sunandsand
Gold Member
- Joined
- Jan 11, 2020
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Never been to a school in Baltimore, but I can guess at their problems . . .
Declining tax base, so not enough money available. What money they can get is often misallocated or simply wasted, school buildings deteriorating, teacher salaries too low so they can't attract good teachers, morale is zero or less, students sense this and lose interest, lack of opportunity in the community (decaying city, contracting economy) so students don't see the point in learning skills that won't do anything for them "later", layers and layers of bureaucracy, administrators, you name it, "too many chiefs, no warriors" syndrome, encrusted and obsolete systems and procedures, no vision for the future, no handle on the present, nothing learned from the past. Inefficient purchasing systems (possibly corrupt, kickbacks and all), obsolete textbooks, too few or no computers available, old software, slow or even no internet available to students, local school boards divided on what to teach and how to teach it, they're too busy with turf wars and empire building to even consider that the ONLY reason for their existence is to provide a quality education for the students. No college prep courses, no vocational training either - "shop" class has no status and somebody could get hurt, so the insurance is high and since there isn't enough money, no shop classes any more. Generalization warning - since this is a northern school, it probably has a teacher's union, the primary function of which is to protect the teachers from anything and make sure they get regular raises. (I'm not anti-union, but I do get upset when the union becomes more important than the primary task, which is educating the students.) No or limited crisis intervention resources for kids who get into or make trouble, the list goes on and on . . .
I need to think about this for a while and possibly come up with some fixes for a few of these things - which will be ignored because I am not a "professional educator".
We first need to define what a "quality, comprehensive" education is, and then we can start to figure out how to get there. We might want to think about copying successful schools both here and abroad.
Best Regards,
Mike/Florida
Declining tax base, so not enough money available. What money they can get is often misallocated or simply wasted, school buildings deteriorating, teacher salaries too low so they can't attract good teachers, morale is zero or less, students sense this and lose interest, lack of opportunity in the community (decaying city, contracting economy) so students don't see the point in learning skills that won't do anything for them "later", layers and layers of bureaucracy, administrators, you name it, "too many chiefs, no warriors" syndrome, encrusted and obsolete systems and procedures, no vision for the future, no handle on the present, nothing learned from the past. Inefficient purchasing systems (possibly corrupt, kickbacks and all), obsolete textbooks, too few or no computers available, old software, slow or even no internet available to students, local school boards divided on what to teach and how to teach it, they're too busy with turf wars and empire building to even consider that the ONLY reason for their existence is to provide a quality education for the students. No college prep courses, no vocational training either - "shop" class has no status and somebody could get hurt, so the insurance is high and since there isn't enough money, no shop classes any more. Generalization warning - since this is a northern school, it probably has a teacher's union, the primary function of which is to protect the teachers from anything and make sure they get regular raises. (I'm not anti-union, but I do get upset when the union becomes more important than the primary task, which is educating the students.) No or limited crisis intervention resources for kids who get into or make trouble, the list goes on and on . . .
I need to think about this for a while and possibly come up with some fixes for a few of these things - which will be ignored because I am not a "professional educator".
We first need to define what a "quality, comprehensive" education is, and then we can start to figure out how to get there. We might want to think about copying successful schools both here and abroad.
Best Regards,
Mike/Florida