FIXING EDUCATION:

Education has been one of the most expense and controversial topics in U. S. history. And the results exacted have been mediocre at best with continued diminishing results. For all to long the object was to throw money at the problem and hope our schools could buy their way to success. Either teachers weren’t paid enough or the curriculum and facilities needed to be changed redeveloped, or reinvented and many times all three. So as good stewards of our children’s education and thus their future we spent more. We did basically the same things only spending more money. I thought I’d throw out some ideas that are very different so here goes. I thought I’d list them and see how they fit together:

The first major change would be to have all the players not just the children have real life “SKIN IN THE GAME”. In the past if a child was successful or failed the only one to pay any true consequences with failure was the child. Everyone else lamented it and then pointed fingers at anything but themselves and this included even the children and moved on. So, to put skin in the game these features would be put in place.

1. Grade School and High School teachers would be put on an incentive where 15 to 20% additional salary would be derived from bonus’. This would be structured on testing results of their classes. I know everyone hates tests especially standardized tests…then come up with something else, measurable, that works to show if the teacher is teaching and teaching well.

2. Teachers would be given minimum levels of success expected and if those levels were not attained for two out of every three years the teacher would lose their license to teach (anywhere) and be released. Some level, where bad or even mediocre teacher wouldn’t subsist in the system treading water and thus poisoning the well.

3. Teachers would have to be paid a lot more than today to get people who would be results driven and would be willing to meet the challenge. There would be NO tenure and longevity would be tied to success.

4. Parents would have to be involved in their children’s education. A parent of each child would be required to do one day per month of “service” to their child’s school. This could be cleaning, painting, repairs, being an aide in a classroom etc. This would reduce school expense with so much free labor (which would help with increased teacher salary expense) and parents would have an incentive to hold their children accountable to study if they were making this kind of year round effort.

5. Parents would also be required to spend one day per year observing in their child’s classroom to see the actual teaching. Both of these items would make parents and teachers more familiar and help understanding of situations rather than the once a year meet and greet with your child’s teacher.

6. Obviously, administration faculty and leaders would be judged on the same criteria of success.

7. Politicians would be rated on the quality of all the schools in their State, City or District (how this accountability will be realized will be better explained a little later).

So now all the players will have skin in the game and yes, the unions will resist this but naïvely I would hope both their rank and file wanting to do the best for children added to increased money and with a splash of political pressure will carry the day.

Now everyone says all children need college. I disagree, but at the same time it needs to be affordable for the ones that want to and should go to college. The first step would be to make all primary colleges (I refuse to call them Junior Colleges) year! and year 2 free (at least free for three years so people like me could not make a career out of college, after 3 years they would have to pay tuition) and candidates would be required to go in their home state to get the FREE price. This is where politicians in your state would be judged by the quality of their schools. If Missouri primary colleges were exceptional and Kansas’ were average and in the next step (year 3 and 4 Universities) Missouri graduates had an advantage in admission parents would scream, move and VOTE for change. These primary colleges would be a combination college and trade school. So, if you wanted to go to trade school there would be no expense either and would be the same place everyone else was going so there would be less stigma. Unfortunately, we have told several generations that unless you go to college, you’re a failure. We need to remove the stigma and to begin that process you would have the trade school classes at the same place as the primary colleges. Next, Trade Unions would need to be very involved in the trade schools to ensure curriculum and potential jobs for graduates. Students who graduate with a minimum level of achievement would not only graduate but be outfitted with tooling in their particular discipline. Thus, when a person graduated, they would have the skills and equipment to start being productive and businesses would have a steady supply of technicians, welders, carpenters, or dental assistants to try to recruit. These trade schools would encompass medical trades etc. not just HVAC or building trades. The primary colleges would have no housing so they would be local and students would live at home for the most part making it more doable for everyone. It would change the way high school graduates plan college. No one would be “going away” to school. The reason for this is all major Universities would only be year 3 and year 4 institutions. They would be required to consolidate their resources to serve primary college students to complete their education. The State universities would be force to comply by their legislatures and private universities that didn’t comply would get no government assistance, contacted or research aid or government backed loans for tuition. But most of all it would be in their best interest. The Universities could be selective of their professors and not be building buildings to impress themselves. I would think all building at Universities would stop for years. Assets and people would be better utilized and expenses lowered. All academic classes and credentials would be structured to transfer seamlessly from primary colleges. All for profit colleges which I believe are a bit of a con scheme would cease since they charge and their competition would be free. Also, no government backed loans etc. would be approved for these, for profit, colleges.

Then as primary college graduates pick their University, they would have the option to opt for no tuition by agreeing to provide 1 year of community service after graduation. Thus, you can attend college for 4 years at no tuition expense (again if students are like me they could need more time so if they commit to a second year of community service they could stretch the free tuition at their university for an additional year).

Yes, Uber rich could circumvent the system by sending their children out of the country. Ok but how many would.

Parochial Schools could still exist as they do today especially at the grade school and high school levels. They would, like today get no government help and subsist monetarily as they do today. The Universities would be encouraged to streamline into year 3 and 4 institutions but if not, they could continue as they are but with no government backed loans, grants or research aid.

I am not naive enough to think there aren’t many problems with these ideas some could be insurmountable but what we are doing isn’t working. We are proposing spending hundreds of billions of dollars to forgive student loans many of which the money was spent poorly and accomplished little. And afterwards we will still have a mediocre system at best waiting for the next great bailout. These ideas need refined, polished and expanded on but the basis and principles are sound. There needs to be skin in the game for all the players; students, parents, teachers, administrators and political leaders. Not everyone needs to go to college and there should be no stigma in being a craftsman. And college expense can not continue to escalate and /or be depreciated by just doing it all more and more on line. And finally forgiving billions of dollars in loans is not going to fix a broken system only perpetuate it.