How to Improve the School System

[daleduke17]

Ok, so, as I stated in the Louisiana/Voucher thread, this is where I am going to outline my ideas on how to improve the public school system. Feel free to make any additions as needed:

- Cut salaries by 25%: this is mainly for administrative staff. The district I live in right now is a two school district (1 ES, 1 HS). The superintendent makes over $140,000/year. The HS principal makes ~$80,000. ES Principal about the same. No reason for them to. Cut the salaries by 20-25%. The district I am going to be moving into has administrative salaries north of $150,000. The superintendent makes over $200,000 (2 HS, 4 MS, 12 ES). Cut the Supt salary to $130,000, the principals and other administrative staff to $100,000 or lower. I just saved those two districts $75,000 (first district) to over $400,000 (second district).

- Scale athletics back or cut them all together: if it is really for "physical education" we don't need palaces rivaling College and Professional level facilities. That is just added expenses that don't need to be there. A gymnasium for PE, a decent size plat of land for running/etc are good. Schools do not need pools or digital scoreboards, fancy uniforms for their teams, etc.

- Grand entranceways, etc. They just look stupid. One high school near my work has the initials of the school made out in flowers out front. If it was done by the FFA group, cool (teaching tool there for several different things). If it was done by some contractor, they can piss off. Make it look nice and professional, but not over the top. Save some money.

- Get rid of feel good crap: Enough with "diversity".... Is the school in a heavily black neighborhood? Guess what, it is going to be mostly black students. It is so fake to jerry-mander attendance boundaries to keep the population percentages similar to the community. Just get back to what is supposed to be happening in school: TEACH STUDENTS THE SUBJECTS.

- Fire horrible teachers: Yes, under the current NEA and union crap, it is damn near impossible to fire a teacher. Bring the ability back (or get the ability).

Anything else?

[Nekojin]

* Mandate national standards with regard to curriculum and approach.

The biggest problem with that (and with most "teaching reformation" discussions) is that the group that bitches the loudest about poor performance is the same group that demands to have things taught their way (and objects or interferes with any efforts to implement national standards).

[Greenday]

There needs to be a way to diversify education based on individual talents. In the end, I became a forensic chemist. There's no purpose to me taking classes like art history. Beginner computer class? Is that supposed to be a joke? I probably knew more about computers at the time than the teacher. Lit classes? I read on my own. Many of the "classics" are useless to me.

What if I wanted to focus on science? It should have been possible for me to take chemistry, biology, physics, and more advanced versions of those subjects. Instead, I was forced to take earth science, biology, and chemistry. Then my senior year, I got to choose between AP courses in bio and chemistry or physics, astronomy, oceanography, meteorology and geology. It would have been a lot more helpful if I could have taken physics and AP bio. Hell, I should have been able to get AP physics. Never took stats in high school.

If I did't have to waste so much time on useless classes (useless to my life), I could have taken all those and continued with band (43 minutes a day isn't enough to be honest).

[Seifer]

1. Pay the teachers more. (The average person would be SHOCKED to see how long an average teacher spends at the school. Contrary to popular belief, it is NOT an 8 - 3 pm job.)

2. STOP TEACHING TO FUCKING STANDARDIZED TESTS. How about teaching what's important and then possibly spending time teaching about what interests the students? Maybe if the classroom topics were more interesting students might not have this mindset of "SCHOOL SUCKS AND IS TOTALLY USELESS!"

3. Provide more help to both students and teachers (such as allowing every teacher to have at least one other adult in the room who can offer additional support to struggling students.)

4. Student ability needs to be brought into consideration when viewing teacher performance.

(Just an example of why I propose #4)

Some students have an extremely hard time with certain subjects. They might even have a learning disability. Take those kinds of issues into consideration before simply saying, "THE TEACHER MUST SUCK!"

[BlaqueKatt]

do away with "zero tolerance".

enact this principal's method of talking to the students, his change dropped suspensions 85% in a single year, and this is a school for kids expelled from other schools in he area, so if it works on "problem kids"...

[bara]

There needs to be a way to diversify education based on individual talents. .

A good point. Stop with force feeding kids a bunch of crap just to have them regurgitate it later.

I do think that schools should have athletic programs and should encourage kids to be involved in them. But never at the cost of academics or vocational programs.

And the biggest thing, treat them like human beings. Kids are smarter than a lot of adults think they are and by always talking down to them is just digging that hole deeper... like BKatts post.

[Greenday]

Take for instance a kid who doodles a lot. Perhaps instead of yelling at the kid and giving them detention for not paying attention, give them more art classes. Odds are, the kid likes to draw and God knows how good they could become if they got a lot more instruction.

Or some kid constantly beating on his desk to a tune in his head? Get him more music lessons. Maybe he's the next Travis Barker or Dave Grohl.

[Seifer]

Take for instance a kid who doodles a lot. Perhaps instead of yelling at the kid and giving them detention for not paying attention, give them more art classes. Odds are, the kid likes to draw and God knows how good they could become if they got a lot more instruction.

Or some kid constantly beating on his desk to a tune in his head? Get him more music lessons. Maybe he's the next Travis Barker or Dave Grohl.

What teachers are supposed to do (but are unable to, for one reason or another) is mix the students' interests with the course material. If they love music, teach them through music. You can easily mix music with other subjects, such as math or even science. The same goes for art. Catching a child's interest can even be as simple as making all of the materials match the student's favorite color. It's all about teaching by meeting the child's individual interests and needs.

[XCashier]

enact this principal's

Thank you for posting that link. It's amazing, and I've bookmarked it for future, more thorough reading.

I do think that schools should have athletic programs and should encourage kids to be involved in them.

While exercise is important, many kids are not athletically inclined. I'd like to see noncompetetive PE alternatives, like aerobics, dance or other similar physical activities for the not-so-athletic kids.

Cracked did a great article about 10 important things they didn't teach you in school. It would be nice to see some sort of Reality 101 course taught with those points, or even an Everyday Life 101 that includes topics such as Hygiene, Money Management, Planning, etc. So many people are so out of touch with reality these days, we need to get back on track.

[daleduke17]

I do think that schools should have athletic programs and should encourage kids to be involved in them. But never at the cost of academics or vocational programs.

But, the athletics should be the first things cut when the income levels drop.

If the kids are so wanting to play sports, there is always the YMCA/YWCA, local leagues, etc. Around here (at least when I was younger) the American Legion (or similar groups) sponsored youth teams. Parents would pay about the same as with school based teams, but the school wouldn't have to fork out the money and could allocate it back to something more important (teacher salaries, classes, etc).

[AdminAssistant]

What teachers are supposed to do (but are unable to, for one reason or another) is mix the students' interests with the course material.

They're unable to because they have 15-30 students per class. Class lasts, probably, 45-55 minutes. 5-6 classes per day. That's not much time to teach a lesson 15-30 different ways to suit each student's learning style. Teachers teach the best they can and the students who struggle have to take the extra time to meet outside of class, get mentoring (where the, "let's tie this subject to your individual interests" discussion has to take place), and do the extra work to catch up.

My suggestions? Cut back on administrative costs, for one. Keep athletic programs, but require them to do more fundraising to cover costs of uniforms and gas and such. Only play teams in the immediate area...a lot of schools will drive 3-5 hours to play certain teams. That's silly. Raise GPA standards for all extra-curricular and co-curricular activities. More teachers, more mentors/para-educators. Make sure the teachers are actually qualified, too. Required tests every 2-3 years on the subject matter and pedagogical methods. Oh, and none of that "Coach teaching Social Studies" horseshit. Have the coach teach PE and let someone who has studied World History/Western Civ teach Social Studies.

[bara]

We certainly need more teachers.. many many more.

Funds are always an issue with public education unless you are in an area like my sisters. Inner city and rural kids get the bad end of the stick when it comes to funds.

Oh, and none of that "Coach teaching Social Studies" horseshit. Have the coach teach PE and let someone who has studied World History/Western Civ teach Social Studies.

Oh dead God yes. I got stuck with two of these winners. Nice guys, great coaches, horrible teachers.

And I agree that athletic programs do not all need to be competitive.

Locally, cutting admin costs would be easy. There are a lot of useless positions filled by individuals who never see a student until they show up to hand you your diploma as if they had something to do with it.

[Andara Bledin]

On the PE/sports front, I'd have adored something like yoga or even some art-heavy martial art. That would have been beyond awesome.

^-.-^

[bex1218]

2. STOP TEACHING TO FUCKING STANDARDIZED TESTS. How about teaching what's important and then possibly spending time teaching about what interests the students? Maybe if the classroom topics were more interesting students might not have this mindset of "SCHOOL SUCKS AND IS TOTALLY USELESS!"

THIS

I fucking hated hearing about the damn standardized tests. We never learned any substantial. Hell, what was taught (especially the science test) wasn't even on the damn thing.


And when I was in school, I was taught the same shit every year in my english, math and history classes. Nothing was ever changed.

[XCashier]

On the PE/sports front, I'd have adored something like yoga or even some art-heavy martial art. That would have been beyond awesome.

Me too. I have no athletic ability whatsoever, and it would've been nice to not get yelled at by my classmates because I couldn't run. Whereas yoga or pilates might've been very helpful to me.