Seems like regular topic on the news. I would like to see more shop classes . I discovered matching when I was about 30 years old. I was never exposed to it in school. Looking back I may have went that route. I remember the first time I ran a metal lathe. A guy I knew had a worn out 8 inch South Bend . My first real lathe was a South Bend 9x24 workshop model with change gears. I miss that lathe. It was quiet. Your thoughts???

Abolish the teachers unions so that the losers/slackers/schittheads/worthless ones can be summarily fired on the spot and their state credentials canceled for their incompetence.

Quit lying to the children and teach the truth.

Our school district has a post secondary vocational school. It has welding in which the kids will be certified by graduation, metal works that pertains to lathes, cnc, machining,and everything possible to do with a machine shop. It has a automotive training shop that competes in Hot rods of America every year, Also a building trades class that deals with carpentry, electrical, plumbing, and actual building, forensic investigation class, nursing in which they have a high rate nursing classes and robotics.
With that being said if the federal government would stay out of public schools business in most areas they would be better.

Get rid of the phaaguts and pedos to start they have no biz being involved w kids

I heard a school principal say it wasn't hard to get rid of the poor teachers. Just carefully follow the steps in the teacher contract and document everything.

Bruce

This already is in effect in Arkansas! Accountability and with the learns act non renewal can happen instantly!

Get rid of tenure. A teacher should be able to be fired easier if they are not good at their job. Maybe give bonus' to teachers who have good outcomes with their student such as consistently good grades that can be checked over, so they are just not giving out "A"s to get the bonus.

Ha, most Fire guys can't handle the Truth.

Administrators and counselors can drive out a good teacher they don't like by loading their classes with all the problem students. And the reverse. That needs to be fixed, too.

Bruce

Also do away with the Department of Education . We got too much government running things.

The biggest problem in schools that I can think of is the no child left behind law that was forced by one of our ex presidents. A teacher can’t actually teach anymore because of the kids that don’t want to be in class takes up all of the time of trying to get passed and good kids can’t learn like they use too. Kids can’t be disciplined anymore mostly because of government and parents. You can’t even physically break up a fight anymore because if you try to separate them physically then you are held accountable. The government basically wants you to put your body between the two fighting and stand there as a wall or a punching bag!
Any other questions? Try teaching for a day and you will get behind a screen again and apologize!

I’d downsize it. Tremendously. Right now, it’s an industry in and of itself. It has Jack Schit to do with the kids. The kids are simply a means to make money for the industry.

Have a squad that goes door to door slapping parents for raising their kids like that.

Pay kids for legitimately passing advanced classes. If a kid could pay for new wheels for his ride by passing advanced calculus, half the friggin school would be taking and passing advanced calculus. Might work out more cost-effective than all the other money we throw at education.

As posted here, move education in the trades front and center

As in my sig line get rid of the continuing feminization of education. Teach these young men to be men.

Hey Buck, would you know the graduation percentage in the 12th grade. I am impressed of the classes offered in your area.

Abolish the federal department of education.

The average is 90-94%

Sounds good Buck !! California has the highest amount of homeless and the most dropouts and the government officials cannot connect the dots!!!

- Sunset the NEA.
- Make Teachers At-Risk Employees.
- All ethnic/sexual/activist classes are dropped.
- Junk = sex, and the confused transferred to a mental institution.
- "willful defiance" - is automatic expulsion.
- Shooting education/sports are reintroduced.
- Civics - is reinstalled in place of Social Studies.
- Grades on a strict 10-percentage point scale.
- All tests are closed book and fill-in-the-blank/essay.
- Home Work - is done at Home.
- a < 50% Failed class is repeated.
- Three or more failed classes, or any repeat class, and the student is sent to trade school for a year.
- Two failing Semesters and they are kept at trade school.
- All core High School classes are taught in Middle School to 8th Grade.
- High School is not mandatory.

For starters.




GR

Winner winner !! Been going backwards ever since it was established

Get rid of the teachers union.
Get rid of the dept of education.
Allow open enrollment everywhere.
Establish a merit based pay system that rewards teachers on how well their students learn, and pay them well, if the students perform well.
Allow and encourage the removal from schools the kids that are unwilling to learn, are creating an unsafe environment or are an ongoing discipline problem.

Absolutely! Vivek said it would be his first act. Return the $ 80 Billion to the states for education. Lost me there. Stop taking it !

Absolutely

There should be no guaranteed right to go to school. Repeated bad behavior should result in an automatic ejection from public school. Send the problem home or to a juvenile detention center. Problem kids are consuming the teachers and creating excessive distractions in the classroom.

The kids need more interaction with their advisors. They are not making the most of the talents of these youngsters. I have a daughter in college never met once with her advisor while in high school. She did very well anyway, but I wonder what the potential could have been had she been driven a bit more. This is particularly true with average and below average kids. They need driven and challenged to perform to their potential. My son is a sophomore in high school and has yet to meet with his advisor. This whole situation lends itself to mediocrity. What the heck are these advisors doing anyway?????

School choice for starters. Ga just passed a law that will allow students zoned for the bottom 25% of public schools to receive a 6,500 a year to go towards home schooling or private school. It also allows intercounty transfers and also out of country transfers if zoned for these low performing schools. Of course I would like to see 100% across the board school choice, but this is a start. All at once it would be quite a shake up of the system. I assume Kemp will most certainly sign it but don't know if it will go into affect next school year or after.

Should save Ga some tax money, takes about 12k a year to educate a public school student here...and that number rises every year with less and less results. Now Ga is saying here is 6500 instead and use it as you see fit, just make up the rest if need be. The naysayers hate the fact that tax money may go to a private school, especially a parochial private school...typical libbies wanting to keep certain groups down and on the plantation.

What are your thoughts on a viable method of evaluating teacher performance? Everyone knows a good teacher when they see one, and they should be paid accordingly. I haven't thought of a good way to quantify this, however. Evidently, no one else has either.

It's been a democrat-matriarchy for over seventy five years. Figure how to change that and you're home free

Great start, I'd also add get rid of no child left behind and put kids that need assistance in separate classes (how it was when I went to school). Holding back the group for the slowest is not working.

As far as merit pay for teachers, that's a tough one. The teacher working in the nice side of the town with students that have supporting families are gonna have the better outcome. The teachers working in the trenches in the hood whos families don't bother to get their kid to school some days, fed, or halfway decently clothed, etc...how do you fault that teacher for that. It takes a community.

As far as paying students to take advanced classes, they get rewarded come college acceptance time.

I came up on the tail end of shop class. Typical wood work, gun racks, routing your name in a board. Bought a router table several years back and had a piece of wood catch and go slinging across the room...and I was like dang, some gave me one of these to use as 12yo? Good times. I remember a kid bringing his 3030 on the school bus to take to school so he knew exactly how to build his gunrack for it. Certainly couldn't do that now.

The DoE, we can thank Carter for that...and we've all seen what has happened since.

And some like you wouldn't know the truth if it bit them on the ass.

Great idea to put you and ringman in charge of what's taught in schools.

Agree, I don't think you can legally dismantle the unions, pensions, employment contracts. I think the answer is to provide an easier path to school choice, a tax break for parents who do not utilize the public school option. Once there are more free market options for parents, the market will be in competition to up the student performance standards by itself. You will see more emphasis on the 3 Rs, less on Marxist and social agenda. I think industrial arts, practical job training should be totally separated from any school system. In places where it has been most successful...it has been a co effort of industry and educators.

Great post, I was obviously being sarcastic, but a real and comprehensive competency test to all teachers should be an absolute requirement.

Some small first steps: 1) if it wasn't in the curriculum in 1960, dump it (with some exceptions for technology, like PC familiarity, etc.) 2) mandatory school uniforms.

As has been said, eliminate grade inflation and toughen discipline.

Also add mandatory Phys. Ed. and "Outward Bound" type classes to counter our sedentary screen culture.

First, I'd find the good things and highlight them. That is much easier than folks would have you believe. You simply can't attract good teachers, admin and support staff into a career that just gets bashed. And you can't get students believe it's worthwhile either.

Then, I'd work on an educational focus and reduce the focus on staff protections like seniority and tenure. They all need to be accountable and productive all year, every year.

Educational focus needs to be relevant, including trades and vocations. Gifted students should be challenged, instead of being reigned in with the rest. The old "kill and drill" techniques worked, bring them back.

School choice is a tough one. It's important, but the vast majority of alternative/charter/home school simply don't perform well except in people's perspectives. They must also be held accountable educationally.

How we measure performance can also change. Get rid of the woke metrics that give everyone participation medals and reward higher levels of success, considering the potential of the individual students.

I would be uneasy having some of those teen idiots operating dangerous machines. Other's could get hurt.

How do you make them go to trade school when they wont even show up for regular school? Our local system just reported a truancy rate of 30%. So almost 1/3 of our students have missed more than the allowed days of school.

"In the 2022 school year, the state says 30% of my county's school students missed 15 or more days. The state calls anything over 15% unacceptable." I believe they are only allowed 5 unexcused absences a year.

How do you fix that?

It's the culture.

Teach, reading, writing, and arithmetic. Put a clock with 2 hands in each classroom. Highlight shop classes. No cell phones. Stop being babysitters and start educating. Stop the entire participation trophy my kid is the best bullcrap. There will always be people who design brooms and those that push them. Nothing wrong with either

When the student tells the teacher to [bleep] off, get slugged in the mouth. When the parents come to complain they get punched in the mouth

Just my thoughts

^^^This. Have a retired cousin who taught Voc Ed in the Dallas ISD. He said after Carter signed in the DoEd, the Dept started cutting Voc Ed funding until it was almost zero twenty years ago. He said in his experience, after V/E was phased out, the black kids had no where to go but into crime and drugs. The gummint had already hooked the black women by 1979 and they needed a way to keep the black men on the plantation. This was part of the plan

I think there should be better test of kids, 3-4 times over the 12 years (or longer).
before they start high school parents should know by testing what kids are adapt to do.
This is where trade schools and shop classes should put used to make a dual diploma.
If they are more mechanical, industrial, construction inclined, don't waste their time with foreign languages, art or biology.
Let them get their basic classes in the morning and vocational classes in the afternoon.
When they graduate, they will be prepared to go to work.

Slim down the higher ups makin top$$

Hold elementary and middle school teachers accountable. I teach NJROTC at a high school in TX and the number of kids getting to HS without being able to do the big 3 of reading, writing and arithmatic at a HS level is mind boggling.

Elementary and middle schools no longer hold students back they just assign "accomodations" and send them to the next grade. States dont get too involved until the students are in HS and by then many are so behind in the basics that it isnt recoverable. Hard to break that cycle if students have just been passed along for 6 or more years.

And they should shi+can the unions

We sure seem to spend a lot of time and money on special education. I'm not sure that the allocation of resources is properly balanced. More time and attention spent on the middle to high achievers might be more productive.

Remove sports. If you want to play games, that's on you and your parents and can be done at some other time.

You can't get rid of tenure.


You would lose more good teachers than bad teachers.

What about spealing?

Some very astute, successful and dedicated educators have worked toward best ways to broadly assess teacher performance. Trials in properly controlled situations have shown many of the ideas/methods to have been effective. As any smart person would suppose, there is no one-way, single action, easy-peasy method - effectiveness in such evaluation requires a wise combination of means/efforts designed according to the educational challenges/situations involved.

Rather than to cite specific projects/studies/outcomes from erudite publications - and if I can find the time today - I will try to give some simple conceptual explanations and examples.

Hint: some very promising methods often are resisted, or rejected out of hand, in teacher union situations.

Please tell me you are joking, school sports brings a lot to the table for these kids. A lot can be learned about between the lines or on a baseball diamond about being a person, teammate, leader, outside the classroom. You mention parents, parents are certainly part of this bigger issue. You assume these same parents that are leaving it up to the schools to raise their kids are gonna get them to games elsewhere. Shoot, these school coaches are some of the most important people in some of these kids lives.

Man, I'm not sure about that.

You think teachers would walk if they lost their tenure, I think we could fire a bunch of crappy teachers if they were not protected by tenure.

My niece is a vice principle at a local high school, she will openly admit they have bad teachers they simply cannot practically get rid of. So these crappy teachers get moved around leaving a trial of destruction where ever they go. GOOD teachers are more prone to leave over BAD teachers than bad students.

Agree , good post. Some way kids need to be exposed to different trades/careers . Seems like some kids followed the path of their parents. Maybe not all bad, but the kid might be better at something else. Example a Bankers son might be better at running heavy equipment . I was exposed to the building trades through my father. My brother hated construction and after a few years went into the military. He came out of the army and got a factory job. I think finding the slot we fit in ASAP is beneficial . While the price of education is high, incarceration is much higher.

homskools kool, watching Clifford the Big Red Dog and Teletubbies, getting the eggs from the henhouse for you grampa.

Before you get to the teachers, start holding the school board accountable to provide the best school superintendent, who sets the curriculum to ensure the students are well grounded in RW&A by the third grade. Then hold the principal's feet to the fire to make sure the Sup's orders are carried out. This is where it starts. My mother told me in 1978, I read better in the fifth grade than most of her senior students. This isn't anything new.

Reading. Everything else is based on it. With it, you can learn anything and often teach yourself.

Teach and comprehend the US Constitution. Knowing the rule book helps keep you free.

School choice and vouchers. Nobody should be stuck in a school that doesn't meet your needs. Everyone has different interests and learning styles. Finding the right school shouldn't be limited to your zip code.

It's ashame none of these current teenagers can't read a tape measure , just sayin'

How many of you Lazy-Boy quarterbacks ever tried to manage a classroom full of ghetto gangbangers and "special ed" students? I did it for 30-something years, and retired in 2011 after teachig vocational trade subjects in a school with 3K+ students and 10 acres under the roof. The campus was about 80 acres. We had two onsite cops to patrol all that area. Do the job yourself for a while, and then tell us who survived the incompetent administrators and dangerous gangbangers how to do our jobs. Otherwise, STFU. Talk is cheap!

Reading seems to be the key indicator of success.
85% of people on welfare cannot read past a fourth grade level.
The vast majority of drop outs happen after the first year of high school, and of those, a large portion cannot read.

We should not progress a child if they cannot read. We are actually doing them (and us) more harm than good.

Not to kick the OP but threads like this never seem to accomplish one single thing except to point out the obvious.

Model it after the German Education system.

I went to school in the late 1950s and thru the entire 1960s. Graduating high school in 1970.

At least return to the education system, that I went thru in the 1960s. Where we learned about "Civics", true history and not revisionist history to make the politically correct crowd happy, math at an early age, proper English etc.

The school system I went thru in High School, was the 20th highest rated in the entire nation at the time. Fairfax County VA, right outside of DC. My high school was the highest rated high school in the county at the time, out of 17 High Schools.

We were required to graduate with 16 credits, but the door was open to graduate with as high as 24 credits, which I did.
We had advanced mathmatics available, which I took 6 levels of Algebra, and in foreign languages, I took two years of French in my freshman year in advanced classes, and then took 6 years worth of German in 3 years, taking advanced classes. Heck I use to think in German even. Those were available.

95% of my senior class attended college in the fall of 1970.

Education system is a joke, just about anywhere in this nation anymore. Colleges are worse. You pay big bucks for your kids to be indoctrinated into the democRATic Socialist System, "the liberal" leftists want to adopt. Our founders of this country are probably rolling over in their graves, at 10,000 RPMs in what our current society standards have turned their nation into.

Hell half or more of them around here, can't even read a book that most of us would understand, when we were in the 5th and 6th grade. Kids aren't dumb... the liberal left teach them to be stupid....

You surely aren't saying our public education cannot be improved. What are your ideas? I'd also like to hear how you would propose evaluating teacher performance so the good ones could be justly compensated.

Agree 100%.

As far as homeschooling, both parents working would be a challenge for that.

Being special needs such as yourself does not entitle you to "manage".

I've worked in the best of schools and the worst of schools for over 20 years. I've seen it all. Have had full water bottles thrown at me in the sped schools. Had a highschool (what was the term Don Imus used?) verbally go off on me one day. It was explained to me that she was there simple because they had no other choice. She was pregnant, but the baby daddy already knocked up another girl and that girl was at the teen pregnancy center school...and it is not allowed for two girls knocked up by the same guy to go to the same school...she she had to go back into a regular classroom simply so the school could babysit her for the school day and let her torment the halls and classrooms each and every day. I can go on and on. I've seen full on racist administrators to some of the nicest ones you could ever meet. I've been in schools where kindergartners find the teachers coke baggie on the ground by her desk. Been in schools where 4th graders get caught screwing. Crazy stuff.

I honestly think all education should be a private affair. Get rid of virtually all government involvement in education.

The National Felon League and NBA have a new violent thug in the headlines every single day. Not DUIs either, beatings, murders, rapes. Hard to say what effect school sports had on these clowns.
Most kids are in PE classes because it's mandatory...a few kids "make the team"...and all the money and resources are spent on the few that "make the team". Gyms, tracks, fields, equipment, swimming pools, buses etc....all that money spent for the few that "made the team"...IMO it's a grossly unjust allocation of funds that could better be utilized in education for the whole student body rather than the few who are athletically gifted.

Yeah, naw.

Sports should be private...not in schools.

We will have to agree to disagree on that one. Sports can be the only thing positive in a lot of these kids lives. Not every gets the love and support at home that a lot of us were fortunate to have.

Teach personal finance. Learn about saving, budgeting, investing and taxes.

In regards to special ed tudents and gang bangers, in my opinion boils down to can't and won't. I'm willing to spend resources for those who can't. I am not willing to spend a dime to support those who won't. If a teen or their parents chooses not to get an education, so be it.

Cut them off of financial aid too. If any child wants an education I will support that. Should be a stigma for those who quit school to cause trouble. Also, have an option for those who want to come back and learn...on their dime...on their time.

Every time a good teacher...who holds his or her students accountable...flunks the star quarterback.....they would be fired.

Tenure protects good, high standard teachers from the parents.

You wouldn't need tenure if the administration would support its good teachers.

That would mean telling an irate parent to fugg off once in a while.

Are you a high-school coach?

Education should never take a back seat to sports, no matter how crappy some kids home life is.

The Teachers Union controls the narrative. Nothing any of us can do about it.

If you have children, Home School unless you want an indoctrinated imbecile for a child.

Obviously what happened to you.

nope, and I agree, classroom first and foremost, but sports gets and keeps alot of these kids in the desk seats which is the first battle.

The tenure laws were originally passed so young, attractive teachers wouldn't have to be the principal's private harem to keep their jobs. Now they're being abused to protect incompetent fools who would starve to death in the real world of continued employment being based on personal performance.

I suppose you have a different perspective being in Georgia.

We do not deal with as many dropouts as you do probably.

The Reservations around me struggle more in that regard.

For HS teachers I'd like to see a shift in the degree program. Consider a prospective physics teacher. In many places they'll have an M.Ed. degree with a couple of science/physics for teachers courses in their curriculum. Instead of that, require an MS in Physics degree with a couple of education and classroom management courses as the add on.

Mutatis mutandis for math, chemistry, biology and so on.

They don't require classroom management in our state.


If you raise the requirements are you going to raise wages?

we've come full circle. Do away with the DOE, but schooling back in the hands of the states and let the states compete for the top spot. My home state could use roughly 25K construction workers right now. We should be educating for that.

Repeal the 19th Amendment for starters.

My personal mileage varies on that. In our case, we had a awful teacher that was notoriously known for being a drain on our kids and they just moved her around until she retired. I had the school board president, actually my former 5th grade math teacher sitting in my living room begging us to not sue the local school over her actions towards our son. All I demanded was an apology to our son and the old hag fired. She sent the apology the last hour of the last day of school and she was transferred to torment other kids. Protected by tenure; a sword that cuts going in and coming out I guess.

Or find something kids enjoy that is taught at school.

Get government out of education. They have ZERO business indoctrinating our children.

"Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted."
--Vladimir Lenin

Teach them Reading, Writing and Arithmetic. Anything else is sufficient for conviction of capital crimes.

Cameras recording the classrooms avalable to parents and LE all the time.
Civìcs class required to include a week in prison, a week at a VA hospital, and a week in State Legislature. Require legislature to have kids present whenever in session.
Shop and home economics 6,7, and 8th grade.
Mandatory firearms and gardening classes.

Alan c: I would "improve" the current K-12 education system by doing the EXACT OPPOSITE of what the public schools are now doing!
Get rid of wokeness in every aspect of public schools.
That would be a good start.
High schoolers that CAN NOT read is just laziness and ignorance by teachers and administrators - completely unacceptable.
But with the politicos kissing the asses continuously of the teachers unions I do not see ANY change in public education in my lifetime.
Sad.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

If parents can be held responsible for the crimes of their teenage offspring, they can be held responsible for their education. Or lack thereof.

I like this! Mandatory cooking classes also. People most likely would be more healthy and less drain on hospitals.

Weed out the bull s h i t, concentrate on math, sciences and language skills. I can't confirm, but I hear there's people that believe our planet is 6000 years old.

Parents have to retake classes with kids that fail.

One thing would be to have school for education. Sports should be completely out of the system. The most worthless teachers I have ever known are those who are coaches.

Spoke to a girl from South Africa that had to shoot, dress, and skin an antelope to graduate.

You generally won't find a board or other group of people who will just up and fire govt employees.

They fail up or sideways. No one wants to get someone fired.


Like how jury's don't like to convict.

The Dept. of Education was the worst thing to ever happen to our students. Reagan tried to get rid of it as I understand, but the dems wouldn't let him.

Tenure only means they have to tell you WHY you are being fired.

It's very easy to get rid of a teacher. You are untenured the 1st 3 years in any school system. If you move to another system the 3 year probation period starts over. During that 3 year period they can walk in and tell you to clean out your desk at any time for any reason or even no reason. And they don't have to give a reason, in fact they won't give a reason. It might simply be because the chairman of the board's daughter graduated from college, and they need to make a spot for her. I've seen that happen.

After you get tenure, they have to tell you why and be able to show documentation that you're not doing your job in court if the teacher fights it. I've seen a lot of them lose their job. It's easy to get bad teachers out if the administrators document the issues.

Reduction in Force.

If the job you do is no longer needed due to lower enrollment numbers or phasing out what you do even tenured teachers are let go. The year I retried our school was going to lose 1 teaching slot. I was on the fence as to whether I wanted to work one more year or not. Had I stayed they would have let the Art teacher go and done away with the Art Department. That made my decision a little easier.

Some type of shop classes would be HUGE. In fact, that is what I taught the 1st half of my career. They did away with it in the high schools. Kids who wanted to specialize in an area went to regular high schools 1/2 day then the VoTech school 1/2 day. They concentrated in one area and were job ready when they graduated.

That's not what I did. It was basic woodworking, basic metalworking and drafting. It was meant for kids to learn the basics of safely using tools and machines. Some went on to become skilled craftsmen, but most were college prep kids or regular ed kids who learned some skills that helped them later in life. We phased that out 20 years ago and I have former students approach me quite often and tell me how much my class helped them with basic home repair.

If nothing else they learned how to read a ruler down to 1/32". Most kids today have no idea what those lines are for between the big numbers.

Sad thing is teachers are getting pushed to limits and snapping on some of these kids. Good teachers until one day they just can't take it anymore. The culture and the kids coming the schools now just wasnt what it was 20-30 years ago. Had one with 26 years in the system where a punk kid tried to trip him while walking down the aisle, well that kid ended up on the ground. Teacher lost everything he had worked for, retirement. Of course these days, it was all caught on video. Community came out to support him but what he did you just can't do. The kids had planned on trying to push him over the edge.

Anyway, we had an awesome electrical/hvac teacher. Kids were leaving school making good money with the knowledge they obtained. They thought the world of him and would regularly come back to visit him at school over the years. Now that ain't a bad life, retired after 40 years.

We have a couple good vocational schools around here, kids learning auto, from the old school cars to all the new technology and computers. Heck, if you want a brake job or tune up, take it to one of the schools instead of an expensive shop or dealership. Of course its all supervised.

My great uncle retired from teaching carpentry his whole life at a local tech school.

Had to have a septic pump replaced, having watching it done, I know I could do it now but I had no idea, never had a septic system before. Anyway, grunt guy they made climb down in to the holding tank is making 25 bucks hour.

No pass through allowed. No cram courses to pass scholastic achievement grade level minimum numbers and teacher not allowed to teach the test or grade the results of achievement testing, with the teachers terminated if they do not get a passing grade as an educator, every year. You want to test the students, you best be testing the "teachers."
Do you expect 50% of the class be able to read, write and do basic math, in the 8th grade at the end of 8th grade, huh, really? Then why are you,,,,you, are responsible for your schools,, not taking responsibility, demanding results, or failure notices for students and teachers alike. Rate teachers, their fellow teachers rate them, just look where the teacher's own kids get educated, sure is not in the dummy's class room, is it. So if the teacher know, you should know.

Get back to the use of one's mind (do reading, writing, and arithmetic) and hands on tasks. Learn the skills and then how to apply them. Introduce calculators, computers, and programming etc in their junior and senior years.

Although I was a poor student throughout my high school years in Va, it was a tough school with college prep, business, ag, and general studies programs. One could actually fail and be held back for a year if he did not make grade in two or more courses. Although my grades did not show it, a lot of knowledge soaked in, and college was a snap when I eventually got there.

At our 20th reunion, I went over and profusely thanked my typing teacher for her patience and time, as that proved to be an extremely valuable class.

It's been almost 15 years since my son graduated here in Oregon. He had some issues, and I went down and sat through his classes for a couple days. A couple were fine, but others were a joke with teachers simply handing out assignments and then sitting at their desk for 90% of the period. Little to no discipline either, with kids wandering about, chatting in distant corners, and girls sitting in their boyfriends' laps for an entire period. Only about half of his class actually got diplomas with the balance essentially awarded attendance certificates. Things are being watered down even more with state government essentially doing away with competency exams using the now gone virus as justification. Even some of the kids are asking why they should bother, because no one cares.

We do have a few excellent teachers though handling the advanced placement kids with seriously challenging programs. The preponderance of those kids though are likely self-starters and could probably educate themselves with just access to a library.

We have two schools in the county. One in town and another in a smaller community that is a boarding school for the ranching community that might live more than 100 miles out. In recent years, some of the monied folks in town purchased a bus and are doing AM/PM runs of 35 miles a day to get their kids out to the boarding school. The Portland press visited a couple years back and were amazed to hear things like "yes mam/no sir" and see both boys and girls out in the lot on Fridays doing oil changes, fixing flats, and mechanic work before loading up to go home for the weekend.

Simple! Go back to 1950!

dump the us Department of Education, and ban liberals from serving on School Boards. Disband and outlaw teacher unions.

Fired many non-Caucasian women over 50 have you?

Some of you fuggers have no idea, what do you wanna do with the [bleep] bag parents.

Therein is the real problem and the school can't fix that one.

Yep. I get a kick out of listening to politicians rant about kicking azz on the schools to improve. The pink elephant in the room is the pos parents that produce a kid that is unable to conduct themselves in a classroom setting. The teachers are shot out of the saddle due to kids that can’t be taught. Take some time to talk to teachers about their experiences today. It will disgust you. That’s why I stated earlier that problem kids need to be removed from the classrooms.

100% true, everybody wants to hang the teachers and administrators. What about the parents who send there kids to school hungry, dirty. No shower or bath for days because they spent all there money on drugs or alcohol.
Passed out in the morning from an all night bender or 3 dayer so kids aren't in school, think I'm B.S you? Theres alot more of that out there than the vast majority realize.
Is there problems Hell ya there is, is there bad teachers and administrators hell ya there is but untill it starts at home its not gonna get any better.
For every bad teacher or administrator theres 5 [bleep] bag parents.

The root of it all has been the purposeful destruction of the family unit and enabling "parents" to live in such a way as to require constant taxpayer funded aid like welfare and foodstamps, etc. If these idiots had to get up every day and actually work for a living instead of having someone else pay their way through life we'd all be better off.

The way kids behave in school can't really be managed by the teachers anymore. Back in the day you got your butt busted and not allowed to get away with being bad. BUT after hearing what some of these teachers are doing in public schools I'm appalled. The grandson was talking about the foul language being used all the time and I asked if the teachers did anything about it. He told me the teachers cuss just as much. I asked one of the school board members about this and they were all aware but nothing gets done. When I went to school the teachers had good conduct. It seems not the case now.

welding, auto mechanics, and wood shop like we had in high school.

That would be a good start, Roger

My son is in middle school and has an interest in learning the trades. One "shop" class won't even let them use power tools

Amen! Shop class of any kind is where I could really shine in school and even at my age those classes are still helping me in life.

We used to yell obscenities behind the shop teach’s back when he fired up the Powermatic planer. Somebitch was louder than an F-16. LOL

I'm not defending all the teachers but all you hear about is the bad ones hardly ever the good ones.
Havre avg about 2 teacher assaults a year. 2 years ago a teacher was sent to the hospital for being assaulted by a 8th grade male student not a word in the local paper but I guarantee you the other way around national news.
In my 18 years in school I cant remember 1 teacher being assaulted or even hearing about one in other schools in the area.

Kid is an àsshole in class...so he gets sent to principal office.


Principal gets cussed out by little àssholes mother...principal throws teacher under the bus to calm her down.


Teacher can't get any support from admin...so fugg it. Àssholes end up running the classroom.

Good times

There needs to be cameras in the classroom. When the kid screws up a second time, Detention for both kid and parents.

The kids' peers make much better enforcers of the rules that either parents, cops, or school administrators. When a bunch of tools came up missing I padlocked the auto shop bay doors for a week and stopped work on all the students' pet projects. There was a lecture one day, and a test the next- - - -repeatedly. The two guys who were building a high performance engine for their drag race car "found" the missing tools and a couple of other kids showed up with lots of bruises and road rash on their faces. Problem solved!

Open curriculum. Most parents don't realize the poison being propagated by the commie teachers. They hate your children and they despise the "white patriarchy."

You have to take control. Pull them out of public school. If not, hold the commies responsible. Parents first schoold board members.

Yes the unions have to go.
The young commie teachers coming out of progressive education departments of the university have to go.
The administrators who care about funding based on standardized testing have to go.

And I live in the Bible belt. I can't imagine what those of you who live in blue states deal with.

Stop treating school as daycare and social programming. Spend the day teaching math, science, computer science, government, logic/critical thinking skills, world history, American history, reading and writing.

School uniforms.

Different schools for the boys, and girls.

Let the old catholic nuns run it.

Tenure only means they have to tell you WHY you are being fired.

It's very easy to get rid of a teacher.

It's not very easy, actually. The measure of "why" has changed greatly from when we were young. And you don't just have to say why - you have to convince the court that the "why" deserves termination. Years ago, I saw $30K spent on lawyers trying to get rid of a terrible teacher, by many measures, and the District lost it's case because what is acceptable to the Unions is far beyond what's acceptable to the common adult. That would easily be $70K in today's costs. And it's certainly more difficult today.

And it's not just teachers. I had volumes of documentation on a support person who desperately needed to be somewhere else and it took the 3rd superintendent to allow me to move forward. Even the school solicitor was hesitant, not because of the case, but because he was afraid of the implications of firing a school employee in the public's eye. When the Board President saw the evidence during the hearing, the case ended very quickly and she was finally gone, but it took nearly 10 years.

Tenure has its merits, but should not be as powerful as it is. A good teacher today can easily show the data to support staying in the profession.