Educational Importance...

[Chad]

I can't see really ditching any of the subjects taught in primary schools. They are all important, especially when taught well. My high school, like 25 years ago, had a class that was required for ALL students related to the 'life skills' mentioned here. Things like budgets, checkbooks, interest, insurance, conflict resolution, and the like. Of course, it was rural NH, so we also had to take forestry classes.

Oh, and I absolutely agree that most teachers are underpaid. You want to improve schools, the key isn't testing the students, as they are more or less a constant, the key is to raise teacher's salaries so you recruit the BEST teachers you can. Make those positions desirable for recent college grads (money wise), and you will raise the quality of education. As I see it where I live, maybe 80% of the teachers are dedicated pros who love teaching and would do so as long as they could afford to do it, and 20% leeches doing the minimum work required as they probably couldn't survive working in the real world. Raise salaries and make the jobs ultra competitive, and those crappy 20% will drop off.

I never understood this country's issue with funding public education, all the way through college. Every politician talks about American innovation and drive, but most cut the crap out of education and just 'hop' the innovation will continue, when all the while we are slipping behind other countries that take education seriously. Why can they not see that a properly educated work force in more productive and makes more money (and pay more taxes) that a poorly educated one. I contemplated NOT writing this, as it touches the political arena, but I think every side in politics is guilty of shorting education, and I didn't take a specific political side, so I will leave it here.

I agree with you completely. The 2 biggest ways to improve education would be to raise the pay of teachers, there by attracting better teachers and by increasing the number of teacher which would make smaller class sizes. I can't imagine how much the public education system would be if every elementary classroom had 10 students in it instead of 25 to 30. You wonder why kids don't learn in school, you stick 30 6 year old kids in a class with 1 teacher. The teacher spends more time telling little Johnny to stop picking on the other kids more than she teaches anything.

 

[Help!I'maRock!]

I never understood this country's issue with funding public education, all the way through college. Every politician talks about American innovation and drive, but most cut the crap out of education and just 'hop' the innovation will continue, when all the while we are slipping behind other countries that take education seriously. Why can they not see that a properly educated work force in more productive and makes more money (and pay more taxes) that a poorly educated one. I contemplated NOT writing this, as it touches the political arena, but I think every side in politics is guilty of shorting education, and I didn't take a specific political side, so I will leave it here.

because it doesn't get them re-elected in the next election. it might get them re-elected 20 years from now, but they might not see those gains realized, especially as they climb the political ladder.

 

[Nekogirl]

I teach in a secondary level district (junior high and high school), and our school board is very big on students having at least one elective class. The reasoning behind it is that for students who struggle or aren't into academics, its sometimes the only reason they come to school. I find this to be BS. It diminishes the need to student engagement in their core academic subjects (math, English, science, history). They may not like all their academic classes, but they should accept the importance of learning them.

 

[Peeker]

I...
I also think the arts are extremely important, too... And, we need vocational classes like shop and auto... It should all be about balanced living and a complete education, at least in K-12...

I wish that there had been some vocational options for me back in the day, but my school had zip.
though we had a pretty decent photography program.

 

[cuffdc]

I wish that there had been some vocational options for me back in the day, but my school had zip.
though we had a pretty decent photography program.

Within the last ten years, the high school I graduated from ripped out all the shop equipment they had: wood shop, metal shop, auto shop (the school had a damned autobody shop in it). I think the one that survived was the photography studio. It's in some ways a shame, because the district still has plenty of kids who could use that training, but I suppose the reasoning was that they were duplicating efforts done by the regional vocational technical school.

 

[baimun]

To throw another curve into this discussion.... many of the above debates are solved with Trimesters instead of a fall and spring semester. Instead of 6 or 7 classes and much of the day broken up by walking from one hour long class to another, three semesters of 5 classes allows more indepth class time, and more variety of subject or electives with 15 classes available in a year.

 

[baimun]

I'm also a big proponent for balanced calendar.... with the same number of school days, but without the huge summer span where kids brains try to scrub off and forget everything they were taught the previous year....

Hell, I'd wish American employers would adopt a little of this thinking along with Euro "holidays"... so we'd at least have 4 weeks off. With a married couple, they could coordinate their vacations for more than one a year as well as have time that could be moved around if they wanted to have other time off during their kids breaks or even mental health breaks.

 

[Coda]

...I too am a proponent of the Balanced Calendar...

 

[Chad]

The one problem with the balanced calendar is teachers can't get a summer job to make up for their shitty pay. That is meant to be silly but unfortunately it is true for bunch of trachers.

 

[jbj]

The one problem with the balanced calendar is teachers can't get a summer job to make up for their shitty pay. That is meant to be silly but unfortunately it is true for bunch of trachers.

It's actually quite sickening some of the stories about US teachers pay I've read about.

I wouldn't entertain the thought of moving to the US to teach for a second and I've relocated to some really shitty parts of the world to work.

I quite like the balanced calender idea. If for no other reason, 6-7 weeks off inthe Summer sounds great but it gets old really fast when no one else is on holiday.

 

[Coda]

The one problem with the balanced calendar is teachers can't get a summer job to make up for their shitty pay. That is meant to be silly but unfortunately it is true for bunch of trachers.

...which is why there are so many arguing for higher pay for teachers...teachers are needed desperately, and the low pay is keeping prospective teachers away...

 

[baimun]

With my wife being a teacher, she's WIPED OUT by summer... the slightly longer sanity breaks throughout the year helps keep teachers from burning out as quickly as well.

 

[Coda]

With my wife being a teacher, she's WIPED OUT by summer...

...my mom is a teacher...and usually by 4th of july, she was wiped out...financially though...especially when my dad started getting laid off every may...it was extremely hard...

 

[Nekogirl]

...which is why there are so many arguing for higher pay for teachers...teachers are needed desperately, and the low pay is keeping prospective teachers away...

That's all good and well, but the Catch-22 is that no one wants to raise their taxes in this country. I participated in a school-to-career partnership program that included a visit to the local branch of a major technology manufacturing company. The exec we spoke with extolled the virtues of good teachers, and how we need more people like us helping kids develop skills so they have a good supply of prospective employees in the future. I appreciated the sentiment, but then I thought later that this is a huge multinational corporation that has lobbying units on all levels of government trying to keep its tax burden as low as possible. Social contributions are at their convenience and for their own self-promotion. On the individual level, people are OK paying for stuff for their school that their kid goes to, but larger systemic change involves increasing the amount of money overall that goes to teachers. People say it can't be done, but other countries do it with much fewer resources. It's a matter of priorities.