Back in the 1970s, Powers Catholic High School in Flint experimented with a new educational concept called Student-Teacher Assessment periods or STAs. The idea was to treat teenagers as adults and let them have one or two “open” periods per class every week where they could meet with the teacher or go to the library on their own to explore educational opportunities.
Right. Of course it had the best of intentions and no doubt there must have been some successes, but without structure and oversight STAs mostly devolved into non-educational goofing off at best and decidedly non-Catholic shenanigans at worst. By the time I was a freshman, STAs were largely scrapped. We did have one STA per week for Religion class (where I learned how to play Spades and drink grape soda, and Paul Harchick taught me some dirty words in Polish), but by the next year they were gone.
I did, however, learn two very valuable lessons: First, don’t be surprised when baby boomers ruin things for the rest of us. Second, even the best ideas need some sort of oversight.
In case you don’t know the backstory on the cartoon, here’s a brief summary: Detroit Public Schools are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. The state can either step in and invest to make things better or let it go bankrupt then have to step in and invest a whole lot more. Governor Snyder and the Senate have agreed to a plan that has some hope of working. The House has come up with a plan that is much more convoluted, including removing any real oversight of charter schools. Part of the reason for that is the massive amounts of money Dick and Betsy DeVos (big time advocates of for-profit charters) have “donated” to many Representatives.
Charter schools can certainly be part of the solution for bringing real, effective educational opportunity to the children of Detroit. But they are not a magic cure-all. State House Republicans need to stop chugging the charter school serum directly from the bottle, accept that charters — especially for-profit charters — need to be accountable for taking public money, and get back to some serious work. (It’s like they still have STAs!)
John Auchter draws cartoons. Lots and lots of them. You can find them at his incredibly popular website auchtoon.com.
One needs to look no further than to Muskegon Heights Piblic Schools and its contract with Mosaica, a for-profit company with a bad track record. When Mosaica didn’t make the profits it expected, it bailed out. Seems the company underestimated the costs of special education and fixing up neglected buildings, among other things. Here’s the link to the Michigan Public Radio story: http://www.j.mp/1H1AyyI
Interesting how NPR states that Michigan schools test among the lowest in the nation. Half of Michigan children live in poverty too. I wonder what legislation our state will come up with now to punish teachers for ” causing” poor student scores? Do they believe non-certified charter school teachers are the answer?
Nail on the head, Patricia. Teacher will indeed get the blame for the abysmal scores. It’s just more leverage for the GOP to stamp out unions.
My problem with our education system is it is too slow, for me anyway. We don’t learn at the same pace. I got it the first time
Utterly Off Topic, but this is where I try to get my ideas into circulation, and this seems like an Andrew Heller-style concept:
Than Egyptian airliner crashed in a place where the sea is two miles deep. So, they have to find the wreckage and then go two miles deep to find the “black boxes,” containing the data on what happened to the airplane. Why in the world do they not make black boxes that float???!!!!
You could wrap some sort of life preserver around the boxes. Then you could find them floating by tracking their beeps. Please do not try to tell me our engineers cannot accomplish this.
AARRGGHH! Don’t even get me started. Our school system is so (Insert some vulgarity or profanity here) up that it may not even be salvageable. We are so failing many of those entrusted to the system by not insuring they leave with at least the basic skills needed to succeed.
We are overworking teachers by making them try to teach “stuff” that most students will never use. We are so focused on all of the “fancy stuff” that there isn’t time to teach them the basic skills and knowledge they really need.
Just today I watched a class room full of students work on algebra problems–in eighth grade! While most of them understood the process only a very few could write legible numbers and letters. I looked closely and counted–42 students total. Not one could hold a writing instrument properly. As I marked tests, I recounted–ONLY FIVE of those students could properly form the numbers and letters. Most lacked even basic handwriting skills. One of the basic skills needed to communicate. How did they get this far without the skills?
(Please do not give me the “keyboard, calculator, voicemail” excuses. )
Yes, most of the teachers I know are frustrated. They care about the students. They want to be able to prepare them for life. They know how to do it. But of course, we have a bunch of folks, sitting in offices a long way from the classroom, who think they know more than the true, dedicated professionals.
Sometime ago, sitting with a group of respected educators, I joked that I was going to run for Governor. After being sworn in, and before my inaugural address, I would turn to the microphone and announce, “Tomorrow I will accept the resignation of every member of the Education Department who is not a certified or former classroom teacher.” I wanted to know if I had any support. Everyone in the room raised a hand in support.
Oldugly, I agree with you on some points but I DRAW the line at what constitutes holding my writing instruments “properly”, I’ve legibly signed my name in the snow in yellow more than once.
I was taught it was okay to leave your name in yellow in a snowbank–as long as it was NOT someone else’s handwriting.