Author Archives: Lloyd Lofthouse

For Profit Corporations and the management of nonprofit organizations are adding to their wealth by getting state and federal governments to force our public school children to take more standardized tests than any other democratic country.

“Studies over the last 35 years have demonstrated that results from standardized tests are highly subjective and not entirely indicative of what is happening in the classroom. Findings from decades of scientific research suggest that standardized tests are blunt instruments, whose results can be predicted at the school and district levels by using family and community demographic data found in the U.S. Census.”

What does that previous paragraph mean when translated so most if not all readers will understand it?

In every developed country in the world, not just the United States, the children of the wealthy and/or educated do better on standardized tests than the children of the poor and/or undereducated. The poorer and less educated a family is, the lower those standardized scores tend to be.

Which country has best education system for children?

” Finland, which has the best schooling system globally, offers students free education and free meals from primary to high-school level. In Denmark, there are no educational dues until the students turn 16 years of age.”

Finland also doesn’t force its teachers to conduct standardized tests and its k-12 students to take those tests.

https://upjourney.com/which-education-system-is-the-best-in-the-world#:~:text=The%20expenses%20and%20equity%20vary,turn%2016%20years%20of%20age.

School vouchers steal money from needy public schools, money that ends up going to often below-average private schools desperate for money so they don’t go out of business. Then, often, too many of those voucher students learn the hard way they gave up a good public school for a lousy private one and leave, returning to often better public schools in one to two years.

When students leave an inferior, cost-cutting, profit-generating voucher school, what’s left of that voucher money does not follow them, putting a bigger financial burden on OUR non-profit public schools.

More proof that today’s Republican Party, hijacked by Traitor Trump’s supporters, is nothing but a mindless, mean Wrecking Ball.

In 1900, seven percent of Americans graduated from high school and three percent from college. The poverty rate was also about forty percent. If we the people lose our accountable Public Schools to publicly funded, private sector unaccountable Charter Schools, the United States may return to those 1900 ratios.

Yes, in case you didn’t know it, real public schools are accountable to state and federal laws, but publicly funded, private sector Charter Schools ARE NOT!

Public Money we pay in local, state and federal taxes and fees, funds both OUR public schools and those Charter Schools we do not own. Every public dollar that goes to an unaccountable Charter School is lost to OUR accountable public schools.

What should we call schools that are not held accountable to the same laws that guide our public schools, laws from our democratic process passed by our elected representatives, laws that are supposed to protect all of our children and insure that all of our children are allowed to learn.

U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, I want you to stop spreading the ignorant lie that the majority of American children cannot read at grade level.

Simply put:

BASIC means reading at grade level.
BELOW BASIC means reading below grade level.
PROFICIENT means reading above grade level.

It is a lie that the majority of Americans grow up reading below grade level.

How do I know that and why don’t you?

“Between 700-900 million books are sold in the US per year.”

“An annual study found that the total number of magazine readers in the U.S. remained above 220 million in every year between 2016 and 2020, having previously hovered around the 210 and 215 million mark.”

“While 91% of all adults read magazines, those aged 35 and younger are more likely to read magazines (93-94%). In addition, 73% of adults agreed that reading a magazine or book in print format is more enjoyable than reading on a device.”

“Thirty-seven percent of fourth-grade students performed below the NAEP Basic level in 2022, which was 4 percentage points higher compared to 2019 and not significantly different from 1992.”

Can you subtract, Secretary Cardona?

100 – 37 = 63% are reading at or above grade level.

Secretary Cardona, do you know how many children live in poverty in the US?

If you don’t, you should!

You should also know that the leading factor that causes children to read below basic (below grade level in every country in the world) is poverty, not the quality of our public schools and public school teachers.

“If our school’s not good enough, why don’t they just fix our school?”

That pull quote from this blog post is an excellent question that I want to answer.

I think the publicly funded, private sector, secretive and often inferior Charter school Industry doesn’t want to fix our public schools. The reason “they” don’t want to fix whatever is allegedly wrong with out public schools isn’t because of the quality of teaching and it isn’t about our children.

I know the real reason is all about the money that’s making charter CEOs and managers wealthy.

One example:

“Eva Moskowitz, who’s in charge of Success Academy Charter Schools in New York City and nowhere else, pulls down a salary of nearly $1 million a year.” — “Success has 45 schools with 17,000 students from kindergarten through high school.”

How much does a Public School Superintendent make in New York?

“The average School Superintendent salary in New York is $185,639 as of February 27, 2023, but the range typically falls between $151,635 and $223,999.”

New York City’s public school system is by far the largest in the United States. During the 2017-2018 school year, more than 1.1 million students attended approximately 1,800 public schools administered by the New York City Department of Education (DOE).

Eva Moskowitz with 17,000 students in her 45 private sector Charter Schools earns almost $1,000,000 annually from public dollars that should be going to real public school and not into her bank account.

The top paid superintendent that works for New York City’s real public schools serving more than 1,000,000 students is paid less than one-quarter of what Moskowitz pays herself as the CEO of a small, private sector Charter School chain with 17,000 students. The public money that flows to Moskowitz small charter chain should be going to New York City’s public schools and not into Moskowitz’s bank account making her richer than she already is.

The United States now has four K-12 education systems instead of two.

Before war was declared on our public schools in 1983, there were two education systems.

1. The K=12 public school systems that the public pays for.
2. A private sector k-12 school system that wealthy parents paid for.

Today we have four K-12 public school systems. What has changed?

3. Publicly funded, Private Sector charter schools without locally elected community school board.
4. Publicly funded, private-sector k-12 online virtual schools where children do not have to go to school everyday. They learn from home through their mobile, tablet, laptop or desktop.

What is the public getting for its money funding those private sector, very profitable online virtual schools?

“Virtual schools, which offer full-time instruction online and represent a slim 1 percent of all high schools…. The average graduation rate for virtual schools is 40 percent.”

What about the graduation rate for real, brick and mortar public high schools? “As of 2021, the national graduation rate is currently 85.3%, an all-time high.”

The United States also has two sets of rules for its confusing, publicly-funded K-12 education sector.

There are rules for real public schools, but no rules for the publicly funded, secretive private sector charters and online, virtual school, meaning the public has no idea how their money is being spent.

What’s wrong with Charter School in California and why they should not be funded with public money?