Imagine you've just had a small accident so you go see a doctor. You think you've broken your arm. You start to talk with the doctor, but he interrupts and asks you to try on a set of glasses. Doubtfully you put them on. He asks, "Do you feel better now?" You tell him no, you start to mention this recent accident, but again he interrupts and suggests you put on an ear warmer. "Does that help?" Again you say no, a little louder this time. He pauses for a second and says "Well, maybe your blood sugars are high, I'll give you a prescription for insulin."
Most of us would be wondering if we were in the twilight zone and we would be edging towards the door to escape from this crazy situation.
The doctor was trying to provide solutions before he understood the problem. You never, never proscribe until you've gathered data and done some diagnosis.
Yet too often politicians seem to skip over the first step.
Recently a group of politicians have decided the Time is ripe to fix education. (Hat tip: Edspresso)
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Fixing the nation's schools is the civil-rights priority of this century because so many of them — particularly those serving poor kids — are not delivering high-quality service, a group of prominent city, civil-rights and education leaders said Sunday.
In the lobby of one of Denver's sterling charter schools, New York City schools chief Joe Klein, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, state Senate President Peter Groff and Lt. Gov. Barbara O'Brien, among others, said they would do whatever it takes to push education onto the crowded political agenda this fall.
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The politicians are planning to force other politicians to address education. There is no discussion of why decade after decade education gets worse in America. They don't seem to have a clue on why only half of the students in Denver who start school will end up with a high school diploma.
Education is an easy issue to get attention on. It is important to parents. People recognize there are so many problems and children are suffering for life with a poor education.
This new movement, the Education Equality Project, has a real nice sounding, but vague, set of goals:
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The Education Equality Project is a non-partisan group of elected officials, civil rights leaders, and education reformers that has formed to help ensure that America finally brings equity to an educational system that, 54 years since Brown v. Board of Education, continues to fail its highest needs students. The project will take on conventional wisdom and the entrenched impediments to real reform, focusing on teacher quality and pay; accountability for results; and maximizing parents' options. It will also challenge politicians, public officials, educators, union leaders, and anybody else who stands in the way of necessary change. This means challenging laws and contracts that preserve a system that fails students. The one measure of every policy, regardless of the depths of its historic roots or the power of its adherents, must be whether it advances student learning.
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The mission statement seems to be all sound with no substance. There is no mention of their understanding on why there is a problem. They'll probably end up trying to change the class size, or hire more teachers, or some such ineffective response. Then five years down the road education will be worse, but they'll be able to say they tried to fix education.
Sad.
Remember, you first have to understand a problem before you can fix it.
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Technorati tags: government schools, public school, public education, education
2 comments:
When your car costs more to keep running than it is worth, you junk it and get a new better one. But you don't keep the same old tired parts. We need to junk the entire school system, fire the teachers and start over. My niece just graduated from a public hs and she can't spell. My 9 yr old daughter spell checked her MYSPACE and found many errors. This is the kind of students the Public schools are producing. My daughter is homeschooled by a father that is not a cert. Teacher. Yet she can read at a college level and speaks like an adult. Anyone can have smart kids they just need to take the time. Also take away some things like:
1. Cel phone
2. Parties
3. Movies that glorify drugs, gangs and other bad actions.
4. Trashy clothing
5. Anything with Paris Hilton or the other tramps on it.
This will upset many people as they might have to get off thier big backside and be parents.
By the way I have 3 college grads to show that is can and will work.
"We need to junk the entire school system, fire the teachers and start over."
I think this would be a good idea. But I don't expect it will happen. The political cost is just too high, at least for the next decade or two.
I do expect that more and more parents will pull their children from government schools, either to put them in private schools, or to homeschool them. When we cross some kind of tipping point, then there will be a change.
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