I am currently in my 21st year of teaching, and I have seen this endless silly parade of education reforms. Their life cycles are all the same: They come in with a flourish with a whole new set of acronyms (education has never met an acronym it didn't absolutely love) and buzz words, lots of training, admonishments if you are not seen as faithfully implementing the new scheme into your lessons, and then within 3-5 years it is gone only to be replaced by a different program which promises to do the exact same thing the previous program did but only better. If you stick around for 10+ years (which unfortunately most teachers don't- more on that in a moment) you begin to realize that these "new" programs are just recycled old programs just with a different name.
Here is the clean, unvarnished truth about education in the United States: It is not failing, it is not close to failing. Comparing those all important test scores of American students to the rest of the world is folly at best. The US educates ALL students in much the same way all through high school, meaning that ALL US students are required to take the same tests. In Europe and the rest of the world, this is not necessarily the case. Furthermore, the vast majority of students graduating from American high schools are leaving with skills and knowledge that will benefit them and in turn society as a whole. I can honestly say, that students graduating in 2020 will leave high school knowing more than myself and my peers did in 1989. And I know that when I graduated from high school, my classmates and I knew more than those who had graduated in 1969. On the whole, education is not failing, it is fulfilling its charge in American society.
However, that does not mean that education in the US cannot be improved because it can. It does not mean that there are not reforms- REAL, TANGIBLE reforms- that should be taken, because there are. If I were to be named the Grand Education Czar and could do whatever I pleased in making education better, I would definitely have some ideas.
All Education Policy Makers Must Have A Background In Classroom Instruction
Just because you are rich or spent some time as a child in a classroom does not make you an expert in education much less earn you the right to make decisions for education. We certainly don't allow regular people to make policy decisions for any other profession. Only in education do non-experts get to make decisions about how best to teach, or the best curriculum to use, or the best way to organize our school days, or... and the list goes on. Bottom line, unless you have been in a classroom as an instructor and have a track record of being effective in education, you don't get to set policy.
School Choice Is Fine, But The Choices Must Be Equal
I am a huge proponent of having choice. I certainly don't want only one choice for my meal when I go out to eat, I don't want one choice when I'm buying a car, and I don't want one choice when choosing which cereal to buy at the grocery store. Choice is a hallmark in any free-market society. School should be no different. However, if a school is going to receive tax-payer funds, it must follow the same regulations and requirements that other tax funded schools must follow. All teachers must be licensed teachers, all students must be accepted and serviced- and I mean ALL students must be accepted and serviced, you cannot pick and choose what you will teach and what you will not teach, you will teach the same topics and subjects that all other tax funded schools are expected to teach. If a school receives tax money, then that school must be held accountable and follow the same set of rules that all others follow. That said, no tax money should be diverted to private schools, especially religious ones. That is a dangerous mix of church and state as well as sending money to entities who answer to no one but themselves. We certainly wouldn't allow tax money to be diverted to private police departments or fire departments, why would we do the same in education?
Stop The Ridiculousness With Teacher Evaluations
Currently the teacher evaluation system in Colorado is a mess. That is actually a very kind statement. It is overwhelming, unruly, confusing, overly burdensome, and woefully inconsistent. Some of it is the fault of state law which has set up a system designed to weed out ineffective teachers. A noble undertaking to be sure but difficult to quantify. Furthermore, the requirement of yearly evaluations for veteran Effective and Highly Effective teachers is unwieldy and problematic for administrators. If I have a track record of being at least an Effective teacher every year for the last several years, am I really going to be any less effective the next year? Doing these yearly evaluations for all teachers is to the determent of younger teachers or truly Ineffective teachers who do need a lot of support to become an Effective classroom teacher. However, part of this problem is also the fault of districts and individual administrators. Why do some districts or administrators insist on beginning every school year with the assumption that all teachers are beginning at "Ground 0" instead of assuming that all teachers are at least Effective and go from there? If your teachers are not at least beginning as Effective teachers, what does that say about you as a district or administrator? You chose these teachers to be in you building. Are you saying you chose teachers who were less than effective to be in front of students? Moreover, the evaluation is so long and so exhaustive an administrator will probably never see ALL of the indicators on the evaluation. Just because you didn't see an indicator or requirement don't assume that the teacher doesn't do that requirement. I have heard of administrators marking down teachers on their evaluation because they didn't see the teacher do the indicator. That's just crazy. Again, the administrator chose these teachers because they believed they were the best, administrators should show some faith in their teachers as well as their own judgement.
Increase Educator Pay
When I say educator, I mean the people who are actually in the buildings working with students everyday from the cafeteria workers, to the custodians, to the secretary, to the para's, to the teachers. All of them. Most teachers leave the profession within their first five years of teaching. If you want to reduce teachers leaving the classroom, increase the pay. When compared to workers in other fields with similar education requirements, teacher pay is well below those other fields. Stop increasing pay of district administrators, stop hiring people at district administration buildings, start funneling that money to the building employees. Simple.
If You Have An Educator License, You Will Be A Substitute
Jefferson County Schools has a severe sub shortage. On any given day, it is not unusual for a sub job in a building to go unfilled. We are not unique. There are two main reasons for this; low unemployment and low substitute pay. Usually, it is other teachers in the building who are expected to become the sub giving up their planning periods or combining classes. This is frustrating and exasperating. I have a solution to at least alleviate this problem: If you have an Education Licence but you are not assigned to a classroom you would be required to spend at least three days every semester as a substitute teacher. This would apply to the Superintendent on down to building level administrators. This would lower the number of unfilled sub jobs as well as exposing district and building administrators to the everyday realities of the classroom. I have found that once someone is out of the classroom for three or more years, they lose touch with the realities of the classroom and teaching. This would help keep them rooted in sensibilities and not theories.
Ban Cellphones
These are the greatest detriment to education today. I am absolutely convinced of that. Anyone who says otherwise has never had to compete for the attention of a 15 year old who was more interested in the latest amusing video on social media or the importance of scheduling a bathroom break with their friends. France has outlawed all cell phones in their schools. We should as well. Generations of students have gone to school without them (myself included) and survived. Get rid of them.
Improve Discipline
I am not in favor of running classrooms or schools like a prison, nor do I expect absolute obedience from students. Students are children and will do dumb or bad things. It's part of childhood and growing up. However, I believe that schools have become too tolerant of certain behaviors. There are students who should not be in a regular school setting because they are habitually disruptive, however, because of some notion that we cannot deny students an opportunity to an education, these students are allowed to remain in schools. The right of one student does not come before the rights of other students to learn. If a student is unwilling or unable to refrain from interfering with the rights of other students to learn, that student should not be allowed to remain in class or school. I do not support arbitrary, capricious, or instantaneous removals, but if a student has proven themselves to be detrimental to the decorum of classrooms and schools, they do not have the right to deny the rights of others.
So, there you have it. If I were in complete control of education policy these are the changes I would like to see take place. Education is at times messy, convoluted, confusing and sometimes...dumb. But it is so vitally important. In a nation such as ours, which allows so much choice and freedom, education is essential. Therefore, our attention to education is essential.
