Education is an ever-growing problem in the United States. We keep pouring more and more money into it expecting better results only to be disappointed with the results. What is needed is for the teaching system to change. To start lets look at our students.
Everyone excels at a different skill. Some are better at math while others are better at singing. If they are to succeed we need to let them focus on the subjects they excel at and not worry about the ones that they perform poorly at. Of course they must be able to read, do basic math (add, subtract, multiply and divide), understand the Constitution, and understand financial responsibility. Above and beyond that, test scores will reveal the area the student excels at, so they either move to a trade school, apprenticeship, guild, military, college, etc. The reason is we don’t need average students we need expert students.
When I was in high school I was completely board. I was smarter than some of my teachers and a lot smarter than most of the students. I excelled in math, science, and social studies, but I was most interested in science and technology. If I were in my proposed program, I could have spent more time in the lab exploring interesting experiments, developing my programming skills, and electronic skills. The problem was I had to take classes that hand no meaning to me then.
English Lit during my freshman year took up most of my study time. The worst part is I never got it. While other students understood the satire, irony, and social problems presented in the stories, they were only stories to me. Fortunately I have read the books now that I am older and can understand the stories, however they did not help me move forward in my education. The same went for a few other classes during my high school years. I lived in a rural area so I did not have a choice of schools to pick from. This is why we also need vouchers.
If the Federal Government will continue to fund public education, they need to offer vouchers to all students. This will allow students to attend schools that offer the best fit for them. This will also make public schools pseudo private. Meaning that the best schools get funded while poor schools fade away. Why because this is how capitalism works, if you have a product or service people want they will buy it. This also enables parents who want their children to attend private schools the ability to use their tax dollars to pay for it. Everyone wins. Students get to attend schools they want to go to, excel at subjects they are interested in, bad schools get closed, and good teachers get rewarded.
How do good teachers get rewarded? By paying them a commission of course. What? Since parents and students can choose the school they go to, teacher’s salaries will grow by the number of students they teach. If they are excellent teachers more students will attend their class, if they are poor teachers, students should be able to request their money back. Remember parents and students are customers who want the best. No more pay raises’ for everyone, performance in the only deciding factor and parents and students will make the decisions.
Everything up to now has been the hard part, now the easy stream lining the bureaucracy. Superintendent is responsible for school principals, public relations, reporting to the local and state government, and employee policy setting. Principals are responsible for teacher and student safety, facility maintenance, school budget, human resources, community involvement, and discipline. All other commissions, committees, boards, etc. no longer have a role in siphoning off money.
That’s it in a nutshell.
Harry
