As a non teacher who is from a family of teachers I hear more about how schools operate than most people do. Here is a rather disconcerted list of things.
1. A childs performance in school is in direct relationship to the effort the parents make to help their children.
2. New money given to school districts will be spent mostly for sports and public use (swimming pools, softball diamonds, etc.).
3. While unions may be responible for keeping some “bad” teachers, the entire system is set up to keep “bad” and unqualified administrators.
4. Most administrators are not managers and would not last in a competative private or corperate world.
5. School boards “rubber stamp” what poor administrators “feed” them.
6. Most school board members are elected by special interest groups (i.e. sports fans, new building advocates, etc.), and are not people who know much, if anything, about running an effective company or how to educate children.
7. Parents who spend the most time with their children (making them the better students) are the most likely to enroll the children in private schools
8. Private schools do not have to accept children with psychological problems. Leaving the public schools, teachers and students, to deal with them.
9. “Squeaky wheels get the grease” State legeslators tell me that hearing they hold on scholls issues are overwhelmingly attended by special interest groups and sometimes not a single “average” parent is there.
If the federal government really wants to help the quality of education they will require all parents to attend a parenting class before and for the first 3 years their child is in school. If this means paying them to attend, so be it.
Make it a reqirement for schools to be audited by a outside firm for both fiscal and management responciblities, and require publishment of the results. Audits need to be more defined than “general fund, building fund, bond fund”. These reports should be such that the average person can see where the money and management is going.
