My wife has been a teacher for 30+ years....and the answer is obvious...get big government the hell out of education...these people don't know anything about education, yet they sit up in an office somewhere and hand down stupid-@$$ policies like No Student Left Behind and dump meaningless tests on the schools that do nothing more develop a bunch of statistics and kill time for everybody....then they point at all the money they spend on education...$$ per student...which includes the money they pay themselves anf like Ridge says, all the top-heavy administrators...

When my girls were in school, ALL their teachers and principals knew me personally...I was on the school advisory council in every school they attended and instrumental in all their sports endeavors...too many parents see school as just a place to send their kids for the day....parents gotta be INVOLVED, and they just aren't doin' it...parents IN...govt OUT of education and it'll turn around quickly...but of course that ain't gonna happen...

100% agreement. As I said before, I was a member of the PTO (Parent-Teachers Org.) for all the years my son was in school. I might add that most of the parents in my town are involved and we do take an active role in our kids ed. Maybe that's one of the reasons we are ranked as one of the top 10 school systems in the state and one of the top 100 in the nation. But it comes at a price...a large one. Our property taxes are some of the highest in the nation. We recruit the best and we pay our teachers a lot of money. But even with all of that working for us, it's almost impossible for the teachers to actually teach. They are required to fill out form after form for each child and do endless paperwork to satisfy the requirements of some lame politician that has to justify his or her job by makeing the schools and the teschers jump thru needless hoops. Admittly this is just one of the needed solutions to the overall problem, but I think it's one of the major ones. There are others for sure, like getting rid of tenure so you can dismiss sup standard teachers. Paying the teachers you do have a decent rate of pay. Requireing parents to play an active role in their childs ed. Allow parents to send their child to whatever school they want...and that includes private schools. Giving parents that do send their children to private schools tax breaks since they do not use the public school system. Lots of other things that I'm sure others here can come up with.

also have a wife in education, classroom teacher 17 years, assistant principal 5 years, principal 6 years and now county level administrator for 3 years.
what is it about V-20's that attracts education majors?

there cute!!!!

They are cute I will give you that!

I just want to say something that has been an observation of mine for several decades now.
Anytime, I repeat, anytime, the government (especially at the federal) gets involved in something it gets topsy turvy in the most absurd ways.
We have great teachers, no doubt.
How many are forced by a hierarchy to teach an agenda based curriculum?
How many could do better than the curriculum demands they teach?
How many are teaching to qualify for some federal mandate? Or to some government mandate test?
How many would segregate those students that need remedial work and those who are exceptional and should be brought along on a higher level?
Said differently, how many are forced to teach to the level of the lowest achiever in their class?
How many teachers have their hands tied with discipline problems that should be dealt with immediately and hard or removed entirely from the classroom?
How many teachers would work differently if tenure did not exist and the union did not control the board of education? (truth here shows character!).
How many teachers would love to set up your own school plan to teach math and the sciences so their kids would excel in life? In the world they will compete.
All these things and many more are what I have heard complained about from some very good teachers.
There is a common thread.
An over powerful centralized government controlling thought, critical thinking, and decisions by those people closest to the issues.
We need to return education control to the states.
If you do not like how you school system is run you can move to the next county or next state.
You vote with your feet or you get involved locally and change it.
There should not be one directive coming from an over powerful federal government, period. It destroys everything it is involved with. It is why our Founding Fathers left these things to the States.
And I am sorry but I will offend some here. The unions are in bed with the Federal government. Have been for decades and their hierarchy is as responsible for the decline in our education as the Progressives in government. The unions in effect have sold their souls for better pensions and higher salaries, they support the Big Fed agendas and their money goes to support big Progressives in government. No matter what anyone says to the contrary that has been the marraige with Satan for decades now.
Our children have suffered, our Nation has faltered, and we as Citizens have watched it creep up like the way you cook a frog.
We need big changes, many in the education system will fight it.
If the children, the American Citizen wins we will all eventually win.
If the teacher union bosses and their *****masters in Washington win, well, we all will lose. Starting with the children.

florida is trying to make some changes along those lines. our schools are county based and teachers are county employee's with different pay rates, benefits, etc. according to the county they teach in. my daughter has just graduated with a bs in history & a masters in education. if she gets a job, it starts @ $32,000. not great, but it's the field she chose and we knew the pay going in. current hires will not get continuing contract and will be hired on a yearly contract, which can be on renewed or not every year. a lot of older teachers are upset, but if you do your job, you should be fine. hell, most of the people i know have a one week contract. all administrators have yearly contracts that are renewed or not annually. we also have superintendents that are elected, so top administrators are subject to non renewal if they back the wrong horse. union representation in our district is about %25, florida is a right to work state.

Sounds like you're on the right track. The town I live in has all new teachers on a three year probabation. They still get tenure after that time if they are kept, but at least it gives us a better chance to not renew the sub-standard ones. It's a start.

Yup...gotta admit there are some really fine teachers...<sigh>

The part you missed though is teachers that had a contract BEFORE the hiring process for the 11-12 school year KEPT tenure. ONLY new hires lost tenure. ANother key note is that the state has the option to come in at any time they choose if your test scores are not high enough and take over the counties educational program. My wife is also a history teacher, but opted not to get a masters as having a masters right now makes you less desireable as that means you get $2K more per year for that(she got her last teaching over somebody with a masters because teh county didn't want to pay the extra money out for the teacher with a masters). It's all screwed up down here. I feel there should be tenure, but they should also have a testing system to evaluate the teachers. they have one now, but from what my wife said it is school employees doing teh evals, and it just doesn't sound right to me from what she told me of her first eval. If they are going to do evals, I feel it should be done by a NON affiliated evaluator who has nothing to gain or lose by there evaluation. With the current system this is just not the case.

My wife is a teacher too. :party:

It isn't all bad. The teachers we have experienced have a sincere desire to teach my student. As a parent, the time spent every evening with my third grader and her homework is "together time" and I love it. Nothing better than working with my little one and seeing the lights come on.
Everyone on here is right on the money IMHO. Yes the teacher has to teach to the least advanced student in her class. At least there isn't 45 students to deal with. Our educators also use a couple of assistants and mentor/volunteers to help the students that need additional help. Overall, they seem to be ahead of where I was when I was in the third grade...