How to fix education

There are many things that could be done to fix this economy, many that will not be done, and many that won’t even be considered. Educational reform will certainly be considered, but in all likelihood, nothing positive will be done. This is because, as I have mentioned in previous essays, people really don’t care about the state of education, they just know that, like supporting our troops, they have to give it lipservice. So, while it is absolutely certain that we will see a change in education in the next few years, it is likely to take a similar shape to most government reform we’ve seen of recent: more rules and regulations, goals and rubrics, standards and practices, more acronyms and alphabet soup, that will amount to nothing more than trying to squeeze a mile of copper wire out of a penny. However, if we were to take seriously the need to improve our educational system, there are four essential changes that must be made: 1) more funding, 2) pay teachers more, 3) differentiate and provide consequences, and 4) institute best practices.
As for funding, the solution is simple: schools need more of it. It is simply impossible in the modern age to run a school on peanuts. Schools need computers, retrofitting, repairs, basic maintenance, projectors, additional rooms, tables, chairs, etc. Now, if one were to visit newer schools, perhaps this would not be such a complaint, but as usual in our society, new schools are built where the richest and most prosperous people live, while the old, urban schools with their rotting innards make sure that the poorest among us are sent yet another message that they are not as worthwhile as the wealthy classes.
The funding also needs to take another form or path to get to schools. As it is now, funding is akin to a patchwork quilt, coming from the number of individual students, grants, applications for federal and state money, etc. Funding also fluctuates based on the prosperity or decline of the state budget, blind to the needs of individual schools. The simple truth is that until we fund schools adequately, and in a rational manner, they are going to be second rate at best.
Of course, what good is a nice, well funded school without good teachers. In the end, not much, but at current salary and compensation levels, the people that are truly brilliant, motivated, and inspired are not likely to become teachers, and on the off chance they do, it is not likely they are going to stay there very long. Teachers, at least in Oregon, are required to have their master’s degree, a level of education that few else are required to reach (less than 7% of our society). Yet when they finally get out of school to put their training to use, they are paid less than almost any other professional with a similar level of education ($38,900), and are afforded a meager, grinding road of advancement that is based not on excellence, or achievement, or adherence to professional development, but simply time (the salary increases about $1,000 per year).
Why would any driven, ambitious person ever want to become a teacher? They wouldn’t, and it is partially the fault of the unionization of the teaching profession (note: I am not, by any means, anti-union). Let’s look at the results: as a principal, I can’t fire bad teachers (union), nor can I pay more to great teachers (union). As a teacher, I have no financially motivated reason to do the best possible job I can do—that has to come from pride in one’s work, professionalism, enjoyment, and care for one’s students. But even assuming said teacher has all of these, he or she never gets any kind of accolade other than the proverbial pat on the back for their work. Moreover, since not every school or student body is equal, after awhile experienced teachers tend to seek out the best situation for themselves and their families, as any rational person would do, especially considering there is no financial compensation to stay at a poor school with a tough student body. So in the end the best teachers that still want to teach end up at the wealthiest schools. For some reason, we expect teachers out of the goodness in their hearts, to always do the right thing, which, aside from other public servants, such as police officers and firemen, is something we don’t ask of any other profession—not even doctors. So, we can continue to pay teachers crap salaries with little to no room for financial advancement based on performance, but as in all things, you get what you pay for, and I’m not going to lie—there are a lot of unmotivated, middling, crap teachers getting middling, crap salaries teaching our future generation.
We also need to differentiate. By this I mean, we need to provide pathways other than high school diploma and off you go to college, because not everyone wants to go to college, and not everyone is an academic all-star—and that’s ok. The world needs janitors, public works officials, hairdressers, servers, construction workers, mechanics, electricians, and plumbers too, and they probably don’t all need to learn a foreign language, how to write poetry, and pre-calculus.
Hand in hand with this is the need for real consequences in school. As it is now, students simply advance through elementary and middle school until they reach high school, and it is only in their junior and senior year that it finally sets in for them that not going to class or doing any work is not going to earn them a diploma. Rather than advancing to high school and being put on the same track to college as we would with an honor roll student, this student should be siphoned off somewhere in the system, perhaps as early as 6th grade. This may not seem to be the most fair or equitable system, but, to quote my and everyone else’s parents: life’s not fair, and students should not be made immune to that lesson. By providing different tracks for students, we provide consequences for poor academic achievement, and at the same time, ensure that every American child has the opportunity, at the very least, to learn a valuable trade in which they can earn a decent wage.
I suppose all of the above could be said to be instituting best practices, but let’s go pragmatic here. For instance, why the hell do we start high school kids at 7:30 in the morning when studies have shown that teenagers don’t function at that hour? The answer that you will get if you ask a principal or district official is buses, which is absolutely absurd. More absurd is that most of the entire academic system in the United States is tied to the agrarian practice of letting students have summers off so that they can work the family farm. There are many other little nuances I could get into about the way schools are run, but the point is that if we are going to expect teachers to institute best practices to help their students, and we expect students to make their best effort in school, then why the hell aren’t we going to expect school districts and principals to do the same, by making the school schedule and logistics surrounding that schedule, as efficient to the educational agenda as possible? Until our schools align themselves with what is known about how students best learn and adopt a more rational schedule, education can never fully reach its potential.
Being a teacher, I will disclose that yes, selfishly, these changes would make my life better, but that doesn’t necessarily make my suggestions invalid. District officials, superintendents, and principals may look at them and say that they are impractical, and with the current system we have, I would completely agree; however, as I have often said, the changes our society needs across the board cannot be waffled or pussyfooted around if we want to see actual results. Small reforms here and there are not going to solve the monumental problems we face as a nation, and education is no different: you get what you pay for—until our society is willing to pay for a quality education, it is going to get what it pays for, and right now it is squeezed, poor, and myopic. And as a person that sees himself as ambitious, motivated, perhaps even mildly intelligent, I can tell you this: if changes aren’t made in the next 10 years or so, I can’t see myself teaching.