OT:
Personally, I'd have a hard time agreeing with anything in that article. Schools are probably one of the most over funded and under accountable parts of our government. A teacher can be totally worthless, still achieve tenure, and be virtually impossible to get rid of. The same is true a hundred fold to school administrators.
All my life I've heard teachers whine about their poor salaries. A teacher fresh out of college makes about $35K per year, or a salary very comparable to most entry level high tech computer positions. The difference is the computer tech does not get 2 weeks off at Christmas, does not get 2 weeks off at Easter, does not get every imaginable holiday off, and does not get 3 months off in the Summer. In other words, on an annualized basis, starting pay is comparable to about $55K for actual days worked, and does not take benefit packages into consideration. Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't think that's bad money for a wet behind the ears college grad.
One of the biggest areas of conspicuous waste in schools is the never ending multi million dollar construction and demolition projects. Perfectly serviceable buildings are destroyed in order to make way for the never ending stream of "better" schools where students aren't taught any "better" than they were in the not so "better" schools. For that matter, there's no reason not to create standardized plans for new schools according to population requirements, thus eliminating the expense of using architects, planning commissions, etc. every time some crook finds a place to do a deal on kick backs. I mean, were talking about square buildings, with square rooms. Since no matter what is built still results in kids spending 95% of their time in sheetrock rooms with tile floors, why waste money on an enormous white elephant at every round?
And, why not standardize the text books? Why waste time and money in tens of thousands of districts to decide which new over priced text book should be used when the material covered in those books for the most part hasn't changed in the past hundred years? Obviously some subjects require updating more often than others, especially at the upper grade levels, but there's no reason not to take advantage of mass publishing discounts for standardized texts produced according to a single requirement for particular subjects.
Forget about programs intended to pigeon hole minorities into sub classes of second rate citizens. About the worst thing you can do to a kid is tell them they're different and can't compete with their peers. If a teacher can't communicate with every student in a class room, replace the teacher, don't create a special program for those the teacher is too stupid to teach.
I'm more than a little disgusted with the Democratic platform over the past several years that everything may be cured by spending more money and charging more taxes. I'll give them credit for the concept that spending more money requires more tax revenue, which appears to be a mystery to the Republicans, but the real issue is the elimination of spending of money against the best interests of the majority of the population.
The "Leave No Child Behind" concept is good as far as it goes in holding teachers and administrators accountable for doing their jobs, and to a certain extent setting standards for outlining what their job description consists of. Where it falls apart is there are no guide lines whatsoever on how to do what needs to be done. Combining wishful thinking with anarchy isn't a program, it's chaos. Without standardized education, it isn't possible to produce standardized results.
There would be nothing complicated about putting 3 of the top 1st grade math teachers in a room to compile a standard text for teaching 1st grade math. Pay them a fee for their services and let the government exclusively own the right to publish the text. At the end of a year, test first grade math students and compare the results to a national median. Then fire every teacher more than 10% below the median and the administrators who failed to supervise them. My guess is after the end of the first year, the whiners, complainers and excuse makers would be history, and those remaining would spend the second year focused on doing a good job rather than defending poor performance. |
