

Ways to save American education - tokenadult
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/5-ways-to-save-american-education/2011/12/14/gIQAlwbeuO_story.html

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tokenadult
I think a suggestion that could tie into Marc Tucker's suggestion "raise
teacher compensation significantly" is to take administrative steps, state by
state, district by district, and school by school, to make sure that the
inevitable churn in the staffing of schools, as teachers move or cease working
as teachers, churns out the worst teachers and keeps in the best teachers. A
thoughtful researcher who has been looking at education policy reform even
longer than Tucker suggests that it would be possible each year, year after
year after year, to persuade the bottom 5 percent of teachers to seek other
occupations,

[http://edpro.stanford.edu/hanushek/admin/pages/files/uploads...](http://edpro.stanford.edu/hanushek/admin/pages/files/uploads/Hanushek%202009%20CNTP%20ch%208.pdf)

and that the cumulative effect of this reform over time would raise United
States student achievement to the peak level reached by any country. This
would also, it seems to me, do much to add to the social respect enjoyed by
teachers and would probably improve public support for public schools in
general.

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joebadmo
Wouldn't the increased competition fomented by increased wages take care of
this naturally and organically?

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kenjackson
Absolutely. Churning the bottom 5% would be an exercise in destruction, low
morale, and worsening a bad situation. Get quality in the front door rather
than trying to shuffle people out the back.

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joebadmo
It seems likely to also organically change teachers' unions for the better,
too. Unions filled with better and more motivated teachers will want policies
that protect better and more motivated teachers.

As it is now unions filled with bad teachers* will favor policies that protect
bad teachers. Vicious cycle.

* Not that most or even many teachers are bad, but the bad ones are probably the most afraid for their jobs, and therefore most active in union politics.

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TomOfTTB
The one thing I always wonder about these stories is if they are true why
haven't we in the United States been surpassed? The first time I remember
hearing about Finland's education system was 5th grade yet I'm in my early 30s
and Finland hasn't moved up much. They still has a much lower GDP per Capita.
I can't remember the last time I heard of a major breakthrough coming out of
Finland. Other than Nokia I can't think of any other worldwide companies
founded in Finland.

I don't mean to bash Finland which is a truly amazing place (no sarcasm, it
really is). But at the same time a big problem in education is the scale tends
to get clouded. No Child Left Behind's epic failure is a testament to that.
Isn't it at least possible that Finish schools also "teach to the test"
especially considering they test their students so rarely?

Before we increase class size, abandon charter schools and slow down efforts
to integrate more technology into classrooms in favor of higher teacher
salaries I'd like to see much more research done in this area.

~~~
tokenadult
_The one thing I always wonder about these stories is if they are true why
haven't we in the United States been surpassed?_

The United States has been surpassed in economic growth rate by many
countries. The United States continues to gain by admitting as immigrants many
highly capable persons who received their primary and secondary educations in
other countries, and there are whole industries in the United States where
much of the innovation and high quality comes from people with educational
backgrounds like that.

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mattmiller
I don't think the US education system is as bad as everyone says. I think the
metric that we use to judge our system against other countries is not
accurate. The US has had a high level of economic activity and innovation for
decades. I think that points to a strong education system.

I think recent attempts to make our system more like Asian systems (more
homework, more testing...) will do more harm than good.

There is progress to be made, but I think trying to mimic other countries
education systems is the wrong approach.

~~~
tokenadult
_The US has had a high level of economic activity and innovation for decades.
I think that points to a strong education system._

There is no denying that the United States is a largely prosperous,
innovative, and peaceful place. This was true of the United States before
school attendance was compulsory in any state, when many states made no effort
generally to fund schools for all learners, and it is still true today. This
is a legacy of founders of the United States who themselves largely learned
without a public school system.

<http://learninfreedom.org/Founders_free.html>

Today, the United States still benefits economically in comparison to other
countries because of a more honest and transparent system of governance and
business regulation

[http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/...](http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2010)

and because of general freedom in United States society.

<http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=15>

While K-12 schooling continues to be one of the top three state budget line
items in many states (it is number one in mine) there will be legitimate
concern about whether those hundreds of billions of dollars a year

<http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=66>

are being spent with the best effect they can. Having lived in another country
for six years (and having brought up children there during the second of two
three-year stays), and knowing many first-generation immigrants, I don't think
it goes beyond the facts to say that the United States has a thing or two it
could learn from administration of public schools in other countries, just as
those other countries could in several cases learn from United States
governance. It's best for all countries all around the world to be open to
information first learned in some other country.

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trip42
The US education system benefited for a long period where many incredibly
smart women had career options basically limited to teaching and nursing. As
equality improved, some of the brightest prospective teachers instead became
doctors, scientists, and engineers. This decrease in teacher quality is
resulting in a more "assembly line" style of education, where each step is
fully structured. I have seen anecdotal evidence of highly qualified teachers
exiting the workforce because the structure of the work has become
unfulfilling.

I suspect there are also incentives for top performers to move out of
education and into administration.

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bleachlyperk
I'm a Brit here to say that any assertion about the state of American
education ought to include consideration of _video games_ , many of which come
from the US.

Games are, after all, highly educational. They represent an environment with
three attributes:

(1) choice, (2) rapid feedback, (3) safety (you don't get punished for making
mistakes, academic or social).

Note that all of these are crucial in the business of making and correcting
errors, which is what learning is all about.

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dinedal
Where does he come up with the percent chances of these passing? Is this just
assigning a number to whatever the author feels like inorder to fake some
sense of credibility?

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eof
6\. Allow students significantly more self- and group-led teaching; especially
with the rise in video lectures (a la Khan Academy, etc).

7\. Have bright students from higher grades teach bright students from lower
grades.

8\. Embrace, rather than try to diminish, the natural bell curve of student
performance and abilities--let students fall behind, and teach them the most
critical skills before everything else. Who cares if you can recite the
Gettysburg Address if you can't do basic reading an arithmetic. Let students
get ahead; and don't burden them with arbitrary amounts of homework simply
because they can do it faster; shove hard-to-learn things down their eager
minds.

~~~
count
Regarding #7: Why? I would have absolutely hated that in school. How does
having a kid who's good at Algebra teaching a younger kid who's not so good at
Algebra help the kid who's good at all?

If he's already good at it, teaching it shouldn't help him that much, and now
he's wasted time he could be using to learn more things himself (see your own
#6).

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Anechoic
> _I would have absolutely hated that in school._

Agreed. I was the smart kid on the high school football team, so I was tasked
by the coach to tutor some of my lesser-performing teammates and it was an
absolutely miserable experience.

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eof
Right; but what if you were tasked with spending time with 'the smart kid'
from 3 years below you? That is an entirely different experience.

I would not want smart kids wasting their time with dull kids; but smart older
kids imparting their wisdom on smart younger kids (where it won't be wasted)

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ryanmarsh
Terrible recommendations.

