Learning from the Successes and Failures of Charter Schools

The authors of these reports examined charter schools across the quality spectrum in order to learn which practices separate high-achieving from low-achieving schools. An expansive data collection and analysis project in New York City charter schools yielded an index of five educational practices that explains nearly half of the difference between high- and low-performing schools. They then looked at preliminary evidence from demonstration projects in Houston and Denver and find the effects on student achievement to be strikingly similar to those of many high-performing charter schools and networks. They assert that this preliminary evidence points to a path forward to save the 3 million students in our nation's worst-performing schools, for a price of about $6 billion, or less than $2,000 per student.

They don't consider that charter schools take away from private schools, driving up private and overall per-student education costs at a time when stability and competitiveness are what is needed to right this failing market.

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Original Page: http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2012/09/education-research-report-learning-from.html

Homeschool Curriculum

When we decided to look at homeschooling as an alternative for our two year old, we had no idea where to begin. We knew that a learning environment outside of the public school institutional system had to be better, mostly because it can't be much worse. There are an abundance of resources out there, and numerous avenues that parent-teachers can take in assisting their children's education. Here is one resource for second graders with some helpful information on choosing a curriculum.

Homeschooling doesn't have to be expensive. Here is a list of resources for 2nd grade homeschool that are low cost or free. I've tried to provide a variety of activities and resources to choose from. The most important thing to remember about 2nd grade homeschool, is to keep it fun and to help your child to want to learn.

This page is meant to be a supplement to 2nd grade curriculum, not a replacement for a homeschool curriculum. Please keep in mind that children learn at different levels and some of the sources here are meant for multiple age groups. I highly recommend if you do not find what you are looking for, to look through the other grades especially the one lower or the one higher to see if they have a resource that you can use. You can find the other grades listed down below. Many of these resources could also be used by classroom teachers. They are not exclusive to homeschoolers and I welcome you to this page. :)

For more educational homeschool pages, check out Cheap Homeschooling! Check it our if you want free and inexpensive homeschool or educational resources. You can find homeschool curriculum that you can buy on this page: Curriculum for Homeschooling.

More: Homeschool Curriculum- 2nd Grade

What I have learned so far is that every child is different, and no one curriculum is perfect for all children. Everyone learns at different paces, just as everyone has varying strengths and weaknesses. The key is trial and error, testing to see what fits and what does not, and remembering that learning is a lifelong process, not something that can be easily categorized, analyzed, or managed.

First Official Three-Year Student Loan Default Rates Published

The U.S. Department of Education today released official FY 2010 two-year and official FY 2009 three-year federal student loan cohort default rates. This is the first time the Department has issued an official three-year rate, which was 13.4 percent nationally for the FY 2009 cohort, a slight decrease from the trial three-year rate of 13.8 percent for the FY 2008 cohort. For-profit institutions had the highest average three-year default rates at 22.7 percent, with public institutions following at 11 percent and private non-profit institutions at 7.5 percent.

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More: http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2012/09/first-official-three-year-student-loan.html

Isaac Asimov on Self-education

How computers can speed up the process of self learning.

Isaac Asimov - Self Learning - YouTube

Asimov is not necessarily supporting state education. To the contrary, he said that "self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is." He believed that we each have the ability and responsibility for our own education, not that some central government could educate individuals. 

Government schools prepare students to be a part of the future labor force, but self-education gives an individual the ability to be different, to be creative, to think critically, to be both objective and subjective, to make a positive change in the world. And this is not so much opinion as statistical analysis, considering the volume of people that have shaped the world, yet have had little to no formal training or government reeducation.

It is on us all to foster true learning in the youth, not to use immoral redistribution of wealth to fund such state endeavors, nor to expect central planners to provide such services at the involuntary expense of someone else.

German Homeschoolers Say Treatment ‘Inhuman, Cold, Brutal’

Juergin Dudek of Germany says his nation’s treatment of homeschoolers is “utterly inhuman, cold, brutal – run by bureaucrats who think they’re only doing their job but uphold the system at all costs.”

He’d know. After all, he and his wife repeatedly have been convicted and fined for homeschooling their own children. One time they even were sentenced to jail, a penalty challenged on appeal.

It’s into that atmosphere in Berlin, where the government has been known to describe homeschooling as child abuse and makes it a violation of the law, that the Global Home Education Conference 2012 is preparing to hold its first-ever meetings, Nov. 1-4.

Organizers say home education is the fastest growing form of basic education around the world today, and has surprised researchers with its excellent results and left university admissions officers amazed.

It’s recognized as a right by the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the United Nations International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

So why is it still outlawed in Germany and why in the conference going to be held there – roughly the equivalent of having a tea party rally on the front lawn of the Obama White House or a GOP event in the middle of the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte over recent days?

“The reason for this is critically important: when the government exercises a monopoly over education, this forecloses freedom and liberty and contributes to a totalitarian society,” organizers explain. Internationally renowned education professors Drs. Charles Glenn and Jan DeGroof have written that to deny parents this fundamental right is “unjust and unworthy of a free society.”

[...]

Homeschoolers say treatment ‘inhuman, cold, brutal’

A Maoist Lack of Economic Knowledge

Need a good laugh? Head over to the Maoist Rebel News to see the sorry excuse for results in public education. It's actually quite sad. Jason Unruhe tries and fails to criticize the Mises Academy providing economic educational programs for lowering their costs, but completely ignore rising revenues as a result. He really doesn't come across as educated on the issues he discusses on his blog or his YouTube channel.

Not only is the Marxist position one of constant failure throughout history (but just won't quite die entirely), but there are so many unwilling to work to achieve their goals that they just fall back on criticizing those who do excel in their fields through hard work and determination. MRN is one of those happily supporting failure (with minimal followers, including a whopping 341 "likes" on Facebook). Bless their hearts, they know not what they do. If anything, he's simply giving free advertizing through his site to the Academy (where's your Maoist academy, d-bag?), as he hardly gives compelling reasons to support socialism over liberty. Good luck with that, Jason...

Lack of economic education:

Mises Institute Succumbs to Market Forces - YouTube

"Formal education will make you a living; self education will make you a fortune." - Jim Rohn

I went over to Jason's Maoist Rebel News Facebook page for his "news" outlet and began to refute (or refuse as he misuses language) various criticisms and misconceptions he has toward libertarianism and capitalism, but am starting to feel bad about it. I feel like I'm making fun of a mentally challenged person. Should I cease my interjections and let him go about his merry way, being the village idiot, or should I continue to try to help him see the err of his position through education? I have this damned cricket on my shoulder reminding me that I need to be nice, even to the statists...

Public "Education" has Become Indoctrination and Distraction

People are not being educated they're being tested for levels of obedience. School is about memorizing what you are told short term and repeating it. The bulk of how you are graded is by completely daily busy work. This is for the work force the most important quality in a worker bee actually is obedience.

Public "Education" has become indoctrination and distraction - YouTube

The True Cost of Public Education

What is the true cost of public education? According to a new study by the Cato Institute, some of the nation's largest public school districts are underreporting the true cost of government-run education programs.

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=11432

Cato Education Analyst Adam B. Schaeffer explains that the nations five largest metro areas and the District of Columbia are blurring the numbers on education costs. On average, per-pupil spending in these areas is 44 percent higher than officially reported. Districts on average spent nearly $18,000 per student and yet claimed to spend just $12,500 last year.

It is impossible to have a public debate about education policy if public schools can't be straight forward about their spending.

The True Cost of Public Education - YouTube

Self Education

"Formal education will make you a living; self education will make you a fortune." - Jim Rohn



Self Education

Yeah, Stop Teaching Kids to Talk!

Yeah, Stop Teaching Kids to Talk! - Cheezburger

Disproving Public Schooling...In One Sentence

Disproving Public Schooling...In One Sentence. - YouTube

Worth Remembering

Original Page: http://boards.4chan.org/wg/res/4914416

If You Like Peanut Butter and Jelly You Might be a Racist

Ah, public "education." That should be known as a textbook example of a contradiction in terms, what an oxymoron...

Jeff Foxworthy made a career and a fortune telling redneck jokes.

• "If you believe you got a set of matched luggage when you have two shopping bags from the same store, you might be a redneck."

• "If you think the last words to The Star Spangled Banner are 'Gentlemen, start your engines,' you might be a redneck."

• "If you think Sherlock Holmes is a housing project down in Biloxi, Mississippi, you might be a redneck."

I thought about coming up with a "you might be a racist if" routine. After thinking about it for awhile, I'm sure someone would say, "If you tell 'you might be a racist' jokes, you might be a racist." So switching careers is just not in the cards or stars until stupid people stop breeding and infecting the gene pool.

The latest "you might be a racist" accusation comes from a K-8 public school principal. Naturally.

"Verenice Gutierrez picks up on the subtle language of racism every day. Take the peanut butter sandwich, a seemingly innocent example a teacher used in a lesson last school year.

"'What about Somali or Hispanic students, who might not eat sandwiches?' says Gutierrez, principal at Harvey Scott K-8 School, a diverse school of 500 students in Northeast Portland's Cully neighborhood.

"'Another way would be to say: "Americans eat peanut butter and jelly, do you have anything like that?" Let them tell you. Maybe they eat torta. Or pita.'"

To ensure that there are no tinges of overt or subconscious racist thoughts, words, or actions, "Guitierrez, along with all of Portland Public Schools' principals, will start the new school year off this week by drilling in on the language of 'Courageous Conversations.'"

Their time would be better spent teaching their students to read, write, add subtract, divide, and multiply, and speak well in order to help them get good jobs so they can buy peanut butter, jelly, torta, and pita.

Who frequents ethnic restaurants more than any other group in the United States? White people! Go to your favorite Chinese, Mexican, Thai, or Cuban restaurant, and what will you find? The seats loaded with people from all types of national backgrounds. Americans love ethnic food and don't care one whit who's cooking and serving it.

I grew up in an ethnically diverse neighborhood and never thought someone else was being "insensitive to my Italian heritage" because some of my German friends ate knockwurst or "pigs in a blanket."

The inmates are running the asylum.

Link: http://politicaloutcast.com/2012/09/if-you-like-peanut-butter-and-jelly-you-might-be-a-racist

Viable Free-Market Education

A high-school calculus teacher scored a victory for capitalism and dealt socialized education quite a blow this year. A recent article in USA Today reported that Tom Farber had devised a brilliant, free-market way of funding the tests that he felt were necessary for his students.

Mr. Farber was faced with a dilemma felt by teachers across the country. His supplies budget was cut by the district, which meant that if Farber wanted to give his students the much-needed practice tests that would prepare them for later placement tests, he would have to find funding elsewhere. Many teachers either would have paid for the additional expense out of their own pocket or deprived their students of the requisite practice tests. Farber estimated that, had he paid for the copies out of pocket, it would have cost him almost $200.

Unwilling to shortchange his students or to pay for the copies himself, the visionary teacher found an alternative: he began to sell advertisements on his test papers. According to USA Today, he charged $10 per ad on quizzes, $20 per ad on chapter tests, and $30 per ad on semester finals. Within a few days he had over 75 email requests for ads! Farber has already generated $350 in ad revenue. The article also states that approximately 67% of the ad sales are inspirational messages, paid for by parents. Others are from local businesses.

This free-market solution enables parents to voluntarily provide additional funding in order to help their children. It also allows local businesses to benefit from targeted advertising. Local businesses may also benefit from an improved labor pool due to the improved education students receive from their funding. It is an excellent example of parties participating in voluntary exchange and everyone benefiting: students benefit from the improved education; parents are pleased by improved placement scores; and businesses benefit from a better labor force and more customers. This is capitalism at its finest.

Unfortunately, we live in a time when the knee-jerk reaction is to demand more funding from the government. Mr. Farber has demonstrated that free-market solutions are superior to any that can be provided by government. This also provides a prime example of one of the fundamental flaws with government funding. Government-funded organizations inherently rely on thinking in which decisions are made from the top and imposed on the lower levels. This stifles the ingenuity of the people who have firsthand experience actually doing the work and defers decision making to bureaucrats and committees.

If we are to believe that monopolies are bad because they do not have the best interest of the consumer in mind and have little incentive to improve their product, then why are we to believe that a government monopoly over schooling is good?

It can be reasonably argued that this particular government monopoly is worse than private-sector monopolies, because citizens are forced to pay even if they do not consume the service. To illustrate the point, consider a hypothetical shoe monopoly. If the government declared that shoes are a practical necessity of life in this country, and that there are people unable to afford the best-quality shoes available in the free market, would we then support a "shoe tax" to allow the government to manufacture and distribute shoes free of charge to everyone?

In this scenario, citizens could still purchase shoes from other providers but would be forced to pay their share of the "shoe tax" as well. Since the citizens are already paying for these government shoes (through taxation), the demand for private-sector-produced shoes would be fairly low. Since the demand for privately made shoes would be low, those who desire better shoes would be forced to pay prices that are far higher than those that existed prior to government shoes. The citizens, seeing the high price tag on privately made shoes, would then conclude that they really do need government shoes because only an elite few could afford private shoes.

[...]

More: http://mises.org/daily/3250

What Free Market in Higher Ed?

President Obama couldn't have picked a more opportune time to put colleges on notice about their rising costs. Days after Mr. Obama threatened colleges with the loss of some federal aid during his State of the Union address, hundreds of private-college presidents descended on Washington for their annual meeting. A few of them stuck around for the annual meeting of Christian colleges, which followed a few days later.

The talk among the college presidents about the Obama administration's proposals was similar at both meetings. While they welcomed the potential additional dollars that were part of the proposals, they didn't like the strings that were attached.

"The very issue of setting tuition is the principal fiduciary responsibility of a college," David L. Warren, the head of the private-college association, told me.

During a panel discussion at the meeting of Christian colleges, a president challenged me on the need for additional government oversight. Let the "free market" correct rising college prices on its own, he said.

The problem is, the current financing mechanism for college is far from a free market. Government subsidies account for close to 90 percent of revenues at some colleges when you add up grants, loans, and research funds. Also, nonprofit colleges are exempt from paying many taxes, and they receive tax-exempt gifts from donors.

"In the absence of a government subsidy, most colleges could not fill up their seats," argues Ronald G. Ehrenberg, a higher-education economist and professor at Cornell University. "It's silly to think that this is a free market."

Even if higher ed were a true free market, more competition hasn't led to lower prices (as it has in many other industries) because consumers have so little information on which to judge the quality of colleges. Well-informed consumers tend to make rational decisions. But in the absence of good information about colleges, students and their parents are often irrational, selecting colleges based on low sticker price (rather than net price), athletics teams, geography, or brand name.

Going to college is an "experience good," meaning you need to experience it before you can determine its value, explains Justin Wolfers, an associate professor of business and public policy at the University of Pennsylvania.

"People are making the best decisions they can, given the circumstances," Wolfers says.

But for an expense that is among the biggest of a family's lifetime (perhaps second only to the purchase of a home), we should be able to do better than rely on annual rankings from a magazine that doesn't really publish anything beyond rankings anymore.

[...]

More: http://chronicle.com/blogs/next/2012/02/04/what-free-market-in-higher-ed

The Growing Potential Of Free Market Education

Several people have told us recently that they think the free market is fine in the commercial world, but higher education is "different" and a free market would hurt students. We think it would benefit them.

A "free market" doesn't mean complete absence of government. It does mean, however, that government would stop giving or loaning money to students to enroll in certain approved institutions and would stop getting in the way of nontraditional institutions.

Students and parents could then purchase educational services from a variety of sources, the way Americans purchase veterinary services, legal services, financial consulting, physical fitness training and auto repair. In markets where buyers and sellers are free to choose what they want from whomever they want, competition restrains costs, improves quality and gives individuals the widest range of choices.

Consider the physical fitness market. Consumers who want to improve their health and get in shape can join health clubs, hire personal trainers, purchase physical fitness equipment, rent exercise DVDs, participate in organized activities such as adult volleyball, or run, swim and bicycle on their own. Fitness club fees are disciplined by competition from other fitness clubs, as well as from other available exercise alternatives.

Another example is music education, such as piano playing. Those who want to learn how to play an instrument – or want their children to learn – have many options: private teachers, local music schools, self-instruction materials, and, if they're talented enough, prominent conservatories. Government doesn't mandate or regulate or subsidize anything. Individuals and families choose the kind of instruction that best suits their pocketbooks and needs – and it seems to work.

The market for post-secondary education could be every bit as open, diverse, and consumer-friendly. And costs probably would go down.

Without government financing those who want a college education would become careful consumers because they would be paying full cost. As a result, providers would be forced to keep costs in check, and even lower prices. Just as government grants and loans, which are now provided only for "accredited" colleges, have helped drive up costs, the lack of grants and loans would help bring them down.

While the United States should be pushing alternatives to the traditional four-year college, it also should be pushing alternatives to the way we gauge preparedness for the workplace. The market can provide that as well.

[...]

More: http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/02/07/the-growing-potential-of-free-market-education/

D.C. Drove Up Your Student Debt

One of the major complaints of the Occupy Wall Street crowd, many of whom have taken on significant student debt, is that the cost of college is too darn high. And they're right, but not because of greedy corporate fat cats. No, the real guilty party here is federal politicians, who for decades have been fueling high profits — and prices — at both for-profit and nonprofit schools.

Wait. Big profits at nonprofit colleges? Yes, money has been piling up even at schools you thought had no interest in profit. And Washington, D.C., is the biggest hand feeding the beast.

Thanks to recent congressional hearings and battling over new regulations for for-profit schools, most people — including many college-aged, profit-disdaining Wall Street squatters — are probably at least vaguely aware that for-profit colleges are making good money.

But not just openly profit-seeking schools are making big bucks. If we define profit simply as revenue derived from providing a service exceeding costs, putatively nonprofit colleges actually have much higher margins than for-profit schools.

How do we know that? It's tough, because nonprofit schools typically report all their profits as expenses. Basically, they take excess revenues coming from undergraduate education and distribute them throughout the college in subsidies for research, graduate education, low-demand majors, low faculty teaching loads, excess compensation or featherbedding. In other words, rather than rewarding investors, colleges pay themselves.

Given this surplus-into-costs alchemy, there are just a few ways to get at schools' real costs. One is the buildup method, in which you calculate all the inputs required to educate undergrads, from market-rate professors' salaries to photocopying costs. The second is to get the best internal accounting of actual college expenditures you can, which a few states furnish, and estimate costs from that.

[...]

More: http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/dc-drove-student-debt

America Has Too Many Teachers

President Obama said last month that America can educate its way to prosperity if Congress sends money to states to prevent public school layoffs and "rehire even more teachers." Mitt Romney was having none of it, invoking "the message of Wisconsin" and arguing that the solution to our economic woes is to cut the size of government and shift resources to the private sector. Mr. Romney later stated that he wasn't calling for a reduction in the teacher force—but perhaps there would be some wisdom in doing just that.

Since 1970, the public school workforce has roughly doubled—to 6.4 million from 3.3 million—and two-thirds of those new hires are teachers or teachers' aides. Over the same period, enrollment rose by a tepid 8.5%. Employment has thus grown 11 times faster than enrollment. If we returned to the student-to-staff ratio of 1970, American taxpayers would save about $210 billion annually in personnel costs.

Or would they? Stanford economist Eric Hanushek has shown that better-educated students contribute substantially to economic growth. If U.S. students could catch up to the mathematics performance of their Canadian counterparts, he has found, it would add roughly $70 trillion to the U.S. economy over the next 80 years. So if the additional three million public-school employees we've hired have helped students learn, the nation may be better off economically.

To find out if that's true, we can look at the "long-term trends" of 17-year-olds on the federal National Assessment of Educational Progress. These tests, first administered four decades ago, show stagnation in reading and math and a decline in science. Scores for black and Hispanic students have improved somewhat, but the scores of white students (still the majority) are flat overall, and large demographic gaps persist. Graduation rates have also stagnated or fallen. So a doubling in staff size and more than a doubling in cost have done little to improve academic outcomes.

Nor can the explosive growth in public-school hiring be attributed to federal spending on special education. According to the latest Census Bureau data, special ed teachers make up barely 5% of the K-12 work force.

The implication of these facts is clear: America's public schools have warehoused three million people in jobs that do little to improve student achievement—people who would be working productively in the private sector if that extra $210 billion were not taxed out of the economy each year.

We have already tried President Obama's education solution over a time period and on a scale that he could not hope to replicate today. And it has proven an expensive and tragic failure.

To avoid Greece's fate we must create new, productive private-sector jobs to replace our unproductive government ones. Even as a tiny, mostly nonprofit niche, American private education is substantially more efficient than its public sector, producing higher graduation rates and similar or better student achievement at roughly a third lower cost than public schools (even after controlling for differences in student and family characteristics).

By making it easier for families to access independent schools, we can do what the president's policies cannot: drive prosperity through educational improvement. More than 20 private-school choice programs already exist around the nation. Last month, New Hampshire legislators voted to override their governor's veto and enact tax credits for businesses that donate to K-12 scholarship organizations. Mr. Romney has supported such state programs. President Obama opposes them.

While America may have too many teachers, the greater problem is that our state schools have squandered their talents on a mass scale. The good news is that a solution is taking root in many states.

America Has Too Many Teachers | Andrew J. Coulson | Cato Institute: Commentary

Chicago Public Schools teachers: Monday strike date still on - Chicago Sun-Times

Chicago Public Schools officials freshened their economic offer to teachers Wednesday but teachers union officials immediately labeled the deal "unacceptable'' and held firm to a Sept. 10 strike date.

I am still unsure why public sector unions exist, or how they are allowed to bargain against the taxpayers who not voluntarily support them. There is a big problem with this situation. But it is the Chicago school...

CPS didn't budge from its May offer of four years of 2 percent raises, but for the first time it formally dropped the requirement that the fourth-year raise be tied to a form of merit pay and "differentiated compensation,'' Chicago Teachers Union officials said.

"I have some reasonable news: The board has moved off of merit pay,'' CTU President Karen Lewis told reporters after the union's House of Delegates held its monthly meeting. 

[...]

http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2012/09/chicago-public-schools-teachers-monday.html

Don't Read Rothbard!

To have this level of intellect, such a strong liberty commitment, and
to have the sense too reach the widest possible audience is something
that few people can manage, with Murray Rothbard being one of very few
in modern history to change the minds of so many in such a productive
manner. From essays to treatises, Rothbard is one that history will
remember for being a force in the return of voluntaryism in a
socio-political society in one of the most positive manners of all
time.