Education Reform

[misterholt]

26000 teachers in Chicago strike while 350000 kids aren't getting an education. I understand we all want job security and good pay. I think teachers deserve it more. The real issue isn't a fair teacher evaluation. It's what we allow our teachers to do. STOP mandatory state testing and let teachers actually oh I don't know.....TEACH!

[OldCannon]

There is no fix for a school system tightly controlled by a teacher's union.

Interesting fact: Almost 40% of Chicago teachers send their kids to private schools.

[misterholt]

There is no fix for a school system tightly controlled by a teacher's union.

Interesting fact: Almost 40% of Chicago teachers send their kids to private schools.

Didn't know about the private school teachers' kids. Thanks for the info.

[Thomas]

There is no fix for a school system tightly controlled by a teacher's union.

Interesting fact: Almost 40% of Chicago teachers send their kids to private schools.

Very interesting. Do you have a source?

Also, I recommend seeing the documentary Waiting for Superman.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waiting_for_%22Superman%22

[misterholt]

I've seen the documentary. Pretty sad to see how we have failed our future generation of students/teachers.

[anygunanywhere]

The union is also snubbing their nose at a 16% raise over 4 years.

Greed. Democrat socialist greed. The sea of red shirts speaks volumes about the commie leanings of the union mentality.

Anygunanywere

[Charles L. Cotton]

Chicago should follow President Reagan's lead and fire all of them as he fired traffic controllers who illegally went on strike. This presumes a teachers' strike is illegal. If it isn't, it should be illegal.

The better fix for Texas is to shut down public schools and privatize education. With few exceptions, big city school districts are nothing more than poor daycare centers.

Chas.

[OldCannon]

There is no fix for a school system tightly controlled by a teacher's union.

Interesting fact: Almost 40% of Chicago teachers send their kids to private schools.

Very interesting. Do you have a source?

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government ... ate-school" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Birdie]

I admit that I haven't read what the union in Chicago has to say about this. What I'm having trouble wrapping my head around is the teacher's salary there compared to median salary there. They should be relieved they have a job that pays so well in a city that is struggling to stay afloat. If I was still teaching, my salary would be 1/5 the median average here. Their salaries are more than double. I'm not feeling very sympathetic.

[fickman]

Here's a few steps to true reform:
SHORT TERM:
- Get the Federal government completely out of education.

- Replace national standardized uber-test with end-of-course exams to complete each class.

- Allow VOUCHERS! Parents who have school-aged children and choose NOT to use the public schools should be allowed to use their tax money to educate their children however they see fit - be it for private schools, charter schools, or homeschooling. (I have no problem with a state or local district taxing those without kids, with pre-school kids, or with kids who are out of high school. I can agree that the local communities benefit from an educated society. It's socialism, but our system allows for some of that at the local level.)

- Stop public-sector unions.

- At the state and local level, limit the percentage of administrative / overhead costs a district can carry. (Read: stop giving schools money that only go to increase the number of vice principals. This goes for colleges, too.)

- Fire bad teachers, pay good teachers. (Oh yeah, that means you have to measure their performance. Just like in any other job. And, "All I can do is teach, I can't make them learn" doesn't fly. . . I've heard that excuse for years in another occupation. It seems poor performing salespeople often come to the same conclusion: "What do they expect me to do? I can't make the customers buy anything." Oddly, the closers never worry about it.)

- Go back to separating the kids by skill level. Stop holding the advanced kids back with busy work while they wait for others to catch up. Let them know which group is which and inspire them to improve which group they're in through hard work. Stop protecting everybody's self esteem.

Of course, these reforms are all from an administrative and governance perspective. The other key piece is that we need to stop coddling bad parents and tell them their kids are out of control and who's fault that really is. . . but it's harder to legislate that.

LONG TERM:
Consider having a tiered high school system. Evaluate a kids' trajectory by late middle school / early high school and allow some kids to go into true vocational training instead of having them dabble in it while still staying on the college-bound plan. Stop telling every kid that they need a bachelor's degree to live. Many kids aren't college material and shouldn't be in a university. For the kids that do go to college, make sure they're learning something useful. . . at least if they want subsidized loans or public grants. Target subsidized loans and grants as financial incentives to stock our workforce with capable, productive workers instead of untrained, entitled slackers with a meaningless sheet of paper.

If we can do all of these things, I think we'd really be set to excel. (I'm not holding my breath.)

[canvasbck]

Here's a few steps to true reform:
SHORT TERM:
- Get the Federal government completely out of education.

- Replace national standardized uber-test with end-of-course exams to complete each class.

- Allow VOUCHERS! Parents who have school-aged children and choose NOT to use the public schools should be allowed to use their tax money to educate their children however they see fit - be it for private schools, charter schools, or homeschooling. (I have no problem with a state or local district taxing those without kids, with pre-school kids, or with kids who are out of high school. I can agree that the local communities benefit from an educated society. It's socialism, but our system allows for some of that at the local level.)

- Stop public-sector unions.

- At the state and local level, limit the percentage of administrative / overhead costs a district can carry. (Read: stop giving schools money that only go to increase the number of vice principals. This goes for colleges, too.)

- Fire bad teachers, pay good teachers. (Oh yeah, that means you have to measure their performance. Just like in any other job. And, "All I can do is teach, I can't make them learn" doesn't fly. . . I've heard that excuse for years in another occupation. It seems poor performing salespeople often come to the same conclusion: "What do they expect me to do? I can't make the customers buy anything." Oddly, the closers never worry about it.)

- Go back to separating the kids by skill level. Stop holding the advanced kids back with busy work while they wait for others to catch up. Let them know which group is which and inspire them to improve which group they're in through hard work. Stop protecting everybody's self esteem.

Of course, these reforms are all from an administrative and governance perspective. The other key piece is that we need to stop coddling bad parents and tell them their kids are out of control and who's fault that really is. . . but it's harder to legislate that.

LONG TERM:
Consider having a tiered high school system. Evaluate a kids' trajectory by late middle school / early high school and allow some kids to go into true vocational training instead of having them dabble in it while still staying on the college-bound plan. Stop telling every kid that they need a bachelor's degree to live. Many kids aren't college material and shouldn't be in a university. For the kids that do go to college, make sure they're learning something useful. . . at least if they want subsidized loans or public grants. Target subsidized loans and grants as financial incentives to stock our workforce with capable, productive workers instead of untrained, entitled slackers with a meaningless sheet of paper.

If we can do all of these things, I think we'd really be set to excel. (I'm not holding my breath.)

The only caveat is that if you seperate based on skill (which I agree with) don't just put the good teachers with the advanced kids, the average and below average kids should get a shot at good teachers too.

This is anecdotal, but it is what drives my belief here. When I was in high school (a few decades ago), I was in the advanced class for Algebra I. We had a fantastic teacher and the class was a breeze. My Sophmore year, I couldn't take advanced Algebra II and play football because of the class schedule so I took average Algebra II. We had a teacher that didn't teach and didn't care. I learned most of that class on my own outside of the classroom and the class turned out to be more challenging than taking a more advanced class with a good teacher.

Kids who are already at a disadvantage because of their current skill level should not be further disadvantaged by putting the sorry teachers with the students hwo are a little behind.

[fickman]

the average and below average kids should get a shot at good teachers too.

Absolutely.

As Bart Simpson, upon being placed in the remedial class, asked, "So wait. We're behind the rest of our classmates. . . and we're supposed to catch up. . . by going slower?"

Good teachers all around. . . there's different skill sets to manage each level of achievement. The gifted kids need one type of challenge and the kids trying to catch up need a teacher willing to use slightly different tools from the bag.

[anygunanywhere]

It isn't about how good or bad the teachers are necessarily, it is how involved a child's parents are in raising and teaching their children. Notice that I said parents, plural, both, as in mom and dad.

Anygunanywhere

[RoyGBiv]

It isn't about how good or bad the teachers are necessarily, it is how involved a child's parents are in raising and teaching their children. Notice that I said parents, plural, both, as in mom and dad.

Anygunanywhere

I'm a big believer that course material should be 100% taught in class and that homework should reinforce what the students were taught in class. I see too many examples of kids that come home with homework on topics that were not taught in class and they are expected to learn the material on their own. That means parents (if the kids are lucky enough to have two at home) get to work 12 hours days and come home to kids who need help learning new material in order to complete homework.

I had just such a discussion with a neighbor this weekend. His kid is a straight-A student and very smart.
He and his wife had a meeting with the school principal already over this. Principal said "you should talk with your kids teachers" and my neighbor said "that is your job, you are the administrator, do your job."

WHY is class material being learned at home? Because class time is spent teaching kids at the slowest level. I can't tell you how to fix this in public schools, but a voucher system would go a long way. Paying for under-performance in public schools is unacceptable.

Whoever said "stop coddling" above is right on... Life is tough. Not all snowflakes are equal. Stop pretending they are.

[misterholt]

Now if we could just get our politicians to understand... Legislation needs to be passed banning all unions related to public establishments