Education reform: difficult measures for difficult times.
When did Americans decide that delegating the education of their children to the U.S. government was a good idea? I speak from experience, the public school system is more of a rite of passage than an education.
The teachers union will not like my solution, but I’m not concerned about perpetual employment for an individual simply because they joined a union. Tell that to the factory worker or the Del Taco cashier. They’re in the same boat.
I have radical solutions that are not as far fetched as they might sound.
1) Fire all teachers as they presently exist. The model of someone standing in front of 30-40 students boring them to death is worn out. That archaic system was fine in the 1800s when there were no better alternatives.
2) Replace teachers with facilitators. These people will basically do what parents should already being doing - monitoring the progress of the student. They don’t need any special skills other than an ability to put their boot up the ass of students who think they can control the classroom with their antics. So an ability to tell Rex, the class clown, to sit down and shut up will be important.
3) Spend about $800 per student (this can be amortized over 2-3 years) on a computer system that is connected to a server via broadband or Internet2s Abilene system (100 megs per second). This system already exists which will allow high definition interactive video teaching.
4) All courses will be taught interactively via video and computer generated teaching methods. So the best teachers in the world will be in all the classrooms. Yes, that means the mediocre teachers will all be out of a job. Why should I settle for Martha Bigbutt when I can have Stephen Hawking?
5) Since we’ve done away with the failed model of an entire class learning at the exact same speed, which translates into as fast the dumbest kid in the class, children who are average or gifted will learn a lot more since they can accelerate through the material as fast as their minds will allow. This means that a lot of material that is normally covered in the first 2-3 years of college will be covered PRIOR to graduation. Meaning a child will have USEFUL skills when they graduate from high school.
6) 24 hour access by parents to their childs performance and to the high resolution web cams in the class room w/ a mic pickups so you can see EXACTLY what the kids and the facilitators are doing. No more psychological abuse from facilitators since the classroom can be monitored by every parent. Also, problem children who know their parents may be watching will control their behavior. This eliminates the need for report cards that are routinely forged or lost in the mail. A daily or weekly email to the parent(s) work email account with their test scores would work too.
[Note: I’d record the classrooms all day long. This would eliminate child molestation in the classroom too.]
7) Separate cubicles for all children that prevent any form of touching from the person to the right or left. This is designed to prevent children who are problems from distracting other children trying to learn. Social interaction should be limited to class breaks designed for children like Rex to vent their frustrations.
8) The end of homework. That was always a lame idea. Okay folks you’ve worked a long hard day, now go home and work some more. Add another hour to class and make them do their homework at school then you cannot blame parents for the children not doing assignments. (99 percent of the assignments will be done during the school day making this moot).
9) The entire system is run by an outside THIRD PARTY. Not a school board, but a private entity that is in it for the money. And they get paid based on a performance matrix. If 100 percent of the kids are proficient in math and science they get 100 percent of their fee plus bonus. The school board will monitor the company’s progress.
10) Pay the kids for achievement. Take some of the money that would have gone to the teachers and give it to the kids. Greed is a powerful motivator! We all do it, $10 for every A you get. The third party could administer the bonuses to the students. If a kid is smart theyll be rich! Capitalism at its finest. This idea was stolen from Newt Gingrich who may have stolen it from someone else.
My system can be done at a fraction of the cost of even the lowest states expenditure per child. In addition, the test scores of the students using this system will be much higher since they will be constantly tested by the third party who is motivated for them to succeed based on their own desire for cold hard cash.
I’d also set up a bonus system for facilitators too. They would then act like coaches who want their team to win!
The special child in the class would do a lot better too, since now everyone will be pushing them to do better since there could be team bonuses too. Where they get paid based on the performance of their weakest link.
Peer pressure is another excellent motivator.
June 4th, 2008 at 6:53 pm
Its a good theory but i think that part of high school is not just learning skills for life but its an expirience that you take with you for the rest of you life. I may be wrong but with this plan you lose that and the teacher student relationship.
Just a thought……Not a bad idea though