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The high cost of low teacher salaries

Yeah, I hear you. I just think diluting the teacher pool and salaries would be worse than increasing class sizes for certain courses.
 
http://obs.rc.fas.harvard.edu/chetty/STAR.pdf

interesting study on the importance of early childhood education. Apparently children with better k-3 teachers are more likely to go to college and earn more money. same thing with class size during those years. No evidence that it makes a difference in older year.
 
That's one of the studies I was talking about.

If it was up to me, I'd invest a ton in preschool, pre-K, and early elementary education and parent education. So many kids are way behind before they even start school.

My son is almost 2 and he is learning material and life skills that I wouldn't even think to teach him. The other day, with his right hand, he grabbed my right hand and said, "How do you do?" It took me a second to realize that he had learned to give a proper firm handshake with the correct hands. And he corrects himself if he grabs my left hand by mistake. That's a necessary life skill many adults don't possess.
 
PhDeac said:
That's one of the studies I was talking about.

If it was up to me, I'd invest a ton in preschool, pre-K, and early elementary education and parent education. So many kids are way behind before they even start school.

My son is almost 2 and he is learning material and life skills that I wouldn't even think to teach him. The other day, with his right hand, he grabbed my right hand and said, "How do you do?" It took me a second to realize that he had learned to give a proper firm handshake with the correct hands. And he corrects himself if he grabs my left hand by mistake. That's a necessary life skill many adults don't possess.
Click to expand...

Good to hear someone's kid is learning valuable skills at an early age.

I agree with bolded. In high school, we get kids who are reading at 4th or 5th grade levels and wonder why they are failing 9th and 10th grade English or history. Its in large part because they don't get that base knowledge in pre-K, then in elementary school they are jsut passed on to the next grade even when they are not prepared.

IMO, the high schools in America are not that terrible and really just need tweeks more than overhaul. Its the primary schools where real change needs to take place. Kids don't just start 9th grade and suddenly realize the importance of their education.
 
PhDeac said:
That's one of the studies I was talking about.

If it was up to me, I'd invest a ton in preschool, pre-K, and early elementary education and parent education. So many kids are way behind before they even start school.

My son is almost 2 and he is learning material and life skills that I wouldn't even think to teach him. The other day, with his right hand, he grabbed my right hand and said, "How do you do?" It took me a second to realize that he had learned to give a proper firm handshake with the correct hands. And he corrects himself if he grabs my left hand by mistake. That's a necessary life skill many adults don't possess.
Click to expand...

MBDeac08 said:
Good to hear someone's kid is learning valuable skills at an early age.

I agree with bolded. In high school, we get kids who are reading at 4th or 5th grade levels and wonder why they are failing 9th and 10th grade English or history. Its in large part because they don't get that base knowledge in pre-K, then in elementary school they are jsut passed on to the next grade even when they are not prepared.

IMO, the high schools in America are not that terrible and really just need tweeks more than overhaul. Its the primary schools where real change needs to take place. Kids don't just start 9th grade and suddenly realize the importance of their education.
Click to expand...

Case in point in a city and region that prides itself on quality of education:

The Columbus school district now has an idea of how many problems preschoolers have that could cause them to struggle to learn when they get to kindergarten...Their most-common lapse was in fine motor skills, such as gripping a pencil.

The district knows that more than one-third of its kindergartners each year are deficient in basic reading skills, such as identifying letters and holding a book correctly. But the degree of behavioral problems - including being aggressive or violent or throwing an excessive number of tantrums - was eye-opening.

The new information makes sense, though, because literacy and social-emotional development are related, said Tobie Sanders, an early childhood education professor at Capital University.
 
early childhood education is extremely important and it seems that people are finally starting to realize that. my biggest issue is people think that is teaching kids academic things younger. holding a pencil the correct way isnt developmentally appropriate skill until age 6 or 7. its more about teaching play skills, language acquisition, fine motor (this entails lots of things not just writing). it's setting the basis for education. the biggest problem i had as a preschool spec. ed teacher is that most kids sit at home and watch 7 to 8 hours of tv a day. there language skills would be so severely delayed because no one every talks about them.
 
IMHO, the most important part of childhood education is the parents. Parents who emphasize education and spend time educating their children will have successful children.

If children do not have a supportive home environment, they won't receive the reinforcement they need, no matter how great the teacher is.

This is a problem only society can fix. I don't have the slightest idea how though.
 
The token Republican comment in there bothered me first because it was shoddy journalism to just use that quote and second, I wouldn't expect a Republican to recommend replacing the program with a better program instead of just scrapping it and replacing the money with tax cuts.

It's pretty clear disadvantaged kids need help to get ready for school. So what should we do?
 
I certainly agree that disadvantaged children need help. (I also recall the advantage I had by knowing how to read before I started in school and I see how that same prep has helped my own kids in elementary school. So, in my mind, pre-school education makes sense).

The Bright Beginnings program seemed like an obvious move in the right direction, but as a political and budgetary reality, it won't be sustained without evidence of results. Just last week, the school board announced teacher layoffs. With these budget realities, and starting from the premise that some kids need extra help, the school system will need to do a better job explaining and measuring programs.

With less money to fund the system, cuts will come somewhere - transportation, class size, teachers, sports and non-core (pre-kindergarten) enrichment programs. So which options are the "least worst"? And how does the answer vary among demographic groups in the student population?

With respect to the CMS Bright Beginnings program, I would support keeping a scaled down version. (This means there will be budget cuts elsewhere to pay for it, unless private funding became available). I would require a parental "compact" similar to the one used by some magnet schools. And I would track the results for measurable gains, even among children that leave the system.
 
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