But the schools simply do not have the money to pay for these non-academic, enrichment activities. So, is the answer just to not have a debate team, band, or robotics club? The money has to come from somewhere and at this moment, it isn’t the government.
Right: School districts around here are laying off science and gym teachers left and right. Even academic expenses are being cut to the bone (and into the bone, in many people’s opinions). How the heck can anyone expect them to be able to afford band instruments?
Don’t recall - probably north of $100 though.
We will also get our PTA invoice later this month that details the cost per child of each extra we get (Art teachers, PE teachers, etc.). These are things that were taken off the budget during cuts, but that the PTA funds. If you pay for your share of each, it hits around $250 to the PTA.
Warning: radical thought ahead.
A debate team, band, or robotics club could be every bit as academically educational as a math or history class–more so, for some kids.
We’ve arrived at a point where proven successful programs–programs that actually taught kids things and helped them grow–are being disbanded for the sake of meeting the budget of a shrinking set of standardized classes (and standardized tests) presented in an inefficient centralized model.
My feeling is that the big institutional schools, with hundreds and hundreds of kids in one huge expensive building and all kinds of maintenance and support staff, are no longer practical. That money’s not coming back. I’d like to see them disbanded into arrays of tiny semi-autonomous “shopfront” or “open” classes, with no staff except actual teachers, along the lines of plans by the likes of Charles Rusch and Colin Ward, or the ancient apprenticeship model (apprenticeships may come in any profession). Families could choose which ones to sign up for, and some minimum number and variety would be required for graduation.
Otherwise I fear the schools will continue to degrade towards being nothing more than holding pens.
Well, since I’m a debate coach, I certainly agree with the merits of such programs-- I’m not a teacher, so I wouldn’t be involved if I didn’t think it was important (because shit, this ain’t my job). That said, even I recognize that things like paying the algebra teacher or making it so there aren’t 50 kids in freshman English trumps paying for my debate team to go to every invitational.
Granted, a traveling competitive debate club is something of an indulgence in most any context. But debate itself, all the surrounding thinking and discussion, can be enormously educational. I bet you are (or were) teaching those kids something of value, even if you aren’t called a teacher. And there are all kinds of people in different walks of life who could offer something to small groups of kids here and there, without being able or available to take on teaching as a job. And those who are real, good full-time teachers could, I think, do it as well or better unburdened from the school system, without having to cover the overhead of large buildings and administrators and bullshit. In Christopher Alexander’s “shopfront schools” town-planning pattern, the target student-teacher ratio is 10:1 for all classes, achievable because all staff are teachers (some part-time, perhaps only single classes).
Crazy, I know.
This goes against all economic reality. Economics of scale is the principle at work. It costs a lot more to educate each individual student in a small “storefront” than it does in a big institution. Just like it costs more to build something in a small workshop than it does in a big factory.
If you shut down the big schools for little classes, you’ll end up spending a lot more money to provide the same amount of education. Or, if you insist on not raising the budget, you’ll end up providing a lot less education for the same amount of money.
My point about not being a teacher is that a lot of debate coaches are coaches because they were told: look, either coach debate or you wont be employed as a regular teacher next year. They aren’t doing it because they think debate is inherently of value or any such thing, but rather are acting out of necessity and self preservation. I’d say most of the coaches in our league are like this. For me? I have a regular, non teaching job, I’m not a teacher. I coach debate because I love it and I know it teaches the kids skills far more valuable than many they will pick up in school. I love that I get to help the kids and teach them, but I’m not a paid, credentialed teacher. That’s what I meant. Obviously, I see value in my skills I’m sharing with the kids. And my point was simply that even though I’m someone who coaches purely out of love and respect for the activity, I feel there is still a higher importance to core curriculum. No need to get preachy. If a kid can’t do basic math or read, he ain’t goin’ to college— even if he’s the State Debate Champion.
Competitive invitationals aside, as I explained, local tournaments still cost money (which I touched on higher in this thread). Where is that money going to come from when schools can’t even afford up to date text books for core classes? You want 10 kids to a teacher? Fine- I, as well as most here, would agree that you’re probably right that smaller class sizes are ideal. Who is going to pay for that, though?
What happened to the school budgets? Have the state governments really slashed the school budget so much over the last 30 or 40 years that they are not able to offer extracurriculars or is there another explanation for the reduced budget?
The REASON the little schools are able to to get by with less money is because they will generally only meet the bare bones minimum of classes. If a school only has 250 students in all, how likely is it to offer something like Latin or wood shop, unless it’s dedicated to teaching Latin or woodshop? And if it does offer specialized classes, then it will probably have to cut back on what the state considers basics, like language arts and math and science. Any student attending such a school is likely to be cheated out of at least one basic, and probably others.
And if we allow 25 students per teacher, that means that this school has 10 teachers. Back in my high school days, while any science teacher COULD teach the basic science classes, some were acknowledged to be better at teach biology or chemistry or whatever. So the school would have to hire those teachers who weren’t the best at a specialty, but who could pinch hit in any subject of their field…and are generally mediocre teachers in most of those subjects.
As for apprenticeships, those work well when the knowledge of the field doesn’t change, or changes only very slowly. Today, however, knowledge of even the traditional blue collar jobs changes very rapidly indeed. There’s new equipment and tools and materials every year. And someone who apprenticed under an old fashioned master/mistress would not be able to find much work, nor would s/he be able to go to college, as s/he wouldn’t have a high school diploma.
Yes, the state governments see school budgets, especially extracurricular activities and elective subjects, as pure expense on the short term bottom line, with very few exceptions. I live in Texas, and we’ve always had to buy and bring in school supplies, and always had to pay school fees. However, there’s always room in the budget for football and other sports. Not necessarily PE, but there’s always money for sports.
Yes, in our area school budgets have been slashed like crazy. Mainly because the state budget overall had to be slashed, because tax revenue is way, way down, because of the Great Recession.