12 steps to improve education
(In no particular order)
Disclaimer: I work in an inner city school and everything I write is based on my personal experience. Any use of the word you, your, or you’re, is meant in general terms. I also know that not ALL parents are the same and that a great many do a wonderful job raising their kids. I speak of the parents who DON’T raise their children properly.
This is in no way the only things that need to be done. But I think these are things that would make a good starting point. None of these items take funding into account. I think there can be a WHOLE other discussion on that. There are many places that state/federal government can cut wasteful spending and help fund education without affecting taxes or even cutting them.
1. Smaller Class Sizes: Current class sizes are at least 20 students per teacher. When we go to training we constantly hear how the students are getting harder to reach and they are lacking the knowledge they need to even start school more and more. In private schools small class sizes are something that is heavily advertised as it gives the teachers the ability to spend more time per child.
2. Teach fewer concepts at each grade level: Every year it seems they move student expectations down to lower grades in an effort to be seen as having a more rigorous curriculum. In reality what happens is that we have MORE information we have to stuff into a 9 month period. The drawback to this that we are not able to go as in depth for the concept and give a true understanding. This hurts the kids as they get to higher level subjects as they don’t have a solid foundation. I look at this as trying to put 10 lbs. of dirt in a 5 lb. bag.
3. Group the students according to ability: Today’s teachers have students all over the spectrum. The low kids suffer because the kids have to pass a test and teachers will tend to focus on the “bubble” kids. The high level kids suffer because they are stuck learning at the pace of the lowest kids in the class. The teacher has very little time to devote to these kids to push them further. An argument to this is that you put a stigma on the kids in the lower class and all the kids will know they are in the “dumb” class. Well, I hate to say it, but the kids already know who those kids are anyway. Another interesting thing I have observed in my years of teaching is that the kids don’t really care about who is smart and not. I personally think that the “stigma” is an adult condition.
4. No Politics: Okay, this is more of a fantasy, and I understand that if the gov’t is providing the funding then politics have to be somewhat involved. However, it has gotten to the point where nothing gets done correctly because of it. The right won’t listen to anything the left has to say, and vice versa. We end up getting politicians who know NOTHING about how education works making decisions on how it should be done.
5. Make is easier to get rid of bad teachers/administrators: I make no argument that there are bad teachers among us. In some parts of the country unions make it very difficult to get rid of teacher who are collecting a paycheck and waiting for summer. We need to have a fair and impartial way to get rid of these teachers. We need to also get rid of teachers/administrators who do not treat the kids properly. Along with this we need to make sure teachers have proper understanding of the subject they are teaching.
6. Change testing standards: To judge kids and teachers based on one test score on one day out of 180 is not fair to either person. The best way to judge kids and teachers is based on growth. To measure this they need to test to kids at the beginning of the year, then, test them on the same material at the end of the year to see how far they progressed.
7. Inclusion: Many areas practice what is called inclusion. This means that the Special Education kids are put in class with the mainstream kids. While for some cases this is not a bad things, in many cases the Special Ed kids are so far behind that it doesn’t help them. Another problem is that some of the kids have problems that a general Ed teacher is not trained to handle. My analogy for this is, if you were having heart problems, you would go to a Dr. that specializes in hearts, not a general family Dr.
8. More responsibility on students/parents: Parents are a child’s first teacher. If a child enters kindergarten and can’t write their name, I think the parent has not been doing their job as a parent, same with the alphabet. These are not things that are hard to teach to children. Parents also need to teach their children how to act properly in a school setting. We shouldn’t have to teach your kids right from wrong, or how to be respectful. Children also need to be held accountable for their education. If a kid comes to school and does absolutely nothing in class and the teacher does everything he/she can to motivate that child, calls home and talks to the parents, the child needs to face some consequences, not the teacher. Yes, there is due diligence on the teacher’s part, but should the teacher neglect the other students in his/her class because one student is lazy? There need to be more severe consequences for parents of children who are constant behavior problems, and no I don’t mean the kids who occasionally talk too much. I mean the kids who are constantly disruptive, disrespectful to other students and teachers, bully other students, commit crimes, and all other things that repeatedly take away from the learning of other students. I actually heard a parent tell her son (who is a behavior problem) that what his teacher says doesn’t matter because he isn’t the kids father.
9. Bonuses: I think bonuses for outstanding performance are a great idea in schools. However, I do not think that a teacher’s salary should in any way be tied to test scores. Most schools currently pay teachers on a scale based on years of service. I think this should be kept, but on top of that teachers can be eligible for bonuses based on a number of factors. Some of these factors can be student growth, performance appraisals, parent surveys, student surveys, additional staff development, and other factors. To base it on one factor alone is not fair to that teacher. Teachers do so much more than just teach in the classroom. We are often moms, dads, police officers, counselors, judges, detectives, and many other people to these kids. You cannot measure how a teacher may affect a child’s life on a spreadsheet. What if a teacher in 2nd grade teaches something that the child, when in 4th grade, remembers that helps them understand a concept in that class?
10. Easier to get rid of behavior problems: In my opinion, one of the huge advantages private schools have over public schools is that they do not HAVE to educate every kid in their area. They can choose who to accept, then, if the student is a behavior problem, they can kick that kid out of the school. In public schools, too often, children that are constant behavior problems face very few consequences. Kids these days are smart and learn early how to work the system. Some also have parents that teach them that teachers don’t matter and they don’t have to listen to them. There needs to be a way to get rid of these students permanently. They drain time, energy, and resources from the schools. They steal educational time from students who truly want to learn.
11. Team up with private industry/universities: In education lately, we constantly hear how kids these days are not prepared for the workforce and college. I agree with that to an extent. I think that we need to get private industry involved so they can help elementary, middle, and high schools prepare kids for what they are going to face in the “real world.” Now, this has to be done carefully to avoid any advertising in the classrooms, or “brainwashing” of kids. I think it needs to be things like industry standard stuff. Example: work with technology companies to help teachers better integrate technology in the classroom so the kids get quality exposure to technology, work with banks so kids learn some basics of money management, economics (not how to cripple an economy though ;))
12. Put cameras in schools: This is the fly paper issue (extremely sticky). It is a very sharp double edged sword. The reason I put this on my list is because too often teachers deal with parents who refuse to believe little Johnny can be breaking rules in class. It would be nice to be able to pull up video of little Johnny throwing things at other kids, bullying other kids, not doing his work. It would also be a nice motivator to be able to tell the kids that they are on video so if you act out I can show your parents. It can help keep the kids safe and properly identify students and staff members who violate codes of conduct and/or laws. Now, I understand the privacy issue. This is something that would require a perfect society where it wouldn’t get abused, and I think we all know that in our society pretty much everything gets abused by someone. The other option: believe me when I tell you what little Johnny does in class, and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.
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jdwriter1
14 years ago
Thank you for such an insightful response. I appreciate that you stuck to the topic and didn't veer off into a political, cultural or racial argument.
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Quanfa
14 years ago
1. Smaller Class Sizes - more schools overall seem to be the answer here. But populations are getting out of control in some areas that make this a tough drain on resources. But this is hard to get into without getting political.
2. Teach fewer concepts at each grade level - if you could do #3, this would be easier to accomplish.
3. Group the students according to ability - I can't believe we ever moved away from this. Something tells me somebody in the "feel good 90's" decided that perception and feelings are more important than common sense; or someone decided that kids can't handle anything and should be coddled.
4. No Politics - can't get away from this as long as the taxpayers are footing the bills. But it's a nice thought.
5. Make is easier to get rid of bad teachers/administrators - see #4, but this comes down to the power of the unions and the seniority system, at least with the teachers.
6. Change testing standards - Actually you need both growth measurement and standardized testing. Although funding could be determined by growth goals met. The standard tests should indicate whether you graduate or not from high school. A diploma should actually mean something after all.
7. Inclusion - I agree. Inclusion for special ed kids is ridiculous. Again, someone decided that an IQ of 42 just means they're "learning different." No common sense at all. But the other problem is a society of over-diagnosis. If you took a poll, every kid has some form of "learning difference." It doesn't really mean anything anymore, but schools everywhere have to make allowances for it.
8. More responsibility on students/parents - excellent points.
9. Bonuses - if you take out the unions, you could have a more common sense approach to pay raises.
10. Easier to get rid of behavior problems - ah, now we're back to politics again, unfortunately. Public Education is seen as a right, not a privilege. Why? Because taxes pay for it. But taxes pay for the public roads too - that doesn't mean you can drive as fast as you want! Yes, kids should be booted out of school left and right if they interfere with the learning of others. Period.
11. Team up with private industry/universities - believe it or not, "take your child to work day" used to be about this. And in the old days, industries visited schools all the time - some vocational programs that kids could go off and do work study with in high school. I didn't realize this doesn't happen anymore, but it may depend upon the district. And economics used to be a required class to graduate high school - so you learned how to balance a checkbook, compound interest, etc. Is this not required anymore? Or has it just come down to reading and basic math?
12. Put cameras in schools - I see this coming. But I predict the teacher's unions would fight it because teachers would be under a microscope too. It's tricky - not everyone feels comfortable working in front of a camera, but ultimately it could have some good benefits.
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Writer01603
14 years ago
1. Focuses, students should be able to focus on what they're interested on within several genres, Education, Science, Business, computer technology, and Engineering. Individual class curriculums could build on these, such as Psychology for science in business focuses. That way, instead of trying to teach every student biology and thus making it impossible for them to dissect an animal and learn about the insides and have a real education, we could give those interested in medicine the opportunity while giving those interested in business courses with a science background that would benefit them in a business environment.
2. Bring back Apprenticeship, Add Certification Tests, and eliminate the need for college being the be all and end all of education for a real job. College does not need to be that important. It never was. WHen it wasn't America was the greatest country in the world, then Jimmy Carter got in, then Reagan, and soon college was the biggest thing in the world, and you can't get a job anywhere without a Bachelors degree.
3. Vouchers give school choice to the parents, and have schools compete over the students offering better programs suited to fit a students needs.
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katherinethecat
14 years ago
Everyone has to focus their education eventually, but not too soon. Remember, part of the point of public education is to produce an informed population with enough knowledge to make rational decisions that result in a stable and healthy society.
I've never seen a High School curriculum that taught rocket science, rather the opposite sadly. They are at best at a level of general knowledge. Once a student has finished the basic courses, most schools offer advanced electives that allow kids to specialize either via AP college level classes or in vocational ed classes.
Um, yea, there is probably an over emphasis on college in some schools, but I don't think citing 'the good old days' is really a good argument for voc ed programs. Those were completely different times, with a completely different world distribution of resources. Our country is not a manufacturing economy any more, probably because we aren't willing to pay as much as it would cost to produces products made by people who earn a living wage, have healthy workplaces and healthcare, so we send our money to countries who don't bother to do all that. We have made ourselves into an economy of 'idea people' that think up the products that other countries produce, and 'idea people' need diplomas.
Vouchers sound good, that way when people get pissed at a school they can either go somewhere else, and some where else, and some where else, until they realize it might not be the schools that have the problem. :)
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Yorick_Brown
14 years ago
Public education IS a right.
The camera thing is a bad idea. I can perfectly understand the good intentions behind it but ultimately it brings more harm than good. It's against our right to privacy and could influence how teachers and students behave in the classroom.
"Why don't we both blow this joint and then each other?"
-Love and Other Drugs (2010)
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mcastillo106
14 years ago
As a fellow educator, I second a lot of your thoughts on this matter. In fact, as I saw how many people here were bantering back and forth--losing the focus of the topic thread--I was just setting down to write out a lot of the points you made. Thank you for saving me some time in that respect. Again, kudos and keep on trucking. :o)
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pfour12
14 years ago
We have to question what the goal of education is. I, like many others, believe it is to educate all students. Going back to the ideas that only some students can (and/or should) be educated is returning to sentiments expressed in the nineteenth century. There are absolutely cases of students where regular education is not the solution, but these students are not as common, and should be provided with a viable alternative.
3. Group the students according to ability
Tracking is not the option. Research continues to suggest that tracking is incorrectly implemented and introduces wide degrees of segregation. Classrooms should exist where the higher level students help the other students, and lower level students can interact and contribute their own ideas. There are examples in different subject areas of de-tracked classrooms where all students are challenged and end up learning.
I also don't have the source on me for this next fact, but I have heard it from a university educator: higher level students suffer very little from de-tracking but lower level students gain much more.
7. Inclusion
Many earlier sentiments can be reexpressed here. Outside of the extreme behavioral cases, all students can be educated within a regular classroom. Now that might mean current teachers have to take some night or summer courses on special education or have a special education teacher within their room, but it can work. Coteaching is actually becoming one of the most viable solutions to help make inclusion work.
10. Easier to get rid of behavior problems
Most of the time, these students needs aren't being met. And by kicking them out, we are simply sending them off to a life filled with under-achievement and poverty. New York University educator and professor Pedro Noguera has some very interesting essays surrounding school punishment.
Put cameras in schools
To me, this just reinforces the belief that these students need to be carefully observed and watched to make sure they don't break the rules.
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katherinethecat
14 years ago
research suggests?!?! boy am I tired of that phrase. what research, done where, in what conditions with what population? Sure mainstreaming/differentiation/heterogeneous grouping works in some settings with some demographics with a certain level of resources, but unless you can almost exactly replicate that setting, your 'research' isn't really worth a hill of beans.
It is a constant struggle in psychological and sociological research to control your confounds and do an actual valid experiment that can demonstrate causality. In educational research it is, I think, impossible.
If you would like an interesting exercise, go back thru educational journals and have a look at all of the fads that were supported by 'research' that were later found to be unworkable at best, damaging at worst. There are some amusing ones (open classrooms :))
Behavior problems shouldn't be just thrown away out of the education system, but if they are hurting the rest of the kids by eating up school resources, the damage has to be limited. Then the fight becomes convincing society to give up enough of the right kinds of resources to rehab those kids.
and yes, kids have to be watched. especially the ones who try to rape their classmates in the cafeteria before school, the ones who try to deal crack out of the bathroom and the ones who try to jump/knife the kid from the neighborhood who won't join the gang but is trying to date one of the gang's sister....which is stuff that happened where I am.
Most schools have nothing near the kind of societal support that they need to succeed, it's triage. either save the one triple bypass pt or put casts on the 7 pts with broken arms.
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hatchttu
14 years ago
3. I had a teacher in my school actually do thiw with pretty good success. She and her team teacher (not in the same room) grouped their "high" kids and "low" kids together and had their mid level kids in a different class and it worked well for them.
7. the same teacher from above first taught a self contained special ed class, kids that are now being mainstreamed in school. She has a degree in special education and deaf ed. She feels that inclusion is a bad idea. She saw tremendous gains from her students when she was self contained. She is trained to work with them, general ed teachers are not. Would you go to a general physician for heart surgery? I doubt it.
10. You dont understand what I mean by behavior problems. I mean the kid that cusses out a teacher, principal, throws a book at another student's parent, throws a chair down the hall, tries to slam a door shut on his teacher, tells another kid he is going to bring a knife to school and cut her, snatches a bag from his mom and yells at her. Those are actions I have seen from kindergarten, 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade students. And we have very little we can do outside suspend them for 3 days, maybe AEP for 6 weeks.
Did I mention the parent that stood in the office and cussed out our asst principal because we wouldn't let her daughter wear flip flops to field day to avoid inury, which is a district policy, call downtown to complain about this rule, and tell her daughter that the principal doesn't run "sh*t" right in the office?
when people today talk about school they think of when THEY were in school. Things have changed a lot since then, I promise. Spend a week in a school worknig and I garuntee you will think differently about what we do.
I cant speak about unions, I work in TX and even in education unions hold no power. They can make suggestions and ask for things, but can't force anything.
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katherinethecat
14 years ago
yep, as a teacher in a title 1 urban school, I say right on.
the only thing is in #5, and in just about every discussion like this, the phrase 'bad teacher' comes up. I just want people to define that term or say how it could objectively be measured.
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