change.org

[Avenger]

http://www.change.org
Hey guys this site is gathering ideas and the top ten will be submitted to obama on his innauguration.I have already submitted an idea about education reform,it's entitled Reform schools please vote for it.If there is anything I left out please add you idea and submit it.

edit fuck got damn,the coding didn't work.Can someone corectly code it please?
oh and here is the link to my suggestion http://www.change.org/ideas/view/reform_schools

[Specter]

HTML tags doesn't work here, use the BB code instead.

http://www.change.org


PS: I disabled BB code in this post just to show how it works^^

[Rebelnerd]

It'll never happen. Obama's a decent enough guy, but he's still the President. A society that relies on state-controlled education as a means of control won't give it up even if you could get the majority to support it. That would be the same no matter who got elected. It's a nice idea for getting the word out, though.

[Sunbourn]

Fuck this shit and fuck Obama.

[Puchiko]

I disagree with the views presented.

Quote:Schools should be run by the local governments.By local governments I mean city or county government,not the state or the federal government.

Oh great. This would basically turn most public schools in the bible belt to publicly funded, yet religious schools, including teaching homophobia and other lovely things.

I support a way more freemarket model.

Quote:Make school mandatory until 16.

Why force kids to stay in until 16?

Quote: Push the arts,and music more.Creativity matters just as much as knowledge.

What if somebody isn't interested in it? If I want to do theoretical physics, why force me to take art classes if I don't want to? This is no better than forcing artist-bound children to learn physics.

Furthermore, it's not like creativity can be taught. Art classes taught "Do it exactly my way or fail" style stun creativity way more than your average maths lesson.

Quote: So by 7th or 8th grade they should be introduced to the idea of picking certain classes.They can only choose these classes,only if they have passed the basic classes first.

If people fail those basic classes, it's more likely to be from lack of interest, than from not being capable of passing them. If the basic courses haven't worked the first time round, what makes you think they'll work if they're repeated?

Why shouldn't they be given choices earlier in life, and why must you restrict the choices so?

Quote:Introduce foreign languages at the 3rd or 4th grade.

Why decide it for the students? If you know how to read at three, you might be interested in learning Chinese by the time you hit first grade. So why shouldn't you be allowed to? But if somebody doesn't want to take a foreign language, forcing them won't help.

Quote:Make it that teachers must have a degree,and experience in the subject they teach.

Mhm. I thought we were against judging a person's capabilities based on a piece of paper.

[psychopath]

Quote:Mhm. I thought we were against judging a person's capabilities based on a piece of paper

Paper is just a medium, I don't see anything wrong with using it to show what someone has done.

[KitsuneSefam]

I agree totally with Puchiko's views here and have nothing more to add.

Got nothing more to say

[Puchiko]

psychopath Wrote:

Quote:Mhm. I thought we were against judging a person's capabilities based on a piece of paper

Paper is just a medium, I don't see anything wrong with using it to show what someone has done.

Yeah. But my point is that many without a college degree in their field are perfectly suited for the job, and might do it way better than those with one. I simply don't think that a degree should be a requirement for being a teacher (as Avenger suggested), though there's nothing wrong with taking it into question during the hiring process.

[KitsuneSefam]

Puchiko Wrote:

psychopath Wrote:

Quote:Mhm. I thought we were against judging a person's capabilities based on a piece of paper

Paper is just a medium, I don't see anything wrong with using it to show what someone has done.

Yeah. But my point is that many without a college degree in their field are perfectly suited for the job, and might do it way better than those with one. I simply don't think that a degree should be a requirement for being a teacher (as Avenger suggested), though there's nothing wrong with taking it into question during the hiring process.

Doesn't teachers have to get a mastery in university too and get through a huge bunch of bureaucracy BS?

[Aya]

Puchiko Wrote:

psychopath Wrote:

Quote:Mhm. I thought we were against judging a person's capabilities based on a piece of paper

Paper is just a medium, I don't see anything wrong with using it to show what someone has done.

Yeah. But my point is that many without a college degree in their field are perfectly suited for the job, and might do it way better than those with one. I simply don't think that a degree should be a requirement for being a teacher (as Avenger suggested), though there's nothing wrong with taking it into question during the hiring process.

I'm not so much opposed to requiring that teachers have degree. It's the degrees that they're currently required to get that irks me. Currently, to be a teacher in US public schools you need a bachelors and masters in 'Education'. All that degree amounts to is a collection of classes on educational theorey and teaching techniques that aren't even proven to work, with a little liberal arts curriculum thrown in. In fact, some of the teaching techniques have been proven counter productive (Google the phrases 'new math' and 'social promotion'). Students who intend to teach high school are required to pick a specific subject, but even then, they're not required to have any experience in the field they're studying past the undergraduate level.

What we need are teachers who not only have degrees, but the degree they have is in the subject they're teaching, and they have some real world experience to go along with it.

[KitsuneSefam]

I see a problem to this. Most schools assign teachers to the subject they didn't study into anyway since they lack of budget to hire specific ones(Yet they have cash to buy AC and giant TVs). There's a geography teacher taking care of religion and a math teacher of IT(And god she's awful) etc...

[The Wadekarl]

Well, I'm for privatizing most public schools. That way the owner of the school gets to decide how they want to run their school and they get to decide what type of qualifications teachers need to have and etc. Also, if the government stays out of it, school won't be mandatory, and the taxes that are stolen from people won't be to support a broken system. The public education system, in my opinion, is a bailout.

Public education is a welfare program and needs to be treated as such. Where I'm from, going to public schools are the norm. The government needs to make it so that only the poorest of the poor can go to public schools IF THEY CHOOSE.

Buy yeah, as Rebelnerd said, it won't happen, at least anytime soon.

[Puchiko]

The Wadekarl Wrote:Public education is a welfare program and needs to be treated as such. Where I'm from, going to public schools are the norm. The government needs to make it so that only the poorest of the poor can go to public schools IF THEY CHOOSE.

Well, geez, that's dumb. Public schools would be even worse in quality and segregation by parents' income would occur. Plus, so many families would be stuck somewhere in between, not poor enough to qualify for public school, not rich enough to afford even a very cheap private one.

I support two options:

• Abolition of state, hence the abolition of taxes. People could use the money that is currently being stolen from them by the government to finance their children's education.
• Voucher system if the state takes money from the people, he should at least provide something in return. This would basically work that every kid would get a voucher. And whichever school he'd go to would receive the money. This is essentially a free market system, yet financed by the government.[/list:u]
  
  I prefer the former option, but anarcho-capitalism doesn't seem to be the most popular political view as of now.

[returnal]

Puchiko Wrote:I disagree with the views presented.

Quote:Schools should be run by the local governments.By local governments I mean city or county government,not the state or the federal government.

Oh great. This would basically turn most public schools in the bible belt to publicly funded, yet religious schools, including teaching homophobia and other lovely things.

I support a way more freemarket model.

Quote:Make school mandatory until 16.

Why force kids to stay in until 16?

Quote: Push the arts,and music more.Creativity matters just as much as knowledge.

What if somebody isn't interested in it? If I want to do theoretical physics, why force me to take art classes if I don't want to? This is no better than forcing artist-bound children to learn physics.

Furthermore, it's not like creativity can be taught. Art classes taught "Do it exactly my way or fail" style stun creativity way more than your average maths lesson.

Quote: So by 7th or 8th grade they should be introduced to the idea of picking certain classes.They can only choose these classes,only if they have passed the basic classes first.

If people fail those basic classes, it's more likely to be from lack of interest, than from not being capable of passing them. If the basic courses haven't worked the first time round, what makes you think they'll work if they're repeated?

Why shouldn't they be given choices earlier in life, and why must you restrict the choices so?

Quote:Introduce foreign languages at the 3rd or 4th grade.

Why decide it for the students? If you know how to read at three, you might be interested in learning Chinese by the time you hit first grade. So why shouldn't you be allowed to? But if somebody doesn't want to take a foreign language, forcing them won't help.

Quote:Make it that teachers must have a degree,and experience in the subject they teach.

Mhm. I thought we were against judging a person's capabilities based on a piece of paper.

This.

[Quioxte]

|55555| Wrote:Fuck this shit and fuck Obama.

[Avenger]

puchiko
on pushing the arts I did no mean as in forcing the classes I was just saying give more emphasis.
I said the teacher should not only have a degree but experience in the subject(as in experience in the real world)
On the language thing I think their native language should be taught first then introduce other languages later
and students in 1st or 2nd grade,their language portion of the brain hasn't developed enough to comprehend all of language.Adults and teenagers will actually learn grammar easier than young children because their language portion of the brain is developed more.When you're little and you are exposed to more than one language you will be able to speak it well.But the written language is a different story.
local governments running schools I understand some would become religious.But Which is better those schools being like that,while other schools(with more intelligent people in the region it's located)will teach their kids better.or the federal governments teaching them to just be a worker bee and just keep working you'll get the job(when actually no matter how much the person sucks up to them they will never get the jobs)The kids in the bible belt are taught to be religious already so it wouldn't make much difference anyways.But it would more than likely stay in the town that are really religious.

why force them till 16 well most of the kids in the u.s. that are 10,11,6, or 8 aren't really that intelligent with exceptions here and there.I am not saying that they can't be intelligent.But until the schools change to where the majority of them will actually be intelligent.Then I say lower the age.Because while most of us here at SS are intelligent enough to be able to start our lives now,I think a lot of our class mates are not as capable.

and choosing the classes well I agree some times it might be because they aren't interested.But you should be able to master the basics before you can move to the advanced.But most of the kids should pass the basics.

and while these are my views anyone can submit so if some one doesn't like mine they can make the own version of it.I doubt mine would get presented to him anyways but I'm just doing it just to see what happens.

[The Wadekarl]

Puchiko Wrote:

The Wadekarl Wrote:Public education is a welfare program and needs to be treated as such. Where I'm from, going to public schools are the norm. The government needs to make it so that only the poorest of the poor can go to public schools IF THEY CHOOSE.

Well, geez, that's dumb. Public schools would be even worse in quality and segregation by parents' income would occur. Plus, so many families would be stuck somewhere in between, not poor enough to qualify for public school, not rich enough to afford even a very cheap private one.

I support two options:

• Abolition of state, hence the abolition of taxes. People could use the money that is currently being stolen from them by the government to finance their children's education.
• Voucher system if the state takes money from the people, he should at least provide something in return. This would basically work that every kid would get a voucher. And whichever school he'd go to would receive the money. This is essentially a free market system, yet financed by the government.[/list:u]
  
  I prefer the former option, but anarcho-capitalism doesn't seem to be the most popular political view as of now.

But wouldn't the "abolition of state" also include the abolition of public schools? If that's the case then why are you calling my idea so dumb? Maybe I didn't read your post right, but if I did, that's basically what I'm suggesting. I mean, I'm not saying that we should abolish ALL of the state. There should still be some sort of welfare systems to support those who can't afford private schools.

Also, I don't think that public schools would be worse in quality. If most public schools were privatized then the taxes could that would've gone to support ALL of the public schools will go to the LITTLE bit of public schools still left, thus they will have more money. More money for books, desks, healthy food, new computers, all that good stuff.

Another thing, isn't segregation by parents' income already happening? Kids with rich parents are usually sent to private schools anyway while those with not so much are sent to public. With my suggestion, we would just lower the standards of who "rich people" really are.

As far as your statement about being in the middle goes, I can partially agree with you on that. The reason that I say partially is because I didn't fully explain what I was talking about. You see, I wouldn't suggest that this change and reform in education happen all of a sudden. It would have to take time. And in that time, a couple of things can happen:

People would be able to see that people would be in the middle and that would hurt the economy. And this could mean a couple of things: our society will lower their standards as to what qualifies as "educated" (for example, today's high school diploma could be the equivalent of a four year college degree) or private schools lower their prices.

Maybe the above paragraph would happen or maybe people would seek other options, such as homeschooling for example, or taking online classes. Private schools and public schools aren't the only options, they're just the more conventional ones. With the changes that I'm suggesting, that could change. Alternative types of schooling would now be more mainstream and more "accepted." More choices are almost always a good thing.

If my suggestions listed in the last two paragraph would fail, which I really doubt they would if they were given a chance, then... what can I say? People, in my opinion, aren't ENTITLED to an education. Having an education is a privilege and it should be treated as such.

But hell, people wouldn't be caught in the middle if careful calculations were made. The eligibility for public education and private school cut-off wouldn't be completely arbitrary. If I were in charge, I'd make it so that people who couldn't afford the cheapest private school would be the ones who were eligible for public education.

When I went to school, there would always be people talking about new shoes, and new clothing trends and they would have the newest cellphones and newest technology and all that stuff. I would be thinking to myself, "well, why the hell are they in public school? If they can afford that stuff, they don't need to be using up the government's money." That is what I meant when I said that public school should be treated as welfare and only the poorest of the poor should qualify for it. If you can afford a private education, you should pay for it. People who aren't handicapped and can work shouldn't be eligible for social security and welfare benefits, so why should they get those benefits? They don't deserve to get help from the government when they can help themselves. That's essentially what I'm saying here.

[Aya]

Puchiko Wrote:Well, geez, that's dumb. Public schools would be even worse in quality and segregation by parents' income would occur.

That already happening right now. All public schools suck. But public schools in the inner cities are worse, because education is funded by property taxes. Most of the people below the poverty level don't own homes so they don't pay the taxes that go to thier childrens education. Thus, the schools are less funded than those in the neighboring suburbs, making people with higher incomes and the ability to move out of the cities choose the better school system.

[Puchiko]

Avenger Wrote:On the language thing I think their native language should be taught first then introduce other languages later
and students in 1st or 2nd grade,their language portion of the brain hasn't developed enough to comprehend all of language.Adults and teenagers will actually learn grammar easier than young children because their language portion of the brain is developed more.When you're little and you are exposed to more than one language you will be able to speak it well.But the written language is a different story.

Yup. But people develop differently, so I believe those who can and want to take a foreign language earlier shouldn't be prevented from doing so. Those who are averse towards them, should not be forced to take them either.

Avenger Wrote:local governments running schools I understand some would become religious.But Which is better those schools being like that,while other schools(with more intelligent people in the region it's located)will teach their kids better.or the federal governments teaching them to just be a worker bee and just keep working you'll get the job(when actually no matter how much the person sucks up to them they will never get the jobs)

You're taking a "one or other" approach. I don't think it's that clear cut. The city government would probably still push the same brainwashing as before, only now it would come with an added spin of how the world and everything on it was created by God.

Avenger Wrote:The kids in the bible belt are taught to be religious already so it wouldn't make much difference anyways.But it would more than likely stay in the town that are really religious.

That's an excellent point. However, I think that another point of view is also applicable. Perhaps, precisely because they are exposed to a religious upbringing, they should also be introduced to the secular approach, so they at least know about it.

Avenger Wrote:why force them till 16 well most of the kids in the u.s. that are 10,11,6, or 8 aren't really that intelligent with exceptions here and there.I am not saying that they can't be intelligent.But until the schools change to where the majority of them will actually be intelligent.Then I say lower the age.Because while most of us here at SS are intelligent enough to be able to start our lives now,I think a lot of our class mates are not as capable.

Let's start with not confusing intelligence (which is potential) with actual wisdom and skills.

Question is, to what extent will the kids be helped by being forced to stay in school. Even if they aren't capable of fending for themselves now, will school make them able to do so? There is evidence against it, though it is of course based on the current system, and hence not fully applicable in this situation.

Avenger Wrote:and choosing the classes well I agree some times it might be because they aren't interested.But you should be able to master the basics before you can move to the advanced.But most of the kids should pass the basics.

Basics before advanced makes sense. But why should someone be forced to pass basics in Maths to advance in English? It's not about ability, it's about who wants to do what.

The Wadekarl Wrote:But wouldn't the "abolition of state" also include the abolition of public schools? If that's the case then why are you calling my idea so dumb? Maybe I didn't read your post right, but if I did, that's basically what I'm suggesting. I mean, I'm not saying that we should abolish ALL of the state. There should still be some sort of welfare systems to support those who can't afford private schools.

To start with, I want to apologise for calling your idea dumb. It was dumb of me to that, I should have disagreed in a more courteous and constructive way. Sorry about that

Thing is, I'm actually taking an all-or-nothing approach to this. The following two approaches satisfy me:

• Complete abolition of state There shall be no state, hence it won't collect any taxes. Public schools will also cease to exist.
• The state doesn't get abolished, and will therefore do its job, and provide a free education for all (at least to a certain grade, I think this should depend on the situation of each country)[/list:u]
  I don't like the idea that the state doesn't provide you with the service (e.g. education) but still charges the fee (collects the taxes).
  
  

  Avenger Wrote:Also, I don't think that public schools would be worse in quality. If most public schools were privatized then the taxes could that would've gone to support ALL of the public schools will go to the LITTLE bit of public schools still left, thus they will have more money. More money for books, desks, healthy food, new computers, all that good stuff.

  Assuming neither of the scenarios is realised to its full potential, and we're left with an existing state which only provides free education to the poorest, I predict the following: the public schools are going to be horrible. They'll be filled with kids from the lowest classes, and academic achievement is strongly linked to socio-economic status. Lower classes tend not to value education, and the children are obviously disadvantaged (family environment does matter). The school would be filled with nobody but the most hopeless cases. This doesn't exactly provide a great learning environment, plus teachers tend to opt out for better schools, meaning public schools would be staffed by those rejected by everyone else (I'm not saying there wouldn't be the occasional self-less teacher who'd voluntarily teach in a public school to help the kids, but they would be few and far in between.)
  
  

  Avenger Wrote:Another thing, isn't segregation by parents' income already happening? Kids with rich parents are usually sent to private schools anyway while those with not so much are sent to public. With my suggestion, we would just lower the standards of who "rich people" really are.

  Doesn't Bobman attend a public school? Over here, many rich kids attend the selective public schools.
  
  Here's an excerpt from CAPE
  Where do the children of the wealthy go to school? In December 2006, the U.S. Census Bureau released data on the social and economic characteristics of students enrolled in the nation’s schools in October 2005. It turns out that of the eight million youngsters in grades K-12 who come from families with annual incomes of $100,000 or more, 80 percent (6.4 million) attend public schools and 20 percent (1.6 million) attend private schools.
  Seems like quite a lot of the rich children do attend public school.
  
  Plus, the lowering of the standard is a part of the problem. I don't know the figure, but let's assume that currently the poorest 70% attend public school. If we were to only make the poorest 10% eligible, that obviously spans a lot less income levels.
  
  

  Avenger Wrote:If my suggestions listed in the last two paragraph would fail, which I really doubt they would if they were given a chance, then... what can I say? People, in my opinion, aren't ENTITLED to an education. Having an education is a privilege and it should be treated as such.

  Actually, the US is bound by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that education is a right. But ignoring the legal point of view and concentrating solely on my personal opinion, it's as I said above: either the state doesn't exist, or it does and then it must provide free education.
  
  

  Avenger Wrote:When I went to school, there would always be people talking about new shoes, and new clothing trends and they would have the newest cellphones and newest technology and all that stuff. I would be thinking to myself, "well, why the hell are they in public school? If they can afford that stuff, they don't need to be using up the government's money." That is what I meant when I said that public school should be treated as welfare and only the poorest of the poor should qualify for it. If you can afford a private education, you should pay for it. People who aren't handicapped and can work shouldn't be eligible for social security and welfare benefits, so why should they get those benefits? They don't deserve to get help from the government when they can help themselves. That's essentially what I'm saying here.

  Not everything the government provides is a welfare benefit. Paved roads are a good example. And I think that they should be entitled to a public school education because they're paying taxes, hence paying for public schools.
  
  The state can't take half of your income, smile, and say not a penny will be spent on you. Either the state doesn't exist and doesn't take your money, or it exists and provides the services (this option is inferior, but still bearable).