Redefining Public Education

Accuracy in Academia ^ | December 2, 2009 | Bethany Stotts

[bs9021]

Redefining Public Education

Bethany Stotts, December 2, 2009

In the November Education Outlook issued by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), senior fellow Frederick Hess issues an ambitious set of K-12 educational reforms which, he argues, would modernize teacher hiring practices and public education.

“Ultimately, the goal is to rethink the teacher challenges of the 21st century,” writes Hess. “While we should recognize that institutions change slowly and celebrate incremental advances, we should not allow that to obscure the goal: to recruit the most promising talent and then foster a more flexible, rewarding, and performance-focused profession,” he later adds.

In the paper “Rewriting the Job Description: The Teaching Profession in the Twenty-first Century” Hess suggests a series of reforms:

1) Recruit additional second-career teachers to supplement hiring of new teaching graduates. “A 2008 survey by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation reports that 42 percent of college-educated Americans age twenty-four to sixty would consider becoming a teacher and would be more likely to do so if they could count on quality training and support and expect to start at salaries of $50,000 or more,” Hess writes.

2) Alter teacher compensation scales to reflect career experience outside of the education sector, instead of basing salary primarily on seniority,

3) Reduce teachers’ bureaucratic duties by hiring more “support staff” to handle “administrative and other noninstructional tasks,” thereby “free[ing] up teachers to perform the work for which they are best suited,” and

4) “[U]se technology for tasks to which teachers add limited value” such as web-based tutoring and tools which help teachers monitor student achievement.

Is additional support staff the answer? U.S. Census Bureau statistics show that noninstructional employees compose 30.3% of local districts’ full-time equivalent (FTE) staff for elementary and secondary education but constitute only 21.3% of payroll....

[ntmxx]

Well, well just more of the same con/scam/fraud, now the masters of smart dancing sideways to change what they originally claimed as a perfect system; so were they lying then or are they lying now….

Answer: all means justify the ends of corruption; lying all the time for personal gain at the taxpayer’s expense!

To start, immediately, cut administrative staff and pay in half, double classroom staff/teachers at full pay, set mandatory class and age appropriate criteria, and make management and administrative staff responsible for all performance and extra-curricular work they demand or dump on classroom teachers. I can fix these problems in 3 months!

[tbw2]

Standardizing of lesson plans for all teachers and assignments would also help, instead of each teacher having to reinvent the wheel every semester for every class.

[Excellence]

This is somebody’s take on what Rick Hess wrote. If you want to read the original document, as well as other things Rick Hess has written, go to www.aei.org. He wrote an education policy think-piece. It is what Hess does. It has background information and recommendations that may or may not be accepted “upstream.” The most profound statement by a participant (sorry, I don't remember who right now) in Hess's symposium on the role politics plays in education research was “values trump data.” Still, he and many other keep plugging away at providing valid research to policy makers.
If you think you can change education policy in three months, please visit Michelle Rhee. She could use your help.

[ntmxx]

“...somebody’s take on what Rick Hess wrote...”

Wonderful response, thank you, I will go look at the details; best wishes.

[ntmxx]

I read a number of articles by Mr. Hess;

Rewriting the Job Description: The Teaching Profession in the Twenty-first Century

“Diverse Providers” in Action: School Restructuring in Hawaii

The Challenges for Charter Schools: Replicating Success

School Turnarounds: Resisting the Hype, Giving Them Hope

I still stand by my original premise; nice story and too much talking going on, nothing new here, and not enough serious action. Unless we as a nation stop the Government sponsored bureaucratic free ride nothing will improve. Again, I can fix the whole system in three months. Oh, and for those that challenge my bonafides: a former educator, computer science major and hold an MBA.