Tilting At Windmills
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Nice goal, but it ain't happening. People will claw, kick and crawl to give their children the best education possible. Them that has gits and man hasn't devised away around that system since the dawn of time...
https://www.thefp.com/p/three-biggest-myths-of-american-public-schools
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I would have thought the #1 myth was that additional money spent on public schools, enhances results. That has been proven false. But I doubt more than 10% of the taxpaying public knows it. Bill Gates has given up on throwing his money at education, last I checked, because he likes to measure results, and those results never appear.
Second only to ideas about race, ideas about formal education are the second largest nexus of provable, demonstrable stupidity in the western world. IMO.
I suppose if you could spend money to create a safe environment in schools, free from violence or stigma against achievement, that would help. Not sure that's the intent of most of our money though.
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I've got a few ideas, some of which may not be practical...
- Robin Hood Law. I like it and I think the Constitutionality of the law needs to be revisited. It helps funnel funds to the student, so that students are on a more level playing field.
- Teacher salaries. I's like to see some of the best and brightest doing rotations through the poorer schools. If you can teach an inner city STEM class and get those kids to make a true "C", you are a heckuva teacher. more so than a teacher in a school with every advantage at hand, including private tutors. Give those teachers in tough districts more money. A significant amount more.
- Root hog, or die. Schools need to be established in each district that are purely colorblind and socioeconomically blind, where sheer meritocracy rules. I want the best and brightest Stem students. I want high school kids to have the opportunity to have a couple of years college classes under their belts before they step on a college campus. I want kids who are interested in the arts - drama, music, dance - to have a school mostly dedicated to them. I want a school that stresses practical applications...kids who are vocationally minded and are tested for things like hand eye coordination, simple mechanic ability, etc. I want these kids to serve apprenticeships in high school.
- I want to deemphasize athletics to a certain degree. You want to play, you have to make the grades. Legitimate grades in legit classes.
- I want discipline, but I don't want prisons. Kids need a certain amount of freedom. They also need compulsory PE, with an emphasis on life long sports like tennis, golf, bowling, etc.
- But I don't want troublemakers. Any student in grades 9-12 who is a clear problem child gets shipped to a National Guard Challenge Program. These programs have been a quiet success story in many areas. The combination of military discipline, enforced study halls, computer assisted education, individual tutors and mentoring, coupled with intense physical training seems to work wonders with a certain type of student. Plus, it gets some kids out of environments where it is impossible for them to learn. Kids can either return to their schools after the school year or choose to stay in the Challenge Program until graduation. At graduation the student will have the option of taking his ASVAB tests and seeing what opportunities military service provides.
- I want all students, from the zoomies to the cellar dwellers, to take civics classes and have a basic understanding of how their country works. I want them all to have life classes, where they learn life skills...Cooking, cleaning, simple sewing repairs, simple household finance, how to dress and act for a job interview, table manners, simple societal manners and how to meet new people from different walks of life.
These won't result in perfection or solve all problems. But I think we'll be better off.
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I like some of these. What we have today is a one size fits all, a horrible idea. I especially like numbers 6 and 7, with the addition of the financial life cycle of an average successful American family and how they get there. It isn't rocket science, but the expectation that they will be able to afford whatever they want once they go to work is a fantasy we cannot afford to propagate.
As far as 6, a good dose of EARNED self-esteem and discipline cannot help but benefit these kids.
