[quote]tom63 wrote:
We’ve spent bazillions on education and it gets worse. Maybe their should be a different approach.[/quote]
Hmmmm… sounds like the current US Healthcare situation too.
[quote]tom63 wrote:
We’ve spent bazillions on education and it gets worse. Maybe their should be a different approach.[/quote]
Hmmmm… sounds like the current US Healthcare situation too.
[quote]nephorm wrote:
Ok, I came into this discussion a little late, so I apologize if I’m repeating what many others have said.
For once, I agree with tme, at least in part. The new SAT is far, far too long. I disagree that this has anything to do with “attitude” on the part of the students. I’m usually the first one to jump on my students for being lazy or not putting in the level of effort that they should.
However, it’s pretty miserable to be forced to sit there, hour after hour, grueling over a mentally challenging test that basically determines the next four years of your life.
The test is simply too long.[/quote]
Yes, especially for kids who are not used to taking tests of that length. I make my Calculus I and II tests last 2 to 3 hours, and the kids are ‘fried’ after the test (the local college offers the course here, in the afternoons, and I teach it). The SAT is too long.
You need to double check your facts. The NYC school sytem is by far the largest in the nation with approx 1.1 million students.Even if you break it down by counties, of which NYC has 5, you still have an average of 220,000 students per county.
[quote]TrainerinDC wrote:
The NCLBA does not work. I went to public schools in which at the time was the richest county in the nation. I went to Fairfax County Schools. Its a DC suburb, but the whole county is the size of the state of Deleware.
Since graduating, the county has become like the 3rd or 4th richest county. FCPS is the largest school system in the nation, with the most students and the most funding. If you don’t believe me check my facts. My dad is a supervisor for the school system. My mom, my brother and myself all came up in this school system.
That being said, the high school I attended, rather than work with the slower, more needy or challenged students, would expel them before standardized test time to maintain their average. Virginia has the SOL or Standards of Learning test that everyone has to pass. They boast their great education system by these test scores.
Every year, they would teach the SOL test, and only the SOL test. After teaching the SOL test, they would report which kids would not pass it, and those kids would magically go missing before the test time. This happened every year. Racial or Migrant status made no difference to the expulsion.
The adminstration of the school would find a reason to expel the underacheiver before test time. By not having that student enrolled anymore, they would no longer have to report those scores for their SOL’s or to the NCLBA.
Before anyone asks how can they do that, I challenge you to tell me one person who never did anything wrong in high school. I’m not talking about skipping classes perce, but anything. The way the code of conduct for FCPS is written, they may discipline you, with possible expulsion for any activity committed on or off school grounds, and without proof.
They told every student, every year, that you could be expelled simply for suspicion of drugs, alcohol, weapons or gang activity. Or the possesion of a look alike substance, ie creatine or sugar. They could also discipline you, with potential expulsion, for activites off school grounds, parties, hanging out, anywhere.
Their rationale behind this, is those activites could come back to be a problem on school grounds. In practice, by being at a party with alcohol present on saturday, could get you expelled monday morning if the school found out. This did happen in practice more times than I could count.
The NCLBA should be called the SCNLBA. Selective children not left behind. The school system here, being the biggest and best funded in the nation, will expel the dificult cases before putting in the effort to help them. [/quote]
[quote]tpa wrote:
PGJ wrote:
tpa wrote:
thunderbolt23 wrote:
PGJ wrote:
Just about every kid these days has a computer in their house now. Between that and iPods, cellphones, and all other manner of digital crap kids absolutely can’t live without…I think they get enough exposure to technology.
Computers are so common, that it’s not even considered technology now. They are more like appliances (TV, oven, diswasher, computer, microwave…) Schools aren’t using computers to teach technology, they are using them to teach math and reading and social studies…A lot of the curriculum now is computer based self-paced instruction.
It’s not like in the 80’s where we learned how to actually write basic computer programs in the computer labs. Computers are teachers now.
First, please don’t assume that every kid has a home computer, iPod, and cellphone. There are many areas where students with home PCs are the minority.
Second, do you really think that the kids with home computers are using them for to analyze spatial data with geographic information systems or to examine and manipulate large data sets, or to create and modify spreadsheets or to design structures with Autocad, etc.
Show me a high school kid who doesn’t have an iPod or a cellphone or a PDA.
How about any school located by a low income / public housing area. How about the school I teach at.
And do you believe schools are actually using computers to “analyze spatial data”? No.
Well I teach grade 12 Geomatics. Analyzing and manipulating spatial data is the focus of the course. The Geomatics course is part of the Ontario geography curriculum. In fact the Ontario curriculum requires that students are exposed to GIS and other geotechnologies (i.e. GPS, remote sensing) from grades 6 through to grade 12. So yes, I do think schools use computers to analyze spatial data.
They are using computers to take and grade tests. Kids, well, at least my kid, goes to the classroom computer to take his math and reading tests. A lot of his education is self-paced. The teacher gives assignments and expects the students to do them on their own and take their tests on the computer. There is less and less student/teacher interaction.
Well just like in any profession, there are people who are shitty at their job. Teaching is no exception. If that truly is the case then it sounds like your kid’s teachers aren’t very good. Still I can’t honestly believe that you would rather have your kid complete his entire elementary and secondary schooling without any exposure to computers and technology.
[/quote]
I’m sure things are different in Canada, but in my experience, even folks living in low-oncome housing projects have cell phones and some sort of portable music device. And I don’t know of any school district that hasn’t spent tons of money for computers in the classrooms, like they think that will solve the problems. Kids who can’t read, write or do basic math don’t need “technology”, they need the basics. Chalk on the black board. America needs a “revolution in training” if we are ever to fix our education problem.
First thing to go…the freakin’ teachers union.
Second to go…computers in the classroom.
Third to go…personal clothing standards.
Bring in teachers hired and paid based on merit.
Put those teachers back in front of the kids 100% of the time.
Mandatory school uniforms for all.
Bring back P.E, music, and art.
Let kids fail if they deserve to fail.
Send bad kids to “special schools” and get them out of the general population.
Just some ideas.
[quote]PGJ wrote:
I’m sure things are different in Canada, but in my experience, even folks living in low-oncome housing projects have cell phones and some sort of portable music device. And I don’t know of any school district that hasn’t spent tons of money for computers in the classrooms, like they think that will solve the problems. Kids who can’t read, write or do basic math don’t need “technology”, they need the basics. Chalk on the black board. America needs a “revolution in training” if we are ever to fix our education problem. [/quote]
Just like everything else, education needs to change with the times. Of course we didn’t need to have computers in the class room 30 years ago…there were very few jobs that required computer skills then, today most well paying jobs do require computer skills.
[quote]
First thing to go…the freakin’ teachers union. [/quote]
Privatized education is a slippery slope. This will create and huge range between the quality of education received between rich and poor individuals. I know this gap already exists in the US but it would be exponentially greater if education were privatized…again the rich would get richer.
[quote]
Second to go…computers in the classroom. [/quote]
I’ve already explained why I think this is ridiculous!
[quote]
Third to go…personal clothing standards. [/quote]
What do you mean by personal clothing standards?
[quote]
Bring in teachers hired and paid based on merit. [/quote]
How would you measure merit? Don’t tell me this is based on how educated you are…some of the worst teachers are people that are overeducated. It isn’t what you know, it’s how well you can teach what you know.
[quote]
Put those teachers back in front of the kids 100% of the time.[/quote]
People learn by doing…not by listening to somebody lecture.
[quote]
Mandatory school uniforms for all.[/quote]
Explain why you feel this way.
[quote]
Bring back P.E, music, and art.[/quote]
I agree 100% with this. In fact I think a nutrition class should be mandatory for all high school graduates (the course would be designed by Berardi).
[quote]
Let kids fail if they deserve to fail.[/quote] Again I agree. In the Ontario high school system this is usually how we operate.
[quote]
Send bad kids to “special schools” and get them out of the general population.
Just some ideas.[/quote]
I just think you need to be careful how you define “special students”. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, a student could have the highest IQ and be the hardest working student in the class but may have a learning disability. These students would not benefit from being in “special schools”.
[quote]tpa wrote:
PGJ wrote:
I’m sure things are different in Canada, but in my experience, even folks living in low-oncome housing projects have cell phones and some sort of portable music device. And I don’t know of any school district that hasn’t spent tons of money for computers in the classrooms, like they think that will solve the problems. Kids who can’t read, write or do basic math don’t need “technology”, they need the basics. Chalk on the black board. America needs a “revolution in training” if we are ever to fix our education problem.
Just like everything else, education needs to change with the times. Of course we didn’t need to have computers in the class room 30 years ago…there were very few jobs that required computer skills then, today most well paying jobs do require computer skills.
Good point, but schools aren’t using computers to teach computer skills, they are using them to administer tests (at least in my son’s elementary school they are).
First thing to go…the freakin’ teachers union.
Privatized education is a slippery slope. This will create and huge range between the quality of education received between rich and poor individuals. I know this gap already exists in the US but it would be exponentially greater if education were privatized…again the rich would get richer.
Capitalism is good. Competition is good. It won’t create a gap, it will make everyone better. It did it with the airline industry and it did it with the telephone industry. It will work for schools. That doesn’t mean all schools become “private”, it means that kids aren’t locked into crappy schools because of where they live. They can choose which school to attend. The school gets money from the state for each student. Bad schools means less students means less money for the school district. It won’t take long before the schools realize that there is an incentive to be better.
Second to go…computers in the classroom.
I’ve already explained why I think this is ridiculous!
Kids who can’t read and write in high school don’t need computers. We need to get back to basics.
Third to go…personal clothing standards.
What do you mean by personal clothing standards?
School uniforms.
Bring in teachers hired and paid based on merit.
How would you measure merit? Don’t tell me this is based on how educated you are…some of the worst teachers are people that are overeducated. It isn’t what you know, it’s how well you can teach what you know.
We have teachers right now who are sex offenders and potential sex offenders (documented inappropriate behavior), but because of rediculous union contract rules it’s virtually impossible to fire them. I have seen teachers who can’t spell or speak. Parent complaints. Notice I didn’t say anything about student test scores. I believe that is a parents responsibility. If they aren’t reenforcing at home the child will have serious problems.
Put those teachers back in front of the kids 100% of the time.
People learn by doing…not by listening to somebody lecture.
Teachers need to be creative. They rely too much on computers. Goes back to a previous point. Schools without computers did just fine for hundres of years. Too much reliance on technology.
Mandatory school uniforms for all.
Explain why you feel this way.
American kids are worried more about their clothes than their school work. Kids are even getting beat up and shot/stabbed over shoes and bling. Uniforms even the playing field and puts the emphasis back on learning, not on dressing cool.
Bring back P.E, music, and art.
I agree 100% with this. In fact I think a nutrition class should be mandatory for all high school graduates (the course would be designed by Berardi).
Let kids fail if they deserve to fail. Again I agree. In the Ontario high school system this is usually how we operate.
Send bad kids to “special schools” and get them out of the general population.
Just some ideas.
By bad I mean thugs. We have a lot of there here. I used to live around the corner from a guy who’s teenage son was a documented sex offender. He was allowed to go to school like everyone else. I’m not talking about a 17 year old who messed around with a 16 year old, he was molesting little kids in the neighborhood.
I just think you need to be careful how you define “special students”. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, a student could have the highest IQ and be the hardest working student in the class but may have a learning disability. These students would not benefit from being in “special schools”.
[/quote]
Woops, my comments didn’t hi-light. Sorry.
Charter schools are the answer.
They allow school choice for everyone, not just the rich. I’m obviously biased, having taught at one for years (and having my daughter attend). My daughter is the little girl on the left:
Click the results tab on the left and let me put things in perspective for you:
We draw almost all of our students out of the Donna district. That is the most accurate comparison group. It is one of the poorest districts in the nation. Our students are classified as being 90% migrants. The South Texas ISD is a group of magnet schools mostly aimed at science and medicine (and so obviously they draw the best and the brightest). Before our school expanded into a high school, that is where most of our students went after 8th grade.
This is how we do it (while spending about 75% of what the Donna district does per student:
Students have to write an essay to get in. They get in on a first come, first admitted basis, but the essay shows commitment and gives us something to come back to when they are struggling early on.
We make home visits during the summer with new students and their parents. Every student and parent has my cell phone number and can call me anytime. I answer the phone up until 9:45 every night to help with homework.
Other great charter schools in the state that are changing the culture of education:
Giving parents the choice to get their kids out of crappy schools is the answer.
[quote]tpa wrote:
PGJ wrote:
I just think you need to be careful how you define “special students”. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, a student could have the highest IQ and be the hardest working student in the class but may have a learning disability. These students would not benefit from being in “special schools”.
[/quote]
I worked real real real hard and got nowhere. I have cried seven times in math classes in high school(and It takes a Lot for me to just start bawling). I was up every morning for math tutoring-every afternoon for math tutoring-then Id go home and a math tutor would be at my house to tutor me some more-then Id work on track till near whenever. I finally got tired of math tutoring so I started dating a guy majoring in engineering.
I scored 130 on IQ test
I got a score that is close to a 5th graders competence on “math memory” and then got genius level in this spatial stuff that classrooms dont touch on (but sports do). And my analytical skills were very high. Basically, everything except grammar , economics, creative writing, art and sports in high school was what I was bad at.
But that was two years ago. Im thinking Im near a third graders competence in math related things now.
To top all that off I have a strong case of “daydreamers” type of ADD-whereas, if Im reading some passage in a book-it could remind me of something-and I go into this dream thats more like a wierd trance-and forget that Im doing a timed test-and wham, I get a terrible grade.
So yeah, be careful about who your calling “special” here-moreso of that connotation your bringing with it. I know Im a different case.
[quote]doogie wrote:
Charter schools are the answer.
They allow school choice for everyone, not just the rich. I’m obviously biased, having taught at one for years (and having my daughter attend). My daughter is the little girl on the left:
http://ideapublicschools.com/content/view/13/27/
Click the results tab on the left and let me put things in perspective for you:
We draw almost all of our students out of the Donna district. That is the most accurate comparison group. It is one of the poorest districts in the nation. Our students are classified as being 90% migrants. The South Texas ISD is a group of magnet schools mostly aimed at science and medicine (and so obviously they draw the best and the brightest). Before our school expanded into a high school, that is where most of our students went after 8th grade.
This is how we do it (while spending about 75% of what the Donna district does per student:
Based on the concept of working harder to achieve results, students at IDEA Public Schools participate in a longer school day, take harder classes, and are responsible for an average of two hours of homework each night.
Focused on getting students into college, the culture of the school is centered around several core values that are emphasized every day to help instill positive characteristics into our students.
More Time: A longer school day, an extended school week, and summer sessions help prepare students for college. The school day extends until 5:00 p.m. during the week.
No Excuses: Neither students nor faculty make excuses. Despite obstacles, everyone gets ahead through hard work and determination.
Results Matter: High quality teaching and increased student achievement is our bottom line.
Every Adult, Every Student: The smaller school size and rapport that staff develop with students prevents children from getting "lost in the shuffle."
Team and Family: There is no challenge too big for us to overcome if we work together to create a solution.
Culture and Character: IDEA is creating leaders, not just learners. This requires creating a positive school culture, building character, and cultivating leadership through community service and civic engagement.
Choice and Commitment: IDEA students and families must choose to attend IDEA. That choice requires a commitment to uphold our values and ethics.
Students have to write an essay to get in. They get in on a first come, first admitted basis, but the essay shows commitment and gives us something to come back to when they are struggling early on.
We make home visits during the summer with new students and their parents. Every student and parent has my cell phone number and can call me anytime. I answer the phone up until 9:45 every night to help with homework.
Other great charter schools in the state that are changing the culture of education:
Giving parents the choice to get their kids out of crappy schools is the answer.
[/quote]
Debatable.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Debatable.
http://www.hoover.org/publications/uk/3374151.html
[/quote]
Six years old.
http://www.tamu.edu/univrel/aggiedaily/news/stories/01/061801-5.html
[quote]
“Texas charter schools serve a disproportionately large percentage of at-risk, economically disadvantaged and minority students - all groups that achieve poorer TAAS performance on average,” Gronberg says. “Many charters are set up to deal with at-risk populations. Working with these populations, charters can point to many successes.”
Charter schools, according to the report, do especially well among at-risk students, who often exhibit a first-year drop in TAAS scores but tend to perform at roughly the rate of traditional public school students after continuing in the charter school and outperforming traditional public school students in certain comparisons.
Tracking groups of students through time, rather than taking one-year looks, shows that continuing at-risk students in charters improved their test scores at greater rates than their at-risk traditional public school counterparts, according to the study.
The report states that at-risk charter schools have a positive effect relative to traditional public schools, but that the opposite holds true for non at-risk charter schools.
“Our best estimate is that charter schools serving primarily at-risk students may have a positive net effect on TAAS performance, and that charter schools serving primarily non at-risk students may have a small negative net effect on TAAS performance,” Jansen says.
The study also finds charter schools, which are experiencing explosive growth in student population mainly due to the opening of new charters, to be cost efficient as a group, often achieving a given level of student performance at a lower expenditure per student than would be predicted for a comparable traditional public school district.
In examining how well schools operate at minimum costs, the median charter school is closer to that concept than the median traditional public school or even the median small traditional public school, the report states.
“The long term viability of charter schools depends on their ability to deliver higher quality educational outcomes at the same cost as traditional public schools or an ability to deliver similar quality educational outcomes as a lower cost than do traditional public schools,” Jansen says.[/quote]
http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba/ba403/
[quote]
According to Texas Education Agency statistics, a Texas charter school student is more likely to be African-American, less likely to be white and more likely to be economically disadvantaged than a traditional public school student:
* African-Americans comprise 39.7 percent and whites 20.5 percent of students enrolled in Texas charter schools, while traditional public schools enroll 14.4 percent African-Americans and 40.9 percent whites. [See Figure I.]
* Charter schools that enroll predominantly one racial or ethic group (90 percent or more) are more likely to be minority (27 schools are African-American and 20 are Hispanic) than white (6 schools).
* Overall, 57.6 percent of students enrolled in Texas charter schools are economically disadvantaged to the degree that they qualify for federally subsidized lunches, a somewhat higher proportion than the 50.4 percent who qualify in traditional public schools.
…Three facts emerge from examining student scores over time:
- Students who enter a charter school experience a consistent first-year decline in test scores. Passing rates of students who entered an open enrollment charter school declined by 0.7 percentage points, from 63.1 percent in 1999 to 62.3 percent in 2000.
Because new schools open frequently and new students enter charter schools each year, the first-year decline charter school students experience biases downward the aggregate scores of these schools’ TAAS passing rates relative to traditional public schools in any given year. The student population of charter schools grew 23 percent in 1999 and 13 percent in 2000; 77 percent of the growth in 1999 and 13 percent of the growth in 2000 was due to the opening of new charters.
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Students who remain in charter schools for consecutive years have strong academic gains. TAAS passing rates have improved for children enrolled in charter schools in each of the years charter schools have been in operation in Texas:
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Passing rates for students remaining in open enrollment charter schools for two consecutive years increased 6.9 percentage points in reading from 1999 to 2000 and 9.1 percentage points in math.
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Passing rates for students who remained in charter schools serving primarily at-risk students for two years improved at a greater rate: 11.7 percentage points in reading from 1999 to 2000 and 6.9 percentage points in math.
-
-
Performance of students enrolled in charter schools improved at a rate greater than that of traditional public school students. A recent Texas Public Policy Foundation study compared the performance of students in charter schools and traditional public schools using the Texas Learning Index (TLI), which is derived from raw TAAS scores and controls for variations across years and grades. For the years 1999 and 2000:
-
Students who stayed in charter schools for two years experienced a TLI increase of 1.6 points in reading and 2.8 points in math; by comparison, index scores for students who stayed in traditional public schools increased 1.4 points in reading and 1.5 points in math. [See Figure II.]
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The progress of at-risk students in charters and traditional public schools was roughly the same, while the progress of non-at-risk charter school students (1.5 point increase in reading and a 2.5 point increase in math) far outpaced the progress of comparable students in public schools (0.7 point increase in both reading and math).
-
Thus, although charter students lag behind traditional public school students in head-to-head rankings for now, they appear to be improving at a faster rate.
http://web.utk.edu/~sgilpatr/charterperf.pdf#search="texas%20charter%20school%20performance"
[quote]
Broadly, we can summarize our results as follows: 1) there is a significant negative effect of the transition from a traditional public school to a charter which is of much greater magnitude than the disruption effect of movement between traditional public schools. The results also indicate a large positive effect of transition from a charter to a traditional public school, which suggests that the performance drop when moving to a charter may be at least in part a consequence of a different testing environment or emphasis, rather than a true decline in achievement. 2) Controlling for the negative transition effect in the first year of charter attendance, charter schools do have a significantly positive effect on student achievement. 3)There is evidence from the math results that charter schools are less effective in their initial year of operation than in subsequent years.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
pookie wrote:
After arguing end(mind?)lessly about how the government shouldn’t be allowed to tax you, you now complain that teachers’ pay, benefits and retirement plans are being decimated. Do you want services, or a tax cut? Is your Econ 101 book printed by Disney?
You’re missing the point: if we’re going to have this system, can we at least attempt to run it intelligently? Instead of coming up with some BS like ’ No Child Left Behind’ or ‘Teach for America’, how about raising the teachers pay?
Starting pay in the publics is about $27,000 and the INSTANT it can be done, it gets frozen or benefits are cut. Four or 5 years of college to make what a K-Mart worker makes…
I teach in a private school, BTW, so I don’t benefit from any of this. I’m simply pointing out facts.
[/quote]
But do we really want to raise a teacher’s pay? Just like military members, I want teachers to be there for the love of the job, not for money. This isn’t to say that they shouldn’t be better paid, merely that it shouldn’t be too lucurative a job.
Mike
[quote]Mikeyali wrote:
But do we really want to raise a teacher’s pay? Just like military members, I want teachers to be there for the love of the job, not for money. This isn’t to say that they shouldn’t be better paid, merely that it shouldn’t be too lucurative a job.
Mike[/quote]
There are thousands of shitty teachers who have a “calling” to teach. Love of the job is great, unless that means love of having June, July, and August off or not having any actuall pressure to perform.
You don’t even have to like the little carpet lizards to be a good teacher. You just have to take pride in your work. Raising every teacher’s pay will not improve education. Rewarding those teachers who perform will. I think yearly automatic raises should be eliminated. Perform, get paid more. Don’t perform, get paid less.
The answer in the US is a combination of tactics.
-
Accountability. Parents, students and Schools all play an important role and each should be held accountable to fill their role in education.
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Equal funding of education. The Federal Gov (in the US) mandateds that all states must educate. It does not mandate how it should be paid. In pa some schools are funded to the tune of several thousand dollars per student per year. Some public schools get less than half of that. When you have equal funding then you can demand comparable performance.
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Clarifying the mandate. Public schools in phila provide , Healthcare, breakfast and lunch, daycare, counseling, birth control, and on and on. Schools should be mandated to EDUCATE. These other services should be provided by other agencies @ other times. Schools should be relieved of these duties.
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Separate the groups. Not all students, or parents are willing to do what is necessary to excel. Students and parents who are willing to make the effort should not be penalized by being forced to deal w/ the underachievers. There should be clearly defined paths to quality education. These should be made available to all. Those who are unwilling to make the effort. Shouldnt be allowed to hamper the others.
[quote]emdawgz1 wrote:
The answer in the US is a combination of tactics.
-
Accountability. Parents, students and Schools all play an important role and each should be held accountable to fill their role in education.
-
Equal funding of education. The Federal Gov (in the US) mandateds that all states must educate. It does not mandate how it should be paid. In pa some schools are funded to the tune of several thousand dollars per student per year. Some public schools get less than half of that. When you have equal funding then you can demand comparable performance.
-
Clarifying the mandate. Public schools in phila provide , Healthcare, breakfast and lunch, daycare, counseling, birth control, and on and on. Schools should be mandated to EDUCATE. These other services should be provided by other agencies @ other times. Schools should be relieved of these duties.
-
Separate the groups. Not all students, or parents are willing to do what is necessary to excel. Students and parents who are willing to make the effort should not be penalized by being forced to deal w/ the underachievers. There should be clearly defined paths to quality education. These should be made available to all. Those who are unwilling to make the effort. Shouldnt be allowed to hamper the others. [/quote]
Good points. We need to get rid of the “we are all the same” mentality. We should all have the same OPPORTUNITY, what you do with that opportunity is your problem. You want to be a thug/slacker/underachiever, that’s fine. Here’s your special school. You want to learn, behave, and excell, great here’s your school. Competition improves everything. Some kids need hard knocks, some need a gentle hand. Put them in the same classroom and neither gets what they need.
Funding is critical. Everyone wants to blame the President for school budgets. That’s a state issue, not federal. If the state wants to pay it’s administrators 6-figure salaries and it’s teachers in the low $20K, don’t blame the President. Typically, school systems spend more on administration and infrastructure than education. That’s a state issue that the President can not control. The teacher’s union has so much power that bad teachers are often protected from firing and continue to collect salary even after being removed from the classroom. Many of these teachers have no duties and simply sit in “holding pens” all day. That was on 20/20. It’s criminal.
Most importantly, PARENT MUST BE INVOLVED. But how do you convince a young woman who had her child at age 16 and dropped out of school to get involved? Children raising children. That’s a major obstical, especially in inner-city schools.
[quote]Mikeyali wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
pookie wrote:
After arguing end(mind?)lessly about how the government shouldn’t be allowed to tax you, you now complain that teachers’ pay, benefits and retirement plans are being decimated. Do you want services, or a tax cut? Is your Econ 101 book printed by Disney?
You’re missing the point: if we’re going to have this system, can we at least attempt to run it intelligently? Instead of coming up with some BS like ’ No Child Left Behind’ or ‘Teach for America’, how about raising the teachers pay?
Starting pay in the publics is about $27,000 and the INSTANT it can be done, it gets frozen or benefits are cut. Four or 5 years of college to make what a K-Mart worker makes…
I teach in a private school, BTW, so I don’t benefit from any of this. I’m simply pointing out facts.
But do we really want to raise a teacher’s pay? Just like military members, I want teachers to be there for the love of the job, not for money. This isn’t to say that they shouldn’t be better paid, merely that it shouldn’t be too lucurative a job.
Mike[/quote]
Why does it matter what their reasons are as long as they do a fine job?
[quote]Mikeyali wrote:
But do we really want to raise a teacher’s pay? Just like military members, I want teachers to be there for the love of the job, not for money. This isn’t to say that they shouldn’t be better paid, merely that it shouldn’t be too lucurative a job.
Mike[/quote]
Teaching and coaching sound appealing to me, and there’s not a doubt in my mind that I would be an excellent high school teacher.
So why did a career in education merit a mere minute’s worth of consideration before I rejected it?
$$$$
Money isn’t everything, but it’s pretty damn important.
[quote]tGunslinger wrote:
Mikeyali wrote:
But do we really want to raise a teacher’s pay? Just like military members, I want teachers to be there for the love of the job, not for money. This isn’t to say that they shouldn’t be better paid, merely that it shouldn’t be too lucurative a job.
Mike
Teaching and coaching sound appealing to me, and there’s not a doubt in my mind that I would be an excellent high school teacher.
So why did a career in education merit a mere minute’s worth of consideration before I rejected it?
$$$$
Money isn’t everything, but it’s pretty damn important.
[/quote]
That’s why there are virtually no male teachers anymore, especially in the elementary schools. It just doesn’t pay enough to support a family. I would love to teach (that is what I am doing in the military right now) or coach (I have coached youth sports for 5 years). I think I’m pretty good, but I know I couldn’t make enough to support my family if it was my sole income.