patrick.net

As a parent of school aged kids, I've given this some thought.

1) Encourage at least one parent to stay home and raise the kids
Agree, but not practical for most people without a big social shift.

2) Dissociate school assignment from residency
Sounds good in principle, but, at least with the solutions we have tried, it doesn't work out very well. (I assume you are talking about school districts, here). I think there are a lot of good things about going to school near where you live, and there tend to be a lot of bad outcomes when you make people go to a school not near where they live.

3) Teach kids to find passions, ask questions, and get answers with help
This probably has more to do with individual personality and parents/family...Schools should support/encourage this, but they aren't primary in this arena.

A few points.
1. The way schools are funded by local property taxes...it's a crazy system. At least in Denver, you pay moderate property taxes ($2400/year) to get a decent school district, or very high property taxes ( $4,000+/year) to get an excellent school district. With even one child the "high" property taxes don't come close to covering the real cost of "tuition" -- *really* the price you pay is for the more expensive house, which incidentally has somewhat higher property taxes. So good schools generate value for property owners but not for the local government which administers the schools.

2. Class size matters. Fewer teachers + technology isn't the answer...especially with young children. Class size matters and should be a priority.

3. The students you share the class with are probably the most important factor. Funding, teachers, class size etc are (I think) less important than the students. Good students are a scarce resource.

Our children go to a fantastic school. It's a rich, white, mostly clueless school...but there are involved parents, bright, well behaved kids, and motivated teachers. Government funding is down, so the parents pick up the tab (about $800/student is generated through parent fundraising efforts). The extra $ goes to pay for extra curricular activities, assistants in most classrooms, technology, etc. In short, what every other kid in every other school deserves but doesn't get.

I don't think you can buy your way out of the problem (as I said, I think the quality of the students is probably the biggest factor), but I do think it makes sense to properly fund all schools, and if any schools need to "go without" it should be the ones in rich areas. If that means raising taxes in rich areas to ship off the money to poor schools, I'm in favor.

Educators need to be paid more *and* subjected to more rigorous standards. I'd like to be a high school teacher, and I may even be a good one, but I'd have to take a 75% pay cut to do it. Maybe later when I'm rich...

/rant

Peter P says

A dead visionary is still a dead man. :-)

Steve Jobs was no visionary. He was an IP thief like all the IT titans.

Peter P says

We do not need millions who "know" calculus. We need a more philosophy and arts students.

I disagree with this part. I've learned far more about the nature of life and the universe, and how to model politics and morality, and how to structure society for social justice from mathematics than from all the philosophers in all of history combined.

Philosophers can't even answer the question, "What is the meaning of life?", and that's one of the easiest questions to answer.

Let's face it, the best way to improve education is to modify the human genome so that humans don't enter puberty until they are in their 30s. That way high school and college students can actually concentrate on learning.

irormatog says

Hello.

Hi.

Peter P says

Throwing money at a failure will only turn it into an expensive failure

Your premise is a lie. Public education is successful to varying degrees. Most of the students at all of the best colleges and universities come from public schools. If more money can be directed to smaller class sizes and higher pay for teachers (attracting better people in to the profession) then how in the world can this be considered throwing money at failure?

Please think about this before you answer it.

The truth is everyone wants a rationalization for spending less on public education.

"Oh, we all know that money obviously isn't the answer"

zzyzzx says

Get rid of teacher's unions

Yes because we all know that teachers unions are all about:

1) Big money that union leaders get

2) Influencing elections to get communists elected

3) protecting child molesters and terrible teachers so that they can never get fired.

(but secretly getting rid of unions is actually about paying teachers less and privatizing public schools)

marcus says

Peter P says

Throwing money at a failure will only turn it into an expensive failure

Your premise is a lie. Public education is successful to varying degrees. Most of the students at all of the best colleges and universities come from public schools. If more money can be directed to smaller class sizes and higher pay for teachers (attracting better people in to the profession) then how in the world can this be considered throwing money at failure?

Please think about this before you answer it.

The truth is everyone wants a rationalization for spending less on public education.

"Oh, we all know that money obviously isn't the answer"

It is almost like saying that stimulus programs will benefit the middle class.

marcus says

zzyzzx says

Get rid of teacher's unions

Yes because we all know that teachers unions are all about:

1) Big money that union leaders get

2) Influencing elections to get communists elected

3) protecting child molesters and terrible teachers so that they can never get fired.

(but secretly getting rid of unions is actually about paying teachers less and privatizing public schools)

We should have fewer teachers, larger class size, and more distant learning.

marcus says

Public education is successful to varying degrees. Most of the students at all of the best colleges and universities come from public schools.

How's that a measurement of success? Of course, almost everyone in college, has to have gone through either a K-12 diploma program or a homeschooling (plus GED) program. And then, the latter group of students won't have a GPA/class rank, only SATs I & II, therefore, on the whole, you'll see more ppl in the K-12 system than outside of it for the sake of convenience and tradition.

BTW, homeschoolers in the greater Boston area can take night classes at Harvard's extension/outreach program.

http://www.extension.harvard.edu

And thus, can have an official GPA, now university instead of HS level.

Here's someone who did exactly that ...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/16/us-education-homeschooling-idUSTRE72F4WS20110316

- Get rid of unions.
- Allow teachers to be graded on performance.
- Give parents a voucher for 100% of public education costs and let them pick any school they want, forcing public schools to compete for children, not be forced into one based on their location.

Competition drives capitalism, let the competition be.

FortWayne says

- Get rid of unions.
- Allow teachers to be graded on performance.

Some people are so incredibly clueless about the education world. You're willing to risk destroying our public school foundation, why ?

Because of propaganda ?

marcus says

Most of the students at all of the best colleges and universities come from public schools. If more money can be directed to smaller class sizes and higher pay for teachers (attracting better people in to the profession) then how in the world can this be considered throwing money at failure?

Logically that's a bit of a odd statement. First and foremost is that there are far fewer private schools than public. When parents pay for private schools they actually end up paying for education twice as their property taxes pay for public school AND they pay for private. Sure there's some charter schools but that is often rare and not the case. The majority of a towns local budget is for education anyway.

How can it be failure? Let me explain.
I can only speak for Mass but when a school pretty much fails they give significant financial incentives by the state (which can then take it over) to attract teachers. After all they cannot raise the standards for teachers without raising compensation..otherwise few will show up. Just like special education pays much more than other education. You have fewer people qualified to teach and much less students and the production of scale makes more sense to have this be more local.

Higher spending on education does not mean better results. How can that be? Because some of the worst schools in mass receive state aid to the point where they are among the top spenders per student in the state.

If a school fails where they spend nearly 25k on each student per year while another has the vast majority passing and they spend 8k a year or less then something is really wrong at home.

I'm no fan of the teachers unions or any union for that matter but accountability really lies with the parents. Even if you have great afterschool programs what happens on weekends? What happens during summers?

Here's an article by a former teacher where he describes that 10% of students are neglected and need support and 10% have had helicopter parents to the point where their parents explode if something is wrong.
http://voices.yahoo.com/why-teaching-public-school-sucks-598647.html?cat=4

In public school you cannot kick people out, this is the major difference in private school. If you fail, you act up...goodbye.

Having a system of equality for all might sound great from a ethical background but the reality is it ignores the environment. Here's another example with a different subject. In Mass we have a shelter mandate that everyone is supposed to have shelter. Like schools there is no real entity of a state run facility so this largely falls on non profits. Well non profits must be able to receive funding and shelters need to be secure. Because of this level 3 sex offenders and arsonists are now allowed to be sheltered. No one will donate if they stay there. Likewise with education there is only so far the government can go. Per state laws a student can only be kept back three years. No one older than 21 is allowed to be a student in the classroom.

It is natural that some suggest that there needs to be a form of equality amongst districts in terms of a metric. We have that..it's a standardized test. If school abc is rich and xyz is well..poor but students from both excel in the test then it can be equal to an employer. But then there's those that don't test well, then there's those that argue it is just teaching the test. Given that tests determine higher education what do they expect?

I don't think that there are issues with public education. But there ARE issues at the way how parents think there are instant and easy solutions to poor performance. The stakes are higher now, the standards are higher now and parents need to step it up.

Anyone attempting to argue that education only occurs in a classroom would be like trying to suggest that health only occurs in a doctors office.

APOCALYPSEFUCK is Shostakovich says

Make all schools examination schools. If you don't pass the test battery for entrance, you are left on the street to learn to kill starving neonazis with your bare hands.

What if the neonazis are cannibals? They wouldn't be starving and would be a lot harder to kill.

Oooh! Movie idea! Crazied Neonazi Cannibals Invade New York! Sounds like a blockbuster. It could star Mel Gibson as both the hero and the villain.

Bring back the importance of an good old fashioned ass beating.
You can't have an effective educational system when Ray Ray and Daron(Who are on the fast track to life in prison or death row) are holding court in school, terrorizing the teachers and the students with impunity, less some adult end up on channel seven news for handing their Asses to them.

marcus says

Some people are so incredibly clueless about the education world. You're willing to risk destroying our public school foundation, why ?
Because of propaganda ?

No, we're ready to destroy it because we've witnessed the absolute trash that they have been turning out. Every work day I deal with young people who come looking for work. Very few don't have at least a high school diploma, so we won't include them (although some of them are fairly articulate). No, the high school graduates who can barely spell their names, they can't do a simple calculation like 22 + 44 in their head. They can't pass a drug test, they are aghast that they actually have to (are suppose to) show up to work every day and actually work 8 (or more) hours per day. Too large a percentage of students coming out of public schools are worthless blobs, it's a shame and a huge waste of money and time.

Odd....I went to public school did OK. My sis went to public school and then off to Harvard and a Ph.D. Brother in law went to public school and MIT. Cousins went to public school and two attended Stanford, one went to MIT, rest went to UVA and UNC. I'd say 3/4 of the Stanford MBAs I know are public school grads.

Maybe I live in an Asian bubble. Shrug.....

Here is a novel idea. How about we look at other school systems that are successful, and borrow ideas from them?

I think that the Finish school system would be a good place to start. They spend less money on students than we do in the US and have some of the best results in the world.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/Why-Are-Finlands-Schools-Successful.html

The K-12 school system today is nothing more than a glorified daycare system built to feed the financial appetite of a unionized workforce.

80-90% of teachers could and should be eliminated and replaced by online mass instruction geared toward learning a SKILL that is directly transferrable to a job that is needed in the economy.

It would also be nice if our education system taught something of value and rooted in reality - like how to be a decent neighbor, how to make friends, how to start a business, how to be successful, how to fix broken crap in your house, how to critically think, etc...

leo707 says

Here is a novel idea. How about we look at other school systems that are successful, and borrow ideas from them?

We should innovate and lead by example. What made capitalism work is desire for profit, freedom to succeed, and competition. Our education system lacks all of the above.

We don't reward good teachers or fire bad teachers.
We don't promote good teachers, unions are soul killing seniority system.
We don't promote competition, students are forced into certain schools and a union decides on how it is ran.

The fix is simple if we want it. It's impossible with all the union thugs fighting it, and gullible people buying it. Because unions and their politicians know that they'll lose their grip on our children and lose control.

FortWayne says

We should innovate and lead by example.

Ideally yes, but unfortunately we are far from leading innovators in this area. In order to innovate we should at least understand how other systems are able to do so much better than us for less money. Then if we learn how they have gotten their success then perhaps we can improve upon it.

FortWayne says

What made capitalism work is desire for profit, freedom to succeed, and competition.

Capitalism is great for some things, but not a miracle pill for any situation. Do we really think that it is a good idea to have profit being the primary motivator for any hospital you step in? Do we really want fire fighters competing for who gets to put out the fire?

McDonald's and Wallmart are huge American capitalist successes, and I believe that their industries are great places to apply capitalism (although a whole other discussion could be had on companies like Wallmart stifling "freedom to succeed" and "competition").

Do we really want the American educational program to be the Wallmart of the worlds educational systems?

FortWayne says

We don't reward good teachers or fire bad teachers.
We don't promote good teachers, unions are soul killing seniority system.

Yep.

FortWayne says

We don't promote competition, students are forced into certain schools and a union decides on how it is ran.

There are times with competition is great, and times when everyone needs to be working together. I think that when it comes to educating our youth we (or at least most of us) need to be on the same page and pulling together.

FortWayne says

It's impossible with all the union thugs fighting it, and gullible people buying it.

Yes, but I think that people are also buying into easy fixes...

FortWayne says

The fix is simple if we want it.

I don't think the fix is all that simple. Some things sound good in theory, but when put into practice they have very different results than what one thinks.

You really should read that article on the Finish system for an example of what it takes to have a world class educational system.

bmwman91 says

Education quality is not the problem, parenting quality is in most cases.

Don't forget how much can be invested into kids.

I am curious. If you guys are naively thinking that education systems is equally available to every kid?

Nobody says

Don't forget how much can be invested into kids.

Parents should invest time and money in their own kids. Those who cannot do so should not have kids.

Nobody says

I am curious. If you guys are naively thinking that education systems is equally available to every kid?

Equality is futile. Perhaps the society should discourage uncaring parents from having kids.

I actually think the federal government *should* use taxpayer money to pay for free condoms and abortions.

Eliminate all education. Man's been killing men,women & children since Cain & Able. WTF has Man learned? Wait!we've created computers & Capitalism & that's important!

Dan8267 says

The best you can do is start a government funded project to breed nerds with supermodels. Their offspring would be beautiful and passionate about learning -- both dominate traits. I've been advocating this for decades to no avail.

Well, it could turn the other way around as George Bernard Shaw said.
George Bernard Shaw was once approached by a seductive young actress who cooed him in his ear:- ‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we got married and had a child with my beauty and your brains?’ George Bernard Shaw who was hardly a handsome man replied: ‘My dear, that would be wonderful indeed, but what if our child had my beauty and your brains?’ The actress who did not need much persuasion just sped off.

CaptainShuddup says

Bring back the importance of an good old fashioned ass beating.

Ah yes, because violence is always the solution to a conservative.

Why don't we divorce the functions of
- daycare
- prison
- education

A single institution can't do more than one of these well.

leo707 says

Here is a novel idea. How about we look at other school systems that are successful, and borrow ideas from them?

It is Unamerican to model our programs on successful programs from Europe. That's communistic and unpatriotic. If we learn from other countries, it would imply that we're not the greatest country in the world. And maintaining that delusion is more important than solving our problems.

FortWayne says

leo707 says

Here is a novel idea. How about we look at other school systems that are successful, and borrow ideas from them?

We should innovate and lead by example. What made capitalism work is desire for profit, freedom to succeed, and competition. Our education system lacks all of the above.

Damn, I was being facetious in the previous post, but evidently what I said is a common belief.

Nobody says

I am curious. If you guys are naively thinking that education systems is equally available to every kid?

Obviously not. And the only way it can ever be made equally available to all people, minors or adults, is What's wrong with the educational system and how to fix it.

lostand confused says

Well, it could turn the other way around as George Bernard Shaw said.

I've thought about this, but came to the conclusion that the other scenario was far more likely. You see, in order to survive and reproduce, you have to have genes, and more importantly, the traits created by genes that allow you to survive and reproduce.

If you are beautiful, you're survival and reproductive chances are much better. But if those beauty traits are recessive, then your kids or grand-kids will be ugly and won't survive and reproduce. Thus there is evolutionary pressure for beauty traits to be dominant. The same logic goes for intelligent traits.

Consequentially, the offspring of one beautiful parent and one intelligent one should have dominate genes for both beauty and intelligence. Now, if only I could find a really smart woman to test this theory...

Rin says

Fellas, we're in the age of the internet. When I was in school, resources like the sites below, simply did not exist.

http://www.academicearth.org

http://www.khanacademy.org

Now, given that we have much of the pertinent educational content online, why are we still bickering about teachers, class sizes, etc? It seems like the focus on 'fixing' education is very 20th century, when kids should already be learning online and be done with school before coming of age.

Rin says

Fellas, we're in the age of the internet. When I was in school, resources like the sites below, simply did not exist.

http://www.academicearth.org

http://www.khanacademy.org

Now, given that we have much of the pertinent educational content online, why are we still bickering about teachers, class sizes, etc? It seems like the focus on 'fixing' education is very 20th century, when kids should already be learning online and be done with school before coming of age.

Very idealistic. It reeks of the same idea that people were spouting in the early 90s about how the internet was going to make everyone smart. A website like the Khan academy is only useful to kids motivated enough and smart enough to learn from a video. I'd say it would work for roughly 25% of the populace at best. The rest of the kids need teachers to walk them through it and reinforce the material. If you believe the Khan Academy is going to revolutionize education it won't. I teach Physics and Chemistry. I can honestly tell you, the videos from the Khan Academy fall well short of providing kids with a comprehensive exposure to the subject material in general. It's a good supplemental resource. But it's not a primary means one should use to educate themselves. That's what books are for.

theoakman says

about how the internet was going to make everyone smart. A website like the Khan academy is only useful to kids motivated enough and smart enough to learn from a video. I'd say it would work for roughly 25% of the populace at best. The rest of the kids need teachers to walk them through it and reinforce the material. If you believe the Khan Academy is going to revolutionize education it won't. I teach Physics and Chemistry. I can honestly tell you, the videos from the Khan Academy fall well short of providing kids with a comprehensive exposure

I don't think anyone honestly believed that the internet was going to make people *smart*; at most, better connected to the world outside of their hometown. And Khan Academy is a man's first attempt at putting kid's material online so naturally, it's not going to cover everything. But isn't it to get kids interested in these subjects before HS and not afterwards? I was lucky as a child, to have had an Encyclopedia Britannica nearby, otherwise, I probably wouldn't have made it through the system. Plus, private Kumon tutoring seems to be doing well at getting slow kids to a good start.

If you go through the free college courses, I'd have a tough time believing that they don't cover the same amount of material in HS chemistry over there (http://www.academicearth.org/courses/principles-of-chemical-science-track-1). That's MIT's chemistry dept. Don't you think that even a modestly slow kid, could spend a week, digesting each lecture with his parents, and learn the material at a decent rate?

I'd also taught two courses at a HS and what I'd discovered is that the courses were not taught to maximize the students' recall. I ended up seeing the same prior results as you'd described, 25% of the students *get it* and much of the remaining 75% tune out. I'd radically changed how my sections were taught, reversing the Ebbinghaus forgetting curve, and raised everyone's exam scores, including the D students.

Rin says

I don't think anyone honestly believed that the internet was going to make people *smart*; at most, better connected to the world outside of their hometown. And Khan Academy is a man's first attempt at putting kid's material online so naturally, it's not going to cover everything.

Actually, plenty of people bought into the idea that the internet would make everyone smart. People went on the lecture circuit and sold books dedicated to the idea. Those same type of people are now on the lecture circuit and writing books about how education will completely transform itself by replacing teachers or the traditional classroom with video lecture. Khan academy is supposed to serve a number of purposes, one of which you hit the nail on the head. The idea is that anyone can get an education for free. There's no doubt that the material developed by the Khan Academy is incredibly impressive. Nonetheless, it's supplemental material, not a primary resource that should be relied upon.

MIT's Physics Lectures by Walter Lewin have been available for 10 years. They are easily the most comprehensive and best lectures I've ever encountered in my entire academic career. Nonetheless, they have hardly put a dent in the idea that they would revolutionize education. Those amazing lectures are free and widely available. Yet, I'm willing to bet those lectures have not succeeded in eliminating a single teacher's job. Some students choose to watch them. Others have no clue. Others have no desire. At the end of the day, its just a resource.

Only the smart students with motivation are capable of teaching themselves effectively. The rest need a teacher.

Need better parents!

FortWayne says

We don't reward good teachers or fire bad teachers.
We don't promote good teachers, unions are soul killing seniority system.
We don't promote competition, students are forced into certain schools and a union decides on how it is ran.

You couldn't be more wrong on all of this.

Good teachers are often rewarded (at least eventually) with good classes.

Bad teachers are often harrassed and slowly pushed out of the field.

Unions have VERY little to do with how schools are run. They only fight for things like fair compensation, and smaller class sizes, and for enforcement of teachers contractual rights.

This is your pet issue, but I feel sorry for you that you would try to speak with authority so often, about something you truly no nothing about.

It's very simple. Your overlords, the ones who make the propaganda that you so readily absorb, simply don't want to pay for public education.

marcus says

Unions have VERY little to do with how schools are run. They only fight for things like fair compensation, and smaller class sizes, and for enforcement of teachers contractual rights.

Why does one need to fight for "fair" compensation? If teachers think they are paid too little they should quit and do something else.

If they succeed, good for them.

If they fail, it is a proof that their compensations have been at least fair.

In this current form, we may as well not have public education at all.

I still think public education is important, but

1. it is NOT a substitute for good parenting
2. we need to drastically cut costs by introducing competitions
3. higher education should be de-emphasized

School vouchers is a darn good solution.

(1) is hard to solve. But I think at least 50% of all families should not have kids.

Peter P says

marcus says

Unions have VERY little to do with how schools are run. They only fight for things like fair compensation, and smaller class sizes, and for enforcement of teachers contractual rights.

Why does one need to fight for "fair" compensation? If teachers think they are paid too little they should quit and do something else.

If they succeed, good for them.

If they fail, it is a proof that their compensations have been at least fair.

Teachers should receive competitive salaries and they are on the low side now. That being said, out-performing teachers should get more and non-performers should be able to get laid off much much faster than right now. Pensions should be regular 401Ks, CDs or whatever the individual chooses to invest in. No guaranteed yearly appreciation whatsoever. Universities are worse, luscious salaries while they let tuitions skyrocket just because the government gives a loan to everybody. The professors have joined the ranks of realtors and bankstas. You can go to any European country and get an on par or better education for a fraction of the tuition you pay in the US.

mell says

Universities are worse, luscious salaries while they let tuitions skyrocket just because the government gives a loan to everybody.

Well said!

mell says

Teachers should receive competitive salaries and they are on the low side now.

Then why are they still there?