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[studentaffairsed]

Each election cycle often brings with it some new flavor of the month to try to repair K-12 education.  I teach a Current Issues in Education course in our education department and I open and close the course with, can compulsory education be appropriately repaired.

"Separation of school and politics"
Until we get politics out of the educational system (and this includes getting rid of every school board as well) we will never be able to wholly reform K-12 education. 

In order to protect the educational "monopoly" many states (including district leaders, politicians, school boards, and even "overly political" teacher unions) make it very difficult to start new private schools by over burdening them with rules and regulations.  It is no wonder to me why there is an incredible increase in the number of homeschooled students in my region.

Additionally we need to change teacher education programs at the college level.  These programs are often disconnected with the issues facing the American education system.  States require "hoops" for new teachers to jump through in the name of "improving standards" but they do not allow for the true change that is needed.

School reform is nothing new.  Even from the first colonial schools in the US, we have been reforming education according to the flavor of the month.  Whether it is the "Old Deluder Satan Act", Outcomes Based Education, Whole Language, New Math, or NCLB: these offer little ability to make the sweeping changes that are needed to meet the demands of the new millennium.

Therefore at the College level we need to bring students up to the level that we are demanding in an almost Grade 13 approach to the Freshman Year.  We will need to retool the freshman year to make sure that our students can succeed and persist to graduation.

[_touchedbyanoodle_]

The solution isn't "separation of school and politics." That's the problem. Not a single educator was involved in drafting NCLB. Not a single educator.

[studentaffairsed]

But see that is the problem- NCLB was a political catch-phrase slogan that became public policy.

What politician (that wanted to keep his/her seat in Congress) would vote against such a slogan?

And now with the Spellings report politicians are again trying to invade higher education.

Let educators educator without the constant involvement of politicians who create nice little catch-phrases that become policy.

[_touchedbyanoodle_]

But see that is the problem- NCLB was a political catch-phrase slogan that became public policy.

What politician (that wanted to keep his/her seat in Congress) would vote against such a slogan?

And now with the Spellings report politicians are again trying to invade higher education.

Let educators educator without the constant involvement of politicians who create nice little catch-phrases that become policy.

I get your point, but even then, it would be the administrators who would be making the decisions, and many of those administrators are either A) not teachers or B) bad teachers.

A revolution is in order in a grand scale. Pitchforks must be involved.

Sorry I can't help this thread in a serious manner. I am jaded.

[brunhilde]

I agree that politics are part of the reason that improving schools is so hard. But I don't think politics is all about the education monopoly.

Politics also includes the interests of voters. And to be honest, I don't think most voters really want to improve schools all that much. At least they don't want to put much effort into improving schools other than their own. Inequality is built into our educational system. There have been many attempts to equalize funding and they all have been resisted. Even states with relatively equal funding still have very large funding differences, especially when you think about how PTO fundraising has skyrocketed.

Maybe teacher unions are not angels. Maybe school boards do some bad things. Maybe teacher educators are not very efficient. But until everyone agrees that providing equal opportunity means schools provide the same to rich and poor kids alike, there will always be problems.

[studentaffairsed]

With an educational monopoly there is simply no competition.  There is no motivation to improve.  Throwing more money at the issue is not necessarily the answer.

There is no choice in the education monopoly.  Take cell phones for instance.  Different companies offer different plans by which people can choose. If you do not like ATT you move to Sprint/Nextel for service.  Not the case in compulsory education- you go to the schools defined by your jurisdiction and boundaries.  Little choice inherent in the system.

Create opportunities for choice and develop competition- you may see a difference in the quality of education.

NCLB called for high quality teachers for every student.  Impossible to achieve.  It is often extremely difficulty to terminate a low quality/ poor performing teacher.  And even in the "at will" employment states such as NY; NYC school district administrators have to go through a flow chart, that if stood on end would be over 6 feet tall in order to terminate a "proven" bad teacher/ educator.  In the meantime the teacher can be placed in a "rubber room" and still collect full pay while the district hires a new teacher or long-term sub.  The teacher union and bad negotiations are to blame in that case.

Too many politics involved in the process and system.

[brunhilde]

With an educational monopoly there is simply no competition.  There is no motivation to improve.  Throwing more money at the issue is not necessarily the answer.

I'm not saying throw more money at the system. Let's take all the money that is spent already and more evenly divide it. But lots of people (including those you wouldn't include in the "educational monoploy) won't let that happen.

There is no choice in the education monopoly.  Take cell phones for instance.  Different companies offer different plans by which people can choose. If you do not like ATT you move to Sprint/Nextel for service.  Not the case in compulsory education- you go to the schools defined by your jurisdiction and boundaries.  Little choice inherent in the system.

Create opportunities for choice and develop competition- you may see a difference in the quality of education.

There is already some choice everywhere and a lot of choice in some places. Take DC and Detroit as examples. Large percentages of students from these cities attend publicly funded charter schools. The districts definitely have an incentive to improve. Yet it's not happening.

NCLB called for high quality teachers for every student.  Impossible to achieve.  It is often extremely difficulty to terminate a low quality/ poor performing teacher.  And even in the "at will" employment states such as NY; NYC school district administrators have to go through a flow chart, that if stood on end would be over 6 feet tall in order to terminate a "proven" bad teacher/ educator.  In the meantime the teacher can be placed in a "rubber room" and still collect full pay while the district hires a new teacher or long-term sub.  The teacher union and bad negotiations are to blame in that case.

I agree that the inability to fire incompetent teachers due to teacher union contracts is one reason that having a highly qualified teacher in all classrooms is impossible. But there are other reasons. Schools and districts want to hire competent and qualified teachers. But many districts can't recruit them or can't keep them. Teacher unions have some problems, but don't blame all problems on them.

[studentaffairsed]

Charter schools are still within the district and still funded via the district monies.  And the jury is still out on the charter school concept.  With charters and magnet schools the student is still stuck to attend the schools within his/her geographic jurisdiction/ school district.

If we attached the money to the student and allowed that family to choose to cross district boundaries, that would be a different scenario.

I am not only saying that the teacher unions are the blame, but they do find ways to stop reform efforts or at least slow them down.

Education is the slowest beast to change.  In order to effectively change this system we must think outside the box.  The system is antiquated based on an agricultural model/ early industrial model.  Pretty much (maybe some exceptions) K-12 classes today are conducted much as they were 20 years ago, 50 years ago, 100 years ago.  Even higher education, much is still as it was 100 years ago in terms of the approach to teaching and learning.

The access to information that students today have and need to have is changing at such an incredible rate of speed, we need an educational system Pre-K - Doctoral that is adpative and open to the possibility of change.

We as educators should be the role models for continued life-long learning.

[brunhilde]

Charter schools are still within the district and still funded via the district monies. 

This is not true for many charter schools.

And the jury is still out on the charter school concept. 

I can agree with you here.

With charters and magnet schools the student is still stuck to attend the schools within his/her geographic jurisdiction/ school district.

This is not true for many charter schools, which are independent of districts. Students can choose any number of charter schools. There are even cyber charter schools where students can choose to learn online.

We as educators should be the role models for continued life-long learning.

I agree with this.

[studentaffairsed]

So that said-- back to the original post- How do we reconfigure K-12 education in the new millennium?

[vortex]

The people responsible for the education of their children are parents, and they are the ones failing.  There have been studies that show that students succeed when their parents are involved in their education no matter how good or bad their school's teachers are.  Poor families, single parents, parents working multiple jobs and/or with addictions to drugs or alcohol are the worst off.  The answer to poverty and despair is at least part of the answer to education.

[studentaffairsed]

The people responsible for the education of their children are parents, and they are the ones failing.  There have been studies that show that students succeed when their parents are involved in their education no matter how good or bad their school's teachers are.  Poor families, single parents, parents working multiple jobs and/or with addictions to drugs or alcohol are the worst off.  The answer to poverty and despair is at least part of the answer to education.

But consider the original School & College report from the Chronicle... even what are considered "high achieving" schools are graduating students who college faculty claim are not always able to produce what is considered "college level" work.

So we sit questioning is K-12 education making the mark in terms of educating our kids?

[vortex]

The people responsible for the education of their children are parents, and they are the ones failing.  There have been studies that show that students succeed when their parents are involved in their education no matter how good or bad their school's teachers are.  Poor families, single parents, parents working multiple jobs and/or with addictions to drugs or alcohol are the worst off.  The answer to poverty and despair is at least part of the answer to education.

But consider the original School & College report from the Chronicle... even what are considered "high achieving" schools are graduating students who college faculty claim are not always able to produce what is considered "college level" work.

So we sit questioning is K-12 education making the mark in terms of educating our kids?

Students whose parents don't care go to high achieving schools and students whose parents do care go to low achieving schools.  It's a matter of proportions.  In terms of changing the schools, very little can be done in the 6-8 hours 180 days a year if little or nothing is done while the student is at home.

On another point, maybe there are too many high school students going to college when they really don't want to or need some time out before they go.  Maybe there should be more emphasis on vocational training for high school students and graduates, like in other nations.

[maries]

studentaffairs, I completely agree.  Having left academia for K-12, I am constantly shocked at the huge disconnect between who makes education policy and why, and what the actual needs of our public school students are.  Worst of all, education at that level is so politicized that it filters down into even the lowest levels.  Our principals now are also politicians, many with eyes on a future career in higher ranks of educational politics, and therefore very few decisions are made with the actual interests of our students in mind.  Instead, decisions for our schools are made to serve the interests of one or another politician's personal agenda. 

[studentaffairsed]

studentaffairs, I completely agree.  Having left academia for K-12, I am constantly shocked at the huge disconnect between who makes education policy and why, and what the actual needs of our public school students are.  Worst of all, education at that level is so politicized that it filters down into even the lowest levels.  Our principals now are also politicians, many with eyes on a future career in higher ranks of educational politics, and therefore very few decisions are made with the actual interests of our students in mind.  Instead, decisions for our schools are made to serve the interests of one or another politician's personal agenda. 

I have seen this so often with several local K-12 administrators.  Board members even more so.

Thanks.