there was a window for application to ensure district budgets could be set and the rug wouldn't be pulled out fromt under he districts by kids transferring out after being accounted for. That was a good thing.
- Republicans changed it about 5 years ago and you can now transfer at any time through the year. It has caused a mess for districts for multiple reasons, as a result.
- a student's full coat allotment transfers when they move. So if $11k is spent per student in their home district, that is what the new district receives for student funding, even if the new district spends less per student.
- a district can decline open enrollment students due to capacity, but it isn't easy and it is reviewed by the state's Dept of Ed.
- the obvious result has been city districts have lost enrollment to suburban districts. The post students are almost all geographically on the border of that suburban school's boundary.
- if you open enroll, you have to provide your own transportation. This significantly limits open enrollment for many lower income families.
- there has been some moving due to the sports, but it just isn't a big deal in my eyes. The 3 recent bigger examplest I can think of are all suburb to a suburb or nice rural to nice rural transfers.
We open enroll. My oldest open enrolled for 12 years and my youngest has open enrolled since preschool and has a few years left.
Their open enrollment is a less common enrollment from the suburbs into the city. It's odd on paper, but in practice it s an incredible opportunity that many suburb families seem to not even know about.
to my understanding, the district that loses a student will lose the MDE portion, as well as the local school ad valorem portion of the money
The NAEP scores are real.
The ONLY thing this is is a hand out to people who are already sending their kids to private schools.
The only real effect it will have in public schools is athletics, which will turn into what college athletics is now. It's a really bad idea, especially now that the pubic schools are actually making progress.
Homeschoolers aren't being indoctrinated? I have a bridge in NYC I'd like to sell you. It may be for the better or it may be for the worse. Like it or not ALL education is indoctrination.
From what reading and understand, it’s a pretty brazen push by Tate and others for private schools. How can you use public dollars to support private schools without any accountability or the same accreditation standards? It’s a slap in the face to MS public schools, students, families. If they truly actually believe quality education is so important, why disregard every standard that they themselves have set and then turn around and throw billions to the wind? Or is the wind their friends? And then from what I’m understanding, to be sly, they slide the teacher assistant pay raise in there same bill and also misleading use Trump as advertised support fir this bill.
Yeah, and why should I pay taxes for roads I never drive on?
I'm for freedom to choose a school when your district is terrible, but not in this wide open, fleecing of a bill.
This doesn't get mentioned enough, and it's why this is really only a handout to parents of kids already in private schools. The public schools will lose money on every out of district kid accepted. That's why I think this "mobility" will only apply to athletes in certain public schools.
NAEP doesn’t test every student, it uses a small representative sample. Parents can opt kids out of NAEP testing if their their school and particular child is selected. The opt out rate is pretty high, as I personally know a school that was selected a couple of years ago and only 2 students were actually tested in the whole grade. And those kids were good students. Schools know when they’re selected for NAEP so you know what that can mean. Just look at Texas for past data issues. So the small representative sample and the voluntary nature opens the door to selection bias. Not to mention systemic ways to control who gets tested. Such as the 3rd grade retention rule implemented a few years ago, where struggling readers are held back, so the lowest performers never reach the 4th grade NAEP testing. This filters out weak scores, inflating 4th grade reading averages that have been touted on Fox News. All these “gains” fade dramatically by eighth grade here in Mississippi. Im not saying it’s outright fraud necessarily, but it’s definitely clever use of rules to game averages and promote a “Mississippi miracle”.
Athletics are not the only effect I see. If private schools have and extra $7,000 per student, then they can pay and recruit and cherry pick the very best public school teachers to come to their private school. Not to mention administration, coaches, and all other day to day workers
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from what my friends in the House say, it's a daily moving target. Said the Senate bill was 8 pages, and the House bill is 400 some odd pages. I don't expect Delbert to go along with the House bill, but they'll get something done on it. They've tied a teacher pay raise to it to force the ones in the House to vote for it, that might otherwise not vote for it. We'll get an update on it tomorrow morning at 10:30 from Steve Gray.
I disagree with that last sentence.
Indoctrination as a term is a authoritative. It is used almost universally as a critical term and should really only then be referenced in the way it is used.
Not all education is indoctrination.
Indoctrination - the process of teaching a person or group to accept a set of beliefs uncritically.
Private School kids are still awarded the right to go to public school, even if their parents refuse them that right. It's like arguing "Why should I pay for the roads on the other side of the tracks if I never drive on them"
From what I think I’m understanding, the language aims to avoid violating ongoing or residual federal desegregation orders in Mississippi for public schools. However, ironically the $7,000 per kid could subsidize private schools, including some former segregation academies, without requiring them to meet public admissions, accountability, or nondiscrimination standards. Private schools can maintain selective admissions. Also there are no bussing or transportation requirements that I’m seeing.
I have experience with all 3 - public, private and homeschool. So here's my take on what you said, and also this thread:
- Homeschooling: Your take is kinda.....old. Back when only weird kids homeschooled, well, you got weird kids. 80% of homeschoolers were doing it because their kids were having problems in regular school. Over time, people now know the true value of homeschooling is early stage development, finding strengths/talents early, and overall just not wasting so much time. As they move into high school, most now attend a hybrid school that offers classes that begin to get outside any parent's expertise. There's social opportunities everywhere. Sports as well. Homeschoolers are now incredibly well-adjusted and having success in many aspects of life.
I also disagree about dealing with dubmasses. The level of dubmasses you deal with in small town public school cannot really be duplicated anywhere else, unless you become a drug addict.
- Private school is private school. They should not be taking public dollars. Same for homeschool honestly. Public schools are there to give baseline education for everyone, and is supposed to be a societal benefit. If you start exempting people for this and that, that dwindles pretty fast.
- I don't really know what to think about public to public transfer. Once a school gets so big they can't take the new kids anyway. Drivetime also influences. Probably a big nothing burger. Like others have said, sports shenanigans and residency are already happening. This really just helps small towns.
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You mean they get some of the benefits of the taxes they pay? Sounds horrible.
But yes, there are lots of students in the state that don't get access to a decent education right now. There are lots of students that only get access to a decent education because their parents pay tuition. The cost to the state is going to be higher if we start paying for all students, regardless of where they live, to have access to a decent education. You can make incremental changes to slow how those costs get recognized, but ultimately, we get a "free lunch" by putting a lot of parents in the position of "you can move, send your kid to a ****** school, or pay for a decent school, but if you pay for a decent school, we're going to pocket your tax money that should be available to educate your kid."
The first part is technically accurate, but the second is not. Private schools are much more accountable than public schools generally because they have to offer better value to the students/parents than the next best alternative. Public schools just have to show they're following procedures on spending and accounting.
A lot, possibly a majority, of the benefit won't show up in test scores. It will show up in kids not being miserable because they're being bullied or scared about being beat up or worse or just being happier because they have more friends. There is a decent chance that one of my kids will spend a good bit of time in private school just because he doesn't have a great group in his grade at public school and he'll be happier there. Either school will be "fine", but we can afford to spend some money for him to enjoy school if it comes to that. It'd be nice if more people had that option regardless of income. But there are plenty of kids that are flat out miserable and with good reason, and it's morally objectionable to just tell them "tough ****; you only get a good fit for you if it happens to be at the school closest to your house. Options are for people with more affluent parents." when you are spending the money either way.
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I agree with everything you said here, as I too personally have a lot of experience with all three versions as well. Homeschooling has definitely come a long way in everything really. With regards to sports check this out, Blake Levine talks about a basketball player from the Muddy River homeschool team and says he might be the best player in the whole state:
www.facebook.com
It is a right in the state of Mississippi, it's just not a federal right in the constitution.
This is exactly what will happen.
I know a particular case where a student at a struggling (not failing, but close) public school was being denied access to AP and advanced classes because there weren't enough students to make a class. They petitioned their school district to add the class but were denied because only 1-2 students showed interest. Meanwhile, at a neighboring school district, they had several sections of these classes. The neighboring school district accepted her transfer but the home school district denied it. The Senate bill takes away the home school district's ability to deny it.
Unfortunately, this will be abused in Mississippi for things such as athletic transfers, but its wrong to think there is not a valid reason to transfer from a school district to another. Those cases are very few though.
As far as private school vouchers - most private schools will increase their tuition where it doesn't really matter. Others will rake in the state money and stop struggling.
Ultimately, if you want to fix the problems with education in Mississippi, its a simple approach that gets complicated because no one wants to be called a racist.
1. Consolidate school districts. We have too many counties with 3+ school districts. There are valid arguments for 2 in some counties, but never for 3+. Bolivar County has three school districts. Harrison County has five school districts. There are several arguments that could be made for one school district to cover multiple counties.
2. If a school is failing, put them under conservatorship. Failing schools should have outside leadership come in with a plan to fix it. Having the same people who lead failing schools lead a comeback is insanity.
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Is that more selfish and ignorant than tying money to a school building rather than educating kids? There is a reason we have snap instead of government run grocery stores.
It's amazing the attitudes people have around education to me. If you're spending the money, why not want it to go to the best use for the kid? THere's some weird animosity towards kids in bad school districts. I recognize that as a whole, bad school districts are generally bad because of parents that are doing a less than ideal job to say the least, but there are plenty of parents in those school districts are doing a decent enough job and at least doing the best they can.
And there are people who choose where they live to ensure they are in a good public school district, basically wrapping their tuition into their home's purchase price and taxes, and they have animosity towards parents that instead live where they live because of job or family or whatever and bite the bullet and pay for private tuition. And not only is there animosity towards those parents and their kids, there is some weird sense of moral superiority for moving to a good public school rather than living somewhere for other reasons and paying for school. Where does the animosity and unearned sense of moral superiority come from? It's just weird. Do they feel guilty for moving to a good school district? Is it just the normal urge to feel superior to somebody and that's a way for them to do it if you don't give 5 seconds of thought about what it means for somebody to be in a good school district?
All you people with students in JPS, even Murrah, please feel free to continue to feel superior. I still don't really know why you'd feel superior, but at least it's not ridiculous on its face for you to profess some virtue for sending your kids to public school rather than paying for private or moving to Madison or Rankin county or wherever.
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Why is it when Mississippi does something that is 100% a good thing we always have people that diss it? It's the same test we have always been last at compared to other states. Take this crap back to your well of despair.
I am not complaining that tax payers will get some of the benefits of the taxes they pay.
I strongly disagree with the reality that privates are allowed to not educate everyone and are not required to take on the most expensive and demanding students. That means publics are disproportionately burdened(and that is the correct word) with the higher cost students and the less expensive students arent around to help offset the costs.
If $12k/student is the average, 80% cost less than that and 20% cost way more than that. Privates being able to take just students from the 80% group means the funding that existed to help offset the high costs of the smaller group is not available.
This is a funding concern of mine.
In my state, which is what I was discussing, the second part of that sentence absolutely is accurate. The oversight I am referring to is public auditing of finances. Where I live, it is a thorough and intensive process that is done multiple times a year by internal and external auditors.
Privates are not subject to that.
That is what I was referring to.
Yeah, multiple educational opportunities for kids is good. There are absolutely valued and real examples.
All education is a form of indoctrination. Teaching people to question everything is as much indoctrination as telling them to question nothing. Your indoctrination is my benign teaching, and vice versa.
I think if the pro government run school crowd hadn't been so adamant about no choice at all, and been so successful at killing bills that would have majority of voter support and especially parent support, you'd see something incremental that was better. But when no compromise will earn you support, the natural tendency is to ask for the most "extreme" version of what you want (that's not really a good word, but I'm struggling to come up wiht the right one).
I'd like to start with a program that makes states money portable across districts, and then make state money portable to private schools in below average districts. But for a private school to accept state money, I'd want some requirements like:
- 10% of the student population must be allowed to attend for only the state money and that 10% must have a family income below say 80% of the median income for the state.
- The total tuition can't be more than say 100% of the per student spending at local public school (this might shoujld be 90% of spending to account for donation, or may it should be 100% of the state and local funding per student). But something to make sure it's not a subsidy to elite schools, although over time that might be fine too as long as they are required to have a certain number of students from less affluent families).
Over time you could start expanding it. But since no compromise is good enough to get support from the government run school crowd, I suspect we're going to get something very disruptive. I'll still support that over nothing,, but it's definitely going to be suboptimal in the short term.
It's more like, on one side of the tracks you pay the taxes, and they do some rough grading and make a path that probably won't kill you, may tear up your car, but won't get you where you need to go without extraordinary effort. And then saying, hey, as long as we're spending the money anyway, can I at least use it to get access to the perfectly adequate private roads right next to the virtually non-usable public ones? Obviously the correct response to that is "17 you, you selfish *** hole. If you want decent roads you should pay to move to the opposite side of the tracks."
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Ha! You said "adult"! This thread offers an illuminating commentary on our American education systems.
Think everyone should post their degree completions and whether they attended Public or Private school before they offer commentary.
Question for the school choice fans. What happens to the many children who are left in the poor districts after the few good students and athletes are cherry picked by richer districts, along with a significant portion of their school's already limited funding?