If you could improve America's education system, how would you do it?

I would add FINANCIAL LITERACY. Starting at High school and going into college. No one knows what the heck they are getting into when they first start living on their own.

I think for the most part our government should pay for college education. I also think that year around school makes more sense on so many levels.

I don’t know how many families there are these days that need their kids to help bring in the harvest during the summer months.

A somewhat biased answer (for 1,2,3 & 4):

Pay teachers what they’re worth!

Allow students to state a major and narrow their area of studies a lot earlier. Once students know what they want to do with their life, they should be able to focus on those classes possibly as soon as junior year of high school, rather than being forced to get, say, a ‘well-rounded’ helping of higher mathematics when they are going to major in visual arts in college.

SndfreQ I 100% agree with you. My mom works her ass off teaching and has been for 21+ years. And I, too, am going to school to be a teacher. Hmm, I always think about the fact that if teachers Got paid to much though, people would be teaching only for the $$$ and not the love of it. I still think they are underpaid.

A better education system? More money.

I’m sure more money for teachers would help.

I consider the math I learned after probably 8th grade pretty much a waste of time. Haven’t used any of it. What I’d love to have in the curriculum instead is topics like peer pressure, bullying, looking good, popularity. And there’d be open discussions about family, drugs, sex, drinking, rejection, acceptance, etc.

I guess I’m thinking mostly this would be in HS, but some of those topics could be introduced a lot earlier. These are the things that are on teens’ minds – why not discuss them?

I know many public school teachers and there is no doubt that teachers are not paid what they are worth! But, none of the teachers that I know are in it for the money. They really want to teach. Problem is, they are overburdened with paperwork, reporting, discipline administration, parent management, etc. Some spend 50% of their time on admin and not on lesson planning and teaching. Not their choice! The ed system has developed a CYA mentality that eclipses that of corporate America.

@haight: sorry, but I’ve never run into a teacher who has openly said they’re in it just for “the money”; in other high-pay professions, the employee is held to account for the work they do through productivity reporting and evaluation by supervisors; it’s no different in teaching. Higher pay would obviously cone with stricter accountability, and would sort the riff-raff out of the system (poor quality teachers who hold their jobs now because of tenure, poor quality teachers who teach because they ‘have to’)...I for one despise these types who are in the system, and believe higher accountability/higher pay would sort them right out of the system…there are plenty if examples of this in corporate America.

I don’t think we will ever see the day when teachers develop a “rapper’s” mentality about their profession…so I have to respectfully disagree with your statement.

seems like kids these days don’t care if they do well in school. I knew that in order for me to be a productive person in society, I had to study and make good grades. It can’t always be the government’s fault.

also, parents should be more involved. My wife is an elementary teacher and at her old school, she would see a lot of parents that treated school like daycare….unless their kid got in trouble or was failing. Then the parent would show up and yell at the teacher. Granted, this is not every school, nor every kid in those schools. But, the ones that do well in school seem to have involved parents.

No child left behind is not helping anything. Schools are able to cheat the system by giving grades that the students do not deserve. My wife was told by the administration at her old school to never give a grade below a 50 on a test or other assignment.

I dont understand sndfreQ, I’m with you on this and completely agreed with you? You said pay teachers for what their worth. And I think they should. Then I said my mother has been teaching for 21+ years and does it for her students who she loves, and works very hard. Most resources are out of her paycheck as well. I just said that teachers are underpaid, but think if they did get paid too much thered be people just doing it for the money which isn’t why they should be teaching. Being raised in a family full of teachers (aunts, mom and friends) I know they for sure aren’t teaching for money. I see how hard they work and just think teachers are extremely important and very valuable. I can’t wait till I finish up school so I can finally teach as well. I dont understand why you dsageeed with what I said?

@haight: Okay, thanks for clarifying; perhaps just talking in sweeping generalities may make the issue somewhat ambiguous; you’re talking about an issue of integrity of the teacher (or motives for teaching). I’m talking about the bureaucratic aspects of the industry. My point was that with increase in pay would come stricter accountabilities associated with performance of the instructor in the classroom. I don’t think increases in pay are purposeful unless they serve to reward good teaching, and conversely, be an instrument to draw out sub-standard or under-qualified teachers. Perhaps Im just preaching to the choir on this but I hope my point was understood.

No, I understand you totally. I just disagree with that whole “rappers mentality”,and how you put it. My point was not that at all. Maybe I’m just blessed to of had so Many wonderful and hardworking teachers, that work their butts off. Not for the money, but are worth every penny. Their are some teachers that wouldnt deserve a raise because because of what you said, under qualified-etc

a good friend of mine who is a teacher says that we re-innovate too often. new ideas come out all the time but no one sticks to them for more than a few years so the kids are always having new attempts made at them. (for instance, there’s this idea that montesorri education only works with privileged overacheiving kids, but there have been fantastic results in inner city montessori education when a school has stuck with it for many years.)

also, schools shouldn’t have to operate as a catch-all social service.

You are right there. @nomtastic, about too many changes in innovation. Every year a new fad teaching theory is thrust onto the teachers (I’m talking about the middle and high school teachers that I know). Admin makes them completely remod their teaching methods, whether their current method is successful or not. Admin does some crazy stuff, sometimes some management decisions that would get you canned in two weeks in the corporate world.

Example: One year, the admin said that teachers had to start using a new, online grade recorrding system. It would force them to conform their grading systems (whether teaching shop, band, PE or English) and enter grades online. Problem was, the online grade catching vendor was not robust, got overloaded, so that teachers faced a 30 second refresh time per grade entry. All of a sudden teachers lost an hour a day of family time, because there was no extra time at school to enter the grades at the snail’s pace.

I would increase focus on the following topics: financial awareness, foreign languages, world news and history. Now that I have been living outside of the US for 5 years, it has become very clear how skewed our education system is in mostly focusing on US-centric topics. I know that most high schools require a certain amount of foreign language and touch upon international history, but it’s not nearly enough.

In my opinion, it’s more important today than ever before that adolescents be exposed to more cultures, languages, news, and history, considering how small the world is becoming.

Regarding financial awareness, I know from my own experience, it would have been nice to learn more about that in school. Now I have a CASHFLOW Club where we play the game and learn more about financial independence and money in general.