DeSantis signs universal school choice bill into law

[OSR stands with Israel]

School choice is one of the dumbest ideas the anti-Americans in the GOP have come up with. We should flood public schooling with massive amounts of funding to a New Jersey/New England level at a bare minimum, and possibly as much as two or three times that.

I really don't think that this would help in any way. As other posters have remarked, the US already spends a lot on education – more per capita than the average EU country – only to end up with unsatisfactory outcomes.

From my view, it is less a matter of funding and more of discipline and how the entire system is set up. Having bright children and children who can barely write their names in the same classroom for 12 years is a recipe for disaster. In Germany, we divide students into different tracks after elementary school (Year 4), and while this is no perfect system either, it helps both those who excel and those who need help and/or are not particularly intellectually gifted.

I also think that 30 students per class is a perfectly reasonable size. It's the same here, in Austria, Switzerland, etc.

They aren’t in the same classroom for 12 years . They are for 8 but in high school classes are more divided by skill level

Point taken, but that does not make it any better. Especially since the curriculum tends to be much easier than what is expected in many European or Asian countries. A good friend of mine spent a year at a high school in Iowa, and what he was taught there was a complete joke.

Then we should focus our efforts on improving public education, starting with drastically raising teachers' salaries. We shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater just because some states' schools are worse than others. When I was a kid, I spent 1st-4th grade in Bentonville, Arkansas. It was one of the best schools in the state, but paled in comparison to the quality of education I got afterwards in PA. There should not be that much of a differential in public school quality.

At the same time, we should demand more as well. Raising teacher salaries without raising requirements and quality, is not going to work.

Finnish Teachers have literally full autonomy. Their own offices. They also have Masters Level degrees in education, and they're trained in the latest science of education ( and they had to do research as well ).


It's super competitive to be a teacher in Finland.

I don't disagree at all, I feel like we're making the same point. Our public education would be drastically improved by better teachers, which can only come about by increasing the incentives for well-educated people to become teachers. We also should standardize education nationwide, states determining education has resulted in certain states being drastically less educated than others, which just puts those states at a disadvantage.

I mean Florida is ranked higher than NY/CA/TX when it comes to public education

Not impressive when it’s still middling compared to Massachusetts,

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/education

Florida is literally ranked in the top 3 now

If Florida public schools are so good, why is DeSantis trying to "fix" them still. If they are so exemplary why should any parent object to sending their children to them?

Jeb Bush introducing school choice made their education system overall go up in the rankings so DeSantis is just expanding what’s already been done

[Blue3]

School choice is one of the dumbest ideas the anti-Americans in the GOP have come up with. We should flood public schooling with massive amounts of funding to a New Jersey/New England level at a bare minimum, and possibly as much as two or three times that.

If we invest strongly in our secondary schooling fewer people would land in the student debt trap.

The US already spends more per capita on K-12 education than most developed countries.


Spending more isn't the answer... nor is school vouchers.

We need to change the way education is done in the US. Better paid, and higher quality trained teachers. Focus on results.  Most US Teachers in this country can't even do basic math ( it's true).


............



Also, School Vouchers is just a giveaway to middle to upper middle class parents who don't want their kids to attend a public school.

Even if, a poor family takes advantage of it, do you think any poor family would keep up with the parent volunteer hours, and the constant extra curricular activities ? NO ! Of course not.

You're half-right.

You're neglecting the lack of support for teachers, and how private companies (like textbook and other curriculum companies) are predators that suck up school funding.

We need to focus on people, and realize teachers are only one factor in the education system (and that's even not including the economic/social/lingual/family factors). But also good admin, a culture that treats people as people, enough social workers in high-need areas, enough school psychologists, rethink what results we should even aim for and how, etc.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

School choice is one of the dumbest ideas the anti-Americans in the GOP have come up with. We should flood public schooling with massive amounts of funding to a New Jersey/New England level at a bare minimum, and possibly as much as two or three times that.

I really don't think that this would help in any way. As other posters have remarked, the US already spends a lot on education – more per capita than the average EU country – only to end up with unsatisfactory outcomes.

From my view, it is less a matter of funding and more of discipline and how the entire system is set up. Having bright children and children who can barely write their names in the same classroom for 12 years is a recipe for disaster. In Germany, we divide students into different tracks after elementary school (Year 4), and while this is no perfect system either, it helps both those who excel and those who need help and/or are not particularly intellectually gifted.

I also think that 30 students per class is a perfectly reasonable size. It's the same here, in Austria, Switzerland, etc.

They aren’t in the same classroom for 12 years . They are for 8 but in high school classes are more divided by skill level

Point taken, but that does not make it any better. Especially since the curriculum tends to be much easier than what is expected in many European or Asian countries. A good friend of mine spent a year at a high school in Iowa, and what he was taught there was a complete joke.

Then we should focus our efforts on improving public education, starting with drastically raising teachers' salaries. We shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater just because some states' schools are worse than others. When I was a kid, I spent 1st-4th grade in Bentonville, Arkansas. It was one of the best schools in the state, but paled in comparison to the quality of education I got afterwards in PA. There should not be that much of a differential in public school quality.

At the same time, we should demand more as well. Raising teacher salaries without raising requirements and quality, is not going to work.

Finnish Teachers have literally full autonomy. Their own offices. They also have Masters Level degrees in education, and they're trained in the latest science of education ( and they had to do research as well ).


It's super competitive to be a teacher in Finland.

I don't disagree at all, I feel like we're making the same point. Our public education would be drastically improved by better teachers, which can only come about by increasing the incentives for well-educated people to become teachers. We also should standardize education nationwide, states determining education has resulted in certain states being drastically less educated than others, which just puts those states at a disadvantage.

I mean Florida is ranked higher than NY/CA/TX when it comes to public education

Not impressive when it’s still middling compared to Massachusetts,

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/education

Florida is literally ranked in the top 3 now

Higher education is doing a lot of the heavy lifting. Even this poll shows that MA, CT, NJ, CO, and the rest of the Actual First World Gang are doing better.