"Children in the highest-poverty schools are assigned to novice teachers almost twice as often as children in low-poverty schools. Similarly, students in high-minority schools are assigned to novice teachers at twice the rate as students in schools without many minority students."
The nonprofit Education Sector found in a 2007 report that nearly 19% of all public education spending in America goes towards things like seniority-based pay increases and outsized benefits -- things that don't do much to improve teaching quality. If these provisions were done away with, the report found, $77 billion in education money would be freed up for initiatives that could actually improve learning, like paying high-performing teachers more money. Teachers unions push for contracts that effectively cripple school districts' ability to monitor teachers for dangerous behavior. In one case, school administrators in Seattle received at least 30 warnings that a fifth grade teacher was a danger to his students. However, thanks to a union contract that forces schools to destroy most personnel records after each school year, he managed to evade punishment for nearly 20 years, until he was finally sent to prison in 2005 for having molested up to 13 girls. As an attorney for one of the victims put it, according to The Seattle Times:
"You could basically have a pedophile in your midst and not know it. How are you going to get rid of somebody if you don't know what they did in the past?"
Success Stories
"There is nothing which can better deserve our patronage than the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness." George Washington
Whenever I read about failure, my immediate reaction is to look for examples of success. Based on the studies I've found, Finland finishes at or near the top of every survey in Math and Science. They must be doing something right. With the pitiful results achieved by the U.S., we should humbly examine what we can learn from the Finnish school system.
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Some facts about the Finnish school system are as follows:
- Pre-school begins at age 6
- Comprehensive school: age 7 to 16
- Upper secondary school or vocational school: 16 to 19
- Pupils in Finland, age 7 to 14, spend fewest hours in school
- Higher education places for 65% young people
- Second-highest public spending on higher education
They don't divide students until they reach 16 years old. Education Minister Tuula Haatainen describes their philosophy:
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