The education system in the
Another option comes from an article I have read in the New York Times. The article is about a new charter school in
In this new charter school, teachers will be paid a salary of $125,000 while the principal will only be paid a salary of $90,000. Teachers will be doing the work traditionally done by supporting administration, so that the number of basic administration workers will be minimal. In fact, the reason teachers will be so well paid is because the school does not have to spend money on the salaries of basic administration. This has allowed the school to be very selective in hiring teachers. How often do public schools have PhD teachers competing for job openings?
It is obvious that current administration from other schools in New York feel threatened by this new school’s set up. They are vocally critical of the low salary of the school’s principal and the lack of supporting administration.
The school should be a very valid experiment on whether or not a higher salaried teachers get better results from students than those paid at today’s average, because the school will mostly be serving children from low income families and class sizes will still be around thirty. This will remove the concern that high numbers of students per class is the cause of unsatisfactory education, and because students from low income families traditionally do not do well in the public education system, success or failure will be easy to measure.
2 comments:
Education Issue never An Isolated Social Issue
Education issue is always a hot social topic. For Texas and New York, the high school graduation rates were only about 65 percent in 1990 and in 2005. Facing these astonished low records, I would like to talk about the education issue with a macro perspective that is different from a post at These United States blog , raising teachers’ salaries as a solution for education problems.
Education issue is always a hot social topic. For Texas and New York, the high school graduation rates were only about 65 percent in 1990 and in 2005. Facing these astonished low records, I would like to talk about the education issue with a macro perspective that is different from a post at These United States blog , raising teachers’ salaries as a solution for education problems.
In fact, to solve the education issue, I disagree with those who discuss educational problems just from a micro perspective and treat this issue as an isolated social issue. I don’t believe this deeply rooted controversial problem can be significantly improved by just changing only one simple element--teachers’ salaries.
Instead, I argue that an education issue is related to issues of poverty, race, cultural, and the social welfare system. These perspectives are recently discussed by Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
Gingrich recently delivered a speech, “The Obama Challenge: What Is the Right Change to Help All Americans Pursue Happiness and Create Prosperity?” His comments resonate Obama’s core idea that there is “a cycle of violence, blight, and neglect that continue to haunt us.”
My observation about the education issue echoes Gingrich’s and Obama’s perspective that it is this vicious cycle that makes the issue of education deeply intertwined with issues of race, poverty, and the social welfare system that create a U.S. segmented society separating the world of the rich from the poor.
The hate of black communities originated from the history of slavery should not be compensated by the bad design of our social welfare that makes black communities become helpless dependent on it. As a result many of minorities live in a hopeless future when they face crimes, violence, gangs, drugs or obesity everyday.
It is a myth that giving poor people extended social welfare will help them. The Democratic Party has created a bad culture to promote this ideology by allowing people to become dependent on the welfare system. Although the GOP tries to disillusion this message, their alternative approach to helping the poor brings no hope but spreads this message to them—work or become homeless. Neither of these old, bad, and traditional cultures creates a good government to help the poor who are left out from the possibility of the pursuit of happiness, one of the fundamental ideas why the nation was built.
“Can we really solve the education issue without considering this vicious circle?” I doubt. In order to increase the education of our youth, I strongly argue the following points.
First, a fundamental cultural change in attitudes towards importance of education in parents and students need to occur. Secondly, local governments should not use double standards to prevent crime or solve crime between affluent areas and poor areas. Third, higher education should be more affordable to the general public. Finally, parents need to be reeducated and set an example to their children by getting meaningful employment.
In our social welfare system, the idea of protection of children and the weak as the primary goal is not wrong, but its approach is wrong. The government directly helps children and pays less attention to help their parents to pursue a better life. The result creates a sad and poor generation that is used to getting help from the government but lives without hope for a better future.
As Obama and Gingrich talked about the social context of problems we encounter, the dialogue is open. But the problem is to what degree are politicians and those who are on social welfare willing to face the truth?
This idea is genious. The idea to get rid of supporting administrative staff is long overdue. Many schools are creating more and more of these types of positions such as secretary to the assistant principal or receptionist to the counselor. The point of a school is to educate and it is now being run like a business. There are hired, paid positions in charge of managing money and the childrens attendance and test scores. There are faculty members who go from room to room to collect information from the teachers instead of having the teachers bring it themselves. Not only is this a waste of money, not to mention space as each on of these 'administrative' positions is usually granted an office, but it frustrates the teachers. They should be valued as the most important part of the school system but instead they are considered to be beneath anyone hired as administration. They have to take orders from so many people and need permission from each of them to do things. I beleive that many public schools should start doing this same thing, get rid of the administrative staff and let the teachers get a raise and some dignity and the teacher shortage will end quickly.
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