Starting pay for teachers is OK, but tenure salaries need to reflect a teacher's experience and efficiency...a experienced teacher is 3-5x as valuable as a new teacher..Ahhh...ok then. You'd think I would know the answer to that. I taught for 10 years.
Actually, it is worse. With the trophy for participating, it is made clear that this is all it is for. The other leads kids to believe they have accomplished something that they really have not, in my view. It waters down the standard and cheapens its value.
I've never seen that as an issue...of all the issues affecting education, and all the problems, lowering standards because Jimmy needs to be cuddled doesn't even make the top 10 list...
The compe ion is fierce in better high schools to get into that top 10 percent...
from what I've seen, this is the case....
....and if schools are somehow lowering standards, it's not because they are coddling Jimmy or trying to appease his parents.......
it's because the school or the school district needs to meet certain standards for reasons such as receiving funding of some type or avoiding being hit with probation or possible closure.
I teach and even I can't say what the fix is.
Let's not kid ourselves though, schools lower standards because of parent pressure. Certain low income schools lower standards so that we do not lose students to other districts. It's just a sad fact. Less students means less funding. The more special ed. students we take, the more funding we get. To bad school districts don't use that money to hire more special ed teachers.
Sad fact, and this happens in more than one district, many schools have done away wish assigning a grade lower than a 50. If a student does nothing and the teacher assigns a grade of 0, the grading system automatically bumps it up to a 50 or a 60 in a few cases. (modifications) Now how long do you think it took for teh students to figure this out? They show up the last two weeks of class and do a bunch of make up work and they have a 70 easily.
Teachers that hold students accountable are definitely called in for a conference with adminsitration to fix those failure rates. A teacher will be asked repeatedly what they can do to assist the students in passing until the point is made. Make no mistake about it, those failure rates will be fixed.
In many instances parents can request AP classes for student. The same students that fail TAKS.
Also, it hasn't taken freshmen students long to figure out that they can fail the TAKS test with out having to pay for it. It's not required at that grade level to advance to the next grade.
Sooooo many things wrong.
Someone mentioned earlier that there are bad teachers out there that are collecting a paycheck and that's it. Name one profession where that doesn't happen.
1) Lift the mandate of attending school. If a kid doesn't want to be there, I don't want him there either. Most of those that would be truants are just causing trouble for those that are in school to learn.
2) Abolish the U. S. Department of Education.
3) Disband the National Education Association.
4) Re-emphasize trade and vocational education in high school again.
5) Bring back corporal punishment.
6) Pay teachers based on performance.
7) Do away with special detention schools. If they misbehave, give 'em Saturday detention, suspend, or expel. Let their parents worry about their future.
There. That'd be a good start.
Other things would be to discontinue all the nonsense social engineering programs and remove junk food from all campuses. But, those are local decisions.
Great points. You seeing first hand, are the testing creating a bigger problem or have they been a good indicator? Also without saying exactly what school or district, can you describe the type of school -middle class students, rural, new, etc.
WIth regards to one, it is our responsibility to make kids go to school. One it keeps them from criminalizing the community while most people are working and it benefits everyone. I have no problem putting kids who don't want to be in school, in different atmospheres (positive and negative) for learning. All except seven are great ideas.
I disagree. It is a parent's responsibility to make a kid go to school.
They criminalize the school instead. I have a bigger problem with that.
As long as I don't have to pay for the different atmosphere, I'm cool with that.
We'll just have to agree to disagree then.
I teach English. We had an exceptionally high passing rate with the TAKS last year. Our reward for that? Having our support (co-teachers to work with special ed students) moved to departments with high failure rates (math). Also, losing a teacher and having them moved to another dept as well thus increasing class size.
The school I work in is in a very poor area. High drop out rate, high pregnancy rate, and maybe 5% white.
The TAKS test is a good indicator of what should be learned. The problem is the curriculum at times. That hurts the kids more than anything. For example, we are supposed to be teaching To Kill a Mockingbird. Thats well and good except we have students at a 5th grade reading level. We are also expected to squeeze that in during mocks simulation week. I don't know about math and other areas, but the TAKS test is not very difficult. Released versions of past TAKS test do wonders to prepare students.
What kills, and I know it's cliche, is the politics involved in education and the lack of parental involvement. It's hard to discipline a child when their parent runs through Pocket or Cricket phone numbers and they flat out ask us to deal with them when you do get a hold of a parent.
You have a few good points but you're thinking of a perfect world. If that mandate is lifted, then what's the motivation. You forget what puberty does to a childs brain. They can't see past 15 minutes into the future and they definitely can't anticipate the outcome of being a high school drop out.
What's going to be the point of abolishing the US Dept of Ed? I've heard a few idiots mention that they'd like to nationalize these standards but some sort of beaurocracy needs to remain in place. God that pains me to say.
Trade and vocational schools definitely need to make a strong comeback. It's a fact that not every child is college material.
I'd kill for corporal punishment to come back. But at the same time I cringe at the thought of someone putiing their hands on my son one day. I think maybe it could come back on some level just as long as it remains that ONLY and administrator could punish the child in teh presence of one other administrator and a teacher. Students are lost in middle school for this simple reason. They have no fear and KNOW they are untouchable. we can't even have a child write lines, stand in the corner or place their desk outside of class anymore.
You simply cannot pay a teacher based on performance. too many factors involved (TAKS modifications, behavioral implementations, school resources, etc) for this to ever be fair. And to be honest, some years you just have a group of kids that are flat out not the brightest. Luck of the draw some years.
I know my typing is but once that bell rings I could care less about editing and so on...
Schools are gonna get funded either way...the state will simply step in, regulate the school and the district....the only districts closing schools are those in contrition.
We've had high school dropouts in the past and, still, managed to populate positions at N.A.S.A. You don't give teens enough credit. Most have goals and ambitions and realize an education is going to be a part of attaining those.
Sever the tie between the federal government and the local school. That's the point.
Glad we agree.
Yep. I agree.
Screw TAKS, and well, if you have that kind of "luck of the draw" year after year after year, maybe it's not luck of the draw. I should have expanded on that point somewhat in that I would also give teachers more control over who is in their classroom to be taught.
No worries.
I am starting to agree more and more with #1. It is a big discussion among my (fairly conservative) circle of friends, and seems to make a bit of sense.
I am not sure what difference #2/#3 makes. The state governments have been fairly effective at resisting federal interference for quite a while, for better or for worse. Third party organizations have been well-resisted as well.
#4 seems obvious. I have no idea why trades are not emphasized in the US.
#5 is inconsistent with #1 Yonivore. If you are dealing with kids who want to be there, or even parents who want their kids to be there, there should be no place for this. It is the parents job to deal with this as they see fit, not a teacher or principal.
#6 sounds good, but how do you grade this? Interview all the students? What if in the student interviews, the kids just like the teacher because they are nice or gives easy grades? What if the kids hate the teacher and they all fail the class, or hate the teacher and all pass the class? Or, would you look to see future success of the students after they graduate from that teachers' class? Would you test the students on that subject with a standardized test? How would you have a standardized test without some government program, or some master private corporate monopoly/accreditation? Do you go by grades? What if the teacher just gives A's? What if the teacher gives F's, but the students all pass standardized tests?
Yonivore, could you explain #7? I don't know what special detention is.
There is a top ranked public school here in the metro Detroit area that may close down soon. Apparently it costs $9000 a head in that particular ins ution. That is $3000 more than the charter school I went to cost per head back in 2000. With Michigan's economy going to , there isn't enough funding anymore to sustain this academy.
2 things I gather from this situation: a)Money thrown at the situation can actually help, at least sometimes. b) Public school failure, as I define it, can occur to an extent.
This is coming on the heals of the reading disaster the DPS (Detroit Public Schools) have put fourth, placing dead last. They have a 30 million dollar deficit to contend with. All while the person brought in to 'fix' the situation is turning down free county services in favor of city autonomy.
Who, please?
That's why we need to get rid of the schools altogether, and start off fresh, instead of continuing to augment and sustain the beast. The public school system needs to be shut down entirely.
The sooner the better IMO. Over time it will become even more unaffordable than it is now.
you know....that's illegal now in TX.....however, a student who gets less than a 50 on a exam might as well give up for the semester, so the curve is for a reason...the student is still failing, but at least he still has a chance...that said, if a kid gets less than a 50 on a exam the teacher should allow him to retake the test or do make-up work...Sad fact, and this happens in more than one district, many schools have done away wish assigning a grade lower than a 50. If a student does nothing and the teacher assigns a grade of 0, the grading system automatically bumps it up to a 50 or a 60 in a few cases. (modifications) Now how long do you think it took for teh students to figure this out? They show up the last two weeks of class and do a bunch of make up work and they have a 70 easily.
There is a very strong correlation though and students must be made to understand this...it's a pattern...Also, it hasn't taken freshmen students long to figure out that they can fail the TAKS test with out having to pay for it. It's not required at that grade level to advance to the next grade.
last year at my wife's school, no student was allowed to fail in the 1st 9 weeks of the year no matter what their grade really was.
I think the teacher should allow the kid to do make up work that might bump him/her up to a passing grade........but if the teacher wants to leave the kid at a 50, it's definitely justifiable to do so.
I've advocated military type school were the kids headed down the wrong direction are thought concepts like self-discipline, ethics, honor and perseverance through physical work and community service for half a day...and then thought reading/math/science/social studies for half a day..They criminalize the school instead. I have a bigger problem with that.
...if a kid has that, he's gonna make it...
Certainly up to the teacher's discretion, just serves very little purpose to fail a kid really, really, bad....the kid gives up and turns into a discipline issue and a slow regressive pattern begins...
...to which that kid has no business even being in a Spanish classroom then.
It's why I am all for trade school for the kids that cannot handle high school arts and science classes.
I took the afternoon off and got stuck thinking about this, and now I suddenly have this florid, long-ass sum . Apologies in advance.
So one of the greatest impediments in the road to a successful educational policy is the same thing that makes us a great country: our diversity. Special interest groups are constantly trying to bend the curriculum to their ends. Some liberals advocate educational environments in which the student's self esteem is more valuable than the education she receives, such that lesson plans should cater to the lowest common denominators in classrooms, reflect their ethnic, spiritual, and sexual diversities, suppress or ignore human failings (like racism or sexism in Shakespeare, say) and above all, promote inclusion. Some conservatives argue for biblical education, excision of theologically controversial scientific principles and morally dubious materials (like drinking and sex in Shakespeare), and focus on orthodox uniformity. And beyond these ideological factions, there are all the minorities that want to at the very least limit ins utional discrimination against them. In the end, then, teachers are left with very little anybody can agree on, and this pre-masticated, culturally relativistic cud is what we pass off as a curriculum.
IMO, the way around all this bull is to stop thinking about education as a thing which ignores our similarities for the purpose of down-playing our differences. What do we ultimately all have in common as Americans? This: the fact that we're Americans, that we are the products of a do ent which is the culmination of a long historical conversation over the course of 2K years. To understand this conversation, you have to start at the beginning, with the Greeks, with the Greek language, with Euclidian geometry and Aristotelian naturalism and Platonic idealism and Homeric poetry. From there the conversation develops, moves to Rome, to Jerusalem, to France, to Germany, etc. You see theology influence philosophy influence poetry influence science influence mathematics and crosswise, from the way-way back and up to the present day. You don't have to sweat that you're being indoctrinated by, say, a theological tractatus, because it is never presented as a Truth, just as a de-politicized historical artifact for you to consider.
I honestly think if you can make people understand how they came to be Americans, why the conversation of history made them a necessary, living response to that conversation, you are not only giving them a strong classical education and teaching them to think, you're unifying them, and protecting them from the disconnectedness that is a necessary consequence of living in a country so slanted towards individualism that it has no perceptible national character in itself.
It all sounds idealistic and un-doable, I know, but it works. I know, because -- Sy Sperling full disclosure moment -- I went to a college that had just such a program.
Maybe most surprising is that I don't think the curriculum there was beyond anything your average high school student could manage, especially since the format is informal and students are encouraged to make sense of the material for themselves, then just share their opinions with their classmates, the way we all do here when we bull about whatever we're bull ting about. As the kids start getting interested in the material and competing with each other, they kinda start to teach one another and keep each other on point. The teachers begin to melt into the periphery, serving only to guide the conversation. It's kind of like teaching how to put together an internal combustion engine by tracing its inventor's train of thought and process of construction instead of reading a science manual that just shows you a bloodless schematic of its construction.
So that's my college prep track.
At the same time, Judge Smails y contention that "the world needs ditch-diggers, too," is sadly true, and I think that for those who don't have the wherewithal or interest to study this way as college prep, we need to have a much more extensive vocational program in place. And since I suspect it's kids who struggle with academics and fall into vocational studies that are likely the ones with the highest drop-out risk, I think they should be paid for the work they do in their classes, be it repairing teacher's cars or computers, building furniture, ROTC drilling, or whatever work-study their chosen specialization may call for. People can about the added cost, but on of my dad's favorite sayings is that the most valuable resource of a nation are it's children, and that rings true, I think. If a kid stays in school and develops a skill, that means he will be more likely to become a property owner and, as such, less likely to be a criminal or junky.
I also believe in magnet schools for kids with natural skill sets: PVA's and Health and Science magnets are common enough, but globalization will put a premium on multi-culty polyglots, so how about linguistic magnet schools that feed into Foreign Service and International Biz jobs?
Alright... I'm done yapping. Sorry again
I kid you not. His name is Robert Bobb...
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