School choice, performance-based pay are answers
My aunt and my mother were paid $2 per day when they started teaching.
My first teacher, Miss Keppler, must have made about $5 per day. She lived in a 20-foot trailer house parked next to the school.
Miss Keppler said she was put on earth to teach. Thank God; she was right.
Armed with some old, mismatched textbooks, two chalkboards and a big map and globe, she taught grades one through four, all in one room, all at one time.
She taught me to write and read and love it.
For the past 30 years, I've heard my property taxes have to go up because we need to "invest" in "better schools."
We all paid. What did we get?
Last year's National Assessment of Educational Progress left our Education Secretary Arne Duncan "disappointed."
Duncan said, "These results tell us that, as a country, we are failed to provide our children with a high-quality, well-rounded education."
We pay more for education than any sensible country. Twenty-three other countries pay less than we do, but their students score higher than ours.
A few years ago, Michelle Rhee was hired to fix the schools in Washington, D.C. (the ones our president won't send his girls to).
She fired the worst 200 teachers. This made the unions so made they defeated the mayor who hired her, so she had to leave.
Sound familiar?
Unions have had a strangle-hold on a government school monopoly for 30 years, and what have they delivered?
Thirty other countries produce higher math scores at less cost than U.S.A government schools.
More money is not the answer. School choice and performance-based pay are the answer.
Lifting the cap on property taxes is not the answer. Motivating teachers is the answer.
Doesn't every kid deserve a great teacher?
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3 Comments for "School choice, performance-based pay are answers "
JustBecause May 30, 2012 8:39 PM
Amy Carter started in a public school in Wash DC, but quickly transferred to a private school - and ended up graduating from a private school in Atlanta.
Otherwise, virtually all of the presidents have sent their children to private schools or brought tutors/teachers into the White House. Jacqueline Kennedy set up a classroom in the White House for Caroline, and kids were "bused in" to form a class around her.
lastpercentile May 30, 2012 9:44 PM
Evenpinheads havapoint Jun 04, 2012 9:12 PM