BASICS: What will it take to improve public schools?

[yurbud]

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 Who your parents are and what neighborhood you are born in should not determine how much or little you learn in your 13 years in public school.


• 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.

[goddess40]

1. bullying and school violence must be eliminated

This is the number one issue our schools need to address. I know many blame the access to guns for what happened in Columbine but the truth is if those boys hadn't been harassed for 12 years it never would have happened.

My son has been bullied since the kindergarten, he has a learning disorder that prevents him from reading body language and if you know anything about social skills you know this makes him the perfect target for those little assholes. Today he got to school and opened his locker to find that someone had stolen the entire contents - will there be a final straw for him, I hope not but while I don't condone bully victims taking matters into their own hands I sure understand it. When those that are supposed to protect you look the other way or make excuses what are they supposed to do?

[yurbud]

3. I was small for my age for most of grade school, and bullying was so bad

I just made token appearances at school then went home and watched TV for most of 7th and 8th grade.

One problem is a lot of teachers unconsciously identify with the bullies, especially the ones that are jocks.

[OnionPatch]

54. Boy is that ever true!

"One problem is a lot of teachers unconsciously identify with the bullies, especially the ones that are jocks."

My worst memory from school was from gym class, where the harassment was intense if you missed the ball or screwed up in any way. Some kids (including myself) were shaking when they went to bat knowing that if they missed the jocks would hurl horrible insults at them. What made it worse was that the phys-ed teacher was usually standing right next to them smiling and practically patting them on their backs for their originality in thinking up names to call us.

And our parents couldn't figure out why we hated gym class so much. :eyes:

[yurbud]

73. I went to a teachers college, and my classmates weren't

the brightest bulbs in the box, but even they considered the future PE teachers as retards.

[Deja Q]

8. Learning disorder is not related to body language.

The former is akin to dyslexia, ADD, et al. The latter is a pervasive developmental disorder. Though PDDs are often accompanied with learning disorders. But they're not directly tied in as being the same thing...

Trust me. If you know what I went through in MY childhood and I haven't snapped, your son won't reach the breaking point either. And I went through a lot... (and yet few adults wonder why the frig I'm so fuckin' NERVOUS AND SCARED all the damn time. x( And how even more of them won't care to try to understand why, which is even more aggrevating. )

Sorry to digress silly semantics and a blast from my past, but I utterly agree - the bully filth need to be stopped. And our "society" encourages such bullying behavior - it's as simple as that. I don't expect anything to change; the revelation of metal detectors in schools rather proves nobody gives a frig either - unless there's money involved.

[goddess40]

63. Actually in this case it is

Nonverbal Learning Disorder (NLD) is what both my boys have. It is a autism spectrum disorder and it involves damage to the white matter in the brain. One of the parts of NLD is the inability to read body language, because the brain functions differently.
Both my boys are extremely bright and when they are allowed to learn in their modes they do great. Their eyes don't work right, when most students copy something off a blackboard they take a little snapshot in their head of what they see and recreate it on paper - my kids can't do that. But if the information goes in their ears it sticks.

[CabalPowered]

20. I think Positive Action would be a good start in that direction

http://www.positiveaction.net/index.asp

[Jamison]

122. Remove the criminals from schools.

You can try alternative schooling with them first & if that doesn't work, send them to juvenile detention where they belong.

[ulysses]

2. hell of a post.

:thumbsup:

[SmokingJacket]

4. I agree with all, but ESPECIALLY with the last two.

I say this as a former teacher. Teachers should be treated with the same respect and given the same amount of autonomy as college professors. I've done both -- and frankly I would accept lower pay to have greater freedom to use my creativity as a teacher.

[yurbud]

11. I started in K-12 and drifted up the food chain, now I teach part time

at two different colleges, and the first seven years I had no health insurance--so I was literally willing to DIE rather than teach K-12, where I would have some benefits.

[Deja Q]

5. Apart from what has been said,

Get rid of calculators.

Put back proper math.

Put back classes on how to balance a damn checkbook. They didn't have that when I was in school (I'm a Gen X'er and apparently the baby boom generation was the last generation to have such education here... no wonder credit card debt is out of control in America...)

Teach respect.

No tolerance for bullying and other nasty things. (trust me, those fuckers should be expelled. Not given special treatment.)

Get parents to stop drinking and get involved in their childrens' lives.

Corporations can be a little more humane to workers with families instead of bleeding them dry; knowing they need the money therefore they're easier to exploit.

School is just a part of what's gone wrong in this country. I'll fess up to where I'm guilty. How about the rest of this country; will they fess up to their mistakes? (probably not, they'll lose too much revenue or profit from doing so...)

[justabob]

14. I had forgotten

about those exercises about balancing a checkbook, budgeting, etc. I am a gen X-er too, but I did have that growing up... it was a really good district though.

I have big issues with the use of calculators too.... even in higher math. I really resented that in my most recent college algebra class. I found the class to be 75% about how to use a damned TI86 rather than learning how to actually work the problems.

[John Q. Citizen]

110. We could perhaps put you to work on this one....

"Get parents to stop drinking and get involved in their childrens' lives."

Got a plan?

[Bill McBlueState]

118. hey, I could go on at length about math instruction

There's way too much of "feeling good about math" and not nearly enough of actually doing it. When the "smart kids" are learning to do arithmetic with fractions in fifth grade, the entire system is moving way too slowly.

[no_hypocrisy]

6. Tell the boards of education to hire "overqualified" applicants as

teachers. I have a masters in education (and now a J.D.) and I couldn't (and can't) compete with someone just out of school with a bachelors because according to union rules, I deserve more money due to my education. I do deserve the pecuniary scale but the boards hire the less experienced and the less educated to trim their budgets. In the meantime, it's a temporary fix. Those bachelors newbies get tenure and are hired until retirement. They go back to school. THEY get THEIR masters and the school pays for their extra pay that I would have originally received if I had been hired.

I have a degree in liberal arts. I can speak, understand, read, and write in five languages. My writing skills are much better than many of my compatriots. I have advanced courses in reading comprehension, mathematics, logical problem-solving skills, etc. I have no place save for being a substitute teacher.

The second thing is for the boards to spend more money on the schools' libraries. I just came from a library in an "affluent" north Jersey elementary school. There were too many books published 1963 if not earlier in biographies and science. New books need to be purchased in this situation.

[FredUptoHere]

15. If you really want to be a full-time teacher that badly,

next time you apply to a district, don't tell them about your masters degree.

[yurbud]

19. I don't want to be a full time K-12 teacher, and community college is

structured so two-thirds of the faculty is part time.

[FredUptoHere]

31. i was actually referring to nohypocrisy's situation...

nohypo was lamenting the overqualification thing- i was suggesting that not all qualifications need be revealed.
i would imagine that it's a lot less of a problem to "lie" by omission, than to overstate and falsify credentials and/or degrees.

[yurbud]

32. yeah, sadly, they value obedience and conformity in teachers as well as

students.

We don't want no eggheads who read and shit teaching our kids.

[yurbud]

27. I forgot to add, I would rather eat my own eyes than teach K-12 again...

[dsc]

86. That would never work

They do a backround check on applicants now and that would be pretty easily found.

[FredUptoHere]

109. how would it be found?

i can see how faking having a degree could easily be found(unless it's from Milton College)...but if you omit a post-graduate degree- how would it be found?
do they check with every university to see if you went there and graduated?
or do "they" really have a manila folder on each of us that's been following us since kindergarten...the dreaded "permanent record"?

[dsc]

84. try a state where the state pays most of the salary

Most southern states work that way. In states like that it doesn't cost the district much more at all to hire someone like you vs a beginner with only a BA.

[Extend a Hand]

7. I think the following changes would help

Small all walking elementary schools that house grades 1-8. Let kids stay with the same group of kids through puberty so that they aren't thrown into a mega size environment with a bunch of kids they don't know right when their hormones are kicking in big time.

Have a teachers aid in every class room. No more that 2x kids in a room.

Multiple grades in one classroom. I really think this would go a long ways to cutting down
on bullying. Set aside a small amount of time each day for older kids to work with and help the younger kids. This gives the bigger kids a chance to show-off and use what they have learned in a positive way and can actually *HELP* the teachers.

Use the hands on Montessori method for teaching math. My step daughter is and education major at Miami U. and they are actually training teachers in this method now!

Get BEHAVIOR problems out of the regular class rooms and into special classes. Where we are the Catholic schools are better than the public schools. They have larger student-teacher ratios and pay their teachers less. But teachers in Catholic schools are not required to deal with trouble makers on an on-going basis. Behavior problems get the boot...Right back into public school classrooms.

Have teachers evaluate administrators.

[kick-ass-bob]

12. Smaller class size is NOT necessary -

and your example shows why it is not. If you don't have behavior problems, in the class, larger may actually be better. Think about this:

How do you best learn something? I know I learned things much more thoroughly when I was able to TEACH it to someone else. If you have students who get it, teaching it to others who don't get it yet, then everyone wins. The ones who haven't caught on aren't left behind, and the ones who do solidify their knowledge and pick up a great skill in communication.

Of course, this all depends on not having distractions in the class, so I'm not sure how it would work in practice.

[yurbud]

42. No, I went to a grade school where they did this, and I was the peer tutor

All I could think at the time was, "If I get it and they don't, why the fuck am I still here? Is this an school where you have to learn a set of facts, or a prison where you serve a set sentence?"

Worse, the kids who don't get it are often the bullies, and the kids who do are the bullied, and putting them in a pupil/teacher relationship aggravates that.

[Yupster]

99. Agree K-A Bob

Smaller class sizes are not necessarily a good solution.

Just a note - I taught for nine years in the public schools - secondary. I've been out of the business for 15 years now.

Anyway, when I was a teacher I of course would have loved smaller classes. Less papers to grade, less kids to keep track of and discipline.

However, smaller class sizes bring some problems with them.

Let's say a school needs ten history teachers. It gets 20 resumes and does the interviews. It evaluates four teachers as outstanding, four as good, six as barely adequate and six as completely unacceptable.

It hires the four outstanding, the four good and two of the six barely acceptables. Forty percent of the kids are taught by an outstanding teacher, 40 % a good teacher and 20 % an adequate teacher.

Now the school board decides to do a radical reduction in average class sizes from 27 to 18 students per class.

The school board hires the four outstanding teachers, the four good ones, the six barely adequate ones and one of the completely unacceptable ones.

Now 27 % of the students have an outstanding teacher, 27 % a good teacher, 40 % a barely adequate teacher and 6 % have an unacceptable teacher.

Are the kids better off?

Think of your own kid. Would you rather have him as one of 30 kids inn the classroom of the best teacher in the school, or one of 20 kids in the classroom of a teacher who is barely acceptable.

PS -- Just about a week ago I got the best Christmas present I've ever gotten. I got a phone call out of the blue from Washington DC from a young man who said he was a former student of mine, and he's wanted to call me for years and decided to do it this year just to tell me that he credits me with turning his life around and he wanted to thank me. He is an African-American and he said the extra-curricular I coached which was intellectual in nature was the first time that anyone had pushed him intellectually and it caught on. He's now been through law school, interned for a congressman (Republican but oh well) and is doing well. Couldn't have been a better Christmas present for any former teacher, even one who hasn't taught in 15 years.

Anyway, I think reducing class sizes is the most over-hyped remedy for the schools.

[Deja Q]

13. Good. Good. Brush the problems under the carpet. Very humane.

:sarcasm:



Put the bullies side by side with their victims. Yeah, that's brilliance. x(

That'll get rid of those pesky victims for good. Beaten to death by the bullies.

That's what they did with me... the fact I was so easy to pick on was why; nobody bothered with any testing, they just chucked me in there... And "Special education" translates to "No education"... My IQ had been tested by that point (130, in case you care), but one small difference and you end up being a pariah. To say I was "out of place" in Special Ed is a gross understatement.

And I've got some horror stories that would have you shit your pants. Wanna hear them? I'm holding back right now, and for damn good reason too. x(

[Extend a Hand]

33. No, I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say

I was advocating that bullies be *REMOVED* from regular classroooms. I do not think that learning can take place why bullying is allowed.

[Trillo]

40. Now be fair....

I actually thought a lot of sad_one's points were worthy of serious thought and discussion (as are other posters' ideas). One of the issues I've identified since reading the posts of teachers here on DU is that they have an inability to think outside the box they themselves are in. This box is perhaps not just in their minds, it's likely that box is also their reality in their chosen profession. (the teachers are surely just as boxed in as students feel). If this is true, then what is the way out? More micro-management (such as requiring forced medical examinations of teachers to insure they're not fatties)? That merely increases the problem, and likely more micro-management is passed down to the students, even if the passing down is sub- or un-conscious (or unintentional). That's life.

I especially resonate to sad_one's idea regarding mixing grade levels in the same classroom, I think it was one of the realities of the one room schoolhouse in America's long forgotten and now distant past. Obviously, with the mass-market approach to dividing by grade level that the schools take today, this idea must be well outside the modern classroom's psycho-box and practicably unimaginable by those entrenched in it. Why shouldn't an older student who's good at reading help younger students who are not so good at it, taking some burden off the teacher? If nothing else, this teaches responsibility and caring for others.

It strikes me that some of the students need another type of learning situation entirely. The physically violent ones must be prevented from hurting other students, but so too must the psycho-abusers. Requiring these students to be in the school system when they do so much lasting damage to others is, bluntly, stupid. Placing them in another room with other violent ones may not be a good solution either, though it might protect some of the other more peaceful students, it may also create a synergistic prison effect. (good for pharma-sales?)

The physically violent aren't the only ones that don't fit well into modern schools. Why does learning new things and being with others in structured environments need to be associated with the threat of punishment that schools currently force onto some if not all?

It seems to me that learning and curiosity are one of humans' constants. Why does school have to be about turning that natural curiosity off for so many?

Why can't the schools themselves be more flexible? Does lack of flexibility in school structure create lack of flexibility in students?

[Bluerthanblue]

90. actually school is the only place in life

where people are separated by age- and solely exposed to large groups of age mates.
When I home schooled my oldest son, people often spoke of socialization- which we did ALOT of, just not in 'age' separated groups- And that became one of the real STRENGTHS of homeschoolers- we found that kids who spent their days with kids the exact same age, often had a very difficult time interacting with younger and older kids, and adults- Our multi-generational group which numbered over 50 families in all (though most often we met in far smaller sub-groups) gave our kids the ability to comfortably interact with all ages and diverse people-.

Separating students by age is somewhat new (in the scheme of American public schools)- Our state actually still operates one, public one-room schoolhouse.

[yurbud]

43. wow, I posted the same reply you did before I read yours, but why are you

holding back?

[Bluerthanblue]

21. smaller classrooms- smaller schools- and

multi age/ability classes are really ideal- for many reasons-
I disagree with you on behaviour problems being solved by 'removal'- that is not only non-productive, but it is often exactly the goal of the behaviour.

If the behaviour occurs- class should STOP the whole class should be involved in the issue- and the resolution.

School classes are microcosims of the world at large- we can't learn how to negotiate, get along, share, be patient, control ourselves, listen, and communicate without practice and experience.
Small schools may not be 'cost efficent'- and may not have all the 'bells and whistles' of large ones, but for grades 1-8 I sincerly believe they are the solution to MUCH of our problems-

Children need attention, and to feel heard, seen and valued- They aren't designed to sit still for 8hrs. a day- and they don't need to be 'entertained'- Learning can and IS an exciting, enjoyable, frustrating, occasionally, a necessiary chore- but essential and un-avoidable fact of life. We can teach kids to simply 'go through the motions' or we can attempt to help them find their 'niche' and help equip them with the tools to soar- but even in 'bad' schools, they learn. They learn how to get through it, drop out of it, or take what they can from it-

I often have asked myself, if one of my kids were to die suddenly, would what they were doing on a daily basis have constituted a 'good life' or a fight to fit into a 'mold' that doesn't work- I want it to be the first choice- school IS life for out kids- it shouldn't be hellish.

There is enough of that as adults-

Most teachers want nothing more than to have the opportunity to light the spark that is in each one of their students- but government puts all kinds of pressure on them to perfom for the 'statistics'-

Its lose lose.

[AngryAmish]

29. I'm in the removal camp

Otherwise the bad kids will soak up all the class time of the others. It would enrage me as a kid when people would act up in class and waste my time. Also, I thought it was disrespectful to the teacher.

[Bluerthanblue]

39. They might for

a while, but the attention they get, and the lessons the kids learn while working out how to deal with people who act out, are invaluable-

My youngest son, is incredibly fortunate in being able to attend a very small school- 5-8 grades are in one classroom. Teacher to student ratio is 1 to 10. When someone acts out, everything stops, and discussion starts- He's learned ALOT- so have some of the kids who have some difficult issues. Mostly what is learned is that while we don't have to 'like' everyone in the world- we have to learn how to live together- And while 'shaming' isn't used to deal with inappropriate behaviour, asking everyone to put feelings and observations into words, and step into other perspectives helps tremendously.
This seems like it would take up all the time of a class- I worried about that, but in reality it doesn't- Much of the school day is spent struggling to control adolescent personalities and putting on a 'semblence' of learning in alot of schools. When the 'class' becomes a community- or 'family' its amazing the learning, growing, sharing, encouraging and bonding that can and does happen.
I'm sure there are some really really 'out there' exceptions, but everyone needs to learn how to work within a group, and every group needs to learn how to cope with individuals who have trouble 'getting along' and 'fitting in' or co-operating.
I can understand you being 'enraged' and 'frustrated' by the kid who is acting out- but removing him/her, isn't the answer. You (i'm sure) have had to learn how to put up with people who act out in the adult world, and what if you were the kid who was 'acting out'? Wouldn't you hope that those around you would help teach you what you need to learn to get through life with a little more grace and success? We all have things to learn from each other- some peoples needs seem far more unbearable- but somehow I believe it evens out- We can learn when we're young- or live in a society where people have been 'removed' and now the only 'removal' place is jail- or the grave.

Peace-
blu

[Extend a Hand]

34. Oh wait

I wasn't clear...I do not think a child should neccessarily be removed from a regular class environment without much effort being made to remediate the problem-- Even trying a different teacher before placing someone in a special class.

I was thinking of a situation in my son's first grade class where a boy hit other children and/or the teacher on a daily basis. He would be sent to the principals office where he would spend the remainder of the day.

This was just to much for the teacher and the students to deal with for an entire year.

[loudestchick]

61. Montessori for everyone! With montessori education starting at age 3,

You can have 30 kids in the classroom with mixed ages...because they help each other...the teacher is a resource.

[Extend a Hand]

67. I was lucky to be able to

put my son in a montessori starting in the second grade. He is finishing the 8th grade there now. It has been a truly wonderful experience for him.

[SmokingJacket]

9. One other thing I would add.

We need to come to some consensus about what an education is *for*. How much of an elementary education ought to be socialization, how much ought to be preparation for high school, how much to become a good citizen of the world? And for high school: how much is for potential job training, and how much is for college prep?

It won't be easy to figure out a real consensus on these questions, but I do think the one thing that is really lacking in our discussions of education is the question WHY.

How can we fix it if we can't agree on why we're doing it?

[yurbud]

25. unfortunately, it's designed to make obedient workers who tolerate

boredom well.

A guy who got teacher of the year awards in New York did some research on why our schools suck and he was shocked to find that they don't suck--they very effectively fulfill their design function. It's just not the function most of us want it to be.

Private schools emphasize critical thinking and questioning everything--making the leaders of tomorrow. Public schools are designed to make the followers with rote memorization and learning to sit still and keep your mouth shut.

[SmokingJacket]

35. If we all got involved, perhaps we could change that.

But for the most part, people seem content to let administrators made the decisions about what our children are doing all day.

[yurbud]

41. it's a meta-issue too, not a tangible problem. It's hard to get a lot of

people to rally around an abstract educational philosophy.

[SmokingJacket]

45. True.

And I'm the last person to know how to rally people.

Still -- it's long puzzled me why there isn't a national dialogue about the purpose of education. We seem happy to just accept that we know what "education" is, though we never talk about it.

Hmm.. maybe I should write a blockbuster nonfiction book with a sexy title, get myself on the Today Show in a miniskirt, and get people talking about *what the fuck* we're doing with our kids six hours a day, 180 days a year, for twelve years...

[yurbud]

47. the people who write books on Myers-Briggs temperment stuff nailed it

a majority of the population is into conformity and that's what they want their kids to learn--to follow the rules.

Others live more in the world of ideas and want kids to be critical thinkers and more self-actualized, which makes a hell of a lot more sense in the information age.

We swing between these two extremes in our approach to education, and right now we are at the tail end (I hope) of an extreme swing toward conformity.

[Extend a Hand]

66. I so agree with that...

A really astounding percentage of teachers that the took the test came out to be the ESTJ tempermant type.

[yurbud]

68. highest percentage of SJ at lowest level, then as you go up...

it shifts gradually toward NT/NF until they are the majority in college.

Ironically, while SJs are a definite minority in college faculties, they tend to seek out leadership and admin positions and so exert an undue and distorting influence.

[MichiganVote]

60. Baloney. I attended private schools all my life. Sister Eleanor was not

interested in anyone's critical thinking but her own. There are plenty of public and private school teachers who either do or do not encourage critical thinking depending on their abilities as teachers or curriculum.

[yurbud]

75. sorry, parochial school has same agenda as public

only with nuns

[MichiganVote]

78. Most of the students in parochial schools which are private are not

taught by nuns anymore. I know of no study that claims that private schools of any ilk do a better job teaching the skills of critical thinking. If you do, please post it as I'd like to read it.

[yurbud]

81. the schools I'm think of are more the elite prep schools like back

East or here in LA.

parochial schools are roughly on par with public, and the fundamentalist equivalent are a little lower.

[MichiganVote]

82. Well I take it these are your opinions...ok

Funny thing though, my nephews went to an elite prep school out east. They drink, work construction and both washed out of college.

[JVS]

105. The local prepschool where I grew up was notorious as being...

the step before some kind of military academy. Rich little shits

[MichiganVote]

119. Exactly.

[JVS]

103. You mean that sister Eleanor didn't want to forge you kids into mighty...

weapons with which to smash the heretics? What kind of dedication to the church is that?

[politicaholic]

10. This is a very good post and I do have something to add...

The fact that many of the school levys in the US are connected to property taxes is horrible. It perpetuates poverty by underfunding schools in depressed areas.

I went to one of these low funded and over crowded public schools. Out of 1400 in the graduating class there were 28 children born, the cumulative GPA was 1.75, and the school valedictorian is currently in prison for killing his boss in 2002. This was in the mid 80's.

If that money had been spread evenly and the school of 6500 student had been split into two or three then kids would have had the attention and the opportunity to achieve. This would have changed the community. 20 years later the neighborhood is worse.

[rucky]

23. This is the #1 Problem with schools.

We need "Robin Hood" legislation in every state! The inequality by race and income is inexcusable, and NCLB actually yanks funding from the schools that need it the most. It's a flipping crime.

[justabob]

53. I don't think Robin Hood is the answer

Robin Hood legislation hasn't been working too well down here... the states need to work out a new way to handle it fairly so schools are funded equally without tying it to property value at all. I don't pretend to have the solution, but 'Robin Hood' as it is known now isn't a great answer in my opinion.

[yurbud]

76. the benefit of property tax is it doesn't fluctuate wildly like income

[Telly Savalas]

83. It'd make the most sense to have transfer payments from the federal level

so that poor states aren't faced with more fiscal constraints than the richer ones.

I'm only advocating using the federal government to level the playing field, not to micromanage education policy. What works in the South Bronx might be different than what works in rural Alabama, so local governments should be given a lot of leeway in constructing education policy (shy of doing really stupid shit like trying to teach biology from the Old Testament.)

Scrap NCLB of course. Accountability shouldn't be coming from Washington, DC, but rather from the community who votes for their school board members.

Great thread by the way. Thanks for posting!

[yurbud]

114. Scrapping NCLB should be part of platform--it's a scam

[yurbud]

115. conservative testing obsession is like going to the doctor with the flu...

and all he does is take your temperature over and over, but never treats you.

[MountainLaurel]

16. Some related issues

That have nothing to do with education, per se. They all come down to Maslow's hierarchy of needs: The physical must be dealt with before the intellectual.

* Education begins at birth. That's why Howard Dean's Healthy Kids initiative was so important.

* The poverty gap must be dealt with. No child is going to learn properly if he's not getting enough healthy food to eat, if he's living out of a car or moving from one relative's house to another or to a flophouse motel, if his parents are each working two jobs and he's got to take care of his siblings after school, if his parents are preoccupied with whether to pay the power bill or take their chronically sick child to the doctor again.

* Children must be safe and secure. Research has shown that kids growing up in neighborhoods that are war zones have the exact physical effects of PTSD as military veterans, including concentration issues and chronic anxiety, which make learning more difficult. Meanwhile, lead-based paint continues to be a major cause of developmental disorders and learning disabilities in children, asthma is exacerbated by incinerators, factories, and industrial polluters that are deliberately located in poor neighborhoods, and domestic violence and child abuse are still considered a "family matter" in too many quarters.

* Parenting plays a huge role, and is not intuitive. Parents need to know that they must read to their children, that hitting their kids is not OK, etc. But there are bigger issues: No parent should be forced to choose between losing their job and tending to a sick child. No parent should have to leave their kids in the car while they're at work because they can't afford day care, or there's no child care available for their night shift. Europe has had these issues figured out for years, it's time the United States joined the First World.

[donsu]

17. FIRST you have to get the neo-cons off the school boards

members of the bushmilhousegang

[donsu]

18. SECOND you have to get the production and printing of school books

out of the hands of the neo-cons, members of the bushmilhousegang

[yurbud]

26. the second one is pernicious. One way to do this: teach without textbooks

Make the internet your friend.

Wikipedia and other sources could be a good starting point.

[rucky]

22. One big thing missing: Parental Involvement

I'm not sure how to make that into policy, but there are many things schools can do to make it easier for parents to be more involved. Make a parental contact administrative position in each school. Introduce web-based status reports so parents can check their kids progress in each class. Offer all-day kindergarten and early childhood programs. Offer bussing from school after elementary and middle afterschool programs (homework help, sports, etc).

The most simple thing to do is to invite parents into the classroom. Most parents want to see their kid succeed. I don't think anybody but the eggheads who do research on this stuff know how important parental involvement is to student success. Support for working and single parents is directly corrolated to child performance.

[yurbud]

28. yep, although it's not something we can legislate

[TheFarseer]

24. Schools to GOPers

Are just a way for textbook companies and testing companies to make money. And maybe a way to get into politics with the schoolboard. Oh and also a sports machine.

I can't disagree with anything you said.

[yurbud]

30. you left out building contracts

[politicat]

36. Longer days and years, more activities, more teachers.

Let's look at the European models - kids are in school 200 to 250 days a year, and most go to school from 8:30 to about 5. Of course, they have longer breaks for lunch and physical activities during the day (and we need more of the latter anyway, so...). We don't need the long summer agricultural break anymore as a culture. (Leave that for the school districts that see it as a valuable part of their community - and make it count. I can think of tons of things that kids can learn about while helping to farm...) Further, the summer jub doesn't even pay for a semester of college anymore, so working summers isn't a viable financial strategy.

Let's use the reverse high school model for all grades - teachers change class rooms (in the early grades) and kids change class rooms in upper grades. Four classes a day, two or three days a week. Homework in study halls.

More activities - band, art, drama, chess club, whatever. Make school fun and worth investing in again (I got good grades so I could participate in things I wanted to do; the studying was the price of the fun. But all the fun's been sucked out in the past 15 years. Time to change that.)

It might be time to look at single sex schools again - girls do better in science and math in single sex schools, and boys have fewer behavioral problems (according to a couple of studies). It also might be time to consider boarding and magnet schools again for kids with special requirements (G&T, Art, Music, Special Ed, etc). Remove the stigma of vocational and technical education - not everyone needs, wants or finds interesting a Bachelor's degree. But tracking the "poor kids" is just as bad - thus, we need more guidance counsellors.

Integrate nutrition and health programs into all schools - kids can't learn when they can't see the board, have a tooth ache, or fall asleep because they aren't getting enough to eat. Bring back naptime for all grades (and for adults - naps are well known to help stimulate cognitive and creative ability.)

[FredUptoHere]

50. i concur whole-heartedly...and then some-

studies show that the time between end of schoolday and parents return home from work is the time when a lot of kids are "getting into trouble"...the schoolday needs to be longer.

i would envision a system whereby the school year is longer, the days are longer. although it wouldn't necessarily mean that teachers days/years would have to drastically change- more teachers and staggerred shifts would make it work.

i would also like to see students be able to work more at their own pace through the system- some may go a couple years more, some a few years less than they currently do.

public education should also cover the first two years of college/associate degree.

[politicat]

64. I can agree with that, as long as AA also covers things like

Mechanic's school, plumbing apprenticeships, electrician's apprenticeships, etc.

I do wish kids could structure their own goals more: if it takes one child 3 years to learn to read to X competency, and another child 5 years, what's the big deal? They both got there, right? I feel that as long as a child meets X goals and is consistently working towards meeting those goals, time is less critical.

[yurbud]

69. let the kid who finishes earlier move on earlier

[boobooday]

37. A return to the goal of creating citizens

Who are able to produce their own arguments to support their positions.

In other words, a return to the teaching of good old fashioned rhetoric, and the citizen who can produce as well as consume ideas and arguments.

There's a great book by a couple of professors named Giroux (sp?) called "Take Back Higher Education." They make this argument quite convincingly.

[FredUptoHere]

38. smaller class size is the MOST important thing...

teachers need to be tested at least annually, and there should be some type of "refresher/updater/re-training" for teachers at least every 5 years, to insure that they're always up to date, in regards to changes/discoveries in their respective fields.

schools should operate year-round, and students shouldn't have more than 4 weeks off at one stretch- it's not like we're still an agrarian society where kids are needed to work the fields.

There should be a lengthening of the school-day, including intensive, possibly even required, after-school programs/tutoring/study halls.

i am a strong supporter of school uniforms of some type.

Howard Zinn's text should be required for American History classes.

phys ed needs to be required for all students, as well as realistic home economics/"shop" classes, and civics and comparative cultures/theologies-

for starters...

[yurbud]

44. MORE RADICAL: end social promotion/have set objectives with no minimum

time limit.

Learn the material sooner, advance sooner, get out sooner.

For those who think education should prepare people for the workforce, this does. You have a job to do and if you do it well, you are rewarded.

Come to think of it, they even do that in prison; if you behave yourself, you get out sooner.

I was a smart kid, but after about fifth grade, I realized they weren't going to teach me anything new until high school, but I had to stay with the knuckle-draggers anyway.

I lost motivation.

If smart kids knew that if they worked harder, they could escape sooner, they would do better.

It would also help average students who just want to get out into the workforce. If they buckled down, they'd get their sooner.

An added incentive would be if you finished high school before you are 18, you should get college on the districts dime until you are 18.

Conversely, if you don't finish high school by 18, they can just send you straight to prison.

I'm not sure if there will be constitutional obstacles to the last part.

[MichiganVote]

80. That's all nice sound advice for kids who are civilized but today

in education we're all dealing with parents and kids who have the bare rudiments of civilized behavior. And they come in poor and they come in rich. Its the two ends of the economic spectrum that represent the greatest academic and behavioral challenges.

[yurbud]

117. they would both benefit from ending social promotion and going to

essentially self-paced with set objectives rather than a set amount of time you had to stay in a grade.

[Xithras]

46. Bring back the neighborhood school and mixed grade education.

Mixed grade education, at least at the elementary level, has been repeatedly proven to be extremely useful when coupled with mixed grade tutoring. Teach the kids the materials, and then pair up a third grader and a second grader as they do their work. The kids get repeated exposure to the material and usually assimilate it far better. When the younger kids understand that they'll be called on to help someone else with the material the following year, they also tend to pay more attention so they understand it when they need to reteach it. Kids who are more remedial also gain advantage by having subject they'd had difficulty with repeated to them.

The pacing is far different, but it's quite effective. It also has the advantage of creating a community in the classroom as the same group of kids move up the grades together with the same teacher every year. It allows the teacher to know the kids better (helping to identify problems early), and dramatically reduces bullying.

[DanCa]

48. smaller classrooms and zero bullying policies.

Unless a child feels secure he's learning well be impaired no matter what steps we take to improve academically speaking.

[yurbud]

49. ALSO: fight GOP meme "you can't solve problem by throwing money at it"

They solve a lot of problems that way. Hell, they throw money at things that AREN'T problems.

Some examples:

tax cuts for the rich

CEO salaries

military weapons systems

Congresses salaries

and on and on...

The reality is, anything they don't "throw money at" they are trying to starve to death, a la Grover Norquist's "starve the beast" strategy.

[Telly Savalas]

87. The quickest rebuttal to that with regards to eduation is

"If you don't believe in 'throwing money at the problem' then why do you oppose transferring funds from richer districts to poorer ones? The richer ones don't really need all that money thrown at them, now do they?"

[yurbud]

102. that's a good one!

[AbbyR]

51. Take care of the child in every way

I was a teacher for a long time and still cover education.
First, let's get the kids healthy - national health care would be a great idea. Unless you've been in a classroom, you have no idea how unwell many of the children appear to be.
Second, figure out some way so that parents don't have to be at work all the time in order to feed their children. A parent shouldn't have to make a choice between keeping his job and going to the PTA or taking the child to the doctor.
Third, Put heavy emphasis and do everything possible to get bullies and violence out of the classroom. A teacher can't teach if kids are misbehaving, and children can't learn when they are scared. I favor gentle methods of discipline, but when they don't work, a school officer should remove the disruptive child or children and deal with them. If a child can't or won't behave, he or she should be in a separate class where, if necessary, law enforcement officers are present. Don't let them out of school - that very may well be exactly what they want. Psychologists, social workers and counselors need to work intensely with them to try and help them adjust.
Four, Ditch the really awful teachers, no matter how long they've been teaching, what color they are or how much the superintendent loves them.
After all that is taken care of, THEN and only then worry about curriculum.
I'd like to see a varied and challenging curriculum with lots of research, arts, foreign language and science, as well as literature. A longer school day and longer school year would be essential.
P.E. and health should be sports for life, not just the football team. Teach kids to swim, hike, walk, play tennis and golf - things they can do forever and that will help them stay healthy.
I guess that's a start - at least where I'd start.

[MountainLaurel]

52. Amen

You so much more eloquently stated what I was trying to get at in my post above.

[yurbud]

74. administrators like compliant teachers who don't make work

for them. If you get good test scores and don't send kids to the office, and do all the degrading exta duties, they like you. But that doesn't make you a good teacher.

[info being]

55. equal funding for every child would be a good start

then hire teachers who are intellectuals and let them do their thing. put focus on critical thinking and everything that leads to it.

[jhain]

56. it won't happen in my kids' time

my older kids went through the public school system.
two youngest are homeschooling- that's my answer.

[yasmina27]

57. What about girl bullying?

AKA relational aggression? There is a significant amount of research regarding the torment girls inflict on each other - without ever laying a hand on the victim.

While there are always exceptions, boys, for the most part, express their anger and desire for dominance via physical bullying. Girls, however, express their desires through verbal bullying - ostracizing, excluding, whispers, taunts, rumors, and so on. Girls can be vicious, sneaky, underhanded, and just plain mean. This type of bullying takes place under the radar of adults. It is very difficult to pick up on these behaviors.

These actions cause the same, and even longer lasting effects as physical bullying - loss of self-esteem, depression, lower student achievement, and suicide.

Again, these are generalizations, but ones that have been documented through exhaustive research. I will be happy to provide links to anyone interested. Look into the works of Nikki Crick, Rachel Simmons, Cheryl Delaseaga, and Rosalind Wiseman to start. Lifetime TV made a powerful movie based on Rachel Simmon's book last year "Odd Girl Out".

I watched it just this past weekend with tears in my eyes.

[politicat]

65. Single sex schools seem to help alleviate this.

Apparently, the pressure of having boys around exacerbates female aggression. (Proven in both human studies and in primate studies.)

Also, keeping the social communities fluid, by forcing the breakup of cliques (i.e. using the Colorado College model of education, where students take 3 week or 6 week intensive courses in one subject, then change to another subject; or the English model where students are in class 3 classes a day, two or three times a week, broken into trimesters); it disrupts the dominance patterns when the structure is changed regularly.

In some ways, such aggression is hard-wired and until women and girls realize that competing with each other is damaging to all of us, it's going to remain.

The fourth factor, however, the one just hitting the journals now, is that girls who are aggressors tend to have fractured relationships with their own mothers and difficult relationships with their fathers. So we can't control for that.

[yurbud]

70. works the same for boys--my high school was 75% boys

and we had much fewer fights than at neighboring schools.

[AnneD]

58. Another goal they (the GOP) want to accomplish in education...

they want to introduce business (and therefore profit)into a public trust called education. But this is par for the GOP. They all but ruined the trust of health care this way (those over 50 can remember how good health care use to be), they have corrupted the communications trust, FCC and public airways (forget fairness or even accuracy). I could go on and on but you get the drift.
I wouldn't put it past them to slip GOP teachers (loyalty oaths) in to teach the party line and the rewritten and properly approved texts.
Sure paints a grim picture for our Democracy.
I work in education and the teachers are at their wits end. It is not about the students anymore-it's about the tests.

[AZBlue]

59. give teachers greater autonomy in the classroom

This should include authority and the ability to discipline. We've swung so much to the other side from hitting children with a ruler that teachers have no ability to discipline in their own classroom. None. As a result they have no control over the kids and have to stand back helpless. I have a friend who's studying right now to be a teacher - she had to attend classes on taking out insurance against being sued by parents, what to do if you're accused of heavy discipline and how a lawyer can help you in a situation like that. They are terrified to raise their voices before they even graduate. I work with teachers on field trips and they are so frustrated - and sometimes scared. Obviously we can't have teachers beating children, but the kids should be held accountable for their actions and the classroom atmosphere should be conducive to learning, not goofing off.

[yurbud]

72. teachers need the ability to eject students and make it stick

whether it's continuation school or some other remedy, teachers need a way to filter out kids who are consistent discipline problems, and if parents knew this could happen, they would stay on top of their kids behavior.

I went to a magnet public school that you had to apply to attend. The threat every teacher had over us was sending us back to our shitty neighborhood school, and it was effective. Private schools have this power too.

Unfortunately, in bigger cities, they just do the dance of the lemons and send the disruptive kids to a different regular school instead of a more appropriate environment like the one in Clockwork Orange.

[AZBlue]

111. Yes! Here we have schools for kids who've been arrested.

Well, maybe if there had been some discipline along the way, they wouldn't have gotten to the point of being arrested!

[procopia]

62. Teacher evaluation

should be performed not by the principal, but by a traveling team of noted professionals (retired teachers could do this). They should be supportive and offer suggestions, not just criticism.

Administrators should be evaluated in the same way.

[yurbud]

71. administrators should be flogged

and not paid more than teachers

[Mountainman]

77. Parents need to take an active roll in their kids education.

They need go to parent teacher meetings, they to help with their kids homework. They need to enforce rules that are meant to aide in the kids getting a good education.

Public school is not a service that you pay for. You don't just send your kid to a school and expect them to come back educated while you play no role in that education.

Kids fail because their parents fail them.

[MichiganVote]

79. AMEN!

[hopeisaplace]

85. Pay people to go..only get a cheque if you get an A

JUST KIDDING!

[Telly Savalas]

88. Expand early education.

I'm too lazy to dig up links to the studies, but it's widely documented that the quality of preschool education makes a huge difference in the performance of a student in later years (and in later life beyond school for that matter).

[Sgent]

89. My completely uninformed thoughts....

Other than as a graduate of a high performing public school system (consitently rated one of the best in the nation), which nonetheless had a 35% free lunch population, I have no expertise... I'm throwing out ideas, not trying to offend (though I probably will).

access to quality education for all Who your parents are and what neighborhood you are born in should not determine how much or little you learn in your 13 years in public school.

Absolutely!!! I would however first require kindergarden (not requried universally in all states).

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.

I don't think I agree. Smaller classes to seem to contribute to better learning as much as better class control. We can augment teacher control with aides, and the like, while still retaining teacher positions for people who are exceptional (and get paid like the are exceptional). I'd rather have 15 exceptional teachers with 30 aides for discipline issues than 45 mediocre teachers.

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.

I agree -- in fact, I would be willing to raise teacher pay (including benefits) to above the average. However, I would want teachers to have the freedom to fail and the ability to perform. I'd rather pay someone an extra $5k /yr for being an excellent teacher than for having a masters degree. I'd also like to see the elimination of education schools for secondary school teachers (other than special ed).

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.

I agree -- espcially with K-8. In HS (and to a lesser extent Jr HS), it is nice to have larger schools because you can offer more options such as AP courses, vocational, business, etc.

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.

As someone who was bullied mercilessly through 9th grade, I certainly understand the reasons for wanting to do away with it. That being said, I think there is a fine line between eliminating bullying, and being so restrictive on kids that they can't learn to interact/deal with their peers. At the time I was going through it, I would think the above statement ludicrous, today I feel a little differenlty.

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.

We also have (effectively) competition and vouchers in the CC and University settings. However, I agree with the general thrust of this -- teachers should be held to standards/objectives for a course, not to a daily lesson plan. They are professionals, and should be treated as such.

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.

There are a few ways to address this problem. One is to have dual career tracks as found in healthcare and high tech industries -- teachers very well could advance and make as much or more than administrators. This would keep good teachers teaching, rather than forcing them to move up in the career ladder to make more money. I would also recommend that schools adopt a more university like approach -- where teachers can essentially fire the administrators (votes of no confidence). Finally, I would get the administrators out of the education business and back into being administrators. Let teachers review themselves.

[yurbud]

106. good ideas on administrators--they should see themselves more as

support staff.

I hadn't thought of the healthcare model, but it's appropriate.

[NAO]

91. the marginalization and disempowerment of the Religious Reich

Public schools will never be improved while the Religious Reich is in power.

They have an EXPLICIT agenda to de-fund and destroy the public education system. They are actively - aggressively - working the voucher system.

In AZ, a person can elect to have a portion of their property taxes - the portion that would go to public education - diverted to the Christian school of their choice. You don't even have to have kids in school or even have kids! Just fill out a form and then they take care of everything.

They work telemarketing calling lists, church directories, real estate lists to solicit people's taxes away from public education and into their religious schools. They pitch it as "hey, it's the same amount of money - you can pay it to the (wasteful, secular, etc.) government, who will squander it in crappy public schools, or you can pay it to us to be used in pursuit of Christian excellence. Won't you choose wisely how your tax dollars are used?

There will be no money for all the various improvements proposed here if the Religious Reich is not thwarted.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

92. Spend about 1/2 on education as on "defense".

Education 64bil
"Defense" - almost 600bil

I'd think that $300bil would do a lot of good for education. A helluva lot more good than buying the generals new toys to kill with.

[Yupster]

96. That's federal dollars

The US Department of Education gets about $ 60 billion a year.

But since the overwhelming amount of education funding comes from local property taxes and state budgets, theat $ 60 billion number doesn't mean a whole lot since it misses about 90 % of the money spent on education in the US.

[Raydawg1234]

93. Here's my slogan: It's the Parents Stupid

There's more to education than what goes on in the school. There's parenting, and culture. Parents do not promote education well enough. Too many kids play video games instead of reading books, etc.

[tomreedtoon]

94. How about bulldozers and lots of TNT?

I believe the secondary education system is broke and nothing can fix it. Not money, not loving care, not smaller classrooms. This not only comes from my own time in Hell, but from dating a teacher in junior and senior high for about a decade. She didn't educate kids. She spent her time manipulating a system of patronage and psychotic administrators in an attempt to keep her job. She'd given up whatever original dedication she once had, and she was only typical among her associates.

Very simply, the teachers don't know how to teach, and the people who teach teachers don't know how to teach, either. The whole principle of secondary education doesn't work. It serves political purposes as a whipping boy, it makes some people feel noble for trying to keep the hulking wreck standing, but it doesn't actually teach kids anything.

I'm not advocating "home schooling" or any of that witchcraft, either. I'm saying that someone with intelligence (which means people who have no connection whatsoever with the American educational system) figure out what is needed, from the ground up, to make children ready to take their place in society as adults. And that means using no portion of the current smouldering ruins of education.

For God's sake, kids are graduating with honors who don't know how to read. And the ones who do are so turned off by literature that even if they can read, they don't want to. It makes me think that those kids at Columbine didn't do a complete enough job, cynical as that might sound.

[longship]

95. I'm with you on many of these issues.

I'll add another. State Boards of Education who, scared by the Feds and NCLB, impose stupid, ridiculous rulings on the local schools.

Consider the following:

State high school exit exams which make no allowances for differences between students mode and pace of learning. Mainstreaming all ninth graders into a rigorous, academic algegra course, regardless of whether they speak english as a native language and regardless of whether they even understand how to multiply two numbers together. When over 3/4 of the students inevitably fail, the school system runs them right back through the same old meat grinder. More fail the second time. So what does the school system do then? That's right, they run them through the grinder again. Even more fail the third time. And they just do it again, until their senior year when they have to beg waivers from the state BOE for the math requirements.

Meanwhile, they let go all the bright, new mathematics teachers, six professionals in total. Why? Because having hired them without full credentials, and having promised to support them while they go through the other meat grinder of state teacher credentialling, they drop their side of the bargain and let the whole bunch go.

The result is inevitable. With a now hopelessly overworked staff, and with proportionally larger classes--now over 40 in each classroom--the failure rate increases to 94% of incoming freshmen.

This is what No Child Left Behind has done to California education.

I don't pretend to have a solution to this mess. But one thing is for sure. Something is seriously broken.

BTW, student life sucks. The students prey on each other like preditors in the wild. The staff are hopelessly outnumbered in holding the students in check. Theft and other crime is rampant. Teasing and bullying is rampant, too.

It all has to stop. We are the ones who have to put an end to it. We have to hold Chimp accountable for this and more. We have to put an new Congress in and then run the rest of these bums out of town on a rail.
:rant:

[leftofthedial]

97. eliminate republicans and religious nuts

[yurbud]

112. that might run into some constitutional problems

[barb162]

98. Parents, teachers and kids need to be on the same team

I have seen parents rip into teachers in front of their own kids. The kids have no respect for the teachers. I have also seen teachers who can't write above third grade level. I mean they don't know the diff between "too" and "to" and "two." Training should be rigorous for teachers. Basic requirements for graduation should be beefed up at all levels. How about at least three years of Math, Science and English for high school graduation. How about kids don't get out of grammar school if they don't know how to multiply, divide, write a comprehensible paragraph,etc.

[XemaSab]

100. I'd get rid of the concept of grades in primary school

When students are 4 or 5 they'd go to school and learn reading, printing, and simple arithmetic in VERY small groups. They wouldn't leave the group until they knew how to do these things, even if it took a long time.

There are WAY too many kids out there who are semi-literate in the higher grades, and I don't know how ANYTHING can be learned until reading becomes second nature.

Then the students would go to a bigger classroom with mixed ages and that's when the real education would begin. I might even go for keeping the kids with the same teacher throughout primary school.

I would make schools much smaller. Bullies would get SEVERELY punished. Students who goof off in class and are disruptive would be SEVERELY punished.

I would agree with giving teachers more autonomy if there were safeguards in place to makre sure that they were doing a good job. I had some really lousy teachers in primary school, and I'd hate for that to get even more common.

And above all, I'd teach critical thinking at every opportunity.

[yurbud]

104. I bet your lousy teacher didn't bother the principal very often and

just put up with crap.

[XemaSab]

107. Actually

One of my lousy teachers was a moran who sent home badly misspelled letters to my mom (1st and 2nd grade), one was physically abusive to the students (5th grade), one was a chilly, chilly bitch who hated kids (also 5th grade), and most of my middle school teachers were either really rude and sarcastic, totally burned out, or both.

[JVS]

101. Convince religious people to open parochial schools and compete...

fiercely out of sectarian pride.

This should thin out the number of students in the public schools thus creating more dollars per head and less students per teacher. This has the added benefit of ending disputes over evolution or sex-ed

[Bridget Burke]

116. Parochial schools are, by definition, Catholic

And the Church has NO problem with Evolution.

Usually, public schools get funding per "head" in class. Cutting down numbers would cut down funding.

[JVS]

120. I meant all religious schools.

What I want is to try to convince every denomnination to run schools so that they can get people out of public clases

[Bridget Burke]

123. Shrinking the number of students is not the way to go.

And why should people have to pay for private school just because they are religious? Most of those folks want good public schools. And they are glad to teach their kids religion at home and at church.

[JVS]

108. Vary the length of the school year based on demonstrated skill

Cover the desired material for a grade in 90 days then test. Students who have mastered the material at an A level can go home. Students who got a B must stay and learn for 45 more days and show improvement. Students who tested at C must remain until 180 days have passed and show improvement. Students who got a D have 225 days of school to get the stuff. Students with an F have to stay in school all year. Knowing your shit will be cool.

[Dora]

113. Nah.

If a student masters material in 90 days, then they should progress on to the next level. Your stance also makes school a punishment, and release a reward - a continued demonization of schooling.

Learning can be fun. If we could just teach our kids that.

[bliss_eternal]

121. For Homeschooling parents to consider returning

their children to public schools...for those parents to take the energy they are devoting to educating their children at home, and place it in advocating for public education. Also for parents of private school kids to consider the same...

By saying this, I mean NO disrespect to those that are presently homeschooling. I understand you are in a difficult position with no child left behind, among other problems in public schools. I'm not trying to attack or flame you by saying this.

What I am saying is that in times past when problems arose in schools, it was the parents of children that attended that advocated on behalf of ALL kids in those schools. These days, many public school students are products of single parent homes, male and female. These parents are often absent from pta meetings, city council meetings, etc. because they can only do so much. In times when the single parent homes were the exception and not the rule, there were many two parent homes to take up the slack and advocate for better educational conditions. With parents with the means removing their children from schools and teaching at home--who's going to advocate on behalf of all the other kids that are left behind? I dare to say that we are seeing some of the effects of this today...

I'm very concerned about the culture that has trickled down from this admin that essentially creates an 'every man, woman and child' for themself. It's dangerous. It's not the fault of the people that did not support or vote for this admin, but an unfortunate residual effect. So again, I don't say this to blame. But WE ALL will suffer in the long run if public education isn't improved. That won't happen if EVERYONE doesn't take an interest and does their part. Removing children from public education isn't going to fix the situation in my opinion. Just my opinion--but seeing some of the homeschoolers go back to schools couldn't hurt.

[noonwitch]

124. Deal with the issue of poverty in this country

Bad public schools are usually in poor districts. Most of these poor districts are either urban or very rural, so strategies have to be considerate of the differences between the communities involved, but there needs to be economic development so the communities have enough money to educate their children well.

A place like Detroit needs manufacturing business. They need to make something that everyone wants to buy, again. You get people working for good wages, buying houses and paying taxes, a big city can come back. Especially if there are tax incentives to buy property there. Rural areas need businesses, too, but also other things that provide a tax base, like tourism (at least in some rural areas) or other ways to bring in some money.