Re: Education

[Hugh Haskell <hhaskell@MINDSPRING.COM>]

> Someone else wanted all of us to write to our senators to beg for a
> worthless welfare hand out ostensibly for enhanced science education --- as
> if more money solves any political problem.  A better way to spend the
> requested money would be to test the teachers. <g>
>
> Jim Green
I'll buy that line just as soon as you show me a test that will
reliably tell whether a person is a good teacher or not. The other
thing we could do is fund the gazillions of bureaucrats who would be
needed to go into every classroom on an extended basis and evaluate
each teacher--according to what criteria?

And of course, when, as I suspect you expect to happen, many if not
most fail these tests, where will we find the replacements to teach
the students that show up at the door every year, whether or not
there are teachers there to teach them?

I know there are problems with teachers--I have seen them myself in
visits to classrooms--but by far the larger problem is  class size,
especially in science (read: laboratory) classes. If their
preparation had been better (for the most part, not their fault) most
would be much more effective than they are, but that is only a small
part of the problems facing education today. I could list them and
incompetent teachers would end up pretty far down my list, and fixing
the things that are higher up on the list would do a great deal to
fix the teacher competency problem.

Let's not talk about reducing the money we spend on schools, whether
federal or local. We need to increase the spending level--by a lot.
Of course, we don't just throw the money at the schools, which is
what block grants are essentially doing. We need to be sure that the
money gets to the classroom and not the bloated administrative
budgets.

Although it's not an education issue, does anyone here remember a few
years back when the federales decided to give the local police
departments in several areas block grants to help them improve their
policing? Well, I remember any number of local police departments
that promptly spent their grant money on some kind of police "armored
car" to be used for god knows what (but of course, if they have it,
it will be used, for better or worse--usually worse). Now there was a
case of the locals knowing better than the feds how best to use the
money, Sure.

I'm sorry, Jim, but if I am going to send my money to bail out the
school district of Resume Speed, S, Dak., I think I want a few
strings attached to that money, and I want some assurances from their
funding agencies that they won't cut their contribution by the amount
of the grant, and that they won't use it to teach creationism.

Hugh
--

Hugh Haskell
<mailto://hhaskell@mindspring.com>

Let's face it. People use a Mac because they want to, Windows because they
have to..
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