Jun 18
Education Reform — Soliciting THOUGHTFUL Input
2007 at 7:59 am | posted by Rep. Craig Frank 4 comments
Opinion writer, John Florez, in the Deseret Morning News today, suggests that our current Education System if failing to train our children to compete in a global labor market. Florez believes an overhaul of the public education system is necessary for our students to acquire the skills set required to achieve and maintain a competitive edge in the worldwide workplace. Click HERE for Opinion piece.
I would agree with Mr. Florez.
Do you? Post your ideas on education reform and how we, as Utahns, might increase the output of creative and productive labor to the worldwide workforce.
4 Responses to “Education Reform — Soliciting THOUGHTFUL Input”
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June 18th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
I agree with Mr. Florez also and he mentions the “Tough Choices or Tough Times”, The Report of the New Commission on the Skills of The American Workforce. I wrote a piece about this report awhile back.
http://wasatchwatcher.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=26
One of the main points of the National Center on Education and the Economy report addresses paying teachers like we actually care that they are producing the next generation of workers. Novel idea, eh?
June 18th, 2007 at 4:20 pm
Thanks for the link to your report, Marshall.
Wednesday of last week I attended an all-day Education Administration/Legislators summit at the Granite School District Offices in SLC. Among the various discussions was one specifically addressing the K-16 Alliance reoprt recently released which talks about and gives recommendations for helping Utah solve its teacher shortage problems. I thought the non-partisan report had a number of worthwhile recommendations to the Legislature.
One of the recommendations addressed the implementation of productivity models used at a number of other educational institutions with remarkable success. Several productivity models, if implemented, would yield a substantial increase in teachers’ salaries and close the gap on our teacher shortage “problem.”
Because of the forward thinking content of this report, Senator Howard Stephenson has requested, or will shortly be requesting, the formation of a Legislative Subcommittee to further study the possibility of implementing a number of the “idaes” found in the report. Stay tuned…
June 18th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
For starters, let’s stop counting pencil-pushing administrators as teachers when we’re handing out the raises, eh? While inflation-adjusted education spending has doubled since 1970, teacher salaries have stayed flat during that same time period. That says to me that the school district leadership is a substantial part of the problem and we need to find as many ways as possible to remove them from the education equation.
June 19th, 2007 at 10:22 am
I agreed with John Florez’s assessment of the problems in our public school system, but I didn’t agree with whom he blamed for the failures, and I wished he would have mentioned a few ideas of what he would like to see be done because I’m curious to know.
He categorized vouchers as being the “status quo,” which to me is a ridiculous statement. For being the “status quo”, they sure are hard to implement without an ongoing, 7 year battle!
Personally, I think vouchers are a great step towards finding solutions. It opens up the free market of schooling so that our system isn’t tied down by universal mandates from above (whether from the Legislature or the State School Board or local administrators, etc). Vouchers would allow the trial and error of free markets to develop solutions. The schools that did the best at addressing certain needs would rise to the top. The schools that didn’t would fail. And ideally, the public school system would be able to incorporate those ideas that are most successful.
In our current system, there isn’t much room for exploration. Someone once said that if Rip Van Winkle woke up in our time period, he would find comfort in the public schools because it’s the only thing that hasn’t changed much since the 1800’s.
Though I don’t think vouchers are the silver bullet, I do think they’re the gun. They allow for education entrepreneurs to try new ideas on a grander scale, and I think that’s where the solutions will be found.
In our current system, it seems that a group of intellectuals from on high come up with the latest and greatest way to educate; it becomes the fad for a few years; and then after mediocre performance, we return back to where we started, waiting for the next fad to roll around. Think of how far behind we would be in other aspects of life if things were so centrally planned? Our education system needs more freedom so that new ideas can actually be developed and tested without being forced on everyone (example: investigations math).
I’m glad Marshall brought up the report, but he seemed to glaze over the bulk of it. The main message wasn’t just increase teachers pay, it was to totally change the public school system by privatizing the system a bit to where every school is basically a charter school and directly accountable to parents and an elected school board. Schools would be run by for-profits, non-profits, parents, etc.
I agree with him on teacher pay (that we need to pay teachers more to attract the best people), but the system for paying teachers needs to be changed.
In our current system, teachers are paid based on years of experience and degrees. Basically, they get paid for inputs and not based on their actual abilities as a teacher.
It’s no wonder the job is frustrating (plus a million other factors that a broken system forces upon them). You could be the best teacher out there and not be compensated for it one bit! I would be upset if i were in that position.
And I think Jesse Harris brings up a good point on teacher pay. Where has all of the increases in education spending gone? Why aren’t teachers paid more? Once again, the very system they are trying so hard to protect from vouchers, is the system that’s holding them down.