If you ran the Department of Education...

[ColbertWatcher]

...what would your first 100 days look like?

[bbinacan]

1. I'd fire everybody

and then send them back through an interview process. I would raise teacher's salaries in an attempt to lure better people. I'd support teachers more, especially when it comes to failing a student. etc.

[hobbit709]

2. I'd trash the standardized testing.

And have schools go back to teaching the material instead of how to take a test.

[teacher gal]

3. I'd make it illegal

to attach life altering consequences for children, teachers, and schools, to standardized test results.

[w8liftinglady]

5. I agree 100%..it has ruined any creativity

[Sabriel]

4. I'd put the defense budget toward education and human services.

There wouldn't be any more hungry children needing dental work and a decent place to live.

I'd repair the damage done to Title I and other pre-kindergarten programs, so that there might be a chance of equalizing how children start school.

Oh, and I would use testing for assessment, not for punitive action.

And I'd listen to teachers when they tell me something's not working.

[teacher gal]

7. well said

Note that NCLB is entirely punitive rather than supportive, and virulently anti-child.

[BigDaddy44]

12. The ENTIRE defense budget?

No DoD when you're king?

[teacher gal]

14. No of course not the entire defense budget!!

I don't think that's what she meant! Just a fair share of the pie for domestic needs like education, health care, a crumbling infrastructure, the highest rate of childhood poverty of all the wealthy nations - er, little things like that.

[donheld]

25. .

:yourock:

[Elspeth]

6. I'd burn it down and return local control to the neighborhoods.

That burning is figurative, Agent Mike. I am a peace loving person, k?

[BigDaddy44]

13. If its totally controlled by the local neighborhoods....

Then why would we even need a Department of Education?

[EFerrari]

29. To administrate the dispersal of Federal funds to the state. nt/

[BigDaddy44]

40. You'd need a whole Department to disperse Federal funds to the States?

If you propose returning control back to the States, then you really don't need a Federal Department of Education. The only function would be to disperse money. The argument then could made as to why even disperse Federal money? Why not let the States handle it?

Thats why returning control back to the States is, IMHO, a bad idea. You pretty much strip away the justification for a Federal DOE.

[baldguy]

42. Local control isn't the solution - it's the problem!

Petty politics starts on local school boards.

[Thothmes]

48. Petty politics doesn't exist in the Federal Government?

[LWolf]

8. Day one: repeal NCLB,

and start working on a version of ESEA that would:

1. Require every public school to have a superb library and be fully equipped with modern technology...and FUND IT.

2. Enact a national teacher certification program (yes, I'm aware of the current version) that would grandfather in all existing teachers licensed in any state, and allow teachers to teach in any state under that license without further requirements by state ed depts.

3. Fund universal pre-school through college or trade school.

4. Create a building and maintenance fund that would do away with the use of local property taxes to fund school construction and repair. Could be attached to requiring developer's fees to pay for part of new school construction.

5. Reform special ed programs so that all students who are struggling for ANY reason, regardless of "qualifying," will be served with extra support and resources.

6. Lobby hard for HR 676, and arrange for mental and physical health services, as well as before and after school tutoring, enrichment, and day care, to be coordinated and delivered on school site.

7. Set some standards for quality for school meals: fresh food, cooked on site, no junk food.

I can think of many other things I would like to see happen with public education, but I'm not sure I'd want them all on a federal level. How much to leave with the state, and how much responsibility to give to the feds, requires more thought. Meanwhile, the list above should keep the department busy for at least 100 days, lol.

[ColbertWatcher]

10. LINK!

HR676.org (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:h.r.00676">legal text)

[LWolf]

32. When we look at the REAL sources of inequalities in schools,

they always begin with socio-economic inequalities. Ask a teacher...every teacher knows a student who isn't thriving, for reasons that cannot be addressed in school. I know many.

If we address the socio-economic inequalities in our communities, we automatically make education more accessible, more possible, for many. Let's start at the source. Health care is a great way to begin.

:thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[teacher gal]

15. Wow! Excellent!

You actually put some real thought into the question! And it sounds doable and sensible - if only we could nominate you as our Ed Secretary! I'd add strong mentoring programs for new teachers. The first year or two can be awfully tough to endure if you have no support, especially in high poverty urban schools.

[LWolf]

30. I've often thought

that instead of the formulas we use to staff schools, we ought to assign new teachers to school sites with no classes. They could spend their first couple of years partnering with a variety of teachers, apprenticing, so to speak, FOR PAY. Paid, extended student teaching.

Every school can benefit with more adults on campus, and I remember how tough it was to give up my paying job to do my student teaching, with no guarantee of hiring when I was done.

[YvonneCa]

21. Great list...

...to start with. I would only add that I would declare a day of reflection on the importance of education and the value of educators, especially teachers...and on that day apologize publicly to teachers for the disrespect of the last several years. Nationwide. And proclaim a new era of respect for those who fight for children every day.

[teacher gal]

22. Yvonne

You are so kind. Expressions like yours can bring a teacher to tears (of gratitude) that there are some who understand and appreciate teachers. I just want you to know you are greatly appreciated too Yvonne.

[YvonneCa]

44. Thank you...

...teachergal, for your kind words and for all you do for kids. :)

[LWolf]

31. Thank you, Yvonne.

:cry:

[YvonneCa]

45. You are most...

...welcome.:hug:

[jazzjunkysue]

9. Imagine George Bush reading a 7th grade social studies book in the front row of

my outer office. Nah-On second thought, I'd find some really mercinary nuns to stand over him with paddles and bad breath until he could pass a quiz on american history.

The second hundred days would look like in-school detention, because he'd still be only half way through the book, and failing.

[teacher gal]

16. He'd probably be

holding the book upside down too, looking quite bewildered.

[ColbertWatcher]

11. I would bring back music and art.

And vocational education.

Kids need to have choices and opportunities.

[teacher gal]

17. agreed - STRONGLY! n/t

[Jamastiene]

47. There we go.

That would be a great start. :thumbsup:

[AdHocSolver]

18. I could write many pages about what is wrong with education, and what should be done to fix it.

However, it would probably drive me crazy to enumerate all of the problems.

So, I will throw out some thoughts and let others respond. I find that I can come up with better replies when I respond to individual posts.

This fact provides a significant clue to my thoughts about education. Real learning takes place when a person spends time to solve a problem or create something. The problem to be solved or "object" to be created should be something that the individual has a personal interest in. Motivating students to expend some energy is frequently short-circuited because the approach used actually turns the students off.

Studying to take a test about boring subjects taught in boring ways kills the joy of learning. The educational system in the U.S. is designed to be a mass-production factory where teachers try to instill useless information about boring subjects with the intention of weeding out the "dummies".

Text books are poorly written from a pedagogical stand point. Teachers are forced to follow a curriculum, and are judged, not on results, but on their ability to promote the standardized design. Students are not stupid. They know they are being scammed. The "better" students are merely the ones who "play" the system.

I am not criticizing teachers. The sorry state of education in the U.S. is NOT their fault. The problems are due to the politicization of education, the corporate dominance of education with its goal to produce subservient minions to staff its bureaucracies, the school administrations, often staffed by former teachers who dislike children, and go for school administration degrees to avoid interacting with children, and colleges of education, which are staffed for the most part by professors who, as students, "gamed" the system and who have a vested interest in maintaining their power by maintaining the status quo.

I had several years experience with American schools, as a student, a teacher (for a few years), and as a parent. My experience, except for some of my college years, was not very enlightening or inspiring. I can think of a half dozen public school teachers who motivated me and taught me well. The rest is just a blur.

Again, I am NOT blaming the teachers. They are a "product" of the system. I met many teachers over the years who tried to do well by their students. They are victims of a system that is authoritarian, demeaning, full of itself, and fights significant change with a vengeance. The system is further embattled by politicians who nickel-and-dime school sytems by downgrading important expressive skills such as art classes and music. I would also include vocational education classes in this category, as well. (I enjoyed shop class in middle school, especially woodworking.)

The most important techniques for developing skills and knowledge are based on problem solving and creating something. However, it has to be something that interests the student, that can grab the student's attention and make them want to expend the effort.

So here is the problem for DUers to "solve". Write about the problems you see as students, teachers, and parents, and make suggestions for trying to solve these problems.

To initiate the process, I will relate an experience that is indicative of the issues. My kid, when in middle school, asked for help with some history homework. There were a number of questions at the end of the chapter to be answered by finding the appropriate text in the chapter. This should be easy, right! I couldn't figure out what the response should be. Both the questions and the text were so vague, that flipping a coin would be just as effective to get the right answer.

Just for the heck of it, I looked at the front page to see who wrote the text. I expected to see someone with a degree in history as the author. Not one historian among the authors. Instead, there were eight authors all with some kind of education degree. Not one history degree among them.

[AdHocSolver]

20. For you teachers, one technique that the best teachers shared was working examples in class.

For example, I took a logic class in college. The professor was superb. He set up philosophical arguments and explained how the argument was structured, then proceeded to show us how to demolish the argument. It was a phenomenal class in teaching students how to think.

Years later, I took a class in computer programming. The professor used the same technique. He gave us a program to design and code. After we made our feeble attempts, he spent several days showing us how HE would go about designing, coding, testing, and debugging the program. It was amazingly successful.

A few years after that, I was reading a programming book for a different computer language. The author pointed out that this was the second edition of the book. He said that he received an e-mail from a guy who bought the first edition. The author thought his book was wonderfully complete. However, the e-mail set him straight on that score. There was only one sentence in the e-mail: "Where are the #@$%*&^ examples?" (Insert your favorite expletives.)

The second edition included a LOT of examples. It was a good book.

[ColbertWatcher]

19. No more creationism.

Keep religion out of science classes.

[timtom]

23. Before I would answer that,

I would ask everyone to google Summerhill.

That about sums up where I stand on education.

[kath]

24. Also Google "Sudbury Valley School" and "Sudbury model"

similar philosophy to Summerhill.
Oh, how I wish there was a Sudbury-model school near us. We have homeschooled, but I would have preferred a Sudbury school for our daughters.
If I won the lottery, I'd like to start such a school.

[timtom]

26. Googled it.

Wow! I agree. Thanks for the heads up.

[ellisonz]

27. I've got to confess...

I'd nationalize private education and ban home schooling.

[Thothmes]

49. So much for the Constitution of the United States.

[LeftishBrit]

28. Put in a lot more money; reduce the bureaucracy; get rid of OFSTED

(translation of last item into American terms: abolish NCLB)

Reduce class size and increase individual tuition for children with difficulties (actually our government are attempting to do the latter, finally).

Increase opportunities for mature students to enter higher education at any stage of their lives.

Reduce 'targets' and testing, especially of very young children. Let education be mostly play until age 6.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

33. A few quick notes

1. Abolish NCLB and use testing for internal purposes only.

2. Set up a national curriculum defined by broad content but leave the methods up to the individual teachers. For example, you could say that first graders should learn about the solar system and how it causes seasons, but without specifying the textbooks, visual aids. or methods. (I'm thinking of something like Core Knowledge, but not as detailed.) Keep everyone on the same curriculum through tenth grade, and then allow students to go into one of several tracks, ranging from purely vocational (skilled trades, etc.) to IB college prep.

3. Keep class sizes at no more than 15 in elementary school, which is where troubled kids start to lose their way. (This is based on my experiences with street kids.) Hell, why not keep them at 15 throughout K-12? That's what private schools boast of.

4. Improve instruction in history, geography, civics, literature, music, art, and theater. Have a unified curriculum in social studies so that every student gets a grounding in American and world history, world geography, civics, comparative government. Require a foreign language in grades five through ten.

5. Keep schools small, and make sure they're well-equipped.

6. Encourage kids to walk or bike to school and be sure that all elementary students get two 15-minute recess periods and an hour's worth of lunch period, the second half of which is spent outside. I bet this will reduce a lot of behavior problems, since children are SUPPOSED to be active and fidgety.

7. Eliminate as many administrators as possible. If they have teaching talent, put them back in the classroom. If they don't, pension them off and tell them to find a useful line of work.

8. Make teacher training more of an apprenticeship and less a matter of sitting through a lot of boring theory classes. (When my mother learned to be a kindergarten-primary teacher in the 1940s, she spent a whole year doing half-day observations and assistant work in actual classrooms and another year student teaching.)

9. On the secondary level, make sure that teachers have at least in a minor and preferably a major in the subjects they teach.

[ColbertWatcher]

34. I love #7...

7. Eliminate as many administrators as possible. If they have teaching talent, put them back in the classroom. If they don't, pension them off and tell them to find a useful line of work. (Emphasis added)

I wonder how many people realize this is where a lot of money is wasted?

[Yupster]

35. I taught for 10 years, and then

I became a stockbroker working mostly with teachers on their retirement plans.

Each year I got a school district directory that listed all the school district employees. I have been doing this now for about 20 years. There has been a huge change.

Twenty years ago you could open a random page in the directory and count 15 teachers out of the 20 employees. The typical entry was Mary Price: second grade teacher, Edison Elementary.

Now you open a directory and you have a rough time finding a teacher on the page. A typical entry might read, Mary Price: Project Think facilitator, West Annex.

I'm sure all of these hundreds of non-classroom employees are doing important jobs and doing them well, but I can't say that I've seen the improvement in the learning come with this ballooning of employment.

Any company would be looking to downsize in this situation, but schools aren't. They just seem to keep adding new layers of non-classroom employees.

[ColbertWatcher]

36. Having done management all my life...

...that's a formula for disaster.

"Think facilitator"? Really?

Like the old saying goes:

"Too many cooks spoil the broth"

Each school one principal and (depending on the size) 2 or 3 assistants, with a sufficient number of secretaries. No office can run without secretaries.

Each district, one manager, and (again, depending on the size) enough assistants to keep the top manager in line. Also enough secretaries to do the real work.

"Think facilitators" are a bit much, but counselors aren't and should be everywhere.

[Yupster]

38. Think should have been capitalized

All these programs have clever acronyms.

[Rex]

37. That picture you have in your sigline sums it up for me.

[jmowreader]

39. I would start by firing everyone without an Education degree

If you are going to make national policy for all school systems in America to operate by, how about getting people who know how a school is supposed to run to make said policy?

[lutefisk]

41. Are you saying a bachelor's degree in political science isn't enough?

That is what Spellings has for educational qualifications.

[jmowreader]

43. Delivering soft-money contributions to the RNC on a shrinkwrapped pallet isn't, either

[Yupster]

46. When I taught for 10 years,

my BA in history was a lot more valuable than my MA in Education (Curriculum and Instruction). That MA degree was pretty much a joke. Made me a little extra money. Didn't learn crap.