Education reform

[Katya]

I read an article a couple of weeks ago about billionaires who have spent great quantities of money on various types of education reform in the US (with mixed results). But it got me to wondering, if you had a lot of money to spend on improving local education, what would you do with it?

[Imogen]

1) increasing 1st year teacher salaries to attract more motivated people to the field

2) though i'm in a union, i'd get rid of the union request of continuing contracts with no end. we should be able to cut the crappy teachers. it's hard to figure out who the worst teachers are, but there has to be a way to do it THAT DOESN'T INVOLVE STANDARDIZED TEST SCORES!

3) i'd abolish standardized testing. it's stupid and costly.

4) i'd make sure we have what i consider to be the basics:
a) an up-to-date performing arts facility with up-to-date equipment that students could get hands on experience in
b) personally, i'd love to have a smart board. instead of having to print everything, i'd love to project it. i'd love for my students to be able to make powerpoint presentations to show in class. and it would make showing films and pointing out things to kids so much easier.
c) i'd make sure all our classrooms have up-to-date laptops of the teacher's choice. in my class, MACs would be the most useful because we do video-editing. but that may not be true for all teachers. with that, i'd include the ability to print wirelessly and in color.

5) more field trips. so many of our educational field trips got abolished along the years, but they helped me so much. i'd love the money to take my students to a professional show and then to get them a tour. or to bring in a speaker who has expertise in areas where i'm lacking. i think it would be so great for the students.

6) scholarships. to summer programs, to college, to anything a high-achieving and worthy student would want to do.

that all i can think of right now. i'm sure there's more, but if i had millions of dollars, this is where i would start.

[Defy V]

Here's a question I don't know the answer to: If there was an agreement that teachers' salaries would suddenly double or triple if they (collectively or individually) were willing to give up tenure, would most go for it? Would unions go for it? Would it help reform the system at all?

[Imogen]

most of what i call "the old guard," would not go for it, but the "young guard" probably would. i don't need tenure. i'm going to my job, no matter what. as long as i do my job, i'll probably keep my job. unions probably wouldn't for it until there was a significant amount of members who went for it.

it would help all the ills of education, but i think it would be a start. many of the countries we're compared to that do better than us on testing recruit top college graduates into the teaching field and pay them quite well. even now, districts are recruiting math and science teachers and offering them higher starting salaries because we lack in those areas nationwide. to some teachers, the job is just a paycheck and long breaks, and their students suffer from that attitude. but we could probably get more people who would be passionate about teaching if the starting pay were higher.

since we're state employees, you can look up our salaries online. http://www.caller.com/data/public-salaries/ccisd/ if you go to this link, you can look some people up by name. go type in the last name box (one at a time): Daly, Bazan (you'll be looking at Marlo), and Carey (Robin). These are three of the best teachers on my campus. Look at their years of experience and their pay. Keep in mind, I make 40,000 as a first year teacher. Or, you can just use the pull down menu and go to Baker Middle School and compare our whole campus. It's pretty wild.

[Marduk]

Hoo boy. You'll recall I started a similar thread in the reader response (way back when.) I even asked that question specifically so I could come on here and discuss it. There's a LOT to be said about how to reform the education system, not all of it involves money, but since that's what you asked about, that's what I'll focus on.

(Just to get it out of my system, all the things that DON'T have to do with money that I won't be going into: union monopolies, parental involvement, student enthusiasm, and choice in education.)

I think the arts are vastly underfunded. I'm talking theater and music, but also visual arts, literature, philosophy, etc. It seems every round of budget cuts throws these under the bus in favor of keeping sacrosanct the sacred cows of mathematics and the sciences. Those things are also critical, but incomplete by themselves. I would ensure any system given an endowment by me had robust arts departments.

I would ensure that sports are funded, and not just the football and basketball and baseball. Also women's sports, and especially wrestling. Wrestling taught me a lot more than many of my classes, and unfortunately it is going by the wayside as well. It is important to fund a wide variety of sports that can attract all sorts of different interest. Along these lines, clubs and extracurricular activities. I think that individuals learn a lot from working together in a less formal (i.e., non-classroom) setting with less objective problem-solving. Again, when funding gets cut, these are among the first on the chopping block.

I would work hard to make sure that there were alternative choices in education, and that these were administered and taught by individuals with real experience in those fields. It is difficult, especially the more advanced one gets, to have the same teacher teaching history, AND psychology, AND economics, AND government. Focusing teachers' curriculums can only be beneficial.

Lastly, I would ensure that building maintenance and repair is adequately funded. There's little that can be learned in a building with inadequate or intermittent lighting, ceilings collapsing in on students (actual experience that happened to a friend of mine,) broken floors, walls with crumbling paint or covered in graffiti, etc. It reminds me of the old Guiliani broken window thing; if we ensure that there's an attitude of pride in even the building itself, that can extend itself to learning endeavors as well.

Whew. That's a quick (read: not comprehensive) list, but that certainly is a starting point.

[Whistler]

Maybe I'm a spoilsport... but I don't think it's necessary to have expensive materials to study the arts. Yes, there are many programs that are underfunded, but you can learn A LOT about music using just a few cheaper instruments (rather than an entire band or orchestra of instruments). There should be less pressure for the results to look like their professional counterparts and more pressure to sit down and learn things.

I don't really care about extracurriculars. To me, these things would spring up naturally in my ideal community (a bunch of kids getting together after school to play soccer or program or draw seems fine to me). To address Marduk's reason for extra-curriculars, I think that some classroom time could be made to be "less formal."

I think that we don't need to teach things the way we teach them now. If I had a billion dollars to use on education, I would use it to help how educators form their curriculum be informed by current research on learning (so... better teacher education and better textbooks, if we decide to use textbooks). Honestly, are we still teaching math like it's some kind of new logic ritual every week? That's not what math should be about.

[Craig Jessop]

I've done both the "a group of a few cheap instruments" and "a whole orchestra" thing in public school, and I can tell you that a full orchestra is SO MUCH BETTER. We the kids enjoyed it a lot more, we had more incentive to practice, and the way we sounded felt good. A small group did not and will never provide the same experience... and looking and sounding like a big kid orchestra taught us a lot more than doing drills and scales.

[Marduk]

Agreed, Craig. And classroom time is really already at a premium. You don't have time to insert extra curriculars into the classroom setting. And sports in a community setting just naturally can't be as competitive as in a school setting.

[Imogen]

I've done both the "a group of a few cheap instruments" and "a whole orchestra" thing in public school, and I can tell you that a full orchestra is SO MUCH BETTER. We the kids enjoyed it a lot more, we had more incentive to practice, and the way we sounded felt good. A small group did not and will never provide the same experience... and looking and sounding like a big kid orchestra taught us a lot more than doing drills and scales.

Same with me and theater. My main high school didn't have a stage at all, just the black box studio. My teacher never let that stop us from putting on great productions, but the year I spent in Arkansas (sophomore year) at a school with an auditorium and a HUGE theater budget was eye opening. Our shows were massive. We had a light board that worked properly! Our sound system wasn't just a CD player plugged into speakers! It was amazing for me as a high school student to see the possibilities that were out there for me. And it was awesome that the art form I chose wasn't just tolerated. It was CELEBRATED, and our budget and the equipment the district bought us reflected that celebration.

And Marduk is right. Our kids barely have time to eat (30 minutes total. 15 if you end up in the back of the lunch line), and most don't have the discipline for their educational setting to be "less formal." Extracurriculars are also proven to increase the chance a child will graduate from high school. I see no reason to try and integrate their purpose into my already over burdened day.

[thebigcheese]

Since Imogen just mentioned eating, that reminded me of a conversation I had with my sister the other day. School lunches. There really needs to be some dollars and reforms going on there. First of all, kids shouldn't be given so many crappy options...because they WILL take them. I ate pretty well in elementary school because there was only one line and like two options to choose from. In middle school, the options grew, so I ate pizza, Snickers ice cream bars, and fruit roll ups because those were the options I really liked. In high school, I raided the cookies and giant pretzels at the snack bar, with a big jug of whole milk to wash it down. Pathetic? Yes. But that's what I liked, so I bought those things every day. I wasn't thinking about how I needed to eat healthy things. I didn't care. Who cares when you're 14? It's a good thing my mom always made healthy dinners, or else I might be a fat kid now.

Other than that...I would absolutely keep the sports programs because I think a lot of kids have their best experiences there. I never did music, so I can't vouch for that, but I did take art classes. People shouldn't think of art classes as being less valuable because those classes can and do lead to many great jobs in graphic design. Without all those art classes, I wouldn't have my job today. But I wish I would have been exposed to some things earlier, like Photoshop and Illustrator. And I was just realizing that I never had ANY exposure to video editing, which is why I know nothing about it today. We would be doing a disservice to kids to not expose them to modern technology because most good jobs are going to require at least some familiarity with it. The problem is, technology requires huge amounts of funding.

[Digit]

Sudbury Valley School sounds like an interesting place.

The school has no required academic activities, and no academic expectations for completion of one's time at the school. Students are free to spend their time as they wish.

And yet

They have learned, among other things, that about 80% of their students have graduated from college.

That the kind of kids that wouldn't be able to self-regulate and survive in that environment are probably screened out fairly well, it being a private school, is probably a major factor of their statistics.

[Whistler]

Yeah. I know it's a memoir and probably sugar-coated, but the Japanese book _Totto-chan_ is about a school where there isn't much curriculum but there is a lot of learning. I guess that's my ideal.

[bobtheenchantedone]

One day in high school some of the cool choir kids (and me, for some reason) were hanging out in one of the practice rooms, and we decided to all become millionaires so we could donate thousands to fine arts departments while snubbing the sports departments.

In high school, we would have entire school days planned around sports, go to special assemblies just to pump up excitement for an upcoming game in one of the "important" sports (football and basketball), and even occasionally have half-days or get entire days off due to a big game. And all of the arts? Well, the pep band and marching band were important (though geeky). The rest, not so much. They would frequently forget to even announce things like winning state choir competitions. While the football team could miss days everywhere for games, we once had to arrange to leave on choir tour at three in the morning because administration refused to let us miss an extra day. While the cheerleading team got new uniforms, we made do with a once-grand-but-in-need-of-renovation piano in our main classroom and pianos that were literally falling apart in the practice rooms. While we had to make do with the oldest equipment that would still work, heaven forbid the sports teams had a spot on their uniforms or a year-old banner.

I realize some of this was due to the fact that sports teams make money and fine arts might break even on a good day, but that's all the more reason to put money into the fine arts. They need it! And I feel that a good fine arts program that the administration and whole school feels proud of - or even just knows about - will be a fine arts program that does pay for itself and perhaps even makes money.

A fine arts program that the school is proud of will be full of talented and learning students who don't feel forgotten, ignored, or even despised by the administration (or the other students - my mother's greatest high school regret was that she was never in choir, but it wasn't a cool thing to do). Fine arts should not be treated as a hobby because there's nothing better to do or, even worse, because someone didn't make it into something that matters (like sports). If you want to point out that few musicians, artists, and dancers are able to earn money on the skills they started or honed in high school, I'd like to ask how many high school athletes went on to earn their keep by playing sports.

So I guess you can tell that I was one of those nerdy fine arts kids who looked down on the sports program. ; )

[Indefinite Integral]

Sudbury Valley School sounds like an interesting place.

The school has no required academic activities, and no academic expectations for completion of one's time at the school. Students are free to spend their time as they wish.

And yet

They have learned, among other things, that about 80% of their students have graduated from college.

That the kind of kids that wouldn't be able to self-regulate and survive in that environment are probably screened out fairly well, it being a private school, is probably a major factor of their statistics.

Yes, definitely. I teach at a charter school where they do emphasize more independent learning, where students set their own goals and work, and let me tell you, there are some students who can handle it. They do fabulously, and probably learn more than thety would otherwise. However, that's only a few of our students (maybe 10-15%). The rest do as little as possible and still expect to get "credit" so they can graduate and get out of here.

I personally think that at the age of high school, most students do not have the maturity to work in a self-regulated environment. Consequently, there are a decent number of students who end up not doing much at all.

[Whistler]

I too enjoyed my time in band in high school, and performed a movement of a concerto with my high school's orchestra, which was a Big Deal to me, but looking back on it, I wish I had spent all that time practicing on learning other things (programming, or crocheting things that aren't scarves, or cooking). I tried to become a professional musician, and there are enough people who want to do that and not enough demand for traditional artists. I recognize the same situation in sports and I also wish that it could be less of a big deal and that the focus could be on being healthy and fit and having fun and not beating the rival team in some show of aggression (my high school was also big into sports).

I have opinions about music. I wish that I had more folk knowledge of music and felt more comfortable improvising (compositionally as well). Instead, I feel crippled by my formal education in music. If I can't perform by reading the music, I'm reduced to arpeggios or chords. I can't compose without thinking about chord progressions. Despite taking music theory in high school, I have little knowledge of composition methods for music that is in demand today (even my songwriting class didn't really go into it... I suspect it is whatever sounds good?). I wish that music could be more creative for me--not just in an interpretive way.

I am fine with fine arts and sports being treated as extracurriculars. I think that if students really want more funding for their programs, they should be allowed to take responsibility for fund raising or get part-time jobs. I know this won't be the solution for every school, but it was my experience in an affluent school that we didn't appreciate the excellent resources we had. I think we would have appreciated our resources more if it had been something we worked for rather than something we expected.

[krebscout]

People shouldn't think of art classes as being less valuable because those classes can and do lead to many great jobs in graphic design.

This made me laugh because it makes it sound like graphic design is all you can do with an art education. Maybe it is, I dunno; there are a lot more artist dreams out there than real working artists, right? I feel like I should stick up for the old-fashioned visual arts - the painting and the sculpture - but honestly I don't know anything about its place in school.

My completely unresearched opinion is that it seems those who had a natural artistic talent and drive went into an art-related field, and would have whether or not they got sufficient class experience. And those who didn't "get it" would take art classes for an easy, subjective credit, and then make lewd ceramic sculptures (true story. The girl got baptized later, interestingly enough).

Case study: my dad hated his high school art education and never got a college degree. He's a self-made artist.
Been a professional sculptor for...at least 25 years, I'm not quite sure...and was making a nice six-figure salary when the economy was good, and he's still doing fine. He had the talent and the drive, and that's what got him there - not the schooling.

How does it benefit...or how much does it benefit... the non-artist to take art classes? Or the non-musician, or the non-actor? Literature I can see a little more clearly, but maybe that's just tradition talking.

I don't even know why art matters at all, really, and I've struggled with that question my whole life. Obviously I love art and chose it above all else to be my livelihood, but I also think that math and science are more practical, because...aren't they? Don't they have a lot more application in the day-to-day struggles of the real world?

[krebscout]

By the way, I'm crazy jealous that Black Sheep got to go to an Arts High School. I would have loved that.

What about splitting up all high schools into areas of focus like that? Maybe you have to apply? Sounds a lot like college, but I would have been ready for that much earlier.

[Dragon Lady]

How does it benefit...or how much does it benefit... the non-artist to take art classes? Or the non-musician, or the non-actor? Literature I can see a little more clearly, but maybe that's just tradition talking.

I would not consider myself a musician. I'm mostly self-taught on piano. I played the trombone for 6-years in middle/high school. We didn't really have instruction in theory. Mostly we learned to read and play music. I haven't touched my trombone in 10 years (in fact, I believe my brother sold it. Punkface.) For life in general, especially in the money aspect of life, it did me little good. But I remember it more fondly than most of my other subjects studied. I broadened my musical world. I still hear songs I played in band or pep band and remember some of my parts or just attach them to memories. When I go watch an orchestra, I love to watch the trombones and pluck out their part of the music. I get giddy when they have the melody. I'm much more confident with the bass cleft when I do play the piano.

Band has affected me in my adult life much more than my 2-years of Norwegian, my computer class (even though I do much more computer stuffs than anything musical), my beginning sciences, a couple of my english classes, speech, choir, or all of the required classes I don't even remember the names of. So maybe the art, musical or acting classes don't benefit every student in a large way, but I think they're very good for no other reason than to be well-rounded. Honestly, I believe in many cases that's the only reason for math and science classes. I'll never use my chemistry knowledge again. But I'm really, really glad I took that class. It helped balance me.

Plus, being able to test out all of those subjects in high school makes it a whole lot easier to figure out what you like and don't like in college.

[thebigcheese]

People shouldn't think of art classes as being less valuable because those classes can and do lead to many great jobs in graphic design.

This made me laugh because it makes it sound like graphic design is all you can do with an art education.

Eh, I just picked graphic design because I figured it was probably far and away the most common thing that artists do for a living. There are also animators, product designers, etc.

[wired]

By the way, I'm crazy jealous that Black Sheep got to go to an Arts High School. I would have loved that.

What about splitting up all high schools into areas of focus like that? Maybe you have to apply? Sounds a lot like college, but I would have been ready for that much earlier.

That made me think of something my wife and I saw while we were visiting New York:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Schoo ... nd_Finance
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Schoo ... and_Design

I'm sure New York has others. (After I wrote that, I googled New York specialty high schools, found a Wiki page with a list of high schools, and it confirms my suspicions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hi ... _York_City ; schools include cinema, math and science, and a whole host of others.) In a city like New York, it's probably a very cost effective measure. It has a dense enough population that there's a steady stream of interested, talented students. The location (downtown Manhattan) also gives the schools access to a bevy of hands on activities. I highly doubt it would be worth it to have these type of specialty schools in, say, any part of Montana.

This whole thread though seems to me to show a bit of the mentality we all displayed in the stay-at-home moms, working moms thread: what worked for us, we think will work best for others. Thus, when we had a really great experience with wrestling, we think that wrestling should be supported. When theater was what kept us going through high school, we want to give back to theater. I think this is totally normal and even good when looking at how to focus one's own energies. In terms of public policy, though, I think this would lead to poor decision making.

I hear a lot about the US's poor performance in math and science relative to other industrialized countries. (I can't claim to say there is such a thing, it's just something I hear tossed about regularly.) Supposing it is true, as a public policy measure, I would almost certainly freeze spending in other areas (including wrestling, theater, and art) to ensure that adequate attention is being given to the math and science areas. I might focus on increasing starting teacher's salary in these critical areas in order to incentivize more teachers (someone mentioned this reform, but applied it across the board.)