Now is the part where i talk (keyboard, type or whatever you want to call it) about education, more specifically the educational system.
Is the status quo in education effective? Are teachers actually overpaid? How should schools be funded (what is the most ethical way to fund them)? What roles should schools actually have (hint: it is not secondary parent)? In no particular order, i'll get this section started.
Educational Funding
This is the part where i alienate every potential liberal who might be reading (all zero of them). i've long thought of schools as inefficient money pits.
How should education be funded? The current method of federal government money, state money, local money (most as tax on property value) is not quite efficient. i do not believe that the schools should be funded by the federal or state government directly at all. My view is that schools should be funded through educational vouchers at the state level. That should be the only funding given directly to schools (no levies or any other funding sources, unless you want a baseline level of funding for every school regardless of affiliation).
You may ask yourself if every school deserves to receive the same level of funding - my answer would be a definitive no. With the current funding system, schools in more affluent areas that pay higher property taxes/levies deserve better schools. They should not be used in a redistributive way.
Will this create "have" and "have not" schools? Yes, and that is the most fair way. This would essentially spell the end of the public school system.
Free Market Competition
So now that i have stated that schools should not operate in their current state, how should they be operated?
Every school should be operated like an individual business entity. To be fair, maybe there could be some form of association of individual school (like the current public-school districts) to try and cut down or handle administrative overhead and potentially lead to volume discounts (economies of scale). Schools would get their funding not directly through levies or state/local funding, but through tuition.
Parents should get vouchers from the government to pay for their kid's education. Vouchers would be for any school regardless of affiliation (religious or otherwise). This is kind of like a college model (public colleges currently being a more subsidized form of it anyway). Schools should be allowed to be for profit if they so choose.
i am also advocating that different schools could charge higher tuitions (including "books") if they wanted to. A school will succeed or fail based off the success of the school at educating (not read indoctrinating) students and student success. School is a service industry; it is about time they remember that (the customers of public education being the parents/guardians).
There will not be a true level playing field but going out of your way to force "equality" could hurt schools that would be the most effective or innovative. Non-productive usage of resources on things such as bussing to promote diversity are a waste of money.
Unions are the Enemy:
Talking about free market competition is a nice segue to my next subarea: unions. You can't talk about school funding without acknowledging that a significant portion of that funding will go directly into the teachers' pockets (in the form of salary and usually an excellent benefits package). The US has one of the highest per capita expenditures on education but does not produce great results.
One of the big problems is union dynamics. Trade union, by their very nature restrict employment (through higher employer costs). What you see in education is a classic trade union scenario where teachers have to be licensed. This licensing does not necessarily impact or reflect the skill level of the teacher but is an added cost to becoming one (along with worthless master's degree requirements). i am not saying teachers are totally non-skilled workers, but they are not super-skilled workers either.
The unions also prevent and inhibit changes that need to be made for the betterment of the system as a whole. Unions demanding smaller class sizes and demanding more money are contradictory demands. That is essentially saying a service worker (teacher) wants more money for doing less work.
In general, i'm against public sector unions. Essentially striking against the taxpayer.
School as a Second Family and Morals Imparter
There are teachers out there (more now than there used to be) who believe it is their duty to instill a (their) moral code on the students. That is the role of the parent and should not be part of government indoctrination. True, some parents are not living up to their duty to instill a moral code in their children, but that does not mean the responsibility should be thrust upon the state.
Let's face it, education is essentially a form of indoctrination, imparting "knowledge" to students that governments (or whoever controls the school system) wants the students to believe. It was better when it was the "3Rs" (reading, writing, arithmetic), not social issues. A school and its teachers should not act as the secondary family for the student. Morals should be taught at home, not school.
Sometimes i find myself thinking that the end game for "education", the state taking the children from the parents and raising them in indoctrination camps (like schools) and setting their belief systems so they become easier to control and manipulate. i don't fully believe it, as it sounds too much like a conspiracy theory, but at times it appears the state (through the school system) does things that appear to move in that direction.
Curriculum and the way it is handled do help shape children's world views (unfortunately). too bad so much of it is slanted towards the liberals view of "history" and philosophy.
What Should be the Role of Schools
i keep hearing from my alleged brother (who is not a fan of the school system) that the school system in the United States is based off of the Prussian system designed to promote obedience to the government. Basically, students are "learning" what the government wants to teach you, but there is some input from parents (where PTAs, school boards and other mechanisms exist). Some people believe the purpose of schools in the US is to get a student ready to be a mindless drone at a boring, repetitive job (like manufacturing assembly lines or data entry).
The role of schools should be about providing a baseline level or relevant knowledge that is shared (at least across the region). Unfortunately, much of this "knowledge" is subjective (especially history). In reality, the role of schools should be to prepare the student for success in the horrible real world (after school). Employers should have input into the curriculum so the graduate is better prepared for what they will actually be doing on the job.
Educational Reform Needed
The public school system is a colossal money pit. There is no doubt the educational system needs to be reformed, but it will not be easy. The stakeholders being: the students, the parents, the "teachers" and the employers. How school are reformed will likely be a compromise (if unions allow it to happen).
Teachers are overpaid: they get good benefits, do not work as many days as other professions and get paid for non-productive work activity like lesson planning. On a per hour basis, teachers are actually well compensated - especially for a service industry. Unfortunately, teachers and their unions are taking money out of the educational process and putting it in their own pockets.
Programs like "No Child Left Behind" are counterproductive (though seemingly well-meaning), especially if a significant amount of instruction time is allocated to such worthless endeavors as test-taking skills. Furthermore, the quality of education can be improved through competition if public school funding is transferred into the form of school vouchers - using the free market to improve the educational experience and eliminate schools and programs that are ineffective. Every school should be a "private school".
The Current school year is an antiquated relic from an agrarian society (and its associated needs). That no longer needs to be the case. Personally, i would extend the school year to 220 days (reconfiguring the breaks in the schedule, so the student is less likely to forget what they "learned" in overly long breaks.
This seems to be the rare service industry where the success of service doesn't seem to matter. Why should students and parents (and taxpayers) accept the bare legal minimum from their schools.
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