One last thing about replacing textbooks with software. Perhaps we should respect the wishes of the House in repealing certain education IF 2/3 of the House agrees that it is terrorist propaganda. And we could require that all education lessons be transcribed for convenient online ‘word searches’.
Church based study halls? Perhaps church property could be used as a study hall, and the church gets paid instead of the public school. But for now we have the public school infrastructure, so maybe we might as well use it for the time being?
Emergency System — students with headphones might have an app included that helps with school evacuation. Or they are only allowed a single ear to be covered during the tech transition.
. . . .
Fine Tuning Online Teachers
Each state could decide for itself how to resolve parental networking regarding teachers.
Should it be ‘above board’ and safe from traditional lawsuits? ‘Adults only’ on the message boards? Should they be required to reveal their true names when officially denouncing a teacher? And the teacher could have a recording of every teaching moment to vindicate herself or himself.
If a state is too hard on its internet teachers, those teachers could offer their services in any of the other fifty seven states. [Uups. No, I am not Obama.]
Here's the flip side: if a state sides with the teachers all the time and possibly fines outraged for ‘frivolous’ complaints [or whatever], then entire groups might decide to boycott ALL teachers licensed in that state.
Regarding fines, the states should forewarn anyone who enters its official ‘education message board’ in advance what the maximum fine would be if the message board concludes that the parents’ complaints are frivolous or slanderous. We should not tolerate that warning being buried in an ‘agree-to-these-terms’ page. Such an important warning must be at the top line of the ‘agreement’ page.
Exactly how federal legislators incentivize states to have the best online teachers would require some deliberation. But I hope it is worked out in a way that a teacher in Hawaii might get licensed by Delaware without any problems. When it comes to online education, does a state truly need physical borders?
Also, if a particular state gets too insane with teachers who act as Islamo-terrorist recruiters, I am confident that a Constitutional Amendment would quickly be ratified to ‘fine-tune’ this education revolution. For example, if a state gets overrun by a Reconquista movement, 3/4 of states could easily and swiftly end any educational mischief.
States would need to be free to reshuffle their budgeting for online teachers according to the number of legitimate ‘student hits’, how effective they were at helping the students, etc. Bottom line — each state works it out for itself as much as possible.
. . . .
For computer newbies:
Computer software can calculate a student's progress automatically. But we can also have standard multiple choice tests to see if students are somehow cheating. This needs to remain dynamic and state-managed. For example, a ‘question pool’ for random customized tests will ultimately be superior to a single generic test that was traditionally photocopied, and answers could be crib-noted by cheaters.
There's no need for the federal government to meddle — that could be more dangerous than helpful.