Public School Changes; What would you do?

In My Humble Opinion
41

I was a huge advocate of this idea back when I was in school about two and a half years ago. I was always one of the smartest kids in the class; hell, I was often the smartest kid in the class. This was evident by age freakin’ two. I thought that I should have been in an accelerated program pretty much from the beginning of my public school education. After I graduated, however, and found myself to be more removed from my experience and the intense emotional reactions that went along with it, I changed my mind.

Some kids are really, really, really high acheivers right from the get-go. Others take some time to warm up. In my district, however, if you’re not in honors biology–or whatever–your freshman year of high school, you have no chance of advancing. My younger sister has over 100% in regular geometry; she got over 100% in regular algebra last year. Since she wasn’t in HONORS algebra, however, she’s not allowed to be in honors geometry. There’s no room for her, even though there’s room for the kids who got Cs in honors algebra and are currently getting Cs in honors geometry. This math division (honors/not-honors) essentially begins in the 4th grade and is based entirely on test scores. I made it. She didn’t. She’s better at math than I am; I just test better. Any system that’s going to separate kids into different tracks that early should either be infalliable or malleable. If it isn’t, it’s just going to hold a lot of kids back.

Other than that, the main change I would make is to change the way that public schools are funded. There’s too big of a difference between school districts. My district lost a lot of good teachers simply because we couldn’t pay what the North Shore (really rich Chicago suburbs area) districts could. If they could get hired there, they were often gone.

I would also increase funding overall of public schools, especially by the federal government–personally, I’d dip into the military budget, but since that’d upset a whole lot of people, I’ll just say that the money can come from SOMEWHERE. I would not increase teacher standards, but I would increase teacher pay. The resulting competition for these now-fairly-cushy jobs would weed out those who aren’t so great. Those with only a BA or BS would be hired, and the school would subsidize the cost of getting a master’s.

Finally, I’d include a life-skills class in middle school (instead of that godawful survey social studies course where we spent approximately seven nanoseconds on each of the social sciences and the rest of the time learning that Gangs Are Bad 4 U) with a section on healthy relationships and healthy social interaction. Nothing brainwashy–bring in a lot of real-life people, have them tell stories, instill the idea that being a dickwad to others is BAD, and letting other people be dickwads to you is ALSO bad. Also include sections on how to balance a checkbook, what debt is, how the legal system works…stuff like that.

42

I wanted to address your sports question as well, JoeBitt. While I’m not into competitive sports myself, I recognize that many students get a lot out of them. There is value to learning teamwork, being physically active, etc. So I wouldn’t cut sports. However, I wouldn’t keep them elevated them above all other extra-curricular activites in the way that they are now. Does anybody remember a pep rally for the debate team? I thought not. If a school had a booster club, I’d want the money to be evenly distributed among sports, chorus, band, theater, etc., not have all the money go to to the blankety-blank football team.

43

You know, Rubystreak, there’s no reason to get snarly. We’re on the same side after all.

As far as testing for teacher skills, I advocate it, because in California, there are two ways to prove subject knowledge competence: tests and hours. I chose to test out of my comptencies in English and Art. All the teachers I know who’ve taken the competency tests are knowledgable, competant, and skilled. Far too large a number of those who only took the requisite number of hours are unknowledgable, incompetant, and unskilled. Currently, the general knowledge test in California, the CBEST is laughable. A well-educated high school sophomore could pass it, but we have a multitude of teachers who pass it by the skin of their teeth on the fifth or sixth try.

As far as I’m concerned, testing should be the only way. It would open the door to people who would make fantastic teachers but haven’t got the college diploma to be let in the doors. It would keep out the degreed seat warmers who can’t string a sentence together, solve for X in an equation, or tell their Manet from their Monet.

I think it would be a great idea to pay for student teachers, and about friggin’ time, at that.

Tests for every myriad skill out there would be too cumbersome. Instead, the teacher would either show proof of their ability (SDAIE lesson plan, anyone?) up front or be willing to be evaluated on that skill before being compensated for it. Teaching is one of the few professions where you don’t get rewarded for learning and doing more. You just get rewarded for hanging around.

There’s no Constitutional mandate for the speed limit either. There is, however, a Federal agency that makes it extremely clear that any state that doesn’t abide by what it likes will get no Federal monies. It can be done, especially considering the kind of money the Federal government hands out to schools. It ought to be done, just so we can avoid fifty jostling, disagreeing standards. (Content, however, should be left up to the local level.)

Currently, high school is becoming useless, for exactly the reasons you’ve stated here. Teachers are consigned to rote instruction, because their classrooms are jam packed with students who possess no greater motivation than to stay concious and out of trouble (and sometimes, not even that much). Why should a kid stay in a class where they know everything the teacher is going to cover? What possible use - other than stroking the teacher’s ego - would that serve? The kid will be more willing to learn from a teacher if they have some say in how fast they get the material and how quickly they can move on to something else.

The reason employers are demanding a college degree is because a high school degree is no longer a guarantee of general education. The skills students should learn in high school often times, aren’t acquired until college. If students were not awarded high school diplomas until they mastered those skills, I can’t think of a single employer who would have a problem with that.

Please show me where I made that assumption, because I’m pretty sure I mentioned they would advised by mentor-teachers. The fact that they haven’t passed a standard would be a fairly good indicator that they needed help in an area. The vast majority of students I work with have a very solid idea of where their strengths and weaknesses lie. Every sixth grader I’ve ever talked to can tell you which class they have the hardest time in, and which class comes the easiest for them.

I don’t see teachers staying until 9 p.m. (I myself make it a rule to head home by 5 p.m., except on those days when the stacks of papers to grade threaten to bury me in an avalanche.) Even with a ratio of 20:1, a once a week meeting averaging fifteen minutes would add up to one hour a school day. Figure that into the teaching schedule and take away the majority of the grading (as students are assessed by standards’ tests), and you’re ahead of the game.

As for attendance, if you can’t stand the thought of kids going to school because their parents tell them to or because they understand that they need a review of the Pythagorean theorem, go ahead and make it mandatory for a certain number of hours per week. Double or triple the paperwork, give the teachers more work to do, and watch the students’ motivation go in the toilet because they have no say in the matter.

You betcha in public school. The reason I’m suggesting these things is because I see some of the weaknesses inherent in the public school system. Students have no choice, teachers have little chance to relate how meaningful learning is to real life, parents feel disenfranchised, and we keep churning out high school graduates with little knowledge, fewer skills, and no idea how they fit into the world around them. (Of course, many of those higher in seniority to me think I’m barking mad.)

44

phouka: I apologize for any “snarly” tone, but I must still respectfully disagree with many of your suggestions.

  1. More testing for teachers: Surely there is a better, more well-rounded, less rote way to find out if teachers are motivated and qualified. More testing, IMO, is NEVER going to be the answer for ANYTHING as abstract as teaching ability. Also, I don’t see how a person could get a Masters degree and not be able to string a sentence together. Sorry.

What about paying teachers to take classes in the summer on literature or education? Now that would keep the skills and interests sharp and would be fun too. More tests? Pffft.

  1. Making school optional and letting kids decide when they need help: This is just going to lead to a lot of drop-outs. Knowing that you need help in a subject area and caring about same are very different animals. Most of them utterly fail to see the point of school (even the most practical classes like Health and Home and Careers) and don’t have the perspective or far-sightedness to understand that there are some esoteric facts, concepts, and ideas that will make their lives a whole lot better in the future.

Plenty of kids, even with the legal mandate, parental requirement, and the need for a degree in order to get a job, do not attend school on a regular basis. Relaxing these standards isn’t going to help anything. Making school more interesting, relevant, contextualized, and integrated with real life, instructed by talented, motivated, well-paid individuals and run by enlightened administrators who really care about kids, is the answer, not optional school.

  1. I fundamentally believe that most worthwhile concepts need to be taught. I reject the idea that most kids could just test right out of their high school classes; hell, most of them can’t get an A even with instruction, some of them even if they’re paying full atttention.

For example, I don’t think that most people can just learn how to understand and enjoy Shakespeare at 12 or 15 by picking it up on their own. They need the tools I can give them, along with the discussions and the explanations, to aid them in their exploration of the text; they can take those tools with them not only into future English classes but into life, where they may have to decipher other difficult texts (like a tax form). I know stuff about Hamlet that they are unlikely to find in any book they’d pick off the shelf because I did original research on it in grad school and can tell them stuff that is both interesting (nay, even scandalous), engaging, and enlightening.

We may just have to agree to disagree.

45

I got out of teaching because of some of the idiocrocy that has been suggested.

Remove sports in an age when most middle school children can’t even run around the track one time. Children are the most over weight of any country.

As far as problem children… Many children and their parents have no respect for themselves and no respect for authority. They learn this from their parents. Had a father once threaten to shot me after disciplining his son. This is society, Wifes don’t respect their husband, husbands don’t respect their wives, neither respect their vows, children don’t respect either one. I believe this happened in the age of “equality”. Were really equal now?!

I agree with smaller class size as the way to better teaching and learning. Children, even the smart ones, are starved for attention. Parents are soooo busy that they don’t spend true quality time with their children. Parents are so stretched, especially when you concider 49% of them are single, that they don’t regularlly spend time with their children. (I am not blaming the parents here but some of them truely need to improve their parenting skills)

How do we pay for smaller class size? Reduce the pay and numbers of administrators. I feel most schools are over-monitored. But their would have to be backing by the nation because every business is seeing that more requirments are being made and more monitoring. Change this, improve that because it no longer meets safety standard or to pay off some writers of text books that put more pages in the book, that you could never possibly have time to teach in one school year. Test the kids to death because some administrator is trying to get his PhD and has developed some new test.

As far as gifted classes, special classes, drop outs etc. Has no one ever heard of monosory schools? If you want to learn at your own pace and have the many, many opportunities and options of classes, it will not quickly happen in the public schools. Lack of money, resources and time.

I think the bottom line is not just in the public schools but in the nation. It’s all about quality. It’s hard to find. Kind of like that one caring, great, smart teacher; hard to find. Teachers are getting very burnt out, not because they don’t care but the administration makes it impossible to care. Teachers just don’t have the time to do it any more and when they do, they are penalized in some way for getting involved.

It’s sad, but if I could afford it, I would home school my own children.

46

I recently read a suggestion I think would be very helpful in dealing with student disciplinary issues; establish a disciplinary panel run by parents. The school administration would refer disciplinary problems to this panel, which would have fairly wide ranging powers to reassign classes and impose suspensions. As parents, the panel members would not automatically rubber stamp the school’s recommendations. But as parents of other students, the panel would not want to see disciplinary problems going unchecked. This would hopefully reduce the amount of trouble school administrators have in dealing with problem students and their parents.

47

While that’s interesting, I fear that it may become politicized, especially in small towns where everyone knows each other–or at least knows each other’s reputation. I’d rather see a board of parents and admin/teachers, which may better provide a system of checks and balances.

48

Don’t forget the teachers and administrators live in the same small town as the parents (and in many cases are themselves parents of students as well as school employees). If politics enter the situation, they’re not immune. My suggestion would hopefuly inject a level of community standards inot the disciplinary process and create a group that would be equally able to say “the school is not doing its job here” and “your kid is a trouble maker and doesn’t belong here”.

49

A slight hijack for those who think schools should start later in the day: Why? Of course nobody wants to get up early and no-one’s in the mood for French class at 9:00 in the morning. I don’t see your point. I’m not in the mood to answer the phone at 8:00 in the morning; unfortunately, that’s my job. You have to do things you’re not in the mood for sometimes.

50

What will the situation be when it’s “Oh, my kid’s best friend is a trouble maker” vs. “That kid my kid dislikes is a trouble maker” or even “Wait a minute. My kid’s a trouble maker?”

What about this: a group of parents serves as a disciplinary board for a nearby school system, not the system their children attend. That may ensure that the parents have a more objective and unbiased view than would parents involved with the system–or the admin.

51

It’s wonderful to see so many creative ideas. One suggestion: Whether you currently have children in school or not, try getting involved in your local schools and put some of your ideas forward. Or find out about the people who are in charge and see if you can influence them and help out the ones who are sympathetic to your ideas.

Don’t know about other states, but here in NJ the school boards are elected. The turnout is usually abysmal. People in my town get elected to the board easily with less than a thousand votes, and often the margin of “victory” is a mere handful. And this is a fairly large school district with about a dozen schools. Ironically, a lot of people complain bitterly about taxes and “young people today,” yet the one tax they can have a lot of influence on is controlled by the school board, which they don’t even bother to vote for.

52

But it’s your job. Chances are, you knew the hours when you signed on. If you don’t like the hours, you can change positions or quit. I took a job where I had to get up at 4am (and it sucked), but I knew the hours in advance.

Kids don’t have the same choice. They can’t quit or change “jobs” when school makes them get up before God.

Is there any good reason why school starts so early?

53

GMRyujin: I think school starts early for the convenience of parents. They can get their kids to school by 7:45 and still get to work by 8 or 9. In my district, we have an early middle school (mine, unfortunately) which starts at 7:55, and a late one that starts an hour later and ends an hour later.

Dung Beetle: It is an actual, scientific fact that teens need more sleep than adults, upward of 9 hours per night, unlike adults, who need about 8. That’s not laziness, it’s body chemistry. It’s also natural for them to want to go to bed later (11pm or after) and sleep later in the morning. Thus, getting up at 8am and being to school at 9 would be far more salutary for them than the current norm.

As they get older, people apparently will naturally want to go to bed a bit earlier, and needing only 8 hours of sleep, will be able to get up earlier and function. It’s really not fair to expect teens to keep a schedule that is actually, biologically bad for them. It also happens to be bad for me, so I heartily sympathize with them on this one.

Some cites for the cite-happy:

http://www.parent-teen.com/yourbody/sleep.html

http://www.stnicholashospital.org/newsweekly_teens_sleep.htm

http://content.health.msn.com/content/article/28/1728_61805.htm?printing=true

54

Hmmm. So we start later and expand bus service. Or we offer some morning “to do” stuff, like a quiet room for studying/napping, open the gym for athletics and whatnot. Or, since some people will be going to class later under my system, teams could have their practices in the morning. Though I know the prospect of unsupervised teens is a horror for some and may be reason enough to nix my idea.

55

I just have to say, Rubystreak, that I LOVE the idea of funded and researched Year Off. God, if I could’ve gotten that, I would’ve gone to, I dunno, Italy to study archaeology. Or tried to find an apprentiship with a prominant reptile breeder. GOD that would’ve been wonderful.

Anyway, back to the point at hand.

I graduated in 2001, so the HS experience is still fairly fresh in my mind, as is all the things that I wish had been taught in HS

sidenote: sorry for typos, but it’s really cold in my apt and my hands are numb.

Anyway. What I disliked about HS while I was in it:

Some of my teachers seemed like they knew how to teach, but didn’t know the subject they taught. Y’know the type - hafta look in the answer key to know the right answer. Infuriating. And they expect US to know?

Pep rallies. They took away valuable learning time for us to go cheer on some jocks and watch inane cheerleading. And I regularly got yelled at for reading during the rally. We had to Pay Attention. I started skipping them, and the rest of the day.

Sports Funding: We’d get a shiney new football stadium while the theatre kids had a crappy stage. Or the band kids had only a small room to practice in. Or the art dept was out of things, and the teachers regularly had to buy paint. My astronomy class only had a telescope because Wal-Mart donated a defective one. Took away from other peoples’ passions just because football is flashier.

Expelling due to absense: I never understood how this worked. A kid doesn’t come to school because s/he doesn’t want to. Then you tell him/her that s/he CAN’T come to school. That’s punishment how?

Early starting hours: A lot of people I knew (including myself) worked during HS. On a typical day my senior year, I worked 4:30p-midnight. Then I’d have to go home, do HW, and get 4 hours of sleep before school. Aaaaarg.

Counselors that sucked: Despite having all my papers from the school I transfered from, they didn’t know I had gottn a credit of Agebra in Middle School. But I had HS credit for Algebra 2 from my Freshman year. Hmmm. Also, I had to have SEVERAL conversations with my counselor before I found out about Credits By Exam (which I only found out about via crying about how I was worried I wouldn’t graduate). Due to the lateness of knowing this, it was almost too late for me to take the tests, and I had to pay extra to get them rush graded in order for me to graduate (there went my tax refund for that year). I also never knew about the Success program, where students went to a different school (by choice) where they only had to be there 3 hours a day (any hours you wanted to), and worked at your own pace. I had a Work At Your Own Pace during a Chem class, and I LOVED it. I would’ve gone there in a heartbeat, had I known about it. The Cody went there for his last semester, and did ALL of his work for all of his classes in 3 weeks, graduating early. An ex-gf of mine went there and graduated half a year early. But no one ever told me about it.

Equal Enforement of Dress Code: I got my trench coat confiscated 3 times in HS, while I was surrounded by a bunch of girl wearing skin/belly/ass baring tight clothes. Also, the Cheerleader uniforms didn’t even pretend to follow dress code (tight, straps that were only about 1" wide, and short skirts, all of which was against dress code). Not really a way to make school better, just a way for those of us who didn’t dress like sluts to not feel singled out, heh.

Smaller Class sizes: My Philosophy class had 14 students. A WONDERFUL class size. But because it was an optional with only 14 kids per semester, they were going to cancel it. WTF? I wish my classes had all been that size! I got so much more teacher interaction, and I didn’t feel like I was holding up the entire class for asking a question (like I did in my Psychology class or 40 students - who were crammed in like sardines).

Ahem. Post HS wishes:

I wish the following had been mandatory class:
Auto repair (how to fix/change a flat tire, change oil, change WIPERS, even. I mean, even changing the brakes on a car is easy),
resume writing/interviewing (a skill I still barely know. Lots of anxiety),
The Wide World of Credit (I’m 20 and still have no idea how credit works. Have no credit card, no hope of getting a loan for anything. How do I get vredit? I dunno!),
Taxes (1040 still perplexes me, but I’m bad at math. The Cody does my taxes),
Child Care (exactly what it means to be pregnant and a mother),
Home Repair (how to use a hammer. How to fix a leaky sink, unclog a drain, fix a running toilet, how to build a bookshelf, basic crap)
and some other things I can’t recall off the top of my head.

I know there are a lot of schools that offer some of these courses, but I can honestly say that I think life in the Real World would have been easier if I’d’ve had to take these classes instead of 4 years of German and a year of PreCalc. Save the advanced courses for College, or make them optional. I don’t NEED to know Calc for Real Life, but I really could’ve used How to Fix My Car or How to get Credit.

Y’know?

56

I know it seems pretty hard to reduce school size, as NinjaChick said, but it simply MUST be done. This is not exclusively and directly for the students’ benefit, either. You’re average large high school is an administrative and bureacratic disaster. Principals, vice-principals, office managers, dog-walkers, and so on and so forth. Most schools are inefficient to a degree disproportionate to the sounds. There are far too many administrative and organizational tasks to handle when the population gets to a certain point. I believe it “clogs the works” to a degree that can be a great hindrance to the actual learning that’s supposed to be going on. I suspect that if a school with a student population of 1,200 were to be broken up into three schools of 400 students each (perhaps within the same building, even) that the total administrative workload and postions would be less between the three schools than it was for just the one. This is not to say that there aren’t some excellent and well-organized large schools out there, but I think they are the minority. Quite simply, administration and politics are a blight on education if they are any more present than necessary.

My school, for an example, has a population of some 360 students and about 50 permanent faculty. Out this we have, let’s see…

1 principal, 1 school manager, 3 office folks that do all the work associated with that, 1 business manager, 1 building manager/custodian, another custodian, 2 counselors (one actually more of an academics counselor), 1 guidance counselor (for college stuff)… perhaps one to three others. Everyone else is a teacher. Most of those listed above are actually teachers as well, who have since moved onto other things. Back in the day, however, when this school was just starting out it was not unknown for the school manager or principal to teach classes. That is no longer practical. A principal really is occuppied with their very important administrative work - but I strongly believe that anyone who becomes a principal MUST be a teacher as well.

I also neglected to mention the 2-3 permanent faculty in our Teacher’s Center, which is semi-autonomous in any case, being more concerned with work with other schools, student teachers, and the Coalition of Essential Schools and other such organizations.

This all works for a number of reasons:

Teachers “wear more hats.” Teachers are more responsible for their own clerical work and organization, not to mention curriculum planning, which is done as a divisional team. Needless to say, this would prove fairly overwhelming except…

Upper-class students are required to do a certain amount of service to the community. This can include classroom assistance, running off copies for teachers, putting up artwork in the hallways, cutting paper, doing custodial service or any number of odd jobs that need to get done. The importance of this cannot be overstated. Not only is it beneficial in terms of fostering a spirit of community and altruism, but it truly frees up tremendous amounts of time and energy that could better be spent… teaching!

Finally, there is community/parental involvement. This is also very significant. Parents help out in the library, substitute in classes, help organize trips and fundraisers and otherwise do just about anything you could imagine. Why am I wasting so much breath? What really makes a difference is people being invested. That’s what makes it work.

Also, regarding class size: ideally, there would be about one teacher to every twelve students or so. This was my school’s goal at the beginning - team teaching in classes of about 25 students. Unfortunately, this is not practical across all levels, due in large part to a lack of personnel. So we make do with team teaching at the levels and in the classes where we believe it is most important, while upper-classes (grades 11-12) are, as a rule, not team taught, though there are exceptions. The point still holds, of course - more teachers to the same number of students is to be strongly encouraged.

57

1: Make that “YOUR average high school” :smack:

2:

See, this is exactly what’s wrong with school today - 14 kids is considered to be too little interest, too few students for a class. Hello! That kind of class size is an incredible and rare opportunity. Those students are amazingly fortunate. Education today…

[sub]Of course, it is an improvement over the days when you had one teacher to instruct students from kindergarterten up through sixth grade or higher… those were the bad old days, for sure…[/sub]

58

And Philosphy was a wonderful class, too. My teacher loved Philosophy, and only taught World History because there wasn’t enough of a demand for Phil. Last I heard, he told me that if they cancelled Phil, he’s quit. Even tho he wasn’t as excited about WH as Phil, he was still an excellent teacher. One of my two favs. Could answer and bizare questions we had about history. He may not have loved it, but by god, he KNEW it. And they might (or may have, I haven’t been ther since I moved away) lose him. Sigh.

59

Large schools may have more of an administrative workload than there would be in a few smaller schools serving the same population, but being a graduate of a very large high school (4000+ students), I see some advantages to size. When it came time each quarter to sign up for classes, there were a lot of choices. Five or ten options for English or social studies in each grade, five languages offered, fifteen or twenty gym options, three levels of required math and science courses, optional math and science courses etc. My daughter attends a much smaller school ( under 500 students) The course catalog consists of English 9,10,11 and then there is a choice between two courses for one semester of 12 grade. Social studies, math and science are essentially the same. There are no options at all for gym, and only two languages are offered.

There were different groups in my school, of course. And some students picked on other students. But there weren’t any outcasts.

60

Yeah, it’s no good for me either. Thanks for answering my question, Rubystreak & GMRyujin.