Education reform

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I think most people agree that schools in the U.S. need major help. What do you think of the various proposals put forth? More money? Smaller classes? School vouchers? What will save our schools?

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001

Answers

Smaller classes, of the above. But I think the public schools needing "major help" is overstated. Brian's been attending public schools all his life, as I did before college, and is making nearly straight As, and, if I'm any judge, is a fairly well-educated freshman going into sophmore in high school. (Of course, he goes to an Arts Magnet school, and they are VERY sensitive about him falling behind in traditional subjects, to the point where I think they pile it on him MORE there than a traditional school.)

However, Nashville with its numerous universities and teaching colleges might be a special case.

And I made sure he knows where to go to research something. I used to help him with his homework when he was in grade school. Now he's doing things like Geometry or Trigonometry where my failing memory would be more of a hinderence than a help...but he knows where to look things up, and that's the important thing.

Al of NOVA NOTES.



-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001


I think the only solution is parents who give a damn. I studied schools data briefly in my econometrics class, and all the studies we reviewed suggested that (a) good public school districts stay good or get better because parents who care about their kids' education move into the district to take advantage of them, sometimes at great personal cost, and (b) private schools have good test scores because they're selecting good students from again, parents who care a lot about their kids' education, and think of the school as something other than a X hour/day babysitter.

I remember that after my parent-teacher conferences each term my mom would come home loaded for bear about whatever topics I wasn't excelling in and make me drill them at home, over and over again, because obviously my homework wasn't enough. You'd better believe my grades improved. Yours would too, after hours of long division drills, research essays on topics of mom's choice, ad infinitum. It was just easier to do well in school than to take on my mom (who worked full-time, incidentally.)

That said, speaking from my personal experience, I enjoyed being in smaller classes. But respected Catholic schools often have very large class sizes and they seem to do pretty well, just the same.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001


I guess it depends on what people think they need help with - if it's educating children, then yes, they badly need to be rescued from the mindset that piling on standardized tests is a solution - ie, some are going to be very 'successful' at that particular bit of reform and will succeed in spitting out kids who know how to fill in the right blanks, but they're going to LOOK like they're succeeding at the expense of a bunch of kids who lack the ability to think and learn anything that doesn't easily translate into a multiple choice question.

They also currently need to be rescued from having to go to corporations to get funding, so that they can teach with honesty rather than per the bill-payers whims = although that's always been an issue with federally funded schools too. The bill-payer gets to decide what propaganda spin the lessons will have, whether it's corporation, government or church.

The schools were originally structured to create factory workers (eyes front, everyone in a line, ask permission to speak or get up, everyone working at the same level and 'success' being the ability to get everyone on the same track, neither too far ahead or two far behind), and they're no longer succeeding because the adult world they live in no longer needs so many good little factory workers.

It's time we decided what it is we want the schools to do - do we want them to prepare them for their future employed life? Make them 'well-rounded' in terms of a liberal arts education? Provide social and moral foundations? Babysit? Be jail wardens? We're expecting them to do it all with no consensus about how to go about it, or whether or not they should, and with reduced parental input along the way (until they show up with their lawyer to object to something).

Dorie's dead on - parents are the key. If you expect the schools to do it all for you, they're going to fail no matter HOW you define what it is they're expected to do. In terms of simple learning, they really shouldn't, in my opinion, be regarded as more than an introductory to what is out there to learn - a pointer. To learn more, students (with parental guidance and support) need to go read, research and dig in for themselves from a wide variety of sources. The schools just don't have TIME to devote more than a couple days to any period of history - after all, they've got standardized tests to prepare for.

Schools are a tool for learning, along with a whole lot of tools (including LIBRARIES, ahem!), and I think the best thing we can teach our kids is how to use the tools provided them to maximize their own education - how to glean information, weed out crap, be skeptical, check sources and question everything, ESPECIALLY the school authority telling you to sit down, shut up and spit back the answers they tell you to and quit disrupting their class time with questions about the material.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001


I agree with Lynda's comment about parents, but that argument rather quickly spin into a larger issue, doesn't it? Parents are incredibly important to a child's experience of/relationship to school, and to a schools' experience of community, and resources, etc. But that kind of parenting (yes, it is the good kind) requires resources, especially time and transportation, that many parents don't have. so who is to pick up the slack?

since i would argue that people are being systematically deprived of the resources necessary to parent well, a systematic response/set of answers is appropriate. This is where the government should take responsibility. the comparison between spending on "defense" and on education is time-honored but still illuminating --and the idea that there isn't enough money to fix education is ludicrous in that light.

Although all public schools can't be tarred with the same brush, far more public schools than private suffer intensely from lack of money and teachers. School vouchers will not make up the difference, because there are simply not enough schools to take up the mission of public education. The government must set aside more money and resources for public education, so that teachers can be paid competitively with other jobs which would lead to more teachers and smaller classes, schools need more money for boards, books, computers and infrastructure.

but all of should really be in the context of a re-examination of what kind of work-life we think people should have. as long as parents (and everyone else) must work longer and longer hours, while so-called 'leisure time' shrinks, then many parents cannot afford to be much involved in education. and how do we affect how much and how well people work? who is responsible for those decisions? why should it be totally private, since it affects the public good?

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001


It's not entirely true that our school system as it stands was designed to train factory drones. I mean, there's a component of that--certainly the first generation of American common schools were explicitly on that model. But there was a whole educational reform movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth, the "child- centered school" model, pushed by people like Dewey and Hall. The child-centered school model never caught on in its entirety, but the American public schools are more closely aligned with that model than with the previous model.

I mean, when was the last time anyone saw a real recitation-based classroom?

Sorry if I'm talking in shorthand--I'm a historian, and I've spent months at a time immersed in the history of the American educational system. That, and it's early in the morning and my coffee hasn't kicked in yet, so I may not be making the most sense.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001



It's true, parents are really important, and mine were like those of whoever first mentioned this (can't page back to check, sorry). My mom was incredibly involved in my education, maybe too much so. But if parents don't care and don't follow up, it's hard for things to improve.

Smaller classes will make a big difference, I think. Paying teachers more would help too. Everybody in our culture says how important education is, but schools don't have enough text books or buildings that are in good shape. At the same time, I honestly don't think that every student needs a computer (have some in the library) or that every classroom needs an intercom.

I feel like an old fogey, but I think schools have lost a lot of their focus. They're there to educate children in reading, math, etc. Teaching them about sex or anger management or drugs or diversity are nice, but a secondary thing. And some of that stuff should just get taught every day, as part of being in a classroom and having to behave. "John, stop hitting Joe. You know in this classroom we keep our hands to ourselves. After class you'll write an essay for me about this subject. Now, who can answer the question I asked about division?"

From what I know about the schooling of the kids in my life, schools don't seem to discipline their students much. Kids get to wander around in the halls, be tardy, etc. I think kids need a lot of structure and a strict, but kind and fair, atmosphere is good, especially in primary grades.

I'm torn about vouchers. If I had kids I sure wouldn't want them in public schools, and I'd want the help. But if the money gets pulled away from teh schools, how can they improve? The stuff you hear about grading schools and then taking money away from those who don't do well is crazy. Those are the schools that should get more resources of every kind.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001


Once upon a time, I was a graduate student in deaf education at Boston University. One prerequisite was a class in science education, and my student loans wouldn't cover it (since it was a prerequisite, not part of my regular program), so I spent a few weeks over a summer at Worcester State University.

In one of the first classes of the term, we practiced a lesson that demonstrated surface tension. The teacher explained how surface tension worked: water molecules have positively charged and negatively charged sides, and this makes them stick together (sort of) into droplets. Even though I'd forgotten everything I ever learned in my undergraduate chemistry class, this statement shoved my bogometer into the red zone -- mercury has even more surface tension than water, and it doesn't have those polarized molecules. I pointed this out to the teacher, and she said "that's what the book says." Later, I checked with a chemistry Ph.D. student who is now my wife, and she confirmed that the teacher's explanation of surface tension was completely bogus.

This was not, alas, the last demonstration of scientific ignorance from the teacher, who has a Ph.D. in science education.

Anyway, after getting my degree and getting engaged, I discovered that if I wanted to actually live in Boston in anything larger than a milk crate, the going

My recipe for improving US education is simple:

  1. Give teachers the same pay and working conditions as professionals in other fields. A chemistry teacher with a master's in education should have about the same salary as a practicing chemist with a master's in chemistry.
  2. Hold teachers to the same standards of competence as professionals in other fields, and fire the ones who don't meet the standard. In some school districts, this could turn over 90% of the staff.
Of course, this is never going to happen, because nobody wants to make both of those changes to the system.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001

Vouchers aren't the answer. They are just another knee-jerk conservative move to privatizate the government. Vouchers provide small amounts of money that won't cover expensive private school tuition. Just attending private school won't help, if the children take their problems with them - lack of English skills, behavior issues, etc.

(Also, vouchers would just encourage the Scient*l*gists to open even more stealth schools to lure even more unsuspecting parents into their clutches. When looking into private schools for my stepson I called one of those schools and was not told by the people I spoke with that it was run by the COS. It was also nowhere in the brochures and documentation they sent me.)

I think we need testing, even if it ends up being the focus of the teaching day. A national test is the only way to monitor progress across the country. Have you seen the tests? Don't you want the kids to know all of that basic stuff? So what if they are taught what is on the test. The good teachers will use it as a starting point, the bad teachers will at least have to teach the basics, or be shown for what they are.

One part of Bush's plan that I like and that is probably not going to make it into the final cut includes differentially monitoring progress by ethnicity, so that a school which brings up its overall scores is still considered deficient if its minority students are not improving as well.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001


I have to disagree with you Viv - our county is regarded as one of the most test intensive counties in the country. The time spent working on test-prep is enormous. These kids are NOT better educated as a result - there is no time to teach anything apart from the tests, nor is there time to 'teach what's on the test' - they're taught, basically, how to cram for the test, strategies for how best to guess at the answers, or very formulaic responses to categories of answers. A formula for a math principle will get pounded into them so that - as long as it looks the same each time - they can glean the answer, but never understand what it is the formula is determining, hence no 'real life' applicability happens. I hate to see the country falling under this same spell.

These are kids that can spit out certain types of answers in their sleep but - unless they're doing other learning outside of school - can't tell you why things happen, how to find answers to questions they're curious about and have a very 'teacher said so' attitude that they aren't given the opportunity (again, no time) to debate or even consider.

Mention the Revolution, and it's 'oh, yea, we had that unit in 7th grade for a week. That wasn't the one with the south, was it?' There are some truly scary gaps in their knowledge (who was it who said we no longer teach by recitation? What is cramming for a standardized test if not exactly that? Or teaching thing in little unrelated 'units' without mentioning how it all interweaves or mentioning relevent connections when they come up later in a different 'unit'? All because we don't want to confuse them when they take those tests.

Standardized testing has exactly one relevent purpose - to determine what a child knows, in order to plan out their next week or month or year of study. As a tool - a map to figure out where to go next - they're fine.

Show me the school that's using them that way now? Or the government plan that puts them to use that way. Good luck - they don't exist. Even the test makers - the ones who stand to profit from a nationally required assessment test with high order consequences for schools and children for 'failure' say they are being abused, and it is those consequences that are going to continue to up the stakes for schools to further abuse them.

If your job is on the line if Johnny 'fails' what should be a diagnostic to determine how best to teach him, you're going to do whatever it takes to make sure he passes (thus making the diagnostic part of that test a lie), and letting the next teacher up the line (and of course, the kid) deal with the fact that he's not learning what he needs to know. Learning how to pass a standardized test that shouldn't BE about 'passing' prepares you for absolutely nothing other than how to fake your way through life.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001


Even so, I just don't see any way around testing. You have to have some sort of national oversight of how students are doing. Obviously it cannot be left up to individual school boards or even states to make sure all the children are being educated. That seems clear.

But what you report is extremely distressing, Lynda. Why is it that no matter what sort of programs are put in place, the schools fail to educate our children?! Surely it is not completely impossible to do this.

Or maybe it is. Maybe we are asking too much of a system that wasn't designed to deal with the sorts of stresses it has on it now. LA, for example, has far more ESL students than EFL. It is just a different world. Maybe the answer lies in some completely new strategy.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 2001



I think we need a ground-up transformation of the way we do education (which of course won't happen) and I don't claim to know everything that it should entail. But there are a few things I think should be part of it:

1. Elimination of tenure and raising teacher pay. The two go hand-in-hand. Teachers should make a good living, as the work they do is invaluable and we should want good-quality people doing it. Teaching requires both a knowledge of the subject being taught, the ability to distill it into concepts that people who aren't already schooled in it can understand, and the ability to relate to children at the age being taught. I think that's a pretty rare combination, and people who have it should be attracted to teaching, not scared away from it by low pay. And likewise, teachers shouldn't be allowed to hold onto a job just because they've already had it for some period of time. They should be evaluated on performance like anyone in any other line of work.

2. Emphasis on basics. By the time they finish elementary school, students should have a firm grasp on the basic principles of English and math, as those are the foundations everything else they learn will be built on. By the time they finish eighth grade, they should know basic principles of science, major points of history and more advanced understanding of English and math. High school should be about learning how to learn and exposing them to a wide variety of subjects so they can discover where their interests and aptitudes are for career direction and further study.

3. Aggressive identification of learning disabilities and behavioral problems. These things should be discovered and corrected for during the elementary school years.

4. New approaches to discipline. Measures like suspension or detention seem to me to be pretty ineffective. I'm not sure what the answers are, though. Parental involvement, removing chronic disciplinary problems from the regular school, maybe electro-shock. (OK, that last is a joke.)

5. Smaller classes. This is largely a function of funding, but it seems obvious that children will learn better when the teacher has more time to answer individual questions and more opportunity to interact with each student rather than just lecturing to a sea of faces.

As for standardized tests, I think they should be limited. I'd propose one at fifth grade to make sure the students understand the basics they need to advance, and probably no more. Their progress in high school should be monitored by the traditional midterms and finals, and college entrance exams will serve the purpose for those planning to go past high school.

As flawed as our system is, it does produce many smart and well- educated people. Right now at my job we have an intern who just graduated, and who also interned for us last summer in between 11th and 12th grades, whose work is as good as many college grads' would be. But I think those are exceptions, children who are just smart, recognize the value of education and pursue it on their own. I think there are ways to instill those insights into at least some children who don't have them innately, but schools could do a better job of doing so.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 2001

Trouble's rockin like Dokken and as usual I couldn't possibly agree with she more (see "forum love" thread).

I'd be very wary of eliminating tenure for teachers. I hear that argument every once in a while but I think people miss the idea that tenure in part exists to garauntee academic freedom. The myth is that teachers just stop working and can get away with anything once they are tenured. That doesn't seem to be the truth of the matter.

If anything, I'd give teachers more academic freedom, especially at the high school level. High school kids are often much smarter than they are given credit for but are never ever challenged.

The local funding of schools through property taxes is a horrible idea that contributed greatly to the white flight/urban decay of previous decades. Federal funding that allocates MORE funding based on greater need, not LESS is a good idea. Lets face it, kids who live in an impoverished area where there parents may need to work two jobs aren't going to have as much parental involvement in their educaton as kids who grow up with a soccer mom that stays home every day to help them with their homework. The first kid needs a lot more individualized attention in school.. i.e. smaller class size, to put her on par with other folks later in life.

Classes should be much more participatory and relevant to real-life. At the higher levels students should be taught more independent research methods. Maybe this happens in some schools, but mine was 19th from the bottom in Massachusetts, so I just got your standard 4 years of gym, 4 years of english, 2 years of history, 2 years of math thing. Lots of rote memorization, no interesting classes.

Oh yeah, and kids should learn English and Spanish from elementary school. Huge chunks of this country were Spanish speaking for longer than they were English speaking (California, I'm looking in your direction) - not to mention the myriad of languages that also existed, and in some cases still do exist. It's time we threw this 19th century manifest destiny imperial bullshit out the window.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 2001


Michael, I'd vote for you. Everything you said sounds good to me.

David, I don't think high school teachers are in a position to need academic freedom. We need them to teach kids to read and do basic math etc.

I would have no problem with limited testing, but some *national* testing is required in order to keep illiterate children from being passed from hand to hand until they end up in high school as behavior problem. And identifying schools which need new administrations who will focus on the problems and bring real solutions to bear.

I agree that teachers should not be tenured, and should be paid much better salaries. After a few years of teachers strikes it is improving slightly in this area. Starting pay in Compton (depressed area where they are just getting local control of school district back from the fed) is $35K for emergency teachers with BAs. Not great, but not as pathetic as it used to be, either.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 2001


Oh yeah, there was one other thing I wanted to add. Teachers should be given every tenth year off from actual teaching and spend that year at a University learning the new developments in their discipline. Part of the problem with the way kids are taught is that we teach them this idea that math and history and literature have all been figured out and they just need to learn some facts. Once you get into higher ed you realize nothing can be further from the truth.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 2001

I like that idea, David. I think the single best thing teachers can do for high-school level students is to teach them the value of continuing to learn, and to think and to understand that knowledge doesn't remain static.

I know those things, and I still sometimes get brought up short when something I thought I knew fifteen years ago turns out to no longer be considered accurate.



-- Anonymous, July 15, 2001


Here's my Rx for education:

1. Complete elimination of standardized tests - no Iowa, no CAT, no SAT, no ACT - no more acronyms. The grades children get in their classes are what matters and in those classes they have to write - a lot, even in math and science courses. Children will learn research starting in the first grade.

2. There will be no secondary source textbooks in history and English - primary sources only and no abridged versions allowed. U.S. History will move from its usual 1 year run to two years.

3. No child shall graduate without four years, high school level, study of a language other than English. Students who are bilingual must master a third language.

4. No more study halls. No more home ec. No more shop. This is basic, liberal arts education for everyone. You want to learn a trade, do it on the weekend or sign up at a vocational school.

5. Only the brightest and most enthusiastic and passionate teachers are allowed - if you're coasting on your way to a pension, you're out the door. The kids come first.

6. School is a politics-free zone - it caters to no school board, no special interest group, no screeching and hysteric parents. Don't like it? Two words: home school.

7. Students are not treated as imbeciles who need to be watched over. Every student is responsible for their actions and the well-being of the school. Their voices matter most, but it's a heavy burden.

8. No remedial classes. If you need help, you will stay after school and/or attend summer school. All students are capable - a teacher's job is to make that a reality. If you are not ready to graduate, you will not be held back - which is traumatizing and needlessly humiliating - but will attend a post-baccalaureate year, or more if necessary.

9. The minimum entry age for college is 19. Students will not go from high school directly to college - a year off is used for work and emotional maturity.

And I've got a huge recipe for fixing college - but that's for another time.

-- Anonymous, July 15, 2001


Me twelve, I guess, on the parents issue.

As for raising teacher pay, I always feel like I'm missing something- even entry level in Georgia (of all places) is pretty damn good. But the average quality of teacher is f'ing dismal. Perhaps a system that allowed for a more dynamic compensation system would be more helpful. That way, those putting in the extra work would see it pay off, but we're not raising the salaries of those teachers I wouldn't let flip my burgers. In my own personal circle of friends, I know about 10 teachers. I wouldn't pay 2/3 of them what they presently earn.

Gabby's on to something with the break between high school and college.

(can one of our resident Oz inhabitants explain state support for post-secondary education and travel before I open my mouth further on this issue? Thanks.)

-- Anonymous, July 15, 2001


I whole-heartedly agree with both Gabby and Michael, as both make good points. American students are receiving weak education in all subject areas Math and Sciences are probably the worse. Smaller classes would be a great first step. Standardized tests are what teacher are being told to teach, therefore when the pressure is on for a teacher to teach a yearly test the things that spark a student’s imagination and love for learning is squelched, by lack of exposure, and demands for higher test scores.

With smaller classes, teachers would have the opportunity to get to know their students interests and use that to turn them onto learning. Working in special education this is the luxury that we have; it is not so for a teacher that has six classes of 30 kids.

At one point there was a bill introduced that of course never made it, that would have allowed children of teachers a big break in college tuition. I do think it would have helped to bring more teachers into the field. Have you checked the statistic on teacher shortages… it is staggering. Who in there right mind would want to go into a classroom that only has a hand full of kids that want to be there.

Most teachers are under paid and abused daily not only by administration, but also by parents, and students. A teacher work day does not end at 5, most spend weekends, and nights preparing for the next day, grading, and so on… There are few in the fields that are there for the pension... which is laughable. The expectancy of a teacher staying in the field is about five years these days. Then out of frustration, either economic or nonsupport they move on to other careers.

I can only report what I see in the schools I have taught; Michael and Gabby articulate viable solutions to educational reform.

At least in this state teachers are evaluated yearly on their work, if you do not cut it you are slowly pushed out, after being put on probation. However, they eliminate something, which was an incentive to teachers that was a teacher’s pay raise depended on said performance. Once they did away with that the quality of teaching did start to diminish. Also all teachers do have to put in summer hours in the field they teach, through either a local university or their local educational service center. Continuing education for teachers in this state is required.

-- Anonymous, July 15, 2001


Wow, you guys have been busy over the weekend!

My ideas for improving the schools (brainstorming only, and granting that every solution brings with it it's own set of problems that would have to be addressed):

1. Realign the school day and session times to reflect the current reality of society. The schools are still operating on the assumption that most children are going home to a stay at home parent and needing summers off to engage in farmwork. In reality, most children have either dual income parents, or are being raised by a single parent and the current schedule is counterproductive to a working parent's desire to participate in their child's education. Schools should go year-round with families of children kept on the same cycle as one another. Just as the workplace needs to be more aware of family needs, the schools need to be aware of and respect the parent's work needs. Late afternoon hours could be given over to either extracurricular activities, college prep or more vo-tech oriented pursuits, with a 'core' time being devoted to the solid liberal arts type education Gabby mentioned.

2. Current reality also means that an A.S. degree is as necessary now as a high school degree was when I graduated. If public school is intended to provide the minimum necessary for a young citizen to become a productive adult and even low paying jobs are now requiring some college, then public education should be extended to include an Associates degree at the minimum, possibly with higher education being provided to those students who show aptitude for it and additional vocational training provided to those who are not planning to pursue an academically oriented career. Respect needs to be returned to 'blue-collar' work rather than academic jobs being regarded as 'success' and all other future occupations as the result of failure to achieve in school.

3. An absolute end to high-consequence standardized testing. Standardized tests should be used ONLY as diagnostic tools, should not be 'prepared' for in anyway, and not be regarded as something one fails. By all rights, they should be able to be given at unplanned intervals to determine what has been learned so far, and what still needs to be learned, and responsibility and freedom should be given to the schools to adapt course study in light of the test results if needed. Class levels should be performance based rather than by age, and should be individualized by subject matter - passing onto the next level should come once the current level is mastered rather than by artificially determining that all children who are eleven years and four months old 'should' know certain things or be regarded as less intelligent. There is 20 year old (at least) research showing that there are a variety of 'intelligences' and that just a couple of them are of any use in a traditional academic setting - all of these need to be accorded respect and should be used to assist the individuals learning process. (Yes, I'm a throwback to manyof the educational ideas of the 70s - I don't believe they were given a fair opportunity for results) Basically all this boils down to doing whatever is necessary to see that children are truly provided the right to an education, rather than getting passed through the system are articially rigging testing to look like they are in order to preserve school funding and jobs.

4. Much, much, much heavier emphasis on knowledge management and dissemination, both in becoming literate with current technologies, and in traditional research and communication principles. From preschool on, children should be getting taught how to think, how to deal with unknown challenges, and how to gather information in order to make reasoned decisions. We do not currently know what sort of world they will be living in as an adult, and this is the only way we can prepare them for it.

5. The pay thing is currently a vicious circle - the brightest minds are bright enough to go where they can make the best living. Teachers will never be our brightest minds until we are willing to pay to lure them into the teaching profession. We'll have good teachers once we're committed enough to our children's future to value what they do as much as we do the doctor that treats their runny nose, or the lawyers we hire when our kids screw up (har). And yes, teachers should also go through a similar amount of education and training before getting their hands on our kids for 12 years - the Education track in colleges are currently regarded as slacker-tracks. Until we take it seriously, we shouldn't be surprised at poor results.

6. Small classes - this is a given. Every study in the world has shown that a smaller ratio of student to teacher improves education. Large classes are the result of inadequate funding and a shortage of qualified teachers, and it's going to take funding to fix it.

7. As a culture, we need to stop tying up funding for education with the local area - which ensures that lower income neighborhoods (and those where the majority of property owners are not raising children) have poor school systems. We pay for education to avoid paying for welfare, and the 12 years spent now can save us generations in welfare programs. It's not about my child or your child... it's about OUR future. If the federal goverment has aligned itself to the idea of national testing and vouchers, they've already admitted that it is a federal concern. Federal funding should be what pays for it.

-- Anonymous, July 16, 2001


I'll skip the "me too"'s for much of what's already been said, and move on. I think that perhaps the most immediately effective change to make would be ensuring parity between teacher pay and private sector employment.

I would love to teach. Love, love, love it. So would my husband. I'd even take a pay cut to do it. But if either or both of us were to quit our jobs and become teachers, even in the highest paying district in the DC area, we could not afford our (modest, middle-class) home. Why? TOP-LEVEL pay for a teacher (PhD-holding, tenured, 15-years-plus experience) is about 2/3 of my current income, and about equal to my husband's current income. Entry-level pay (which is what you get regardless of your real-world experience) is far less than that. If we became teachers this fall, my income would be about 1/3 of what it is now, and my husband's income would be cut in half. Ain't gonna happen, folks. Sorry.

Until teaching is a financially viable alternative and is not viewed societally as a second-rate profession, the top minds in any given field will never choose to teach. Teaching, sadly, seems to attract two sorts: those who can't or won't succeed in private sector jobs, and those who approach teaching as an act of love and charity.

Sure, there are amazing, dedicated, brilliant teachers out there, but they are hard to find and often don't last more than a few years before they're burned out on the political BS and the lack of resources and respect they face. Then those brilliant, caring people become former teachers, and the big losers are the kids.

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001


My inclination is to say that if you want to save the schools, let them be run by teachers. So many opinions on this thread, from people who have no knowledge of how to teach, or an education in education. How successful would you be at your own jobs if someone came in who had no training in what you do, no practical experience, and no education in your field, and that person set all policy and procedure for you? Because that is what is like for teachers.

Schools suck because they are governed by elected officials (school board, politicians) and not by people trained in education. Schools suck because administrators, not teachers, set their policy, which is why we end up with things like report cards that don't give grades and standardized testing. They suck because the person that spends the most time with your kids, their teacher, has the very least amount of power over the course of their education. They suck because teachers are caught between parents who don't properly equip their children for learning (ie kids who go to school unbathed, unfed, and unequiped with school supplies), kids, who have learnt at their parent's knees that "those that can, do, and those that can't, teach," and the school board, which sets arbitrary schedules for learning that have no basis in educational theory or practicality.

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001


A small peep to say that I actually do have experience in informal teaching, so I'm not entirely talking out of my ass - also, I went to public schools my whole life, and paid attention to what was working for students and teachers.

Also, _Educating Esme_ is one freaking amazing book and one that everyone here should read.

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2001


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