Group forming to sue NH over education funding.

[cathleeninnh]

At least local control is one step closer to competition in education. School districts do get reputations that parents do look at when relocating. Relocating is one way of voting, right????

Cathleen

[Kat Kanning]

Yup.  I've heard so many families who looked closely at the public school systems in areas they were considering relocating.

[mvpel]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20050804/cm_usatoday/howschoolsaredestroyingthejoyofreading

The fact is that for all the anxiety schools have about state exams, with the exception of science and math, those exams have turned into nothing more than minimum competency tests that any average student can pass with little preparation. And no decent teacher needs a 1,500-page text to prepare below-average students for these dumbed-down tests.

No Children Learning Better is just one more political play that will only add bureacratic overhead to an already bogged down system that shouldn't exist in the first place.

The Mobile Register

With just days before classes start, school systems in Mobile and Baldwin counties remain short on teachers, particularly for math, science and special education.

Mobile County still has 119 vacancies, and Baldwin has 70, according to officials with both systems. District officials said not enough qualified candidates are applying.

Baldwin County schools start classes Tuesday, and Mobile County students return Aug. 15.

System officials said they'll hire so-called "long-term substitutes" for the teaching slots that they don't fill by the first day of class. They said they would continue to look for potential hires, but there likely won't be many applicants to chose from until December's round of college graduations.

School boards in both counties meet Tuesday and can hire teachers to fill some of those empty slots then.

"Applicants are not beating down the door," said Larry Mouton, principal at Alma Bryant High School in Bayou La Batre, which is short two math and two special-education teachers.

Baldwin County's vacancies are mostly middle and high school math teachers, according to officials in the system's human resources department.

"It's just certain areas right now that's the problem," said Lester Smith, interim director of human resources for Baldwin County schools.

While Baldwin does have shortages in math, science and special education, the system is turning down qualified teachers for other positions.

"I interviewed someone a few weeks ago who would be a great elementary school teacher, top notch," Smith said. But there were no vacancies available for her, he said.

[mvpel]

At least local control is one step closer to competition in education. School districts do get reputations that parents do look at when relocating. Relocating is one way of voting, right????

Yeah, I heard there's this thing called the "Free State Project," or something like that, that applies that principle.   

[lildog]

While on the subject of state vs local funding I thought I'd share this...

http://www.greatschools.net/cgi-bin/showarticle/nh/311/?page=1

[Pat McCotter]

I was going to ask if anyone could point me to sources of information on how learning was accomplished before public education but decided to do a search first. I came across "Engines for Education" by Roger Schank.

A link from there to columns by him called Educational Outrage

Cheers!
Pat

[GT]

GT, what makes you think local government?s control is any better?  What does ANY politician who won a popularity contest (i.e. an election) know about education?

Who said anything about local "government" control. Get the government out of education

"In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then he made School Boards." Mark Twain

[GT]

In response to my education quotes I got this response from NHCafe:

Perhaps you can get them to testify for the state. There were many eyes opened after 1919 as to the true state of our education system.
Perhaps we could ask for President Wilson`s feelings after WWI to be included in the rebutal. In 1919 the war had awakened the country to the fact that our schools had a glaring weakness. Many of the state`s could not read or write. They could not even sign their enlistment papers, and so were turned away.
?There was a recognition coming out of the war that maybe our citizens weren`t that well educated after all? said Dartmouth College President and U.S. historian James Wright.
The great school law of 1919 changed much of this. As Santana said ?those that fail to study history are bound to repeat it?. God help us if we allow our schools to go back to the ?good old days?.
Hopefully, this law and other articles will be posted soon. everyone should read them. All of the great events of history seem to have faded.
The state of our education system in 1919 should not be forgotten.

So what happened in 1919?

[AlanM]

So what happened in 1919?

It might have been the compulsory school law.Just a guess, but the timing is about right.

[tracysaboe]

Local government control, is certianly going to be better and more efficient then State or Federal control. But our ideal is to completely abolish government schooling, so that education is completely seperated from Federal, State, county, And town government.

Tracy