Althouse: Have you heard about "full service" schools?

April 24, 2015

Have you heard about "full service" schools?

"A $300,000 grant paid over the next three years from the Madison Community Foundation will begin the process of developing 'full-service' community schools in the Madison School District."

31 comments:

JSD said...: Almost like a kibbutz without the religion. Give your children to the state.; 4/24/15, 10:29 AM
traditionalguy said...: Parents for kids without functioning parents. The State as a Church sounds like the establishment of a Religion where the Judeo-Christian God and his Law is forbidden to be named.; 4/24/15, 10:42 AM
Quaestor said...: I intended to write something like Why not declare everybody a ward of the state and get it over with? but JSD's comment says it better.; 4/24/15, 10:43 AM
David said...: “Our goal is to raise student achievement for all and narrow and close achievement gaps but we cannot do it on our own,” superintendent Jennifer Cheatham said Thursday. “By better coordinating our efforts (and) creating a quilt of strong neighborhood centers with strong, full-service community schools, we’ll be able to make sure that the families that need coordinated services can actually get them.”

But it won't achieve the goal, because the kids still need to go home to their less than full service families and neighborhoods. This is just a feel good what else are we going to do with the money band aid. The problems arise from poor home and community environments and poor instructional environments, partly a result of carrying the community pathologies into the schools. This is what we need to attack, but we don't because (a) it's too hard, (b) it requires actual expectations of people rather than filling in for what they won't do and © it requires a frank evaluation of what is wrong in the communities, which everyone seems reluctant to do.

Ultimately the solutions will have to come from within the communities themselves, since the government and its agencies have proved unable to fix the problems for over half a century.; 4/24/15, 10:43 AM
Bad Lieutenant said...: I think Laszlo is the one to tell you all about full service. By the way Laszlo, sorry, I can't be bothered to correct the Android voice to text. Maybe you should change your name. Sorry about that pal.; 4/24/15, 10:43 AM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: Have you heard about "full service" schools?

If they're anything like the "full service" massage parlor I frequent then I expect the boys will pay much more attention in class.

Will this be on the test?; 4/24/15, 10:44 AM
Bad Lieutenant said...: To the extent that you feel sorry for black people, shouldn't we understand and accept and get started with the fact that good change for blacks is going to be extremely difficult and is chiefly going to be extremely difficult for blacks?; 4/24/15, 10:46 AM
Quaestor said...: Parents for kids without functioning parents.

They used to be called orphans, and the places they sent parentless children were called orphanages.

$300,000 will hardly pay for the paperclips used by any government institution, so I see no chance of this "full service" approach being anything but a white elephant on a red herring diet.; 4/24/15, 10:50 AM
RonF said...: The government trying to replace parents and a home. Certainly there are many children who lack one or both. But the State will always fail trying to replace them by building a direct substitute. Institutions cannot substitute for family. A case worker can care for you in the abstract. But he or she didn't carry you for 9 months and strain to burst you out of their body in a flood of water and blood. He didn't stand there and wonder if his wife was going to get through this. There were no tears, no laughter, no exhilaration, no despair. The fierceness, the emotion isn't there and cannot be. They will sacrifice some hours for a child. They will not sacrifice their lives.

What the State should be doing is encouraging families to stay together and supply these things themselves by adopting policies that support them. They could make divorce harder to get. They could stop subsidizing art and artists that encourage the opposite. They could encourage those institutions that support family culture instead of trying to destroy them and erase their influence in the civic arena. They could stop supporting division of families by paying women when they become single mothers.

The government can encourage people in such things. But it cannot replace them.; 4/24/15, 10:51 AM
Rick said...: Are we really pretending kids can't learn because they don't have medical care?

A transparent effort to justify more social spending and empire building.; 4/24/15, 10:52 AM
YoungHegelian said...: It’s unclear how the schools would be funded after the grant expires.

To second Quaestor above, the ongoing personnel costs, including, let us not forget, security personnel, for having a school opened for that many hours a day are going to be enormous.

Looking at experiments like this, and their attendant costs, it's easy to understand why, in the past, attempts were made to simply remove children from their "failed" cultures (e.g. Native American, Australian Aboriginal) & place them with white families. These removals are now considered to be appalling examples of cultural imperialism & racism. Is this "full service school" idea really that different? I guess the FSS doesn't remove you from your parents & culture, it just allows the student to minimize his exposure to both. Maybe not down to zero, but probably pretty close.; 4/24/15, 11:00 AM
Rick said...: "Ignorance is Bliss said...
If they're anything like the "full service" massage parlor I frequent then I expect the boys will pay much more attention in class."

Ha. I predict a re-branding in the near future.; 4/24/15, 11:00 AM
MadisonMan said...: What happens after three years when the Grant Monies run out? I can't think that a Bureaucracy, once established, will go away.

Treating a symptom, perhaps, rather than the underlying cause, because that's easier.; 4/24/15, 11:01 AM
Seeing Red said...: Will they wear uniforms?; 4/24/15, 11:02 AM
YoungHegelian said...: Ignorance is Bliss said...

If they're anything like the "full service" massage parlor I frequent then I expect the boys will pay much more attention in class.

Well, at least until they're done, at which point they'll just roll over & fall asleep in class.; 4/24/15, 11:05 AM
Darleen said...: When I worked in Probation, I worked in the JDACs (Juvenile Detention and Assessment Center ... aka juvie)

Meals, clothing, school, medical/dental, psychological counseling, ROP training ...

So the only difference with this "full service" school is -- no bars?; 4/24/15, 11:11 AM
mccullough said...: This would be helpful for parents who work. Add some afterschool sports as well.; 4/24/15, 11:12 AM
Alex said...: Don't forget the early social justice warrior training...; 4/24/15, 11:35 AM
Quaestor said...: Darleen wrote: Meals, clothing, school, medical/dental, psychological counseling, ROP training ...

Just curious, how efficacious would you say those goodies were in keeping the juvies out of real prison and making productive citizens of them?; 4/24/15, 11:47 AM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: "begin the process of developing..."

$300k doesn't go very far these days.; 4/24/15, 12:07 PM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: ""The length of the school day will likely not change, Cheatham said, but the hours the building is open to its neighborhood will expand to later into the evening, earlier in the morning and on weekends."

So, they aren't doing the one thing that would actually help students catch up- lengthening the school day. More class time has been shown, over and over, to lead to more learning.

That reveals the actual purpose of full service schools. It's not providing better education.; 4/24/15, 12:12 PM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: Charles Murray's custodial state.; 4/24/15, 12:12 PM
Sebastian said...: Wait, I thought it just took a village? And now it will take a full service school and its security personnel and its medical personnel and a government bureaucracy and more taxpayer money?; 4/24/15, 12:37 PM
MountainMan said...: I'm with RonF at 10:51AM. He nails it. No need for me to say more.; 4/24/15, 12:42 PM
mtrobertsattorney said...: Re: Treating a symptom of a problem "rather than the underlying cause."

The genius of this strategy is that it insures that the problem will never be fixed. And so the Department of Symptoms will be funded in perpetuity.; 4/24/15, 1:00 PM
Anonymous said...: I once attended a meeting about the future of the public schools in our town. We broke up into small groups to brainstorm ideas on what services the community wanted from its schools. The local manager of low income housing thought the schools needed to get involved in the effort to provide affordable housing. I proposed the idea that schools should provide education. We did not see eye to eye.; 4/24/15, 1:17 PM
Bushman of the Kohlrabi said...: Sounds like they'll need a whole slew of new public employees to implement this.; 4/24/15, 4:53 PM
geokstr said...: By "full service" I assume that they mean it comes with a "Happy Ending".; 4/24/15, 5:43 PM
wildswan said...: Key criteria

Will they fix the school lunch program?
If not, then they can't fix anything. There's lots of deeper problems than the unforeseen consequences of Michelle's lunch rules. But I feel sure that Madison will say that the lunch program has no problems and that what they mean by a problem is the little girl with a cupcake that says Jesus Loves You. And the little boy next to her who gives her a kiss when she shares.; 4/24/15, 6:30 PM
RecChief said...: I'm assuming that a "Full Service" school will include a 2 minute Hate; 4/24/15, 10:37 PM
J. Farmer said...: @Darleen:

"So the only difference with this "full service" school is -- no bars?"

And nobody will be sleeping there.

I don't have too much of a problem with places like these if they offer a convenience to the members of the community, are well utilized, and well liked. They might have some marginal impact on academic performance, but of course the ones who could benefit from them the most are usually the ones to utilize them the least.; 4/25/15, 8:07 AM