like Vouchers. Allowing people a choice would certainly "in my mind"
change the system for the better on it's own. /IMO
And for crying out loud, bring back corporal punishment!
It made me a better person.
Posted on 02/28/2005 9:06:06 PM PST by baseball_fan
...America’s high schools are obsolete.
By obsolete, I don’t just mean that our high schools are broken, flawed, and under-funded…
By obsolete, I mean that our high schools – even when they’re working exactly as designed – cannot teach our kids what they need to know today.
…
Today, only one-third of our students graduate from high school ready for college, work, and citizenship.
The other two-thirds…are tracked into courses that won’t ever get them ready for college or prepare them for a family-wage job – no matter how well the students learn or the teachers teach.
This isn’t an accident or a flaw in the system; it is the system.
…
When I compare our high schools to what I see when I’m traveling abroad, I am terrified for our workforce of tomorrow. In math and science …
By 12th grade, U.S. students are scoring near the bottom of all industrialized nations.
… the U.S. college dropout rate is also one of the highest in the industrialized world. …
… In 2001, India graduated almost a million more students from college than the United States did. China graduates twice as many students with bachelor’s degrees as the U.S., and they have six times as many...in engineering.
…
… The key problem is political will. Elected officials have not yet done away with the idea underlying the old design. The idea behind the old design was that you could train an adequate workforce by sending only a third of your kids to college – and that the other kids either couldn’t do college work or didn’t need to. The idea behind the new design is that all students can do rigorous work, and – for their sake and ours – they have to.
...
(Excerpt) Read more at gatesfoundation.org ...
The public school system in California get $60 billion a year. That is one half of the California state budget. To say schools are underfunded it a complete misstatement of the facts.
Giving money to schools that are implementing the federal curriculum through the no child left behind act, and through state education programs that are nothing more that social engineering, will not improve anyones education.
Ahhh....does she teach in a private school? If not, the issue, IMHO is the Administration.....too many of THEM! More Money has NOT solved the education problems ANYWHERE....look at Wash DC and NYC.....the more money paid, the more corruption and the less that gets to the classroom.
UH...I think both BOYS and GIRLS could use HOME EC....cooking is a major life activity (saves money, saves your life), and homekeeping is a necessity.
That would work. We need the Warrior class to discipline these mushy minds. My father was a Marine at Iwo and there is no better fighting force. The Marines would show these educators the evil that is PC. I am certain that a vast majority of public school students learn about the Military in a negative light. I dated a teacher and learned just how complete is the lefts stranglehold on education.
I've heard of them both. That's great. Wouldn't it be great if public schools could offer something like that.
Actually, in the next county over from me, there is a classical charter school for middle school kids which offers a kids' Great Books curriculum. The education they offer is considered too "elitist" around here.
You have a point.
How about one semester to cover cleaning materials types and functions, sewing buttons, rips and tears, basics of boiling, frying, baking, roasting, nutrients found in common foods.
Yes, my daughter is now teaching in a private Christian school. However, she is planning on going back into the public school system next year if she can find an opening at the school of her choice.
WHY would she want to go into the PUBLIC school system? Just curious.
"
It would be interesting to hear if Thomas Sowell felt school integration, as laudable as that breakthrough was, introduced the concept that everything had to be "equal" such that it became politically impossible to maintain standards, accountability and discipline because that would be seen as discriminatory and racist (granted, there were some with that ulterior motive then).
It would also most surely be wrong to lay all the blame there. For example, there was a much larger pool of women then to draw from as teachers since they were not represented in large numbers in other professions then and could often work for less because their husbands could support the family almost on one income. That situation will be highly unlikely again in the future (not sure what the Chinese and Indian schools are doing).
Also, I am just guessing that there were a lot of think-tanks introducing new ideas about education that represented a liberal cultural shift, but that would have to be researched. The preference of an education degree over having a major in one's subject area also seems like a lowering of standards.
The irony is that might have hurt some minorities as much or more who are capable of reaching these standards if held to them and encouraged and supported (such as Condeleezza's parents did for her). Malcolm X despite many of his shortcomings (including violence) seemed to recognize that self-reliance, self-discipline and hard work have to be there and cannot just be handed to one. Whatever the answer, that is all water under the bridge, and we have to come to grips with what it will take to not be educational and vocational roadkill in the next generation."
Great point!!!
A better idea than throwing more dollars into the broken public system would be for Gates to open his own private schools, with the improvements he thinks needs to happen.
He could then lobby for vouchers so that ordinary people could send their children to his schools instead of the broken public ones.
There's nothing stopping him, from demonstrating his point, and leading by example.
How many of these NEA priorities have anything to do with educating kids, and how many have to do with furthering their agenda and protecting their monopoly?
I remember learning several different sports, such as volley ball, wrestling, floor hockey, etc. Sure I played pickup games of football, basketball and baseball with kids in the neighborhood, but never would have really participated in the other sports much without PE. We also started each class with pushups, situps, stretching, running, etc., which helped build the habit of regular exercise. And kids need to run around a bit. All work and no play....
I only wish I had taken welding too.
"A better idea than throwing more dollars into the broken public system would be for Gates to open his own private schools, with the improvements he thinks needs to happen. He could then lobby for vouchers so that ordinary people could send their children to his schools instead of the broken public ones. There's nothing stopping him, from demonstrating his point, and leading by example."
This following quote below is from the speech - not sure if they are public or private, whether vouchers or the NEA are involved. I'm sure he has to be looking at how if these work they can be financed beyond the $1 billion his foundation has put in to this whole area of school redesign. He cites several successful schools in the speech where there exists "mounting evidence that the new design works." Might we consider it the equivalent of a new "American High Schools version 1.5," with both an upgrade version and a first time user version?
I hope Fox News will evaluate some of these specific "new design" developments.
"...We are supporting more than fifteen hundred high schools – about half are totally new, and the other half are existing schools that have been redesigned. Four hundred fifty of these schools, both new and redesigned, are already open and operating. Chicago plans to open 100 new schools. New York City is opening 200. Exciting redesign work is under way in Oakland, Milwaukee, Cleveland, and Boston. "
Seriously though, my friend has a daughter that can hardly spell
or do math at 12, and her grades are in the C-B area.
Something is wrong and it needs to be fixed. Lets start by
eliminating the Unions! No teacher has a right to a job if they Suc^ at it.
"Something is wrong and it needs to be fixed. Lets start by
eliminating the Unions! No teacher has a right to a job if they Suc^ at it."
Not being knowledgeable about this area myself, I don't really have a grasp of the facts. But when there is such a huge gap between what we need and what we have (even as hard as the vast majority of the teachers are trying), that would seem to call out for fundamental change.
The only thing we know from other areas of life that does tend to work both in the political world as well as the economic is competition and choice. If that change were to happen, any "union" situation would most likely take care of itself. Future employers, teachers, parents and children might all find themselves allies once again. This would hopefully give successful teachers power which would help give them more say than just what an administrator chooses to give them using some bureacratic calculation.
Maybe most importantly, it would give schools "choice" in the students they try to attract and recruit. There is danger of possible neglect of some students here, but in those cases at least they are now clearly identified, know they are identified as such, and special efforts can be made to get them up to speed - which another organization might focus on given the new choice, innovation, and experimentation allowed. This sense of having to make oneself "attractive" to the school of their choice would hopefully bring back a sense of discipline, help reduce school "gangs," and restore the sense that attending school is a priviledge - as any of those girls in Afghanistan or Iraq can attest.
Competition tends to bring accountability, cost control, attraction of new investment to those areas that are successfull, and creates an environment where the best and the brightest want to be involved.
Mr. President, where are we on this?
Moronic response. It's the same as me asking you to use your money to do it.
Gates is saying that neither money or teachers will do it. The system design has failed and needs to be rebuilt, and that a blind man can see it in a minute if you doing a little international traveling.
He's right, of course. My wife teaches high school math, and broken doesn't begin to describe the situation. Between the parents and the teachers, the system is FUBAR.
Asking parents to design the school system of tomorrow is like asking a chimp to operate on your liver. The teachers involuntarily pay $900/year in WA state to the union, who is looking to increase that number this year.
Many administrators are failed teachers who have found a home administrating other teachers. We can't ask them for the school system of tomorrow.
Anyway, it's a problem bigger than social security in my opinion.
I know for a fact that he has given millions to charter schools.....Why would he give money to the existing public school system which should be overhauled. The money hasn't improved anything in the publik schools.
And for crying out loud, bring back corporal punishment!
It made me a better person.
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