Nebraskans for Tyson Larson

America is the world’s richest country, yet the American K-12 educational system is disintegrating before our eyes.

Federal and state governments continually spend increasing amounts of money on education, yet we have few accomplishments to show for it. America’s national test scores are stagnant, and teacher salaries struggle to keep up with inflation. These are issues that must be resolved in order for America to continue to be a world leader economically, politically and culturally.

Let’s look at two of the primary problems with today’s educational system:

1) Increased state and federal control over local school districts. The state and federal governments are increasing control over local school boards by mandating how and where they spend their money. As the government attempts to regulate educational standards in this way, they adopt a one-size-fits-all model that impacts both the community and the individual. For example, the Omaha school district has different needs than the O’Neill school district, and John has different needs than Jane.

Despite this seemingly obvious statement, our legislatures and the educational lobbies find it necessary to impose rigid educational structures on all districts, forcing them to operate inefficiently.

2) The teachers’ unions. The teachers’ unions are one of the major reasons why America’s educational system has grown stagnant and unproductive. Because of the teachers’ unions, teachers are rewarded strictly for quantity and years of service, rather than quality, effectiveness and the ability to mentor students. I find this type of pay model counterintuitive and detrimental to the future of education in America.

If we want to ensure that we have the best students — and graduates —in the world, it is critical that we invest in and inspire the best educators. Consequently, we must recruit and attract the top talent of the next generations into the profession. As it currently stands, education offers neither the prestige nor money to entice enough of the top talent that is so desperately needed in the field.

My proposed solutions to these problems:

1) We must move school control back to the local districts. Federal and state regulations cause our local districts to operate inefficiently. It is our local school districts and their administrators who understand the specific problems that their school districts face and can propose the best solutions to fix them.

2) School districts need to be encouraged to raise their own funds. The current Nebraska state-aid formula discourages school fundraising because a certain amount of money is allotted to the district by the state. Yet if a district decides to raise money independently, the state will reduce the total amount of money extended to the district. Why would a school spend the extra time and effort to raise money when it will receive the same amount either way? Thus the current state-aid formula dissuades schools from making additional fundraising initiatives to revitalize and improve the quality of their districts and communities.

3) We must move to an incentive-based pay model for our teachers. This will ensure that top talent enters the educational field and that effective teachers will receive the compensation they deserve.

Paying teachers on performance and educational results instead of years of service not only will ensure that we have better teachers in our school systems, but it also will give teachers incentives to work harder and improve their teaching methods. Motivated teachers who are appreciated for their hard work will produce better students.

Opponents of this concept will criticize incentive-based pay because they believe it is too difficult to evaluate a teacher’s performance.

There is a simple four-pillar approach that will work to evaluate teachers: 1) test scores of students, 2) curriculum and teaching methods, 3) student/parent evaluations, and 4) administrative oversight. These pillars do not necessarily have the same weighted factors; for example, administrators can assess whether or not test scores are misleading, or if a teacher’s curriculum is only teaching to the test and is not creative and interactive. Again it is the local administrators who can and will make sound judgments on their school districts, including the overall performance of teachers.

Our educational system must change for America to remain a world leader. Currently the government, teachers’ unions and lobbies are destroying the future of our educational system. It’s time to give our communities direction over the education of their children and for teachers to get paid what they deserve. If we can accomplish this, the future of America, and its students, will be much brighter.

http://journalstar.com/news/opinion/editorial/columnists/article_478f3dfe-d00f-11de-8028-001cc4c03286.html