Mike Sylvester’s plan for fixing the failed public education system in the United States
Posted by Mike Sylvester - 12/15/09 @ 4:29 pm - Filed Under Local Politics, State Politics
By any reasonable definition the public school system in the United States has failed as a whole. Our international ranking on education is abysmal.
In real terms (adjusted for inflation) we spend more than twice as much money on education as we did 35 years ago; that being said test scores have remained basically the same. All of this extra money has done nothing to improve student performance.
The United States spends the second most in the world per student on secondary education at $11,152 per student (Switzerland spends $11,334 per student). We continually hear that we must spend more on education. There is no reason to spend more money on our education system. We need to spend the money that we have already allocated on teaching children rather than on layers of bureaucrats, regulations, and administrators.
If I were King I would enact the following policies to help fix our education system:
- Immediately abolish the entire Federal Department of Education. This group of bureaucrats create piles of needless rules and regulations that prevent local school districts from innovation as well as cost the country hundreds of millions of tax dollars each and every year.
- Immediately suspend all Federal programs that subsidize Education in any way shape or form. (Read 1 above). Steps one and two would remove the largest barriers to educational innovation in this country. It would return control of the schools to the States and to local school districts. It would allows States and school systems to experiment with programs. Those programs that worked would soon be copied by other districts and States. One size does not fit all in education. The remaining steps would have to be taken by various states with each state implementing a system in accordance with the wishes of its citizens. I WOULD THEN DO THE FOLLOWING IN INDIANA WERE I KING:
- Implement a better teacher evaluation system that uses student performance as well as other factors to evaluate teacher performance. Teachers would be paid (or in the worst cases fired) based on their actual performance rather than their seniority.
- Evaluate schools in a meaningful way. Schools that fail need to have changes made in their Administration and each schools Administration should be held accountable for their student performance.
- Evaluate parental performance in a meaningful way. If a child has ten or more unexcused absences from school in a year than the County Prosecutor should bring charges against the parent. This should help ensure parents ensure their children attend school.
- Evaluate students in a meaningful way. Students who refuse to do their homework on a chronic basis, disrupt school on a chronic basis, etc. should be removed from the school system. Further schools should be allowed to discipline children and disruptive children should be removed from the class room. Education is a privilege not a right.
- Per a comment in a previous post (from a teacher I might add) I feel that students should NOT be able to obtain a driver’s license prior to their 18th birthday unless they have passed the 10th grade ISTEP exam. This would provide students a certain amount of motivation…
I think those changes would vastly improve our education system!
What do you think?
Mike Sylvester
P.S. Yes I know there would be funding issues. I think each State should funds their own education system. In Indiana I would like to see the state provide something like $5000 per student. I would like to see a flat rate per student with no exceptions!
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18 Responses to “Mike Sylvester’s plan for fixing the failed public education system in the United States”
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“Education is a privilege not a right.”
Actually, in Indiana it is a right under the State Constitution. You should try reading it sometime.
From Article 8, Section 1:
“Knowledge and learning, general diffused throughout a community, being essential to the preservation of a free government; it should be the duty of the General Assembly to encourage, by all suitable means, moral, intellectual scientific, and agricultural improvement; and provide, by law, for a general and uniform system of Common Schools, wherein tuition shall without charge, and equally open to all.”
Both Marion and Hamiliton County Prosecutors’ programs already complete #5.
Craig - How do you read Article 8, Section 1 as a “right” ??? It sure sounds like it’s intention is to insure that free educational oportunities are offered - not that the use of these is in any way a “right”! Your definition just cannot stand - it falls flat on it’s face!
Mike - You are right on, in my opinion. I especially agree with the “Carrot & Stick” suggestion about issuance of the first driver’s license.
Good ideas, but I’m more of a total-separation-of-school-and-state kind of guy. As long as schools are coupled to politics and populism, we’ll have school problems.
And of course, I get to fund the public schools even though my children do not use them. Yay me!
5. Proposal #5 would do more to fill the county jail than it would the classroom.
6. Refusal to do homework is an academic issue, not a disciplinary issue. Kids don’t get expelled for failing to do their homework.
7. The sole criteria for obtaining a driver’s license should be the person’s ability to safely and legally operate a motor vehicle. If Dennis Kruse is allowed to drive in this state, so should teenagers who have failed the ISTEP.
Bonus question for extra credit: If all 150 members of the General Assembly took the ISTEP, how many would pass it?
I think it would be an interesting exercise if a few college grads in their 30’s and 40’s took an exam intended for present day high school seniors. Are YOU smarter than a 12th grader?
Robert - If you’re talking about the average FWCS senior, you only have to be smarter than an eighth grader. Unfortunately that won’t change under “local control”, so we are effectively turning FWCS over to the state and the feds.
Well, Mr. Sylvester has outdone me this time. He’s right, our education system is broken. This has been proven to me by the functional illiteracy of John B. Kalb.
Touche Mr. Sylvester, touche.
Craig,
I think you bring up an interesting point.
My post is stating that I feel that Education is a privilege and not a right from a Federal perspective.
I support the rights of each state to create an educational system as they see fit.
In my post I am telling you what I would do if I were “king.”
I am glad you posted the excerpt from the Indiana Constitution; it in no way states that Education is a right. Instead it says that Indiana will provide a public education system free of charge with access to all. Nowhere does it say that the schools cannot get rid of disruptive kids.
My ideas for Indiana listed in the post certainly fit within the framework provided by the Indiana Constitution.
Mike Sylvester
Mike,
‘Get rid of disruptive kids’ might be the silliest thing I have ever heard you say. Who would you propose draw that line? Teaching children is as much about learning socially as it is academically. If you want a perfect little classroom become a college professor.
Also how can you say ‘education is a privilege’ and ‘prosecute the parents’ in the same breath?
Some school systems have been experimenting with sophomore graduation. 16 year-olds would have the option of going on to vocational school instead of spending the next two years learning Shakespeare.
Justin,
You have got to be kidding me.
Disruptive kids should be removed from the school system. I would have to think that the school system should determine which kids are disruptive.
Mike
Justin -
Try subbing for one day at Wayne, North Side or Elmhurst. Let the students throw glass bottles, books, pencils, etc. at you, while they curse you out. Let’s see if you make it past 10 minutes, before you kick a student out, or a you run out.
Tutor
Maybe I am wrong Tutor, but I feel like you are making my point for me…
Until I hear Wendy Robinson say that any student not passing ISTEP is prohibited from participating in sports, band, or any other non-academic activity including attendance at extracirricular events, she is not really serious.
I see today FWCS is pink slipping 22 high school administrators in the first salvo in their grab for stimulus dollars. The principals at North Side and South Side are widely considered two of the best principals in FWCS. If they are smart, they will look for jobs elsewhere and FWCS will be the loser. As a former teacher, I know this would really motivate me!! If Wendy and the FWCS board think that replacing some adults in the system will solve their problems then we are all in trouble.
How about a “special needs” or remedial school where the disruptives among the student populace are placed…complete with a boot-camp like atmosphere?
If we can’t “cajole” and “entitle” these mini-thugs and thugettes into learning, perhaps a more stringent approach is required.
We don’t need to remove these kids totally…let’s just NOT have them “main-streamed” with good, hard-working students.
Oh wait…that’s the way it USED to be…about 40 years ago, when almost ALL the kids passed with higher grades, and there was hardly ANY disruptive behavior because the kids were brought up a lot better.
(maybe we can blame all THIS on someone else, too?)
Never mind.
disband the department of education. put everything at the state level.