Reply #247: Glad you asked. The first step in solving a problem is to understand what is the problem.

[AdHocSolver]

The reason the proposed solutions by nonprofits, Arne Duncan, Barack Obama, and myriad others won't work is that they merely continue the same mistakes in another format.

First consideration is to avoid taking too seriously the gibberish spouted by colleges of education. I earned all the credits necessary for a teaching certificate, and except for two professors, I was not impressed with the supposed expertise about children or teaching espoused by the college of education that I attended.

Next, understand the basis for the organization of education in this country. The current form of school systems goes back to the early twentieth century when America was experiencing rapid expansion of industry together with a large wave of immigration. The goal of education was to rapidly train a large number of immigrants in the skills necessary to fill the factories and offices of the corporations.

Education in the classical sense was not required nor desirable. A school day would consist of six or seven 50-minute class periods each day for five days a week. Each teacher would assign homework consisting of reading a textbook and answering questions or doing math problems. The goal was to push youngsters through the system quickly with enough skills to fill the many jobs waiting for them on the outside.

This was more or less the pattern when my parents went to school, when I went to school, and when my kids went to school. It is a poor way to organize a school for real learning. The model is comparable to grinding meat and stuffing sausages on an assembly line.

Another problem with this approach is the compartmentalization of skills. Instead of chopping up subject matter, schools should aim at integrating subject matter. One way to accomplish this is to have students complete projects similar to what graduate students do in college.

Real learning takes place when a person uses their brain to SOLVE A PROBLEM THAT INTERESTS THEM. The actions involve research, cogitation, imagination, experimentation, and oftentimes manual activity. Alternating three two-hour classes each day allows for more intensive teaching to take place. Having students do some of their classwork in school where they can get assistance from the teachers (or from another student) makes good pedagogical sense.

One important lesson I learned while teaching was that test taking often does not indicate that any learning took place. Once a test is taken, you can bet that whatever "knowledge" gained to pass the test will be quickly forgotten. Privatizing the schools will not change that one bit. Test grades as a way to measure learning is a total fraud. The tests and grades can be manipulated. They prove nothing.

Some books worth reading are "How Children Fail" and "How Children Learn" by John Holt.

A few short excerpts from reviews of Holt's books can explain better where I am coming from.

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John Holt summarizes perfectly the problem with contemporary education: it emphasizes right answers rather than learning, production rather than thinking. Read this book to understand this problem and its results, as seen through his experience as a collaborative teacher and thoughtful observer. The rewards for "right answers" over thinking even persists at higher education levels. "What would happen at Harvard or Yale if a prof gave a surprise test in March on work covered in October? Everyone knows what would happen; that's why they don't do it." (p. 232)
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(snip)
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Holt blames the current system, pointing out that if a system consistently fails, the problem is with it, not its inputs or participants. In the summary section, he forcefully points out the negative effects of the current system - low self-esteem, ignorance about how to learn, and a mind trained not to want to do so.
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The education privatizers want merely to provide students with the same failed policies that they criticize now. The public schools could be reorganized along the lines that I have mentioned here. Curriculums could be redesigned and teachers should be encouraged to have input to what is produced.

I can attest to the fact that colleges of education merely prepare teachers to fit into the existing broken system, and they don't even do a good job of that.

Privatizing the schools will change nothing as far as improving education. In fact, they will merely mire the existing failures in concrete.