teach1st
08-09-2005, 05:15 AM
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/columnists/orl-locmiket09080905aug09,0,4057668.column?coll=orl-news-col
(Opinion)
It is the first day of school, and our version of the March of the Penguins is under way. We have herded our chicks onto the sidewalk and are marching them to the learning grounds.
Most of us have moved here because the school is a very good one.
It is a self-perpetuating education machine. Parents who care produce good students. Good students mean a good school. A good school attracts parents who care. This foundation has been decades in the making.
Much of the education gap is a gap between parents who care and parents who do not.
Parents who do not care infect their children, and then they do not care. If parents and kids don't care, then the educators and bureaucrats don't care.
This cycle played out undisturbed until Jeb Bush came along. He basically stepped in to fill the same role at failing schools that parents play at my school. He applies pressure and oversight. He demands attention.
But Bush has limited ability to do this. He doesn't appoint local school boards. Education bureaucracies have been entrenched for decades. Teachers' unions do a very good job of protecting incompetent teachers and blocking the good ones from getting merit pay.
Bush's one trump card is school choice. By assigning grades to schools and allowing students from failing schools to transfer out, he created huge political headaches for elected school boards. He forced them to pour resources into long-ignored schools.
Read more (http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/columnists/orl-locmiket09080905aug09,0,4057668.column?coll=orl-news-col)
(Opinion)
It is the first day of school, and our version of the March of the Penguins is under way. We have herded our chicks onto the sidewalk and are marching them to the learning grounds.
Most of us have moved here because the school is a very good one.
It is a self-perpetuating education machine. Parents who care produce good students. Good students mean a good school. A good school attracts parents who care. This foundation has been decades in the making.
Much of the education gap is a gap between parents who care and parents who do not.
Parents who do not care infect their children, and then they do not care. If parents and kids don't care, then the educators and bureaucrats don't care.
This cycle played out undisturbed until Jeb Bush came along. He basically stepped in to fill the same role at failing schools that parents play at my school. He applies pressure and oversight. He demands attention.
But Bush has limited ability to do this. He doesn't appoint local school boards. Education bureaucracies have been entrenched for decades. Teachers' unions do a very good job of protecting incompetent teachers and blocking the good ones from getting merit pay.
Bush's one trump card is school choice. By assigning grades to schools and allowing students from failing schools to transfer out, he created huge political headaches for elected school boards. He forced them to pour resources into long-ignored schools.
Read more (http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/columnists/orl-locmiket09080905aug09,0,4057668.column?coll=orl-news-col)