As I complete my second week of my first ever teaching job, I have made some adjustments to my philosophy on education. The adjustments: I can now say that I have experience in our education system and thus my convictions are now stronger than ever that our nation needs to adopt education reform that goes a little like this:
Although our nation spends more money per child for education than every other nation (I'm pretty sure that is correct), Our country still ranks only 19th in the world in terms of education. It is true that all students are educated here and in many of the other countries, poor and disabled students are not counted in the study thus skewing our overall students' performance down. But that does not account for us being ranked as low as 19th. What would I do to change and enhance our education system in America?
Only one thing needs to be changed as far as I can see. This one thing will lead to many other revolutions taking place to fix all the problems with our education system. The troubling thing is this one change is opposed by Teacher Unions, which in addition to Environmentalist, Feminist, and radical civil right activists, have a strangle hold on the Democrat Party. This change would thus require getting Democrats out of Washington. The only way to do that is for republicans to change their recent ways and re-adopt the ideas of economic freedom, restricting government spending, bring back moral standards that end the corruption, and standing up for what you believe in the public square. Republicans such as the president did not defend their policies strongly enough when they were still in power and the democrats took the opening and paraded against the policies of the republicans, and voter opinion shifted. If republicans would get back to their conservative roots and defend themselves in the public square, they will take back the congress and then expand their power. We then need a president that would be revolutionizing not someone like the current president who created comprehensive education reform called: No Child Left Behind.
When this is accomplished, the greatest legislation reform in decades and maybe over a century will take place. This legislation would do only one thing: It would eliminate, with the exception of funding, the entire role of government in our education system. No longer would government ever make any kind of decision in regard to our education system. Government would have only one role. That is that wherever a child decides to attend school, the government would send that school money for that child. That government being the state government as the federal government will never again fund any part of or control any part of our education system. Each individual state will have their own program and decide how best to run their education program. Within a few short years, every state will have adopted a policy of funding the school per student who CHOOSES to attend there. Yes that is right. The child and parents of that child will be able to decide where they attend school. There will never be any such thing as "zoning" for any particular school. Every child can determine, whether currentyl private or currently public school they want to attend.
In the next post I will explain to you why and how having school choice will revolutionize our education system here in America. This change will bring us to the #1 education system in the world, even when you include in it special and handicapped students.
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9 comments:
I just want to say as a parent that number one, I respect that you have an opinion and number two that I commend you for trying to change the world. But as a realist and the mother of two of your current student in this eye opening, life changing, 3 weeks at Sequoyah High, you need to keep your blogs and your opinions out of the classroom. You are there to teach these children History, not your political views or dislike of our government. Also, I would like to know why are you teaching a subject that you admittedly did not pay attention to during your education or even care about? How can you honestly believe that you know what is wrong with the schools and that you are all knowing in ways to fix them when you have only been teaching for three weeks? I hope that I will not ever hear of you spewing your political views of our "government run" school system in your classroom again. By the way, is it not a government run school system that is paying your salary right now? Angela Corman
Ouch, not many fans of that free exchange of ideas stuff here.
Thankyou for your point of view Ms. Corman. I have spoken very little of this subject in my classroom and try to be very careful of what I do say as I know that I have a responsibility to teach your child and many other children about history. As far as "admittedly did not pay attention during your education..."? I have never admitted to that. I have tried to explain to my students that through life change such as 9/11 that my motivation and love for this country became a much bigger focus. I never said that I did not pay attention in school ever. In fact I took higher level courses in college to better prepare me for this career. Classes that were not required. I am sorry that there is confusion there. I was trying to explain to students that at their age we sometimes don't realize the importace of paying attention and studying a specific subject that is required. And that when I was in school I had the same opinion. But I respected the teachers enough to pay attention even when I did not realize why. There were times that I did not focus as hard as I should have. But as I got older I could see why I should much better. I was hoping to get that across to them so they would trust me and focus hard in class.
As far as my political opinions, I try to open the room up for discussion. I teach a lot about history but I love economics. It is less politics and more economics. Politicians like to interfere with economics from time to time so it is impossible to stay away completely. Economics is about choices in many cases. And this blog is about allowing parents like yourself make choices for your child and not letting the government force you to send your child here or there. This is all about YOU and not the government. That is what I am trying to portray. I am trying to support YOU. Besides, this idea would not effect Sequoyah as much as it would the schools where I did my student teaching. It was sad what I had to see from time to time. And I only care enough about those students and parents to want to give them a CHOICE of where to send their child to school. Oh and it is you and every other hard working American that is paying my salary. Not the government. They have no money. They only have what they take from us. Since I look at it from that viewpoint, I try harder than most to best serve you and your child. This means advocating a policy that would allow you to choose where to send your child to get an education.
I will take very seriously your desire for me to stay away from politics in the classroom. I will attempt to do that the best I can. But I do like to challenge the students in thinking about economics from time to time. That will be a focus but I will try to keep politics out of it in the future..
Thanks again,
JESS
How dare you Jess Raby actually open up the floor to the students to discuss real life issues such as politics, economics, and other topics. I can't believe anyone would do such a thing. Who cares about the well beings of the youth of America and there opinions or the opinions of our teachers. My gosh I cant believe such a thing would be allowed to happen. I mean we should line our students up and brow beat them with what a book says about history and never allow anyone to think about anything else. Gah, shut up woman dont be so stupid and ignorant. If teachers now days in middle school and high school dont open up the floor for discussions for such topics how in the world are they ever going to make it in life, and please dont give me some crap like "oh that is what parents are for." When they get to college professors are going to push mostly crap and liberalism down there throats brain washing young people. Then again your probably one of those stupid liberals yourself. May I say thank you Jess, for allowing students to try to think outside the box. Its one thing to try to force your opinions on children, but its completly different to bring up topics and discussions in class that allow people to think. So I say thank you and I wish there were more teachers like you and wish I would have had a teacher like you in school.
Wow first I second that comment anonymous. Very well said. Second if you dont want you children reading this blog theres this great brand new technology they came out with about ten years ago known as parental controls. Contact your local Walmart for a Dummy book on how to learn how to use them. Finally give me a break this country was built on the idea that people could have opinions and could express there opinions whenever and wherever. Knowing Jess personally Im sure he didnt force anything down the kids throats. Im sure it was a general discussion to make young people think about real life issues. I wish I could have had teachers that allowed for floor discussions every now and then instead of scrolling through material on a projection for hours. It would have been nice to have been prepared for when I went to college what the real world is like. More power to ya Jess..... Dont let a crazy "realist" (AKA please everyone keep your opinions to yourself because we dont want good ideas circulating around because it might catch on and have some good change in this country" person get you down. Keep on Keepin on.
OH yeah.... Go Vols
Thankyou all for your comments and defense. But lets try not to call any of my students' parents dumb, stupid or ignorant. I think there was a misunderstanding of what I do in class. That is all. I love it that people are commenting on my blog finally and I agree that a free exchange of ideas is important as long as it is done with both sides of the arguement and not with the purpose of brain washing students. People are not stupid if they disagree with that. I just don't want to have name calling on my blog unless it is about politicians like Obama and CLinton and Biden and others... lol
I too would like to revolutionize the education system here in the United states. Mainly because the system was designed for the industrial age and we are now in the technology age. I believe more emphasis should be on different types of subjects. We need to create leaders, problem solvers, financially savvy, and independent individuals. A job won't cut it these days and there is a reason why our economy is struggling; I believe it is because we do not have enough entrepenuers. Ronald Reagan said, "Entrepreneurs and their small enterprises are responsible for almost all the economic growth in the United States." Please visit my blog to see if there is anyway we can work together and be proactive to make a change happen.
http://alanauyema.blogspot.com/
Thank you for calling off your guard dogs. I do not appreciate being called stupid,as I am an educated woman, and I am not a LIBERAL!!!! I am a conservative Republican. I do not believe that "Brow beating" what a book says is all that is expected from teachers today, I think that it is important to expound on how history is affecting us today. But I also know what they are expected to know for future classes and those rediculous standardized tests is only found in the textbooks. That was my concern about your teaching methods. Until the way schools are organized changes, the students have to be taught to tests. Again positively rediculous but true. I just didn't want my children not getting information needed for these purposes because classtime which is already short was being spent on political conversations. I also believe there was some confusion as to what was happening in your classroom, but I believe that because I had an opinion my children were deeply affected! So, please, before there is more confusion, explain to me why my children were transferred out of your classroom before the end of the six weeks which greatly affected their academics?!? Was it because I had an opinion? Did they have an opinion? Is it common practice to eject children from a classroom 3/4 of the way through a grading period? Please clarify.
Unfortunately I would not want to respond to this on here in a public arena. There was confusion as to what was happening in my classes and I can clarify at school if you would like to know. I just can't here in a public square like this. I apologize. I'm sorry I did not realize people were replying to this message and thus I am 1 1/2 weeks late replying. Again I'm sorry I will be happy to tell you why if you want to call the school I will call you back and talk to you about it.
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