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Read or Post Comments I don't have all the answers but here is one suggestion. Like most people, I can see what does NOT work. Stuffing education into the lower spectrum of any kind of funding and continually slashing budgets is a stupid way to run the state and the country.
Well, I recognize that we are not going to make it explode, even though we may crush ourselves out of existence. So how about something practical that can make a difference. S.A.V.E. School Approved Value Education. First, the purpose of school is to create a new generation of productive citizens. So how about transforming education into one giant business model? Each school should be a business entity, able to generate revenue. While there will be disparity in the revenue based upon socio-economic areas, this total revenue can be uniformly distributed.
The schools would have to have some method of obtaining merchandise at wholesale prices and act as resellers. While I can already hear the million nay sayers, do me a favor. Tell me how it can be done rather than how it cannot. Next, school should come at a price - a sliding scale fee all the way to zero for the thirty percent of the population that cannot afford it. At the other end, the multiple Hummer families can afford it. If there was a nominal yearly charge per family (not per child) of say between $500 - $1000 year ($50 - $100 per month = Starbucks money) then the amount that could be generated by the approximately 20,000 families running at 70% would be between $7 million to $14 million per year for the district. Add to that your revenue generation at the site level.
The Police department should have substations at high schools instead of SRO's. Any child needing correction could be incorporated into a training program and develop a stake in that community. Years ago, before the dark days of the edu-empire, an excellent principal, Diane Kopchik, (principal at Wren Elementary, one of the schools I taught at before she retired,) and I started the Adopt-A-School program that partnered with the Salvation Army and recruited donations in order to build shaded picnic benches so that students did not have to sit on the scorching blacktop to eat lunch, bring a school wide Ocean Week program to the school, and to plant trees with benches so students had a place to sit and read (yes read.) Then Mayor of Concord, Mark Peterson raised some money and overall, this little program at a lower performing school generated over $12,000 for this endeavor.
I mention that only to show that it worked because of a mindset within that community and that school, generated by an outstanding principal (and you do not hear me say that phrase often at the MDUSD,) who believed in the community. Schools are the cornerstone of the community for future generations and yet we allow them to be treated as wastelands for bad conduct, corporate greed in the mass pushing of over-inflated textbook programs, and as the whipping posts for behavior parents who find lawyers to sue the school rather than taking responsibility for the actions of their child. And while I advocate for equal access and the rights of the disabled, to subject punitive levies against schools that, for the most part still operate in 1960 made buildings, is ridiculous and akin to taking away the last meal of a death row inmate. With a pitiful annual funding of around $5000 per student, and the War and Peace sized legal mandates public schools must follow or be denied funding, it is amazing that anything gets done at all. In previous entries you have read Board president Eberhart and the superintendant both address the dire financial circumstances and the need to find alternative funding. The problem remains that alternative funding is not the long term solution and is barely a stop-gap measure. There is a limit to what a parcel tax can generate and what it can be used for. And then it is gone.
We need long term solutions.
Our education system is
failing because it has been
corrupted by people using it
as a political tool, and by
companies exploiting it.
While science may have
changed most rapidly, it
remains the last subject
updated. And while the
English language has not
officially changed - same
periods and commas - they
have a new adoption every
five to seven years at a
cost of millions. The system is broken. It is time to fix it. Make our schools the cornerstone of the country. Make it a job training and commerce zone from elementary school on up. Have students graduating with pride and purpose and trained and ready to enter society without pants around their ass and pins through their heads. It is time to overhaul the system. SAVE it!
MisterWriter |
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I
have, in the past, suggested
dynamiting the whole system.
Like a giant parasite that
feeds off a host, all the
pieces that suck the
lifeblood out of education
have been making the rules
and running the process.
Those idealists within, who
believe in making a
difference in a child, have
little control over the
giant cancer we call the
education system.
Here
is how it would work. Every
parent and student buys
clothes, books, shoes (go
look at the absurd prices
ugly kid shoes sell for),
games, food, music, and a
myriad of other things. They
should buy them from the
school. The school should
have a store and sell the
stuff. Someone needs
to total how much money is
spent - even in the poorer
neighborhoods - on iPods,
designer shoes, skateboards
and apparel and factor this
into a retain mark-up for
the school. The stores would
be run by the staff and
students as a class.
Commerce uses virtually all
of the math and language
standards. Why have to
endure boring math when you
can get to experience math
and now have a stake in the
well being of your school?
Next,
all academic areas should
take sponsorships. Fields
should have advertising
banners from relevant
businesses like Staples,
Copeland Sports, anyone with
a tie-in that student
families would patronize
anyway. Tell me that kids do
not come to school already
with notebooks they got on
sale that have STAPLES
printed across it!
Local restaurants, lawyers
(great divorce rate in this
country), department stores,
car dealers etc.
And part of the duties of
our local congress folk and
the Chamber of Commerce
should be to generate these
ideas to the business
community. It works for
fundraising events. Why not
make it a mainstay? The
entertainment industry needs
to start funding schools.
With the millions and
billions spent on actors and
films respectively, there
should be an entertainment
tax that goes to education.
At least that would make
some of those crappy movies
more palatable. 
