New plan for Michigan Schools.

You are aware of how studies work, right? You need a basis of comparison. The very first link, in fact, shows the percentage breakdown for each race by social class. The trends are the same for each race for each socioeconomic status across the board.

 

Agreed, standardized tests have their flaws. I don’t think anyone disagrees with that.

Stanford University has an interesting take on the Finland educational system:

Lower cost, better results
"We are spending less money than average for developed countries, much less than the United States. We spend less time, but the learning achievements are high," Sahlberg said. "You put more money and more time there, but the outcome, the achievements are less.

"When we compare teachers to other professions in society, we compare them to lawyers or doctors or architects," he said. "Not as here [in the United States], where they are compared to nurses or therapists, or something like that, that require lower academic training."

Teachers in Finland are required to obtain a three-year master's degree, state-funded, before teaching. These education positions are highly coveted, Sahlberg said. For example, only one in 10 primary-school teacher applicants are accepted.

"It's harder to get into primary school education than a medical program," he said.

But Sahlberg identified the biggest obstacle in the U.S. system as the same policy intended to revolutionize education. "If I could change one thing in policy, I would seriously rethink the role of standardized testing," he said in an interview with the Stanford News Service. "No high-performing nation in the world has been successful using the policies that the United States is using."

Apparently, Finland has higher educational requirements for teachers. Maybe we should do away with standardized testing AND make educational programs MORE rigorous AND fund schools at the national level by number of students per school.

https://news.stanford.edu/news/2012/january/finnish-schools-reform-012012.html

 

I thought you loved that your school valued high test scores?

 

IMO...a lot needs to be fixed outside of schools as well.

Kids need to go home to a family. One solid income that still allots family time. Kids need to be fed, clean, loved, and to play. They are searching for 'family' on the streets. Family builds soooooo much character and values that are needed to learn.

Another large piece is the community. It needs to be safe, clean. welcoming, full of opportunity and activities. Neighbors as friends.

 

I would agree with this post. If all teacher ed programs were free, but with limited slots, there would be a great deal of competition to get those slots. Prestige in the teaching profession would rise as well as teacher quality. I'd also like to see standard testing play a similar role as it does in Finland: negligible.

Thinking about Detroit schools, I strongly favor the recommendations in the article.

 

I do, but for other schools that are averse to standardized tests, then they can implement the Finland system in ALL aspects, INCLUDING the higher standards for teachers.

 

The 71% you would have us assume is made of a ethnic rainbow represents white Americans, by and large, who continue to constitute the majority of all Americans. I would readily agree that most middle-class affluent Americans are white.

Now, if you would care to show us how most blacks are middle-class, I would love to see that research.

You may be relying upon bigoted stereotypes—hard to say. Anyone has a better chance at life should they graduate high school, read books, and not have children before adulthood. You don't have to be black for that to be the case. You may be switching symptoms and causes around, but this is dangerous, because doing so plays to the preconceived and historic expectations of a select few, making them feel better about themselves. An inherent sense of superiority is a hard thing to give up, after all.

I could be wrong. You could run up to Michigan and share this information of yours. In my estimation, you would be doing nothing more than telling poor people to stop being poor, which may be counterproductive.

With regard to Finland . . . Finland is ethnically homogeneous. Finland does not have to deal with the social issues we have to work around in America. Are we supposed to overlook the differences between our nations when you contrast them in order to cast American teachers (present company excluded, of course) as inept failures? This particular line of logic is always so frustrating. Weighing us against Finland, Japan, China, or other nations made of essentially one ethnicity to point out the inadequacies of American education relies upon a certain ignorance in order to gain traction, wouldn't you say?

 

Part 1

Can’t we chalk any of this up to the fact that we are talking about Michigan? I’m probably kidding. Here’s how I would fix it:

1. Close all for profit charter schools. Educating students in and of itself shouldn’t be a business venture.

2. Close any charter school that does not improve upon nearest comparable school in testing performance (only works if all students are required to take the test).

3. Have 1 social worker for every 100 kids and require group therapy as a class that meets at least once a week and individual counseling for students in need. Trauma is something we need to work proactively to deal with.

4. As much as many seem to hate it, schools need to invest in actual curriculum assembled by experts, not things purchased off of teachers pay teachers and worksheets from mathdrills.com. Teachers need a framework and can break off from there.

5. Teachers need to start reading research more. Too many rely on the poor pd they receive. Even grad school doesn’t do a great job with this.

6. Teachers must be incentivized to work in the toughest schools and the toughest subjects. The highest paid teachers should be math, science, and highly trained reading intervention teachers working with the toughest populations. I would not lump hard to staff positions like SPED and ESL into this because they would become patronage positions.

 

5 out of 6 excellent solutions!

 

Part 2.
7. School days need to be longer in areas where the population is working poor. Teacher pay should be commiserate with the extra hours. During this time, any homework assigned should be completed and students should be fed 4 times. Breakfast, snack, lunch, snack. Specials and electives should also be available during this schedule.

8. Medical professionals need to be brought in quarterly and students should receive individualized health treatment plans. Any sign of abuse or lack of health plan follow through should be referred immediately to social worker.

9. Students should be tested frequently for academic growth and advanced based on growth not age.

 

Part 3.

10. Parents collecting government benefits while not working must volunteer a certain number of hours per week in the school. These volunteers would lessen the financial cost of before/after care, and lunch/recess coverage, and office staff/hall monitors. If they act out of line because they don’t possess the skills necessary to function in society, they must attend training to correct this or risk losing their benefits and eventually children. Those with criminal history will need to volunteer in community beautification programs instead.

11. School leaders should be held accountable by annual votes of confidence and should be replaced if they fail to maintain a certain percentage between staff and the community.

 

Just out of curiosity, which don’t you like? Oh and keep reading the others.

 

Part 4
I could think of others but that’s a decent start.

You may ask how I’m planning to pay for these things. Money is gonna have to come from somewhere and I start with existing government programs like Medicaid and SNAP. School funding for meals should come directly from snap since schools would now be feeding students all but 1 meal per day. Scale cost of food purchases would be significantly lowered and some abuse of the system would be curtailed. Medicaid should be paying for their health, including mental health, so that’s a good place to begin.

Between those and current funding, we probably get a significant amount paid for. Obviously, literal budget estimates would need to be made.

 

Aside from the many very atypical experiences you had with your class, my question of why weren't the mushrooms cleaned up in the Detroit school still goes unanswered. A school with a professional janitorial crew, but somehow they missed a large clump of mushrooms growing out of the very wall.

btw: I say atypical because everything you experienced is not how foreign student exchange programs typically work. However, it must be nice to have so many affluent parents who can afford to send their children to Japan for a short student exchange program. My college had an agreement with the university of Hawaii, but so few students have the kind of money it takes to pay for the airplane tickets, hotels, and tuition that we pretty much discontinued offering that. Nowadays, they go to Guam for a week of lazing on the beach, and only a few can afford even that.

Usually, foreign exchange applicants are selected individually, and they stay with host families and attend ordinary Japanese schools. No accompanying teachers, and certainly wouldn't all attend the same school. That you say your class was there with you means that it wasn't a normal school, but one filled with foreign exchange students. We generally separate them because if we don't, they tend to stay with each other and learn nothing of the language or culture.