Abolish the Department of Education, and public schools. - Page 5

Bodhisattva · 10-05-08, 09:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrVicchio

Bod,

Would you consider the issue of classroom discipline to be an issue?

Certainly...

An issue with many causes and many solutions...

What about this post:

http://www.debatepolitics.com/educat...post1057755092 (Abolish the Department of Education, and public schools.)

Bodhisattva · 10-06-08, 07:06 PM

MrVicchio

Guess you are done here then?
That is twice that you have bailed.
Here and Atheism.

khajmer · 10-09-08, 03:57 PM

Bold and interesting idea. Well thought out, and pretty intelligent too. If I held office I certainly wouldn't support this proposition, but I would at least be impressed by it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrVicchio

1. Take the money each district spends per child now. Say, for argument sakes it's 10k a kid per year (I'm using a made up number shush you) so for each child enrolled, the school would get that much money.

Okay, so that's something I can't argue with. It definitely puts money into circulation.

Quote:

2. Each School would be then given over to a private company.

Well, nothing really opposable about this. After all, if the government doesn't run the schools then no one else can.

Quote:

3. Each School would have to have their curriculum posted on line, and available on request to any parent or potential students guardian.

4. Each School would have to list publicly ALL EXPENSES.

5. Each School would post its student’s grades, test scores and teachers education levels.

All pretty valid, except for the teacher's education levels. That would be difficult for a parent to go through and might be a bit irrelevant if the parent doesn't know how good the school a teacher went to is.

Quote:

6. The markets would determine success and failure. If a school is unpopular, parents won’t send their kids there, no kids means no money.

Of course.

Quote:

7. NO BUSINESS running a school would be allowed, in any shape, fashion or form to lobby, gift, or provide money, or resources to political candidates or elected officials. EVER.

Well there we reach a bit of a problem Mr. Vicchio. I mean, with that rule in place, what business is going to take a school?

Quote:

8. Schools could teach, whatever they want. It’s the parents decision what their children learn, and it is up to the parents to be informed.

... um, I would add on to that that English classes, mathematics, and the arts. Other things like sports and foreign language, sure, let the schools and parents decide on that.

Quote:

9. Teachers Unions would be abolished and barred except in those states that allow unions by law. (even then I would try to find a way to ban them)

Well now that doesn't make sense. Bear in mind, if the teachers work for the schools, and the schools are subsidies of the companies, then the teachers work for the companies (see? If I weren't required to take English classes, then I wouldn't know how to construct a syllogism). And if every other employee of those businesses can join unions, then why can't teachers?

Quote:

10. Parents would be barred from giving to, or paying schools to let their kids attend.

Another rule that will make companies less than willing to take these schools. How the hell do they turn a profit?

All in all, well thought out, but with several major flaws. I agree that the public education system is flawed, but this is the wrong way to go about it. We need to be fixing it. Oh, and if you don't have to pay to get into the school, then how is it not a public school?

And my last point, we couldn't get rid of the Department of Education. The DoE's job, just like with every other Department in the Bureaucracy, is to enforce the law. So without the DoE, all of those nifty little rules you laid out, aren't going to be followed. No, you'd be changing the Department's purpose is what you'd do, to oversee those rules instead of control the punlic education system.

Graffight · 11-18-08, 10:44 AM

I love a lot of what you have said here...I do say this though, Unions are created when a company "does not treat it's people fairly"(debatable i know). But some companies do treat their people well enough that the union goes away. What if schools took an approach of actually trying to give teachers what they want as well as trying to get more performance out of the teachers. If you want more money/benefits fine we'll give them to you but you're going to have to work for them. I love the notion of posting all students grades and test scores online it's an idea I've had for a while and it seems like a no-brainer. If we reward teachers for high performance then they can get what they want...i wrote about this in the a thread i started. I think we should leave base salaries right where they are, but give nice bonus's to teachers who have class GPA's of 2.5 and above....classes with 3.0 would get a higher bonus and 4.0 would get a higher bonus still....just a thought, teachers unions would hate it, but i think the teachers might like it quite a bit...some sort of checks and balances would have to be put in place to keep teachers from cooking the books, but i think something like this could work.

Kernel Sanders · 11-18-08, 10:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Graffight

I love a lot of what you have said here...I do say this though, Unions are created when a company "does not treat it's people fairly"(debatable i know). But some companies do treat their people well enough that the union goes away. What if schools took an approach of actually trying to give teachers what they want as well as trying to get more performance out of the teachers. If you want more money/benefits fine we'll give them to you but you're going to have to work for them. I love the notion of posting all students grades and test scores online it's an idea I've had for a while and it seems like a no-brainer. If we reward teachers for high performance then they can get what they want...i wrote about this in the a thread i started. I think we should leave base salaries right where they are, but give nice bonus's to teachers who have class GPA's of 2.5 and above....classes with 3.0 would get a higher bonus and 4.0 would get a higher bonus still....just a thought, teachers unions would hate it, but i think the teachers might like it quite a bit...some sort of checks and balances would have to be put in place to keep teachers from cooking the books, but i think something like this could work.

Bad idea. The mark of a good teacher is not that they give all of their students A's

Graffight · 11-18-08, 11:01 AM

Think about it in terms of any business...The job of a teacher is to make sure students are learning. The job of a business leader is to make sure his direct reports are doing their job. The better their direct reports do the more the leader get's paid. I'm not saying that there wouldn't have to be some sort of check and balance to make sure that the teachers aren't just "giving all of their students A's" but let's give the teachers the benefit of the doubt and assume that they actually want their students to learn. By the way...what is the mark of a good teacher if their student's performance (not grades) isn't? If you are going to call it a bad idea at least back that up...

UtahBill · 11-18-08, 11:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Graffight

Think about it in terms of any business...The job of a teacher is to make sure students are learning. The job of a business leader is to make sure his direct reports are doing their job. The better their direct reports do the more the leader get's paid. I'm not saying that there wouldn't have to be some sort of check and balance to make sure that the teachers aren't just "giving all of their students A's" but let's give the teachers the benefit of the doubt and assume that they actually want their students to learn. By the way...what is the mark of a good teacher if their student's performance (not grades) isn't? If you are going to call it a bad idea at least back that up...

The job of a teacher is to teach, not act as a surrogate parent. If all they had to do was teach, we wouldn't have so many kids graduating while still stupid.
The part I bolded speaks volumes about you. Why would you assume anything but that they want the kids to learn?
Get your personal animosities out of the discussion and your credibility will increase....

Kernel Sanders · 11-18-08, 11:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Graffight

Think about it in terms of any business...The job of a teacher is to make sure students are learning. The job of a business leader is to make sure his direct reports are doing their job. The better their direct reports do the more the leader get's paid. I'm not saying that there wouldn't have to be some sort of check and balance to make sure that the teachers aren't just "giving all of their students A's" but let's give the teachers the benefit of the doubt and assume that they actually want their students to learn. By the way...what is the mark of a good teacher if their student's performance (not grades) isn't? If you are going to call it a bad idea at least back that up...

Student's grades depend on the students more than the teacher. If the class is evaluating its students in any meaningful way there will be more B's than A's and usually more C's than B's. Student GPA's just is not an effective measure of a teacher

Graffight · 11-18-08, 02:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kernel Sanders

Bad idea. The mark of a good teacher is not that they give all of their students A's

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kernel Sanders

Student's grades depend on the students more than the teacher. If the class is evaluating its students in any meaningful way there will be more B's than A's and usually more C's than B's. Student GPA's just is not an effective measure of a teacher

So what is a better measure of a teacher. or do you believe that poor teachers are a result of parents that don't care. I can agree with that...but do you think that teachers will get better if the students do? Do you think that the teachers play no role in how well their students learn? I that makes sense when I think about it...parental involvement is usually the difference between a high performing school and a low performing school...so how do we raise parental involvement besides chastising poor parents.

Graffight · 11-18-08, 03:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by UtahBill

The job of a teacher is to teach, not act as a surrogate parent. If all they had to do was teach, we wouldn't have so many kids graduating while still stupid.
The part I bolded speaks volumes about you. Why would you assume anything but that they want the kids to learn?
Get your personal animosities out of the discussion and your credibility will increase....

A teachers job is to teach, but it is also to make sure they teach in a way that is conducive to learning. Kids graduate while stupid because you can graduate with a 1.2 GPA, graduating doesn't mean you did or didn't learn anything....honestly neither does your GPA, but i can't think of a better way to evaluate the success of students, or teachers.

There were no personal animosities in the statement i made...I personally believe that teachers do want to teach and they want their students to learn...or else why would they keep a job that was underpaid and unappreciated, where they are often times set up to fail. Careful with your assumptions there bud, what i was trying to say is that people are all jumping down my throat saying that teachers will just give A's and B's to get paid more, I'm saying let's assume that they want kids to learn and they aren't going to do that...I hope it does speak volumes about me...i like to trust adults to make decisions and hold them accountable for the results.