Merit pay for teachers. The breaking of the power of teachers unions. Horror stories of how difficult it can be to fire an incompetent teacher. Conflicts over charter schools. Issues surrounding the transformation of education in America provide fodder for recent documentaries about various reforms that are brewing under the surface of the waters.
In an economy where schools were actually doing a good job if they graduated 205 of their students into colleges, 20% into professional and managerial jobs, 20% into technology positions, 20% into the service sector, and 20% into manufacturing, it was not huge failure to find that only a portion of the graduates were capable of higher education. But life is changing for American students as many of those less education-requisite jobs are heading elsewhere.
I have recently watched at least two documentaries on the subject of Educational reform (Waiting for Superman and The Lottery) Both films focus on the process whereby inner city parents have to participate in lotteries to “save” their children from “failure factory” schools. Schools that start with the assumption that all students can attend and graduate from college, that will not tolerate teachers who cannot or who will not help students achieve those goals, that require mastery to pass demonstrate what can be done if there is the will to accomplish it. But at what cost. Both films speak favorably of the policy of merit pay. Ironically, the semester that I left Champlain, the new President had instituted a policy of merit pay as a requirement for faculty raises. I never got to participate in it unfortunately. I feel like I would be able to speak with more experience.
See HERE for pro and con arguments.
My son believes that teachers should have to “sell” their courses to students. He thinks that young people are perfectly capable of determining which teachers are enthusiastic, knowledgeable, fair, and talented. Students find their way to the music that suits them, the movies that suit them, the books that inspire them, and the colleges that fit them. Why, he would ask, are they not given the freedom to select the teachers that they believe will best serve them?
I confess, it is impossible to watch these documentaries of kids weeping because they did not win the lottery that would have allowed them to get out of some inner city “prep-school for prison.” In these places, something needs to be done. End of discussion.
Question for Comment: Should schools have to compete for students? Teachers for pupils? Would that force the system to improve?
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