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As I noted above, those strategies don't work. And pretty much everyone knows that. Take a much closer look at educators' equal outcomes agenda. The one they've had for at least 5 decades. The net effect has been pulling the top and middle down to more closely match the achievements of the struggling, in an attempt at socially engineered "fairness."
Private schools don't even cost that much. Around here, they're actually LESS expensive than the public school system. So why can't non-wealthy parents send their kids to private schools instead? They simply can't afford the sky high property tax bills (87% of which goes directly to the public school district) and another$5-6,000 for private school tuition. They can pay for either one or the other, not both.
As I noted, private schools don't usually cost $30-40,000 per year. They're closer to 1/10 of that. But the public school district spends (and bills taxpayers for) $9,800 per student for year. ...for less than mediocre results.
Inner-cities are even worse. The Chicago Public Schools spend over $13,000 per student each year. For Washington, DC public schools, it's over $16,000 per student. They get abysmal results.
Like I said... non-wealthy parents cannot pay for both public AND private.
The cost per student statistics can be misleading. Like the $800 hammer story everyone tells about the military. They are including the total cost of education and dividing it by the number of students. Which means it includes the salaries of the school board, all the administrators, janitors, coaching staff, school supplies, maintenance, the cost of new schools, etc., etc., in addition to teacher salaries.
A more revealing statistic would be the ratio of administrators for every teacher, or a comparison between teacher and administrator salaries. Who truly has the more important job with regard to educating our children, the administrator or the teacher?
As I noted above, those strategies don't work. And pretty much everyone knows that. Take a much closer look at educators' equal outcomes agenda. The one they've had for at least 5 decades. The net effect has been pulling the top and middle down to more closely match the achievements of the struggling, in an attempt at socially engineered "fairness." Private schools don't even cost that much. Around here, they're actually LESS expensive than the public school system. So why can't non-wealthy parents send their kids to private schools instead? They simply can't afford the sky high property tax bills (87% of which goes directly to the public school district) and another$5-6,000 for private school tuition. They can pay for either one or the other, not both.
As I noted, private schools don't usually cost $30-40,000 per year. They're closer to 1/10 of that. But the public school district spends (and bills taxpayers for) $9,800 per student for year. ...for less than mediocre results.
Inner-cities are even worse. The Chicago Public Schools spend over $13,000 per student each year. For Washington, DC public schools, it's over $16,000 per student. They get abysmal results.
Like I said... non-wealthy parents cannot pay for both public AND private.
I'm not talking about the moderately priced private schools that you find in most areas. I'm talking about the exclusive private schools patronized by the very wealthy, including the Sidwell Friends school where the Obama children attend. Choate, Collegiate, the Chapin School, Dalton, Amherst, etc., have tuitions priced well beyond what the typical well-to-do family chooses to pay. They charge much more per child than many people take home in net pay.
I teach in an inner-city school. Our district pays about $8,000 per child, on average. But considering that upwards of 10% of the students receive special education services, which are much more expensive per child, the real average for a non-special ed child would be much lower. We also get abysmal results. It's not surprising when our students' parents have a smaller vocabulary, on average, than the typical kindergartener from a professional family.
As far as property taxes go, most of our students come from families where the property taxes they pay, if any, are based on homes that are valued well below $50,000, so their property taxes are very low.
Private schools in our area top out at around $15,000 per student. Most of them charge about half of that. For a family like mine, where I bring home just over $20,000/year, they are almost impossible to afford. For a non-professional, the cost is simply out of reach. Rather than privatizing education through vouchers and charter schools, I would prefer that our country do as other industrialized nations have done and simply raise the level of all schools. You start by targeting the achievement gap as early as possible so that all children have the best start in life. It should be unacceptable that a five-year-old starts school with the language skills of a two-year-old. Not in America the Great.
Why do principals, superintendents, and school boards let it happen? Teachers are charged with following district policy, not setting it. When teachers are told that their district's new discipline plan prevents them from removing disruptive students, and that the teachers will themselves be disciplined if they attempt to do so, then what is the teacher to do?
I am a public school teacher, and I have a low opinion of the education that we are providing for our students. As one of those teachers who could have made a much more comfortable living in engineering, I am appalled at the low level of knowledge, both general knowledge and subject-area knowledge possessed by my peers and administrators. Teachers can't pass along knowledge that they don't have nor skills that they don't possess. My job is made more difficult because my students don't have the prerequisite background in order to learn at the level at which I am supposed to begin their instruction. As a result, I can only teach about half of what I should teach in any given year.
My question is why do the parents tolerate the decisions made by their districts? Teachers' unions are not a force here, so that argument won't fly.
A simple, but controversial decision would alleviate a lot of the problems: More male teachers.
I have nothing against women, but most are inadequate teachers beyond the third grade level. Most don't have the passion and desire that most male teachers possess.
I'm not saying that there aren't good female teachers, there are. However, females are more apt to get into the profession for the wrong reasons, and a large percentage of them generally spend more time sitting at their desks than teaching in front of the classroom.
Another problem is that females are more apt to swallow left wing pedagogy that the educational establishment throws at them. This is particularly profound at the elementary level. Direction instruction, when done accurate is the most efficient and successful model of instruction, but too many people want to try these "Child-Centered" techniques that don't work. You can't expect a child to learn on his own when there's little to learn. A teacher can't be a "guide on the side". The "Sage on the Stage" method is a must. Is it any wonder why America is falling? These crack-pot methods focusing on child-centered learning, group work (one kid does all the work, the others sit and talk and don't learn a thing), and project method (projects are only helpful as a culminating activity, not as the lesson. Very little is understood when this method as used as the instructional technique).
I can identify the following problems that are wrong with education:
1) Left-Wing "Child-Centered" pedagogy, particularly in the elementary and middle schools, which puts the child out on the wrong foot and prevents a good base of knowledge from taking root.
2) Social Promotion: Used in conjunction with left wing pedagogy, this ensures that a child will get farther and farther behind.
3) Teachers who don't give it their all, particularly female teachers. Perhaps it is the testosterone, but I believe that on average, males make much better teachers except at the very early elementary grades where a woman is good for the nurturing environment and child sensibilities.
Too many teachers are sitting at their desks more than they are standing in front of the classroom.
4) Establishment frowning on teaching that works: Direct Instruction that incorporates time-proven methods, such as repetition (which they call "rote" in a demeaning manner), posing questions and giving ques, notes, outline format, graphic organizers (this is the one thing that left wingers don't condemn, it seems), as well as visuals, be they illustrations or video clips. No, they'd rather support things that don't work, such as project method, groups, children choosing their own topics, fuzzy math, and whole language. Just insane.
5) Administrators who do not discipline. Many administrators actually make a teacher's job difficult by not supporting them if they send a student to the office on a discipline referral. In doing so, they sometimes become targets at the hand of an administrator who doesn't want the hassle of dealing with the problem. Some administrators want raises applied to their having fewer discipline problems, a problem in and of itself, and so they don't discipline effectively, sometimes only giving the student a "talking to" which tells the kid that there is no punishment. In doing this, the kid goes back to the classroom and causes chaos and classrooms get out of control, which causing learning to suffer and more problems for everyone.
6) Parents who do not teach manner and discipline in the home, and who do not value education. Without the parent support, teaching is about impossible.
That doesn't account for the extremely wide spectrum of readiness/skill levels within the same classroom.
I know for a fact that the teachers in our district and many others around here vehemently oppose ability grouping because the struggling kids also overwhelmingly have behavior problems. None of the teachers 'wants' the struggling/behavior issue class. So they insist on mixed-ability classes and sacrifice the education of the ready and eager to learn students for their own selfish desires, the children be damned.
Mixed Grouping and Full-Inclusion special education are failed models. Why it's used is beyond me.
Last edited by Stars&StripesForever; 12-23-2011 at 02:50 PM..
School board members and superintendents are either elected directly by the citizens or they are appointed by elected officials. These officials are purportedly accountable to the citizens, and that includes the parents.
Teachers are following policy that they did not make. In general, teachers are not asked for their input on these policies. New programs are implemented at the district level that frequently prevent teachers from being effective in the classroom. Unions are not a factor in many states, including my own. I am trying to lift up the poor children whom I teach so that they will have choices in their lives. Thousands of teachers around the country are trying to do the same thing.
I believe that if the parents really understood how their children's education was being prevented by NCLB, a significant number of them would form their own union as is done in other countries where students and parents unions are effective in forming educational policy.
What do you suggest be done to stop dragging down the non-wealthy children?
In my opinion, NCLB is both good and bad.
The good of it is that it has forced some teachers to become more effective. Despite that, many are simply not cutting it.
The bad of it is that it doesn't take into account the vastly different cultures and behaviors that exist from community to community and school to school. It labels a school "failing" if all sub-groups do not meet the criteria for the standardized test. If only one at one grade level does not meet, that school is a "failing school", and the administration and teachers can face removal, and the school can face being closed down or turned into a charter school. The law doesn't look at the scores for a year and say, "I see improvement", nearly as much as it says, "You pass, you fail". In some schools, the kids come from homes where discipline is not taught. The kids go to school and could care less, and very little learning takes place.
I am in complete agreement with your sentiment concerning competency in the written and spoken word. What is the point of taking a English grammar course when the teacher does not use proper English grammar?
Another poster mentioned that teachers want children who understand the value of their education. The problem with that is that children first need to be taught the value of education. They need to actually see how a good education will improve their lives. If they see teachers, doctors, or other professionals using proper grammar, with good writing and communication skills, and how that has led them to a successful career, then children will begin to value a good education.
It is the teachers job to find ways to get kids excited about learning. To make them want to learn. I view the teacher's primary responsibility as someone who teaches a student how to educate themselves. Not an easy task, by any means, but absolutely necessary.
With regard to teachers pay, if we eliminated most of the redundant and top-heavy administrator positions, there would be more than sufficient funds to increase teacher's pay without increasing the cost to the taxpayer. It would also, more than likely, improve education overall.
Most head principals make between $100,000-$150,000 per year. Assistants make anywhere from $70,000-$90,000 per year.
Most teachers start out at around $30,000 for a bachelor's degree and $35,000 for a master's degree. $45,000-$50,000 per year is typical for most teachers. At most, and with nearly thirty years of experience, they can get up to about $60,000 per year. This is typical of most states. Only in a handful of states can a teacher approach ninety or one hundred thousand per year, and this is with around thirty years experience..
True, teachers are probably not as good as in years past, but they do not deserve all the blame for kids failures these days.
Bad parenting seems to be an epidemic and this is a huge issue that affects the kids profoundly no matter how good the teachers are
Actually, I think that most teachers are better today than in year's past. However, there are still a lot of people who should not be in the profession.
I had much better teachers growing up than the majority of teachers that exist today. Hate to say it but many teachers now are poorly educated and have no business teaching.
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