11-30-2016, 01:59 AM
Sorry, my day got busy.
Some proposals that are going to address a variety of things, because the problems with schools aren't just falling onto one group.
Teachers:
-Better education/training. Despite tons of research into best practices, these are not always being taught by post-secondary programs.
-More classroom management training.
-More student teaching.
-Funding for programs to mentor teachers in their first few years. A large chunk of teachers quit in their first few years.
-Better pay to attract better teachers. A lot of training does go in to becoming a teacher, and even more should on top of that. Pay teachers as professionals.
-Develop teacher evaluation methods catered to level and content area.
-Change tenure so that teachers who fall below an evaluation threshold can have their tenure suspended, making it easier to fire poorly performing teachers.
-No pay for student performance. In a perfect system, teachers have similar classes with similar students. In practice, teachers who suck at teaching struggling students get honors classes. Teachers who do well with those struggling students get stuck with 5 sections of regular level classes.
In terms of what is being taught:
-I've stated before that I oppose a national curriculum. I prefer the use of states voluntarily adopting common standards that measure what you should be able to do by the end of a grade.
- I'd like to see more vocational training
-Some of these courses may have only a few students per school, so long distance education should be an option. We do that in my county for classes like Chinese and AP US History (US History is a 9th grade class and 9th graders cannot sign up for AP. So very few retake it as an elective their junior or senior years for college credit).
-Schools need to be held accountable for how they educated students with disabilities. Too many do not fully include those students who should be spending most of their day in the general education setting.
-Push for the use of teaching styles that address multiple learning styles. I am a big fan of using problem based learning. We tried replacing our first unit this year with a month long problem based learning where the students were working for the UN and had to recommend a new government for Burundi. Through this activity, they learned all of their introduction to government content.
-Push for the adoption of academies or majors within schools starting in 7th or 8th grade. You choose what you'll specialize in and content will be catered towards that. Let's say I am a social sciences major. In addition to my algebra and geometry class, I'd then take a statistics class that teaches me how to use numbers for research, polling, surveying, etc.
Various:
-Standardize testing should not be mandated by the federal government.
-School vouchers do not have the intended result, unless the intended result is to help private schools
-Encourage charter schools as ways to test new ideas, but screen and monitor new charter schools.
-Stop teaching pseudo-science and revisionist history in public schools.
-Fund mentoring and after school programs. Kids need a place to go when there is none elsewhere.
-More male teachers, particularly those of color Boys are the most at risk students. They need to see positive role models that they can relate too more.
There are other hosts of issues that the government won't directly fix through education policy. Poorer students do not do as well. They're less likely to have support, less likely to see the benefits of education in their life, and less likely to have received interventions when younger that make them better students. As Beaker said, if the parents do not care, the student is less likely to care. If education isn't valued at home, they won't value it.
Fail more kids in middle school. We get kids in high school who are not prepared but were passed along.
Challenge kids to be more creative.
Start writing more earlier. Encourage kids to journal at a young age.
Push kids to read for fun
Have kids practice more activities that require them to discover the answer. It is better to guide a student to an answer than to give it. I rarely give lecture notes. I try to find ways to flip the notes.
teach kids that it is ok to fail at points in life.
Some proposals that are going to address a variety of things, because the problems with schools aren't just falling onto one group.
Teachers:
-Better education/training. Despite tons of research into best practices, these are not always being taught by post-secondary programs.
-More classroom management training.
-More student teaching.
-Funding for programs to mentor teachers in their first few years. A large chunk of teachers quit in their first few years.
-Better pay to attract better teachers. A lot of training does go in to becoming a teacher, and even more should on top of that. Pay teachers as professionals.
-Develop teacher evaluation methods catered to level and content area.
-Change tenure so that teachers who fall below an evaluation threshold can have their tenure suspended, making it easier to fire poorly performing teachers.
-No pay for student performance. In a perfect system, teachers have similar classes with similar students. In practice, teachers who suck at teaching struggling students get honors classes. Teachers who do well with those struggling students get stuck with 5 sections of regular level classes.
In terms of what is being taught:
-I've stated before that I oppose a national curriculum. I prefer the use of states voluntarily adopting common standards that measure what you should be able to do by the end of a grade.
- I'd like to see more vocational training
-Some of these courses may have only a few students per school, so long distance education should be an option. We do that in my county for classes like Chinese and AP US History (US History is a 9th grade class and 9th graders cannot sign up for AP. So very few retake it as an elective their junior or senior years for college credit).
-Schools need to be held accountable for how they educated students with disabilities. Too many do not fully include those students who should be spending most of their day in the general education setting.
-Push for the use of teaching styles that address multiple learning styles. I am a big fan of using problem based learning. We tried replacing our first unit this year with a month long problem based learning where the students were working for the UN and had to recommend a new government for Burundi. Through this activity, they learned all of their introduction to government content.
-Push for the adoption of academies or majors within schools starting in 7th or 8th grade. You choose what you'll specialize in and content will be catered towards that. Let's say I am a social sciences major. In addition to my algebra and geometry class, I'd then take a statistics class that teaches me how to use numbers for research, polling, surveying, etc.
Various:
-Standardize testing should not be mandated by the federal government.
-School vouchers do not have the intended result, unless the intended result is to help private schools
-Encourage charter schools as ways to test new ideas, but screen and monitor new charter schools.
-Stop teaching pseudo-science and revisionist history in public schools.
-Fund mentoring and after school programs. Kids need a place to go when there is none elsewhere.
-More male teachers, particularly those of color Boys are the most at risk students. They need to see positive role models that they can relate too more.
There are other hosts of issues that the government won't directly fix through education policy. Poorer students do not do as well. They're less likely to have support, less likely to see the benefits of education in their life, and less likely to have received interventions when younger that make them better students. As Beaker said, if the parents do not care, the student is less likely to care. If education isn't valued at home, they won't value it.
Fail more kids in middle school. We get kids in high school who are not prepared but were passed along.
Challenge kids to be more creative.
Start writing more earlier. Encourage kids to journal at a young age.
Push kids to read for fun
Have kids practice more activities that require them to discover the answer. It is better to guide a student to an answer than to give it. I rarely give lecture notes. I try to find ways to flip the notes.
teach kids that it is ok to fail at points in life.
![[Image: ulVdgX6.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/ulVdgX6.jpg)
![[Image: 4CV0TeR.png]](https://i.imgur.com/4CV0TeR.png)
