fix the state of public education in america

My brother in law is the executive director for the bipartisan committee working on improving the state of education in California. While I haven’t personally worked on this goal, I trust that my brother in law will make a difference and improve things in California.
Keep up the good work,lachatte!

I’ve decided to mark this goal as “done” for the simple reason that there is NO possibility that it can ever be ‘done’. Coming up with ideas is one thing but implementing them is another thing,,,and that is out of my power. One can only hope that taxpayers and parents will come to their senses some day soon.

One of the local public high schools recently did a revision of the curriculum for the English Dept. They made the decision to cut a number of the classics based on the fact that “nobody reads those old things anymore’. DUH. One of their choices was to replace “Pride and Prejudice” written by the incomparable Miss Austen. The book they chose to replace it was a selection from Oprah’s Book Club. Need I say more?

There are many fine teachers in our public schools. However, there is also a serious amount of “dead wood” in there, also. Primarily this is because of the concept of “tenure.” Is there another profession in the world where as long as you can hold on to the job for three years it is yours forever. Unless, of course, you have sex with a student. If tenure were abolished, it would not affect the good theachers. They could have jobs anywhere. But it would weed out the bad ones by not guaranteeing them unlimited future employment.

,,,,uniforms for all,,,from kindergarten to 12th grade,,,first day of school to last,,,schools that have tried this report improvement in both grades and behavior,,,

Honestly, I’d like education to be improved all across the globe. As far was the US public education system, this may mean allowing more charter schools to address individualize and variying needs of students or giving more freedom to teachers to be good educators without focusing on tests over their heads. Not that standardized testing doesn’t have it’s place, but there is so much more to focus on. One example of how schools work well in our education system can be found in this article.

2nd year teacher…I want to start using construcivist methods in my little charter school, but it’s hard. I have few resources, and my Master’s program was heavy in theory but week in practice. I’ve gotten ideas from my brother-in-law (a 9-year teacher once traditional, now wholeheartedly converted to constructivist ideals) but I need more – lesson plans, authentic assesment ideas, ways to deal with the idiocy of mandated standardized tests…