So this is kind of a random post but I wanted to speak on education for a bit. I recently read an article stating that funding for schools should be prioritized by academic achievement rather then by the number of staff.
While this idea sounds good in theory...
I think we need to look at the issue a bit closer.
Here is the article, As posted in the Seattle Times:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2018135510_guest04goding.html
While I think that the article makes some very relevant facts, I feel that there are numerous other concerns that should be addressed.
From a technical standpoint, "Grading" a school based off of it's academic reach is a bit short sighted. Our country is made up of a diverse group ethically and many of our students do not speak english as their first language. I believe in areas that have a higher concentration of diverse ethnicity are going to suffer greatly due to their school not being in a higher percentile due to language barriers that teacher would have to learn to overcome or adapt to. Additional time to overcome these barriers could very well hurt a schools overall grade as well. Teachers put in more work to give these children the best education possible and while that sounds so great... that extra time (according to the statistically driven) would be better spent helping those who need less excel in order to boost their schools rank. (You know, because everything is image.)
We must also think of what this would do to teachers. While this report seems to state that the number of teachers far surpasses what is needed to keep the school systems running while in fact, there is constant news of teacher shortages, not only in the US but around the world as well. Layoffs due to cutting beneficial programs, budget cuts and lower salaries mean fewer teachers overall.
I think that we should be helping the underprivileged and needy before anything else. I believe that if we want to see a substantial change to the way our education system works then we have to help out the underdog and put our eyes towards schools that are below the academic level and give them the resources to bring them up to a comfortable level. (At the very least give these kids a chance to do something important with their lives rather then forget about the minorities.
We need more teachers, we need a better and more secure structure to ensure that our next generation is well suited to excel.
Anyhow, just my rant for the day :)
-Ryan
PS: As always feel free to leave a comment in the section below with your thoughts on education and where it is headed not only locally, but internationally as well.