hmaly, RE: " ONe way to get get the schools to change is to give them competition."
I agree. The schools are much too protected from competition, given the world has gone global on all of us, so students need to be ready for this. Currently, the only students that get the good lower schools are the parents that pay for a $1M mortgage or the $20,000/annual private school fee.
RE: "Private schools, paying schools and teachers by the number of students they teach, and how well."
Agreed. Also, I'd add, close any school that cannot offer a math and science curriculum that is at least on par to China & India. It's a much better option to be bussed for an extra hour to a better school.
RE: "Eliminate bussing"
Disagree with that.
RE: " get rid of all quotas"
Disagree with that. Without proper representation, industries can lose their customer mindshare overnight. The pipe needs to be filled. This isn't incongruent with competitive courses.
RE: "get rid of the lawyers"
Let the parents sue the schools for not providing a safe environment for their kids. I mean, lock downs? Hello?
RE: " let teachers set the rules in their class. Have student courts discipline students, or vote them out of class, or the school."
I agree. As long as there is a path for a student to get back in after demonstrating consistently good behavior - some schools don't have this, so it becomes one way. But it should become a one-way path if it's a 3X repetitive offense.
RE: "Meet the needs of the students to get to where they want to go in life, be relevant.. Offer vocational training to those who don't want to go to college."
That's dangerous. Too many people could be incorrectly rerouted to vocational training. If anything, we need more to attend college, not less. Recessions aside, looking at this in the future sense, we don't have enough students feeding the pipeline in our school systems, compared to overseas.
RE: " To those who do, design their classes around preparing them for college. Instead of smaller classes/teacher, do like colleges. Have larger lecture halls, and have student TA's, teach small classes, and let students switch TA's if necessary. Give TA's extra credits,and pay TA's enough to create demand, so teaching is viewed as a reward."
I like this idea.
RE: " That answer evades the question. Why would the best foreign students come here if our colleges were teaching as bad as our high schools are?"
My definition of lower school is grade school and high school, not college. Our top universities are competitive (which is what I've been saying all along.) Not our lower school systems.
RE: " Certainly the best foreign students could chose the best college in any country. Scholarship or no scholarship, wouldn't they chose a college which could best prepare them."
No, because teh smartest person from India or China may not be able to afford our school. So, scholarships play a role here in attracting the best students.
RE: "The answer to me is responsibility and motivation, and fun."
It might be for the American student. Creativity seems like our trump card relative to many countries.
Tejek, are you reading this post - you had made a comment about Japan having more creativity in one particular area? How did that happen - what do you think?
RE: "The foreign students come here to get away from home, have fun, get a good education, and sometimes to get exposure to corporations that have the best jobs; the same as local students."
This is not the foreign students motivation at all. Their parents send them over here for survival reasons. They are here for the best schools and work like hell - it's more of a survival issue and a fierce level of global competition. Unlike Americans, they don't have the option (luxury) to flip burgers until they get their green card.
RE: " Universities are not geographically specific - they are reputation based. Lower schools are fixed geography. That answer also evades the question, much like a politician. What you are saying is that the students can get away from bad teachers. Which is one of my recomendations for high schools. "
It's not evasive if a person doesn't state a tangible conclusion that is assumed you already see. I made the assumption you see the tangible conclusion, about how students need to be able to relocate to better schools (get away from bad teachers, etc.) which you did. You probably can state the tangible better.
RE: " The lower school system is based more upon the rich get richer philosophy. That would be true, if money could effectively motivate students and the best teachers were always the best paid."
I was talking about lower schools here - in lower schools it's this way, where the better school districts are in wealthier areas - it's a rich get richer philosophy.
RE: "However if you go to a college type method, where you need fewer highly paid teachers, and more lower paid TA's, then you could accomplish far more with = money, and as the colleges have shown, a better job."
Somewhere in my memory banks, I seem to recall that the universities with the most RND funding, spin off the best RND students and best RND technologies.
RE: "Lets say you had a high school with 1000 students, in english class. You then would need 10- $40000 teachers, with each teacher teaching 5- 20 students classes/day; which = $400,000. The other way, you could have 2- $80,000, teachers,each giving 10-100 student lectures/wk and 100 TA's with 3-10 student classes/ wk x $10.hr X 35 wks. = $265,000, which leaves you another $135,000 for time for TA's to correct tests and 2 assistants to co-ordinate TA's. Its not the money, but more how you use it. "
I see what you mean here. Yes, I agree with this for the K12. I think this applies in K-12 school system, where there are inefficient teachers.
In the universities, where the efficiencies are better, it boils down to who gets the most RND money. I was disgusted Arnold cut universities' RND while maintaining K12. Think he should have done exactly the reverse.
RE: " The key is to have happy, motivated students, not angry ones. Now that is a tough one, and probably one that I should defer on. Lets just say, I think the high schools need to facilitate a healthy rebellion, and should make the school a place the students wants to go for friendship and guidance. Using TA's, debates ,student courts,team sports etc, all will give the student a place to go for friendship and achievement"
I think that's actually a really good idea. They really need brighter teachers in the lower school system. Maybe it's better to have a lot of TAs with a few awfully bright teachers.
RE: " In your previous post, you said the US should import teachers. Now, here you say why they won't work."
I think we need to import more teachers in the area of math and science. But in our system, it will be more creative.
RE: "But it is okay to penalize the students you bus there. Why not leave the students and send the money."
Not enough money to go around.
RE: "I was talking about quotas and the lowering of admission standards to meet them."
Quotas are needed in schools, so industries don't go downhill due to a lack of representation of the consumer base they represent.
Regards,
Amy J |
