How would you reform America's education system?

[SyntaxVorlon]

Start a thread about it here, then go with my original ideas.

I would create more stringent requirements and make the environment more socially controlled, IE reinstate school boards with nice new mandates. One of which would be to take the basic property taxes funding schools and spread that money around the system. Hire good teachers aggressively to insure that they go the schools where they will be able to do the most. As opposed to letting rich neighborhoods outbid poorer neighborhoods for educators. At the very least set goals for improving literacy that would be drastic.

[Stofsk]

I would institute a national boarding school system and eliminate the summer break and replace it with evenly spaced breaks throughout the year, while simultaneously bringing in experts from Singapore and Korea to comprehensively design a new standardized national curriculum. Nothing short of that is going to have any noticeable impact at all.

Can you explain why eliminating the summer break will be a good thing? If your summers are anything like ours, it gets really fucking hot (40 C + temperatures are not unexpected, even in February which is when kids go back to school). If you have to go to school under those conditions, you're not likely to concentrate all that much. And what's the deal with a boarding school system? What would that accomplish?

As for Singapore and Korea, I'm just curious what they do that's so good?

[Ace Pace]

Everything, great in math, languages, science etc.

However intresting note is that we get delegations from Korea all the time studying our 'more free-form' education system.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Can you explain why eliminating the summer break will be a good thing? If your summers are anything like ours, it gets really fucking hot (40 C + temperatures are not unexpected, even in February which is when kids go back to school). If you have to go to school under those conditions, you're not likely to concentrate all that much.

I would be shocked if there is still a school building in America which doesn't have air conditioning--our schools are ridiculously lavish in regard to their material construction (in fact many are rated as tornado/hurricane shelters based on their strength of construction.

And what's the deal with a boarding school system? What would that accomplish?

50% of the problem with American children is their parents. We cannot force people to be better parents without a totalitarian intrusion on the life of the average individual. Therefore the only solution is to minimize contact between the children being educated and their parents. This is at best something which is temporary; after several generations we would have hopefully brought American levels of intelligence and respect for intelligence back up to levels where this would no longer be necessary. But it is certainly necessary now.

As for Singapore and Korea, I'm just curious what they do that's so good?

Quality of curriculum combined with demonstrated results on important subjects; Singapore as a very rigorous curriculum, and Korea has the highest math scores of any industrialized nation (the USA has the worst).

[Wicked Pilot]

Improving the schools is only the tip of the iceberg. There has to be a fundamental change in the attitudes of people concerning how much they value education. I attended public school in the worst state to offer it, yet myself and many of my peers after graduation went off to college, and are now living happy lives with good well paying jobs. The education was there for the taking, those who took it got it, those who didn't give a shit didn't get shit.

[Drunk Monkey]

Can you explain why eliminating the summer break will be a good thing? If your summers are anything like ours, it gets really fucking hot (40 C + temperatures are not unexpected, even in February which is when kids go back to school). If you have to go to school under those conditions, you're not likely to concentrate all that much.

I would be shocked if there is still a school building in America which doesn't have air conditioning--our schools are ridiculously lavish in regard to their material construction (in fact many are rated as tornado/hurricane shelters based on their strength of construction.

My school does not have air conditioning and it was built around 1998.

[RedImperator]

Can you explain why eliminating the summer break will be a good thing? If your summers are anything like ours, it gets really fucking hot (40 C + temperatures are not unexpected, even in February which is when kids go back to school). If you have to go to school under those conditions, you're not likely to concentrate all that much.

I would be shocked if there is still a school building in America which doesn't have air conditioning--our schools are ridiculously lavish in regard to their material construction (in fact many are rated as tornado/hurricane shelters based on their strength of construction.

My school district don't have air conditioning in any of the buildings, except for window units in administrative offices and the teachers' lounge. And it's not like South Jersey is pleasant and comfortable in September or June. I can remember days in April where it was 85 degrees in the building and you could SEE the humidity.

[Petrosjko]

It's kind of a side track, but my old high school ran an evaporative cooling system that would freeze everyone in the morning as they took a running head start at the day's heat, would get comfortable around noon, and start getting pretty damned warm in the afternoon. The one time I did summer school up there, it was pretty damned warm all day long.

*shrugs*

I don't consider that to be an overwhelmingly major concern, though. A properly comfortable environment is preferable, of course, but people can adapt to a bit of heat, so long as the ventilation is adequate.

Now onto the question at hand: Red was right that centralization of control is the absolute worst route to take. One bad administration and our educational system is fucked for four to eight years plus the time it would take for a new administration to try to repair the damage. The problem with centralized bureacracy is that it's damned near impossible to repair or clean out once it's entrenched.

So what would I do? Break the unions, as mentioned before. Go on a merry 'Why are you drawing a paycheck?' purge of administrators throughout the land, just to slash as much deadwood as I could away from the system, make a few tweaks vis a vis science and history education, as well as school athletics, and then self-destruct the office of Education Czar.

(Literally. I mean, have the damn thing wired, push the plunger and watch the building fall, then dance in the street from joy at having destroyed a future abomination.)

[Surlethe]

Suppose that Bush goes wacko*, and abolishes the school boards for states, and instead instates a dictator for school policy throughout the country. You are that dictator. How would you reform the education system. Remember, nothing is stopping you from doing whatever the hell you want except for money and practicality.

#1: Revise the curricula to be much, much more rigorous in every area.
#2: Differentiate education based on student potential and performance.
#3: Create competing school systems, which will in turn raise teacher salary and increase the quality of the education offered, while decreasing price to students of attending.
#4: Year-round schooling. No summer break to forget everything and then be fucked when returning in the fall.
#5: Break teachers' unions. Create teacher accountability by random reviews of the class' curriculum and monitoring of performance of students. Because the students will be differentiated based on earlier performance and potential, student performance within the class will be a more accurate indicator of teacher performance.
#6: Institute a massive propaganda campaign to attempt to shift the culture onto a new path.
#7: Clear out the beauracracy. Streamline applications and paperwork. Declutter.
#8: Lead a military coup and rule the world!! Muahaha!

[wolveraptor]

You know, after conducting studies on the average scores of students who went to schools with evenly spaced breaks, and comparing them with the regular students, researchers found that year-round schooling caused students to perform slightly better than their summer-break counterparts.
http://www.ascribe.org/cgi-bin/spew4th. ... 4&public=1

The effects were more dramatic for lower-income students or those who perform poorly. Students over summer break forgot about a month's worth of teaching, while those who had year-round schooling forgot only about half as much. However, changing to year-round schooling will not significantly improve American education, because, as said before, the effect is only slight.

[Junghalli]

50% of the problem with American children is their parents. We cannot force people to be better parents without a totalitarian intrusion on the life of the average individual. Therefore the only solution is to minimize contact between the children being educated and their parents. This is at best something which is temporary; after several generations we would have hopefully brought American levels of intelligence and respect for intelligence back up to levels where this would no longer be necessary. But it is certainly necessary now.

So you're basically saying that we need to have the state replace the parents, at least for a few years of life.
Uh, no offense, but you're scaring me a little here. Seriously.

[Drunk Monkey]

50% of the problem with American children is their parents. We cannot force people to be better parents without a totalitarian intrusion on the life of the average individual. Therefore the only solution is to minimize contact between the children being educated and their parents. This is at best something which is temporary; after several generations we would have hopefully brought American levels of intelligence and respect for intelligence back up to levels where this would no longer be necessary. But it is certainly necessary now.

So you're basically saying that we need to have the state replace the parents, at least for a few years of life.
Uh, no offense, but you're scaring me a little here. Seriously.

Terrified is more like it!

[Zero]

That'd go a bit beyond your bounds as dictator of education. Lol. If that happened, many people would be rioting in the streets. You can't take control of the child away from the parent without pretty bad consequences on both ends. the children and their parents would both end up pretty messed up over it.

[Junghalli]

That'd go a bit beyond your bounds as dictator of education. Lol. If that happened, many people would be rioting in the streets.

Well, what she proposed wasn't quite that extreme. Boarding school isn't quite the same thing as taking the children away from the parents, although for all practical purposes it amounts to the same thing.
But her point basically was that if you want to improve the general intelligence level you'd have to have the government teach children morality and lifeskills instead of the parents, and the easiest way to do that was to the government essentially take over the roll of parents.
And I agree with Drunk Monkey there. That's the kind of mentality you'd expect in a communist or totalitarian country, not a democracy.

[Zero]

If the public education system took over the role of parents in developing the person as a person, along with their sense of morality, then many parents would be a bit pissed anyways. And also, if this occured, the children would have no sense themselves that they ought to teach their children right and wrong, so this educational system would have to be permanent. Parenting would cease to exist, at least in any important form.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I just don't see any other way to actually improve things. Obviously public education would still be optional--private schools and homeschooling would still exist. If they weren't up to snuff, well, tough luck on the kids who's parents decided to send them through the public institutions (most private schools are at least decent, and the number of uneducated kids getting out of the bad ones and homeschooling would be insignificant statistically, so I see no reason to ban school choice in that sense--just that the government money should be going to the actual solution).

The reason why I'd advocate a public boarding school system is that, quite simply, you cannot only fix half of a problem and create any meaningful difference. As long as the parents are fucked up, they're going to ruin anything you try to do to fix the school system from the moment those kids come home. Now, it could very well be that the reason why the parents are fucked up is because they themselves went through such a horrible school system; but that doesn't change the fact that now that they are the way they are, you cannot change them...

Not, at least, without imposing totalitarian restrictions and regulations on parenting. I do not like totalitarianism, so obviously I am not supporting such restrictions and regulations.

The alternative is to simply minimize the influence of parents on their children.

Is this ideal? No. Is it dangerous? Absolutely. But I don't see any other way to fix the system permanently. I simply don't think that even the best education system in the world would do one whit of good if the kids were still coming home each and every night to parents who told them that everything they heard at school was a lie, and that is what a very large number of parents will be doing if you reform the school system in the way the majority of you want it reformed, and in fact what a large number of them already do.

Sometimes, you are so far down the hole that the only solutions are mighty unappealing, and our education system happens to be that far gone.

Remember that centralizing the school system would actually remove the local and state bureaucracies; so you'd reduce your bureaucracy over the school administration by approximately a third. Granted, it's quite the federalist option, but I simply think we're at the point where it's also going to be the only truly effective option, and thus an extraordinary solution is called for.

I see nothing totalitarian in boarding schools, which have been--granted, as what we'd call private schools--a very large, effective, and popular institution in the UK for a very long time. This does not seem to hamper their functional democracy.

Furthermore, sensible diet and exercise regimens could be instilled in children from a young age in such circumstances, which might result in considerable economic savings from reduced healthcare costs later in life. I would actually bet that over a fifty year period a centralized boarding school system would save the government money because of that.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

And I agree with Drunk Monkey there. That's the kind of mentality you'd expect in a communist or totalitarian country, not a democracy.

But the parents are 50% of the problem, and we must address that problem. The only way to do it short of a boarding school system would appear to be such regulations and controls on the raising of children as to require a truly totalitarian society. It would be much more detrimental to your freedom to have the government control how you raise your children in every minute detail than to have the public schools operating on a boarding-school format.

[Broomstick]

You're assuming that the folks running your government-controlled boarding schools would have the students' best interests in mind. I don't think such an assumption is valid.

What if the motivation of those in charge is NOT to turn out well-rounded, intelligent people but rather compliant, loyal drones? Good corporate drudges with a few tracked into military pursuits and only a very, very few (the children of those in charge) tracked onto the courses that lead to control and leadership of society?

Besides - if, as you, say, parents are 50% of the problem, how are you going to tackle the other 50%?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

You're assuming that the folks running your government-controlled boarding schools would have the students' best interests in mind. I don't think such an assumption is valid.

What if the motivation of those in charge is NOT to turn out well-rounded, intelligent people but rather compliant, loyal drones? Good corporate drudges with a few tracked into military pursuits and only a very, very few (the children of those in charge) tracked onto the courses that lead to control and leadership of society?

I'd probably introduce democratic elements in the Junior and Senior years of high school as a preparation for life as an adult citizen--elections for student posts which contain real power, not the game-playing sinecures of current student body governments. This is much more feasable without breaking down the curriculum in a boarding school, where you have a whole community rather than simply educational facilities.

Besides - if, as you, say, parents are 50% of the problem, how are you going to tackle the other 50%?

The establishment of a sensible curriculum which has been demonstrated to produce results elsewhere (that's why I talked about bringing in Singaporean and Korean advisors), in combination with changed standards for teachers which emphasize specialization on single subjects in which they have technical competency (as a broad term, not specifically technical things). No more education degrees, no more education certificates--the classes will be taught by people with degrees in that field exclusively. The curriculum will be centrally controlled to mandate results based education and the atmosphere will specifically be one emphasizing the genuine importance of achievement, as it is in the Asian countries with very successful schooling systems. The education experts can be re-hired as hall supervisors for the boarding aspect of the schools and so on, instead.

[Wicked Pilot]

I hate to rain on the boarding school parade here but cost is a factor. There's a reason why traditionally only the children of the wealthy got sent to these places.

[Junghalli]

But the parents are 50% of the problem, and we must address that problem.

Well, if that's what it comes down to I'd rather leave things they way they are. Sure the public school system in this country isn't exactly great, but it's nowhere near bad enough to require such an extreme solution.
Besides, you seem to be making the assumption that the state will be better at raising children than the parents. I rather tend to think that the state will be a terrible parent, because

(1)It can't possibly care for children in the same way parents can. A good deal of natural, healthy human development IMO is to have parents who actually care for and love you. How is someone going to care for and love you when you're one of thirty students they've been randomly assigned to babysit for a year? If it comes down to a choice between leaving a children with parents who love him but are YECs and giving him to the state I'll take the YEC parents. He may grow up with some idiotic beliefs about how the world was created, but IMO he stands a much better chance of growing up as a generally normal, emotionally healthy person overall.

(2)Broomstick's point. The reason I'm always very way of state solutions is that it assumes the state has the best interests of the people at heart. Bullshit. The state is just like every other entity: it has it's own best interests at heart. Even in a best-case scenario an education system like this is going to mercilessly pound in the society's official line in the hopes of producing "morally correct" people who will hopefully all come out thinking much the same way. That's totally anathema to the kind of pluralism that a genuinely free society is supposed to promote.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I hate to rain on the boarding school parade here but cost is a factor. There's a reason why traditionally only the children of the wealthy got sent to these places.

Oh, it would certainly cost more, but centralizing the system would eliminate two layers of bureaucracy, which would alleviate some of the cost increases, and in the long term the boarding schools have fairly considerable potential to instill good health behaviour in children from an early age, which may result in considerable savings in the long run.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Well, if that's what it comes down to I'd rather leave things they way they are. Sure the public school system in this country isn't exactly great, but it's nowhere near bad enough to require such an extreme solution.
Besides, you seem to be making the assumption that the state will be better at raising children than the parents. I rather tend to think that the state will be a terrible parent, because

(1)It can't possibly care for children in the same way parents can. A good deal of natural, healthy human development IMO is to have parents who actually care for and love you. How is someone going to care for and love you when you're one of thirty students they've been randomly assigned to babysit for a year? If it comes down to a choice between leaving a children with parents who love him but are YECs and giving him to the state I'll take the YEC parents. He may grow up with some idiotic beliefs about how the world was created, but IMO he stands a much better chance of growing up as a generally normal, emotionally healthy person overall.

British society hasn't collapsed, the last time I checked. Unless you are prepared to contend that a significant percentage of the leading figures in the UK throughout recent history have had serious problems? How does one evaluate "emotional health", anyway? It's highly subjective. We know of many people who, going through boarding schools, come out to go on to very productive and successful lives, on the other hand. Anyway, much more peer contact is more likely to help people in the long run than contact with their family, since it prepares them more for the social settings they will face as adults.

(2)Broomstick's point. The reason I'm always very way of state solutions is that it assumes the state has the best interests of the people at heart. Bullshit. The state is just like every other entity: it has it's own best interests at heart. Even in a best-case scenario an education system like this is going to mercilessly pound in the society's official line in the hopes of producing "morally correct" people who will hopefully all come out thinking much the same way. That's totally anathema to the kind of pluralism that a genuinely free society is supposed to promote.

And this doesn't happen already? I didn't know that boarding schools had an extra "Brainwashing 101" every day.

[Junghalli]

I'd probably introduce democratic elements in the Junior and Senior years of high school as a preparation for life as an adult citizen--elections for student posts which contain real power, not the game-playing sinecures of current student body governments.

That's not really what bothers me. What bothers me is that you're saying the government should teach children about morality and how they should live their lives. In other words, you have a problem with parents indoctrinating their children, and your solution is to pull them into a state-run system and have the state indoctrinate them in the official line of the society instead.
The fact that this is completely anethema to the idea of a pluralistic society doesn't bother you?

[Trekdestroyer]

Language classes for Spanish, French, and German would be avalible for choice as soon as 5th grade.