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It's Okay to Evaluate Teachers Using Test Scores as Long as the Better Teachers Get More Pay

2010-08-28T00:28:00Z

Using student test scores as part of a teacher’s job evaluation while not ideal is at least a step in the right direction towards shattering the outmoded concept that all teachers are the same.

The debate shouldn’t center on whether teachers should be evaluated using test score results. Rather, the conversation needs to involve completely rethinking the way teachers are compensated.

Testing students at the start of the year, then again at the end, provides data that is quick but insignificant. Test score results by themselves mean little in terms of a teacher’s abilities. It’s not so easy to evaluate how well a teacher communicates with her students, how clearly and coherently she answers student questions, how thoughtfully designed her assignments are, or how patiently she works with individual students.

However, if test scores are going to be used to determine which teachers are doing a better job of teaching, then what must follow is an acknowledgement that certain teachers are better than others. And, if that is so (and who would argue with such logic), then those more effective teachers need to get paid higher salaries, while ineffective teachers receive less or, without further improvement, get fired.

Paying teachers for the quality of their work is a foreign concept in the teaching profession. When a teacher is observed by an administrator, the visit is carefully pre-arranged at a time of day when the teacher can control as much of the lesson as possible knowing her superior will be present. What often happens is a highly rehearsed and unrealistic picture of what goes on in that classroom day in and day out.

All teachers get paid the same regardless of the type of job they do.

Quality is not acknowledged, applauded, spotlighted nor rewarded.

Because the system has low expectations of teachers, teachers, in turn, have low expectations of themselves as workers and, not surprisingly, this domino effect translates to the low expectations they have of their students.

The very forms that are used to evaluate teachers clearly show that quality is not part of the evaluation equation. On the evaluation form are listed several teacher behaviors each with two boxes for an administrator to check off: “meets standards” or “does not meet standards.” Notice the absence of a third option “exceeds standards.” So why should teachers desire to earn higher than average marks when they are not expected to be that good?

Thankfully, a few forward-thinking school districts and states including Denver, Houston, and Florida, have what’s commonly called a performance-pay system, often overriding union’s objections, that takes into account student test scores and pays better teachers more money.

One study found that when teachers get paid according to their performance, their students’ performance increases. In other words, money does motivate people to work harder. Who would have thought?

Excellence in public schools is a random occurrence. There’s nothing in the system to guarantee powerful instructors. In this era of accountability there is none where it really counts and that is with the teacher in the classroom.

Give principals the power to fire bad teachers. Each day an incompetent teacher is allowed to be in the same room with young people is another day of learning permanently lost.

The solution to many of public education’s problems is not a new reading program, not a new computer, and certainly not more testing. The solution is to have higher quality teachers by providing meaningful feedback and paying them well for good work.

People will work harder if their jobs are on the line. Teachers need to trade job security for professional integrity and join the rest of the American workforce and embrace with open arms the right to be fired and the right to be rewarded.

Quality Teaching is THE Answer

2010-05-19T05:13:00Z

“Mr. Crosby is peerless as an instructional leader. He is quintessentially professional in all aspects of his work.”

“Mr. Crosby is an excellent teacher. He has high expectations for all of his students.”

“His lessons are superb. His students are actively engaged in the learning process so much so that his students have actually developed their own standards-based lesson plans.”

“Mr. Crosby has an incredible way of motivating his students.”

“I saw more outstanding teaching techniques in 25 minutes than I’ve seen in a long time.”

“New teachers desiring to learn effective instructional strategies would benefit from observing his instruction and ability to engage all students.”

“He is a model for the teaching profession.”

These are excerpts from administrators’ evaluations during my 21 years of teaching high school English. They are not meant to demonstrate how great I teacher I am. I consider myself a very good teacher, but not Teacher of the Year material.

Rather, the purpose of using these comments is to show how despite earning the highest commendations from my superiors, I and millions of other teachers are never rewarded either with pay or promotion.

Teaching is more a calling than a profession, many have said. But it shouldn’t be a sacrifice, a sacrifice of salary, working conditions, and respect.

If I worked in the private sector, some of this praise would have generated bonuses or promotions. I have received neither in my entire teaching career.

Teachers are not paid based on their performance but on the number of years on the job and college units earned. In other words, there is no subjectivity involved. A teacher may work very hard or do the bare minimum, yet each receives the same amount of money. A teacher may spark the minds of young people, or may dampen their spirits. No matter. The paycheck is the same.

This is not right.

There are a few school districts across the nation who have implemented merit pay or performance pay systems. Both President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan favor paying teachers for their performance, as long as one of the criterions used in evaluating them is test results. This is where I draw the line.

To use a broad, standardized test that all students take in a state as a measure of that particular teacher’s record is erroneous. Some teachers are blessed with high achieving students, while others are less lucky with unmotivated kids.

The only advantage in using test results as a teacher evaluation tool is that it is quick. One looks at numbers and notices if they’ve gone up or down. Done.

A more effective evaluation system would be to observe certain behaviors in the teacher, behaviors that all parties can agree represent excellent teaching skills.

Of course, much more time and energy is expended when visiting classrooms for several minutes at a time, multiple times, over the course of a year. Man hours intensive, to be sure. But a more accurate picture of the teacher’s abilities will be observed.

Implementing career ladders in the teaching profession would also aid in students having a higher caliber of instructor. If teachers knew that if they worked hard they would be promoted to a higher level of not just salary but status, quality would finally define the teaching profession.

Saying that children are our country’s most precious resource may be a cliché but it is true. Ensuring that the people who work with this resource are the best isn’t asking too much.

Kids go to school only 180 days of the year, a total of 2,340 days from kindergarten through 12th grade. Let’s make sure children spend those precious days with the best teaching talent that money can buy. Performance pay and career ladders are part of an insurance policy for the future of America.

Teacher--oops--I Mean Staff Appreciation Week

2010-05-10T02:08:00Z

For those educators out there this is the time of year in May when our work officially gets recognized. Of course, up until a few years ago, this event was called Teacher Appreciation Week. However, after complaints from custodians and cafeteria workers, it has gone through the politically correct name change of Staff Appreciation Week.

If you are lucky enough, your local PTA will honor you with a special breakfast or lunch. For many teachers, however, Teacher Appreciation celebrations have the opposite effect of their intentions--insulting teachers not honoring them.

Where I work the local PTA puts a lot of time and effort in a whole week of placing in each teacher's box a token "thank you." Here are some examples:

a Cup O'Noodles with "you are SOUP-er" taped on it

a miniature fan with the saying "you are FAN-tastic"
a marble with a note "you are MARBLE-lous"
"we are the lucky ones" taped to a penny

How more substantive would it be to bundle all the money to pay for these trinkets and give teachers a special breakfast or lunch? Plus, it would take only one timeframe of effort instead of 5 days.

What do you think?

Movie Titles Need to be Rated

2010-04-16T00:22:00Z

Why does the Motion Picture Association of America even bother with ratings when the titles of recent movies evidently have no scrutiny. It all started a few years back when the raunchy “South Park” cable cartoon series released the feature “Bigger, Longer and Uncut,” and the producers admitted they got a kick out of having the MPAA allow such a gross title. However, that seems tame compared to “Meet the Fockers”, “Zack and Miri Make a Porno”, and now “Kick-Ass.”

If you are watching TV with your mother or children, do you not blush when ads for these movies appear?

The old argument about turning off the TV if you don’t like what’s on it doesn’t work when billboards all over town are emblazoned with “KICK-ASS”; you can’t easily swerve the car in the opposite direction.

It is practically impossible to shield young children from being bombarded by images and sounds that at the very least makes it quite difficult to explain to young people, at the worst makes life around them coarse and vulgar.

I don’t mean to sound like a snob but enough already with all the smutty ads and movie titles. No, using four-letter words and profane depictions is not the end of American civilization. Yes, I enjoy watching R-rated DVDs, once my kids are in bed.

All of us need to remember that there are children in our society, and we need to take care of them. Children growing up with a coarser culture are bound to be courser themselves.

There was a time when adults would refrain from using obscenities whenever women or children entered a room. Now those obscenities are tattooed on the parents’ arms.

Freedom is not about doing or saying anything you want. If so, there would be no civilized society.

There is plenty of room in the marketplace for garbage. The public should have the choice whether or not to be forced to look at it and smell it.

We all could use a little civility nowadays.

Teacher pay cuts and layoffs

2010-03-04T03:22:00Z

I never thought I would see the day when teachers' salaries get cut and massive teacher layoffs occur. Unfortunately that day is here.

Where I work the district is proposing a 2-3% pay cut in addition to furlough days. Additionally, by increasing class sizes in kindergarten through third grade, dozens of teachers will lose their jobs.

Since the dawn of the profession, teachers have lacked many niceties other private sector workers have enjoyed such as pleasant working conditions and earning pay commiserate with one's skill. The one pay-off has always been job security and salary stability. Teachers have gone years without a pay increase but never a pay decrease.

Many teachers will be starting a new work year this fall with very low morale. Let's hope the economy can rebound so that a few years from now teachers will get back to where they were in 2009.

Share your stories here.

A Teacher's Last Year

2010-01-17T15:03:00Z

No, I'm not retiring. However, many people where I work are, people who I've known all of my teaching career. And when that happens, it makes me think about my future retirement.

When that time comes, how will I feel as I teach Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, and John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men for the last time? How about when I show no more the Bill Moyers interview with Maya Angelou, Laurence Olivier's performance as Shylock, the documentary on the Holocaust? One future retiree who is currently going through this said it is moments like these for which the word "bittersweet" was invented.

I'm not looking forward to not teaching since I still get much enjoyment and fulfillment from it, but that day will come for me as it does for all teachers. The key is to retire before you feel you are irrelevant, before you no longer get young people's sense of humor.

For those of you who have already retired, please share your "last year" stories.

Too Much Homework

2009-12-01T14:25:00Z

Homework has been a problem for students and parents alike for years, problem for students to do, problem for parents to force their children to do. In recent years the concept of no homework has surfaced and as a parent myself I can see why.

One of the pleasures of school holidays is not having to get on the backs of your kids to do their homework. For me, I dread Monday through Thursdays since each of those nights I need to constantly remind my sons to do their work. What's especially dreadful, however, is when some teachers assign special projects over Thanksgiving and Christmas vacations. The reason it is called "winter break" is for there to be a physical and mental time away from school. Teachers should recognize this and not place pressure on families during fun, traditional holidays periods.

As a teacher, why do I want to return to work after a holiday and receive dozens of student projects that I have to grade anyway? It's as if some teachers feel an obligation to "lay it on" when school isn't in session. Even during summer vacation, high schools allow teachers of advanced courses to assign summer work.

I'm a big believer in working hard and playing hard. As I've said previously, the school day and year should be lengthened. But a main reason for this is to allow children more time with their teachers who have the best understanding on how to complete the homework. Keep the homework at school and let kids spend time with their families at home.

Let me know what you think, and season's greetings to one and all.

Obama's speech to schoolchildren

2009-09-06T17:34:00Z

At 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday, September 8, not only do I plan on showing my own students President Obama’s address to all the nation’s schoolchildren, but I intend to use the brouhaha over it as a teachable moment, of how precious freedom of speech is even if it means allowing hateful people to say things that are not true.

What insanity has taken over parts of this country when a presidential address to young people is perceived to be mistrusted as if an alien dictator has taken over that will brainwash their minds? Former President George W. Bush gave an anti-drug speech to the nation’s children and few screamed about indoctrination.

Some parents intend to keep their children home that day so that they don’t see the message. My gosh, folks, this is the President of the United States we’re talking about.

How far this country has lost its way when the President cannot make a simple “do well in school” speech to America’s youth without controversy.

Paranoia is the key word involved with the vile antagonism expressed by some parents who wish their children not to hear the President of the United States speak to them about their future.

I was amazed when my son brought home a note from his first grade teacher offering parents to opt out of hearing the message. The problem with such a notification is that it creates the sense that what the President has to say is somehow controversial so parents who probably would not have said a peep about the whole thing might now decide to have their children not be present, even though the entire text of the President’s speech is available on line on Monday at whitehouse.gov.

At the high school where I work, the principal sent a carefully worded e-mail regarding the speech, leaving the matter in the hands of individual teachers (as it should be) whether or not to show it in the classroom.

What a shame that such an exciting moment for young people, the President speaking directly to them about their education, has been twisted by ignorant parents and ratings-addicted media pundits into a scary, heinous message that serves to indoctrinate our children. But isn’t having young people stand up, put their hands over their heart, reciting the Pledge of Allegiance a form of indoctrination? Many of these same parents desire religion to be taught in public schools, but that would not be indoctrination, would it?

What is wrong with people today? Don’t we want a president who cares about health care and education? Since when does everything the president does or says has to pass through some kind of “Democrat Liberal” filter? Wasn’t the election over with 10 months ago?

Why any good American would desire a president to fail is beyond reason. There’s only one explanation why some people so vehemently oppose the president: because he’s black. How frightful that this country has so many parents who still cannot accept that an African-American is the president of all of us.

This isn’t the country I grew up in where people viewed the President of the United States as the president of us all whether you voted for him or not.

We are living in dangerous, uncharted times when a presidential address to young people about the importance of education is perceived to be indoctrination. I dread what may happen next.

Back to School time

2009-08-15T06:12:36Z

I remember as a child cringing when my eyes caught sight of the ads in the Sunday newspaper proclaiming in screaming headlines "BACK TO SCHOOL" Looking back, how I would love to have those 13-week summers back. This year, my own sons had one less week of vacation, 10 weeks to be exact, due to their school district's master plan of starting school in mid-August and ending it by Memorial Day.

Of course, I would rather see smaller but more vacation periods between school quarters. How many families do any of us know take 10-week trips?

Good luck to all you parents, teachers, and students out there!

SMUT SELLS

2009-07-15T20:57:00Z

“Sex sells” used to be the mantra of Madison Avenue. Today it is smut that sells.

The crassness of advertising and marketing in this country needs to stop.

People can be very good at trumpeting certain causes, such as outlawing cigarette smoking in public places, making sure animals have rights, cleaning up the environment. But when it comes to the pollution of the eyes and ears, protests are nonexistent.

So many stimuli exist in the 21^st century that makes it practically impossible to shield young children from being bombarded by images and sounds that at the very least makes it quite difficult to explain to young people, at the worst makes life around them coarse and vulgar.

In the past, double entendres were employed as a way to get around a censor. Nowadays, there is no fooling of what the true meaning of something is. In fact, often the magnified message is quite clear, slammed in your face super-sized style, leaving no doubt what is intended.

All this crassness in the advertising and marketing industries is akin to a bunch of boys sneaking a peak at a Playboy magazine or porn website. They know what they’re doing is considered “forbidden” but it’s fun doing it anyway because they’re getting away with something.

Here are recent samples of promotional campaigns that have appeared in print, on television, on billboards, and, incredulously, on public buses. Evidently, city transportation agencies have no sense of decency on how they generate revenue.

Look at the new HBO series “Hung”. No, it is not about capital punishment. According to the series description, “Ray resolves to take advantage of his greatest asset, in hopes of changing his fortunes in a big way.”

“Zack and Miri Make a Porno.” Amazingly, some news outlets showed a touch of class by refusing to run the full title of this film.

E!’s “The Girls Next Door” ran commercials during TBS’s broadcast of the baseball division series last fall showing scenes of naked women’s backsides blurred, a naked woman who had mud on her breasts and nothing else, and women in all kind of lurid poses. What a nice way to spend the evening with my 9-year-old son.

How about Showtime’s new “Nurse Jackie” with the ad line “life is full of little pricks.”

Quizno’s marketing campaign for its Toasty Torpedo sandwich with a commercial showing a man physically inserting a phallic-shaped sandwich into an oven opening, with the oven speaking to the man ala the computer HAL from “2001: A Space Odyssey”, “Put it in me, Scott.”

Clearly, things have gotten out of control. This is not about censorship. It’s about boundaries. It’s about someone, somewhere taking a stand for what is naughty and what is nice.

If your reaction to these examples is “big deal”, then my point is made: people have become blinded to good taste.

No standards seem to exist anywhere anymore. Are viewers asleep out there?

We all should feel embarrassed when we see and hear these images. Evidently shame is on the endangered species list of human traits along with responsibility for one’s actions.

No, using four-letter words and profane depictions is not the end of American civilization. But why aren’t more people riled up about these gutter tactics occurring regularly on TV, billboards, and webpages?

One of the main problems with so much of this is the blurring of right from wrong. Children growing up with a coarser culture are bound to be courser themselves.

We don’t know the possible harm that is being done on young people’s pyches. As human beings all of us should strive to be the best that we can be. Unfortunately, too many media messages push the envelope in a kind of contest of how crude can people get.

There is plenty of room in the marketplace for garbage. The public should have the choice whether or not to be forced to look at it and smell it.

Whenever you see something that definitely crosses the line, make a point not to see the movie or watch the series or buy the product. It is time for good, decent people to let these companies know that enough is enough.

President Obama's remarks on teacher quality

2009-03-12T13:35:00Z

Better quality teachers are the best chance any child has in a classroom. Just ask President Barack Obama when he said this week that “the most important factor in [a child’s] success is . . . the person standing at the front of the classroom.”

When President Obama made this remark in his speech on education, teachers across America felt a collective sense of relief. After years of former presidents claiming to be THE education president, it appears that this country might actually have one.

Who would have thought we would have a Democratic president advocating merit pay? Remember how President Reagan was severely criticized for proposing the same thing a quarter of a century ago?

An outstanding teacher who motivates children to learn and be curious about life deserves $100,000 or more. There are a few districts that do pay teachers six figures, but usually that’s only the very top salary after decades of experience and specialization.

All the principal playmakers in the game of educating children play by some common rules, and rule number one has been around since the invention of the pencil. That rule says that you cannot distinguish one teacher from the next nor should you. All teachers get paid the same. All teachers get treated the same. Why does a teacher who engages students, gets them thinking, and makes them look forward to attending class paid the exact same amount of money as another teacher who couldn’t care less about the students, mumbles incoherently all day long, and races past the students for the exits at 3:00?

Quality is not acknowledged, applauded, spotlighted nor rewarded. Such a system deters many bright people from ever entering the teaching profession.

Should the best teachers earn six-figure salaries? Yes.

Should all teachers be paid six-figure salaries? No.

A few forward-thinking school districts in Denver and Houston have implemented performance-pay systems, often overriding union’s objections. The concept may sound familiar. Pay people for how well they do their job. How innovative is that?

By paying teachers a qualitative salary, i.e., a salary based on how well they teach, public schools can begin to have a major mindshift towards rewarding quality. Maybe they can even use it in promotional slogans such as “quality your child can trust.”

One study found that when teachers get paid according to their performance, their students’ performances increase. In other words, money does motivate people to work harder.

The President is going to have a fight on his hands in trying to get the National Education Association to endorse merit pay, a concept most teachers unions vehemently oppose.

Here are the union arguments against performance pay. “It is unhealthy for teachers to compete with one another.” Well, it is unhealthy for good teachers to continue not being acknowledged and applauded for the terrific work they do.

“It is impossible to quantify good teaching.” No it’s not. I can take someone off the street and show them a classroom with an effective teacher and one with an ineffective teacher. That stranger could easily distinguish the difference.

“It allows management to play favorites.” Management already plays favorites with teachers’ schedules and other things. As long as human beings are in charge, subjectivity will play a role. However, there is less of a chance of a single administrator playing games if teachers were evaluated by a panel of master teachers and administrators from different schools.

The big question that needs answering when it comes to paying teachers more is “where is the money going to come from?”

Let’s say ten percent of the three million teachers in America are worth $100,000 or more, and that such compensation would in effect double their current salaries of $50,000. Multiply 300,000 times $50,000 and that equals $15 billion. Remember, the annual education bill is $500 billion so $15 more billion is not so outrageous. Still, the money is already there by lowering the top salaries of veteran teachers who do little but show up and collect paychecks.

How outrageous that we expect our children to get a first-rate, Bloomingdale’s-like education but pay teachers Wal-Mart-like salaries.

This must change. You can’t expect topnotch K-12 instruction without paying for it. As President Obama said, “The future belongs to the nation that best educates its citizens.” Nothing less than our country’s economic future is at stake.

NEW DAILY RADIO SHOW BEGINS SYNDICATION FEB. 23

2009-02-21T07:13:00Z

I'm very pleased to announce the launching of my new daily one-minute radio show, "A Teachable Moment" with Brian Crosby (ateachablemoment.net). With the help of Washington radio director Kevin Taylor as producer, "A Teachable Moment" will be 60 seconds of tips and thoughts on a wide variety of topics including education and parenting. I hope you hear the show, www.RadioKevin.com/ateachablemoment.htm, and relay your comments, good or bad, to me so that I can make it as worthwhile as possible to listeners. If you do like it, please contact your local radio stations to have them syndicate it.

Start Charging Parents for Public Schools

2009-01-08T21:56:00Z

With states across the country facing huge budget deficits and potential devastating cuts to services, the time has come to start charging parents tuition for their children’s public school education.

If parents of the 47 million students in the United States who attend kindergarten through 12^{th grade were billed $360 per child per year, that’s $2 a day for each of the 180 days of instruction, nearly $17 billion would be generated. However, let’s say only half of the parents can foot the bill. That still leaves $8.5 billion to deliver to public schools.}

Cutting a week out of the already skimpy school calendar as a way to save money, an idea proposed by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, is not the solution to a fiscal crisis, though if the week cut out was the one for state testing, many teachers and students wouldn’t mind. Already American kids attend school fewer days than most other industrialized nations. While a free education for all is a wonderful gift, it’s simply not possible anymore.

Can half of America’s parents afford $360 per year for each of their children? For the price of a cup of coffee, a child can get educated for a day. For the price of a movie ticket, a child can get educated for a week. For the price of a cellular phone bill, a child can get educated for a month. For the price of a videogame console, a child can get educated for an entire year.

There should be no sticker shock about this. Already parents pay for athletic uniforms, musical instruments, lab fees, school-embossed clothing, and field trips. Plus, they get nickled and dimed to death from schools throughout the year to donate money for art and music programs, to get their cars washed for athletic programs, to consume cardboard pizza so that a few dollars will go to the schools. Children would no longer have to go begging relatives and neighbors to buy coupon books.

For years community colleges charged no tuition. Then 20 years ago they started implementing a $50 per semester fee which rose to $60 per semester in the 1990’s. "How dare they" demonstrations broke out proclaiming the beginning of the end of community colleges. Well, today the colleges have more students than ever before, and the current fee is $20 per unit. For an average class load of 15 units, the cost of one semester tuition of college is $300. Nearly half of community college students get their tuition waived anyway due to their low-income status.

Look, nobody enjoys paying for services that used to be free. However, a generation of people have grown up with cable television and don’t even remember that TV used to cost nothing. Paying $360 a year for a child’s education is half of what the average person spends on watching television. Which is more important?

Attaching a price to "free" services will help students and parents understand the value of education. Psychologically it’s interesting how people view something that is "free": they tend to place less value on it than if they have to pay for it. Walk onto campuses right after lunch, especially at high schools, and notice the garbage strewn around. Kids would less likely trash their schools knowing their parents had a vested interest in the property.

Beyond charging for tuition, parents should be billed whenever their children are truant. Since schools receive funding based on average daily attendance, parents should foot the bill whenever their children miss school for non-illness reasons.

The Scotts Valley School District in Santa Cruz, California is doing just that. The letter sent home entitled "If You Play, Please Pay" informs parents that one child absent for one day costs $36.13. In 2005-06, the district lost nearly one-quarter of $1 million due to students missing school other than legitimate illnesses. While paying the bill is voluntary, many parents, perhaps out of guilt, gladly pay it, further proof that there are parents out there who would pay for school tuition.

A holiday season just ended where scores of parents spent hundreds of dollars on video games, I-pods and cell phones for their children. Is $360 going to break their backs?

10 Things President-Elect Obama Shoud Do for America's Schools

2008-11-17T05:17:00Z

When Barack Obama gets sworn in as 44th President of the United States, he is going to face a tremendous challenge in tackling several important issues from the economy to war to energy. Yet, without a sound public school system, future wage-earners will be handicapped to tackle problems that will remain years from now. To neglect fixing this country’s schools today is guaranteeing a bleak economic future for America.

Education, that other “E” word, was largely forgotten during the presidential campaign. In order to correct that omission, here are 10 things the Obama-Biden administration can do in the coming months in order to get public schools transformed from their current moribund state to a 21st century institution. While much of how schools are run is dictated by state and local authorities, the President of the United States can take on a significant leadership role and mandate certain changes if schools which to receive federal funding. None of these measures would cost a dime but would require school bureaucracies to rethink their antiquated way of doing business.

1. Make a speech to the American people. Not since President Reagan have Americans had a president who can convincingly connect with people. He needs to equate the makeover of the country’s public school system to that of the civil rights movement. Obama should invite the country’s best teachers to a retreat with department of education officials to brainstorm how best to educate young people.

2. Appoint a veteran classroom teacher to a decision-making position in his cabinet. No doubt President-elect Obama will have a host of experts forming his education policy. No doubt that none of them will be an actual classroom teacher. Having a Good Housekeeping-like Seal of Approval from those who work with children would go a long way in validating his cabinet’s plans.

3. Lengthen the school day and the school year. There is not enough time to cover all curriculum material in 180 days. Students from industrialized nations who regularly outperform their U.S. counterparts attend school longer. By adding 4 more weeks to the school year and an hour and a half to the school day, children will have an additional year and a half of education between kindergarten and 12th grade. And they will still get 11 weeks off.

4. Replace tenure with performance-pay. Let bad teachers be easily fired and not cloak themselves in the teachers union armor. The best teachers deserve double the money they earn, while those ineffective ones deserve the door out of the profession. It is time to elevate teaching to a real profession with rewards and punishments.

5. Increase class sizes. Schools can’t find enough highly qualified teachers so have fewer of them. Yes this will mean more crowded classrooms but better teachers can handle more kids. The money saved from fewer employees can be added to the salaries of those instructors who prove themselves invaluable as well as help fund the additional days of instruction.

6. Place a moratorium on No Child Left Behind. Enough with the testing. Put the focus back on where it should be—the work students perform in the classroom day in and day out.

7. Bring back vocational education. Instead of shoehorning everyone into college, provide those students who demonstrate non-academic skills with alternative programs so that they, too, can feel successful. Private industry can help fund these programs, as they do in Europe, since they will benefit from a better trained workforce.

8. Go back and teach students the Golden Rule and have them employ it in mandatory community service. Look at our society and the mess it’s in. Much of this has to do with lax parenting and non-existent social teaching in the schools. Students can become better citizens if schools mandate community service as a graduation requirement.

9. Put a lid on special education funding. Nothing has wreaked more damage to the funding of schools than special ed has. It costs twice as much money to educate a special ed student than a non-special ed student.

10. Start charging $500 tuition for public schools. Too many people take public school for granted: free learning, free books, free supplies, free child care, even free food. No wonder many kids disrespect their place of learning. Of course there are families who would not be able to afford this. However, if even half of the 47 million school children could, that would result in close to $12 billion.

Yes, attention must be paid to the wars going on in Iraq and Afghanistan and the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression. However, the best form of homeland security is education security.

If America intends on remaining an economic force for years to come, something has to change in our schools to prevent further decline; otherwise, this country will be going from a “nation at risk” to a “save America now” telethon. The education of America’s youth should be viewed as a bulwark against democracy’s demise.

President-elect Obama must make America’s schools a top priority for no price can be placed on the bailout of young people’s minds.

Will the real education presidential candidate please stand up?

2008-08-30T16:20:00Z

The term "education president" has been overused during the last few presidential campaigns. However, to date, America has never had a true education president, one who has put a premium on transforming this country's terribly outdated public school system, one who gives teachers the positions and power to enact change.

Without getting politicial, which is easy for me to do since I am registered as an independent, Sen. Barack Obama has better ideas for fixing schools than does Sen. John McCain. Just looking at both candidates' websites reveals an immediate difference. While Sen. McCain devotes two pages to his education policy, Sen. Obama dedicates 15 pages. The quantity alone reveals a more thoughtout plan.

Sen. McCain is more interested in allowing parents freedom to choose which school their children attend rather than allowing teachers the freedom to choose how best to teach to children.

Sen. Obama desires to elevate the teaching profession, something Sen. McCain hardly mentions.

I have two main concerns with Sen. Obama's plan. One, many of his proposals add up to billions of new spending, so the obvious question is where's the money? Second, in developing more merit-based pay systems for teachers, he wants to make sure any changes have the full backing of the teachers unions. Well, that makes sense since the powerful National Education Association exclusively supports Democratic candidates. If Sen. Obama is truly looking for "change", he should not feel beholden to the NEA.

The school districts in this country which have developed performance-based systems have done so without the cooperation of unions since the unions are not interested in evaluating which teachers do a better job than others, with their main mantra being "everyone is the same and is to be paid the same."

So, if you care about improving America's schools, Sen. Obama would have to be your choice. However, he still can't rightfully call himself the education president until he empowers teachers and challenges them to develop a vision for a 21st century school system worthy of this country.

Brian Crosby's Take on America's Public School System

2008-07-26T16:13:00Z

            Almost half a trillion dollars is spent on K-12 education each year and look at the results.
            One out of every four American children reads below grade level.
            One out of every three high school students do not graduate, a stagnant figure for thirty years.
            In New York City, less than half of students graduate. In Detroit that figure is one-fourth. That’s a staggering number that puts new meaning to the term “dropout factories.”
            The problem is not all the bad students; rather, all the bad schools.
            Who decided that taking standardized tests was going to revolutionize public education?
            Why does such a critical job as teaching require only minimum training and pay?
            When did parents decide to stop believing the teachers’ point of view, that teachers are the enemy, to be doubted and questioned?
            Why are we amazed that kids who are forced to sit still in uncomfortable plastic chairs for six hours a day easily get bored, distracted, defiant?
            Like a dilapidated ramshackle fixer-upper that is more cost-effective to scrap than to renovate, now is the time to bulldoze America’s public school system.
            The change that is needed in public education must be huge, along the lines of the civil rights movement. The same fervor people exert in anti-smoking campaigns needs to be replicated in efforts to transform public schools.
            The teaching of America’s youth should be viewed as a bulwark against democracy’s demise. It’s no good to just let students “get by.” We must demand excellence. Our country’s economic future rests on it.
            What’s needed is a cohesive vision of a new kind of public school system.
            Lengthen the school day and the school year. There is not enough time to cover all the material in 180 days. By adding 4 more weeks to the school year and an hour and a half to the school day, children will have an additional year and a half of education between kindergarten and 12th grade. And they will still get 11 weeks off.
            Increase class sizes and teacher salaries. Schools can’t find enough highly qualified teachers so have fewer of them. Yes this will mean more crowded classrooms but better teachers can handle more kids. The money saved from fewer employees can be added to the salaries of those instructors who prove themselves invaluable.
            Eliminate homework. With the longer day students and teachers will have more time to go over the work during class. Kids can leave work at work and spend more time with their families at home.
            Place a moratorium on No Child Left Behind. Enough with the testing. Put the focus back on where it should be—the work students perform in the classroom day in and day out.
            Bring back vocational education. Instead of shoehorning everyone into college, provide those students who demonstrate non-academic skills with alternative programs.
            Kick out the bad kids. The concept that no matter how badly behaved a child is he still has a seat waiting for him in a school is incredulous and the main reason why parents pay money for private schooling. If a child can’t meet a certain degree of decorum, let his parents deal with him so that those children who do want to learn can learn.
            A four-day work week for teachers. Other public servants such as police and firefighters work four sometimes even three days a week due to the stressful conditions of their occupation. Teachers should be afforded the same perk. On the fifth day highly qualified paraeducators can run the classrooms taking students on field trips and job shadowing expeditions.
            Do away with tenure and teachers unions. Let bad teachers be easily fired and not cloak themselves in the teachers union armor. It is time to elevate teaching to a real profession with rewards and punishments.
            Go back and teach students the Golden Rule and have them employ it in mandatory community service. Look at our society and the mess it’s in. Much of this has to do with lax parenting and non-existent social teaching in the schools. Students can become better citizens if schools mandate community service as a graduation requirement.
             Put a lid on special education funding. Nothing has wreaked more damage to the funding of schools than special ed has. It costs twice as much money to educate a special ed student than a non-special ed student.
            Start charging for public schools. Too many people take public school for granted: free learning, free books, free supplies, free child care, even free food. No wonder many kids disrespect their place of learning.
             Will there be heated discussions about implementing these changes? Absolutely.
            Do details have to be ironed out? Of course.
            But if we don’t get started with a sound vision of solid public schools, every new school fix-it plan whether it’s more testing, block scheduling or the latest computer software will add up to nothing.
            Yes, national security is a top priority (though many people can’t locate Iraq on a map), but the best form of homeland security is education security. Do we want our military to have poorly educated people in its ranks? You can’t outsource an army.
            Every day forty-seven million children attend public schools.
            Every day three thousand students drop out of high school.
            What type of experience do we want to provide America’s youth?
            The time has come to act.
            We must provide a public school system worthy of them.

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2008-07-25T15:28:30Z

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