How can we improve public schools in the U.S.?

Answer 1

By making them nonconformist, and allowing free speech even if the admins don't agree. Teach freedom and respect for all. Show them how to do things the correct way not the goverments way. Give them a reason to learn.

Answer 2

Better, more firm, discipline policies.
Kids get in trouble and there are no real consequences. I am a High School teacher and I have sent kids out for suspension and they have been back before the period is over. By law, they have a right to be there during the regular year.
That is in the regular year... I just finished summer school where the policy is that if you receive the equivalent of a suspension, you are gone - not coming back to class. These kids knew that and their behavior was very good and nearly all of them passed - as compared to the regular year where I have a 20%+ failure rate and near constant discipline problems.
With a tougher stance on the consequences of poor behavior we may lose a few.. but many more will benefit and succeed.

Competition is NOT the answer... how does the poverty school fairly compete with the upper middle class school? It cannot and will only be the greater loser. Schools are not like business in that way. The social classes will only be more separated.
Standards and standardized testing are fine - set the bar high, we need to - without it things would have even less rigor and expectation.

Answer 3

I have to second the vote on competition. When schools and teachers(same applies to so many other things as well like capitalism) are put in competition with one another then the children come out ahead. The removal of teacher unions and the implementation of schools that are in competition would definitely be the single biggest way to improve public schools.

This isn't about the money either. A alternative charter school in Oakland spends thousands less per student than surrounding public schools yet this school has gone from being among worst(before the changes) to being the best. This school is able to pay it's teachers more, too. Ben Chavis, the school's principle says, "Give me the poor kids, and I will outperform the wealthy kids who live in the hills. And we do it." Furthermore, a study done by Michigan State University said: "The debate over whether to have more choice in the public schools in this country is essentially over. The positive parts of choice are just too powerful."

This method is proven, also. In Europe they are using this approach and when the educations that these students got were compared to American schools, the European students won hands down. In a ABC news article, John Stossel says, "To give you an idea of how competitive American schools are and how U.S. students performed compared with their European counterparts, we gave parts of an international test to some high school students in Belgium and in New Jersey. Belgian kids cleaned the American kids' clocks, and called them "stupid." " We could free up all the money that is wasted on public schools and let the parents vote which school is best for the children with that money.


From a John Stossel(from 20/20) article: " As Nobel Prize-winning economist F.A. Hayek wrote, "[C]ompetition is valuable only because, and so far as, its results are unpredictable and on the whole different from those which anyone has, or could have, deliberately aimed at."

What Hayek means is that no mortal being can imagine what improvements a competitive market would bring.

But I'll try anyway: I bet we'd see cheap and efficient Costco-like schools, virtual schools where you learn at home on your computer, sports schools, music schools, schools that go all year, schools with uniforms, schools that open early and keep kids later, and, who knows what? "

" Every economics textbook says monopolies are bad because they charge high prices for shoddy goods. But it's government that gives us monopolies. So why do we entrust something as important as our children's education to a government monopoly?"

"Instead of pouring more money into the failed government monopoly, let's free parents to control their own education money. Competition is a lot smarter than bureaucrats."

Answer 4

The parents should be more involved. I don't mean just attending a parent teacher conference. But parents should be teaching their OWN children from infancy, instead of expecting some person that has 30 or more other students, to teach, to do the job.

It is not the schools obligation to teach children, it is the schools job to supplement what the parents teach, with the parents doing 90 % or more.

That is one if the biggest reasons schools are failing at teaching. more is put on them, by the parents, than they could ever , ever accomplish.

Most parents, not all, just dump their children in a care system by the time the child is three months, and the same parents, expect someone else to teach their children from that time through college.

Then the parents, see the children no more than going to and from said care. With a bath thrown in for good measure. Many do not back up what was taught by reviewing, or by asking questions.

Many parents come home and plop themselves and their children in front of the TV, and expect what the teacher taught that day to be enough.

Instead of looking to the public to teach the children, parents should be looking at themselves, and seeing what they should be doing.

Answer 5

Home school and vote against levies. Then the schools will have to improve and educate the children well.

Answer 6

Get the government out of it and introduce competition. Although socialist liberals don't believe it, competition always produces better quality goods at lower prices. The current socialist public school system is extremely expensive to the taxpayers and the product (education) is terrible.

Answer 7

i have to agree with doing way with the standardized testing,they aren't learning much. add to the curriculum. end the wasteful spending.

Cora, you appear to be about my age and they discouraged independent thought when i was in school. we do need thinkers though

Answer 8

Allow kids to drop out, whenever, where ever, without parent consent, and without reason. Then only the kids who WANT to be in school, will be in school, the rest will be uneducated hicks/welfare recipients. Gets rid of overcrowding, gets rid of problem children, teachers will WANT to work there, more personal attention.
Also, get rid of free lunches/other free services other then teaching. You go to school to LEARN, not to eat.

Answer 9

Get rid of standardized testing for one. Filling in the bubble does not work. All we are doing is teaching our children how to answer the questions, not think.

Plus, they are only being taught the curriculum that answers those questions. It limits the type and amount of teaching a teacher can do.

Answer 10

raise the educational requirements for being a teacher. for example, every teacher has to get a master's degree.

also, increase teacher pay