Eleven Atlanta teachers in mass cheating scandal

We need mo' money for dem programs.

Care to elaborate on that comment or is this just casual racism day?

The real problem is probably the right wing's obsession with performance based funding (and de-funding) which creates perverse incentives for fraud while not providing any real means for struggling schools to improve.

Care to elaborate on that comment or is this just casual racism day?

The real problem is probably the right wing's obsession with performance based funding (and de-funding) which creates perverse incentives for fraud while not providing any real means for struggling schools to improve.

In a district that has been pro-democrat for about 100 years you still find a way to blame the right.

It's state and federal programs that make for performance based school funding.

It's the State that controls school funding.

Yea, we should just settle for consistent mediocrity to prevent people from trying to outperform one-another because a couple bad apples might game the system.

Let's not fix the hole that allows them to game the system, let's just settle for a little worse results with no incentives and that'll be perfect.

I understand the intent but your plan doesn't work. You're not fixing any holes and I can't see how you think you are. The numbers don't lie...except when teachers fudge them to make them lie.

The schools doing the worst are typically the ones that need more resources, not less. And the schools that do the best are typically not in need of another increase in funding. It's like increasing the dosage of medicine to healthy patients and reducing the dosage of medicine to sick patients.

The answer to the problems with inner city schools has been school vouchers that allow concerned parents to take their kids out of the district to better schools in the suburbs, to charter schools, or to private schools.

Poor families should not have their kids be held hostage by inferior school districts and the thrall of the teacher's unions.

Maybe they should follow the example of other countries. Here the programs are set by the Province which the local school boards need to adhere too. The local school boards administrate everything from there and is funded by city taxes. Which include everything from schools to iPads etc.

The State and Local governments should just fix the school districts. Its fully in their power to do so.

Busing kids long distances every day isn't an answer.
Overcrowding suburban schools with hordes of new kids from the city isn't an answer.
Handing out coupons for 10% off a private school education isn't an answer.

One problem in the US school system is that the school funding has historically been based at least in part by the taxes generated by a school's district. So instead of just finding each school equally, or on a needs-based approach, the poor neighborhoods got shitty schools regardless of need and the rich neighborhoods got West Beverly High. Then add the performance base model on top of that and you get this mess.

and yet in BC at least, rich districts have many more resources than poor ones, because the govt keeps cutting back on funding, forcing parents to raise the needed money by fund raising. For some unknown reason, wealthy areas are able to raise a lot more funds than poorer ones. We have teachers buying some supplies out of their own pockets because there is not enough money coming from the province. Meanwhile, govt funding to private schools is increased.

Thank God so far we still have a very good education system, as shown by our international rankings. But there seems to be a push underway, at least in BC, to turn is into the US - what a disaster that will be.

The problem here is that the teacher's unions inevitably control the school boards by electing union activists to the school board.

In Sacramento all of the voting school board trustees are union members. The last trustee who was not a union member was Gaspar Garcia who died in 2008.

When the district managed to get voters to pass a $140 million bond to 'fix the schools' what did they do first?

They built themselves a cushy new headquarters for $75 million.

Ahh! You mean bussing

Well that is part of copying someone else. Our school boards are chosen by the citizens when we vote for all local officials. Teachers and unions have no say.

Can't find a link to the local story but last night the school boards here announced they were going to have school scores posted online. Although all the local schools get the same level of funding and resources, the actual marks differ from neighborhood to neighborhood.