what can the government and parents do to address the fallen edu.system in high schools in the inner cities.?

Answer 1

Raze the inner cities.

Answer 2

Implement the voucher system and get the Public Schools competing with the Private Schools. Put all the kids into School Uniforms and increase the school day and decrease class size. Get rid of Teachers that do not produce results and bring in top notch Teachers from Canada, New Zealand, and Australia by offering big salaries.

Answer 3

Vote politicians in or out of office that contributed or will address the problem. Get involved with the shools. Be involved in the children's lives. Care about what their kids do. Make sure homework gets done. Be responsible for their kids and not make the education system responsible. Put power back into the hands of the school administration to punish unruly kids.

Answer 4

What a tough question! I'm a high school teacher myself. I don't know the answer to the problem, but I can give you some insight into some things that I've seen work, and things that I know aren't working which I'll do below. But unfortunately, there isn't ONE thing that needs to be done, but a multitude of things that needs to done to revamp our education system across the board.

At the moment, due to the No Child Left Behind Act, and the years of government control that have led up to that, our children know how to take multiple choice tests, but little else. I wholeheartedly agree with accountability in schools. As with any profession, a teacher needs to be held accountable for their required job. If they aren't doing a good job, then they need to leave or be asked to leave. But judging a teacher by the scores on a multiple choice test are laughable. I had one student who shut down in my class half way through. Gave up entirely. Conferences, discussions, you name it, I tried it - to get her involved in class yet again. There were issues at home, and frankly, as she put it, she didn't have to have the class to graduate, so why fuss over it. Then when the state exam was given, she made pretty pictures on the bubble sheet in ten minutes and turned it in. When scored, she earned an 85. She didn't know the material. She hadn't learned much in my class I'm sorry to say. Yet, the state exam said she was proficient in the course.

So, high stakes, multiple choice tests ARE NOT THE ANSWER!

Part of the problem with inner city or failing schools in general is a lack of leadership. Teachers, like anyone else, want to work in a place that they feel safe, comfortable, and supported. With poor leadership, these are often not in place at the school. This makes it very difficult to recruit top notch teachers. Without committed teachers, students are not going to be successful in class.

What can the government do to help? Well, the idea behind NCLB act is a positive one. Every child can learn, and should be learning in school every day. Schools that aren't performing need assistance. But the NCLB doesn't address how and in what form that assistance should be provided. And every school is different.

What can parents do? Go to your local school board meetings. Find out who your board members are. Write letters. Write public editorials. If you make a big enough stink about it, someone is going to listen eventually. Be your child's main support. If they need to attend a better school, find out your options. Become the parent that administrators hate to see when you walk in the front door. It's amazing in this day and age, but the squeaky wheel still gets the grease the fastest. Take one day off from work and attend classes with your child. Write down everything that happens and everything that you see.

As a nation, we need to make teachers a number one priority. We have a growing teacher shortage. We have to implement programs that bring our best and brightest young college grads into teaching. North Carolina has a program that pays for the college education of students who agree to teach in North Carolina for five years.

Once we get them teaching, we have to keep them there. The greatest turn over for new teachers is within the first three years. New teachers get handed the worst classes, the worst assignments, and the classes the experienced teachers don't want to teach! This isn't the way to encourage our newbies to stay in the teaching field.

If you have a strong administration team at the school, then the school system needs to help by giving incentives to teachers to teach in the low performing schools. It's amazing, but these incentives aren't usually monetarily.

Finally, I would say that we need people making decisions for the education system in America that have actually spent time teaching in a classroom in the public education system - NOT COLLEGE! Unfortunately, most of our public education policy from the local school boards all the way up to the National level are designed and implemented by people who have never taught. It would be like me, a lowly high school teacher, making policy for the Pentagon. While I might get lucky, and could use my common sense and read papers and articles, I'd never know what it was really like inside the Pentagon. As citizens we need to make Education our number one priority. Yes, above and beyond anything else that is on our national agenda. Without a healthy education system across the board, our nation will not be able to compete or even help itself in years to come.

Answer 5

start by putting the blame where it belongs.

I blame parents for misplaced priorities. They procreated children and then dumped them on everyone else and spoiled them on every turn.

I blame government for misplaced priorities. Federal and State spending should illustrate this quite well.

I blame society. It does not want to pay for what it wants.

Answer 6

the goverment can give more money to the schools and the parents can volunter to help the schools