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Keep consequences for kids in mind

Wednesday, October 24 at 12:01 AM

I hope everyone who votes on the recently recommended closures of various DPS schools (“Proposal calls for closing 8 schools, transforming 5,” Oct. 2) will drive from each of the institutions and see for themselves the problems involved with the transfers.
On paper, Whitman Elementary looks close to Place, but there are several problems to be considered. One, a child walking to Place must walk on Monaco Parkway, cross Alameda Avenue and Leetsdale Drive and, if they make it safely this far, they are still only halfway there.
There is RTD public transit on Monaco, but in this society, I have fears for any child under 12 riding a public bus without an adult accompanying them.
Further, if one thinks back to the days of busing for integration, kindergartners and first- and second-graders remained at their home school for a very good reason: Children this age are sick or hurt a lot and are often sent home. If a parent does not have access to a car to bring them home, it’s a long walk from the door at Place to Monaco and public transportation.
After they finally arrive at the new school, I have a major concern about the younger children being bullied and their money stolen by the middle school kids.
More kids means more programs can be offered, but small class size is helpful when they are reading below grade level.
Please try to weigh both sides before voting.

Jean M. McBirnie, Denver

READER COMMENTS

Your best bet is to just shut DPS down and let vouchers and private schools do some actual educating. DPS is the most useless waste of taxpayer's money that could possible exist on this planet, short of government-run health care.

Posted by clyde on October 24, 2007 02:05 AM

Sounds to me like a few parents need to take a more active rle in thier childs life. Maybe instead of running off to starbucks they should accompany thier child on the bus to school.

Posted by on October 24, 2007 05:16 AM

Clyde-
I suppose vouchers and private schools will solve teen pregnancy, gang violence, drug and alcohol abuse, bad home situations, etc. None of these have an effect on school quality, right?

This just in- most big cities in the US have the same problems, and most have schools that are subpar. What do they all have in common? Societal problems like I just mentioned, not to mention what 5:16 has said. Too many parents have stopped being parents.

Posted by BO on October 24, 2007 07:06 AM

if parents were really parents to their kids we wouldnt worry abou this now would we?

bo, no nothing will take care of your issues not even public schools where they promote exploring with sex and drugs and pass out birth control or abortion clinic numbers

Posted by on October 24, 2007 08:04 AM

Yes Bo, lets maintain the status quo since its not working.

VIVA VOUCHERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

Posted by on October 24, 2007 08:25 AM

yea vouchers baby. I want to send my kid to Jesus Camp but I can't afford it. Give him a chance to learn how to speak in tongues and a little Snake Handling 101. Anything to take money away from public schools seems like a good idea.

Posted by just sayin' on October 24, 2007 08:30 AM

The CCD audit was revealing this morning.
The state should audit DPS. Then a lot of the mysteries surrounding its failures would become a LOT less mysterious.
Denver doesn't support DPS because instinctively it knows something smells over there. The word is Trust.
Or, to be more accurate, Distrust.
Any local government needs to be occasionally audited by someone other than an employee of that entity. Duh.

Posted by Kathy Hansen on October 24, 2007 08:53 AM

"Anything to take money away from public schools seems like a good idea."

At least you're half right.

Posted by drew on October 24, 2007 08:55 AM

Lot's of wind on this subject...yet I bet none of you blowhards have set foot in a public school for decades. Vouchers? You think so clyde? Hasn't the Church taken enough of your money? Now you to trade other peoples' (taxpayers) money for your personal redemption? I don't think so. There are still some rational thinkers out there, and I hope they keep voting you and your closed minded ideas down!

Posted by shaupeen on October 24, 2007 09:37 AM

"Lot's of wind on this subject...yet I bet none of you blowhards have set foot in a public school for decades. Vouchers? You think so clyde? Hasn't the Church taken enough of your money? Now you to trade other peoples' (taxpayers) money for your personal redemption? I don't think so. There are still some rational thinkers out there, and I hope they keep voting you and your closed minded ideas down!"

Too far of an assumption to guess that this nonsensical statement was born in public school-trained mind?

Posted by drew on October 24, 2007 09:42 AM

Vouchers are for the fat stupid little kiddies of Drew and Clyde, so they can go to Repuke Academy.

Posted by on October 24, 2007 10:55 AM

The Emperor Wears No Clothes, eh 10:55?

Posted by drew on October 24, 2007 11:16 AM

Doesn't DPS have School Buses? If not, which I doubt, the parent should take their kids to school. "It is a parent's responsibility to provide education for their children." Parents who believe that statement is true have successful students. Parents who don't have children who fail, get pregnant, abuse drugs, etc with very few exceptions.
It's amazing to see how much more funding per student there is at DPS and how much higher the teacher salaries are at DPS than at Douglas County, yet Douglas County students perform better. There is nothing wrong with DPS schools and teachers. That's not the problem. The problem is parents who do not care about education and the kids who do not attend classes.

Posted by Frustrated on October 24, 2007 11:49 AM

Can't we all just get along?

Come see DAMN YANKEES at the Longmont
Theatre Company. Opening this Friday the 26th, and running until Nov. 17. Tickets are $17.00, much cheaper than World Series!!
Call 303.772.5200 for tickets.

Directed by yours truly,
Ricky Lee Landrum

Posted by RickyLee on October 24, 2007 12:25 PM

I don't know drew, it made sense to me--shaupeen doesn't want his taxes going to parochial schools. A lot of people don't. In fact the majority don't. What part do you need explained again to you?

Posted by drew's teacher on October 24, 2007 01:13 PM

Too much ignorance on here.

Yes, I teach. Yes, its my plan, and we have fall break tomorrow and Friday (rural Nebraska school; help with harvest), so I felt I could take a couple of minutes to respond.

1) I have worked at 4 schools in my career (3 in NE, 1 in CO), and sex advice and the passing out of condoms has not occured at any of these schools. I guess I just happened to have worked at the 4 public schools where these things don't take place.

2) I am familiar with the Boulder thing. Over the top? Probably. However, most of you probably weren't there or have read the transcript. Many of you are going by what Rosen and Caplis have told you. There was an individual that did tell kids to take drugs, have sex, and have an abortion. He then went on to tell the audience that he did just that, and then discussed the negative effects of doing so, which he still feels today. Telling kids to just not do something doesn't always work like it did 25 years ago. It would be nice if it did. My job would be much easier.

3) Drugs, teen pregnancy, gangs, family breakdowns, etc. were problems long before the Boulder discussion. Even if they had told kids to do those things w/o discussing the consequences-how many public schools are there in the US? It happened in Boulder, so it must go on everywhere, right?

4) I live in a conservative state. There aren't the same calls for vouchers or privitization here as there seems to be in CO. Why? Because the conservatives here seem to be way more sensible, not a bunch or grouches that are just complaining about having to pay ANY taxes. Vouchers won't solve any problems, other than redirecting money. Thugs will be thugs.

I better go. I need to plan my Monday lesson- "The History of the Condom."

Posted by BO on October 24, 2007 02:09 PM

Too much ignorance on here.

Yes, I teach. Yes, its my plan, and we have fall break tomorrow and Friday (rural Nebraska school; help with harvest), so I felt I could take a couple of minutes to respond.

I better go. I need to plan my Monday lesson- "The History of the Condom."

Posted by BO on October 24, 2007 02:14 PM

Sorry for the double post.

Drew's teacher makes a good point. How many of these pro-voucher people would have no problem with tax $ going to Sheikh Ali Babba's Madrasa? Or the Buddhist Academy of Total Enlightenment?

Posted by BO on October 24, 2007 02:23 PM

BO, if the school was providing a better education than the public school, I don't care if they teach, Wicca, Buddism, Taoism, or any other religion. What the problem is our public schools are so worried about the 'self-esteme' of the kids that they cannot take the time to teach them to read, write and do simple math. It is time to go back to the basics, and if a child cannot do the work then they should not pass to the next grade.

Posted by Mickey on October 24, 2007 02:47 PM

Actually.... I don't have a problem with where anyone wants to send their child. As long as the school is accredited by the state, they can send them to a Parochial school, A Montessori school, an Ayn Rand School, An Al Franken school or a madrasa.

That's the nice thing about vouchers... The Parent must get involved. They have to choose where their student goes and some of these, like Montessori force the parents to be involved.

I know for a fact that for example, a Montessori school that I know of can teach children for FAR less than what is spent at the public level. The children come out of there and can actually read and write and think.

What is the alternative? Throw more money at a failing system? How much money? $20k per student? $40k? Why is the worst school system in the country, Washington D.C., also the one that spends the most per student? I notice that the people who like the status quo only have an ad hominem attack, not a solution.

Posted by Dravur on October 24, 2007 02:55 PM

How did the human race survive the last 70,000 years without the government there to do all the things parents should do?

I guess all those millions that came before us just made it by dumb luck.

If you consider yourself a victim, you are so 21st century! That makes you cool!!

Posted by truthy on October 24, 2007 06:53 PM

My grand daughter attends an excellent public school where the students must adhere to a standard of behavior or face real consequences, they learn to read, write and use mathematics and the parents are welcome at the school.

I want vouchers that give half of the amount spent per student in the public schools to the parents of each student to give to any school, public or private. I would give mine to the local public school.

The main opponents of vouchers are the teachers union and the school administrators who claim that if vouchers are permitted the good students will abandon the public system leaving the ones whose parents are disinterested in the public schools. Do they fear this because private schools are so superior or because the present system is incapable of trimming out the waste and the bad teachers?

So long as all the schools are required to meet the same standards as public schools today, even using CSAP, there will be an even playing field. A parent who is interested can make the difference.

And private schools reduce the burden on public schools. A number of years ago the Bishop in the Pueblo diocese closed all the parochial schools at once. It was announced at the end of the school year. Go back to the archives and read the articles and the tax proposals they found it necessary to create in order to make room for those students. I still think it was a short sighted move. It did make the point that the vaunted argument claiming that vouchers were unfair because there was an empty place available in the public schools for all the children was hollow and just plain false as well. The result was higher taxes, more crowding in schools and a lot of unhappy people.

Individual choice would be the great feature for vouchers and would permit us to actually make a difference to the poor kids whose parents can't afford anything but a public school. Rich kids and many middle class kids can already afford to pay for a private school.

(Some of the richest cheat on this one. Check out the story of a father who won a court case in New York that forces the public school system to pay the tuition for his son to attend a private school with a yearly tuition over 30K. Court ruled that a parent of a disabled student had the right to choose a school that would be able to best deal with the student. A reporter looking into this discovered that almost all of the kids in this schoolhad their tuition paid by the state. Most of the "disabilities" had been privately diagnosed as well. Poor kids who applied to this school with the same public funding to pay their tuition are still waiting at the door. Guess vouchers for the rich are all right for some people.)

Some parents, especially single mothers, can't afford a half day off to go to a parent teacher conference. They can go in the evenings or on weekends but the teachers aren't holding them in the late evenings or on weekends even with the extra days off they get which almost always come before or after a long weekend creating a four or five day break.

Animosity towards religion seems to be the main impetus behind many of the opponents of a voucher system. Again I ask why we don't trust the parents to make a wise decision? There might be a good reason to mistrust some, but all?

Posted by momma y on October 25, 2007 02:32 AM

I see a common thread weaving it's way through the comments of those who oppose school vouchers, namely, the idea that anyone who wants a voucher will take it to a religious school. I would think that if parents had a chance to place thier children where they wanted, and were able to use money already taken from them for their childrens education, they would put that money where they thought it best for their childrens education, including the local government school. The point of vouchers is not to support religious schools per se, but to provide parents a choice in where to send the young'uns. Since the money is already taken from them, why shouldn't the parents have a direct say in where that money is spent?

Posted by Darin on October 25, 2007 05:09 AM

A lot of good points here. However, there are many issues not addressed. I think the differences we have is that many pro-voucher people are only concerned about their kid- and I understand that. We need to look at society as a whole as well. Your child (and mine) are part of a larger society. The higher level society functions. the better off we'll all be. Vouchers aren't going to solve society's problems. I would rather try and fix our current system, as error laden as it might be, than replace it with another error-laden system. Schools will still have underachieving kids, and under our current set of laws, school is required through age 16. Go ahead and close the "underperforming schools"- those kids will still have to go somewhere, and the majority of those children will still bring their issues with them. Education, whether public, private, charter, or home-schooling, starts at home. Without addressing that, nothing will be fixed. Too many ask too much of schools these days.

Posted by BO on October 26, 2007 08:31 PM