If I were King for the day, the first thing I would do is
solve more than 1 or 2 problems. Seriously
I’m shocked my other blogger buddies didn’t think of this first! Didn’t you learn anything when you were a
child and you were given 3 wishes?
Wasn’t the first thing everyone wished for was unlimited wishes”?
The intent of this question was simple: To demonstrate that educators
have some great ideas on how to improve public education. Education reformers do not have a monopoly on
the desire to improve public schools. If
we want to improve education we have to tackle both sides of the education
coin: instruction and attainment. Maximizing one without improving the other is
just a recipe for failure. Here is my
list without any thought to priority:
·
Society has to get better to minimize outside
factors which hinder student learning.
Yes, outside factors hinder student learning. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs tells us student
learning is affected by hunger, fear, acceptance, being loved at home, and a
multitude of other physical and psychological factors. Don’t believe in Maslow’s? Try teaching a group of kids a new math
lesson the last 15 minutes before lunch.
Even the teacher wants to time warp to lunch! Hunger is bad enough when you get 3 square
meals a day, but how about the student on Monday whose last meal was what the
cafeteria served on Friday? Add in kids
who are abused, scared, bullied, or neglected and you have a bunch of students
who care less about the lesson and more about survival. If you want to improve student learning,
Oklahoma must invest in social services to provide for the children whose
parents won’t provide for them!
·
Every classroom should have a highly effective
teacher. Notice I didn’t say highly
qualified teacher. There is a world of
difference between effectiveness and qualified.
Let’s face it, some members of our profession should be doing something
else. Some members of other professions should
be teachers. If I was King, I’d create a
compensation package ensuring the profession of “EDUCATOR” is competitive with
other college degreed professionals. I’m
not saying Teachers should be paid like Doctors, but we should be paid better
than convenience store managers, truck drivers, burrito makers (see Supt.
Hofmeister’s #OKhigh5 plan), and 2014 HS graduates who work in the oil field.
·
Under my rule, Oklahoma would test less and
teach more. Standardized testing isn’t
the answer to measuring instructional practices. In theory, standardized testing should
measure student attainment. However, it cannot
measure the impact on student learning.
The depth of understanding, the magnitude of human impact, the
creativity of the mind, nor the breadth of critical thinking can be measured by
a standardized test. Let’s face it, the
instant you create an assessment is the instant when you limit the scope of
learning.
·
Make teaching a 240 day job. Before everyone goes crazy and claim I’ve
lost my mind, let me explain. I’d
require students to come to school 200 days per year. The other 40 days would be professional
development days in which teachers worked at becoming better: by analyzing
student data and collaborating with their peers.
Can you imagine a world where beginning teacher pay is
$40,000 plus benefits and 25 year veteran teachers make $75,000? Where beginning teachers are given a highly
effective mentor teacher for the year and they work 40 additional days at becoming
better for their students? Can you
imagine what our students could accomplish if they came to school ready to
learn and was always taught by an effective teacher? Can you imagine what students could do if lessons
were relevant to them and lessons could be created independent of some
worthless standardized test? If I were
King for the day, this is what school would look like.
