NYTimes Editorial Board Calls for Education Reform

Bob, if a parent is willing to be involved, and makes sure his/her child does his homework, studies, gets to school on time, etc., shouldn't they be rewarded for this?

What if you let parents in lousy school districts sign a "contract" pledging their involvement. Why not send these kids to a school with the children of like minded parents, instead of forcing them to languish in poor performing schools?

Wouldn't the results push more parents to get involved?

When kids start getting into good colleges, and getting scholarships, won't people notice?

 

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Thanks, that's exactly what everyone was saying. You forgot to eliminate child labor laws and cut SNAP.

 

Your posts. They just seem, so... familiar.

 

Are you even slightly aware of the attitude in the inner-city and trailer park America toward educated peers?

 

That's fine.

But right now American kids are only in school for 180 days ---- LESS THAN HALF THE YEAR. That's six months, not two.

Other nations have far more days devoted to educating their kids.

The results (or lack of them) speak for themselves.

 

Knowing why students score well is just as important as knowing the score. And we know why there are variances: parental income.

http://researchnews.wsu.edu/society/169.html
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/27/sat-scores-and-family-income/
http://ideas.time.com/2012/10/11/why-its-time-to-get-rid-of-standardized-tests/

And yet, everybody keeps pushing ideas about holding teachers more accountable. That's fine, but for what? Because half of my kids' high school is made up of low-income students, it will always suffer next to schools with wealthier parents. Always.

As for your contention that charters always result in better education, that's not true. Sometimes, yes. Often, no.

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-06-25/local/40171674_1_charter-schools-traditional-public-schools-29-percent
http://indianapublicmedia.org/stateimpact/2012/12/31/why-we-might-see-more-charter-schools-close-in-2013/

 

Isn't this basically what charter schools do?

Don't sports programs require this in many instances? The contract would spell out what will be provided. it would would spell out under what conditions it would be provided -- i.e. longer school days, longer school year, school uniforms, etc. And, it would require the parent and child to pledge to meet their end of the bargain, or they go back to their shit school.

Why would that not work?

And, why shouldn't we use the positive power of peer pressure?

Right now, it's not "cool" to do well in school. Let's put some pressure on kids and parents to invest in their education.

 

Sounds like a good reason to provide those students interested in escaping that with a means to do so.

 

Yeah. I think I kind of addressed Dick's point in my next post, without having see this post.

The more success stories you create, the more pressure their will be for good schools. Yeah, it might take time, but people talk. When parents start bragging on their kids success, others will take notice.

Do you want to be the parent who refuses to get involved, and who condemns your child to poverty, when you had the opportunity to make a difference?

 

I don't think you and I are miles apart on this. I agree it makes no sense to compare the test scores coming from the class taught by the English teacher at your kids high school with her counterpart at the rich kid high school. But we can make comparisons between the results the teachers are getting and the results the teachers should be getting.

 

For sure. But you're not going to shame Bobby Sue in Lot 215 into selling out and sending her young-uns to college for more book learnin'.