Education in Colombia

goin_south says on Jun 8, 2008, 11:28:

'Morning Bill!

but, I have to disagree with your opening statement,... I think it might depend on where you live in the states. agreed the public schools pay more, but.... where I live, the private schools are the better schools. But, then this french culture is alot like that of Colombia, in so many ways.

Colombia es

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Bill Turley says on Jun 8, 2008, 11:42:

Where is it you live, then in Quebec? In my experience I have found a very close relationship between funding and quality in Education. There certainly are exceptions where excellent teachers are drawn to special interest schools. However on a more global scale I stand by my statement

Mr. Bill Somondoco

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sanandressi says on Jun 8, 2008, 12:13:

This is true everywhere in Latin America although Costa Rican public schools are probably pretty decent. If you want to know what schools are best in Latin countries find out where the Department of State officials send their kids (At US taxpayer expense mind you.) I am sure you had lots of kiddies at Colegio Nueva Granada Bill, whose mommies and daddies where FSO's or other US government officials?

The best public schools where I live are in areas where, again, mommy and daddy make lots of money. Rich liberal DEMOCRATS in one county and rich conservative REPUBLICANS in the other. Kind of odd. Everybody else below if not at the bottom. The key word here being RICH! There are several private schools here and not Catholic, that charge $10,000 to $15,000 a year and mommy and daddy probably have the kids being brought to school in Limos.

It is what it is. BTW How many American students are denied Harvard, Stanford or Yale etc because theyhave to put the sons and daughters of the rich from Colombia, Mexico, Dominican Republic in our schools? Money talks everywhere! It is what it is like it or not?

One candidate for Mexico's presidency, Jorge Castaneda, admitted that Mexico needed billions for public education. Castaneda, who speaks English better than I, did not get far in the election. He was another of these Ivy league foreigners educated in our "elite" universities.

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Bill Turley says on Jun 8, 2008, 12:20:

Yes at CNG I had many children of diplomats, Foreign Ambassador's Children and heads of big Corperations. In one small advanced class I had the daughters of Argentina's Ambassador and the kids of the owners of Home Center and Comapan. There were no poor families represented at CNG the entrance procedure and tuition precluded most prospective students. On the other hand when the President of Colombia sent his children there it was nothing unusual for the other students.

Mr. Bill Somondoco

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quantum says on Jun 8, 2008, 13:02:

If u think that American public schools are better than private, u must be living on a different planet, cuz public education in the U.S. has been getting progressively worse thru recent history. But of course there are always exceptions. You must live in one of theze exceptional areas where the public school system still has standards. In Maui, we had to fork out about $14,000 a yr towards the end of highschool to insure a high standard drug free school environment. Obama went to Punahou in Honolulu,one of the best in the country. Ask him what he thinks about public ed.......

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sanandressi says on Jun 8, 2008, 13:15:

American public schools in small towns and smaller cities are generally very good. Big urban areas are another story. Small classses too! When you have farm children who are driving tractors and combines worth from $100 to $300,000 each, they tend to behave a little better then kids in south central Los Angeles....

BTW I heard somebody say Obama used to smoke a fair amount of weed and I guess he is still a heavy smoker......relax...I don't like McCain either....

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Bill Turley says on Jun 8, 2008, 13:46:

I KNOW that in Palm Beach County Florida the average teacher's pay is more than 20% higher in public than private schools. Thanks to ( or because of) the Educational support by land taxes. I taught in some of the very poorest neighborhoods and even there the quality of the teacher was higher in Public than Private. While there are a handful of excellent Private Schools with excellent funding they are the exception rather than the rule.

Mr. Bill Somondoco

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Bill Turley says on Jun 8, 2008, 13:48:

There is a reason that Palm Beach Public is the biggest HS in Palm Beach, probably the most expensive rea lestate in the contenental US

Mr. Bill Somondoco

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BrooklynGuy says on Jun 8, 2008, 14:46:

I agree with "Go'in South" ..... many fantastic teachers in New York City would rather take LESS money and teach in private schools. They'd rather TEACH than deal with the discipline problems and violence in the public school system.
I also lived for a while in Reading, PA where the public schools look like universities and the education is high level.
It all depends on WHERE you live in the states.

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adrimm says on Jun 8, 2008, 14:54:

The impression I get is that the best public schools are in areas where parents are well-to-do and have the time to be more actively involved in school life via Parent Groups, goal-setting, fundraising etc.

Generally any school with really active PTAs are in the picture do better than those without but parent involvement is usually linked to free time, which is often linked to financial stability.

Intersting article on Public Schools in NYC: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/09/nyregion/09schools.html?_r=1&scp=3&s... zoning&st=nyt&oref=slogin

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adrimm says on Jun 8, 2008, 15:01:

When I was in grade two I spent almost a school year in Colombia. During that time I was home-schooled by a platoon of older Colombian cousins & my mother. I worked off of Canadian books for language arts, and Colombian books for math/science. When I arrived home at the end of grade two upon testing they found that in that I had reached a grade five math level. I had already started doing long multiplication, division, fractions, etc. The teachers were very surprised and I cleaned up at the grade two awards ceremony :)

I chalk it up to the one-on-one tutoring and the level of books.

If you are travelling in Colombia and know younger kids, you may want to pop in to a bookstore to check out the math workbooks and maybe take a few back with you.

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beisbollover says on Jun 8, 2008, 18:36:

I know this has nothing to do with Colombia.....but:

I always wondered why the right to an education wasn't made into an amendment of the US Constitution. Why the hell does it matter where you are born in the USA? If your born here you should have access to the same level of public education as any other child in the country. Your neighborhood should have nothing to do with the quality of your school. Taxes for public schools should be spent equally depending on number of students not income. A child born in a ghetto is no less American than a child born in a rich suburb. Sort of like the traffic lights work just as well in ghettos as in rich suburbs.

Not looking for an explanation....it's a rhetorical question.

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Bill Turley says on Jun 8, 2008, 18:45:

State Boards of ED try to do it but local schoold boards have more impact. That is a benefit of FL's system which is county wide boards. So the ghetto schools in Belle Glade get the same support from the School Board as Palm Beach itself.

Mr. Bill Somondoco

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NCMike says on Jun 9, 2008, 09:52:

Interesting discussion. I'm an ESL teacher in Charlotte, NC. The general consensus around here is that the private schools are better (I'm in public). I always get hung up on what makes a "better" school. Does a school in an affluent area with more high-achieving, on or above grade level students necessarily have better teachers than one that has lower test scores, and is in a more economically disadvantaged area? We've really struggled here to prevent more white-flight to the private schools, and maintain some balance of race and economic status within the schools. But still, the part of the city you live in has a BIG impact on where you will go to school, and there are just a handful of schools that have the reputation for being a "good" school.

I agree with a lot of what was posted above. It shouldn't matter where you were born or where you live, you should have the same opportunities for education. The irony is, per pupil spending is greater in the poorer areas here, but performance still doesn't rise. The involvement of parents is key. A few years ago they did away with forced busing here because of a court case invloving reverse discrimination. (A long, complicated story). So now we have more schools that reflect the ethnic and socioeconomic status of the neighborhood. No one says that poor, minority children can't learn. But in some of these parts of town the staff get burned out working at a school where they don't get to teach, they are dealing with discipline issues all day. And of course, no one wants to send their child to one of those schools.

So, while sanandressi's comment stung a bit, there is some truth to it. My system has about 138,000 students and is one of the 25 largest in the U.S. In most urban areas, people with money send their kids to private schools. So top performers don't show up in the public schools' test scores. Does that make their staff less competent or dedicated?

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Mononoke28 says on Jun 9, 2008, 10:11:

Does anybody know what the average salary is for a teacher in a public school system? I know it may vary from state to state but I just wanted to round up the numbers if you have them.

Thanks!

Diana

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NCMike says on Jun 9, 2008, 10:38:

Here in NC it's around $45,000. There has been much in the news recently about our governor trying to get a 7% increase for next year to bring us up to national average. So I guess if you add 7% to $45k, that would be the national average. We are probably not going to get that raise. Of course, the payscale varies depending on years of experience, degrees, etc.

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Mononoke28 says on Jun 9, 2008, 10:42:

Is that for someone with only a bachelors degree in education or do they have to have a masters in education to make that much? So for a beginner, how much do you think it would be, around $35k-$40k, maybe?

Diana

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sanandressi says on Jun 9, 2008, 11:15:

Here are three basic ways to improve public education in the US of A.

No class size K-12 should have more than 22 students period. Better if 15 or so.

Teachers must start at $45,000 nation wide and should top out at $100,000 at least.

Classes should be held from 8 to 5.

Classes should be held YEAR ROUND with no 2.5 or 3 month break. Maybe a 10 day break every 2.5 or 3 months.

MATH and SCIENCE teachers need to earn more than the PE teacher or baball coach so they will teach instead of making bombs as a chemical engineer for Boeing, 3M or some other entity where they can make right out of college what a math teacher today makes after 20 years in some cases.

What I propose is basic and simple but will never be accepted because schools are so very political. Besides, society needs dishwashers and people to do the jobs that do not pay well. Social stratification is the term I guess.

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beisbollover says on Jun 9, 2008, 11:39:

NCMike makes some very good points. I agree that parent participation and a safe/nurturing home are crucial to a students ability to perform. And that equal spending cannot help any child who is without this.

My point is directed at any public school that is lacking books, computers, teachers, security, pencils etc....

As a country we should not stand for any public schools in need of these essentials. However we cannot change the family home and this will always be a problem where there is poverty. And by the way, poverty exists in wealthy neighborhoods too. Poverty has nothing to do with money.

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jorgegdiaz says on Jun 9, 2008, 11:50:

Excuse me but wasn`t the post about Education in Col?

I don`t know much how things are nowadays, but I`m my time, public HS were way better than private ones (80`s). I went to a technical HS then later to a public Univ. I knew I always had an advantge over kids from private schools (the good and expensive ones).

While at grad school in the US I never felt I was in disvantage with other students from all over the world (friends who went to grad school in the US and other countries feel the same way - UT Austin, Penn state, Stanford, Manchester, UFRJ, A&M, etc). I also felt the Indians were completely overrated.

I can`t complain at all about the quality of my Col education.

"To err is human - and to blame it on a computer is even more so."Robert Orben

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jenny6 says on Jun 9, 2008, 17:22:

I'm teaching overseas because the pay is much better (and for other reasons also). Starting salary for a teacher in Wisconsin is around $24,000 depending on the district.

As for school funding... just look at No Child Left Behind. That's not going to solve problems anytime soon.

I agree with Colombian education (bilingual) being all about the teachers. This is especially for elementary. I personally think our school should also hire American teachers for preschool as this is when the kids are beginning to learn English. Even though we have several Colombian teachers who speak English very well, they make the same common language mistakes as the kids do. Learning from a native speaker is the best in all cases.

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bufalo says on Jun 10, 2008, 08:20:

One of my options for employment when I get back to NYC is to become a teacher in the public school system - only about $28,000 starting - that's pathetic so I'll do something else. Who can live on that in NYC??

"If you don't like it - lump it, take it down the road and dump it." - Archie Bunker played by Carroll O'Connor

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Mononoke28 says on Jun 10, 2008, 08:55:

Oh my gosh, that's it?? I knew from friends that the salaries were not very good but I didn't dare to ask and one of them told me she was getting her Masters in Education so she can earn $45k but that was in 1998. $28k???? that is ridiculous since teaching is such an important job.

Diana

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NCMike says on Jun 10, 2008, 16:50:

Bufalo I don't know where you got those numbers of 28k but that's very very low. It is closer to 50k. Still, who can live on that in NYC?

Even in North Carolina, we start better than 28k. Not much, but a little, I think in the low 30s. A quick google search would get you some payscales. And of course having advanced degrees and experience = higher salaries. Every system is a little bit different. Usually the state pays a base salary, and the local system adds to that.

Good luck with your employment. I'm curious as to how one of your options is to be a teacher in NY. Most people that teach in the public schools have to do some pain-in-the-a$$ preparation for licensure and student teaching. I understood that NY had among the toughest requirements. So if you did that, you make it sound like you are surprised about the salary, yet you would have known what the salary was if you were studying to be a teacher.

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bufalo says on Jun 10, 2008, 17:20:

Actually I get in since I have an undergraduate degree with a minor in Spanish - not the best credentials, but NYC needs teachers. A few years back a GF (colombiana) and I went together. Due to my minor I was literally offered to start immediately. She was told she had to take a spanish test! being a native spanish speaker hahahahah! I was in trouble and I didn't even do anything...

"...you make it sound like you are surprised about the salary, yet you would have known what the salary was if you were studying to be a teacher."

No, I wasn't studying to be a teacher, just researching it as an option. Like I mentioned here I went previously with no problem at all and since they are still short on teachers figured the same is still on the table. As far as the salaries are concerned I went on to several message boards, etc and that's the number I was told by several as to what they start at. Sure if I had a doctorate, etc, it'd be more, but that's the starting salary.

I do have some experience in Colombia having taught English at several schools and being a Social Studies replacement teacher at an English speaking school here as well.

"If you don't like it - lump it, take it down the road and dump it." - Archie Bunker played by Carroll O'Connor

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Tinto (Moderator) says on Jun 10, 2008, 17:51:

Bufalo - Just out of curiosity, were you looking at something like the "Teaching Fellows" program?

http://www.nyctf.org/whocanbe/eligibility.html

I just glanced at the site but it looks like you teach, earn a subsidized Masters and get paid the same starting salary as other NYC school teachers ($46K). Not a lot of money, but it's good to see they are trying to pull in people from non-teaching careers.

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bufalo says on Jun 10, 2008, 23:07:

Thanks Tinto, I'll check it out. I've heard several times over the course of a few years that NY looks for people from non-teaching careers. Lot's of really succesfull people from other areas left due to boredom or whatever and became teachers.

"If you don't like it - lump it, take it down the road and dump it." - Archie Bunker played by Carroll O'Connor

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bufalo says on Jun 10, 2008, 23:10:

Just looked at it, interesting. I can't make the deadline, but maybe next time. Looks like a good program to get started in. Thanks again.

"If you don't like it - lump it, take it down the road and dump it." - Archie Bunker played by Carroll O'Connor

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bufalo says on Jun 11, 2008, 05:48:

Must admit, going back to school to learn how to be a teacher doesn't sound that thrilling...

"If you don't like it - lump it, take it down the road and dump it." - Archie Bunker played by Carroll O'Connor

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Robert Jorge says on Jun 13, 2008, 05:13:

New York City must need teachers bad. They actually have billboard advertisements to recruit teachers here in Florida.

--"I believe in making the world safe for our children. But not for our children's children, because I don't think that children should be having sex." - Jack Handy

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