What would you do to improve the public school system?

Question

What ideas do you have to improve our public schools, from pre-K through high school? I'd like to hear from parents, teachers, and students alike. What things do you like about the public schools and what should we change?

Answer 1

for the students i would have them play a huge part in the making of the rules. if you make a rule then you are least likely to break it.
teacher pay raise!!!! they are our future, we depend on them to teach our children.
hire students for painting, cleaning and odd jobs around the school.
again, have the students play a part in the planning of the menu. they will eat what they order. (within means)
each grade- i would like to have each students parents have to volunteer a day of sub teaching. this would help with the budget and give the parents a taste of what it is like to teach. (exclude parents that are teachers already).
network with restaurants and get discounts for teachers weekend outings for meals.

Answer 2

the biggest problem with American schools is the lack of discipline. if we could fix the discipline problem, we would see a dramatic improvement in our nation's schools.

first they need to bring back spanking for elementary schools.. teachers also need more support for discipline in junior high and high school.. more homework and more severe consequences for kids who don't do their homework.. there should be zero tolerance for disrespect.. the slightest hint of insubordination would be severely punished by suspension, expulsion, etc..

kids who are suspended or expelled would not sit at home and play video games.. there would be organized labor for them to do so they could get an idea of what life is like if they don't have an education.. something like the movie "Holes" but without the corrupt people running the place..

also they should make a high school diploma a prerequisite for getting a driver's license.. this would motivate high school kids to stay in school and it would also ensure we have more responsible drivers on the road..

our country needs to completely change our attitude about education if we want to compete with the rest of the world.. everyone blames the teachers, but teachers have their hands tied.. you put American teachers in foreign schools where they have more discipline and their students would do just fine..

anyone who says it's the teachers fault is out of touch with reality.. the problem is that most of the kids are undisciplined.. so the rich families take their kids out of public schools (where all the 'bad' kids are) and put them into supposedly 'good' schools.. of course those schools are going to be good if they have all the well-behaved kids in them.. which leaves the public schools with all the bad kids.. so while the private school teachers can focus on teaching, the public school teachers have to focus on discipline..

so we can either kick out all the bad kids so that only good kids are left, or we can start cracking down and getting tough on discipline again.. our school's haven't always been bad.. but they started getting bad when they took away teachers' ability to discipline their students.. and then people blame the teachers, as if the teachers suddenly started getting bad at their job.. wake up! the teachers haven't changed.. the situation is what changed.. anyone who doesn't understand this is clearly ignorant about what is actually going on in our nation's schools..

Answer 3

Allow school choice. Competition is what made this country great! Competition betters virtually every industry which is why monopolies are illegal, so why do we allow our government to have a monopoly on the education of our children? Because teachers unions are scared to death that competition, they know the worthless government employees will be canned because they cannot compete (obviously not all teachers are worthless). We are so far behind other nations in education it is laughable because we do not allow for competition is our schools. We send our kids to government schools selected by and ran by the government, if you don't like your government school tough. You can spend thousands and send your kid to private school but the government will keep the thousands of tax dollars it seized from you anyway. Let parents decide where to send their kids and the money follow them, it's called vouchers. Government schools are failing our kids and our nation.

Answer 4

VOUCHERS! Let parents shop for the best schools for their children. Make schools compete. End teacher tenure. Have teacher's raises, bonuses and promotions based on performance. Outlaw teacher's unions. Eliminate waste. Penalize schools that under perform. Reward schools that excel. Lean out the staffing by consolidating or outsourcing clerical and other staffers not directly classroom related.

Allow schools to expel problem students. Problem students to special schools designed to accommodate special needs students. Reinstate reform schools for chronically disruptive or incorrigible students.

Answer 5

I would get rid of Tenure, the Teachers union and the department of education. When they finally find a link between Ritalin and school shootings, I would get rid of that as well. Amphetamines cause depression and eventual madness in our children. It must be stopped.

Other than the horrible practice of segregation, our schools ran well from the inception of the country. Go back to what works.