I thought this was an interesting exercise in challenging assumptions, I’ll have to pick a copy up.

I do think that education should be publicly funded for the same reasons that road and bridges are: it is a matter of continued revenue to the local business community. Schools should be a local watershed of economic futures.

If your comment was limited to Federal government money, I would agree completely. Why should we send money to Washington so they can simply turn around and give back to us? Let us count the number of people in the local schools whose job it is to fill out federal-$$$ forms.

Unfortunately, educators are the least likely to understand money and how to use it wisely.

The best part about this kind of exercise is you don’t need to have the best answer, you just need to challenge the current assumptions, especially if they aren’t currently working. Assumption “Schools have to be publicly funded” Counter Assumption “Schools should be privately funded”. Definitely a disruptive counter assumption.

Certainly an idea worth talking about. For the life of me I have never understood why a 1st grade teacher needs a Masters degree. Allowing AA teachers would help eliminate teacher shortages as well as reduce costs. However, this will not be adopted because it goes against the “university system” that all schools are trying to etch into the students. Love the spirit of challenging assumptions! Assumption “A teacher needs minimum of a Master’s degree to effectively teach elementary education.” Counter Assumption “It is a waste to have a teacher with a Master’s degree teaching elementary education”!!! Love the challenge!

On a tangent, what about the idea of no gov’t funding for education.

The market could decide which schools succeeded.

That’s not to say all schools would be corporations. Non-profits and small business would participate.

Just something to think about. I don’t know the best answer

Observation: In other professions, BS/BA level performs work, MS/MA level teaches and creates new BS/BA people, and PhD level researches and devises new methods. However, in schools, MS/MA do work (i.e., are required to teach in classrooms), making a BS/BA degree irrelevant and somewhat ridiculed. In fact, it is _not allowed_ for any less than MS/MA to oversee children in a classroom! PhD are expected to be administrators, with little or no time left for research and creativity.

Solution: create a _teaching process_ wherein lower degrees (BS, BA, AA) are allowed to oversee children, at least for monitoring during recital (e.g., tutoring and testing) and study time. Allow MS/MA level people to instruct and teach these lower levels in real-time, with career authority over them.

Expectations: 1 MS/MA over 4 BS/BA/AA (5 people to 4 classrooms) is a better student/teacher ratio, at comparable price to 4 MS/MA people alone. Skilled BS/BA/AA will selectively choose career moves to become MS/MA, as in other professions, instead of being forced to it.