Now, whether or not Transform America votes [1] to choose education as its next destination, it is certainly a topic close to many of us. It has also been the main discussion point at our Flight Schools [2] so far.
Here is an interesting article from a few months ago on Slate.com [3] discussing the current state of America's public education system. The author, Jim Ryan, suggests a few strategies for fixing the system:
-
Suggestions:
- Don't scrap No Child Left Behind
- Don't stop all testing; stop stupid testing
- Administer fewer tests
- Rank schools, don't prescribe punishments
- Pay teachers more
- Restore prestige to the teaching profession
- Preschool for those who cannot afford it
The No Child Left Behind [NCLB] legislation imposes rigorous testing on K-12 public schools. Jim Ryan's suggestions attempt to address the most controversial aspects of the legislation: the amount of standardized tests and the perverse incentives that they create for teachers. Wikipedia has a relatively complete summary [4] of the criticisms that have been waged against the legislation. Full disclosure: there is also a summary of arguments in favor [5] of the act.
For several reasons, imposing funding punishments on poorly-performing schools is my number one complaint about NCLB. In addition to the issues I have with the act's measurement of "performance" and the incentives this creates for individual teachers to keep some students from even taking the tests, I simply disagree with the notion that the threat of taking away money from a failing school will increase its performance.
That's why I like that Ryan's strategy gets away from these punishments and focuses instead on better testing and higher paid teachers. Attracting and retaining qualified teachers, while discovering and getting rid of poorly performing teachers, seems like a step in the right direction.
I think we also need to focus on schools that are doing a good job. We need to figure out the differences from a poorly performing school - is it money? teachers? parent involvement? - and find ways to integrate the better methods on a wider scale.