In my state, I’d settle for an admendment to the state constitution saying that no legislator could be currently employed by the state. In Alabama, 1/3 of the legislature is comprised of individuals that are supposedly teaching or administering schools. (How they do that and show up to vote at the same time is somewhat of a mystery.) No money can go to public schools without equal subsidies for college education and administration nonsense. Despite what the MSM will tell you, *that* is why Alabamians routinely squash tax hikes to “fund education”. We know that the money will do no such thing.

I don’t want the legislators to push learning. I want them to get out of the way.

As a former teacher I can say the Public Educational System is SUPERB in doing what the voters want it to do:

BABYSIT their kids, not educate them.

In Singapore the rather Authoritarian government does not cater to voters (through elected School Boards and State Legislatures) desire for keeping controversy, risk, challenges, and standards that are required for learning to occur.

Instead, in truly massive school districts hundreds of thousands of kids are successfully baby-sat with as little controversy as possible.

Teachers are evaluated on: discipline and how well-behaved their students are, performance on standardized tests, numbers of students in their classes (critical issue for teachers with electives) and extra-curricular activities aka extra baby-sitting.

Result: teachers respond to incentives and meet the baby-sitting standards, teach to standardized tests and provide “infotainment” to keep elective head count numbers up.

State Ed code is about five feet high; result of Legislators being rewarded for mandating educational policy to the minutae; school boards want most of all to avoid any controversy and don’t care if students learn nothing because neither do VOTERS.

If voters rewarded Legislators and School Board Members who pushed true learning and punished baby sitting you’d get results like Singapore. Instead we get babysitting because Voters reward it.

Villaraigosa is like Canute. Riordan tried the same thing, failed there too IIRC.

I’m not a “math person”, but I do have a son entering 1st grade, and it’s become one of my favorite sites.

I have always considered myself a born teacher — it is what I love doing. Yet I have never sought employment as a teacher in the United States — at least never in the public schools.

Why?

1) “Look for the Union Label.” I have never felt the slightest sympathy with unions in my life. I think I should be paid (or not paid) depending on my own merit and contributions. But the public schools in America are a Union Shop.

2) Inability to flunk students. I’m not quite sure when this came in, but it’s obviously ridiculous — as is the entire dishonest grading “system” promoted and protected by the Union Shop. EVERYONE GRADUATES AT AGE EIGHTEEN, whether or not they have learned anything!

3) Totally inadequate classroom discipline. Let me describe adequate classroom discipline first: the teacher teaches his class, and controls it, unless and until a Major Infraction occurs. When such a Major Infraction occurs, the offending student is sent off to the Boys’ Dean — and the student passes out of the teacher’s concern. THIS IS CRITICAL. Society needs policemen. And so do schools.

4) Complete lack of respect for teachers in America. O, I know, I know: Americans are always TALKING about how much they respect education, but they don’t walk the walk. How many Americans read books which are anything more than simple entertainment? How many Americans regard serious readers as anything more than fools? In fact, when Americans tell you that they have “signed up for a course,” you can bet good money that the “course” is something like “Holistic Yoga” that requires no brain power at all. And when such people (programmers, lawyers, etc.) meet actual, REAL teachers on a social occasion, the reaction of the movers and shakers is always CONTEMPT. “Oh, you couldn’t qualify for a better job?”

But we really admire education! We just TOTALLY DISREPECT anything connected with real mental learning!

Why should I spend even ten minutes serving such idiots?

I’d say that is a symptom rather than the disease–though now the symptom itself certainly causes massive problems. When a school can’t educate, it starts looking for other reasons to justify itself.

“The fact that “Mom” is no longer there (has to be a part of the two-parent income-generator of our consumer society) to volunteer in the school and enforce teacher, and cultural standards during non-school hours, has been very detrimental.”

I don’t see that as a problem at all. When we were mostly an agrarian society, Mom and Dad were home, but neither one had any time to spend at school. The non-school hours thing is a mitigating factor, but not as big as teachers like to pretend. (A kid with a bad home life needs a *better* education, not excuses for why his home line prevents one. A kid with a good home life might get a good education at home despite the school, but that is hardly a ringing endorsement of the school.)

That said, the best suggestion that I’ve ever seen for taking best advantage of community support is to build the senior citizens center into the school. A school that isn’t threatened by “smart people without certs” helping educate can get a tremendous amount of milage out of those volunteers. Kids visiting with the seniors that need help the other way is very educational for the kids as well.

I went to Loyola High myself, as does (I guess) His Honor’s son. One of the reasons that it still is the best Catholic high school is that it’s run by the Jesuit Order. The Jesuits don’t particularly subscribe to the latest fashions in education and political theory but teach a classical education. Four years of Latin was mandatory when I was there…and the student body was frankly divided into classrooms based on ability.
This recognition of varying abilities, plus challenging everyone to excell as best they can is in stark contrast to modern public education. Perhaps the good fathers are on to something.
Now – I am a retread in education. After Caltech, Harvard and industry I returned to education in my late fifties. I started as a substitute teacher in science and mathematics, found I liked it, and spent something on the order of fifteen thousand to finish education courses, take Praxis exams, finally getting certification to teach chemistry, physics, and mathemtaics 7-12 in Pennsylvania.
Sounds good, eh?
Try to find a permanent job at my age…the two public schools for whom I had been substituting turned me down when I applied for a permanent job.
One told me I was “judgmental” because I graded homework and laboratories. I was “insensitive to special needs” because I gave homework in the first place, not to mention “hard tests”.
The other joint – I had a full year as a permanent substitute – called me a trouble maker. I noticed that they were using the 8th edition of a text that was in its tenth edition and wondered why. The Science Department Chairwoman explained that none of the other teachers wanted to change their lesson plans (the 10th edition was revised upward in content) and besides “the kids are too stupid to teach this stuff”.
I might add that the permanent staff was either too lazy or too stupid to learn the material themselves.
So I went and found a job teaching at a cyber charter school as the one-man chemistry department. Day and Night Difference.
1) I teach the course that I can. We have three flavors – Basic (no math), Regular, and AP Chemistry. The Regular uses the tenth edition I referred to above. AP text is an introductory college text (my son used an earlier edition at Penn State).
2) Kids are hard working, knowing that Good Ole Charlie gives hard tests and homework and does no hesitate to flunk them. Incentive driven, eh?
3) Everyone – the parents especially – are pleased by the results.
And so what happens? We are now atttracting bright kids from normal public schools. The teacher’s union is lobbying the legislature to shut down ALL charter schools in Pennsylvania. They hate us with a passion…we are showing them up.
Governor Rendell (Democrat…what else did you expect?) is trying his best to satisfy the union’s demands. The Legislature – Republican controlled – are for us. All the educational establishment – teacher’s colleges and administrators are against charter schools…we disprove their smug assumptions.
One last world: when I was hired, I was told that the school policy is to “no longer require the services of the bottom tenth of the faculty”. The remainder get bonuses ranging up to 15% of their yearly salary (base salary is competitive with non-charter public schools).
My bonus was near the max…
Just a few thoughts…time to go back and re-write some lessons I’m not happy with.

And to influence the teachers’ unions with their millions in PAC donatiobns.

“Let’s talk, if you are so courageous, give me an email address I can reply to.”

Is there something wrong with a public forum, or can you only be “courageous” in private?

If your thoughts have weight, they will stand up here. If they don’t, they won’t accomplish anything in a private email.

Here in Indiana I know several people who send their children to Christian schools. I was very suspicious of this for awhile, but it seems the kids test well.

But maybe that it part of the problem too, we test too much and we tend to educate for the test, not life.