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1. A national curriculum standardized in terms of content of each course. History of the US should be History of the US no matter where taught. Algebra I should be Algebra I no matter what state you are in. You could have different electives taught in different states, but the reading, history, science, math ought to be standard.
2. Teachers coming out of college to start should have a mentor teacher to help them.
3. All teachers should have at least an hour of prep time each day and this can be used for grading, meeting with mentors, observing other teachers, etc.
4. Hold students (not parents) accountable for their learning. Parents should be educated about how to set up a place for the kids to work and how to encourage them to problem solve to get the answers rather than telling the kids the answers.
5. Do away with grades. Use portfolios of student work instead. Teach kids to evaluate their own work.
6. Do away with the thinking that college is appropriate for everyone. Bring back respect for the trades, for working with your hands, for the arts, for music, etc.
7. Bring in reading specialists even in high school and math specialists even in elementary school. These teachers should work with other teachers as well as with the students to make sure that in these two subjects the students are getting what they need.
Location: Prescott Valley,az summer/east valley Az winter
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1. to show the importance of education to our students classroom teachers should be the highest paid people in our school systems.
2. Schools should be on a year round schedule ~ so review time isn't needed.
3.Parents are to be responsable to have students ready to be taught.
4. to ensure that bullies are not allowed in the school system parents are hereby responsible for their children's conduct.
with these rules in force over 90% of school system problems are solved.
In a culture where equality of outcomes is a national obsession, there really isn't too much you can do to raise the educational quality except to either remove the slugs (which was the situation years ago when many people opted out of school at very early ages) ... or import more Asians of school age.
I do not think the teachers have qualitatively declined in the last forty years so much as the students have.
1. to show the importance of education to our students classroom teachers should be the highest paid people in our school systems.
2. Schools should be on a year round schedule ~ so review time isn't needed.
3.Parents are to be responsable to have students ready to be taught.
4. to ensure that bullies are not allowed in the school system parents are hereby responsible for their children's conduct.
with these rules in force over 90% of school system problems are solved.
Add students are held accountable for their own learning and this sounds like an asian school....Just sayin'....
In a culture where equality of outcomes is a national obsession, there really isn't too much you can do to raise the educational quality except to either remove the slugs (which was the situation years ago when many people opted out of school at very early ages) ... or import more Asians of school age.
I do not think the teachers have qualitatively declined in the last forty years so much as the students have.
Yes!!! It is not teacher quality that has declined.
Last edited by Ivorytickler; 07-01-2012 at 06:04 AM..
I would take control away from the states. The variation between education state by state is abysmal in this country. I high school diploma should mean the same level of education has been attained regardless of which state the graduate graduated in. I would go for local control but standardized exit exams to determine the diploma level. Just finishing 12 years of school doesn't say much WRT the quality of that education right now.
NCLB required standardized testing but allowed each state to come up with their own tests. I think the idea of "standardized exit exams to determine the diploma level," makes sense. What I would like to see are reasonable amounts of time devoted to testing. The amount of time devoted to Pennsylvania's NCLB tests is ridiculous.
I say no to tax incentives for home schooling. I think home schoolers should have to pass the same kind of exams that teachers have to pass before they can home school. We do not need to give tax incentives to people who are not qualified to teach children to teach their children. We should, instead, be requiring that they demonstrate that they have the ability to teach their children first.
As things are now, home schooling is limited to those who can afford to home school, as it should be (ditto for private schooling). As a result, homeschoolers tend to come from a demographic that does well educationally. If we start offering cash incentives to homeschool, I think you will see the quality of homeschooling diminish because more people who aren't in that demographic will start choosing home schooling to get the tax incentives. IMO, the decision to homeschool or private school your children is a personal one and none of the government's business. (Personally, I think they should also do away with the per child tax credit/write offs because how many kids I have is none of their business.)
Agree
IMO, the curriculum should be the same no matter what state a child attends school in and a diploma should have the same meaning no matter what state it is attained in.
You teach chemisty so I understand where you are coming from on this, but do you think the curriculum should be the same for all subjects? I think classes such as English and social studies need more flexibility. Should all students read the same books in English or learn the same version of history?
I live in Michigan and something I've noticed is that cashiers can't make change. They can't seem to count up from the sale amount to the amount given without a machine to tell them the answer. I just came back from a vacation through the south and noticed, time and time again that cashiers didn't seem to have the same difficulty in other places.
What I have seen at many schools in Pennsylvania is the inability to do basic arithmetic. Kids are dependent on counting on their fingers and using calculators. I don't understand how the standardized testing is not picking up the fact that many students can't do basic multiplication problems or division problems.
What I have seen at many schools in Pennsylvania is the inability to do basic arithmetic. Kids are dependent on counting on their fingers and using calculators. I don't understand how the standardized testing is not picking up the fact that many students can't do basic multiplication problems or division problems.
What should he the same in English is the concepts. I don't care which books are used to teach them.
I agree that we give our students too many crutches instead of expecting them to understand what they are doing. I've posted before about something I see over and over and that is solving problems like x/2 = 4/8 where students need to cross multiply and then divide instead of just muliplying both sides by 2 to isolate the variable. A certain percentage of my students are just lost if all I do is multiply by 2. I have to multiply by 2 and 8 and THEN divide by 8. They HAVE to do a two step operation. There is way too little understanding in math in the lower grades and everything builds on that. As a chemistry teacher, I spend way too much time reviewing basic math my students should know before they enter my class.
Bottom line is this country is full of students who do not value learning...........same for their dolt parents.
You can come up with all sorts of fancy solutions, but if you do not change the aforementioned FACT, well, nothing is going to change.
I agree. As long as we don't value education, we will not have real education. Students have to want what we're selling. Right now, it seems, that for most, education is something they tolerate at best and oppose at worst.
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Unfortunately,
Yes!!! It is not teacher quality that has declined.