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In reforming schools, build on desire to win
Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2009 | 2:02 a.m.
Regarding the article in Sunday’s Las Vegas Sun headlined “U.S. schools chief seeks big changes, has money to spend”:
Education Secretary Arne Duncan wants big changes, and I like many of his goals, but I can just hear parents saying: “How can I get more involved? Europeans are not limited to two weeks of vacation per year and they are not about to lose their homes because they cannot pay their medical bills.”
I can also imagine teachers across the country saying: “Here we go again, another reform.” At least Secretary Duncan says he wants this to be a collaborative effort.
As a former high schoolteacher and coach, I can say that the education business is about winning. That is not all it should be about, but it is the main thing. In the real world, everyone wants to win, but if success seems impossible, we quit and look for success elsewhere.
Few teachers are like Jaime Escalante (“Stand and Deliver”) or LouAnne Johnson (“Dangerous Minds”), and few parents are like President Barack Obama’s mother. What is common to these heroes, as in all successful teaching, is that they worked to put people in a position where they can be successful and built on that with high expectations.
If a teacher with one hour per day of student contact is told that “success” in the classroom is test scores, then he’s going to teach study skills, test-taking skills and memory skills. These are not the most important things in education, but a teacher wants his students to win, and he wants to win. Just tell him what the game is.
I hope Secretary Duncan is successful in producing future citizens who can not only compete in the world’s job market but who also become lifelong learners. That will depend upon his putting everyone involved in a position where he can succeed without just playing a game.
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As long as the teachers unions are in control of education it will never get any better. Union teachers are bad teachers.
Please elaborate on your statement, jlb101. Where's your proof?
Just sayin'.
Proof? The more the schools are unionized and the more federal involvement the lower the graduation rate. They even dumbed down the SAT and other scores so things wouldn't look so bad. It is well known that the scores have been dropping for years. All schools are interested in now is political correctness. See Glen Cook's column in Sunday's LVRJ. If my child came home with something like that, I would send it back to the district superindent with a note telling him what a pathetic little liar he is.
Let's have competition. As the democrats cry for choice with a public option to compete with private health care why do they fight a private option in education?
Let every student and their parents choose a school. Let traditional, charter, and private schools compete for students and let the dollars follow the student. Let's compete and see which schools grow and flourish and which grow empty and wither away.
neiman1 - follow the money. The unions contribute to the dems so we don't want to upset them and hold them accountable for a quality education. In a competition, the charter and private schools would win hands down over the unionized schools. If there are no more public, unionized schools, where would the dems get their contributions and support from?? No public option here, too much to lose for the dems, like health care where we can't talk about tort reform because the trial lawyers contribute too much to the dems - can't upset them either.
Desire to win? The schools, for twenty years now have been catering to the losers. They let two or three of them stay in classroom and disrupt everyone else and make it impossible for the other twentyfive to function. At least 35% of the dregs should not be in school. Kick them out and put them into a program to teach them to wash cars, mow lawns and other things in line with their intelligence and abilities.
We need more private schools in this country for students that want to learn how to get ahead in life and not to end up on some government welfare program later on as an adult.