BF2S Forums Education Reform

I think all government run institutions should be barred from having unions and from having tenure.  If something is paid for through taxes, it should be performance driven.  Policies must be more Darwinian in state employment than in private employment because the market already promotes performance whereas state run institutions do not have to earn their keep.

i like the idea for people to become teachers who do not have this as their primary background.  however, to make this effective, we really need some sort of standards to be enforced.  i disagree taking away the teaching certification requirement but perhaps streamlining it might be in order.  i especially like the idea of an apprenticeship program for teachers.  this gives them a chance to get hands-on experience dealing with the people and administration aspects of the job.  honestly, the material being taught is not even in the same category of difficulty as with the other things that go along with the job.  Dealing with diffcult students AND parents coupled with an administration that often doesn't back you is quite a difficult proposition for many teachers fresh in their career.

i am from the US.  in my high school, we had several different tracks of study.  one was academic or college-prep where kids took calc, chem, etc.  another was business where they studied econ, accounting, etc.  yet another was general studies - very broad course program where you had alot of freedom to take different kinds of courses.  and lastly, they had a vocational-technical program where you went to a separate campus and learned carpentry, plumbing, electrical stuff, etc.  i think the vo-tech program is great.  the kids that took those classes often came from families that had businesses related to their field anyway.  by taking these classes, they were able to gain their apprenticeship in work practice training which is very valuable.  i DO think that this kind of thing could be done a bit earlier - perhaps as early as middle school to guage the students' aptitudes for certain things and help place them in a more effective track.  by mainstreaming kids too much, we end up dragging down the quality to the slowest learner.  some would look at this as bringing up the bottom - but i disagree.  most often, the kids that are slower get more frustrated and cause issues for themselves and others - they tune out since they have difficulty learning the topics.  rather, i think they may excel better in a different atmosphere.  i think this is where German education system where they have some sort of test in elementary school to determine aptitudes might be a good role model for the US.

as far as the curriculum goes, i think we really need to rethink what is being taught in schools these days.  let's look at what the 21st century needs and focus just a bit more on math and science.  why are US kids doing so poorly in these subjects?  honestly, it's not too hard to come up with interesting lessons on math - you have to make practical uses for the theories you are delivering to the students.  spend an extra 5 mins in class going over how the kids can apply this in real life and then the 'ah-ha' moment happens and they will pay attention.

standardized testing for kids is a great way to measure progress but it seems that it's progress towards taking the test that matters - not exactly in learning the material.  it's like taking SAT prep courses - they just prepare you for the test.  after you get your application in college, the SAT is a distant memory.  who cares if you scored a perfect on that test.  it's really more a matter of what you learn.  so some rethinking in terms of how to measure scholastic aptitude must be done.  this is non-trivial because it has to be standardized.  i think there is alot more that can be done here.

lastly, i think that parents have alot to do with their kids success.  all too often i hear stories of kids failing and when you look at the home life - you realize why this is.  parents need to step up and go over homework with their kids.  attend parent/teacher conferences - take more of an active role in the kids' education.  we can't put everything on the teacher - that's way too much.

Turquoise wrote:

I think all government run institutions should be barred from having unions and from having tenure.  If something is paid for through taxes, it should be performance driven.  Policies must be more Darwinian in state employment than in private employment because the market already promotes performance whereas state run institutions do not have to earn their keep.

I have been reflecting on the fact that my hatred of onions stem from government onions and not private sector onions.

CaptainSpaulding71 wrote:

DoctaStrangelove wrote:

I think that we should use an education voucher system like many European countries have. Instead of straight up paying for the school in one's district the school tax goes to providing students with these vouchers. With the vouchers, a student is given a certain amount of money each year (between 10 and 15 thousand dollars) that can be used to pay for going to whatever school. This system will allow students to be able to go to the best school that they can go to. Also it would save allot of money for the people who send their kids to private schools anyway, allowing for more money for people to spend on shit. It would also destroy the bad schools as no one would be going to them anymore since the people can go to a better school which would prevent money from being pumped into bad schools.

i hear you and tend to agree. 

however, when i think of underperforming schools i am worried that the educators are being unfairly blamed for not doing their jobs.  we all hear stories of how tough it is to teach in an inner city school with discipline problems rampant and parents who back their punk kids rather than the teachers.  most teachers these days are unprepared for this kind of thing - and indeed underpaid to start.  by taking funds away from these schools, i think it simply shifts the problem to those other schools and it doesn't 'solve' the problem of troubled kids.

Truancy laws should be repealed.  That would help somewhat, because kids that don't want to show up will always be discipline problems.  School should be totally voluntary in attendance, so that only the kids who really try to learn are being taught.  The losers who choose to skip out should be allowed to pay the consequences of ignorance and future unemployment.

FEOS wrote:

Interesting article on problems with hiring good teachers.

Concomitant with this is the difficulty in getting rid of poor teachers--a striking example of a union gone awry.

The study referenced applies economic analysis to determine trends and relationships to student performance.

Abstract wrote:

Traditionally, policymakers have attempted to improve the quality of the teaching force by raising minimum credentials for entering teachers. Recent research, however, suggests that such paper qualifications have little predictive power in identifying effective teachers. We propose federal support to help states measure the effectiveness of individual teachers—based on their impact on student achievement, subjective evaluations by principals and peers, and parental evaluations. States would be given considerable discretion to develop their own measures, as long as student achievement impacts (using so-called “value-added” measures) are a key component. The federal government would pay for bonuses to highly rated teachers willing to teach in high-poverty schools. In return for federal support, schools would not be able to offer tenure to new teachers who receive poor evaluations during their first two years on the job without obtaining district approval and informing parents in the schools. States would open further the door to teaching for those who lack traditional certification but can demonstrate success on the job. This approach would facilitate entry into teaching by those pursuing other careers. The new measures of teacher performance would also provide key data for teachers and schools to use in their efforts to improve their performance.

The recommendations of not requiring a teaching certification and implementing an apprenticeship program to prevent immediate tenure are fairly radical...at least in the US.

Seems like a better approach than we have now.

Thoughts?

Non-US folks: Is this different from or similar to your school systems?

If your unions are anything like our unions then the 'teaching without certification' proposal is a complete and utter dead-in-the-water non-runner. As to the system proposed there is no such thing in Ireland. I don't know how your education system is but we have three levels at secondary school - foundation, ordinary and honours. Good teachers teach honours classes, average teachers teach ordinary classes and and shit teachers teach foundation classes. You might say things should be the other way around but here in Ireland we seem to have an 'award the achiever' system with respect to students.

I still think the biggest problem with our education system are apathetic parents.

Anything that promotes competition is a good idea.

Why should someone be forced to send their child to an uncompetitive school. That's what our current system is/does. But, I don't like vouchers - it's a bad idea (it will in the end promote an educational widening of the haves and have nots, IMO). Instead they simply need to make the Public system a competitive system. Good luck convincing the teacher's Union of that one!

Turquoise wrote:

CaptainSpaulding71 wrote:

DoctaStrangelove wrote:

I think that we should use an education voucher system like many European countries have. Instead of straight up paying for the school in one's district the school tax goes to providing students with these vouchers. With the vouchers, a student is given a certain amount of money each year (between 10 and 15 thousand dollars) that can be used to pay for going to whatever school. This system will allow students to be able to go to the best school that they can go to. Also it would save allot of money for the people who send their kids to private schools anyway, allowing for more money for people to spend on shit. It would also destroy the bad schools as no one would be going to them anymore since the people can go to a better school which would prevent money from being pumped into bad schools.

i hear you and tend to agree. 

however, when i think of underperforming schools i am worried that the educators are being unfairly blamed for not doing their jobs.  we all hear stories of how tough it is to teach in an inner city school with discipline problems rampant and parents who back their punk kids rather than the teachers.  most teachers these days are unprepared for this kind of thing - and indeed underpaid to start.  by taking funds away from these schools, i think it simply shifts the problem to those other schools and it doesn't 'solve' the problem of troubled kids.

Truancy laws should be repealed.  That would help somewhat, because kids that don't want to show up will always be discipline problems.  School should be totally voluntary in attendance, so that only the kids who really try to learn are being taught.  The losers who choose to skip out should be allowed to pay the consequences of ignorance and future unemployment.

I'm not sure about that though, then to many kids would skip school, even if they do have potential. With the voucher system the kids who can do well will be able to go to schools where they are in an environment to do well.

The other kids will just be forced to be at the lowest level and if they decide to try harder then they can move up into a better school.