Teachers do more.

[Blue_In_AK]

http://www.adn.com/2013/03/06/2814614/compass-anchorage-schools-do-more.html

This is an excellent guest editorial in today's Anchorage Daily News...good arguments to use against the teacher and education bashers and those who want to cut education funding.

Anchorage's Schools Do More

The Anchorage School Board has passed its budget, and the state legislature will soon be voting on school funding. It is that time of year when people like to ask "why is education so expensive?"

<snip>

When I was in school, algebra was taught in high school and few students took calculus. Physics stopped with Isaac Newton, and our history books didn't take us past the Korean War. My high school offered four advance placement classes. The level of science, math, writing, and reading instruction in an Anchorage elementary classroom is far more encompassing than I received in my elementary school. The science taught at the high school level for all students is what used to be taught only to college science majors. Teaching students more information costs more money.

When I was in school, if a student misbehaved, his or her parents held the student responsible. Today, the first question many people ask is "what did the teacher do wrong to cause the misbehavior?" This shift in responsibility has led to increased behavior problems, with more time spent attempting to address those problems. These changes cost more money.

<snip>

When I was in school, not all children were the same. People believed that some children did better in math, reading, or writing, than others, and that it was not possible for all children to be proficient every year. Today, society expects all children to be successful at or above a proficiency level that was thought to be unrealistic 40 years ago. Raising the standard of success costs more money.

Schools are also expected to teach job skills, work ethic, healthy eating and anti-bullying. Students must learn to use computers, search the internet, and follow safe internet practices. Parents have demanded more, so now the district teaches everything from anthropology to zoology, including courses such as aviation, tourism, engineering, material science, CAD, debate, web design, band, orchestra, forensic science, culinary arts, EMT, and multiple foreign languages, all part of an already crowded academic schedule.

Society has demanded changes. Students who in the past were shunted aside or left behind are now being educated. This change is very good, but it is not free. Rather than asking why education is so expensive, we should be asking how schools do so much at such a reasonable cost.

Jeff Friedman is a lawyer and was a member of the Anchorage School Board for nine years. The opinion expressed here is his own.






http://www.adn.com/2013/03/06/2814614/compass-anchorage-schools-do-more.html

[hfojvt]

1. unfortunatly, I am reminded of a quote

"The schools provide the best preparation for everybody for a complicated world, are the logical haven for unemployed youth, can equalize opportunity for the underprivileged, administer research in all fields, and be the indispensable mentor for creativity, business-practice, social work, mental hygiene, genuine literacy - name it, and there are credits leading to a degree. The schools offer very little evidence of their unique ability to perform any of these things - there is plenty of evidence to the contrary - but they do not need to offer evidence since nobody opposes them or proposes alternatives." Paul Goodman, preface to "Compulsory Mis-education" 1964 p. 8

[raccoon]

2. THanks for posting this, Blue. Rec'd. nt