Bad Teachers Cause Problems Far Beyond Their Own Classrooms

Day 28 of 1000

Steven Brill is a liberal guy who wrote a book about government schools in a America.  Bill Bennett had him on his morning talk show this morning.  Both Bennett and Brill agreed that (very roughly), about one third of the teachers in a school are great, about one third are adequate, and about one third are mediocre with one fourth of the last category that should be replaced because they are pretty much worthless.  Then Brill made the point that every fourth grade teacher in an elementary school knows which third grade teacher is not doing her job.  That is a very astute observation that might be worth some research.  I am trying to think about this kind of thing in terms of how to improve the education system and is not just as another reason to homeschool.  I do not believe any more than five percent of the population will ever homeschool, so we need to figure out how to make our education system work.

He also made the point that a lot of money gets sucked up by duplication of administration.  His point was that when there are many small school districts, money unnecessarily goes to Superintendents, sub-superintendents, transportation system duplication, etc.  While this is true, it completely misses the point.  This Heritage Foundation report shows money is not the problem.  For me, the only take-away from the comments made by Brill is that the system is not just broken, but very broken.  The answer to this problem requires more than just shuffling money and control around within the government school system.  It requires something like the bold experiment currently under way in Indiana.  But that is a discussion for another day.