Democratic Underground - BASICS: What will it take to improve public schools?

The GOP position on education is clear:

test students continually to prove public schools are failing
give vouchers so children of upper middle class parents can leave
add fundamentalist Christianity at minimum in teacher led prayer in school
harass and heap abuse on teachers until only the most docile and brainless remain (I'm not saying they are there yet.

A lot of people on the street could probably tell you two out of the first three from memory.

Democrats need a couple of points on education that everyone is equally familiar with. Right now, the most most people know about Democrats and education is that they oppose vouchers and support teachers unions. I belong to a teachers union and believe they are a positive force in education, but in the public imagination the union angle is neutral at best.

Here's a couple of points every Democrat should be able to recite when asked about the subject and should be expected to act on in office:

access to quality education for all

smaller class size. One teacher can't teach 30 of today's average kids. They need more one on one attention to keep them working and check that they are learning. Below average students need even smaller classes.
raise teacher pay to the average for someone with a bachelors. You can't get smart people to enter teaching if it is close to taking a vow of poverty. The right seems to think testing teachers, micro-managing, and taking away job security are the way to improve teacher quality, but that just chases out the smart and demoralizes those who stay.

A second category of positions are those that are open to debate but shouldn't necessarily be offensive to anyone:

smaller school size It's easy for the shy and struggling to disappear and bullies to roam in packs at schools that are scaled to the size of prisons. In smaller schools, students will identify more with their classmates and teachers because everyone will know them, and it will be easier for teachers to see the students slipping through the net or abusing others.
bullying and school violence must be eliminated You can't learn if you know you are going to get your ass kicked in 20 minutes.

A third category of positions of those that are more radical and likely to face resistance:

give teachers greater autonomy in the classroom Micro-managing of the curriculum and the deadly dull textbooks used in most places suck the life and motivation out of both teachers and students.

We have a different model in our community colleges and universities: instructors ar e given a broad set of objectives and how they get there is largely up to them. That sounds chaotic, but teachers are more enthusiastic about lessons and materials they develop themselves, and that enthusiasm is contagious with students.

The result is people send their kids from all over the world to go to our colleges and universities, but few if any think our K-12 schools are superior to what they have in their own country.
As a corollary, administrators role should be reduced primarily to support. Possible more than any other professional, teachers fail UP. Those who are inferior in the classroom and don't like teaching take a couple of night class and promote themselves to principal and then administrator. Ironically, these then become the evaluators of others teaching performance and dictate how they do their jobs.

I don't know how to fix this one.

Obviously, this is not exhaustive list, but if you have something to add, do so.

To the congressional staffers reading this, tell your boss to learn to say those first three like pavlov's dogs whenever someone mentions the word education

note to moderators: please don't exile this to the education forum. My point in posting this is to help craft a core message for democrats.

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