Okay future APUSHers, here is your first current event.
Read this article about Romney's proposed education policy. Using your expert knowledge as students, what do you think? Will more competition between schools help create better schools? Is it fair for taxpayer money to go towards tuition at private schools? Should the federal government have a role in education, or should it be left more to the states?
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I could probably agree with Mr. Romney; basically focusing on the economically disadvantaged students and other reasons to support any student financially, and to be given the chance to choose the best educational institution, but taking the focus off the drive to help schools, failing to progress, could be a down fall, which I am not in agreement to. Mr. Romney wants to take share 25 billion dollars from two federal programs, to use towards the purpose he intends to use it for. Using Romney solutions, the No Child Left Behind law could no longer be in effect. The competition between school would not be strong, "there is limited evidence in the real world of schools improving much as they compete for students", as said by educational experts, in which I agree. Taxpayer money going towards tuition at private schools is not fair in my opinion, using the taxpayer money is in its best use so far, although I like the concern Mr. Romney is showing towards the private sector, but I think he should try another solution rather than bombarding the revenue in federal programs that help public schools. The federal government having a role in education, specifically private schools should be left alone and left to the states. If the federal government get involve this could affect the federal government ways of helping public schools and especially the slow progressing schools. Public schools offers mostly the same chances of higher education, but by leading the federal government focus away from turning around the low performing schools could make the students education limited.
ReplyDeleteI believe Mr. Romney is doing the right thing by spending money on education and wanting to further it, and I actually believe hes doing it the right way. I am a strong believer in less governmental involvement (especially education) so to me i believe hes doing what the government should be doing, sharing the power. However I am strongly against using tax payers money to fund private schools tuitions. Going to private school is very expensive and its the parents choice to send their child there. Therefore it should be theirs and theirs only responsibility to fund their child's education. We already pay enough in taxes. I also agree with the expert that just because the students are very competitive and have good grades doesn't really affect the school and make it better per say. I dont know if the students would love this competition also because the middle of the road students would be overshadowed by the vast number of people competing for the top spots in the grade. I do agree with Mr. Romney's plan to help poor students get to the school of their choice, because it evens things out and gives everyone a chance. While Mr. Romney is doing good things I believe the federal government should be left out of education. I strongly believe this when it comes to private schools they should make their own decisions. For the other schools I believe yes, the states should be in charge, the federal government doesn't need any more power. Like Sterling said above focusing on one particular group may benefit them but hurt the other students.
ReplyDeleteTo me, the smarter option would be, instead of spending $25 billion on allowing students to pick a different school, to focus on improving the poorer schools. The whole idea is about how students in urban neighborhoods would be able to upgrade to a better, more suburban school or how low-income families could send their children to private or charter schools. Like Garrison said, private schools are expensive. That is why they are considered private. If any student from any family was able to enroll in private schools, wouldn't that school sort of become more public?
ReplyDeleteThe 25 billion dollars would be more helpful if it were used to improve the urban schools. It could help funding for new programs or to hire more teachers.
Also, if all the students are leaving the more urban schools, the more suburban schools would become overcrowded and the urban schools would not have enough students to stay open. More schools would end up getting closed.
I strongly agree with Alli C. What Mr. Romney is proposing is completely negligent of the true students in need: Those who have been “negatively influenced” while attending a poorly-performing school. Romney wants all the good students to leave behind their peers to rot in the failures of our education system. This "abandon ship" strategy would, as Alli mentioned, overflow suburban schools considerably. Personally, I am already packed into a small trailer with 30+ students; there is no way any more could fit. Although it is the more expensive method, we have to save the urban schools.
ReplyDeleteWorldwide, it is the federal government that controls schools. Free markets are great, but they also involve deep risks; do not entangle our education system into them. Teachers are already competing enough just to keep their jobs; any more competition would be counterproductive. The much needed reform needs to come in another way.
The school district “boundary effect” needs to be addressed with, and I believe Mr. Romney has made a strong point. However, this only furthers the doomed “abandon ship” strategy that would only sink our educational stance in the global community.
When looking at Romney's proposal I think there is no doubt that he has some great ideas and is trying to come up with a plan to improve this countries schools. However, in a 15 trillion dollar deficit, I do not believe that throwing out money in a voucher like approach is the answer. Instead of having these poorer schools "compete for students," I agree with Dimitri and Alli that we should strive to improve those schools in need by giving them the proper resources, and making sure that they have the best teachers possible.
ReplyDeleteI am not disagreeing with Romney completely though, as giving students in general more of a choice in what schools they want to attend is great thing to do moving forward. Students should not be bound to a certain school based upon their district, but then if you don't do this and allow students and parents to choose you might still run into problems of having lots of underprivileged students at one school which could lead to issues for that school. This is why managing education as a whole at the federal level is extremely difficult, and in my opinion most of the power should be put back in the hands of state and local governments so they can handle their schools in the best way that they see fit.
I believe that Romney's approach to use competition to stimulate school improvement is not the best path. Some schools are not doing well due to a lack of funding and are not on equal footing to compete against other schools. Taxpayer money should support all schools, to allow all students the opportunity to succeed.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with Dimitri and Alli that poorer performing schools cannot just be ignored; rather, assistance should be given to them.
The federal government should help these schools get qualified teachers, and offer financial support to help put such schools in a position to progress into the future. The state governments should then help to keep them up to par.
The idea of vouchers is an interesting idea, but not really a great idea. It is already difficult for those schools lacking money to compete for students. If the economic situation included available resources and money for those schools to compete, then the voucher system could possibly work.
I actually favor an education plan where money is made available to help under-funded and/or under-performing schools reach that line to become self-sustaining.
America is economically based on a competitive market – in our businesses, you have 'winners' and you have 'losers'. It would be a grave mistake to apply that same concept into our grade level educational system. You can't compare it to the competitive level of America's university system. Competition wouldn't work based on the fact of the 'image' of the students in our K-12 schools. In a competitive nature, our most intelligent students would rise to the better funded, equipped, and taught schools. Our less intelligent students will, as Dmitri said, rot in the less well off schools. When Americans picture children that young in failing schools, they'll realize that this will lead to a failing life. Our sense of equality of opportunity for all will prevent this.
ReplyDeleteVouchers are a plausible idea, but I would limit them to poor families with exceptionally bright kids. The loosening of school boundaries would enhance the problem Allie pointed out. Furthermore, vouchers would not give families a big enough monetary boost to truly provide a better education for their kids. DA is regarded as one of the best schools in the nation - but tuition is $20,000. Vouchers wouldn't even cover half of that. Vouchers will give students a private education on par with that of a somewhat-studious student in public schooling. In my opinion.
Amar P.
If Romney is moving to make school choices like the competitive market, then I believe all aspects of it should be treated like the competitive market. Competition will drive schools to be better and more suited for educated kids, but like all competition, someone will lose. Just like in the market, there will be a school to go "bankrupt" just because parents believe it was the inferior choice. Also, competition can drive people to do unethical things. Schools themselves may cheat in order to get ahead of the competition. To solve and regulate these problems, we do need government intervention. There has to be an impartial arbitrator to solve problems and keep everyone honest. Should this intervention be excessive? No. A competitive market needs to be free in order to be nurtured and grow. Romney's idea is a brilliant one, but it needs tweaking in order to adjust to the immediate problems that come with a competitive system.
ReplyDeleteMr. Romney’s plan may have good intentions of improving schools for all, but I highly doubt that it would have the desired outcome. With schools competing for students, those students with less motivation or less to offer would all end up at the worse schools. This plan ends up looking like a way to separate gifted students from those who struggle and in turn would favor the gifted students and leave the struggling ones with less than mediocre schools that don’t bother competing. Competition may increase the quality of the better schools, but the gap between those and the schools at the bottom of the spectrum would just grow with time.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Anna D and Alli C that rather than only providing smarter children with a good education is not the point of public education. Government money should not be used for vouchers, but rather to improve existing public schools with better teachers, supplies and facilities so that people don’t feel they need to leave them in the first place. We have public schooling so that all kids can be provided with an equal education, not just the very smart desirable ones.
A few things about Mitt Romney's plan bothers me. The first being Mitt Romney and his seeming intentions of overturning every policy and program utilized by the last administration. A good leader recognizes the pasts failures AS WELL as the success's.
ReplyDeleteI also find it hard to determine if the voucher system consists of the American values. Whether it is providing equal opportunity is one thing, but it changes the relationship of the federal government and a student in a very fundamental way.
I see the possibility of success and failure with this program because it is taking the market-based approach in withdrawing grants to actual schools and making the consumers (students) choose, promoting competition amongst schools. But just like capitalism, this plan could easily fail. However, I do believe it is unfair to let low-performing public schools crumble while a few token students are given the golden ticket to a promising education.
I also disagree with this tactic because it takes money away from programs for kids with special needs, which is a deserving group for federal grants who still need that money to run their programs.
When thinking about Mr. Romney’s proposal I feel like there are good ideas with the most positive intentions but those with those intentions are not paying attention to the current climate of the country at which they are trying to work with. As Nick said we have a 3 trillion dollar deficit and I believe now it’s not the best time to bring up 25 billion dollars in vouchers for things like private schools. If we are going to be using 25 billion dollars on education we shouldn’t use it on vouchers to go to private schools who charge exorbitant fees just to attend, but we should use it on the schools that are in desperate need of better learning materials. And when it comes to competition there is always the backlash, those who fail to meet up to the higher competitors standards, are we supposed to sit back watch those schools who cannot hope to compete with other schools suffer? I think that to let schools compete isn’t a bad thing but in the end it would only boost some up and lower others. I feel that in some situations the federal government should step away from the school place because it would allow things to work out for its self and for other situations the government should try and intervene.
ReplyDeleteI do not agree with Mr. Romney's decision about competition between schools. I'm sure Romney is looking out for the best interests of the students, but what about the students and schools that aren't willing to compete? The students who have no drive, like Lucy said, would end up at awful schools. The schools that are beating out other schools in competing for students would no doubt improve the education of the students there, but competition between schools would make the better schools overpopulated, and the schools failing to compete, under populated. Like Garrison, I think less government involvement in schools is better especially when it comes to private schools. The decision to attend private school strictly belongs to the parent of the child. It’s great that Romney wants to help the children that are less fortunate have a chance at a better education, but if all those children go to private schools then there would no longer be a difference in private school and public school. What Mr. Romney should do is use taxpayers’ money to improve the schools that aren’t doing so well, or those that are in poorer areas. Government should not intervene with private school policies; they should not be involved in private schools at all. And in the best interest of Public schools, the government should have limited involvement, the role in education should be left solely to the states.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with Mitt Romney's education policy because, as others have stated, education is not a free market. There is no room for competition among schools because our country cannot afford to have winners and losers in education, which there always are in a capitalist economy. Equality of opportunity is crucial to our education system, and vouchers detract from it. Even with $25 billion, there is no way every child would be able to move to a better school. Those left behind at a now under-funded inner city schools would have even worse conditions to deal with, and their education will suffer. Private and suburban public schools would become overrun with too many students, and their quality of education would also decline with larger class sizes.
ReplyDeleteInstead, we should spend that $25 billion increasing the quality of our least-achieving schools. That way, the students who need a better education will see improvements while children already receiving quality schooling will continue to do so.
Additionally, I think we should create a better system for evaluating teachers' performance. After all, students, even with state of the art facilities and technology, cannot learn anything if they are not being taught effectively.
I disagree with romneys position of less government involvement in education. We need a national ciriculum and all schools should be given all the money and resources they need to teach it. Compettion works in bussiness because thats how the economy works. But in bussiness some people get screwed. We cant have our students being left behind, they need opportunitys to find what they like and work at it. One school should not be much better than another school because then students will be left behind. I dont believe education should be left to the states because people will move and find jobs in different areas of the country. If each state teaches something different then students that move and try to go places will be lost.
ReplyDeleteI think that Mitt Romney's plan is very smart. You get a "voucher" to go to any school that you want. Making education like a competitive market is smart to. we all want the best test scores and performance and a competitive market model for education and schools drives up all those things like test scores and performance. The system we have now is not competitive because teachers arnt getting rewarded for good test scores and better performance. the sysytem we have now i think is broken and it needs to be fixed
ReplyDeleteI’m not on board with Romney’s education plan. I agree with Amar that competition amongst schools will lead to a wide spectrum of winners and losers. Competition is only going to cause the low-end schools to crumble and result in the high-end schools to become overcrowded, leading to a decline in performance. The bottom line is that some kids aren’t willing to push themselves to excel, no matter where they attend school, and competition will not fix this. I agree with Lucy that a large gap would form between the low and high performing schools. The voucher system doesn’t appear to be a beneficial plan either. Private schools should be totally out of the picture when it comes to the federal government. The education system needs to be turned over from federal control to local and state control because government officials will know what’s best for their individual school district. Taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay for people to use vouchers to send their children to a private school, when public schools are readily available. Our country needs an education plan that will improve conditions for students already enrolled in a certain school by providing better education material and hiring quality teachers.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if I like Romney's Education plan. He tries to create a free market approach to choosing a school, but does not try to improve any of the public schools. I believe public school is a good idea in theory, I go to one. But there are problems with public schools and the quality of education, with lack of funding being a definite factor. Because no market has true equal competition, the richer private schools will come out on top. The 25 billion Romney proposed will run out, and all of the richer families will send their children to private school, because the public schools will have no funding, no teachers, and unsuccessful students. The education system in america needs to be changed, but this plan is not the way to do it
ReplyDeleteI like Romney’s idea of spending more money on education. I think that our education system is really suffering, and if we want to keep up with other top countries we need some serious reform. However, I don’t like how Romney is spending money. The idea to try and send people to their school of choice is a good idea, but the competition created would put many good students in a difficult position, and they could possibly be forced to go to a sub-par school. Another problem that I see is that this system is not bound by school districts. This is meant to make the choice better for the students and parents, but what if the parents cannot deal with the transportation aspect of actually getting to school? Buses would not be as much use if the students are really spread out. If parents were left to take students to school, then many people would be forced to go to schools in district simply because they need to be close to the school, and that defeats the whole idea of choice. More money needs to be spent on education, but with more gov't involvement.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, Romney’s ideas are a step in the right direction on education reform. However, I do not see how some of the ideas will work, especially private school educations paid for using taxes. Private schools are not government funded so I believe private school tuition should be paid out-of-pocket. In our Constitution it states that we have a government for the people by the people. The government has an education system established and parents have the option to send their children to one of the public schools or a private school instead. It is not fair for the government to pay for a second option to education since the government has provided for that need.
ReplyDeleteEducation is not mentioned in the Constitution and the 10th amendment (reserved powers) gives the States and local governments control over education. It has been this way since the founding of the United States. Plenty of people have succeeded from a public education run under the control of state governments, so why change it?
Competition is a great motivator. Everyone likes to win especially against rivals. I think that competition between schools would be just as competitive in the classroom as on the athletic fields which could vastly improve the educations offered.
Although I appreciate Romney's attempt at reforming education, I fear that the government can only do so much in terms of education. Ideally, money spent on education would be linear with test scores, but it is not. Integrating schools with different neighborhoods seems like it could work, but I'm not convinced it will be sufficient. In order to succeed in school, students must have a want and will to succeed. There has to be motivation within the student. That can't be altered by a change in government spending. I believe that no matter how much money is poured into schools in bad neighborhoods, that wont change the motivation in the student. The best teachers in the country could be in that school, but that wont automatically make students want to learn. Although something needs to happen, there is no clear solution in sight.
ReplyDeleteI believe that this plan proposed by Gov. Romney is a very good place to start. Education has been a hot topic for years. His plan to create competition within schools could very well result in higher test grades for everyone. Competition is often a big part of education. The whole idea behind SAT’s and ACT’s is to see where the students stand compared to others. In all truth, there would be no point in a teacher even grading a student’s work if it weren’t for the competition aspect of it. Competition drives education, it moves teachers and students to try harder than they were previously. It is a good idea to start rewarding teachers who have students consistently proving to be outstanding on nationwide tests because it gives there more to gain when this happens. Improving the standard of teachers is the perfect way to start in improving schools everywhere.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate that Romney is trying to give children across America an equal opportunity at a higher education. However, I do not agree with his plan of how to achieve this. First, I do not think that we should use federal tax dollars to pay for children to attend private school. Private school is very expensive and I think that it should be the choice and the responsibility of the child's parents to pay for such an education. People pay enough in taxes already. Second, I do not think that competition for students is enough of an incentive for schools to boost their programs and encourage students to receive higher test scores. Some schools do not have the money or the resources available to be able to compete with other local schools. They should improve the children's learning by holding the teachers to a higher standard. Besides, this competitive incentive would take a long time to achieve for some schools that have the history of dishing out bad instruction. This process would take too long and it would deny some schools the opportunity to compete, and therefore forcing them to stick to their previous status of giving a bad education with students who have a lack of motivation or drive to perform well in school. I think that kids should have the opportunity to receive a good education, but I do not think that Romney’s plan is the way to do that.
ReplyDeleteThis is Sarah Mitchell. My name wouldn't work.
DeleteLike many things Mr. Romney’s “voucher plan” has its ups and downs. As Garrison F said, Mr. Romney’s focus on education is great, but the way he’s addressing the issue could be improved
ReplyDeleteGiving money to each family so that it may choose the school their child attends leaves the school responsible for its enrollment. Each school’s performance affects its attendance, yet some schools don’t do well because they don’t have enough money to make the upgrades. If the money goes to the vouchers, most people will put their money toward the better preforming schools and abandon the poorer performing schools, which will only get worse. What money can the poor schools use to make their improvement if the voucher money is going to better preforming schools?
Alli C made a valid point about giving money to poor and poorer performing schools so these schools may improve their facility and instruction and become more desirable. Instead of creating winning schools and losing schools, which the vouchers will create, all schools should become leveled with one another so all are at high standards. Improvements, not competition, is where the money should be targeted.
I do not agree with Romney’s plan to reform education. In my opinion it is a waste of tax dollars. The reason that there are separate schools is because they offer separate forms of education. Allowing anyone entry to any school condenses everything into something that’s in between public and private school. It serves no purpose to better education in any school, be it public or private. Instead of using the 25 billion for Romney’s education reform, it should be used to restore schools to create a better environment to learn in, with new materials and better tools with which to learn. Public school is paid for with tax dollars, making it free in the sense that nothing extra is paid to attend. This offers a free education to any child in the United States. The money should be used to better public schools to make them a better place for learning to occur. If Romney’s plan were to take effect some children would still not be allowed to private and charter schools. It would create a complex and unfair system of selection that would leave kids who were not selected still stuck in public school. If public schools were given the money to renew and update itself it would create an equal opportunity for all those who would otherwise not be able to attend somewhere like a private school.
ReplyDeleteI believe that throughout American history, the public school has been the single most sure fire way of raising out from poverty. If you worked hard at school you could get a scholarship to college and then move on to a good paying job. Removing the bottom rung of the ladder used to climb out of poverty is not going to help the United States. Romney says that parents being able to choose is a good thing. That is certainly true if you have to time, ability, and money to shuttle your children to a better school. The poor frequently do not. Quality public education is essential to the poor's ability to improve their lot in life. Yes it is essential for people of all income strata, but a rich kid or even a middle class kid often have a safety net courtesy of their family were they to fail. The poor do not.
ReplyDeleteThrough reading this article, i couldn't disagree more with the actions Mr. Romney intends to take if elected president. He is solely focussing on two groups of people, the poor and those with disabilities. Tax-payers already pay a lot of money to the state, and adding this would be a waste of additional tax dollars. I believe that it is essential to ensure each student an equal opportunity to get a good education, however, it is also essential for the tax dollars to go towards a cause that will affect not only the poor and disabled, but as well as the middle and high classes of society. There are reasons to which private schools cost as much money as they do. If your family does not have the means to allow you to attend such school, you have just as high of an opportunity to succeed and proceed on to a good four year college if you attend a free public school.
ReplyDelete