Saturday, May 12, 2012

Push Has Come to Shove: Getting Our Kids the Education They Deserve

Great book. Written by Dr. Steve Perry who is on the front lines of education. Some snippets below...

  • We the employees of public schools, have the best work calendar of all full time professionals. Most of us work no more than 187 days a year vs. a typical 250 days for the rest of the economy. Our workday is 6 1/2 hrs. vs. 8 hours or 32 1/2 hrs a week.
  • According to the US. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2010 data, the mean teacher's salary nationally is $55,900 compared to the national mean of $44,410 for full time employees.
  • Teachers' unions have made it virtually impossible to extend the school year.
  • In my first year as principal of Capital Prep---for almost the full school year, in fact---I fought to remove a teacher whom I observed openly sleeping in class. Not once but twice...I fought with the Hartford Federation of teachers every damn day for an entire year trying to get this guy off the job. Remember this wasn't a case of hearsay, I personally saw him asleep in a class full of children. They tried to make me assign him a mentor. A freaking mentor? For sleeping?
  • As the world races to explore the new frontier of man made energy, our kids intelligence is being measured by standardized tests requiring regurgitation of a facts and figures from outdated textbooks.
  • As beautiful , thoughtful new political discourse is blogged every minute, our kids are are weighted brown with book bags bulging with George Orwell's Animal Farm (1945) and Charles Dickens's Great Expectations (1861). They're great novels, sure, but not exactly fresh. 

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