Meeting With President Obama: Education Reform Should Bring All Americans Together

I am a college student in the DC area at the Catholic University of America. I have found myself not only completely supporting educational reform, but I support the complete reform of how children are taught and by what means they learn, not only the problems that confront public schools when it comes to teachers, administrators, and financial difficulties.
I am a proponent of "no-testing" learning. I myself am a terrible test taker, I feel sometimes that I am being punished by having to take a test. I am also diagnosed with a learning disability which I believe is one reason why I am a terrible test taker. If there were a way to teach students without requiring testing, or at least closed-book tests, I would favor that. Tests only serve to rate kids on their ability to memorize information, not those who do grasp the subject but need visual aids. I excel when I have material in front of me, but traditional test taking only harms me in most cases.
For example, I'm a civil engineering student. When I get out into the real world, I'm not going to be given a bunch of numbers and told "do this without notes with you," no, I will be able to have guides, notes, and whatever else can assist me in doing those equations. In the classroom, students should be taught in accordance with how they will operate when they get a job, not a separate "memorize all this and know exactly how to use it" system that only serves to punish students who, like me, suffer from problems, such as learning disabilities, and impair our ability to perform well on tests.

I agree. All Americans should come together on "nationalizing" the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program.

Mind you, one additional thing to be added. I do not support a hands-off form of learning, such as in a so-called "Democratic" school. I feel that students need to be guided in the right direction, as many students only learn they like a subject as they take it. I believe that teachers should give assignments and if test the students, give open-book or open-note or some other form of test resembling open-book or open-note. A hands-off schooling system only gives the students the false illusion that having a job will be the same way, which, in most cases, is not.

A positive meeting regarding education today would include the discussion, and agreement upon the teaching of our Constitution as originally implemented; English as a required national language; how our government officials get elected; economics--supply and demand; that everyone has the privilege to own their own business; that welfare is for the poor, not a type of job; that Abraham Lincoln, a republican fought the good fight against slavery, and won equality for man under the republican ticket; what a privilege it is to be an American citizen; the true history of the ideals and hopes of a strong foundation that our founding fathers based their votes upon, and yes that would include our Christian heritage. This would be a good start.

Esther

I read the comments with the jaundiced eye of a teacher with 33 years of high school experience. I don't see anything in the replies that suggests any kind of educational experience. None of the people at your meeting has worked in the public schools, experienced the impact of poverty, broken families, illnesses, etc. that teachers in the trenches deal with every day. They see the results, and they think they understand.

Theorists in universities haven't a clue. That's why most educational reform attempts end in failure. Then the theorists write more books, develop more strategies, and try something new.

I watched a segment on TV the other day extolling the virtues of a Columbia professor who goes to a school in the South Bronx and teaches lessons through hip hop he gives them. I was doing that when rap first came out. My kids wrote their own. It helped them to remember. It fed into their culture, and it worked. It took a professor 20+ years to catch up with a teacher who didn't theorize but produced.

Education is an important and beautiful thing, but until the people who have the power ask the people who do the labor, the kinds of reform you want will not happen. Until then, the creative, conscientious, and loving individual teacher in the classroom will be the source of educational strength and change.

"Until the people who have the power ask the people who do the labor, the kinds of reform you want will not happen."

If you are referring to the unions you are absolutely right. The unions really should give back some power. The unions monopolize education, protect bad teachers, block reform, and refuse to let creativity and innovation save the American education system.

The politicians are not doing a good job, but they are taking their marching orders from the unions. Why would any politician oppose the Opportunity Scholarship Program, it is because the unions are donating millions to them. If we really want reform we should abolish the teacher unions. Unfortunately that wont happen; it can't happen; the teacher unions are to powerful.

When I was in high school the Math teacher suggested test taking was a topic to study in its own right. There are some books that mention techniques which improve results. No matter who is teaching, you must prove you have assimilated and can do what you learned in some way. A project could substitute for a test.

Today it's possible to sit in front of a computer for your entire education instead of going to a school. Getting your education recognized by a potential employer is then a problem. Doing projects that demonstrate your skills and hopefully make a profit can become proof.

The more interesting time is when you've achieved enough education to master the state of the art in a field and grow beyond it, discovering and contributing new knowledge to the advancement of the state of the art. In traditional school that accomplishment is recognized with a PhD. Outside school, it's easy to publish your discovery on the internet or if ignored there then write a book.

As explained in another comment, administrators must learn to hire great teachers, including the kind Wendy describes above, and dump the not great including those who can't help students beyond their fixed curriculum.

In an internet only education, I don't understand how students will experience the spiritual components of teaching including love, which is more important than most of the topics.

I suggest reading 'Dumbing Us Down' or 'Weapons of Mass Instruction' by John Taylor Gatto (http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/). I have just started reading 'Underground History of American Education,' so I cannot recommend it yet.

We really need to think more critically about the choices we make in educating our children. Too often we just accept things without questioning.

Does it make sense to separate children by grade? Has it always been done that way? When did it start? Why?

Does it make sense to have one hour classes where students have to move from room to room? Has it always been done that way? When did it start? Why?

If each person is unique, why do we try to educate everyone in essentially the same way?

Does it make sense to teach a 6 year old boy and a 6 year old girl in the same way?

Is spending 7 hours a day, 5 days a week, for 9 months a year, for 12 years, mostly inside, mostly seated in a desk really a good way to teach children?

Does the individual really benefit from the current education system? Who does benefit from the current system?

Why is the federal government involved in education? Has education improved since the federal government got involved?

It seems to me that to accomplish anything in our schools, we need to stop worrying about hurting the students' feelings. If they earn a poor grade, or have not completed the knowledge requirements for the next grade -- they should be treated accordingly.

As an ordinary citizen, I am embarrassed at the number of high school graduates that cannot perform simple math, have never read our Constitution, and pick a college based on # of parties given each weekend. This must stop.

I would suggest all who can purchase this DVD "Two Million Minutes" (http://www.2mminutes.com/). It's a big world out there, and the unprepared shall be left behind!

While I agree that K-12 education reform is a key 21st century civil rights matter, I worry about what type of reform might result from a government and education system that are both run -- on nearly every level -- by ideologically aligned, generally liberal-minded folks.

In other words, if we go to reform education, are we going to get real reform, where we eliminate aspects of things in NCLB that encourage cheating or failure? Are we going to break the union's control of K-12 systems in general?

And when we talk about weeding out "bad" teachers, I wonder how we'll determine "good" versus "bad." At Penn State, for instance, every class ends the semester with something called an SRTE, which is a student feedback and rating form that we're required to fill out.

The University then surveys the feedback forms, and what students said about the teacher, and uses these in deciding tenure and "professor" versus "instructor" status, etc."

The problem is that the feedback forms are completed by students whose mindset is largely governed by how easy the class was, or what grades the instructor gave them, or the personality of the teacher, and so a really exceptional, if eccentric, professor might not get tenure -- might get "weeded out" of the system -- simply because we're empowering the wrong constituency in determining his worth.

I've been an inner city high school math teacher in LA for 25 years. My school is an absolute failure depriving 3,500 students of a decent education. Half of them drop out and the 90% who do graduate are functionally enumerate and illiterate. It's as bad as you can imagine.

Forget all the reforms, the charter schools, the vouchers. There is ONE thing we must do first. Return civility to American schools!!

Start with uniforms at all schools. Secondary students should wear a shirt and tie, plus HARD shoes (buy the kids' clothes if necessary). The campus should be monitored for foul language, garbage and graffiti. Security teams need to take back our schools. Hire returning vets (Ok, they can't cuss at school!)

Give teachers the right to remove undisciplined students to reform schools. (I have a plan for this.) Couple this with a plan to get rid of bad teachers - there are a lot of them. But, you will find that a lot of bad teaching is a function of keeping the students under control. Provide better behaving students and you'll get better teaching.

I'm sure Newt understands the "broken windows" philosophy of dealing with crime. Use it to address bad schools. The principles are the same.

Dan Hart
San Fernando HS
LAUSD

The Federal Government proves time and again that it is unable to successfully run anything. It is time for Conservatives to stand up and support the DC Voucher program, without government involvement. Conservatives need to fund a scholarship that will keep the program going and allow any qualified student to attend a decent school. By doing so Conservatives can demonstrate how much better this program is than the current DC Government/Union supported schools.

For education to bring the red, white, and blue together in tripartisan bliss has to be reconsidered in light of Rush Limbaugh's comments today. Rush said the Republicans have been doing the wrong thing by trying to become more Democratic. Republicans need to be the alternative. "If there is no right then all that's left is wrong." You can quote me, Kirk W. Fraser on that.

Now here's an email sent to Dan Hart above today. I'm guessing like other blues he's here for conversions more than solutions but we'll see if he answers:

Subject: Question from Newt post

Hi Daniel,

Interesting post. What do you think of my proposal at http://biblek12.org ? Since it is legal, it's something you teachers can do without hiring more security officers. Bibles can be bought for only $1 ea. at Dollar Tree stores.

In my HS with say 1/10th of your students, I've talked to at least one teacher with your same concern for classroom security. I think teaching students that a higher form of life exists might help.

Have you seen the movie about a math teacher who turned his class of LA derelicts around to pass a national test?

Love Truth,
Kirk

TOO RIGHT Brother....VOUCHERs for ALL. If Congress is going to tax us and take our money anyway, then give it to states for education...we should at least be able to CHOOSE which school gets that money.
Aren't the Democrats the Party of Choice? Don't they believe that we all can choose for ourselves what is best?
Oh...wait..that only goes as far as MURDERING an unborn child, not educating a born child..my Bad...sorry.

Being a high school teacher of 11 years now, a long term substitute for 3, and having years in the IT industry, I totally believe Obama is right, this can bring America together. It already has and we have said over and over again that the GOVERNMENT needs to GET OUT of our schools and give us the same Freedom of CHOICE a woman gets in MURDERING a child. The parent should have that same freedom of choice in educating their child.
Obama should tell the NEA and State unions to go take a leap. They are failing more and more. The USA is dropping in national education comparisons compared to other G20 nations. Our children are getting more indoctrination and less education every year.

The Democratic party are hypocrites. You can be for the choice of murder of the unborn, for the equalization of opportunity and results with Affirmative Action, and for the poor little helpless peons that vote you into office and then turn around and tell said peons they are too STUPID to pick the school they want their child to attend. But that is the key isn't it...they do think that we are all too stupid to decide for ourselves. They are the elite, the educated, the gifted with money, power, and connections. Us simple folks in "fly-over" country or on the "LEFT" coast or East coast that cling to our guns, religion, and inbred discomfort with those different then us...we are just too stupid to decide what is right and wrong and how to educate our children.

OOHHH....gee thanks Obama, Reid, Pelosi, and Soros...I get it know..wait, or am I just too stupid to get it and I really don't...argh, my stupid monkey intellect can't comprehend this...it hurts...it burns...arrgghhhh....

Three thoughts stand out to me before we see any REAL positive change in education --- 1) breaking the hold of the teacher unions, which like most other unions, provided big money to the Obama campaign (so what are the odds of the Obama administration doing anything about the stranglehold of the teacher unions on education?), and 2) giving school administrators the power to get those who only want to obstruct learning out of the schools. Once we get those done (yeah sure), then 3) we can look at how to teach kids real life lessons without the politics --- character-based teaching in a non-partisan way, combining value lessons within the subject matter (again, yeah right). That's my recipe for CHANGE in education.

How about some requirements for the proper teaching of civics and American history? If Americans knew what they should about the founding of our country and our form of government, they might be harder to bamboozle at the polls. In the meantime, here's a remedial course: http://politickles.com/blog/?p=2285

I agree that vouchers is the way to go. My state, Ohio, has been going through contortions trying to find an constitutional and equitable method of distributing education funds. My suggestion is that take the per student funds and attach them to the student and let them go to the school that they go to. If say my son went to the local public school for K-5 then transferred to a technical charter school for 6-10 and finally went to a technical school for the final 2 years the funds would follow him not continue to go to the local school district.

I absolutely agree - VOUCHERS FOR EVERY CHILD!

From personal experience: In public school, my granddaughter suffered through 1st grade and was not learning to reading (her test scores were below 50%, but her daily worksheets report cards were all A's & B's? (Apparently they were grading her behavior skills NOT reading skills.) She entered 2nd grade and within a month (with at least 8 hours of homework per week), her dread of school each day and tutoring - we decided to make a switch to a local Christian school.

Within TWO weeks she was reading. Her new school consists of children grades K-6 (all in one room). The large room is set up with a cubicle for each child, teacher/student goal setting for the day is the first task (after the Pledge) and as each subject is completed (if it is completed before the allotted time is up) she is free to take a break before starting the next subject. She is thriving, loves school, interacts well with other children of various ages and most of all - SHE CAN READ!

Her parents and her grandparents (us) pay taxes that go to a public school that failed her. The Christian school costs us $200 per month (we were blessed to have found this school) and she is flourishing. Public schools are funded (per student) MUCH more than the $1800 dollars that we will have paid this year for her education. A VOUCHER system would force a competitive nature that would result in better education with more choices for parents. I think that we would see private schools spouting up all over the place. This in turn would actually stimulate the economy and give teachers the opportunity to teach in a variety of environments that would support "out of the box" methods. And MOST OF ALL - our children would receive a formal education.

Is our government really wanting to educate our children or endoctrinate them?

I agree that the structure of schools makes no sense. Students were not always seperated by grade and age.

Our local school system is always telling us that a lack of funds for supplies means children won't learn. I don't understand that. I always try to remind people that Abraham Lincoln taught himself to read and had less then 18 months of formal education. Students in third world nations attend schools under trees with little in the way of school supplies, yet many of those same people find their way to America to become college graduates and professionals in medicine and law.

As for "learning styles" this is one of the theories applied to education that is part and parcel of the problem. Teachers spend a good deal of time coming up with lesson plans to accommodate each individual style. I disagree with this and my belief is that learning is a discipline in which the student benefits by application of self-discipline to conform to the requirements.

I don't think a child benefits from too much accommodation to aspects of their personality which are not mature. Demand that students discipline themselves to learn and their personality will develop good learning habits.

Not demanding this results in developing young people who think they are entitled to educational promotions and rewards only for their efforts and not for results. This is a problem even throughout college, where the schools sponsor all sorts of fun and games and pass out gentleman's C's. Student in college should be working hard as if their life depends on it, which it does, instead of wondering where their schools ranks in the yearly party school list.

I am currently teaching at a Private Catholic HS in Tx, and have taught 4 years full time at the university level.

The biggest problem facing the education system is the concern of having teachers addressing the needs of the botom 25% versus the top 25% of the students. There is a mentality that the issue of child enjoyment,positive feelings about themselves should be a factor IN TEACHING....it is great when that happens...and a good thing....but the message has to be there is material, basic and advance that each of you need to learn, master, and retain. That there is a minimal level of self discipline, social etiquette, and simply civility that each of you must learn to expect of others, and to extend to others...

In short, by the time HS happens for a child they should know, or be pressed to know that they are not the center of the universe, that school is not a place responsible to make them feel good about life, themselves, and that many things in life are difficult, if not outright hard to achieve, and that effort is necessary to attain such goals.

Bottom line....no more funds are necessary to teach the kids the basics....there are more than enough funds to enable to top 25% to excel and benefit overall society.....and there are more than enough resources in place now to TEACH the bottom 25% that they must live within a society that requires them to give a minimal level of civility, respect, and support to the mass.

Respectfully,
Dr Ed Stasko

Beth,
I agree with a lot of what you wrote, but I have a question.

You agree that the current structure does not make sense, and you do not believe that the problem is the lack of money. You also state that "my belief is that learning is a discipline in which the student benefits by application of self-discipline to conform to the requirements." The people who established/keep the existing structure are the same people who claim that lack of money is the problem, and these are the same people who determine the requirements that should be conformed to. Since these people have gotten it wrong on the structure, and they have misdiagnosed the problem (lack of money), do you trust them to get it right on the requirements?

Why is conforming to the requirements a good thing?

As an answer to your question at the bottom of your comment, in a word YES! Otherwise they wouldn't scream so loud when people request to teach the theory of intelligent design along side the theory of evolution.

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I've taught high for the past 15 years, and have made a something of study of what ails the public schools in my state (MA). Every educator I know states that the greatest impediment to student learning is student behavior. Forget the pronouncements of any of the countless educational gurus; ask the TEACHERS--the ones in the room with the students--and they'll tell you that managing the behavior of disruptive and/or disrespectful students represents an almost criminal portion of their time and energy.