Subject: [Homestead] Public school teachers send their kids out of combat zone
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 14:17:17 -0700
Teachers get shot, stabbed, as do kids. Teachers that can afford it move
their kids to a safer, better learning environmentl. If you make less
than $42,000 in Milwaukee, tough shit.---you HAVE to make it a "hotbed
of reform"---guess that is the intelligent thing to do---move
insufficient schools back to the sufficiency they once occupied if you
can't afford an alternative.
More than 25 percent of public school teachers in Washington and
Baltimore send their children to private schools, a new study reports.
Nationwide, public school teachers are almost twice as likely as other
parents to choose private schools for their own children, the study by
the Thomas B. Fordham Institute found. More than 1 in 5 public school
teachers said their children attend private schools.
In Washington (28 percent), Baltimore (35 percent) and 16 other major
cities, the figure is more than 1 in 4. In some cities, nearly half of
the children of public school teachers have abandoned public schools.
In Philadelphia, 44 percent of the teachers put their children in
private schools; in Cincinnati, 41 percent; Chicago, 39 percent;
Rochester, N.Y., 38 percent. The same trends showed up in the San
Francisco-Oakland area, where 34 percent of public school teachers chose
private schools for their children; 33 percent in New York City and New
Jersey suburbs; and 29 percent in Milwaukee and New Orleans.
Michael Pons, spokesman for the National Education Association, the
2.7-million-member public school union, declined a request for comment
on the study's findings. The American Federation of Teachers also
declined to comment.
Public school teachers told the Fordham Institute's surveyors that
private and religious schools impose greater discipline, achieve higher
academic achievement and offer overall a better atmosphere.
"Across the states, 12.2 percent of all families — urban, rural and
suburban — send their children to private schools," says the report,
based on 2000 census data.
"Public education in many of our large cities is broken," the surveyors
conclude. "The fix? Choice, in part, to be sure."
Public school teachers in Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Chicago, Rochester,
N.Y., and Baltimore registered the most dissatisfaction with the schools
in which they teach.
"These results do not surprise most practicing teachers to whom we
speak," say report authors Denis P. Doyle, founder of a school
improvement company, SchoolNet Inc.; Brian Diepold, an economics
graduate student at American University; and David A. DeSchryver, editor
of the Doyle Report, an online education policy and technology journal.
"Teachers, it is reasonable to assume, care about education, are
reasonably expert about it and possess quite a lot of information about
the schools in which they teach. We can assume that no one knows the
condition and quality of public schools better than teachers who work in
them every day."
"They know from personal experience that many of their colleagues make
such a choice [for private vs. public schools], and do so for good and
sufficient reasons."
The report says the school choice movement has begun competitively
forcing public school improvement, particularly in cities like
Milwaukee, called "a hotbed of school reform," where 29.4 percent of
public school teachers sent their children to private schools, the study
finds.
"Narrow the search to teachers making less than $42,000 and the
percentage enrolling their children in private schools drops to 10
percent. Because Milwaukee is a hotbed of school reform, it's possible
that teachers making less than $42,000 are beginning to favor the public
school system."
"If so, it might be evidence that choice is having the intended effect
of spurring improvements in public education there. Or perhaps the
emergence of [public school] charters has provided another free option
to lower-income teachers who might otherwise choose private schooling."
[Homestead] Public school teachers send their kids out of combat zone,
Tvoivozhd, 09/22/2004