Sunday, April 19, 2009

Education for the Future

As I continue to outline details of my "revolutionary manifesto," this time I'll focus on education policy. If you're a regular reader  have written some of the basics about this before (see here).

What is there to do, in addition to federalizing education, consolidating bureaucracies, connecting  educational schools to work preparation, putting all university students in education service for at least a year and coordinating education with public assistance programs? Lots.

Let's merge private and public education so that everybody has the same stake in the same system. And let's fund schools by population, not political clout or wealth.

Let's establish one national curriculum designed for a world power, not a county fair. It's incredible that Americans who have supposedly been educated cannot place a substantial number of countries on the map, nor recognize an amendment of the Constitution, nor speak a foreign language with at least passable fluency!

To rid the system of its deadwood, let's establish an exit career track for educators at 5, 10, 15, 20 years of service. Most teachers who can't teach won't leave because there is nowhere to go with a teaching credential.

Similarly, let's liberalize credentialling to allow people who actually know and have experience at something useful to share their expertise with young people, even if they don't speak pedagoguese.

Let's replace unions, which are more suitable for industrial settings, with professional societies that promote excellence in exchange for salary and job security.