The biggest problems with public schools are not with teachers as conservatives and libertarians would like you to believe. The problems are with people surrounding public schools like parent pressure to change or remove things they don't understand the need for, lack of parental support with their own kids, and politicians not cooperating with teachers or attempting to sabotage public schools to make way for private schools. The problem is also with expensive yet not very effective materials .

The best qualified people to change this are teachers in political positions to compete with radical right lobbyists or teachers developing materials and standards that work. This is a three pronged effort. You need teachers to develop standards, materials that better teach the standards, and to help them get adopted. There are some teacher developed materials, but there isn't enough support getting them adopted.

My only complaint with teachers is that they would rather be on the front lines than planning the war at headquarters. It may be more personally rewarding working directly with children, but it's more important to get experienced teachers involved in correcting these other factors.

Your thoughts?

I generally agree with you, especially the first paragraph.

Public schools are organizations that have to exist in a political setting amidst lots of influences, including teachers' unions, bureaucratic requirements, an aging population that doesn't want to invest tax dollars in schools, decaying infrastructure, etc.

I'm by no means an expert in any of this, but it seems to me that enough of these folks aren't reading some of the material that's been written. I think of "Teaching as a Subversive Activity" by Postman and Weingartner and "Education and Ecstasy" by George Leonard (affiliated with Esalen), both products of the 60's.

Or Howard Gardner's work on multiple intelligences, or Mel Levine, M.D.'s books on neurodevelopmental theory (he's a pediatrician), or "One Kid at a Time: Big Lessons from a Small School", by Eliot Levine, Teachers College Press, New York, 2002. [About learning through learning through interests, passions, tasks and internships at a unique high school in Providence, RI.]

Or "Reclaiming Our Children: A Healing Plan for a Nation in Crisis", Peter R. Breggin, M.D., Perseus Books, Cambridge, MA 2000.

Or "Schools With Spirit: Nurturing the Inner Lives of Children and Teachers", edited by Linda Lantieri, Beacon Press, 2001. [A fascinating and delightful book about how to bring the arts, spirituality, the environment and other approaches to deep engagement and connectedness into the educational process.]

Or "Stand by Me: The Risks and Rewards of Mentoring Today’s Youth", Jean Rhodes, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2002. [Mentoring theory based on a decade of research by a UMass/Boston associate professor of psychology.]

Or perhaps even "Summon The Magic: How To Use Your Mind to be a better athlete (or anything else you want to be)", an unpublished 1,200-page collection of excerpts from over 200 such books available in MS Word format via e-mail attachment or on CD; contact the author at Magmak1@AOL.com.

I recently saw a kid from _______ County, WV. They had this book (granted it's from NCLB - boo hiss) where every day the teacher writes a note to the parents about how that child did in school that day. Behavioral problems, learning problems, which words they had trouble with, etc. All the way through high school, apparently. It was a cute little spiral notebook, with all kinds of kid friendly graphics. It was so cool! I could read that book and see exactly which day medicines were changed and what the effect was and we could record which days a relative had died or something like that. Maybe it's too much information to be out there on our kids - I don't know, I haven't thought through the whole issue. All I know was it was awesome to have that resource at my fingertips to be able to evaluate what I was doing and what kind of response I was getting in the classroom on various medications and with various social interventions. And the parents had to sign it every day.

I'm curious as to what others think of that kind of daily report card? Too much work for teachers? Too much information on our children "out there?"

The thing is, who will be teaching the children? It's not necessarily a matter of whether or not the work is rewarding - I would think that both could be rewarding. But what happens to the kids if the best teachers are lobbying? Do they win battles in the classroom or plan the (probably losing) war at headquarters? Do you sacrifice the kids a teacher would have helped in order to attempt to make change that might or might not happen? If your child were in one of those classes, how would you feel about it? AND, how possible would it be for those changes to be implemented if you have increased bad press because the teachers in the classrooms aren't the best ones? No, I think good teachers need to be in classrooms.

If I had to put my finger on where the school system needs work, I'd say - less upper bureaucracy, less state and federal control (more local control), and more ways of individualizing curriculum, even in the elementary grades. Just like ANY profession, you have awesome teachers and you have deplorable teachers, but in general, I think most of them are there because they believe in what they're doing. But most of them do have their hands tied behind their backs.

Erin

They become good teachers as well. They can train the good teachers to be better teachers as well.

Forgive me for overuse of the war analogies, but I do feel like this is a war declared on public schools by radical right wingers. During WWII, American pilots won the Air War because the best pilots were not flying. They were training other pilots. The best Japanese pilots were shot down by those American pilots, till there were no good Japanese pilots left to fly the new planes.

Protect headquarters first. You can win the battles and still lose the war. As headquarters goes, so goes public schools. What good with that do American children to come.

If my kid were in one of those classes, knowing what I know about organizational threat from outside politics, I would feel that it was worth sending a better teacher to fight for our schools.

As for the bad press, having the best teachers fighting for public schools politically would offset or reverse the already bad press the best teachers are getting unfairly now.

I agree that localized systems would be better. But this won't happen if teachers don't get more of a say in developing standards and the materials.

More teacher representation at the political level would untie the hands of the good teachers and make them great teachers.