People slipping through the cracks

[sid_galt]

haha yes! And make it cost a lot. If you don't progress... then your parents have some incentive to help you.

School vouchers are a viable idea. The tax money that you pay into the useless public education system will be sent to your private school instead.

Besides it isn't like public education is doing any wonders.

 

[zoobyshoe]

THe ebonics movement was simply to recognize that these kids are growing up not speaking the same language as the books they are supposed to be learning to read. There was no attempt to teach this "as a language" but rather, to recognize that the kids must be taught just as though they were learning "proper" english as a second language.

If this is the case, it sounds like it was a good idea.

 

[Moonbear]

I would like to offer my suggestion: public education should be "free" for a limited time. You get 12 years of it. After that, you pay.

On the surface, it sounds like a good idea; give people a financial incentive to pass. Though, the more likely outcome would be that more kids would just drop out if they couldn't afford it and their parents didn't care enough to make it a priority sooner.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

The problem with ebonics is twofold in my opinion. Firstly, it is a valid language and is a distinct derivative of English in the sense of Linguistics. Secondly, I don't hear a national outcry to ban the use of "ya'll" in southern school systems or making new englanders pronounce the r's on the end of words ("pahk you cah in Hahvahd yahd"- translated as- park your car in Harvard Yard). These regional variations get slowly integrated into the national mindset and accepted gradually. By the time kids in middle school are having children, the issue of ebonics will no longer be an issue (I think). How do you decide what is the correct version of a language that can have extreme variation on a very small scale? If you doubt this- go to Wisconsin. Stay in Green Bay for a couple days- you will begin to see the local dialect in action. Then go to a little town called Two Rivers which is 20 miles away. This area has an insane accent and pronounciation scheme that is clearly distinct from the local area and the rest of the state. If while you are there, and you ask them what town you are in, I would bet you good money you wouldn't understand what came out of their mouth corresponded to Two Rivers. So who decideds what is proper grammer, prounciation, etc. in a country that does not have a national language? (And if our forefathers would have decided on one, there would have been a good chance it would German).

In person my english skills are definitely lacking. Even here when I type out my posts I'm sure I make several grammatical and spelling errors, though I don't really care. At my job though when I type out reports they are very nearly perfect as opposed to about half of my co-workers who can not accomplish this verbally OR written. These are reports that could easily wind up being used for legal purposes. I wonder how quickly most of the ones that come out of my department would be tossed due to poor composition and grammar if they were to be presented in court.

 

[Chi Meson]

School vouchers are a viable idea. The tax money that you pay into the useless public education system will be sent to your private school instead.
Besides it isn't like public education is doing any wonders.

This would be fine, as long as the private schools DO NOT get to pick and choose whom to let in. If you take public funds, then you get all of the public.

Watch then how good those private schools really are.

 

[Moonbear]

This would be fine, as long as the private schools DO NOT get to pick and choose whom to let in. If you take public funds, then you get all of the public.
Watch then how good those private schools really are.

I agree. Private schools only appear better because they can select the best students, and refuse all the special education students. There's also an economic flaw to the idea of vouchers, and that's that the money used for public education is not distributed evenly on a per student basis. A much higher percentage goes toward the special education/special needs students who have to be accommodated and require smaller class sizes, individual aides, special equipment, etc. It also covers costs such as building maintenance, which won't change if you have 10 students or 1000 students in that school, removing some of the funds just raises the per-student cost for the remaining students, which of course would not be economicaly viable. If you were to truly give a student a voucher for the actual cost of their individual education in a public school, not maintenance of the school building, or cost of shared supplies, unless they were a special education student, it would be considerably less than private school tuition. Afterall, private schools are in the business of making a profit. Further, if you use public funds for private schools, they are no longer private; they then will have to adhere to the same non-discrimination, separation of religion rules that public schools must adhere to if tax money is funding them.