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One of my biggest observations in the "Dumbing Down" of the school system is when we started electing school board members by personality instead of by qualifications. The same thing applies to our government. Just because someone can make a pleasant conversation doesn't mean they can read and understand a budget. The dumb actions of the school board and school administrations are clearly observed by the students. The school looses all crediability. IMO
Dumb school boards are the exact reason why unions are necessary. Non-educators trying to tell teachers how to teach is absurd.
It's simple... tell the kids how to add... 1... 2... 3... etc. Tell them how to subtract that.
Show them how to read.
Show them a world map... tell them Asia is the biggest continent, then Africa, then North America, then South America, then Antarctica, then Europe, then Australia.
Tell them about major world cities (NYC, London, L.A., Tokyo, etc,) and where they are... how they are population-wise, economically, etc, the most powerful cities in the world, etc.
Show them USEFUL things like the above... not meaningless crap.
It's simple... tell the kids how to add... 1... 2... 3... etc. Tell them how to subtract that.
Show them how to read.
Show them a world map... tell them Asia is the biggest continent, then Africa, then North America, then South America, then Antarctica, then Europe, then Australia.
Tell them about major world cities (NYC, London, L.A., Tokyo, etc,) and where they are... how they are population-wise, economically, etc, the most powerful cities in the world, etc.
Show them USEFUL things like the above... not meaningless crap.
What "meaningless crap" would you cut out of education?
Well, thinking about entertainment and sports, those fields have learned how to take talents which do not inherently produce revenue and profits and monetize them.
By monetizing those talents, and creating objective measures of how performance translates to revenue, you have successful professional service industries that function under unions; even probably only function because they are unionized.
Public education is not effectively monetized. Private primary education is poorly monetized too. Private secondary is probably the best model, but none of these come close to the monetization of post-secondary education.
If you could translate performance to revenue, the rest actually comes pretty easy. Institute a salary cap for teachers and admins that has both a ceiling and a floor. Set district minimum salaries and hiring floors along with flexible experience tiers. Including relocation expenses and create a system for teacher selection from a pool of new hires. Actually implement something akin to a restricted free agency system for experienced teachers. Make pensions statewide.
So how do you tie performance to revenue in a high stakes manner that will make administrators want to truly evaluate teaching metrics to find and retain the best teachers? Oh, and this will cost a whole heck of a lot incidentally.
1. I would make school voluntary. It's a major departure from the norm but I think we're setting a bad example for kids if we make school more of some kind of lockdown. You have to teach kids that education is something to desire, not something to endure. Make it fun to go to school!
2. I think politically charged subjects overall need to be kept out of K - 12 classes irregardless of anyone's personal opinions. Bringing up politics and abortion is going to inflame kids when they have no business being that way so young.
3. Tolerance needs to be more encouraged in schools overall. Quite honestly, many schools are either a warzone or a pressure cooker waiting to explode. Also, tolerance has to be a two-way street; one group shouldn't get preference over another. Affirmative action is something I would do away with since it penalizes both minority and majority students and tends to be hypocritical to the concept of a merit based education.
4. Keep commerical and military influence out of the schools. Commercial interests are almost never unbiased and influence schools in ways counterproductive to learning and personal growth. Our society is too militarized to begin with so let's keep the military out as well. Kids don't need to be worrying about the problems of the world to have this garbage work them up.
5. American schools need a curriculum that is more competitive with the curriculums of schools in other developed nations. When a good chunk of recent high school grads are functionally illiterate, we have a problem. Also, schools should be more involved in areas where kids are either dropping out at a higher rate or are having trouble with even the most basic subjects.
6. Cut out the dead weight in school districts. THis means that in quite a few communities that the people are going to have to get more involved with their local politicians. Many school boards and districts have adminstration and similar types of positions that are badly overcompensated for what they do. Yes, this means that cities and communities are going to have to do the hard work.
These are just some of the things I would do with education at all levels.
Okay, I'm not going to lie, I haven't really read through the posts here so I may be re-iterating some of the things that were said. If so, I apologize. In any case though, here's some of my thoughts in no particular order:
1.) I think we need to re-introduce 'trade schools' back into the US education system. I mean, let's be honest, not everyone is meant (or wants) to be a doctor, lawyer, buisnessperson, etc. We need to reintroduce trade schools so that people who don't want to go into a 'professional' field can just go from high school right into a trade school to learn their trade. I think in the past few decades there has been a huge push in the ideology that everyone 'needs' to go to college/university and any other alternative is almost frowned upon. I think this is wrong because, to be frank, I don't think that everyone is cut out or meant to go to college/university. Some people are better suited for a trade school. And with the cost of going to college these days, it really makes no sense to me why some people would go if they ultimately want to go into a trade anyways. Not every economical nor efficient, in my opinion anyways. This point ties in a lot with my next two points as well.
2.) I think that we need to make education mandatory until the age of 18 (as oppossed to the current age of 16) and I think that we need to implement a 'multi-track school system'. This kind of ties into my first point in the ideology that different people/students progress differently and have different capabilities from some of their peers. Again, let's be real, some people are just "smarter" than others and some place school as a higher priority in their lives than others. I think it's, quite frankly, stupid to keep all levels of students bascially in the same level of classes in K-12 education, because, like I said, not all people are at the same level. Now, I think all students obviously should start off with the same education/classes in the first few years. Everyone should have the same rudimentary basics in all the subject areas. But then I think around the age of either 10-12 there should be a deciding factor from which students are placed into a distinct track. I think that this 'deciding factor' just consist of a multitude of things. To further expound: Make everyone at that specified age/grade (again, I think somewhere between the ages of 10-12) take a standardized test (an important factor in determining where students should be placed), look at all of their grades/work from their previous years, look at teacher recommendations and their insight too (they know the students well and can tell what kind of capabilites students have aside from the actual work. I think that some kids are really bright but struggle for a multitude of external factors as well, and this needs to be taken into consideration). After these all of these factors have been taken into consideration, then I think that the students should be divided into three different tracks: a lower level track, an intermediate level track, and a higher level track. However, I also don't think that this should be the be all end all, and I think that students should be able to move to different tracks throughout their educational careers. Things happen and people/things change and this, of course, can greatly affect students. They shouldn't be "contained" to a certain track in their life because of a test and other educational acheivements that they did at age 10-12. In addition, I also would allow all students in all tracks to apply to whatever college/university that they want to. I wouldn't have, in other words, only students in the higher tracks be able to apply to college/university (of any level or type of prestige). Now, I'm very well aware that we kind of have a form of this with our current honors level and AP/IB courses, but I think that this isn't enough (as data shows us with our schooling system) and that we need to take it a step further to a multi-track school system.
3.) DRASTICALLY (if not completely) reduce the cost of attaining higher education. The cost of going to college today is absolutely outrageous. The overwhelming majority of people today simply cannot afford to go to college due to its completely unreasonable and astronomical costs. Thus, we have people taking out massive loans and graduating in the hole with all of this debt. It's just not right nor realistic that people should have to graduate like that and it's doing the country a dissservice because an educated workforce is good for the country. And, again, tieing into some of my previous points, with the current ideology that everyone "has to go to college", we have all of these graduates in all of this debt that they can't even pay off. It's just ridiculous and costs have risen (and are continuing to do so so much recently) that the current system is simply unsustainable and something has to break sooner or later. The status quo cannot go on forever, that's for sure. On a side and completely unrelated note, I also think that this is a major factor in also keeping some people locked in a vicious and seemingly never ending cycle of poverty too.
4.) This point is kind of off topic, but I think it ties in somewhere so....
I think that we as a society need to stop placing and glorifying this sports culture of ours so much. Now, don't get me wrong, I am DEFINITELY for keeping and increasing physical educaton in all schools (looking at you especially, California) and teaching and actively encouraging all people and students to maintain a healthy and active lifestyle (and believe me, I think we need to also take some very serious measures in reducing our obesity/overweight endemic in this country, as I've expressed and argued in other forums, but that's a whole other argument). But, frankly, I think it's absurd that we pay some of these professional athletes (who a lot of them are practically illerate themselves and dumb as a shoe....sorry, I know that's not very PC, but that's how I feel about a lot (not all) of them) absolutely obsene amounts of money just to play a sport. In fact, I'd cap all professional athletes salaries to about $250,000 a year, max. I mean, it sounds harsh, but what do they really contribute to society besides a little entertainment? I think that far too many schools put their focus primarily on the sports side of things as oppossed to the educational side. I mean, c'mon, how many people really go on to become professional athletes? The number is so miniscule that it makes far better sense, just statiscially, to put your focus on the educational aspects. And don't even get me started on some of these parents too. And, again to repeat, don't get me wrong, I'm totally all for encouraging and teaching healthy lifestyles and extracurricular activities and putting a lot of time into school sports and other, such activities, but the way we are now I think has gotten a little too out of hand, if I'm being honest. I mean, I myself, played sports all througout grade school and HS, and do intermurals now in college (in addition to me working out every day), but c'mon guys, let's get some of our priorities right (for some of us).
Okay, that's really all I can think of now during this boring hour at work lol, but if I think of anything else, I'll post it as well.
Have a good day everyone!
Last edited by CityLover9; 07-26-2012 at 10:52 AM..
Discipline is one the worst problems in education. There are too many administrators who fail to discipline students, leading to out of control discipline issues in the classrooms.
Discipline should be much more stringent. Punishments should be more severe.
Education should adhere strictly to a whole group direct instructional model. Gone should be cooperative groups or any form of a constructivist approach to teaching.
Any elementary school not using phonics in favor of whole language should reverse course and initiate phonics.
"Fuzzy Math" should be outlawed. Students should spend more time on repetition of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Too many kids are being promoted without knowing their multiplication tables. Calculator use should be extremely minimized. Kids depend on them too much, never learning how to actually do the math. Some teachers have been accomplices to this problem.
Schools should put more emphasis on penmanship. Too many children are not being forced to learn how to write legibly. Many schools figure, "they can simply type it", failing to realize that one doesn't carry a laptop around with them all hours of the day.
Schools should put more emphasis on cursive writing. This ties hand in hand with the penmanship issue. Too many schools have stopped teaching students how to write in cursive, and as such fewer and fewer students know how to write in such a manner. Many don't even know how to write their name in cursive.
Schools should prohibit laptop "instruction" in the classroom. It wastes time. It is expensive. Students are distracted by the programs loaded on them, whether that be "paint" or various built-in games. It is less efficient than paper and pen instruction. Furthermore, students are prone to drop them, breaking them. They are also prone to surfing the web on non-educational websites, even during class time.
Cell Phones in the classrooms should be outlawed. All cell phones should be placed in a student's locker at the beginning of the instructional day.
The nonsensical social promotion idea has got to end. This sets kids up for failure. The idea that it will hurt their self esteem if held back is nonsense. What's worse? The students never get the skills and are unable to pass their classes in high school? This causes the students to drop out. The argument that is often made that "the research shows that the students who are held back are more likely to drop out of school" has got to stop. Sure, those who are held back are more likely to drop out of school because they are poor students, ones who would drop out regardless given their lack of self discipline. That said, a lot of these students would have never dropped out if they'd have never been socially promoted in elementary school when they had not mastered the skills.
4. Keep commerical and military influence out of the schools. Commercial interests are almost never unbiased and influence schools in ways counterproductive to learning and personal growth. Our society is too militarized to begin with so let's keep the military out as well. Kids don't need to be worrying about the problems of the world to have this garbage work them up.
Thank you....did you know that I have to sign something if I DON'T want the military recruiter trying to recruit my HS daughter? They are on campus multiple times a year. A few years ago, they recruited my neighbor's son, promising him they would pay for all of his education costs when he got out....GI bill I guess. Well, he got out, went to one semester at a community college and learned they pay for very little. He ditched traditional education, got his CDL in a 2-week training and is now driving truck.
Just like law enforcement, I think the military should have to either have parent permission or have a parent present in order to talk to our kids. But the school counselor says schools who don't let the military in to recruit risk losing federal funds. That's insane, big brother at work and more than a little scary.
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This one deserves 100 reps.
I think that far too many schools put their focus primarily on the sports side of things as oppossed to the educational side. I mean, c'mon, how many people really go on to become professional athletes? The number is so miniscule that it makes far better sense, just statiscially, to put your focus on the educational aspects. And don't even get me started on some of these parents too. And, again to repeat, don't get me wrong, I'm totally all for encouraging and teaching healthy lifestyles and extracurricular activities and putting a lot of time into school sports and other, such activities, but the way we are now I think has gotten a little too out of hand, if I'm being honest. I mean, I myself, played sports all througout grade school and HS, and do intermurals now in college (in addition to me working out every day), but c'mon guys, let's get some of our priorities right (for some of us). 