How would you reform public education in America? How would you fund it?

Question

No hidden agenda in this question. It is the big question, educators, politicians, parents and students have been looking for the answer to for decades. We all want public school reform, but how is it actually done. Thought-out rational answers only please.

Answer 1

Stop teaching to the lowest common denominator. There is absolutely no reason for every single person in the US to have a high school diploma. There are bunches of people that just aren't smart enough. I've been fortunate enough to meet most of them.

Stop wasting our money on the untrainable and actually teach to the ones that have the ability and the desire to learn something. The school systems are way too bogged down with this politically correct thinking of "no child left behind". Screw them! Leave the stupid kids behind, you don't need a high school diploma to pick up trash or clean a toilet.

Then maybe a diploma will mean something.

Answer 2

I wouln't reform public education, I would end it. Education would be fully funded and operated by the private sector, which stands to benefit both financially and competitively by getting government out of education. In addition to the tax savings individuals and businesses would experience, they would also be able to deduct gifts to schools, just like they could any other charitable contribution. Families could deduct tuition costs and all other necessary school expenses.

This would create a competitive environment in which the incompetence, inefficiency, inadequacy, and indifference prevalent in many govenment schools would quickly be remedied.

The current system is expensive and very ineffective. All over the country, we continue to turn our backs on a form of violence on children who are required to attend schools where they don't stand a chance of being educated. We should stop trying to fix a model that is hopelessly flawed. We must adopt a new model based on the free market, which will ensure that needed changes and adjustments occur quickly and decisively.

I regret that I don't have the time or space to write more, but I hope to have given you something to think about. Great question.

Answer 3

I would cut the hours of it.
Reduce teachers pay and education requirements so that mothers in the town or handicapped people may have the jobs.
Have more standardized curriculum which changes less so that teachers could actually become good at it.
Way more rote learning.
Less wasted time.
More recess.
Let the kids that are not that smart have a simpler program and the ones who are smarter have a way more challenging one.
Remove computers from classrooms.
Make school completely strict.
Only kids who can sit at a desk and pay attention may stay.
No more lunch/snack buying, though communities may provide local as possible organic vegan food lunch scholarships for the poorest.

Answer 4

1. private school vouchers.
2. having this increases competition.
3. government is not the solution to the problem. each year more and more money is spent and nothing gets better.

The cost of a phone call was 25 cents in 1980. In today's dollars that would be $1.50. Why? AT&T was a monopoly and they were broken up and the rest is history.

We need to force all parents to pay for their own kids education. Doing it with property taxes is wrong. I pay $4300 a year and have a well and septic and take my own garbage to the dump. I have no kids either.

If you have the government out of education, the cost is a fraction. It is done that way in Europe. There is a great 20/20 special on it by John Stossel. I would defer to him.

Answer 5

That's an excellent question. I'm afraid it requires a somewhat lengthy response, however. I hope you're prepared...

To begin with, someone on Yahoo recently asked why "school was so boring." I responded that I could think of several reasons why she might find it boring. Perhaps if we look at these reasons, we'll have part of the answer. Here are some of the reasons I provided:

1. You have little say about what classes you take and what teachers you have.
2. Hormones are racing through your body, and as a result you can think of nothing but video games and the opposite sex.
3. Teachers can't make classes fun or lively because when they do, students get loud and out of control. Since public school systems have such large classes and campuses, they prefer students that are in control rather than students who are interested.
4. Teachers are afraid to teach controversial subjects because they might get fired or slapped with a lawsuit.
5. Classes are geared towards teaching students how to pass standardized tests like the Benchmark rather than towards teaching students to be enthusiastic, curious learners.
6. Each class has a few problem students who just don't want to be there who drag down the pace and attitude of the class.
7. Curriculum is watered down so as not to offend any special interest groups such as fundamentalist Christians.
8. Too much money is spent on sports and extracurricular activities rather than on teachers' salaries, additional assistants' salaries, curriculum, and educational materials.
9. Teachers are so overwhelmed with administrative responsibilities, student discipline issues, constant meetings, paper-grading, and the demands of an increasingly diverse student body that they don't have the time or energy to write interesting lesson plans.
10. Intelligent, enthusiastic teachers who don't want to put up with #9 quit. The turnover rate among new teachers is very high.

Just reading over these common problems brings a few possible solutions to mind:

1. Cut class sizes and school sizes. Not only will this result in significantly less behavioral problems and more direct interaction between teachers and individual students, it will also cut down on teacher burn out. The larger the population of a school is, the more likely students are to feel estranged from authority, which results in significantly worse behavior.

2. Stop spending so much time and money on extracurricular activities. Don't get me wrong; music programs and sports programs are great. But does it make sense for students to spend 3-5 times more time on perfecting their marching routine or defensive rush than on math, English, or science? Not to mention the ridiculous costs of training facilities and uniforms. I heard that the Southlake High School football team (in Texas) has better training facilities than the Dallas Cowboys. I bet their library doesn't get half the funding the football club does.

3. Don't compromise on challenging curriculum in order to please powerful interest groups. Everyone should be taught evolution and sex ed, and everyone should study English grammar, three years of a foreign language, the history of the U.S. constitution (including the politics and philosophy of the 18th century), and how to recognize logical fallacies and dissect rhetoric and propaganda.

4. Offer a challenging alternative to traditional high school for students whose expertise lies in technological fields rather than academic ones. These students should still study most of the above-mentioned subjects, but could probably pass on some of the literature, advanced math, and part of their foreign language requirement.

5. Do not rely on school vouchers or other "solutions" that merely shuffle problems around from one area to another, funneling much needed tax dollars away from the students that most need it and towards private schools who can weed out students with learning disabilities or social problems and thereby give the impression that they are doing a better job than schools with lower ratings, less money, and higher disadvantaged populations are. School vouchers will only result in a larger economic dichotomy between the haves and the have-nots. And let's face it, in a democracy, we cannot afford to leave half of our population uneducated.

Education is the cornerstone of democracy. We must improve education for all, or we will all suffer.

Answer 6

Shift from memorization in the social sciences to a critical thinking based curriculum.

Answer 7

1. Kick out the ACLU
2. Kick out the NEA
3. Reinstate the "board of education"

That's a good start.

Answer 8

Ruth has it pointing in the right way.