If I were king of education... (university, degrees, elementary school, doctors)

[WRM20]

Originally Posted by beach43ofus

Very good post WRM ^. I will modify my opinion to eliminate all teachers unions, to match the TX system you describe in your post ^

If we eliminated the federal dept of ed, each state could have a small leadership group that meets via video-conferencing w/ other states to share best practices, & to standardize testing/curriculums, so when students move from state-to-state, there's some level of consistency.

We do NOT need a massive multi-Billion dollar beauracracy in DC to do this. The DC swamp creatures get power drunk, start dictating to the states, threatening State funding if they don't conform, & increasing their DC budget endlessly. Been there, done that, so why not learn from our mistakes?

97% of the Department of Education's budget is grants and funding for a variety of programs. 3% is salaries, wages, benefits, and costs to run the department. That seems like one of the more efficient departments in Washington.

I look at the Department of Education as the entity that spreads some of the Federal tax receipts around to help the entire country. That helps states that are having economic issues from storms, other weather, and other issues. And, don't forget that before the Department of Education was created, the functions were performed by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.

Houston ISD gets $71 million for the 2022-2023 school year general fund. That's $71 million that improves education in the district. There's another $129 million in nutrition funding, but I don't know if that comes from the Department of Education or the Department of Agriculture.

States aren't ogin gto have small groups to replace the DoEd. They would create giant groups.

[phetaroi]

Originally Posted by tnff

I agree. But perhaps they should. Teachers need to understand that whether they agree or not, those unions represent teachers to the public and political leaders. Their positions influence education and other policies, programs, and funding. That's what the public sees and cares about.

If teachers don't read what their unions are saying, then they shouldn't be offended when the public rejects those policies.

What exactly is "the public"?

[ILTXwhatnext]

Originally Posted by EDS_

The old Texas test was called TAAKs I think.

IMO all of this is pretty simple. Kids with vouchers who are meritoriously admitted into privates may be "tracked" via SAT/ACT results and maybe ISEE results currently used for high school admissions around here . The better private schools are simply not going to take X,Y and Z kid with a voucher but a 90% chance of washing out.

Forcing a cadre overwhelmingly from the 85th and higher percentiles of achievers to take the STAAR test would be a silly waste of time.

TAAKs, thanks, that sounds correct. It changes every so often and it always will. They will never say, "Education has reached a satisfactory state, an equilibrium of sorts, so we will disband our agency and get out of everyone's way." There's job security there.

As for public/private, I went to a state university and nearby, there was a private university with a good reputation. My statistics prof noted that the students at the other school would probably do well anywhere they went without paying huge tuitions.

There was a young lady I met in 8th grade. We were both in public schools. We got to know each other some but then lost touch. Well lo and behold we ran into each other in college, and she was at the private college. Her family wasn't rich, and I would guess the tuition was 5x-6x what I was paying. However she said they gave her a lot more in the way of scholarships. That made sense---she was a serious student, especially dedicated to her music. That motivation she manifested is an important part of success and the college selected her for it. They didn't want a "wash out," as you put it.

However, she said, the school was starting to make noise like one of her scholarships wasn't going to come through. I got the impression that there was X amount of scholarship money available and the college spread it around as they saw fit. Since she was there already, they hoped to get her to cough up some of her own money, freeing up some funds to recruit other students. Her approach had been to apply to various schools and see which gave the best deal (tuition minus scholarships). She said that if necessary, she would move to her number two choice, about an hour and a half away, her junior year.

[EDS_]

ILTXwhatnext.............my responses in Sea Green


TAAKs, thanks, that sounds correct. It changes every so often and it always will. They will never say, "Education has reached a satisfactory state, an equilibrium of sorts, so we will disband our agency and get out of everyone's way." There's job security there.

No question all organizations are self-serving to one degree or another. That said there is no argument that US K-12 outcomes perform to a satisfactory level or even reasonably consistent levels school to school and district to district, hence broad based standardize testing will continue.


As for public/private, I went to a state university and nearby, there was a private university with a good reputation. My statistics prof noted that the students at the other school would probably do well anywhere they went without paying huge tuitions.

Per college I'd agree, a couple of excellent studies underscore (Dale/Krueger https://www.nber.org/papers/w17159) that college success is overwhelmingly about the student not the school on the order of 99% or better so.


Per K-12 I don't. K-12 is much more about cadre quality, how low or high is that sweet spot that teachers must teach to in order to reach the most kids the most effectively. The "better" the cadre the higher that level. Plus better privates tolerate much less BS from students. Malefactors don't last.


There was a young lady I met in 8th grade. We were both in public schools. We got to know each other some but then lost touch. Well lo and behold we ran into each other in college, and she was at the private college. Her family wasn't rich, and I would guess the tuition was 5x-6x what I was paying. However she said they gave her a lot more in the way of scholarships. That made sense---she was a serious student, especially dedicated to her music. That motivation she manifested is an important part of success and the college selected her for it. They didn't want a "wash out," as you put it.

However, she said, the school was starting to make noise like one of her scholarships wasn't going to come through. I got the impression that there was X amount of scholarship money available and the college spread it around as they saw fit. Since she was there already, they hoped to get her to cough up some of her own money, freeing up some funds to recruit other students. Her approach had been to apply to various schools and see which gave the best deal (tuition minus scholarships). She said that if necessary, she would move to her number two choice, about an hour and a half away, her junior year.

It's not just private colleges that play games with scholarship students.

[phetaroi]

Maybe we need to remind people that it wasn't the schools who mandated this widespread testing.

[EDS_]

Originally Posted by phetaroi

Maybe we need to remind people that it wasn't the schools who mandated this widespread testing.

Sure but uneven results have driven widespread testing.

[phetaroi]

Originally Posted by EDS_

Sure but uneven results have driven widespread testing.

Fine, but that's not what I was addressing.

[psikeyhackr]

I would separate teaching from testing. The organization giving tests would specify what material should be understood to pass the test. If a student can pass the test without instruction from any teachers fine, they get the credit for passing the test. The grades would be A, B, C and Fail.

Students are given education credit cards. Teachers can rent classrooms or teach from home via internet and charge what they want. Crappy teachers won't get many customers. If students can pass tests without paying teachers they can convert student credits to real money.

[psikeyhackr]

Have you ever heard of PLATO?
PLATO (Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations) developed from 1960 until 1973.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PLATO_(computer_system)

In 1976 a Cray-1, what was then called a supercomputer, cost $8,000,000. Now we can give grade school kids computer tablets more powerful than that Cray. Where is the educational software far better than PLATO.

Our educational system and the education business have a problem. But the people bitching about the educational system can't consider something as simple as a K-12 Unschooling Recommend Reading List. Traditionalists won't let go of the classroom rut.

[GSPNative]

I’d set up open-enrollment low-cost public universities that would offer classes and career placement assistance. That’s it.

They would be open enrollment and very low cost so that anyone could attend.

They wouldn’t offer dorms or other extracurriculars, thus avoiding the woke/political nonsense of today.

Their goal would be get as many people a degree as possible, meeting some kind of minimum standards.

Let’s face it: a college degree is an entry requirement for the middle class, yet college is far too expensive. And college has strayed too far from what I view as its purpose: getting people qualified for employment.