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	Name:	MrHodja -
	Subject:	Question for you Hound
	Date:	11/12/2011 9:02:30 AM (updated 11/12/2011 9:05:45 AM)

I think the fundamental problem with education is not in the classroom but in the home. Parents don't instill in their kids the value of academic excellence nor nor an expectation that the kids will achieve that excellence.

And more money is not the solution because it will just pay teachers more with no demand for increased performance. The key to improving the children's learning experience is to introduce competition between schools. There is one of the European countries (Holland or Belgium) that did just that - gave students the choice of schools to attend, and paid the schools based on how many students chose their school. Achievement and excellence in the classroom skyrocketed. John Stossel had a special on Fox News the other night that related similar experiences in the US with charter schools.

In Montgomery we have several really good private schools, and those who can afford it send their kids there so they can get a good education and be in a safe atmosphere where the expectation is that they learn and behave responsibly. Those families have at least some control over the their kids' education in that they can vote with their feet. If a private school doesn't perform it dies. We need something similar for our public schools.

And teachers unions, like many unions, serve a good purpose in advancing the welfare of the teachers. But like many unions they take things way too far. The unions should ensure teachers are not unfairly dismissed, but they basically fight ALL terminations, even when the teacher simply can't or won't teach. I have a daughter-in-law who teaches in the Montgomery public school system. She had to teach three years before she achieved tenure, and in each of those years she and all the non-tenured teachers were issued pink slips, with the school system rehiring only those who they wanted and/or needed. That seems to be a good way to eliminate early those who can't teach, but I don't advocate that to be the case every year of a teacher's teaching career....but there certainly needs to be leeway to get non- or poorly- performing teachers from the classroom. As it is now the unions prevent that.