Clean Slate Education

There seems to be two main problems facing education today, firstly day by day the vast volume of information available that could be usefully learned is increasing exponentially yet our ability to teach it to those who wish to learn has not. Secondly the realization that everyone is different and the most effective teaching method varies from person to person, one size fits no one.
I would start with a suggestion of abandoning the agricultural year and moving to an industrialized one, i.e. schooling 9 to 5 for the full working year.
The vast amount of extra educational time should allow a much broader and deeper range of topics as well as a better grounding in the essentials for everyone. Assessment should be moved from a standardized mass exam to indivdual exam when each student feel ready to pass it, allowing people to progress as fast or slowly as they wish, for most subjects this could be accomplished with simply computerizing the paper and having each paper randomly generated from a database of viable subject questions.
A move needs to be made to fully integrate a knowledge network into the process so that a teacher no longer has to fake some knowledge of the subject to pupils but instead can concentrate on their actual skill which is conveying ideas and guiding people through the learning process.
The system needs to be flexible enough to allow the minorities to flourish as much as the majority, to give students the ability to concentrate almost totally on an all consuming passion or to flit from subject to subject.
Practical knowledge needs to be as valued as the esoteric and if nothing is of interest then the student must have the latitude to forge their own path as much as possible.
Just preliminary some thoughts. Any comment?

I don't think we can have, say grade schoolers going to school like their parents go to work. I think we should do high school kind of like they do it in NYC: There are (insert number here) total high schools, each with its own specialty. You apply, and take tests, to see which one you get into. Each could also have different types of teaching.

I think maybe year-round schooling, but with more days, and school 9-2 for kindergarden, 9-3 for grade school, 9-4 for intermediate, 9-5 high school.

That would be horrible. If that happened the school weeks would definately have to be 4 days. 5 days would be too much.

As for the progressing when you want idea, there would have to be a limit. I know: Free Schooling ends at 18 if you're still in there, after that you have to stump up the cash yourself.

What your seeing is 9 to 5 of the intensive education currently being taught, which would indeed be terrible, but 9 to 5 of something much broader, something designed to teach more than a proscribe curriculum to set targets but create whole individuals would look very different. It certainly wouldn't feel like conventional schooling stretched to seven hours a day.
How full or empty a day would be would be dependent on how a student wanted to learn, and how much. All students are different, some could, no doubt take a full 9 to 5 schedule and learn productively from it, others would not. The point is to be flexible enough to not bore the brightest students nor lose the weaker ones.
There is of course an obvious major benefit of this schedule regardless of what is actually being taught, or not taught during this time. Working parents would be keeping the exact same schedules as their school age children, child care costs would be slashed and it would be cheaper overall as the cost per child would be greatly lower for the state than for the parents.
as for speciality schools, They are great if you know at twelve years old what you want to specialize in, but most will not, beyond that how does a child know that he would excel in engineering (for example) if his general school isn't broad enough to even cover it briefly.
as for 4 days a week, if you read the CS time thread I believe I suggested a five day week with the fifth day the weekend.
As for limits, I would posit that a CS economy has to be a knowledge economy, and a knowledge economy has to have lifelong learning, and effective lifelong learning has be an integral part of the educational system, in a sense I don't think anyone should ever really leave, just have extra long free periods between classes.

Just a thought on payment. education is payed for from a hypothecated income tax levied on earned income above the city average wage. Say (off the top of my head) you pay 0.5% for every year you spent at the school, the schools with the most successful students would earn the most money, expanding their services. The value of the education will be judge by the success it brings thee pupil in life.

but then it would be worth quite a lot. Most of their whole live's income, more or less.

Firstly, 0.5 % is just really don't know what sort of income share it would work out as when you did the numbers. Probably a whole lot less.
Secondly you only pay it on the income you earn over the national average, which is the economic purpose for education, to increase your earnings potential. So if you don't do well in school and you never earn large wages then your education was effectively free.
Thirdly because there is a direct feedback between the earnings success of pupils and the economic well being of the school education will become a market economy.
Fourthly, surely education is worth a lot?

An interesting news article:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080613/ap_on_re_us/paying_for_grades

I thought there were actually some schools giving out cash as part of an attempt to remove the stigma of studying among black males.

Quote :

Not everything that motivate kids costs a lot. A popular incentive with students in the Stanford think tank study was lunch with the principal. At KEY Academy, getting top grades can earn kids the right to wear jeans instead of uniforms.

They do something like that at the school which my dad works at. If the entire form behaves well for two weeks then they get to wear non uniform one Friday.

Well i think i the idea is that by putting cash in the pockets of those kids who could study but don't normally do so because among their peers it isn't cool to do so they can ecourage study by making it cool. Because money is cool, isn't it?

Fairness? You have to give it to everyone.

Firstly I 'd like to reiterate that this is not my idea or my preferrence, just something i'm reporting as being trialed, secondly the aim is not fairness but improving educational attainment for an underachieving ethnic or social group. What is more important, a subject assessment of fairness in the system or overall levels of education across the all sections of society?

But.

If they introduced such a scheme, it could cause people to refuse to learn so they get paid as well.

Paying children to go to school would be a good idea. Maybe 5 Dollars/Credits/whatever currency we use per dY? 20 a week?

Would it be payment on results or just a flat fee? Is an incentivised pay scale fundamentally unfair?

Results.

Speaking of which, how would the grades go? Fixed percentage, the A-G system, or another way?

I'd go with the fixed percentage system personally, as it would clear up the marks a bit. At the moment you could have two people; one nearly got a B but didn't and got a C, the other was nearly a D but just managed to scrape a C, and they'd both be put down as a C.

As a general rule, I think that grades should be given by both percentile, and a general of what percentile was 'expected'

this is because, at least in my school, many grades are 75+. This leaves only 1/4 of the full grade scale, using all of it would give much greater precision.

How about an individually calculated probabilistic assessment score. Based previous test performance, teacher assesment and personal horoscope(kidding) a probable achievement bell cure is generated for each test, your actual performance is then compared to what it should have been, and you are then graded accordingly based on where you fell on the curve producing a much more educationally useful result. Pupils will no longer be compared with each other but with themselves, those who endeavour to constantly improve will recieve good grades, those who coast and underchieve will get bad ones. It will instantly be clearly which pupils need attention, which ones are slipping and without the devisiveness of kids with good grades always getting good grades and kids with bad grades always doing badly.

honestly, it sounds complicated but fair.

Things should only be as simple as they can be, and no simpler.

true, guess.

What do you do when there is no precedent.

And the students who do poorly? there will be no other incentive than to do better than their previous best, no absolute standard that they will be held to.

Wait, someones expected to get 90%, they get 90%, what Grade would that be?

I'd go with the Percentile and scrap fixed grades. It would make it easier to judge how well the student is doing, and jobs/courses would be able toadvertise for say, the person needs above 75% to get in, and then make the judgement on who got the highest?

and for an absolute grade, there could be a fixed point, where, say, the teacher's goal percentage is (A gets 80% of test correct, 70th percentile. teacher wanted about 75% to be average, 55th percentile.)

I would think you'd quote it like network ratings, such as a 70:E ( 70%, expected) or a 65:A,(65%, Above expected) or maybe 95:S ((5%, significantly beyond ) or 55:D (disappointing), 78:U (underachiever), 99:MC (must have cheated).
You get the idea.

There are several problems plaguing US schools (I can't speak for other countries).

I fully support public schools as a great equalizer, and as the beating heart of the community.

1) Funding is based on a per student basis. Administrators divide the cost of their wish list by number of enrolled students to come to a price of educating a student. Anything less than that is then considered shortchanging the students. For one thing administrative, facilities, and pensions cost make up the vast majority of this. Staff and supplies are the only things that actually does the teaching. Pencil pushers and pensions can be done other ways through better national tax and health policies. Better construction and technologies can reduce facilities costs, opening up the building in off hours for community use, such as night college courses for adults, charging for use of the gym, ect can take care of the rest. Most of the supplies are paper, and can be replaced digitally, and everything else should be left up to parents because if kids can learn from them in class they can learn from them outside class. That just leaves the teachers pay, which is good, because with all the other issues solved, there is nothing standing in the way vouchers that allow parents and students to have more control over the curriculum and teaching methods.

2) Discipline. Teachers have to get order in the classroom without meddling administrators and helicopter parents. If you send your kids to school, they are there to follow the direction of the teacher, not whatever you want them to do. Kids need to be smacked across the knuckles once in a while. In fact, if they don't that's more a cause for concern.

3) The gap between concepts taught and the applications is huge. It no wonder kids don't care about what they are being taught, they don't know what to do with it. Bring back shop class. Perhaps most importantly, they are not taught the technologies of life support.

4) There's much to large a line between high school and college. The equivalent of an associates degree should be a mandatory capstone to public education.

1. I like a lot of what you say here. I too think school is an important equalizer, and public schools are for all. If parents want their kid to go to a private school, they can pay for it all themselves. There are a lot of basic expenditures that are going to be in a school no matter how big or small it is. Building maintenance, utilities, adminstrative staff, etc. The per student basis won't work because of this. this is where the community as a whole, whether you use the public schools or not should contribute. Also it's not just that community, but the state as a whole. Just because a student lives in a poor district doesn't mean he shouldn't get the same opportunity as the student in the rich district.
2. A school is a public building. There is no right to privacy. Surveillance cameras in all areas including classrooms, the lockers don't belong to the students, so search warrants shouldn't be necessary. If the student wants property kept private keep it in their backpack. Teachers are the authority in the class. If a student is a problem, he is removed and sent to the principal. If there are any doubts to what happened the cameras have recorded a record of the incident.
3. I don't know the best wat to address this other than to say that there are education systems in many countries that are much more sucessful than ours, and it would be a good idea to examine these different systems and find out how the are more effective than ours and incorporate their positive aspects in ours.
4. There is a disparity in intelligence that cannot be fixed. Some people are just smarter than others. However intelligence is only one aspect of a person's abilities. There are many important skill-based professions that need cultivation. An aptitude test in high school would help determine a career path for the student. Then the student's education could be specialized based on this aptitude.

This a very complex issue as every individual is different, not better or worse, just different, and that definitely needs to be acknowledged. I don't pretend to have the answers as how to optimise each individual's education, but again there are lessons to be learned in examining the education systems of other countries.