Mr. Kennedy:
I saw your appearance on Meet the Press.
I have the answer to the question on how to fund a college education for a majority of young Americans.
My oldest son dropped out of High school at the end of his sophomore year. That summer he started at the local Junior college( Joliet Junior College, JJC).
The next year his brother (1 year younger) dropped out of High school in January of his sophomore year.
Several weeks later my daughter dropped out of 8th grade. My wife made sure that they were both ready to take the English entrance exam at JJC. My son passed the Math and English entrance exams and my daughter only the English exam. They both entered JJC that summer. My daughter took College Biology during the summer, a 6 week course, and received a “B” grade.
All of my children graduated from JJC. Because my daughter was so far ahead she decided to take three years instead of the normal two.
My daughter wants to be a professional trumpet player. She took one year off of school and applied and was accepted at The Curtis School of Music. After graduating from there she was accepted and will graduate this year from Yale University with a Masters in Music degree.
My point is that High Schools teach College courses. Math courses above Geometry, Biology , Chemistry and Physics, Accounting, History, Social Science and English are all College courses. If these courses were taught as college courses in HS, college credit would be given for them. Every young American who spent their time in High School would leave with a minimum of an Associate Degree.
What would the cost be? In our area the cost to educate a student in High School for one year starts at about $7,000. The cost to attend JJC with books for two semesters is about $3,000. The overcrowding of high schools could be eliminated by having students attend school all day long, just like college. They could even go all year long, just like college. They could take a course and fail it, without penalty just like college.
The smart students could finish early and attend college for the $7,000 that is paid now for their HS education, if they went to State Colleges.
Drawbacks?? Not every student is ready or has the parental support to accomplish the tasks ahead of them. This can be said now with the current system. In Illinois they would have to eliminate Gym from the curriculum. I also believe that you would receive much resistance from the teachers unions. As a Democrat are you willing to go against a major supporter?
This is my program in a nutshell.
If you wish to further discuss this with me feel free to contact me.
If you wish to have a face to face meeting, tell me when and where and I will be there. This is something that I believe will work and I will use vacation and gas money if needed to try and explain and promote this idea.
Thanks for your time,
XXX X XXXXXX
6 comments:
ooc--
Here's something to think about:
Give Choice a Chance
by David Salisbury and John Merrifield
excerpts:
"The U.S. education system is governed by the political process. Public elections and lobbying work to establish where schools will be built, what will be taught, and which teachers will be hired. As a result, our elementary and secondary education system contains all of the inefficiency and stagnation symptomatic of government bureaucracies. Low quality, high costs, a lack of innovation, and perverse incentive structures plague the U.S. education system.
........
Incremental reforms in America's school system will do nothing -- or worse than nothing -- unless reformers attack the problem at the root, which is the bureaucratic and political control of schools. The solution is to open the schools up to consumer choice and competition with private schools, allowing parents to choose the schools that they think are best for their children."
What you say has some validity. It is from my reading that schools are controlled by corporations. What is taught and how it is taught is because corporations need people who will behave and succumb(fit in) with the corporate mentality.
ooc--
I appreciate your efforts to prod politicians in the direction of school choice.
I was unable to find any evidence of corporations opposing education reform. After a quick search, here's what I did find:
(Michigan) School Employee Unions Oppose
School Choice to Protect Their Turf
"Our state’s school employee unions are warning of dire consequences if Michigan parents are allowed greater freedom to choose which schools their children attend, public or private. While it may not sound like the end of the world to you or me, proclamations of doom coming from the Michigan Education Association (MEA), and the Michigan Federation of Teachers (MFT) sound as if public education is threatened as never before."
The Education Borg: In Florida and Wisconsin, teachers unions crush educational opportunities
"Yet Mr. Doyle, a union-financed Democrat, has vetoed three attempts to loosen the state law that limits enrollment in the program to 15% of Milwaukee's public school enrollment. This cap, put in place in 1995 as part of a compromise with anti-choice lawmakers backed by the unions, wasn't an issue when only a handful of schools were participating. But the program has grown steadily to include 127 schools and more than 14,000 students today. Wisconsin officials expect the voucher program to exceed the 15% threshold next year, which means Mr. Doyle's schoolhouse-door act is about to have real consequences."
Ohio Freedom Forum: School Choice
"The opposition to school choice is fierce. Teachers unions radically oppose the idea of changing the status quo and are mobilized to oppose every aspect of school choice."
TEACHER UNIONS AND SCHOOL REFORM IN PENNSYLVANIA
"Pennsylvania's Governor Tom Ridge made it clear in his 1994 campaign for office that he was committed to full school choice and other reforms. As a result he was bitterly opposed by much of the educational establishment. There is a temptation to say all of the establishment but many of the groups do not formally endorse or oppose candidates because of their legal status. In any event, it was clear that the most powerful group, the Pennsylvania State Education Association, with a budget in excess of $30 million, and more than 100,000 members went all out in an unsuccessful effort to cause his defeat."
School choice is a term that sounds good. If used properly it can give children a better education. Why do teacher unions oppose it? Who sets the curriculum? Not the teacher unions. Who makes useless tests mandatory? Not the teacher unions. Who punishes schools and teachers if the tests are not up to par? Not the teacher unions. And how do the teachers suffer if the correct test scores do not get made? Do they get fired or a reduction in pay? To say all teachers are good teachers is wrong. To judge them on arbitrary tests that do not pertain to what needs to be learned is wrong also. Those pushing school choice in my opinion have an alternative agenda. It could be to dumb down the teachers so that creationsm is taught as fact can be one of those agendas. Or bring the teacher pay down riduculously low so that only the truly committed ortruly needy teach. More control can be exerted over what is taught and students can be more controlled that way. More Borg.
ooc--
Unions have strong financial and political incentives to oppose school choice. One of the links above, "School Employee Unions Oppose School Choice to Protect Their Turf," explains this in more detail.
I'm one of those pushing an "alternative agenda." We should empower families and innovators and allow more choices for people with different specialties, worldviews, and abilities. How people arrive at these ideas is of no importance; whether reform proposals are *justified* demands our attention.
Consider homeschooling. Jewish homeschoolers may do things differently than secular homeschoolers, but I don't understand how the existence of differing motivations validates the NEA's position:
Home Schools Run By Well-Meaning Amateurs
"Schools With Good Teachers Are Best-Suited to Shape Young Minds"
School choice is for rich people. Poor people do not have the money to move their kids to different schools. Rich people have always had more choices than poor.
How is a school measured? Test scores? Homicides? Money spent per student? How does one determine the best school?
Post a Comment