Saving the US Billions of Dollars in School Costs

[Amplifier]

Having just paid my first large tax bill of my life I've started to hate inefficiency in the government. And one of the biggest sources of waste is the public school system.

I promise in about one page I'll show you how to save billions in taxes each year without doing anything controversial or profound.

Most schools are on a seven period day. This needs to end ASAP. Let me show you how an alternative setup, the four period day, works.

The student takes four complete classes per semester (half year) instead of takin seven classes over the course of one year. Each class lasts ~90 minutes as opposed to ~50 minutes.

Remember I promised that I would save the US billions of dollars? There will be millions of students who would benefit from this system. The savings (direct and indirect) will add up very quickly.

Taking eight full courses a year means student?s can finish highschool/middleschool one to two years earlier (saving America up to $18000 per student). Or if they would rather stay in high school the full four years they will be able to take more AP classes (the average college class costs $2500-$6000). .

The only objection I've ever heard to this system came from teachers who didn't want to change their schedules around. I've also heard that taking a course in one semester is too 'fast' for some students, which having worked in both systems I know that is hogwash.

Why wouldn't this setup be universalized as soon as possible? A semester based system is so efficient that all the Ivy League schools and many private high schools use it right now. It would take little effort from the teachers/administration to setup

I could post more about this subject but I'll let you guys discuss it.

 

[Tommunist]

Originally posted by: Amplifier
Having just paid my first large tax bill of my life I've started to hate inefficiency in the government. And one of the biggest sources of waste is the public school system.

I promise in about one page I'll show you how to save billions in taxes each year without doing anything controversial or profound.

Most schools are on a seven period day. This needs to end ASAP. Let me show you how an alternative setup, the four period day, works.

The student takes four complete classes per semester (half year) instead of takin seven classes over the course of one year. Each class lasts ~90 minutes as opposed to ~50 minutes.

Remember I promised that I would save the US billions of dollars? There will be millions of students who would benefit from this system. The savings (direct and indirect) will add up very quickly.

Taking eight full courses a year means student?s can finish highschool/middleschool one to two years earlier (saving America up to $18000 per student). Or if they would rather stay in high school the full four years they will be able to take more AP classes (the average college class costs $2500-$6000). .

The only objection I've ever heard to this system came from teachers who didn't want to change their schedules around. I've also heard that taking a course in one semester is too 'fast' for some students, which having worked in both systems I know that is hogwash.

Why wouldn't this setup be universalized as soon as possible? A semester based system is so efficient that all the Ivy League schools and many private high schools use it right now. It would take little effort from the teachers/administration to setup

I could post more about this subject but I'll let you guys discuss it.

My HS used the 4 class method with semesters that you speak of. The other advantage that you didn't mention is that you can take 2 years of math, science, or whatever in one year which was impossible before (as in - you can take trig followed by intro to calc in one year). This meant I was able to push myself in math and science (which I enjoyed) without having to miss out on my other courses and extracurricular activities.

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: Amplifier
Having just paid my first large tax bill of my life I've started to hate inefficiency in the government. And one of the biggest sources of waste is the public school system.

I promise in about one page I'll show you how to save billions in taxes each year without doing anything controversial or profound.

Most schools are on a seven period day. This needs to end ASAP. Let me show you how an alternative setup, the four period day, works.

The student takes four complete classes per semester (half year) instead of takin seven classes over the course of one year. Each class lasts ~90 minutes as opposed to ~50 minutes.

Remember I promised that I would save the US billions of dollars? There will be millions of students who would benefit from this system. The savings (direct and indirect) will add up very quickly.

Taking eight full courses a year means student?s can finish highschool/middleschool one to two years earlier (saving America up to $18000 per student). Or if they would rather stay in high school the full four years they will be able to take more AP classes (the average college class costs $2500-$6000). .

The only objection I've ever heard to this system came from teachers who didn't want to change their schedules around. I've also heard that taking a course in one semester is too 'fast' for some students, which having worked in both systems I know that is hogwash.

Why wouldn't this setup be universalized as soon as possible? A semester based system is so efficient that all the Ivy League schools and many private high schools use it right now. It would take little effort from the teachers/administration to setup

I could post more about this subject but I'll let you guys discuss it.

America has been waiting for decades for you to make this plan public:roll: Of course I don't have a better solution.

 

[Tab]

I'll make a horribly long and detailed post...later...

 

[Tommunist]

Originally posted by: Red Dawn
America has been waiting for decades for you to make this plan public:roll:

it's almost like it already exists in some public schools!!!

 

[Amplifier]

Originally posted by: Tommunist

My HS used the 4 class method with semesters that you speak of. The other advantage that you didn't mention is that you can take 2 years of math, science, or whatever in one year which was impossible before (as in - you can take trig followed by intro to calc in one year). This meant I was able to push myself in math and science (which I enjoyed) without having to miss out on my other courses and extracurricular activities.

I was trying to focus on the cost basis of this setup, but that's another great advantage to the system. I had to take my extra math courses in the summer at my local community college, talk about a downer .

[/b]Edit: Also I'd like to add that there is alot less time wasted changing classes. It can take anywhere from 10-20 minutes for students to end one class, move to their next class, and get situated for class to begin. Three less class changes means schools could save up to an hour a day where students aren't doing anything productive.

 

[cKGunslinger]

Originally posted by: Amplifier
Having just paid my first large tax bill of my life I've started to hate inefficiency in the government. And one of the biggest sources of waste is the public school system.

I promise in about one page I'll show you how to save billions in taxes each year without doing anything controversial or profound.

Most schools are on a seven period day. This needs to end ASAP. Let me show you how an alternative setup, the four period day, works.

The student takes four complete classes per semester (half year) instead of takin seven classes over the course of one year. Each class lasts ~90 minutes as opposed to ~50 minutes.

Remember I promised that I would save the US billions of dollars? There will be millions of students who would benefit from this system. The savings (direct and indirect) will add up very quickly.

Taking eight full courses a year means student?s can finish highschool/middleschool one to two years earlier (saving America up to $18000 per student). Or if they would rather stay in high school the full four years they will be able to take more AP classes (the average college class costs $2500-$6000). .

The only objection I've ever heard to this system came from teachers who didn't want to change their schedules around. I've also heard that taking a course in one semester is too 'fast' for some students, which having worked in both systems I know that is hogwash.

Why wouldn't this setup be universalized as soon as possible? A semester based system is so efficient that all the Ivy League schools and many private high schools use it right now. It would take little effort from the teachers/administration to setup

I could post more about this subject but I'll let you guys discuss it.

Not a totally far-fetched idea at all. There are *tons* of changes that could be made to the public school system to both decrease $$ waste and increase total education. I'm not sure why no large-scale, federal changes have been mandated for our public schools in recent times. Maybe it's just not as "important" an issue as gay marraige and activist judges? *shrug*

 

[Amplifier]

Originally posted by: cKGunslinger

Not a totally far-fetched idea at all. There are *tons* of changes that could be made to the public school system to both decrease $$ waste and increase total education. I'm not sure why no large-scale, federal changes have been mandated for our public schools in recent times. Maybe it's just not as "important" an issue as gay marraige and activist judges? *shrug*

Blows my mind too, when I see Sen. McCain babbling on about steriods in baseball I want to tell him to stfu and focus on real issues. Why didn't we elect Perot again ?

 

[CycloWizard]

Block scheduling sucks. I had to deal with it my last year of high school. There is nothing worse than being stuck with an unmotivated teacher for 45 minutes, except being stuck with that same teacher for 90 minutes.

That, and all my high school classes took 1 semester. If you want to try to cram two semesters' worth of a class into 1, then you're simply going to conflict with decades of education research. As someone that has been in school for a very long time, I can say with confidence that learning takes time. Allowing something to sink in for a few weeks before an exam is critical to actually retaining any information. Cramming 2x the amount of stuff into a class will have negative results, to be sure.

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: Amplifier

Originally posted by: cKGunslinger

Not a totally far-fetched idea at all. There are *tons* of changes that could be made to the public school system to both decrease $$ waste and increase total education. I'm not sure why no large-scale, federal changes have been mandated for our public schools in recent times. Maybe it's just not as "important" an issue as gay marraige and activist judges? *shrug*

Blows my mind too, when I see Sen. McCain babbling on about steriods in baseball I want to tell him to stfu and focus on real issues. Why didn't we elect Perot again ?

Two words:

Admiral Stockdale


BTW, where my oldest daughter goes to HS, they have four-period semesters but each semester only provides a half-credit. I think to push a full course into one semester we'll need either better teachers or smaller class sizes. Perhaps we'll need both.

 

[SuperTool]

Let me guess, you are not a teacher? 90 minute classes in high school are a dumb idea. Let me guess, you are also going to assign double the homework to cover the same material in half the time?

 

[DragonMasterAlex]

Originally posted by: SuperTool
Let me guess, you are not a teacher? 90 minute classes in high school are a dumb idea. Let me guess, you are also going to assign double the homework to cover the same material in half the time?

Why not? We already require WAY too LITTLE of students in High School. Face it: The American High School education is a JOKE. You get a SMALL handful of good teachers if you are lucky and a whole lot of sh1t ones who couldn't teach to save their lives. Of course, the sh1t teachers aren't there to teach: they're their to collect a comfy, reliable salary that doesn't depend on their job performance.

Jason

 

[Trevelyan]

My freshman year of high school we were on the 4 classes/day "block schedule".

But then the school switched to a 7 period day after that for some reason.

 

[Amplifier]

Originally posted by: SuperTool
Let me guess, you are not a teacher? 90 minute classes in high school are a dumb idea. Let me guess, you are also going to assign double the homework to cover the same material in half the time?

There are four classes instead of seven. And yes the material is covered in half the time. But the students get MORE time in class to learn. The seven period day is extremely inefficient timewise.

This is how the top private college/highschools already operate. Who here that disagrees with a four period day can back up their opinion with facts? Not trying to be mean, but the only objections I've heard so far is "It won't work because I said so" and "you aren't a teacher so who are you to say how classes should work".

It isn't rocket science. I want students to get as much school time as possible when they are in a place that I pay for. What I don't want to see are kids taking 15 minutes to change class every 50 minutes. Or teachers refusing to edit a lesson plan and then complaining about schools being overcrowded. When kids are in school teach them as quickly and as efficiently as possible, nothing complicated.

 

[SuperTool]

I have 1.5 hr classes at college, and they are a drag. I sleep through half of the lecture.
You are gonna need some serious drugs to get an entire class of HS kids to focus on the lecture for 90 minutes.
If you want to have a good public school system, there is no need to reinvent the bicycle. There are plenty of countries with good public school systems.
I remember in USSR, back when we had 6 day school week, they would split the students into group A and B. Then group A would have algebra on MWF, and geometry on TRS, while group B would have geometry on MWF and algebra on TRS. That way you could cover both algebra and geometry concurrently, and when you graduated, you had 4 years of algebra (including math analisys and calculus) and 4 years of geometry (from plane to 3D, etc) instead of US, where you take Algebra one year, then next year geometry, then math analisys and calculus, so there is no continuitiy, which is why the education sucks.
And it was like that for other subjects. 3 days for history 3 days for geography, 3 days for biology, 3 days for chemisty.

 

[Tommunist]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard
Block scheduling sucks. I had to deal with it my last year of high school. There is nothing worse than being stuck with an unmotivated teacher for 45 minutes, except being stuck with that same teacher for 90 minutes.

That, and all my high school classes took 1 semester. If you want to try to cram two semesters' worth of a class into 1, then you're simply going to conflict with decades of education research. As someone that has been in school for a very long time, I can say with confidence that learning takes time. Allowing something to sink in for a few weeks before an exam is critical to actually retaining any information. Cramming 2x the amount of stuff into a class will have negative results, to be sure.

the class time to material presented ratio stays the same and the homework to out of school time only gets a tiny bit worse. considering that block scheduling is more similar to the college curriculum it only eased the transition for me.

 

[Amplifier]

Supertool I'm not trying to make highschool a utopia, I'm trying to save money. If I could save money AND help the kids that's great (I think I do).

If I come here and post about using online classes/A-B classes or anything too dramatic then I'm just engaging in rhetoric because none of the changes would be feisable.

A semester system is proven and is in use right now. It doesn't require much adjustment by the school system to impliment and in some areas even public schools are using the system.

Maybe some students will sleep through a 90 minute class and maybe you hate them in college. But it saves money without hurting the education of the students. And as long as we're running an enormous deficit I don't think we are in a position be wasteful of any of our tax dollars.

 

[TheAdvocate]

Among a dozen other fallacies in your suggestion you've forgotten the most practical application of the public school system:

Babysitting. Yes, even 17 year olds. Parents would be furious.

So you churn them out 1-2 years earlier. Is that really a good thing?

 

[TheGameIs21]

This is a great plan and all but you have missed one very important detail. The state funds over 80% of the school systems budget.

 

[imported_litesgod]

Having gone to a high school that used clock scheduling (public HS), there are a few problems. One is- how do you deal with music classes and the like? In our system we had 5 blocks, two of which were divided into lunch/activity blocks (for instance I had lunch during 3a and band during 3b). The problem comes from what if I was in band and choir? Choir happened to be scheduled during 4b, so now I would have lunch 3a, band 3b, study hall 4a and choir 4b, which is a complete waste.

Another problem, as has been pointed out, is student engagement. It was not easy to stay awake through 1.5 hours of lecture. Most teachers ended up teaching for 2/3 of the time and then giving the last half-hour as a homework/study time. Again, a complete waste, but it was really necassary as after an hour no one was really paying attention anyway.

There was also the problem of snow-days (live in the northeast, big problem) and sick days (either the student or the teacher) meaning you lose twice as much instruction time and in general there was no time to 'take a break' and make sure everyone understood what was going on.

In HS I thought a good solution would be to still do the 4 classes (remember one class was really lunch/activity) for 90 minutes, but have them in two 40 minute intervals. So basically your day may look something like Math, Science, History, English, Lunch, Activity, Math, Science, History, English. Same instruction time, but split into slightly more manageable chunks.

I'm not sure there are that great of economic benefits to this schedule though, but one thing it does do is encourage taking college level courses in HS, and that is a good thing. One of the problems we had was everyone taking gym their freshman and sophomore years and then not having to take it junior/senior year. Eventually they changed the rules to make this impossible, but you still only have gym 1 semester, which isn't good for our rather overweight society.

 

[Amplifier]

Originally posted by: TheGameIs21
This is a great plan and all but you have missed one very important detail. The state funds over 80% of the school systems budget.

It's probably more than that. But money saved on taxes is money saved on taxes. And money wasted is still money wasted regardless of whether it's the US or the States or the taxpayer individually.

 

[magomago]

I've experience a regular semester of classes of 50 minutes, block scheduling, and a trimester system of 5 classes a day for 69 minutes

And the best of them EASILY was trimester

the reason to argue for block scheduling is some things, such as Chemistry Labs work perfect~ but at the same time for other subjects the LONGER you study the less efficient you get, and my friend told me that in class he took he learned that after 40 minutes of concentration or so, the rate at which it becomes harder to focus increases.

So even though I enjoyed block scheduling....it isn't a very good solution

 

[Amplifier]

You guys keeps saying block scheduling. From what I understand that is where you take 4 classes a day but they alternate from a group of 7 classes.

That's not what I'm talking about.

The system I'm talking about is students take four complete classes a semester. Simular to a college format sans the days off.

 

[staeiou]

This may be a decent idea, but how is it going to be executed? Are the feds going to withold funding to all schools who don't switch to this system? You're going to piss of a bunch of people who don't do the science (or who do, and find that it costs more to do it). The point is that schools do not need to be centralized. The federal government shouldn't dictate how long school days are and when they start. They should just give funding proportional to the amount of students who pass a national test. Let the school board, the admins, the teachers, and the people who have studied this kind of stuff deal with it on a community by community basis.

Better solution: cut all band funding. Who needs band, anyways?

/ducks from band people

 

[StageLeft]

I think it saves some money by sucking so badly that it won't have to expend any resources educating my children.