Five Ways to Fix America’s Schools

[groovedaddy]

AMERICAN education was once the best in the world. But today, our private and public universities are losing their competitive edge to foreign institutions, they are losing the advertising wars to for-profit colleges and they are losing control over their own admissions because of an ill-conceived ranking system. With the recession causing big state budget cuts, the situation in higher education has turned critical. Here are a few radical ideas to improve matters:

Raise the age of compulsory education. Twenty-six states require children to attend school until age 16, the rest until 17 or 18, but we should ensure that all children stay in school until age 19. Simply completing high school no longer provides students with an education sufficient for them to compete in the 21st-century economy. So every child should receive a year of post-secondary education.

The benefits of an extra year of schooling are beyond question: high school graduates can earn more than dropouts, have better health, more stable lives and a longer life expectancy. College graduates do even better. Just as we are moving toward a longer school day (where is it written that learning should end at 3 p.m.?) and a longer school year (does anyone really believe pupils need a three-month summer vacation?), so we should move to a longer school career.

President Obama recently embraced the possibility of extending public education for a year after high school: “I ask every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training.” He suggested that this compulsory post-secondary education could be in a “community college or a four-year school; vocational training or an apprenticeship.” (I helped start an accredited online school of education, and firmly believe that the coursework could also be delivered to students online.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/08/opinion/08levy.html?th&emc=th

[Rabrrrrrr]

1. And keep all Republicans and religious fundamentalists a million miles away from it

[lk9550]

6. Agreed

Keep the barbarians out.

[Reader Rabbit]

2. Geez, I disagree with just about everything in that article.

I'm about as pro-education as a person can get, but the "compulsory" part is ridiculous. American schools are already full of kids who don't want to be there. Forcing them to attend even more will somehow help?

Gah!

[RaleighNCDUer]

5. i disagree with the 'compulsory' part of it, but OTOH I don't believe

that kids drop out because they 'don't want to be there' - they drop out because they are not getting what they need, and what they need varies by the kid. Some need more structure; some need less structure. Some need to be able to keep up with the pack; some need to be able to forge ahead. Some need knowledge for its own sake; some need to just get a job.

Our 'one size fits all' system alienates both low achievers and high achievers. It does not accommodate the socially inept, and refuses to challenge those who see school as a social organization first and educational system second.

I think we need to 1) double the number of teachers, and improve their pay scales; 2) provide education counselors who can help kids design their own curriculum from 7th grade on; 3) keep secondary education compulsory, while allowing the student a LOT of leeway in what paths they pursue; 4) provide free post-secondary education for two years - redeemable at ANY point within ten years of graduating HS, allowing kids to spend time just working, exploring the world, and coming to understand how necessary post-secondary education is - this post-secondary education can be fulfilled at any community college, trade school, or 4-year institution.

[proud2BlibKansan]

22. And that's the only part I agree with

I have lobbied to raise the dropout age as long as I have been in this business. How dare we tell kids school isn't important and they can drop out at 16! It's incredibly irresponsible.

[Cresent City Kid]

3. My issue has always been the localized funding

The way we fund education locks in economic imbalance. Rich neighborhoods get better schools than poor neighborhoods. This is heavily pronounced in the New Orleans area where I grew up. The suburbs of Jefferson Parish have decent schools, while the schools in the City of New Orleans are notoriously inadequate.

Why doesn't every child in America have the same amount of school funding? How does a five year old "deserve" a worse school by virtue of being born poor?

[noamnety]

4. That's the number one thing I would change.

We start with a system that is based on inequity, and then scratch our heads wondering why standardized tests show students in low income areas aren't receiving an equitable education.

[LWolf]

7. How many ways can I disagree with these "5 ways?"

Since your post did not list them:

1. Stay in school longer. This is the least problematic, but it doesn't address any of our problems. I suggest that a universal, public, pre-school - college or trade school system would keep everyone who wants to be educated in school longer.

2. High pressure tactics to curb truancy: more high stakes? More top-down, authoritarian threats are going to "fix" something? Bullshit. Authoritarian mandates, threats, and punishments are at least half of the problems we've already got.

3. Advertise to encourage college enrollment. Right. We need PR and advertising campaigns to get people to want to go to college. I've got a better idea. Make college affordable (see # 1) and quit outsourcing jobs so that grads can look forward to using their education, and we'll have plenty of applicants.

4. Reform college accreditation...this one may or may not have merit, but does nothing to "fix" education. It does not address any real problems.

5. "Produce more qualified applicants.." wtf? This circular argument goes nowhere. If we "fixed" education, we'd have more qualified applicants. This 5th way to "fix education" is to "fix education." :eyes:

What a collection of....nothing much.

Here are 5 things we could do to "fix" education:

1. Retire the "standards and accountability" movement and all of the policy it has produced, forever.

2. Kick the de-regulators to the curb....permanently.

3. Fully fund schools. Novel idea.

4. Fund what we know works to reach failing students: small schools, class size reduction, abundant support staff and resources. Add social services to all schools to ensure that all students are well-fed, well-clothes, well-supplied, and have the health care that they need.

5. Invest heavily in a strong, multi-stranded safety net that will eradicate poverty from the U.S..

[Dinger]

12. Geez LWolf, You Should Replace duncan

Awesome post my dear!:fistbump: :headbang: :yourock: :applause:

[LWolf]

13. Why thank you!

I'd take ANY teacher over Duncan, any day.

But then, you knew that. ;)

[teacher gal]

18. I'll second that.. n/t

[AdHocSolver]

16. Great post! The problem is all the so-called experts who don't know what they are talking about.

I found this to be true in the corporate world as well. The people who are put in charge, or who are brought in as consultants at the top bureaucratic level, are in almost all cases technically incompetent.

The people down in the trenches know what the problems are, and some even come up with plausible solutions, but the dominant activity is to maintain the pecking order at all costs. Real solutions are ignored in favor of half-baked schemes like No Child Left Behind.

Another reason for problems in education is the politicization of school systems. Any attempts to upgrade a school brings out a horde of right wingers and/or old geezers to fight allocating any money for education. The children of the old geezers have graduated and the oldsters don't want any of their tax dollars used to educate someone else's children.

[jdross5]

8. Education should be top priority!

Education needs gigantic and monumental changes, when education cost the government lots of money and nothing for its citizens. Education should be a top priority!

Watch the episode, “Six Meeting Before Lunch,” from the TV series West Wing. The character Sam Seaborn gives a great explanation about public education and school vouchers!

[YvonneCa]

9. I'd turn the TV off, if I were...

..you. Welcome to DU. :)

[jdross5]

11. Some TV is good...

I think what the show was trying to get across in that episode is right on the money. Why shouldn't education be a top priority? Why shouldn't education be free to the citizens, while the government is spending a good amount of money ensuring our future generations can effectively run the country?

My personal opinion, education needs to be the foundation for our country!

[earthside]

10. Five Ways to Wreck Our Schools

Harold Levy calls his suggestions to improve public and higher education "radical" -- but that is a laughable description because his proposals are reactionary and clearly meant to perpetuate the current system and its failures -- because, we suspect, that is good for business.

He wants kids to be in school longer ... add pre-kindergarten to an extra year at the end, from twelve years to as much as fourteen years in public school. For what? The public schools cannot get the job done now and giving them more time to practice the same old pedagogical theories on the students won't change any outcomes -- but another year or two will necessitate even bigger budgets for the system, get the idea? Furthermore, self-perpetuating failure is guaranteed with this "improvement". Imagine the drop-out rate with an added year of one-size-fits-all curriculum and more standards based testing. Except for the very subservient and very compliant, what self-respecting kid wouldn't want to quit?

Levy wants even stronger, sales-marketing-based measures to force reluctant kids into the plastic and metal chairs at the schools. Instead of asking the profound, but obvious questions of why kids won't come to school, this guy apparently thinks sophisticated threats and fearmongering will end truancy; it sounds like something emanating from a dark 'Ministry of Propaganda and Education'.

The remaining three of Levy's suggestions are all geared towards what has become the mantra of the schooling cadre in government these days: everyone goes to college. The latest 'education' craze is to sound lofty and idealistic and propose stuffing every young person in America into one ridged box, everyone the same, everyone with the same end results, everyone in debt up to their eyeballs from paying taxes to public schools and with college student loans. It's a great deal for the education-industrial-complex, but if individuality, freedom, intellectual curiosity, making a living doing something you like, if honest labor or craftsmanship are of importance to you, as a person, well, you're out of luck.

Because the public school system has been so dumbed-down that a fundamental education cannot be acquired in twelve years, the taxing and spending now has to go on and on and on. And then, at the end, the results is a docile, allegedly college educated, under-paid consumer working at a service job with no time left at the end of the day to participate in civic or political affairs. Education and learning as a quality of life endeavor is never, never part of the current schooling establishment's agenda.

Levy's ideas should be rejected and it is also time to start agitating for an end to the whole national standards and testing mania that is increasingly being seen by parents and teaching teachers as a failure.

[Progressivism]

14. I believe school should be non-compulsory and be more open/available.

The school system would lose a lot of its problems if education was non-compulsory. Students would likely have a more positive attitude to schooling if it wasn't forced on them; particularly young children in fact, probably react negatively to anything forced on them. I hypothesize that children would develop a curiosity for what lies inside our public schools if we give them some time out of it. Children who do not attend school may in fact develop a want for them sometime in adulthood,thus, we should create a more open public school system that is not restricted to older human beings.

[earthside]

15. John Taylor Gatto

Read any and all of his books on education.

[groovedaddy]

17. I'm a big JTG fan. He knows of whence he speaks (and writes)! n.t

[FBaggins]

25. I am as well... but it raised a question.

I don't think that he would think much of the OP... and you posted it. Can you clear that up for me?

[downeyr]

21. Fucking thank you! nt

[YellowdogIam]

19. Hold teachers to a higher level in grammar

How do you expect your child to get a quality education when some teachers themselves have and use atrocious grammar?
It's unacceptable to me that any teacher of children cannot make the effort to speak and use proper grammar..
The English language is going down the tube with a quickness and it's an insult to every tax payer.. we, and especially our children, deserve better

[proud2BlibKansan]

23. Let's start by fixing the grammar in your title!

:rofl:

[PVnRT]

24. With a quickness?

Is our children learning?

[ffellini7080]

20. One thing to do that's really important

Tell the fundies/RWers to f_ck off completely.