Obama wants longer school year, teachers want shorter work week

[Torie]

What we really need are teachers who did not get a teaching certificate with a C average from a third rate college, and the ability to hire the best, and fire the vast phalanxes of betas.  That is what we need. The rest is noise.

[Torie]

What we really need are teachers who did not get a teaching certificate with a C average from a third rate college, and the ability to hire the best, and fire the vast phalanxes of betas.  That is what we need. The rest is noise.

So you're proposing tripling the budget?

Opebo, I don't think it would be that expensive, since it would be a merit system with career track salaries for the best and the brightest. And then we could and should fire a host of administrators working in downtown offices shorting out their pencils from their pens. Finally getting rid of the teachers' unions would help, as well as this class size mantra that has no correlation with educational performance. Vouchers would concentrate the mind wonderfully of these monopolistic institutions (and that is what it effectively is for the poors, leavened a bit now, but only a bit, by charter schools). However, if given all of that, it costs more money, so be it. It is our duty to educate the young, and educate them well, even those in zip codes that I would never live in, or in same cases, even drive through.

[Torie]

What we really need are teachers who did not get a teaching certificate with a C average from a third rate college, and the ability to hire the best, and fire the vast phalanxes of betas.  That is what we need. The rest is noise.

So you're proposing tripling the budget?

Opebo, I don't think it would be that expensive, since it would be a merit system with career track salaries for the best and the brightest.

You'ld still need roughly the same number of teachers, you'ld just have to pay them at least double.  Teachers nowadays make a pittance - in Missouri they start at an absurd wage - something like $25,000/year.

And then we could and should fire a host of administrators working in downtown offices shorting out their pencils from their pens. Finally getting rid of the teachers' unions would help, as well as this class size mantra that has no correlation with educational performance. Vouchers would concentrate the mind wonderfully of these monopolistic institutions (and that is what it effectively is for the poors, leavened a bit now, but only a bit, by charter schools). However, if given all of that, it costs more money, so be it. It is our duty to educate the young, and educate them well, even those in zip codes that I would never live in, or in same cases, even drive through.

These 'reforms' you mention are utterly inconsequential.  What makes people uneducable in those zip codes you so disdain is not the disfunction of the government educational system (which is in fact rather amazingly effective and even noble, considering what it is battling) but the capitalist oppression under which the residents labour.

You sound just like my nephew Opebo. Now what I can't figure out, is whether he is channeling you, or you him, or each other, be it simultaneously or serially. I mean it is all about the evils of capitalism and the market system 24/7. My nephew's latest is to forgive all debt, and just start over.   But Milton Friedman whispers to me sometimes at night from his new venue, that  one is free to choose, and to be of stout heart, and brave, in the face of the Marxist onslaught.

[Torie]

I surprisingly agree with Opebo in his cynicism that you could do this Torie without raising the educational budget significantly in order to attract the best talent.  Measuring teacher talent is of course an incredibly difficult statistic to generate too.

How many fighter planes would we need to abort to save America's educational system?

It would be worth Lunar, if and only if, we had the necessary reforms, with vouchers, the power of principals to hire and fire, and a career track where the best teachers top out at maybe 150K in my zip code, maybe half that in say Arkansas.  If everyone gets paid the same with only worthless degrees and seniority affecting pay much, then of course out of the box, it is going to be drone city. That is one thing we cannot "afford," as we will find out in the next generation when the Asians whip our ass.

In this generation, we were able to just import the best and the brightest, but that flow is now substantially slowing, and so the chickens I think will be coming home to roost in the ensuing couple of decades, and defecating, as it were. This nation cannot prosper with just the top 10% getting a world class or better education. It just won't work.

[Torie]

Rant Alert

Ok, let me explain something to you all. America's "failing schools" is bipartisan propaganda for the two parties to push their educational agendas. Good intentioned, maybe. Totally false, yes.

One, the vast majority of other countries in the world have high stakes tests before students enter high school to determine if they go the academic route or to a trade school. So, you compare the top 1/3 of Europeans against ALL Americans, the US will indeed rank lower. See, in the US we give everybody the chance, however small, to get into college. Most countries don't give people that option.

Here's the abstract of this non-partisan think tank's study.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Two, the US has 50 of the world's top 100 colleges. 'Nuff said.

Three, many countries that supposedly "beat" us have comparatively little ethnic, racial, and cultural diversity.

Four, if our educational system is failing, then why do many foreigners come to the US for college studies?

Five, there are ignorant people everywhere in the world.

Phew, rant over

The US has some splendid centers of higher education. Outside upper middle class zones, it's secondary public school educational system largely sucks, and is way down in ranking vis a vis most other developed nations, and it is getting worse, not better, over time.  Thus we are developing is a two tier system, where the top layer gets well educated and the rest get screwed. This is not a good policy road to go down.