“Surprising how hard a 5’4” nun that weighted 300 pounds could hit."
Memories, lol. Oddly enough it was not me getting whacked, but I sure observed my friends gettin the treatment. To me, at that age ( 3rd and 4th grade, I think ), it was a heckuva lot easier to just do the school work and not get whacked.
Best grades I got in school, until I put myself thru College, was under the oppressive regime of the penguins, lol. Transferred to public school Jr High, and it felt like I imagine parole felt like to a con,lol. Turned out I needed the fear that the Nuns conjured up, at that age. But I liked Public Schools, and the students, a lot more than I liked the Catholic school crowd. Biggest hoodlums up thru Jr High were the ones I knew from the Catholic Schools. Still remember being an altar boy in 5th and 6th grade, and watching fellow altar boy classmates stealing money from collection baskets, as well as drinking the awful Church wine ( forget why that was there, something about the blood of …, during Communion). I was able to talk my parents into letting me out of being an altar boy, without ratting out anybody.
If I were running public schools I would separate students into groups. Essentially that means creating reform school classes for those not there to learn. Then those who want to learn can still get a decent education.
Charter schools and vouchers essentially make this happen unofficially. That seems reasonable to me. You can’t please everyone. Nor can you magically teach everyone.
Universal free public education is a wonderful social program. But students have to be receptive and do their part. The rest may as well spend their time in prison or similar institutions.
Not everybody excels in school. Smart countries provide alternate education experiences to fill the needs of industry. Trades, art, music…all the things that have been slashed from public education in the US.
It would seem that the issues are more than just money, given the record inflation adjusted spending per pupil and deteriorating performance. The administrations have little incentive when their own financial rewards are not tied to student performance in any meaningful way. Bill Gates foundation looked at the US model to apply in third world nations. It found almost nothing of value that it would. apply, which says a lot. The poor are not getting an equal education, that needs to change.
“I never got whacked for not doing school work, it was for fighting”
They would put us up at the chalkboard, 1 at a time, and have an array of times tables to do. If you couldn’t do them, ya got whacked with the ruler. But we had these exact same problems in our previous homework, so the ones who got rapped were the ones who didn’t do the work.
Honestly, it wasn’t a big deal, it’s not like they were going to do much damage. And boys at that age were a handful,lol.
Unions say this is a can of worms. When test scores are used, Schools have incentive to cheat. Encourages corruption. And who will teach in difficult areas. Better money and more rewards in the wealthy suburbs.
Unions aren’t aligned with students best interests. Stand and Deliver the real ending is a perfect example. We need to incentivize teachers in a way that rewards the top performers and regularly pushes out the bottom ones. Masters entrance exam testing has the lowest average scores of any discipline for a reason. We’re not drawing in the best to start with.
They did that in Nevada. Incentivized teachers to get their Masters by giving them more pay and better pensions. It worked and the teachers worked hard to get their Masters degree’s. But then the state didn’t like having to pay the teachers more money so they started throwing things in and making them jump through hoops to get better pay.
Now hardly any teachers get their Masters degree because the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.
Thing is, the “pushes” part can be used by TPTB to push teachers out for “incorrect thought”. #43 wanted to institute mandatory “mental health” screening for teachers, to weed out those with “incorrect thought”. What happens to teachers in Oklahoma, now, who don’t comply with the directive to feed the narrative about the 2020 election? I doubt that the concept of “tenure” fell from the heavens, without a reason for it’s existence,
People born into poorish circumstances have poor expectations, mostly poor examples around them, and often poor mental and physical health. They need (shocking news!) help to get out of their circumstances, even if only someone to inspire and guide them. The lucky ones have some aunt or granddad who does that, but that often does not happen.
Hence the critical importance of education, whose latin root is from duce, to lead, and
ēdūcō (present infinitive **[ēdūcere]
to lead out, forth or away
The job of the teacher is only secondarily to stuff information and habits into youngsters. The primary job is (echoing Plato’s myth of people stuck in a cave of delusions) to actually lead youngsters out of the traps of their circumstances….
You want that, you pay for it. We are unwilling to pay for it in money and esteem for teachers, and we now get what we are paying — close to ZIP!
Yes, I am going to repeat the example of Finland. Again.
Even with that if their parents are in the drug culture you can fight and fight to get them out but they seem to always get sucked in. If you are not in the home it is really hard to influence them.
Some people do and they set a good example. We hope more will follow.
The best we can do is coaching kids to stay in school and graduate. And aim for the stars.
Military is an easy way out of poverty for many. Usually requires a diploma. And you have to do the job. The “don’t let them mess with your mind” or won’t shave people become casuals and fall by the wayside. Too bad for them.
As always, “all” is a very high goal. But we do the best we can.
