cranberry on public school choice

cranberry wrote:

Which of the town's employees or elected officials have a long term interest in keeping town finances in check? In controlling school spending? In our town, the superintendent sets the budget. The school committee presents the budget to the town. They can give the superintendent guidance as to what they wish to see preserved, but they aren't making decisions about hiring and firing staff. They can fire a superintendent who doesn't follow their desires, but that's a very blunt instrument. There's no guarantee that the next superintendent will choose to anger all the other pressure groups in the school system for the good of the students and town budget.

The average superintendent's time in office lies between 2.4 and 6 years. So, a newly hired superintendent arrives in a district, and discovers how this district functions. He fires or transfers the people he can't work with, and transfers or hires people he can work with. They propose changes to the system. For the changes to work, the teachers must agree with them and implement them. By the time the changes are being implemented, he may very well be interviewing for his next job. The structure of the system works against long-term planning.

Parents support larger school budgets because one avoids the need to decide between competing interest groups within the system. By filling all buckets, a little of the overflow might improve things for the average students, the kids who do not have defenders within the system, other than the teachers. The typical kids are often shunted into as many study halls as possible, because that's the only way the budget will balance.

Allowing funding to follow the student would give the parents of typical kids more negotiating power with schools. "If I like your program, your budget expands by $6,000. By the way, I have 8 friends who like the thought of foreign language classes in elementary school. Hmm, study halls instead? Well, I could drive 25 minutes in the opposite direction. That principal offers Latin and Saxon math."

cranberry - define basic

cranberry wrote:

Define basic. Is it functioning on grade level, i.e., doing what a 5th grader is expected to do, when you're 10? If that's the definition, then what should one do with children who enter their 5th grade year above grade level? What are systems legally required to do?

Our school system doesn't have G&T, so that's never been an option for us. The school's answer has been, in general, that strong students should tutor weak students. Of course, a kid who's bored out of his gourd may not look like a strong student, because compliance with a rules based system may not make any sense to a bright 10 year old. Why should he pretend to make an effort, when the homework takes no effort? If the class matter is too easy, it will have no value for him -- or as much value as a worksheet requiring adults to name the days of the week would have for adults.

If a basic education means the provision of teachers and academic work, why must it fit the age, not the kid's academic level? Why must a 10 year old functioning at a 7th grade level attend 5th grade classes?

This is vitally important for our society. Just this week I saw an article citing a national shortage of nuclear engineers.

I submit that the kid who gets As on class tests, but doesn't hand in his homework, needs more interesting subject matter. Every student should have the privilege of being unable to ace tests. If students are passing tests with 100%, they aren't correctly placed, even if they're darned useful to others as tutors. On balance, they're more useful to society, in the long run, as nuclear engineers or lawyers, than as free, untrained tutors.

cranberry on the real world

We also don't want them to ask us how to spell for them. "The teacher won't spell for you" is a steadfast rule made clear to students in the beginning of the school year. It liberates the teacher, who has more important responsibilities, and liberates the students, too!

That once meant that the students were to look up the word in the dictionary. Now, everyone's busy with "more important responsibilities."

Just once in such writings, I'd love to see the glimmerings of the concept that perhaps parents are right when they implore schools to teach proper spelling, grammar, and traditional algorithms. Many teachers progress from college straight into the classroom, without a sojourn in the "outside" world. In the world outside the classroom, spelling, grammar, and penmanship count. Courtesy, good manners, perseverance and punctuality count too. The parents who are able to function in the professions, by and large, would prefer that their children leave school with these old-fashioned skills, because these skills are important.


b-ass ackwards
what do authors do?
Four Blocks by Doug Sundseth
Vlorbik on what authors do
cranberry on the real world
Writing Block
Sifting and Sorting Through the 4-Blocks Literacy Model

cranberry on wealthy schools & the sorting machine

The tracking and sorting process goes on, while the administration denies its long-term effects on the students. Placement into high school courses is decided on the basis of teacher recommendations, not grades, strangely enough.

In our affluent high school, we're told, "all the students who remain in the top math track, who take AP BC calc, receive 5s." As a parent, I feel that this means that they are too restrictive in placement, and encourage too many children to drop out of the most demanding track. 3 is passing. Our society does not need to save tuition for 6% of the graduating class. Our society needs as many children as possible to take challenging math classes.

I took AP BC calc in my day, and received a 5. Frankly, it's not that challenging a course. More than 6% of the school population should be prepared to take the test. If the top 20% were encouraged to remain on track for BC Calc, or even the top 15%, I'd find it much more equitable.

I do feel the pressure of, "your kid's not that special, you know," in the insistence that the academic load is challenging, while seeing how restrictive placement is.

Same here.

Attewell's study (pdf file) is a revelation:

The odds of a student in an affluent star public school taking AP math or AP science are 71 -76 percent of the odds of a student of the same demographics and SAT who attends a nonstar public school.

The Winner-Take-All High School: Organizational Adaptations to Educational
Stratification
by Paul Attewell
p. 286

That's what we pay the big bucks for.

cranberry on professional development

When I hear, "improving teacher quality," I don't think, "why, more teacher development courses are the way to go!" I think, prune the deadwood, and hire people who can spell, write, think, and have a thorough knowledge of their subject areas. Union contracts don't allow this, of course.

Doctors and lawyers are subject to stringent licensing standards, much more demanding than teacher licensing exams. In order to be accepted to medical school and law schools, candidates must score acceptably on the LMAT or GMAT exams. After their strenuous professional schools, they must either pass the bar exam, or the medical board exams.

As a consequence of professional misconduct, doctors can have their license revoked, and lawyers can be disbarred. This happens upon the basis of duly investigated complaints, on the authority of independent boards.

Measures such as the medical and legal professions have chosen to live under would go a long way towards "improving teacher quality."

By the way, for both doctors and lawyers, the required professional development happens on their own time. Due to the structure of professional partnerships, every day spent in training is a day they're not making money.