Fixing the Public Schools k-12

[Mike M (the other one)]

(11-29-2016, 02:28 PM)Benton Wrote: Why penalize the elective teachers? Sometimes those elective classes are more important to a student than the core classes (I'm thinking of content centered education like engineering or arts programs at charter schools, or vocational education which producers welders, carpenters and people who make a pretty decent blue collar living). There should be a push on reading, math and sciences, but some of the more successful model schools in the country are heading more and more to promoting and adding those electives so kids develop skills instead of just testable knowledge.

The curriculum issue is part of common core. That's already being addressed. Or was, efforts to reduce communication at the federal level will probably slow down that progress, but I think most states will continue to work in that direction. It will just take longer without federal facilitation of ideas. Common core doesn't tell districts what books they have to use — and that's a positive as districts can chose ones that work better for their students — but it does set the standards for what students need to be learning from the books.

I'd like to see more public schools able to go in the electives direction. Expand vocational schools and co-op opportunities so some of the kids learn a skill and have a chance to earn a decent wage, instead of just hoping that teaching them algebra means they won't work at McDonald's.

We also need to do a better job of identifying aptitude at a younger age. Just as an anecdote to that, it turns out my daughter is scoring off the chart in math. I can barely multiply single digits without using my fingers, so I hadn't really noticed how good she is, but it's good enough her teacher noticed. I'm thankful for that, and that she goes to a good school where it got noticed. I can encourage that skill, and so can her teachers. If it wasn't for them, I probably wouldn't have known until it was too late, because I just wasn't looking. I was too busy worried that her spelling is horrible.

Schools in urban areas tend to have the highest and lowest scores. That comes, typically, from having the students from the highest and lowest economic backgrounds. But one thing I've noticed about high performing rural districts or smaller high performing schools is that they almost always have high interaction between teachers and students, and usually lots of involvement from parents. I asked the superintendent of a state top 20 district — which is one of the smallest in Kentucky and hasn't had a school funding increase since 1992 — how they do it. He said every teacher in every school knows every student's name. They know their parents. They know what they're going through at home. If a student doesn't show up for class, it's not uncommon for a teacher's aide to go to the kid's house, wake them up, take them to get something to eat and bring them to school.

That can't be applied to larger schools in metro areas, but having more teachers and more involvement and interaction would go a long way in improving student ability and interest.

Well I went with the bonus for required curriculum, but at the same time, I didn't specify that I would want some new classes to become required as well, but I see your point.

For example, understand how to balance a checkbook, basic cooking should be included as well. I thought about a few others as well such as basics on guns, basics on cars (such as how to change a tire, oil and basic maintenance). I'm sure there's a few others that would make sense as well. They don't have to be year round classes, they can break them up into semesters.

(11-29-2016, 02:46 PM)CageTheBengal Wrote: The culture needs to be changed entirely. Just graduating from High School in 2011 I still remember it pretty well. I went to a large suburban High School with like over 700 in my graduating class then switched to a rural school with 60 in my class so I've seen 2 different  sides.

Teachers need to be encouraged to be innovative and find a better way to get kids engaged. In most of my classes the year started with teachers handing out a massive amounts of books while the teacher teaches out of the "teachers edition".  There was little time to teach anything that wasn't out of these books because there is always a clock to beat with the next big test always around the corner. You cover something for a day or two and you move on. No time to make sure everybody is on the same page and if you get left behind it's the student's job to hunt down a teacher and get them to finish teaching you even though they will look as bad as the student if you fail. Then once it's time for the test everybody has crammed and a week later hardly anybody can repeat what they apparently just learned. We need a system in place where schools aren't obsessed with funding and test scores.

Why rely on these books so heavily? Why a gauntlet of tests? Why can't teachers teach on their own terms while being helped by books but not lean on them so much? If teachers aren't qualified to teach without a teachers book guiding them the whole way are they really teachers? Let's pay them more, raise the standards and make teaching a more respectable position to bring in better teachers who actually want to teach kids not just people who couldn't think of anything better to do with themselves. So many of my teachers just seemed burnt out and like they hated their job. Only a small portion actually wanted to help students and not just take a paycheck. This was a lot worse at the larger school then the smaller one but an issue in both.

Let's start showing the public school system some respect and update the system. K-6th should be learning your basic studies, 7th-9th should be doing more basic studies but more practical classes start being thrown in the mix. Classes that teach you how to manage your funds, classes that teach about auto repair and etc. At this point we need to be getting the bug in student's ears about life after public school. What's your plan? 10th-12th start putting that plan into motion. Let students experiment with different occupations through classes and field trips and only teach them what they want/need to know. If you want to be a journalist why the hell are you required to take Trigonometry? 10th-12th needs to be focused on transitioning kids out of school and into adulthood.  Giving kids a series of math classes they might not ever need isn't accomplishing that.

We need to change our attitude about giving our schools money. My senior year of High School we got a brand new large LCD sign donated from someone in town that sat in the front lawn. Meanwhile there was hardly any modern technology in the building and we just lost the enitre art section of our school due to lack of funds. That's messed up. Generally I don't think people even realize how lacking a lot of schools are.

Kids aren't as dumb as they seem. The quickest way for a teacher to lose my respect was for them to fail the question "Why do we need to learn this?" or to act like the teachers book was the entire class.  

Everything that happens to us as children influences us for the rest of our lives so why aren't we more up in arms by our joke of an education system? Kids spend more time there then they do at home. I can't even imagine what it's like in ghetto areas.

I agree wholeheartedly with your first sentence.
I also agree that we spend too much $$ trying to get the kids ready for testing and on testing itself. The teaching should prepare them for the testing, don't need to go above and beyond to make sure they get good scores.

Yes, getting them ready for the transition to adult hood would be a major boon, vocational schools could help with this. Of course not everyone will want to go there, but it would at least give some a leg up in a non degreed profession. For those that do go that path, they should get certified in their respective fields just as if an adult were taking the classes.

(11-29-2016, 03:15 PM)fredtoast Wrote: -My daughters are very high performing, but they attend a smaller school that does not offer as many different specialty classes.  there should be some way that students like this could take specialty classes over the internet.  Have a virtual classroom with just a few students from each small school.

-Need to put more emphasis on giving kids an education that will help them earn a living if they are not interested or qualified to go to college.  College is very expensive and there are a lot of kids wasting a lot of money chasing degrees that they will not get a lot of benefit from.  So there should be more technical/vocational studies at the high school level.

-There needs to be some sort of way to equalize the funding for public schools.  Right now the schools in the best areas have the most money because the property taxes raise so much more money.  This needs to be spread out so that all schools receive equal shares of the tax revenue.

Virtual teaching will be a part of our future, and a great way for it to be presented is just like you said.
Use them for special electives, that way all students in any school can have access to those.

I thought about raising property taxes, but I'd rather the schools spend what they have more wisely before going that route. I am for fair shares on the money side.