LA unveils $578M school, costliest in the nation
Teachers barely make enough to subsist, unions make a ton of money on dues, the districts pay administrators exorbitant wages, and gobs of money gets thrown at better buildings. Had enough? Is there a better way?
Kid's don't need better buildings. They need better teachers, less bureaucracy and less centralized control. Flip the whole thing - attract the best and brightest to the teaching profession. Pay teachers what administrators currently make, give them a bigger budget for materials and curriculum, give them broad based guidelines for educational standards, destroy the unions, and fire (or at least repurpose) the administrators. Let the teachers self-organize on each campus and pass the baton on administrative functions.
Next, empower students. How about a student council that actually has real input into the administrative process of the school? Imagine treating students like they are adults, giving them adult responsibilities and teaching them real world skills in real time. Budget issues at the school? A great chance to learn economics as a student body. Social unrest? A perfect opportunity to learn conflict resolution and collaboration. Make students the masters of their education. Tell them it is partly their job to maximize the effectiveness of the educational experience. Give them opportunities to speak into the process and recommend improvements. Take them seriously. Create group goals and school wide goals and encourage students to self-organize for reaching those goals. Teach them the importance of values and work with them in groups to craft values statements. Show them how to use these values as guiding parameters for decision making and strategic planning. Teach the students to solve real world problems by giving them real world problems to deal with.
In addition, educate parents that the buck stops with them for ensuring their child is educated. They should view the school and the teachers as resources to assist, not as a straight line hand over of their inherent responsibility to provide an education for their child. Discover ways to assist students who do not have adequate parental support structures.
Finally, spend just enough on facilities to ensure cleanliness, safety, and access to core educational materials. Create collaborative workspace for students and encourage working in groups on problems to solve. Teach kids how to self-organize, self-regulate, and succeed together in groups. Increase spending on things like music/band/sports/academic-decathalon/computers/etc. Reward teachers who teach kids how to learn instead of just what to think. Put an end to standardized testing which results in "teaching to the test" and a bunch of rote classroom work full of perpetual ennui and mindless drivel. Find out what works and then do more of that. Find out what doesn't work and stop doing it. Fail fast, pivot fast, learn fast, grow fast.
Just my $0.02 on the issue. What are your thoughts?
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