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There are not enough resources to give everyone a quality high school education, so parents are right to fear that making things more equitqable will take away from the best.

I regularly substitute for teachers who have well over 100 students--one French teacher has 180.

Teachers are given a little over 8 hours of time to plan lessons, assess students, and everything else each week.

If a teacher spends 10 minutes per student assessing their progress--grading their work and thinking about how to guide them, especially in writing, it takes twice the paid work time teachers are given to assess 100 students--and very few teachers only have 100 students.

And, teachers are livid at the combination of this workload and people who don't understand education talking about the quality of their teaching!

Here are my thouhgts:

If you overlook the fact that teachers are underpaid and overworked, facilities obsolete and uncomfortable, and resources from textbooks, to language labs, to computers, in short supply, we now fund education, make use of curricula and resources, and have the right to expect that a student can get a quality education if:

He or she is of normal intelligence, is an auditory or visual learner, is physically, mentally, and emotionally healthy, has parents who value education, can act as an advocate for their child when necessary, and can help their child with learning to write or afford tutoring.

Some students with disabilities, chronic conditions, emotional issues, and those whose parents cannot or will not help, get a quality education but, depending on the category, many or most do not.

There are not the resources to deal with all of the students who arrive in 9th grade ill prepared to learn, and there is no way to deal with students who have decided that education is a waste of time and/or a bad idea.

So, if I were a parent of a student in a PPS school, I would do everything i could to stop any reform.

posted 3 years, 2 months ago
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CONTINUED FROM LAST POST:

Solutions to problems are most effective with high school children if they are somewhat intelligent.  There is so much to learn for a student who is prepared for 9th grade, it’s too late for many to meet math and language standards for college entrance, but it’s also likely too late for them to be conversant in the culure of educational success that opens professional doors.

They can still pass the sort of GED tests that I finished five hours early, twenty years after my last high school class in most of the subjects I was tested in.  Those who enter 9th grade functionally illiterate may do well enough to eventually have the fifth grade education that our dumbed-down society requires, unless--like Malcolm X--they have another reason besides limited intelligence for never having learned to read.

So, we need to figure out how to pay for and implement some version of every pilot program that has been shown to work but for which there is no political will or budget.  There is also no way to get the teachers.

Some people go into teaching because of their love for teaching, learning, or children.  Many teachers—some of whom are effective—go into teaching because they are unqualified for more competitive professions—law, medicine, and business.  High pay and selecting teachers like we select doctors would replace today’s problems with different ones.

Half of all new teachers leave the profession within five years.  Teachers know why.

posted 3 years, 3 months ago
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I agree with every comment above to some degree.  What people don’t seem to realize is that we already know everything we need to know to provide a high quality education for every child.

The current education system provides a high quality education for every normally-abled, emotionally and physically healthy, auditory and/or visual learner, who comes from a family that values education—but whose parents also understand how to work within the system as an advocate for their child and are able to help their child with becoming a skilled writer.  That is a small percentage of the student population.

Some differently abled children get a good education.

Some students with emotional difficulties and mental health diagnoses get a good education.

Some students with physical handicaps or chronic conditions get a good education.

Some students who are kinesthetic or tactual learners get a good education.  Perhaps even some olfactory or gustatory learners get a good education.

Some students whose families value education but don’t understand how to get one, get a good education.

Some students whose families do not value education even get a good education, but this is where the percentage starts to seriously drop.

Solutions to problems are easiest if intervention is begun in pre-school.

Solutions to problems are fairly effective if intervention is begun in elementary school.

Solutions to problems may sometimes be effective if begun in middle school.

posted 3 years, 3 months ago
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