This is how backwards education in California is.

[Lord Winter]

Oddly enough, graduates of high schools in the late 19th and early 20th centuries seemed to have had a deeper and richer education than those of today.

It would seem we are not doing something right.

I highly doubt that. Do you have a source?

[Strike For The South]

I highly doubt that. Do you have a source?

+1 that is a myth and has no credible source other than an oft e-mailed test from topeka circa 1890


The real problem is America is begining to align with China persuing the train of thought that test scores are all that matter. Many of peers don't read outside of class and don't know how to think critically because a devation from the syllabus means the deduction of a letter grade

Innovation and critical thinking skills > regurgitation and book knoweledge

[Fisherking]

Actually I saw it as an article in a periodical in the 1980s.
It went into some depth on the conclusions. It was general subject knowledge naturally as they lacked computer grading or national tests in those days.
no credible source in this case means pre internet.
Sorry guys...I guess I come from the stone age.

[a completely inoffensive name]

You think so huh?

Ever taught in a US school?

Each state is different but additional work without compensation is a no-no.

Not only that but Education Departments are Bureaucracies and would much rather spend money on outside information than what they can get in-house. They place little value on what individual teachers may think.

edit:

ACIN if you can figure out how to get rid of Bureaucracies in any or all levels of government, your my man.

Most of the time it is not a matter of fixing a known problem. It is about preserving the institution and justifying ones existence. There is also the matter of spending all the money in the budget so you get as much or more next year.

With Education in particular the politics are too much a part of what gets taught.

Teachers’ Unions depend on the state. Some are better than others but they turn into bureaucracies themselves.

Oddly enough, graduates of high schools in the late 19th and early 20th centuries seemed to have had a deeper and richer education than those of today.

It would seem we are not doing something right.

From my research the average principle makes around $60,000-$100,000. It is a bureaucratic management job for the most part, cut the salary in half. Take that money, hire a new principle.

Get rid of management of the actual property. Privatize the actual upkeep and maintenance of the buildings to third party contractors. Institute forced competition by making 5 year contracts with whoever can offer upkeep/cleaning according to code and health standards (high school bathrooms are just disgusting and it doesn't have to be that way) at the lowest price. Failure will cause in termination of contract. After 5 year contract is fulfilled, new round of bidding for the next 5 year contract begins. Companies would love this because it is essentially a guarantee of 5 years of profit for the company.

Take the money you save, add more capital from the actual budget and build another school. The distribution of kids in a single school goes from 2,500 to a more manageable 1,250, overcrowding is prevented and everything is good.

Institute a bare minimum chain of command. Like I said, education is supposed to be decentralized at heart, which is why there are a million, bazillion individual school districts that operate independently with their own communities governing what goes on. I would need to see a full flow chart before I can get into specifics, but honestly, all the state should need is a education regulatory agency (AKA a department of education) to see if the state curriculum is being fulfilled. Same goes for the Federal level. You have principles who are held accountable to a superintendent for the district. That position should pretty much be the president and the school board should be the legislature. Chain of hierarchy should end there. No need for much district to state bureaucracy.

The failure of the union is solely in the resistance to any and all change. The only way to change it is to stop asking for stupid changes to the school set up. Things like "merit" pay and blatantly wanting to cut the perks of a teacher because you don't get those kinds of perks at your job are utterly worthless and only perpetuate the problem. We don't trust the union because they don't want to change the broken system. The union doesn't trust us because we keep pushing to change it for the worse.

The only good change that the union is preventing is the elimination of tenure. But you shouldn't get rid of tenure at this point because the power of the teacher shouldn't be lower than an individual parent. School boards across the country, capitulate to the wants of the few parents who spend the time to complain. These usually are the crazies, the overprotecting parents and the religious. Quite honestly, no parent should ever have the ability to successfully push for a book they disagree with, to be banned for everyone else kid.
Parents have too much power. If you want the union to eliminate tenure, you need to give some concessions to prove that you are increasing the relative power of the teacher in other ways. By instituting laws that allow teachers to implement the teaching materials they want to use without retribution and by restricting the ability of parents to change such reading materials (such as what books they are reading) the teacher is no longer held to the whims of the moronic parents. Lolita is not inappropriate for high school freshman, it is not even inappropriate for 7th and 8th graders, stop allowing the ******* parents to force teachers to never teach it.

Actually I saw it as an article in a periodical in the 1980s.
It went into some depth on the conclusions. It was general subject knowledge naturally as they lacked computer grading or national tests in those days.
no credible source in this case means pre internet.
Sorry guys...I guess I come from the stone age.

If you can remember the name of the periodical, google it. Maybe they have an archive you can search. Most publications (at least newspapers) have their entire archives online now.

[Lord Winter]

Coming in the same direction from ACIN's comments against parental control, is there any valid argument for not having a professional school board? All I see from lay school boards is a tendency to ignore truth and givein over to populist ideas in determining the curriculum what not. For example look at the whole Texas text book fiasco and the ID debate. Moving our schools away from this model would improve the quality of our schools immensely.

[Fisherking]

Coming in the same direction from ACIN's comments against parental control, is there any valid argument for not having a professional school board? All I see from lay school boards is a tendency to ignore truth and givein over to populist ideas in determining the curriculum what not. For example look at the whole Texas text book fiasco and the ID debate. Moving our schools away from this model would improve the quality of our schools immensely.

Not sure that is the best idea.

Without local board you don’t get local funding.

Most are unpaid positions. They make more noise then having any real impact in most places.

They give the community a voice. In most cases this is in theory because no one goes to the meetings. Most people would rather complain to others than actually to the authorities.

Having a legislator in charge of school boards will not stop them giving in to the crazies.

Why do the boards give in to bad ideas? Political pressure or perceived pressure.
The people running for the board might be also these people.

I think more community involvement from a wider range of individuals is important in getting the whole thing to work properly.


But more importantly it is not always the best to have only educators running the show any more than it is a good idea of having lawyers write the laws.

Textbooks are something else all together. You can find some big problems there who ever buys them.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Not sure that is the best idea.

Without local board you don’t get local funding.

Most are unpaid positions. They make more noise then having any real impact in most places.

They give the community a voice. In most cases this is in theory because no one goes to the meetings. Most people would rather complain to others than actually to the authorities.

Having a legislator in charge of school boards will not stop them giving in to the crazies.

Why do the boards give in to bad ideas? Political pressure or perceived pressure.
The people running for the board might be also these people.

I think more community involvement from a wider range of individuals is important in getting the whole thing to work properly.


But more importantly it is not always the best to have only educators running the show any more than it is a good idea of having lawyers write the laws.

Textbooks are something else all together. You can find some big problems there who ever buys them.

I agree completely with the bold statement, however the problem is that it is impossible to actually get parents motivated to participate. So you have to find another way. I suggest instituting a law that states that lobbying for a curriculum change or challenging a book (although we shouldn't allow that period) must require x amount of signatures before it can be lobbied to the school board. That way you still force the crazies to expose themselves and their ideas to the general public and increases the chances that a rational parent will step forward, counter lobby and say, "hey, I really don't want this over protecting parent to have his/her way when it comes to this book begin taught to my kids."

EDIT: The problem with textbooks is that the companies cater to only the boards of education which buy the most books. For the US the biggest buyers of textbooks are naturally the most populous states: California, Texas and New York. When Texas changed its curriculum, they didn't change the textbook, they simply changed what they wanted to teach, and the textbook companies then changed their next version of the book to suit the needs of one of their biggest customers.

[Lord Winter]

Not sure that is the best idea.

Without local board you don’t get local funding.

Most are unpaid positions. They make more noise then having any real impact in most places.

They give the community a voice. In most cases this is in theory because no one goes to the meetings. Most people would rather complain to others than actually to the authorities.

Having a legislator in charge of school boards will not stop them giving in to the crazies.

Why do the boards give in to bad ideas? Political pressure or perceived pressure.
The people running for the board might be also these people.

I think more community involvement from a wider range of individuals is important in getting the whole thing to work properly.


But more importantly it is not always the best to have only educators running the show any more than it is a good idea of having lawyers write the laws.
s
Textbooks are something else all together. You can find some big problems there who ever buys them.

School boards do have a role in setting curriculum at both the local and state level. All I was suggesting is that the people who work in this area should have experience in the relative field. For example in the textbook debate wouldn't it make more sense to have someone with a history degree deciding on the history books then people who's experiences with history stop at high school.

As for teachers running the show, I said nothing of the sort. We should separate people with teaching skills and with management skills to ensure that we have the best possible qualified people in each position. What I say above is just an extension of this.