PrinceofWands
Lifer
- May 16, 2000
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Originally posted by: Genx87
Heh just remember this the next time the teachers unions lobby for more money because of the kids. I believe the avg wage in MN is nearly 55K for teachers. They arent starving.
Money hasnt been the issue of why our public school system has been failing for years. But the teachers unions will try to convince you otherwise.
6 principals per school @ 100K+ each is another reason.
EXACTLY! That 600k would hire 12-15 teachers, thereby reducing class sizes significantly and actually doing some good.
Here's my idea/plan (which also happens to be the core of my masters thesis):
Reduce non-teaching staff to the absolute minimums necessary (a qualified nurse for instance), utilizing community volunteers (parents wherever possible) and teachers (especially those under full time status in order to bring them up to 1.0). Principal roles (perhaps exempting one primary principal) would be undertaken by teachers (on a rotating schedule if necessary). Higher level roles (district, school board, etc) would also be filled by teachers and volunteers except for those positions requiring expert training (lawyers for instance), or eliminated completely. The money saved by these ventures will be primarily earmarked for more teachers since small class sizes is one of the largest factors in education (with an eventual goal of a 20 student per teacher cap). Increasing the number of teachers will also better distribute the ancillary roles so that no one is getting overworked. Furthermore by placing actual teachers in all levels you ensure that the people making the rules are those that actually know the processes (simple TQM/TQL), and have the best possible understanding of the education process. No one without a psychology and/or education background has any business being involved in decisions concerning education. If you haven't taught a class for a year you should have no say in what can/should go on in that class. This means also that teachers keep teaching throughout their careers, even if they're also filling in as principal part time. This keeps them in touch with current trends and such. Finally students should take an active role in ancillary duties as well as the education process. To that end they should be required to contribute to the day to day operation of the school and also mentor lower classmates (the benefits here are numerous and amazing based on current research).
Other possibilities include switching to a M/W/F, T/Th schedule for classes with longer periods (more efficient, trains for college, allows flexibility for teacher scheduling in ancillary roles), transitioning to total open source tech (economic benefits, customizable for best productivity), reintegration of electives and classics education (in accordance with some tenants of perennialism and essentialism), possibility of transitioning to full year calendar, moving to affordable texts of conflicting views (for instance use Zinn and Johnson for American History), greater integration of psychology (specifically personality, developmental, and cognitive (ie IQ) theories), and a number of other lesser points.