Teachers, Unions, Principals, and Parents — A No-Cost Idea to Freshen Relationships and Boost Pay and Performance:
http://wichitaliberty.org/wichita-kansas-schools/knea-the-kansas-teachers-union-open-to-reform/comment-page-1/#comment-241236
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scott4mayor 3:17 pm on 2011-02-16 Permalink |
Good comments on that post:
1 David Losey February 16, 2011 at 2:14 pm
If you had a choice (vouchers) to send your children to the school with the best teachers or to a school with mediocre teachers, where would you send them? Why not let market forces create schools with the best teachers? After all, it really is about the quality of education our children receive. Or is it, KNEA?
2 Scott Thode February 16, 2011 at 3:08 pm
You are right, David. But I think there are ways to use the magic powers of competition by decentralizing the control over personnel and pay to the school itself.
For instance, if we were to distribute per capita funds to individual schools with which they may use their budgets as the in-house administration of that school sees fit.
If unions want to be involved, they may negotiate contracts with individual schools who may decide how best to attract enough of the best teachers. The principal and parents and teachers of their children should organize at the school level, and organize to address the 259 school board and administration.
Let’s relinquish the gross centralization of 259 and give the natural competitiveness between our schools serve to boost performance and excellence all around. Let the PTA award bonuses and the principals recruit the best talent to teach in their schools.
3 Anonymous Mike February 16, 2011 at 6:07 pm
Hi Both my parents are retired teachers (Illinois), so I speak from at least some knowledge. Personally, I believe that we should try having a separate school board / district for each High School and its feeder schools. I believe that in Wichita, this would require some redrawing of Junior High feeders. In this way, the local parents could get more say in their local schools. The county could run the special schools for the delinquents etc. This SEEMS to be a cost increase, but if this is enacted, we could also work to have fewer overhead jobs (i.e. anyone who isn’t in a classroom).
The voucher system is a good idea, but I’m betting that there will be a problem. All of the parents want their kid to go to the best school, but each voucher is only worth one share, so if all of the students want to go to East High, where will all 10,000 of them park? Won’t an increase in class size from 25 to 150 be a detriment to ANY teacher?
Just my $0.02