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I agree with your identification of the problems, but not your solutions. You seem to point out again and again the problems with public school education. I k

I agree with your identification of the problems, but not your solutions. You seem to point out again and again the problems with public school education. I know a few highly educated people in your position too who are trying to teach without being hampered from all sides by the government and the unions. I just find it weird that despite all that you think more government, more regulation, is going to fix it. Private schools do not have any of these problems. Why not? The solutions are simple and obvious. School choice. Let kids go to whatever school they want. Give monetary incentives to schools that attract more kids. Let the schools teach whatever and however they want, but with nation wide testing. The problem will fix itself.

romwell 5y ago
If you are talking about colleges: it's not "regulations" that are the problem, it's that in a system where the students have to count every penny, there's no room for a diverse curriculum. I haven't been hampered by either government or unions, and the situation is absolutely identical in private colleges. When it comes to colleges, there is no school choice without free schools. People go where they can afford to go. Having educational standards in place means more room for non-standard material. Now, colleges vs. K12 have an entirely different set of problems. If by "school choice" you mean not forcing K12 kids to be attached to a school district, sure (I went to a "magnet" school, which wasn't tied to home address). But not everyone can go to school that's far away for whatever reasons. And having college-style admission systems in schools will lead to the same problems. On top of that, little children shouldn't be expected to make these kind of choices, so basically we are screwing over kids whose parents aren't parenting them well. And since we want all kids to be in school, what's the "default" option if they don't make a choice? Nationwide testing sounds an awful lot like regulation:D Essentially, common core is doing just that: sets guidelines, while leaving a lot of freedom to the teachers. You can see how much of an uphill battle it is. And as for "private schools don't have problems" — yeah, no. They absolutely do. And the best schools in NYC are all public (Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Tech, Bronx Science, etc. And there's the problem of finding and retaining qualified teachers while paying them reasonable wages. But I digress. What I can assure you of is that's there's no one single thing that will fix it. Many things need to change, and be done by many people.

romwell 5y ago

If you are talking about colleges: it's not "regulations" that are the problem, it's that in a system where the students have to count every penny, there's no room for a diverse curriculum. I haven't been hampered by either government or unions, and the situation is absolutely identical in private colleges. When it comes to colleges, there is no school choice without free schools. People go where they can afford to go. Having educational standards in place means more room for non-standard material. Now, colleges vs. K12 have an entirely different set of problems. If by "school choice" you mean not forcing K12 kids to be attached to a school district, sure (I went to a "magnet" school, which wasn't tied to home address). But not everyone can go to school that's far away for whatever reasons. And having college-style admission systems in schools will lead to the same problems. On top of that, little children shouldn't be expected to make these kind of choices, so basically we are screwing over kids whose parents aren't parenting them well. And since we want all kids to be in school, what's the "default" option if they don't make a choice? Nationwide testing sounds an awful lot like regulation:D Essentially, common core is doing just that: sets guidelines, while leaving a lot of freedom to the teachers. You can see how much of an uphill battle it is. And as for "private schools don't have problems" — yeah, no. They absolutely do. And the best schools in NYC are all public (Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Tech, Bronx Science, etc. And there's the problem of finding and retaining qualified teachers while paying them reasonable wages. But I digress. What I can assure you of is that's there's no one single thing that will fix it. Many things need to change, and be done by many people.