We have spent approximately $200 billion in two years. We have already spent those trillions on education and with no appreciable results. More money is not the answer. Otherwise, explain why DC students who get an average of $7600 in public spending not including the private foundation grants and such are in such poor shape.
They are in such poor shape because of the low quality of the teachers and because of the piss-poor administration. In New York City, the school board has hired Australian school board officials to come in and strenghthen the system – the logic being that Australia has an excellent system of training teachers. A husband-wife teaching couple, who have worked in the Australian system for years and are very close to my parents, make 160K US each (tax-free…quarter of a million/year …not bad for teachers) to coach the American teachers and board officials to become better teachers and administrators. When you import teachers and administrators on such a grand scale, I think the structural weaknesses in the current system are very obvious.
“Outcome Based Education”, “Total Quality Management Education” and a few other half-baked schemes have heavily contributed to the dumming down of students in the US system.
I have loads of horror stories about recent college grads applying for jobs and my utter amazment at the educational level. People unable to form complete sentences in describing their previous job experience. And a host of other educational afflictions that pretty much eliminated them before the game had begun. Not to mention their inflated expectations of entitlement. Just amazing.
The problem is not with the students or the teachers. The problem is with the parents and administrators.
Clarify this for us, please. How are the PTAs causing the downfall, if there is a downfall?