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How Do You Fix Education?
TaeKwonDood writes "Carl Wieman is the 2001 Nobel Prize winner in Physics but what he cares most about is fixing science education. The real issue is, can someone who went through 20 years of science education as a student, lived his life in academia since then and even got a Nobel prize get a fair shake from bureaucrats who like education the way it is — flawed and therefore always needing more money?"
As badly as teachers are treated, you can't even get rid of the bad teachers until you can override the teacher's union. They don't want merit-based pay or any of that kind of thing because it means that teachers have to perform, rather than just stay in their job and get tenure. One of the downsides of unions, sadly. I'm not anti-union, but there ARE downsides to be aware of.
I think the best option would be to fund all schools first (rather than other things), rather like the investment people say, "pay yourself first" - fully fund the schools first, then worry about new parks, etc. When you have the schools properly funded, then you can go after the other problems. Otherwise, it'd like worry about the aerodynamics of the bad paint job on your car when the larger problem of a leaking fueltank goes unchecked.
And as the poster above mentioned, there is a war on critical thinking. This doesn't apply to the current education system because critical thinking isn't being taught in schools except in certain college courses (Intro to Logic should be a required course for all humans. In your first year of high school!). The memorization of facts and certain base reading and math ability are all that seems to found in modern education (in the U.S., anyway; I have no experience in the education systems of other countries). But without critical thinking, you're certainly not going to be able to fix the education system here, either.
The problem is easily solvable; it's just the NEA in California bought an election to kill it. Break the monopoly of the public school system and give parents real choice in education and values.
"Man is nothing without the works of man" -- Helvetius
For starters abolish/disband or otherwise un-empower the NEA that makes it next to impossible to fire bad teachers and reward and retain the good ones. No amount of curricular advancement/improvement/modernization or money dumped into school districts' coffers will ever have a significant impact on the quality of education if the teachers are poor quality and/or uncaring. The NEA, IMO, has done more to hinder education than any other cause.
And before anyone starts with "But teachers are underpaid and *need* the unions!" I'd like to point out that the NEA has been around for a few decades now, and teachers are still underpaid.
Cheers!
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
I don't think it's ignorance necessarily, but I would say that we are a culture that celebrates mediocrity than anything else.
You talk like a fag, and your shit's all retarded.
Get the government out of it. We need free market competition. Let failing schools fail. Let failing teachers get fired. Let failing students get expelled. Let schools compete to provide the best education for the lowest cost. Let voluntary charities choose who is most in need and able to benefit from education charity. Education is too important to let government continue to completely cluster f*** it. Won't somebody please think of the children?
Has it ever occurred to any of you geniuses that NCLB is doing exactly what its architects intended? And that the previous 30 odd years of Conservative hegemony (Always remember, both Clinton and Carter were very Conservative. Especially compared to oh say, Jack Kennedy, or Eisenhower, or LBJ). They hate public education. Hate it. It's dangerous. Effective public education means that people can succeed. That status can be based on achievement, rather than birth. Thus there has been a concerted effort to undermine, and ultimately destroy public education in the USA, and its working remarkably well.
when they can:
a) read a book on the history of education at a college level,
b) analyze several sources and synthesize it into a cogent hypothesis
c) write an essay to explain what points support their theory,
d) get up in front of their class and defend their points in a debate
and
e) win.
then they can start being dealt with as humans and not chattel; until then the switch. its not complicated; some people are animals (and understand only pain) and others are people (who can be reasoned with) -- educated people need to speak both languages.. Thats in Machiovelli/ThePrince in case u were interested in a cite ;)