i don't know if i sparked a good tangent or not, but this is certainly very interesting.

i had something slightly different in mind, though. teaching ethics of personal conduct and similar issues should indeed be up to the parent (i think about the "schools" in Brave New World and shudder).

but specifically i'm interested in schools. you're right Oz, that schools teach a lot more than basic skills. part of this is for "the public good." the idea behind sex ed is to help reduce STDs and teen pregnancy - schools in CA at least must get parent approval to for the students to be present.

but what about so-called creationism and evolution? evolution is taught in science classes, and it's a theory supported with almost complete consensus among the scientific community. creationism, with its newest incarnation being called "intelligent design theory," is not scientific. it doesn't meet the basic criteria of science (and it's incredibly Christo-centric). it more properly belongs in a theology class, which don't exist in public schools. should they? what about some education along the lines of comparative religion? my cursory schools at least never taught very much about the theology and cosmology of world religions, mostly just demographic and historical stuff. should all of this be thrown out of public schools? i certainly think the sciences have a proper place there. but are there, or could there be, other "charged" subjects in education?

this is one topic about which i have a lot less to assert. sometimes i think everyone should get an overview of child development. for example, study after study has shown that a child's mental capacity is stiffled by passive entertainment, and children that receive more interactive stimulation and social interaction invariably do better in school than children raised on TV. i'm not saying ban TV; i'm saying warn people early, long before becomming parents, that TV is usually pretty bad for their kids, explain why and how, and leave it up to them from there on out (TV as just one example). i mean, the idea here is to give people a few extra tools and understandings to be better parents down the line, but not direct them towards a particular or uniform set of parental behaviors.

I probably over read intent a bit, but I have seen a lot of examples of very disturbing behavior by the schools systems over the years.

As just an example, there was recently (in the last six months) an incident in the SF bay area where planned parenthood was provide all the class curriculum for a fifth grade sex ed class...And it was just as politicized as you would expect. I think this case actually wasn't a public school, but a theoretically conservative private school. Whether you favor abortions or not, this is clearly not an unbiased approach.

I am also disturbed when I see the LA schools getting regularly used for leftist political activism (teacher and admin encouraged walkouts, etc.) when they are the worst schools in the state. If you graduated from an LA public school, you are already doing better than many....But the chances are you are still only semi-literate at best. These schools have had twelve years to teach rudimentary skills. This is NOT all the schools fault, but they share the burden. If a school is good enough to actually produce a literate (in the most basic sense) child, then the next set of skills should be the relatively non-controversial stuff like history, science, basic economics, art, civics, etc. This should be plenty to keep them busy for the first twelve years of education.

As far as "intelligent design", it should be required to follow the same requirements of any other item you wish to adopt in a science class. It needs to have the scientific theory applied to it, and either meet or fail the criteria (this is what science is about after all!). In addition, schools should be winnowing for its applicability to life for early science classes. I.E. It's ability to explain the mechanics of the world that immediately surrounds us.

It's fails to pass the most basic examination by scientific theory and it fails to predict the mechanics of the world.

See this is the problem, good parents feel outsiders have no right to interfere in their parenting. Thats all well and good if you happen to be good parents, so go ahead and cling to that way of thinking while society crumbles around you. Because your attitude is what protects bad parents.

actually, i'd say it's the state's fault mostly. back when Regan was governor here, he put a law through that changed the way public schools are funded in the state. it made it such that local property taxes provided one of the largest sources of school funding, except that schools located where the local property wasn't worth much ended up losing out as a result. i went to one of the worst schools in the state, and this is one of the worst states in the country. less than half my freshman class graduated, and a big chunk of them weren't really literate.

i agree that there are major problems at the level of some schools, but you're also talking about a system that's under-funded in the first place. i kinda laugh when people say throwing money at the problem won't fix it. yes, it will! money fixes most problems.



...i'm not sure what your beef is with planned parenthood. they did the sex ed in my middle school. most of what they talked about had to do with condoms and the pill, and STD prevention. the only thing they mentioned about abortions was that they're a medical prodecure to terminate a pregnancy by ending the life of the unborn baby, that some women chose to get them usually because they won't be able to support the baby, and that it's never easy for women to make the choice or undergo the procedure. it was a cold, medical description, and i think it did more to turn people off of the idea of getting an abortion. i suppose there's political bias in the fact that they didn't talk about the controversy in any way, but i think they knew that you'd have to live in a bubble to not be aware of that.

Illinois funds its schools the same way, and it has resulted in the same problems. To change it, though, requires a rewrite of the tax code and would probably result in an increase in the state income tax with a reduction in the property tax, which is political suicide to support. Give the rich property owners a break while taxing the poor renters? That'll never fly...



I think there should be more "charged" subjects in school, myself. Much of what was taught to me and is being taught to my kids is so boring and sanitized that they are bored out of their minds. We should be teaching them to think for themselves and to develop and defend their opinions. What better way than to give them interesting things to argue about.

I don't think that the current educational system means to act as mind control. But by making the material so boring we drive the students into thinking that everything is dumb, and they become sheep.



You would think this would be reasonable, wouldn't you? And that all high school grads would have a common background? But



I'd agree. No Child Left Behind makes an effort to correct this, but it is failing. We are now driving the teachers to teach to the test, not teach the material. My kids have stories about teachers cramming for two weeks before the test and then never returning to the material. That wasn't the intent.

There should be a national standard of graduation requirements. The minute you link teacher performance to that, though, you set off a firestorm. And rightly so, sometimes. Are we going to hold an inner-city teacher to the same performance goals as a teacher in a wealthier suburban district? That's not fair.



The minute you try to "improve" or "educate" bad parents you usually are talking about a system that tells me how to parent. Who decides what is right and wrong? Or who is a bad parent? That's a little too "Big Brother" for me.



The only money I see making a difference is raising teacher salaries. I'd support that. Otherwise it seems to get spent on bells and whistles that don't help. We had a state legislator propose that all students 5th-8th grade get a laptop from the state. Duh. Good example of how not to spend money...unless I get one, too!

Cost per child in the LA school district: $13,792 or 14% of all CA education dollars
WWW Link

Students who graduate in four years: Less than half
WWW Link

I haven't found anything that list the average class size, but it's pretty safe to assume it's between 20 and 35 or $275,840-$482,720 per classroom.

Tell me how they don't have enough money again...

The CTA (California Teachers Association) is the second most powerful political entity in California (the Police Union is #1). They have a vested interest in not changing the system. They have also clearly demonstrated over the last few years that they have the political muscle to keep anything from changing (rather than bore others with the details, let's just say they have been challenged and it was nothing a few hundred million dollars couldn't quash!). They have one and only one solution to any problem that may be occurring...More money. They are very active in making sure that no other solutions are given a fair hearing...

BTW My problem with Planned Parenthood is that they are politically active proponents of abortion. They are often participants in Pro-Choice political activities...In addition, they run the abortion clinics and they have a vested political interest. As such, they are NOT neutral parties...

Unfortunately you are correct, but i'm not sure we can afford to put the issue in the to hard basket because of the big brother factor?

Well instead of interfering with good parents, why not just look at parents who's children show signs of antisicial behaviour? Right now all we are doing is looking at parents of abused children, but that is the bare minimum and we could be doing allot more.

we seem to have a way of suprising each other, Oz. I agree with what you're saying completely. looking at it from the post-HS point of view, kids come into the university so used to boring, sanitized, for-the-test teaching that they resent argument-based environment of the university. some students flourish, but most act like they're being messed with (defensive, hostile, indifferent), and it's because no one's ever asked them to think in an educational environment.



my 10th grade (1998) history "book" was several photocopied chapters from a text published in 1981 (older than I am). that was the norm in my classes. my HS was designed for 1,400 students; there were 2,600 the year I graduated. when i took chemistry, the only experiments we did were with readily avialable chemicles, like bleach.

i'm not saying that programs need more funding. IMHO some definately do, especially to work well. but it's also about paying teachers more, and paying more of them. there were 40 kids in my science classes, 60 in PE classes, but I don't think 2 of those PE classes would've been albe to fit into our library at once. and if you want your kids to gain any sort of computer literacy, you're talking about replacing every computer every 3 or 4 years to remain up to date. a lot of the problems with education have to do with the politics just outside the classroom.

The school issue is an area with allot of room for improvement. I remember the attitude of teachers when i was in school was pretty much set along the lines of 'if your having fun, you carn't be learning anything'. Which as we all know is the exact opposite to reality.

I would have thought that by now things would have changed but sounds like it hasn't.

Does anyone really think there are any important subjects in school that 'must' be taught in a booring way?

The school issue is an area with allot of room for improvement. I remember the attitude of teachers when i was in school was pretty much set along the lines of 'if your having fun, you carn't be learning anything'. Which as we all know is the exact opposite to reality.

I would have thought that by now things would have changed but sounds like it hasn't.

Does anyone really think there are any important subjects in school that 'must' be taught in a booring way?

As a taxpayer, I have a problem with







I think these are all real issues. However,



this isn't right either.

I think the teachers' unions need to look closely at what is about to happen to Chrysler. Taxpayers will not and are not continuing to support taxes for programs that can't produce. My wife (who works for the school district) gets gobs of paid holidays, has 77 sick days saved up, and we get our health insurance for practically nothing. If I got it through my job it would be $400 per month for the exact same coverage.

It is almost impossible to get a school funding referendum passed in our area right now. So where will the money come from?

And how can we hold teachers accountable for teaching when the students vary so widely in ability? All the talk about school vouchers is great, but what do you do when all the smart kids go to the magnet schools? Who teaches the more difficult kids?

My kids are in public schools, and I think the schools are doing fine, but I don't expect them to teach my kids everything. That's what I'm here for - I actually do know everything!



The big question is who decides what is antisocial. When you start making those kinds of decisions for people you are engaging in thought control. Clearly, carrying a gun into school is antisocial. But golf clubs and baseball bats have been used as weapons, too. Should we ban those? Spray painting racial graffiti on the walls is wrong. Is wearing a "Jesus loves me but hates George Bush" T-shirt wrong? Careful what you wish for - you might get it!



That would be the single best thing we can do for them, and it's what I try to do at home.



If its boring, I know I'm not learning. I'm just enduring. The stuff I learn always seems like play.

interesting question. on the one hand, there's the "can't please all the people all the time" issue. math is gonna bore some kids, english, others. it ties into the money issues, too. among many teachers i've met, low pay isn't their biggest complaint about the job. they know what they're getting into when they become teachers. as i may have said before, many say the biggest frustration they face is not having the resources they need to do their jobs well.

getting back to the point, i can imagine one potential subject that should be boring: "the real world." you give kids a taste of what their workdays will be like down the road, that'll wake them up real quick.

I was going to write something long on teachers pay. But I'll do the short version instead.

Teachers work very few days a year compared to a normal job. They receive benefits that can only be obtained by government employee unions. They are not on call 24x7x365 as are many private employees (like me). Only the rare ones work long days. They are not working under "at will" employment. If they want to have the same pay as a private professionals, they need to work the same hours and have the same standard set of conditions that prevail in the private world. It would be a very bad trade for them....

Therefore, I don't think they are underpaid.

you know, i take that back. i did have a few teachers in high school who encouraged independant and creative thought, but they were sneaky about it usually. i think the deeper issue is that our lives rarely ask us to think. most jobs are endlessly repetative, as is most entertainment. no matter how much we emphasize thinking over memorization in schools, how successful can we expect ourselves to be when the world afterwards doesn't match up?

That deserves an echo. I would much rather see some money go into things like text books. With almost 14K per student per year, it should NOT be a problem to fork over $100 a year per student for books and cycle them every half a dozen years or so.

Also many traditionally boring subjects should not be boring. History is a prime example. Most find it boring the way it is presented, but it should really be anything but. A big part of the problem is that most high school students simply don't yet have the skills to dig into a subject like the Peloponnesian Wars...Something you could easily spend an entire semester on.

same pay, same hours? what about lawyers? or therapists? they don't work the same hours, but make professional level pay.

teachers bring their work home with them, often spending a large parts of evenings on grading. teachers in certain types of school will often chose to pay for their own supplies. teachers have to manage dozens of kids at once, not only their formal education, but they help with the process of socialization and ideally serve as role models. they have master's leve

and the bottom line: they're responsible for a major part of your childrens' futures; do you really want to attract subpar teachers?

I strongly agree. You can't tell teachers this, though. They go nuts. They can't imagine getting fired for poor performance, which might result in some of the ways long-time teachers teach. If I can't get fired, why put forth extra effort?



That's kind of depressing. When my work gets boring I try to find something to do to make it a challenge again. I can't stand to be bored!



That's true - you get what you pay for. Why should the people that have the biggest impact on our children's lives outside of their parents have to work for peanuts?

Lawyers have often chosen that profession specifically because it is so highly paid. I would class teachers with the same pay scale as that of a typical professional. If they want to be at the very top of the professionally paid salaries, they shouldn't be a teacher. Lots of people aren't at the top of the salary scale for many and varied reasons...This is also part of the problem. Teachers tend to compare their pay with the highest paid professionals, not the typically paid professionals.

Another part of the problem is that teachers do view taking home homework to grade as an unusual commitment to a job. It's simply not. Many, many professional jobs out there require 60+ hours a week, some 80+ hours a week and a few run 100+ hours a week....Every single week of the year. I thankfully don't have one of those right now (I have in the past, it's how you pay your dues and get advancement to senior positions), but I looked for a job that wouldn't be like that and I probably get paid a bit less for it.

I take my cell phone with me everywhere I go. I take it on vacation. I stealth log into work when on vacation periodically because I am the only person at my company who knows how to do my job and if my job is not done properly, we do no business (literally). This is also very common. It's so common it's not really even worth saying, except for how it contrasts with the ability of teachers to put away work so frequently and not think about work.

This is something else that teachers don't want to hear...

your raise some good points, Purge, and in some respects i agree with you. but i think the problem is also very complicated. for example, one of my friend's moms is a special ed teacher. she has 3 bachelor's degrees, and two master's. it's hard for her to find a job here in CA. that's not because her skills aren't in high demand or because she's not qualified to be a special ed teacher. rather, it's because the schools would be required to pay her more than they can usually afford. she's over-qualified in that respect. i don't think every teacher deserves a better salary, but i do think schools should have more discretionary funds for cases like that.

let's take another case. my senior year in high school, our teachers picketed the front of the school over a pay issue. the district was holding onto their annual raise and announced it'd distribute them retroactively at the end of the year. it was a cost of living adjustment, not a merit increase.

it's also hard to advance. unless you switch over to full-time administration, the pay cap for teachers is fairly low. at the university level, you can still remain a teacher but transition into higher paid dual positions and have other means to make more money over time.

well, on this subject, i just found an interesting article you might care to read:
WWW Link

Interesting article, Dys. Lots of food for thought. I wonder what the teachers' unions think about that.

We may have some actual common ground here!

As I'm sure you have figured out, I believe in a meritocracy and someone like you describe deserves to be paid significantly more than the average teacher. She has more training, and is seeking to work in a significantly more challenging environment than the average teacher. It also requires a certain special something be present in her personality that most of us don't have. I would like a school system that is accommodative of that.

The article you linked to is hopeful and does offer the promise of school funds being spent more effectively by introducing a limited from of competition and more local control. This is the general kind of thing I favor and I would like to see a lot more of it.

I don't know if you have followed what is happening in the Washington DC school system experiment, but it makes for some very interesting reading. I haven't seen anything on it recently, but it is an excellent study in school choice. Both on the practical, educational level, and on the resistance that successful programs can face from entrenched hostile political forces. It was also specifically focused on the most troubled environments/students making it all the more challenging. May have to see if I can dig up some links on it again.

we probably have more common ground that it'd seem. Oz was rather surprised when we agreed on similar matters. a point of insight to my personality: as much as i care deeply about the downtrodden, i'm not a bleeding-heart type deep down, i'm a socratic. i'll always have more to say pointing out problems than proposing solutions, and society hates my type of person because of it. c'est la vie. bring on the hemlock, i say!



you might think i'm totally pro-union. i value the historical precident set by unions, that the workers can and will have a say in some of the decisions a company makes. but on the whole i'm pretty critical. for example, here at the UC, a lot of our admin positions are clericial in nature but not classified as such. those positions aren't unionized. the clerical union's been known to block promotions on occassion to retain representation employees.



something i learned in sociology is that once an organization or institution exists, no matter the reasons for which it was created, its first priority is to continue its own existence. pretty depressing when the institution is created with egalitarian ideals in mind, but ends up becoming a force for stagnation.

Do you think thought controll is not already apon us?

Big brother is always going to be a problem issue but at least we can make an effort to get it right instead of just saying well it's too hard, lets just ignore the issue.

One of the primary reasons that my first automatic response to the centralization of any power is to resist until shown that there is no other viable alternative. Once the power is gathered it generally only works to serve itself and to gather yet more power. I much prefer to try to maintain competing and balanced power structures whenever possible. Under ideal circumstances, rival power structures should be able to be born within the environment.

Of course this does have corollaries. Usually the longer a power structure has been around the farther it has drifted from original intent and moved towards completely self-serving goals.

Well thats easy, just teach them all the song 'bittersweet symphony', that should do the trick! (i love that song).