Here’s what is so frustrating about public schools and HOW to fix them:
Not to pick on Kirupa, who has some excellent points and I pretty much always agree with, but I’m going to use his post as a spring board:
Make the job of principals and other high-ranking officials an elected office. The current system of “if they don’t put the school under federal control, let’s keep them” won’t work. Reward those who work hard and get rid of those who don’t. “Either you are with us or against us” should apply to this education system also.
The School Board membership is already an elected position, at least in Ohio. In terms of a school district, principals are actually quite far down the pecking order (most notably in urban districts.) In Toledo, the school district just tried to pass a renewal levy and it failed with only 17% of people even bothering to vote: 45% to 55%. Imagine trying to hold elections, no, imagine trying to even find people to run for such a crappy job like being an inner city school principal. Few would run, even fewer would vote, it would be expensive, and it would discourage a lot of good potentials that don’t want to put up with all the political hassle.
To reward good teachers, you first must evaluate their performance. This costs money and is difficult to do for two reasons: one, how do you measure the effectiveness of a teacher compared with other teachers when they have a completely different demographic range of students? And two: they’re unionized. Have fun firing people for hard to prove reasons like “job performance.” Besides, who will replace them? Pay for the costs of hiring new teachers?
Make the teachers take a test to assess their competency. You can’t expect teachers to teach students on a topic that they themselves don’t know about. If the teachers don’t pass the test, fire them. The teacher can take advantage of the low-cost community college education and re-learn anything that he/she doesn’t know and re-apply to teach again. If students can’t locate Iraq on a map, more than likely their teachers can’t either.
Teachers already need to test their competency. In Ohio, you need a 4-5 year degree AND pass a teacher exam for certification.
Just because a student didn’t pass to the next grade, it doesn’t mean that his parents or local community leaders have to find something about that student as an excuse for the school to “single” that student out and file a lawsuit forcing the school to pass that student to the next grade. Getting an education is a PRIVILEGE - it’s not an episode of the Weakest Link where sub-par performance will get you promoted to the next round or grade.
I agree up to the part of “privilege.” In America, good education is a right and a necessity service of society, not a privilege. Good roads aren’t a privilege. Clean water isn’t a privilege, and neither is education. Otherwise, the schools are JUST FINE the way they are, because technically, the students are owed nothing, and anything better is a bonus.
Finally, about the dirty water and thinking comment, I agree. But the solution, in my opinion, lies in the expectations we have for ourselves. I strongly believe that people live up or down to whatever is expected of them. What do we expect of urban students? Nothing. We congratulate them for just showing up to school. I remember my mom telling about a school principal (who was black) reprimanding a teacher for counting a student tardy. The excuse? The black kid was on “black time” and didn’t have to be on time.
Well, I’m spent for now. This is such a huge issue, and to be frank, I don’t know how and can’t solve it. I can say that our schools --our society-- expect so little, and that’s exactly what they’ll continue to get. The reason Asians and upper class private schools have better students is because Everyone Expects them to be Better, Work Harder, and be Smarter. Are you telling me inner city kids are just stupid and lazy? Because that is what the statistics say. Inner city black and Hispanic kids: stupid and behind other demographics in every category. That’s what the numbers say. I don’t believe it. They just are living to whatever we expect.
And don’t give me “oh, but they’re poor blah blah blah.” Dirt poor Asians come to America, get to work, and put other demographics to shame.
Ask me why I don’t like “liberalism”, I dare you.
One more thing: in Toledo, there is a program called “Boost.” It takes the top percentage of kids from inner city schools and tries to fill gifted percentage quotas (which is, I believe, %5 of the students are statistically gifted) However, often the program can’t even be filled because you have to have at least an 80% on a reading proficiency test. Also, only about 2% of blacks are defined as “gifted.” But the other 3% gets in and dilutes the gifted program because quotas have to be filled. And they then drop out because their grades suffer. The program is very expensive and shows no significant results. But… it looks good. But hey, it’s not FAIR for those lazy kids not to get in the SMART SCHOOL. So they let them in ANYWAYS, and they learn BE STUPID, because SOMEONE has to fill the quotas!
