IMHO the problem began during FDR's administration with collective bargaining for private and later for public entities. The outcome is that the schools are run for the staff rather than the students.
Personally, I don't think the NEA has done a particularly good job of representing teachers, either.
All schools should be private, K-12 to college to graduate schools. The government should get out of the education business. Parents should incorporate new private elementary, middle and high schools, removing states and counties from the business of educating their children. Remove government subsidies and teachers' unions.
I went through the education training ritual to get a teaching certificate. One class consisted of learning the parts of a film projector. I'm not kidding. Another class was a phonics lesson: how to tell when a vowel was long or short. Something I had learned in third grade. Another class was a sex education class where we were graded on the development of the embryo to fetus to baby. I had a three year old son at the time, so needless to say, I doodled a lot during class. Skipped a few, too.
Fifty years ago, if you had a bachelor's degree, you could teach. Now you have to attend two years of useless classes to prepare you to be an "educator." You may be illiterate, but, dadgumit, you will know how to run a film projector.
Vouchers.
I don't care how GM or Toyota make their cars. If GM sucks, I can buy a Toyota. Only through empowerment as a consumer, and with choice amongst competitors can their be progress. The system now is Soviet style in quality, quantity and response.
This comes up time and time again. It seems to me that when one factors in vacation days, summers off and union-inspired benefit packages teachers don't do so poorly at all. Every summer, I often catch myself wishing I'd become a teacher.
I helped my son nail fuzzy math right on the head. He came home with a homework question something like this: 34,925 divided by 642, estimate the answer. Well, I am an estimator by trade. I told him to write down 1 as the answer. He asked me how I came up with that. I told him, it is just an estimate, not a good estimate, but an estimate just the same. When his teacher questioned him on his answer, he told her just that. She marked the answer correct.
In colonial days (or maybe later, in the Wild West, or who knows when) the saying was "them as can, do; them as can't, teaches".
Teachers are born, not made. The best teacher loves kids and knows her subject. The latter is easier than the former.
The education courses I took while in college were useless. It's much more important to spend time learning field of expertise. Get a degree in a solid field, then cap it with a teaching certificate, because you're not going to know if you are meant to teach till you try being responsible for a classroom full of kids.
Alternative certification programs let already-degreed professionals earn teaching credentials with a little classroom and a lot of on-the-job training.
Teaching is a rubber-meets-the-road profession. Some people love kids and are wonderful in the classroom. Others do the job because that's what they got a degree in, but they don't teach well.
The whole certification process needs to be re-thought.
As a second career, but now retired, community college teacher, I could write a book on this issue. Likewise, I am well-acquainted with the curricula of schools of education with their emphasis on "eductional psychology," "methods," "practice teaching," "diversity" and the like. Prospective teachers should know first (and well), the discipline(s) they teach or propose to teach. They need secondly, the authority to control their classrooms. And lastly, they should really want to teach as opposed to just finding a job. Schools of education have little to do with any of these things.
Collective bargaining is one problem (probably the #1 problem), but for the curriculum problems you quoted, go back to John Dewey.
I would prefer to see a school stocked with math, english, history majors, and so on, especially in the higher grades. I think we should do a match up of a charter high school with no 'teachers' compared with a traditional public school. I myself have a BSEE and would love to go back in the job market as a math teacher. I think I would be qualified, but I have to go through some stupid education classes and get my education degree.
[IMHO the problem began during FDR's administration with collective bargaining for private and later for public entities. The outcome is that the schools are run for the staff rather than the students.]
Truer words were never printed. I have never heard a single Teacher Sponser group like AFLCIO, or any teacher union come up with a plan or suggestion that would make our kids smarter other than spending more money on teachers salaries and creature comforts for them and the kids. Our education system at local and federal levels is more often debated in the context of teacher jobs and pay than it is about what makes kids smart.
You want teachers to perform better? Make their pay 50% commission. Base their pay on how well their children perform on standardized tests. Change the tests every year and don't tell the teachers what the tests will cover. Have the tests proctored by local elected officials. For highschool teachers, have pay based on graduation rates and college admissions. Tie their pay into their performance. Once teachers get back to making a personal committment to the education of the students (Without cheating the system) the most best will rise to the top and the "others" will find a new line of work. Competition for teaching jobs will drive better education of teachers.
"Why your children can't read or calculate"
Oh, they can calculate as long as they have fresh batteries.
schools are bureacracies, they run with strict set of guidelines and do not deviate. They will not bend to fit student needs, expecting students to bend to fit theirs.
Every employee of each school district, is a follower, not a leader. The districts have a ZERO TOLERANCE POLICY for many things. In the 17 years (as a parent) I have been around the public school system in my town, I have had a lot of time and seen a lot of things happen that would never happen in the public sector. A teacher was let go not because of his teaching abilities, but because he stepped on someone's toes higher up.
At one time I wanted to be a teacher, after of spending this much time involved as a parent in the school district, and I know they pretty much operate the same way, I can hardly wait until the end of this school year, my daughter graduates and I am done with the public school system, well at least til I become a grandmother and have to listen to it some more.
The problem with education is "Schools of Education".
One of the biggest problems is that there is no management/worker divide; the principals and superintendents are almost all drawn from a pool of teachers and comprise a fraternity of sorts.
Only in some districts are there school boards with the power to make hire or fire decisions.
Too often, school boards are merely platforms for political aspirants and teachers are zealous voters and campaigners.
Don't worry. Between teaching kids how to put on condoms, how to value the sexually disturbed, and how white male Europeans destroyed the world they won't have time to even read the basic findings.
Shalom.