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From: canopus@amdahl.UUCP (Flaming Asteroid)
Newsgroups: net.kids
Subject: Re: school taxes
Message-ID: <601@amdahl.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 28-Nov-84 11:04:01 EST
Article-I.D.: amdahl.601
Posted: Wed Nov 28 11:04:01 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 30-Nov-84 07:18:13 EST
References: <419@hogpd.UUCP> <227@oliveb.UUCP>
Organization: Amdahl Corp, Sunnyvale CA
Lines: 46
> >[...] As long as we allow "professional educators" to run our school
> >systems we won't get the quality of education we need [...]
> >What we need is a complete overhaul of our public schools. Reward the
> >excellent; throw out the incompetent. Bring back good, old-fashioned
> >discipline to the classroom. Make teachers and administrators accountable
> >to the parents, not vice versa.
> No! Make teachers and administrators accountable to the STUDENTS, not
> to the parents or anyone else. The students should decide how to run the
> schools, because they are obviously the ones who can best decide what the
> quality of education needed to run a democracy is, since they'll be running
> it. Remember: "In a democracy, people get the government they deserve".
> --
I must take issue with the idea of letting students decide how to run
the schools. To me this is like letting the cat guard the canary. This
philosophy has already been tried in the late 60's and through the early
70's at the college level, under the guise of ``relevent'' [to what?]
education. Students shunned in general those courses that were either
difficult (ie required much preparation) or uninteresting. The net
result: a generation of college grads who lack certain skills and
knowledge of their past.
This has bubbled its way down to the elementary level to a certain
extent, but enough to alarm people to begin a ``back-to-basics''
movement [``traditional education'']. Students at the elementary
level have not accumulated enough information to even begin how to
decide to run a school. I believe (and support through my local PTA)
the notion of teachers accountability to the parents.
Our local community school has a ``basics'' program in which my oldest
daughter is enrolled. Essentially, the teacher commits to the parents
to teach the child a certain set of skills, and the parents commit to
seeing that the child completes homework assignments, etc.
This is the third year for the program at our local school, and believe
me it has made a phenomenal difference! That elementary school used
to have a bad reputation; now parents from outside the school district
are sending their kids there!
Wow! This is really an interesting discussion!
--
Frank Dibbell (408-746-6493) ...!{ihnp4,hplabs,amd,nsc}!amdahl!canopus
[The views expressed herein are not necessarily the views of my
employer, or myself, for that matter]