A simple idea to help with our schools… (A modest proposal)
The fact that teacher evaluations are so problematic is because they are under so little real scrutiny (that is, other than by students…). There are problems with our current education system, such as a need to get families more involved with scholastics (in a broad sense). My idea is to create a system where parents can volunteer to sit in, observe, or even help in classes…as a start, for only an hour a week (i.e. one class in middle or high school…). As a means to develop some overview of what teachers really do, by some of their real ‘customers’ this would address some things which don’t seem to have any other answers.
The more ‘sanctioned’ adults roaming the halls and sitting in classes would have a notable impact upon some of the latest bugaboos in education (notably bullying…), and this would increase the number of parent who actually know what is really going on in the school (in essence, getting a sense of what they are really paying for…).
I know that this has always been opportunities to allow any parent to sit in and observe any class, but the fact of the matter is that this is a pretty rare occurrence (I’ve never actually seen or heard of it…). I am talking about a sort of sanctioned movement, and by sanctioned, I mean that schools districts, teachers unions, and even PTA’s could create local systems for parents to get much more involved in scholastics.
We are on the cusp of having to deal with some big changes to our education system whether you like it or not. There may be drastically increased numbers of students per classroom, many extracurricular programs and resources may dry up. It seems to me that the idea of shared sacrifice may help to create stronger, more involved cadres of parents to support school districts by methods such as these.
Bear in mind that this is only an idea which just came to me, if you have some other idea with which we can start to improve our schools, let me know.
