The Oakland Tribune published an article today entitled "Study Finds State Schools in Big Trouble." I have one word for them: "Duh."
Among the problems listed were:
Among the problems listed were:
- Not being able to fire tenured - but bad - teachers
- An irrational system for distributing money
- Missing data on students and resources
- Too many mandates (including many unfunded mandates)
- Excessive regulation
- One size fits all solutions for a diverse group of schools
- Extreme inequity
Solutions recommended:
- Giving more autonomy to school sites
- Less regulation in schools
- More funding for schools
- Recruiting and retaining good teachers
- Giving educators more flexibility
Seriously, they paid people to figure this out? They could have asked me. Think of how much money would have been saved if they had just emailed me instead of commissioning a report that included researches from 32 universities and institutions. And every teacher I know would say the same thing. Duh.
Maybe it's not very eloquent, but there's actually no better way to say it. Your state tax dollars at work, ladies and gentlemen of California.
Now we'll see if they do anything about any of these recommendations. I am doubtful.
Comments
Yes, absolutely, you're right EVERYONE who has been paying attention knew all this. The problem is that people who haven't been paying attention have now walked into the room as the proverbial grown-ups (where the current teachers/admins/parents/everyone-paying-attention proverbial children) and said, "what's this? it's a mess!" and they've brought in the "pediatrician" to explain very authoritatively that when children play, toys get scattered around.
Duh, as you point out.
But it's a weird necessary step in order to get the people who have been out of the loop but have political power to do the *right* thing instead of the wrong stuff over again.
Btw, I blogged a bit about this. (kitode.typepad.com)