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Sunday, September 26, 2010

MSNBC: 'Waiting for Superman' education documentary

 

The end of the neighbourhood school heralded a lot of these problems. In an attempt to get a better education for minorities, students were bussed. Many parents also lost interest in their local schools during this era.

The GOP penchant for tax cuts also dampened voter  enthusiasm for increases in school millage. Class sizes got bigger.

There have been a lot of experiments with Edison schools, charter schools, and fundamental schools, but the results have not been much different than at a public school.

The biggest problem is class size and this is the big advantage that private schools have. Of interest, the Florida GOP has been trying to defeat a class size amendment passed in 2002 that has to be implemented this year.

In 2002, Kendrick Meek launched an initiative to reduce class sizes in Florida's public schools. The amendment set the maximum class sizes of pre-kindergarten through 3rd grade classes to 18, 4th through 8th grade classes to 22, and high school classes to 25.

It would also require schools to reduce class sizes by two students in 2003 and to reach full compliance by the beginning of the 2010 school year.

Supporters of the amendment, including People for the American Way, Florida Education Association, and Florida NAACP, focused on large classes in many urban areas of Florida which had as many as 40 students: Meek said, "[for] the first time parents will have a chance to vote on something they've always wanted and that is smaller class sizes."

Then-Florida governor Jeb Bush and state legislature Republicans opposed the bill because it was unclear how much the amendment would cost: "While this may be a worthy goal, we still have to ask the question, where will the money come from?" said Liz Hirst, press secretary to Governor Bush.

Rightardia's view is the public has spoken. The Florida government  should do what it has been told to do!

The GOP has made teachers more accountable, but the failed attempts to eliminate tenure was a bad idea. Every teacher that is fired will have to be replaced by a new teacher. It takes many years to bring a new teacher up to speed.

The university system needs to do a better job of preparing teachers for teaching. Many universities have lowers standards for teachers than the do for Arts and Sciences students. Education majors are often the dregs of the university system. So it is garbage in, garbage out.

Rightardia suspects if many young people really knew what it takes to be a good teacher, they would chose another profession.

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