So almost a year since my last post and the narrative has shifted a little. The current narrative is all about firing the bad teachers. Or firing all of the teachers and then letting God sort them out, or something like that...
I keep trying to hone my points to postcard size. Education-talk makes people blabby. Blabbiness comes from insecurity. Here's some stuff that needs to be shrunk into bullet points:
1. All educational administration, especially curriculum and teacher hiring decisions, should be made at the school level. Everyone who works in a school should teach a least one class of students.
2. State-wide funding, state-wide school choice, school budgets based on number of kids and the socio-economic status of those kids.
3. Strict limits on teacher workloads (number of students, number of courses).
4. Short, simple, national standardized tests in reading, writing, and math every year for every student. Make them difficult.
5. Use test scores to score the schools, not individual students or teachers. Make all the data as transparent and as anonymous as possible.
6. Pay all teachers about the same, keeping some basic steps for seniority. Grant school-wide bonuses for progress with difficult kids.
7. In schools that don't achieve appropriate test scores, fire the school administration.
There you go. The seven steps to success (or something) for high schools in America!
