A little story from my Palestinian deli-owner friend:
In Palestine years ago, 300 kids had 10 teachers and 1 administrator. In our community, he saw "a sea of desks for the administrators!". We had a good laugh. I said, welcome to America.
The clue, IMO, is to look for a time when we had excellent education. At that time, how many administrators did we have? I think very few.
My solution:
(1) get rid of administrators, saving 20% of our budget (or more!) Let some teachers do "administration" part-time. My teachers did when I was in school years ago.
(2) test teachers and get rid of any who are not competent to teach their subjects
(3) hire qualified teachers to a ratio of 1:25 students, and increase pay as required to fill the positions.
If privatizing is required to get rid of excess baggage, so be it.
Remember: the public schools worked, once. Look at when and why. They can work again, the talent base is there, it's just the compensation is for the centuries-old problem of bureacracy and no accountability.
Anything that addresses that is worthy of trying, IMO. |
