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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: greenspirit who wrote (68923)	12/27/1999 7:05:00 PM
From: Tom Clarke	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Michael, have you seen this site? It may be of interest to you. edreform.com BTW, I think you are a complete gentleman. Pay no attention to the disgusting tactics of intellectual goons.

To: greenspirit who wrote (68923)	12/27/1999 8:56:00 PM
From: Rambi	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Hi, Michael, Did you have a wonderful Christmas? What did Sarah think of it all! I bet your home was a great place to be for the holidays. I thought of you when I read that article because of their use of the word "structure" as being at the heart of the problem. I went to the Edison Schools webpage and skimmed it- trying to decide what made it any different from the Honors Program of our local high school, which could have written similar descriptions of course offerings and philosophy. I wondered if it is because the Edison Schools are still on a small scale approach-- one school at a time. THere are only 79 in the US. The sheer magnitude of a large city system (like Dallas) seems to defeat what really amounts to the same stated goals and programs and philosophy (as Edison), and the power struggles among the board and administrators destroy any remaining chance for those goals to be achieved. For instance, the Edison schools attempt to work with families and coordinate local resources with specific family problems, which sounds very good when you read it. Actually this is done in public schools as well. I have sat in on ARD meetings where all the areas of a nonperforming child's life are discussed and possible interventions explored. All the right noises are made by school, community and parent, but then what happens? This makes me wonder if Edison can follow up better and if perhaps in some ways, both students and parents might not be more motivated, feel more "special" than they feel in the current system? Of course no one can argue about class size- when Ammo tells me that he is in a class of 40, I want to throw bricks. What good do maximum class size laws do if a school can just say, Ooops, well, we just can't do it. I have always thought the voucher system deserved a fair trial and I have an intense dislike of unions so am not at all objective about them and won't comment on the teachers groups. I don't at all understand the mentality that refuses to risk change when the status quo is such a failure. I do think X brought up excellent points about specializing schools- she is very good at seeing things from different POV, even when she isn't always advocating that POV. DO you think Goerge W really can provide that kind of leadership? I'm not too sure. He has been successful in Texas but seems to have been rather passive. Maybe not-- after Ann Richards, who wouldn't look passive.

To: greenspirit who wrote (68923)	12/28/1999 12:20:00 AM
From: Lizzie Tudor	Respond to of 108807

The Edison examples Lizzie showed us should be benchmarked as an example of what can be done when you change the structure. You may have misread my comments on Edison. I actually don't know Edison, I only saw them profiled on 60 minutes. However, the teachers receive good salaries and stock options. Something tells me about 85K - although I don't know where I read or saw that. Thats what I think teachers should be paid - 85K. If you pay them that, which is not a lot by salary standards around here... you get quality. I don't believe in overpaying people for any profession (stock is different, thats a piece of the deliverables) but anyway I feel overpaying is a way to compensate for other bad employee practices... it covers up stuff, etc. But underpaying is worse - people get demoralized and don't care. Thats what we have in teaching, imo.