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Setting targets won't solve anything since this is a structural problem. You cannot leave those structures in place and expect a different outcome. That is just

Setting targets won't solve anything since this is a structural problem. You cannot leave those structures in place and expect a different outcome. That is just treating the symptoms. In my view the solution is simple: instead of letting bureaucrats and administrators decide, let parents and students choose the classes and teachers they want. Those teachers that offer classes and a teaching style that students actually want will do fine, those that don't will have to find other jobs. Problem solved without artificial metrics that never work anyway. Besides, it's the students money. Why shouldn't they be able to choose what they want to learn and who they want to learn from? I suppose you could make the authoritarian argument that the experts know better than you and should be allowed to force you take the classes they think best. But that kind of thinking is the root cause of the current problem.

Clanan 10y ago
This might be the start of a good approach, but I think it would largely reward popular teachers and easy classes. Back in university I would not have trusted myself to decide which were the necessary classes. With family, stress, work, etc. it would be too tempting to take the easy road. Maybe some combination of students and teachers...
- BaronSamedi 10y ago
  I think rewarding popular teachers would be a feature rather than a bug. As for the too-easy problem, well, if you had to take a certification exam (like, for example, the bar exam) then you would have to choose the courses you thought would most likely help you pass. My larger point was that the current educational system has stagnated and seems to be frozen in the late 19th century. It is highly--even actively--resistant to change. It is very expensive for the results it delivers. Whatever the right answer is (if there is one) requires thinking about the root causes of the problems and possibly fundamental change. Unfortunately, with topics like these people seem to want a different result without changing the underlying system that produces that result.
helthanatos 10y ago
The problem with that is then who teaches will just become a matter of who knows the parents more and who gives good grades... There is some need for administration but not near the extent that exists. The waste of money is truly a large problem. My school district has spent millions in useless computers and radio towers that 1/40 of the school population will ever touch. Reducing the number of tests children take may help; I don't think giving parents and students free reign over teachers would be best.
deong 10y ago
> I suppose you could make the authoritarian argument that the experts know better than you and should be allowed to force you take the classes they think best. I'm not sure that's especially authoritarian rather than just practical. I have a CS PhD focused on optimization and machine learning. I trust a student to mostly decide whether they feel like computer science is a good field for them to go into, but once they've made the choice to work on machine learning, they have very few useful opinions to offer. I don't care if the student thinks statistics or linear algebra are useful, boring, whatever. Part of what that money of theirs is buying is for someone like me to make the plan that gets them from where they are now to where they want to be.
- BaronSamedi 10y ago
  I don't disagree with your point. I was mostly thinking of general education and the high school curricula. On the other hand, I'm not a big fan of the PhD style program. It seems old-fashioned and possibly obsolete to me. I would prefer to see it replaced by something like, in the case you mention, an advanced certification in machine learning. I don't know the field well enough to say what such a certification might entail but maybe testing and some kind of project?
  - deong 10y ago
    I think what you're describing is a need that's filled pretty well today by a master's degree. I don't think the PhD is so much archaic as just overused. It is intended to signify that a person has demonstrated that they can contribute significant new knowledge to a field of study, and incidentally, that they can teach (graduate) university courses. Society probably needs far less of both those traits than it can supply people who want to do them.
tux1968 10y ago
Yes please. I want my kids to compete in the job market against the millions of people who would be taught science and evolution in the religious schools that would clearly emerge under such a system.
- BaronSamedi 10y ago
  As if that isn't already happening under the current system. But, hey, why even think about change? The US educational system is already so good at improving, not letting institutional inertia block new ideas, offering better value for parents and students,...
  - tux1968 10y ago
    Say what you want about the inadequacies of our education systems, but they have helped to deliver the amazing world in which we live today. Let us not go throwing the good out with the bad in pursuit of some ideal that isn't within reach anyway. There is no perfect answer, but i'm personally wary of unintended consequences of radical change. Our social, political, and cultural survival may very well hang in the balance.

Clanan 10y ago

This might be the start of a good approach, but I think it would largely reward popular teachers and easy classes. Back in university I would not have trusted myself to decide which were the necessary classes. With family, stress, work, etc. it would be too tempting to take the easy road. Maybe some combination of students and teachers...

BaronSamedi 10y ago
I think rewarding popular teachers would be a feature rather than a bug. As for the too-easy problem, well, if you had to take a certification exam (like, for example, the bar exam) then you would have to choose the courses you thought would most likely help you pass. My larger point was that the current educational system has stagnated and seems to be frozen in the late 19th century. It is highly--even actively--resistant to change. It is very expensive for the results it delivers. Whatever the right answer is (if there is one) requires thinking about the root causes of the problems and possibly fundamental change. Unfortunately, with topics like these people seem to want a different result without changing the underlying system that produces that result.

helthanatos 10y ago

The problem with that is then who teaches will just become a matter of who knows the parents more and who gives good grades... There is some need for administration but not near the extent that exists. The waste of money is truly a large problem. My school district has spent millions in useless computers and radio towers that 1/40 of the school population will ever touch. Reducing the number of tests children take may help; I don't think giving parents and students free reign over teachers would be best.

deong 10y ago

> I suppose you could make the authoritarian argument that the experts know better than you and should be allowed to force you take the classes they think best. I'm not sure that's especially authoritarian rather than just practical. I have a CS PhD focused on optimization and machine learning. I trust a student to mostly decide whether they feel like computer science is a good field for them to go into, but once they've made the choice to work on machine learning, they have very few useful opinions to offer. I don't care if the student thinks statistics or linear algebra are useful, boring, whatever. Part of what that money of theirs is buying is for someone like me to make the plan that gets them from where they are now to where they want to be.

BaronSamedi 10y ago
I don't disagree with your point. I was mostly thinking of general education and the high school curricula. On the other hand, I'm not a big fan of the PhD style program. It seems old-fashioned and possibly obsolete to me. I would prefer to see it replaced by something like, in the case you mention, an advanced certification in machine learning. I don't know the field well enough to say what such a certification might entail but maybe testing and some kind of project?
- deong 10y ago
  I think what you're describing is a need that's filled pretty well today by a master's degree. I don't think the PhD is so much archaic as just overused. It is intended to signify that a person has demonstrated that they can contribute significant new knowledge to a field of study, and incidentally, that they can teach (graduate) university courses. Society probably needs far less of both those traits than it can supply people who want to do them.

tux1968 10y ago

Yes please. I want my kids to compete in the job market against the millions of people who would be taught science and evolution in the religious schools that would clearly emerge under such a system.

BaronSamedi 10y ago
As if that isn't already happening under the current system. But, hey, why even think about change? The US educational system is already so good at improving, not letting institutional inertia block new ideas, offering better value for parents and students,...
- tux1968 10y ago
  Say what you want about the inadequacies of our education systems, but they have helped to deliver the amazing world in which we live today. Let us not go throwing the good out with the bad in pursuit of some ideal that isn't within reach anyway. There is no perfect answer, but i'm personally wary of unintended consequences of radical change. Our social, political, and cultural survival may very well hang in the balance.