Only Community Leaders Can Save Our Schools

rantrave.com ^ | Feb. 2, 2013 | Bruce Deitrick Price

[setha]

That presumes that the demand isn't already being distorted by a supply of guest workers. It may make him feel good, but it won't do any good if people see that it is a losing proposition to go in a field that sends more to guest workers than not. If Gates wants more people in the US to take up high-skill fields, a top interest would be to remove the distortions related to guest workers.

His (or Ballmer's) interest(on the large scale) is having the least free, lowest cost hire that can fulfill the demands of the company. Microsoft doesn't care how well educated they are as long as they follow that trend on the large scale.

[SoftballMominVA]

Lotta good thoughts in that article. And it does indeed echo what I’ve thought for ages - the community, not just the teachers, need to be involved. I think people in the homeschooling community have great ideas about curriculum and teaching methods and I wish they would share at their local school level and insist that they school board use sounder based books, etc.

[Mmmike]

For a serious conversation to take place, you would have to slow down enough to explicitly state your belief that school as an institution must continue to exist as it has, and that it's only the operational details that need to change. Then a serious back-and-forth could begin.

Until you can brace yourself and be **that** frank, the painstaking, details you've provided so far as suggestions are beside the point.

Some of us, myself included, believe that "public schooling" has built-in operational problems which translate into the death of a "free" country by the destruction of its philosophy and culture. If you will be honest with yourself, you can imagine that we don't care much to talk about the latest flavors-of-the-month in educationist circles.

[BruceDeitrickPrice]

Wintertime says: “work toward complete privatization of universal K-12 schooling in this nation.”

Great!!! Go for it!!! IN THE MEANTIME, I think we need to get the last-remaining smart practical people involved in education. That’s all I said. Basically, if everyone who self-identifies as a conservative or a Republican got involved in the local schools, you could change things, maybe even quickly.

(One thing that people may not realize is the degree to which the local newspaper has completely sold out. They used to advocate for the parents, now they advocate for the NEA.

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Thanks for many smart comments.

[SunkenCiv]

Note: this topic is from 2/09/201. Thanks BruceDeitrickPrice.