2/28 notes and class participation

Lewis Black argues very sarcastically that we are pretending to deal only for 1 week for education and 51 weeks of incarceration with the education problem. We waste our educational funds on half a billion dollar schools that really don’t have to be that way. That charter schools are a great idea, except that they only allow a very small number of students. Public schools don’t need random volunteers but fully educated teachers.

Really this all plays on my post from earlier today; public education is failing our students. When Lewis Black mentioned a half a billion dollar school in LA it brought my thoughts to my family in Klamath Falls, Oregon. For the past year I have been saving my school stamps, those little stamps you get on some boxed foods and canned goods, because my cousins school system is struggling financially. To think that just a state away students are learning in luxury while they struggle just to have up to date books and computers. Of course the distribution of wealth within the public education system is a major issue, if just a small portion of the LA schools money went to some of the less affluent parts of America it could really make a difference. Then there is the issue of charter schools, an awesome idea that looks great on paper, but lacks the backing and funding to educate the masses. The idea that we could cure our education problem with a superhero is preposterous; it will take an upheaval involving our entire society in order to successfully change our education. Not enough parents care enough to get arms deep in their children’s education, as my parents put it “school is supposed to teach you those things, morals, discipline, education” but in all truth it is a parent’s responsibility to teach morals and discipline. Teachers need to be more involved with their students, of course there are plenty of outstanding teachers out there but there are just as many who have either taught for way too long, or defaulted to teaching when they themselves did not achieve their original career choice.  The blame can’t be placed on a single group, but ultimately sits on the shoulders of many. No one that I know of is arguing that our education system is perfectly fine the way it is, but if we continue to set blame or responsibility on a single group how can we expect to reform? There is no simple answer to the problem, or quick fix. I am sure that there will always be holes in the system, and unfortunately when one single system is forced into finding that median in the individuals it is trying to educate it will fall short of expectations. The school system is set with the daunting task of finding that universal method or here goes my military jargon Standard Order of Operation that ensures a generalized success.   

My group mostly spoke about how the education system runs currently, and the way we ourselves experienced our own K-12 education. We talked about budget issues, the fact that some schools cannot afford books. How impersonal the teacher/student, teacher/parent relationship has become. The overwhelming class sizes, and we also discussed some of the alternative education systems i.e. the off campus program and homeschooling.