- - - - - - but it's important to admit that the public schools were in pretty terrible shape even before the charters.- - - - -

Some historic central city schools districts are certainly in bad shape and a few are probably irrecoverable. Some aren't: NYC amazes me with the incredible job it continues to do even as resources are slashed and social support is damaged.

But that's irrelevant, because the US ceased to be majority urban around 1970. The US is now a suburban and exurban nation. And the vast majority of locally controlled suburban and exurban public schools do a fine job and are well-liked by their constituents (who are nonetheless convinced that the school district in the next town is rotten, and vice versa). The City of Detroit is not an example of what "public schools" are like in the United States.

sPh

Yes, and in our county the tony private schools refuse to accept special needs children ("not qualified", they say; "more of a job for the public schools") and ruthlessly kick out any child with disciplinary problems ("shape up or you're going back to the public school"). Technically they also kick out any kid who falls to the C level academically, but generally mom & dad step in with 10s of thousands of dollars of additional tutoring and nannying so that seldom actually happens. But the expenditures between the two types of school are exactly equivalent. Because union thugs.

sPh

- - - - - I'm afraid teachers are a large part of the problem. Their unions consistently thwart attempts to address teacher performance or rather the lack thereof. - - - - -

The first half of that (very common) statement is unproven and in most cases demonstrably false. The second half, also very common hard right wing propaganda, is an issue on which there can be reasonable disagreement but is not in any form a "given truth" and even at best ignores the history of teacher unionization from 1920. So, not very good marks to your (presumably private school?) history and political science teachers.

sPh

- - - - - but they are definitely not private schools.- - - - -

Technically, some states do give charter funds directly to what were historically considered private schools. Although see Louisiana for why the charter crowd turned out not to be so happy with the consequences of that one.

But that's not my point. I didn't say that "charter schools" were private. Some are, most aren't. But "charter schools" are not part of a universal free (and equal) public school system, and are in fact specifically designed to destroy free universal equal schooling. So charters are in no way shape or form public schools. You might want to check back with your private school logic teacher for a bit of a tune up.

sPh

This can be confirmed by what happens when charter schools fail: their students are sent back to "the public schools" - namely the local universal public school district.

Yup. My inferior, decaying public high school offered five languages and a world-class music program. Guess what was cut first when the budgets were chopped?

sPh

- - - - - And charter schools ARE public schools - - - - -

"Charter schools" were specifically designed by an alliance of hard right wing radicals and religionists of one religion to destroy not only the concept of universal free public schooling but the very infrastructure of the schools, the buildings, and the systems that support them. So no, "charter schools" are not public schools.

Nice try though.

sPh

- - - - - We haven't HAD dedicated OR capable public school teachers in about 275 years. - - - - -

An brief examination of the list of Americans who have graduated from New York City public schools alone belies that sweeping statement. The United States has an overall very good public schools with - unfortunately - a few very bad spots. And there are hundreds of thousands of dedicated and very good public school teachers in the US to match. Your statement is the sort of baloney that makes glibertarians look utterly foolish.

sPH

Guess it isn't as easy as it looks:

- - - - - - http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
  Missouri’s Board of Education has decided to close six charter school campuses run by the Virginia-based Imagine Schools Inc., the country’s largest for-profit charter network, saying that it “would be a disservice” to children to keep them open because of academic and fiscal issues.

Imagine, based in Arlington, operates more than 75 schools in more than a dozen states — including Maryland — and the District of Columbia. Its six school campuses in the St. Louis area have been the subject of stories in the St. Louis Post Dispatch that detailed complicated real estate deals through which the schools, which operated with public funds, generated millions of dollars for Imagine and a Kansas City-based real estate investment company.

The decision to close the schools at the end of the school year will mean that about 4,000 students will have to find a new school for next fall. A transition office is being set up to help families find new school placements, a statement from the Missouri Department of Education said. - - - - -

New schools were found for those children: they were sent back to their original public school districts, most of which had been badly damaged by the loss of the per-student payment when they were recruited for the "showcase" charters.

sPh

Although I'm generally a strong supporter of public schools and public school teachers, I will concede that your spelling teacher needs a bit of remedial classwork himself.

sPh

- - - - - If you think taxpayer-funded governmental programs are rife with waste and inefficiency, you're probably correct. - - - - -

I don't, no. Compared to other large-scale human endeavors decently funded universal public school districts receiving strong societal support are among the most efficient institutions known to man.

But compared to for-profit charter "schools"? Public schools - even the really bad ones - are havens of efficiency and good results.

sPh

- - - - - Objective measurement about the tools, use and progress. Not replace the manager and everything will be fine.
Something the cheaply measure progress, and allow the teacher to set progression goals with the plan as aggressive at any specific student can handle. - - - - -

Two points: the hideously counterproductive NCLB went into effect in 2002, and there has been enormous amounts of work done on testing and reporting numerically consistent results since that date. In some lower-performing school districts children now spend very large amounts of time per year taking tests (I've heard up to 20% of total school time, although that's probably an exaggeration). So whether those systems are good or bad, well-designed and managed or not, the one good result is that it is not possible in 2014 to argue that there are no standardized standards or reported numerical "metrics" for public education (many categories of private schools and of course homeschoolers being exempt from this testing, natch). If you have a better standardized evaluation system by all means form a company or nonprofit and start selling it, but let's not pretend that evaluation isn't occurring.

Second point: the entire job of a teacher, particularly a K-8 teacher, is to evaluate students and set good progression goals for that student. That's what they do all day, every day. I'm sorry if you personally had some K-12 teachers who missed that mark (I'm not saying there aren't some at the lower end of the capability distribution - stats says there will be), but the vast majority of teachers I've met work very hard to do just that and are quite good at it.

sPh

- - - - - Next time hire me to handle it and come up with a plan based on set goals and achievements. - - - - -

In other words, the way dedicated and capable public school teachers have been handling it in the United States for 275 years. Good plan.

sPh

- - - - - — in order to reward results rather than persistence — - - - - -

If my inferior public school education is any guide, I believe that is technically known as "begging the question". There was no evidence beforehand that there are significant problems with US K-12 education on average, but there was and is absolutely zero evidence that the vast majority of teachers weren't already working hard 'to achieve results' before Grover Norquist and Michelle Rhee got involved to "improve" the situation. On the other hand, there is over 100 years of evidence as to why schools tend to evolve toward seniority systems (hint: not to protect "incompetent" teachers), all of which was ignored.

sPh

Yeah, Mono...

If you don't mind being stuck at .NET 3.5, and don't care about WPF support. No thanks. Mono is a joke.

Seriously. Every huge, impossible project is made up of a bunch of smaller projects that are totally doable, plus maybe a couple that are actually hard. Divide and conquer is one of the most important skills you can develop as a programmer. Start with the first easy thing you can think of that you'll need to do before you get to the big hard thing, and get some code on the screen. Keep doing that. Pretty soon you'll find you have most of it done.

And as for the reading thing, you should expect to be spending more time reading than writing code. I think my time is about 50/50 now, and I've been coding professionally for three years, after doing a BS and about 70% of a master's in comp sci.