Re: education -

A good friend of mine is a substitute teacher at various public schools in the area. He started out as one of the most optomistic people you could ever find. He was going to change the world, and do it one student at a time.

Now, less than a year into this part-time teaching, he is already extremely jaded. He isn't even a full-time public school teacher yet, and he's already concluded that the whole system is an unfixable mess.

The teachers don't care. The students don't care. The administrators don't care. The parents don't care.

Germans and South Koreans (and others) are kicking our asses at basic math and science, but all we hear about from the special interests is how Bush's plan to actually hold people accountable to some reasonable standard is "destroying" education. And how giving parents a choice in the matter is akin to "privatizing" education.

WTF?

The public school system is broken in America. More money won't fix the problem. Bold ideas will.

Our future depends on it...

Way to go. Only 10 days late on this. Does it always take you this long?

Indeed, bold ideas are needed now more than ever, especially in education. Does anyone honestly think that the kids graduating high school this year will be able to design a nuclear bomb? They can't even do basic arithmetic or spell.

We've created a society so dependent on double incomes that parents are unable to discharge their responsibilities. But this cannot be an excuse. Parents must be held accountable in their failure to advocate for their children.

The Federal government will think nothing of spending $500 on a toilet seat but when it comes to paper, pencils and books there has to be a great debate. We can continue to sit in the shadows and let this crap continue. Or we can rise up in a bloodless revolution which demands new ideas, proposes bold initiatives and elects men and women not because they had the money to seek office but because they inspire us with their vision.

I don't claim to have all the answers vis-a-vis fixing our public education system. But I DO know that it's a broken mess. And more taxpayer money thrown at the problem isn't the solution.

>>Indeed, bold ideas are needed now more than ever, especially in education. Does anyone honestly think that the kids graduating high school this year will be able to design a nuclear bomb?<<

The private school kids will be able to.

>> They can't even do basic arithmetic or spell.<<

My daughter is in private school in 7th grade and already tests at a 11th grade level in math and as a college graduate in English, including spelling and grammar and reading comprehension.

I spend about 1/3 as much per year on her school as the Trenton NJ public school system spends per student.

What's wrong with this picture?

Dave

Amen, Dave.

I hear that public schools in Atlanta spend some obscene amount of $$$ per student (near or at the top in the nation), and yet they get some of the worst results, compared to other school districts nationwide.

More taxpayer money clearly isn't the answer.

Most budgets and reports I've studied show that significant money is spent per student in most school districts, and yet the performace is weak.

Parental involvement is the answer, as far as I can tell. Something about parents spending money specifically on tuition in private schools (as opposed to the somewhat 'invisible' tuition of the property tax funded public schools) has the effect of so motivating parents.

I had my son in a public school for exactly one semester. Never again. He had a good teacher who really tried, but most parents didn't back her up, and really were just werehousing their kids while they worked. I felt very bad for this teacher.

The teachers in Public School spend all their time filling out daily reports and other paperwork and very little time actually teaching anything. They hand out worksheets and leave the kids to basically fill in blanks for most of the class.

The amount of money actually spent per child seems to make no difference. Some of the small rural districts here in Texas are excellent and manage to educate poor kids from poor families for less than $8K a year, while Washington DC spends double that per kid and can't get them reading and writing successfully by the time they leave high school.

The problem is the entire bureaucratized structure of public schools. Schools need to be reinvented and made more responsive to the community, with more teacher involvement in running the schools and much less administrative overhead and paperwork.

Dave

What I observed was that my son's teacher spent most of her time trying to get the kids to get order in the classroom.

I'll go back to my own private school education. There, you sat down and shut up, because they held tossing you out of school over your head, and since my folks made a real sacrifice to put me in that school, there would be hell to pay at home if I got tossed, and their money went down the hole. I respected that dynamic very much.

ultimately, what needs to be changed is the culture to reflect the attitude that education is a benefit and a privilege, not a prison sentence and a chore. When public education became universally available for the first time, this was the attitude, but eventually it wore off. Parents up and down the socio-economic ladder must have this sense and convey it to their children. Ironically, those who could most benefit from successful education seem, as a group, to value it the least

"The problem is the entire bureaucratized structure of public schools. Schools need to be reinvented and made more responsive to the community, with more teacher involvement in running the schools and much less administrative overhead and paperwork."

Dave, first of all, I applaud you for everything you have done to assure that your child gets the education she deserves. That being said, I would be remiss if I didn't urge you and parents like you to do more.

Education reform doesn't begin in Washington. This has to be a grassroots effort with parents and teachers working together to make the education system less bureaucratic and more responsive to children's needs. There are lots of hurdles in the way. That doesn't mean the fight won't be worth it.

Dave, you recognized there was a problem. You did something about it be placing your child in a private school. There are millions of families in this country that aren't blessed the way you've been. Share your concern with other parents. Share your concerns with teachers in the public school system. One voice does make a difference.