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Broke schools with bad 'governments'

cacahuate

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In my school district, we have no money and too many kids.every school is over capacity, and at one school they are 500 kids over capacity! They have set up portables all over the fields and every class room has too many kids. Yet the idiots running the district claim that there is no problem. "The children have safe access to exits in the event of an emergency. There is no problem." School board rep. This has been the pattern for as long as i can remember. People in power claim that there is no problem or that they dont have to change anything until one day something goes wrong, or they are proven to be wrong, and suddenly its the most obvious thing in the entire world. It goes something like this:
people: The schools are to crowded! Kids could be hurt! It affects their learning!"
Fact school board members: The kids can get out fine! Their test scores are fine!
*One year later*
News: Little timmy was killed during a surprise fire drill at Whitman elementary. Also Whitman scores lowest test scores ever!
School board: Why didnt anybody think about how dangerous this over crowding was! Or that it affects test scores!
People: ARE YOU F***ING KIDDING US?!?!?!?!
School board: well you guys didnt say anything!
 
You are going to have to build the schools off the backs of the local taxpayers or go without. That is just reality.
 
It's sad but true. People high up in our government claim to love education, but the only people fighting for our neighborhood schools is the neighborhood they are in.
 
I am all for INCREASING class size in most cases to decrease cost and increase the talent pool of the teachers by shrinking the pool by increasing teacher to student ratio. Teachers union would love me! With the technology available such as projectors, microphones, internet, and message boards most courses can be taught just as effectively or even more so with super large classes. I am talking 200 to 1000 per class, even much higher. The teachers union of course will scream, but our secondary education system could be so much better at a fraction of the cost with smart innovation that goes beyond the typical rhetoric of we need more teachers and smaller classes. All we do is increase costs and keep the same dull system in place. We already pay what, over $10,000 per student. We could easily have imo much better system at 1/5 the cost. JMHO
 
I am all for INCREASING class size in most cases to decrease cost and increase the talent pool of the teachers by shrinking the pool by increasing teacher to student ratio. Teachers union would love me! With the technology available such as projectors, microphones, internet, and message boards most courses can be taught just as effectively or even more so with super large classes. I am talking 200 to 1000 per class, even much higher. The teachers union of course will scream, but our secondary education system could be so much better at a fraction of the cost with smart innovation that goes beyond the typical rhetoric of we need more teachers and smaller classes. All we do is increase costs and keep the same dull system in place. We already pay what, over $10,000 per student. We could easily have imo much better system at 1/5 the cost. JMHO

Hi! (UK) Teacher here.

What you are proposing is somewhat ill-informed, on a couple of issues.

Firstly, the price. $10,000 per student per year translates to $56 per pupil per day (180 days of school per year), and has to cover equipment, staffing, building costs, inevitable admin, training, transport etc. To do a bit more calculation, let's pretend that the magical budget fairy has made all of that disappear, and that you're now looking at only paying for the people who have direct supervision over your child (ignoring school nurse, bus driver, councellor, librarian etc). That comes to $11 per hour for 5 hours of lessons, or $9 per hour for six hours of schooling (including lunch etc). Given that babysitting costs about $10 an hour, plus your child gets a (generally) good education out of it, you're getting something of an excellent deal here.

Secondly, the class sizes. 1000+ in a classroom is simply not feasible, for several reasons:
  • Time. Obviously one-on-one time between a teacher and a pupil is vital for pupils to actually progress - otherwise you would be able to sit them at home with the Khan Academy and not bother with this whole 'schooling' buisness in the first place. An hour-long lesson with 30 kids gives each child 2 minutes of one-on-one time with that particular teacher (assuming that the teacher does nothing but talk to individual pupils, which clearly is not how a lesson normally works) - not a lot, but enough to keep them on the right track. Three hours per subject per week means that by the end of a year, each pupil will have amassed 216 minutes of one-on-one time with their teacher (again, I repeat that this is unlikely to ever get this high since it assumes that an entire lesson is simply the teacher flitting from pupil to pupil). Following the same (unrealistically high) rules, a class of 1000 would, in a whole year, have 6 minutes each with a teacher. If lessons remained an hour long, each pupil would get ~4 seconds each per lesson. Clearly that's not possible.
  • Behaviour. In a class of size n, there are 0.5*n*(n-1) relationships, all of which a teacher must manage in order to prevent disruption. A class of thirty has 435 such relationships. A class of 1000 has half a million. That is considerably more than can be handled by one single member of staff - hells, I know of some classes that are ~16 pupils in size and have still gone to chaos despite the class teacher, a classroom assistant, the head of department and a senior member of staff all being present and trying to calm the fires. Couple this massive increase in potential disruption with the increased lack of teacher availibility referenced above, and you're in for a bad hour.
  • Marking and feedback. Some pieces of work can be marked rapidly by automaton, but some (for example, a History essay, or English creative writing piece, or Science report) require marking by hand. If a single piece of homework takes just one minute to mark, I can mark a 30-pupil class set in half an hour. It would take me 17 hours to mark a single set of homework from a 1000-strong class. And some bits of work - especially qualification-related coursework - take much longer. For example, it took me 14 hours to churn through 55 sets of GCSE Science coursework (two classes-worth), taking about 15 minutes per piece. It would take me 250 hours - over a month, working 8 hours a day solidly - to mark 1000 sets of the same.

To summarise - larger classes would have significantly more behaviour issues, would have considerably less one-on-one teacher time and absolutely minimal marking/feedback of their work. You would save money, but results would plummet - and it's hardly as if you're getting a bad deal in the first place.

The exception to this rule is when it applies to well-motivated pupils with educated/capable parents who have the time and energy availiable to take a more active role in their education. But, in my experience, such pupils are few and far between. And even in such situations, expecting a 12-16 to maintain an education demeanour at all times is an unrealistic expectation.

EDIT: Oh yeah, the OP!

It is sad to hear. My advice would be to go over their heads - talk to newspapers, your local representative etc to see if anything can be done - collect evidence of the bad to counter the evidence of the good it sounds like the school board has (so far), and try to make a change. Fundraise for improvements!
 
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Hi! (UK) Teacher here.

What you are proposing is somewhat ill-informed, on a couple of issues.

Firstly, the price. $10,000 per student per year translates to $56 per pupil per day (180 days of school per year), and has to cover equipment, staffing, building costs, inevitable admin, training, transport etc. To do a bit more calculation, let's pretend that the magical budget fairy has made all of that disappear, and that you're now looking at only paying for the people who have direct supervision over your child (ignoring school nurse, bus driver, councellor, librarian etc). That comes to $11 per hour for 5 hours of lessons, or $9 per hour for six hours of schooling (including lunch etc). Given that babysitting costs about $10 an hour, plus your child gets a (generally) good education out of it, you're getting something of an excellent deal here.

It looks like the national U.S. average as of 2010 was $12,744 with the highest in Washington D.C. at $18,667. In your numbers you go by 1 child, but if the classroom is 30 kids, then that teacher spends 8 hrs watching over 30 kids at a cost to taxpayers of $2130 a day. In D.C. that's $3120 a day! If someone wants to pay me $2130-$3120/day to spend 8 hrs with 30 students I am sure I can give these 30 students a way better education and pocket 50-70% of the money. Let's see I could do this out of my house but let's be conservative and say I had to rent a classroom, can find office space for $1200/m including utilities that is $40 from the $3120 a day. Then I hire a great teacher for $200 per day and six young, fun, energetic, talented grad students to come in 1 hr a day to assist in teaching a course they are knowledgeable on, pay them $75/d for the 1 hr class time. That is now total of $690/d. Buy all 30 students ipads, which comes out to about $67 a day. Now up to $757. Let's feed them lunch. Add $100. Up to $857. Let's find a company that has online curriculum downloads for each subject. I think you could get that for $50 a day. Let's add $50 a day miscellaneous. So at $957 a day and I have small class of 30, employ 6 part time and 1 full time teacher with total pay on teachers at a whopping $650/day, and the students get an ipad. I have the freedom to find the best curriculum software on the free market. All of this at about 50% of national average in education cost, and about 70% less than the highest school districts. In overall U.S. spending on elementary/secondary public education, that would save the tax payers about 250 billion dollars a year. My plan, which I will go over later in this post, likely will cut costs even further, likely more in the 20% of national average. So you would be talking about 400 billion a year savings. In a time when we have huge deficits and the western world may be heading towards bankruptcy and economic ruin, if we can save 400 billion a year and drastically increase quality of education, then if it means destroying the mammoth educational bureaucracy that is hurting the kids as well as taxpayers so be it imo.

Secondly, the class sizes. 1000+ in a classroom is simply not feasible, for several reasons:
Time. Obviously one-on-one time between a teacher and a pupil is vital for pupils to actually progress - otherwise you would be able to sit them at home with the Khan Academy and not bother with this whole 'schooling' buisness in the first place. An hour-long lesson with 30 kids gives each child 2 minutes of one-on-one time with that particular teacher (assuming that the teacher does nothing but talk to individual pupils, which clearly is not how a lesson normally works) - not a lot, but enough to keep them on the right track. Three hours per subject per week means that by the end of a year, each pupil will have amassed 216 minutes of one-on-one time with their teacher (again, I repeat that this is unlikely to ever get this high since it assumes that an entire lesson is simply the teacher flitting from pupil to pupil). Following the same (unrealistically high) rules, a class of 1000 would, in a whole year, have 6 minutes each with a teacher. If lessons remained an hour long, each pupil would get ~4 seconds each per lesson. Clearly that's not possible.

You will have to understand my plan fully, which I will present lower down in this response, to see how this will be no problem. I do realize there will be a small percentage of the student population, maybe 10% or so, that will need more one on one attention, which in my plan there will be smaller classes for them. Also there will be some courses that are more hands on and will also need smaller classes. No problem. The vast majority of the courses and student body though, the large classes will work well, once you understand how my plan is designed.


Behaviour. In a class of size n, there are 0.5*n*(n-1) relationships, all of which a teacher must manage in order to prevent disruption. A class of thirty has 435 such relationships. A class of 1000 has half a million. That is considerably more than can be handled by one single member of staff - hells, I know of some classes that are ~16 pupils in size and have still gone to chaos despite the class teacher, a classroom assistant, the head of department and a senior member of staff all being present and trying to calm the fires. Couple this massive increase in potential disruption with the increased lack of teacher availibility referenced above, and you're in for a bad hour.
Marking and feedback. Some pieces of work can be marked rapidly by automaton, but some (for example, a History essay, or English creative writing piece, or Science report) require marking by hand. If a single piece of homework takes just one minute to mark, I can mark a 30-pupil class set in half an hour. It would take me 17 hours to mark a single set of homework from a 1000-strong class. And some bits of work - especially qualification-related coursework - take much longer. For example, it took me 14 hours to churn through 55 sets of GCSE Science coursework (two classes-worth), taking about 15 minutes per piece. It would take me 250 hours - over a month, working 8 hours a day solidly - to mark 1000 sets of the same.

Students that misbehave simply are grouped in that estimated 10% special need cases I mention above and they will be separated from the other 90%. They will have the small class sizes. The really bad ones you simply put in a different school all together tailored for that.

To summarise - larger classes would have significantly more behaviour issues, would have considerably less one-on-one teacher time and absolutely minimal marking/feedback of their work. You would save money, but results would plummet - and it's hardly as if you're getting a bad deal in the first place.

The exception to this rule is when it applies to well-motivated pupils with educated/capable parents who have the time and energy availiable to take a more active role in their education. But, in my experience, such pupils are few and far between. And even in such situations, expecting a 12-16 to maintain an education demeanour at all times is an unrealistic expectation.
 
Parts of my educational plan.

1. Federal government creates a virtual k-12/university/research/job-training website that is like the 7th wonder of the world. Imagine downloading aps of unbelievably amazing virtual courses on pretty much anything you can think of for the price of an i-tune. Educational companies utilizing the best teachers, video game designers, graphic artists, musicians, actors to create a virtual course so well done and so fun and addictive that pretty much anyone can learn the subject and on their own time and speed. For example, you want to learn a language, you go to the virtual university website and download for $1.99 amazing courses from the LDS Missionary Training Center or from Rosetta Stone. 30 million people decide to download it globally in a year, the Missionary Training Center makes 60 million in revenue first year, on a product that cost them 10 mil to make. Thirty million people get super cheap, world class virtual language classes. Apps are the price of an i-tune because of the traffic that the virtual university website will create. Want to do work on a '84 300 zx sitting on bricks in your backyard, go to the virtual university website and download an app from Chilton for the 84 300 zx. It has a virtual garage with a virtual mechanic. You can type in any repair you need done and watch with 3D graphics the mechanic performing the repair showing you exactly what parts you take off in what order, what tools are needed, best position to get to that hard to reach hose or nut, etc. Want to change career and become a diesel mechanic, type in the search engine on the virtual university website "diesel mechanic" and download a $1.99 app so well done with graphics and course design that someone with very little mechanical ability will feel qualified after a few weeks in getting a job in the field. Want to learn Egyptian history in a quick fun way, download for $1.99 an app that is a video game with Lara Croft Tomb Raider that teaches players Egyptian history in an interesting, fun, addictive way.

There is a quote in the movie Good Will Hunting, in the bar scene, "you dropped a hundred and fifty grand on a f.... education you coulda got for a dollah fifty in late chahges at the public library". A lot of truth there. With an AMAZING virtual university as described above, you could have a kid in a a remote African village download on a solar powered wireless ipad better than an ivy league education for under $200 bucks. If the African government subsidized it, it could basically be free. In the U.S. you want to shave a half a trillion on taxpayer education costs a yr as well as quickly get people working by providing basically free, super amazing job training and save hundreds of billions a year in welfare payments as well as increasing GNP by millions of new workers entering the workforce off the welfare lines also increasing government revenue by hundreds of billions more, a double whammy, such a virtual university website with the right policies with penalties/incentives can accomplish this.

Now on k-12 and university plan I am not talking about getting rid of live instruction and everyone just taking online courses. The Virtual University will be a resource teachers and students can utilize.

2. Public High School will be set up in such a way to get rid of the current administration/ curriculum bureaucracy and inject freedom and creativity in the educational system. Get government completely out of education except for funding it through public school vouchers, facility costs and maintenance, security, and setting the following degree majors that students can choose from: 1.Action Rescue 2.Math, Science, Tech, 3.Vocation, 4. Domestic Bliss, 5. Music/Art , 6. Bachelor of Arts, with no involvement of how each degree program will be run. Students will be able to minor and have electives in other degree programs from their major and change majors if they want. Complete freedom to pursue their talents and interests.

So say 100 students decide to enter into the Action Rescue Program. Since I am shooting for around 70 or 80% reduction in costs, let's say the per capita vouchers from the state are $2500/student. So the parents/students in this degree program have $250,000 for the year to hire teachers, hire an educational company with curriculum package and support, and any other miscellaneous stuff. Educational companies will pop up all over competing for best curriculum package for each degree program. So in this scenario after the parents and students carefully study a myriad of different companies find one that combines elite EMS, Fireman, Coast Guard, ParaRescue, Rock Climbing training. They study virtual app downloads on the their lab tops from elite military training schools to visually learn techniques, the company provide three well qualified full time trainers at $40,000/yr each, and works with local fireman, EMS, etc to get hands on training. Graduate a full rescue action hero. Total cost $120,000 for 3 instructors, $100,000 for curriculum package, $30,000 miscellaneous. Say 100 students want to join the Vocation program. The parents/students majoring in this program hire a company utilizing the voucher money. They download apps from the amazing Virtual University at very low cost for a wide range of vocational skills. Maybe they concentrate on brick laying for three months where they first watch the virtual apps so they get a great grasp mentally what to do for the first week, and then the next 3 months they go to work with a brick laying company who agrees to teach them on the job and they can make a little money on the side. Then Maybe next three months framing, then welding, etc. After a couple years of learning a broad array of skills, they concentrate final two years on a particular trade. The Music/Art program- maybe parents/students choose a startup from MTV that is strong in letting the students do hip hop and metal and other modern music as well as create their own videos. Maybe the Tech program narrows down their company to a MIT startup.

While there will be many courses where you would need teachers, there are also many that can be fully virtual off the Virtual University. For example when I attended BYU, I took an accounting 101 course just for the heck of it. I didn't realize it was a 100% virtual course, never heard of that at the time back in 2003. Basically first day went into an auditorium with likely 300 or so students, and the professor told everyone to come and pick up a couple of CD's off his desk and handed us a syllabus. That was the last time we saw him live or attended a class. Popped the CD in the lab top and you saw just his floating head on one side of the screen giving lectures, a virtual chalkboard next to him showing video footage to further explain concepts in the lecture. You could pause it at anytime, rewind and listen over if you missed something, slow down or speed up his speech. He was a very good teacher and was entertaining so watching the lectures was easier. Then the other CD was a text book where you can read what he covered in the lecture, and it was explained in a different way so combining the two learning the material worked well. Also there was an online message board where students could discuss things on the lectures, and a place where you could ask questions to the professor and his student aides. I personally learned better in this setting than a live class because I could study at my own convenience, I could rewind the lectures and listen to them 2 and 3 times, and I think by filming the lectures, the teacher can edit and re-do the lecture until the final product is his best work. So in my High School plan, there will be parts of the day where students will be sitting in a library or courtyard etc with their headphones and labtop, doing strictly virtual courses at their convenience. Say there are 1000 students taking a broad elective subject like U.S. history, that could be a strictly virtual course, no need for a teacher, and they would just utilize the message board on the virtual university provided by the company that puts out the app to discuss with other students and experts on the site.
 
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I apologize for this not being better written. This was fast rambling first draft and I meant to edit to make it an easier read but I didn't get back to keyboard in time to finish editing under 25 minutes deadline. Next time edit before posting. But should get the main ideas.
 
Above I concentrate on the 400 billion of taxpayers money that could be saved on elementary and secondary education in the U.S. as well as injecting a breathtaking amount of freedom and creativity in education itself in revolutionizing the educational system in terms of cost and quality. But what about the trillions in higher education costs? It would be fun to see the universities compete against the virtual university when people come to realize instead of dropping a quarter of a million on a piece of paper they can get, in many cases, a better education for a fraction of that, try like 200 bucks. And what about the innovation that will take place where there is basically universal access to elite education to the global masses and not just the privileged few. But no doubt tons of educational bureaucrats making cozy six figure incomes in the bloated, antiquated educational bureaucracy would protest like crazy against such a plan. Their motto with their union will always be just lower and lower class sizes and higher and higher pay for teachers and everyone across the board while the kids get stuck with the same crappy product.

From a more blue collar guy with a GED who hated school!
 
Above I concentrate on the 400 billion of taxpayers money that could be saved on elementary and secondary education in the U.S. as well as injecting a breathtaking amount of freedom and creativity in education itself in revolutionizing the educational system in terms of cost and quality. But what about the trillions in higher education costs? It would be fun to see the universities compete against the virtual university when people come to realize instead of dropping a quarter of a million on a piece of paper they can get, in many cases, a better education for a fraction of that, try like 200 bucks. And what about the innovation that will take place where there is basically universal access to elite education to the global masses and not just the privileged few. But no doubt tons of educational bureaucrats making cozy six figure incomes in the bloated, antiquated educational bureaucracy would protest like crazy against such a plan. Their motto with their union will always be just lower and lower class sizes and higher and higher pay for teachers and everyone across the board while the kids get stuck with the same crappy product.

From a more blue collar guy with a GED who hated school!

online schools cost a fortune.
 
Parts of my educational plan.

1. Federal government creates a virtual k-12/university/research/job-training website that is like the 7th wonder of the world. Imagine downloading aps of unbelievably amazing virtual courses on pretty much anything you can think of for the price of an i-tune. Educational companies utilizing the best teachers, video game designers, graphic artists, musicians, actors to create a virtual course so well done and so fun and addictive that pretty much anyone can learn the subject and on their own time and speed. For example, you want to learn a language, you go to the virtual university website and download for $1.99 amazing courses from the LDS Missionary Training Center or from Rosetta Stone. 30 million people decide to download it globally in a year, the Missionary Training Center makes 60 million in revenue first year, on a product that cost them 10 mil to make. Thirty million people get super cheap, world class virtual language classes. Apps are the price of an i-tune because of the traffic that the virtual university website will create. Want to do work on a '84 300 zx sitting on bricks in your backyard, go to the virtual university website and download an app from Chilton for the 84 300 zx. It has a virtual garage with a virtual mechanic. You can type in any repair you need done and watch with 3D graphics the mechanic performing the repair showing you exactly what parts you take off in what order, what tools are needed, best position to get to that hard to reach hose or nut, etc. Want to change career and become a diesel mechanic, type in the search engine on the virtual university website "diesel mechanic" and download a $1.99 app so well done with graphics and course design that someone with very little mechanical ability will feel qualified after a few weeks in getting a job in the field. Want to learn Egyptian history in a quick fun way, download for $1.99 an app that is a video game with Lara Croft Tomb Raider that teaches players Egyptian history in an interesting, fun, addictive way.

There is a quote in the movie Good Will Hunting, in the bar scene, "you dropped a hundred and fifty grand on a f.... education you coulda got for a dollah fifty in late chahges at the public library". A lot of truth there. With an AMAZING virtual university as described above, you could have a kid in a a remote African village download on a solar powered wireless ipad better than an ivy league education for under $200 bucks. If the African government subsidized it, it could basically be free. In the U.S. you want to shave a half a trillion on taxpayer education costs a yr as well as quickly get people working by providing basically free, super amazing job training and save hundreds of billions a year in welfare payments as well as increasing GNP by millions of new workers entering the workforce off the welfare lines also increasing government revenue by hundreds of billions more, a double whammy, such a virtual university website with the right policies with penalties/incentives can accomplish this.

Now on k-12 and university plan I am not talking about getting rid of live instruction and everyone just taking online courses. The Virtual University will be a resource teachers and students can utilize.

2. Public High School will be set up in such a way to get rid of the current administration/ curriculum bureaucracy and inject freedom and creativity in the educational system. Get government completely out of education except for funding it through public school vouchers, facility costs and maintenance, security, and setting the following degree majors that students can choose from: 1.Action Rescue 2.Math, Science, Tech, 3.Vocation, 4. Domestic Bliss, 5. Music/Art , 6. Bachelor of Arts, with no involvement of how each degree program will be run. Students will be able to minor and have electives in other degree programs from their major and change majors if they want. Complete freedom to pursue their talents and interests.

So say 100 students decide to enter into the Action Rescue Program. Since I am shooting for around 70 or 80% reduction in costs, let's say the per capita vouchers from the state are $2500/student. So the parents/students in this degree program have $250,000 for the year to hire teachers, hire an educational company with curriculum package and support, and any other miscellaneous stuff. Educational companies will pop up all over competing for best curriculum package for each degree program. So in this scenario after the parents and students carefully study a myriad of different companies find one that combines elite EMS, Fireman, Coast Guard, ParaRescue, Rock Climbing training. They study virtual app downloads on the their lab tops from elite military training schools to visually learn techniques, the company provide three well qualified full time trainers at $40,000/yr each, and works with local fireman, EMS, etc to get hands on training. Graduate a full rescue action hero. Total cost $120,000 for 3 instructors, $100,000 for curriculum package, $30,000 miscellaneous. Say 100 students want to join the Vocation program. The parents/students majoring in this program hire a company utilizing the voucher money. They download apps from the amazing Virtual University at very low cost for a wide range of vocational skills. Maybe they concentrate on brick laying for three months where they first watch the virtual apps so they get a great grasp mentally what to do for the first week, and then the next 3 months they go to work with a brick laying company who agrees to teach them on the job and they can make a little money on the side. Then Maybe next three months framing, then welding, etc. After a couple years of learning a broad array of skills, they concentrate final two years on a particular trade. The Music/Art program- maybe parents/students choose a startup from MTV that is strong in letting the students do hip hop and metal and other modern music as well as create their own videos. Maybe the Tech program narrows down their company to a MIT startup.

While there will be many courses where you would need teachers, there are also many that can be fully virtual off the Virtual University. For example when I attended BYU, I took an accounting 101 course just for the heck of it. I didn't realize it was a 100% virtual course, never heard of that at the time back in 2003. Basically first day went into an auditorium with likely 300 or so students, and the professor told everyone to come and pick up a couple of CD's off his desk and handed us a syllabus. That was the last time we saw him live or attended a class. Popped the CD in the lab top and you saw just his floating head on one side of the screen giving lectures, a virtual chalkboard next to him showing video footage to further explain concepts in the lecture. You could pause it at anytime, rewind and listen over if you missed something, slow down or speed up his speech. He was a very good teacher and was entertaining so watching the lectures was easier. Then the other CD was a text book where you can read what he covered in the lecture, and it was explained in a different way so combining the two learning the material worked well. Also there was an online message board where students could discuss things on the lectures, and a place where you could ask questions to the professor and his student aides. I personally learned better in this setting than a live class because I could study at my own convenience, I could rewind the lectures and listen to them 2 and 3 times, and I think by filming the lectures, the teacher can edit and re-do the lecture until the final product is his best work. So in my High School plan, there will be parts of the day where students will be sitting in a library or courtyard etc with their headphones and labtop, doing strictly virtual courses at their convenience. Say there are 1000 students taking a broad elective subject like U.S. history, that could be a strictly virtual course, no need for a teacher, and they would just utilize the message board on the virtual university provided by the company that puts out the app to discuss with other students and experts on the site.

thats amazingly complicated, and I don't agree 100% with it, but parts of it are borderline brilliant.

I do believe that education will significantly change in the near future, mostly because of computerized learning. My vision of the virtual classroom is very similar to yours, and honestly you are the first one who really "gets it". These online classes that are frequently brought up on this forum only begin to scratch the surface of what computerized learning can be and probably will be.

I think that the role of the teacher will probably transform from a lecturer to more of a mentor, and that most of the information will be introduced to the student in the form of a computer program, a combination of interactive computer learning (like flash cards, games, etc), plus very entertaining high end documentary type material (similar to what may be on the Discovery or Learning or History channel).
 
Virtual classrooms would only work for K-12 if everybody is given free computers/internet, and even then, the teachers unions will stop it.
 
Virtual classrooms would only work for K-12 if everybody is given free computers/internet, and even then, the teachers unions will stop it.

Free ipads or labtops, with the type of money we spend, is nothing. A high percentage of U.S. kids already have them anyway. But even if they didn't, it is nothing. Found this write up of my educational plan in my email draft folder. It is a little better written, not much though:), I hate writing. I'll go ahead and paste it:

Back in around 2003 when I I attended BYU, I took an accounting 101 course. I didn't realize it was a 100% virtual course, never even knew they existed. Basically first day went into an auditorium with like maybe 300 students. The professor told everyone to come and pick up a couple of CD's off his desk and handed us a syllabus. That was the last time we saw him or a classroom. Popped the CD in the lab top and you saw just the teacher's floating head on one side of the screen giving lectures, a virtual chalkboard next to him showing video footage to enhance the concepts in the lecture. You could pause it at anytime, rewind and listen over if you missed something, slow down or speed up his speech. He was a very good teacher and entertaining. The second CD was a text book, and it explained the material in a different way so combining the video lectures and textbook worked well. Also there was an online message board where students could discuss things on the lectures, and where you could ask questions to the professor and his student aides. Personally I learned better in this setting than a live class because I could study at my own convenience, I could rewind the lectures and listen to them 2 and 3 times, and I think by filming the lectures, the teacher can edit until they are his best stuff. The potential economic impact of this virtual course hit me. Instead of thousands of universities having thousands of accounting professors you could just use this virtual course. Save millions and millions of dollars and students likely would get a better accounting 101 course as it was extremely well done.

At about the same time I found the website How stuff Works. Type in pretty much anything in the search engine on the site, say regenerative braking, and it explains in a few pages of text and pics how it works. The idea occurred to me what if there was a website like How Stuff Works but on serious steroids, more like the BYU accounting 101 course I took, even much, much better. If the BYU accounting 101 course, which likely was created by the professor at very little cost was so much better than most live classes, how good could these courses be if an educational company utilizing the best talent in academics, video game industry, graphic design, music, film, etc.

The third inspiration was Apple. What if you could just download these amazing education/job training aps, for the price of an itune. That is when I thought of the concept of the Virtual University. All this back in 2003/4




You want to learn a language, you go to the virtual university website and download for $1.99 an amazing course from the LDS Missionary Training Center or from Rosetta Stone. Want to do work on your '84 Nissan 300 ZX in your garage, go to the virtual university website and download an app from Chilton for the 84 300 zx for $1.99. It has a virtual garage with a virtual mechanic. You can type in any repair and watch with 3D graphics Mario brother performing the repair showing exactly what parts you take off in what order, what tools are needed, best position to get to that hard to reach hose or nut, etc, etc. Want to change career and become a diesel mechanic, type in the search engine on the virtual university website "diesel mechanic" and download a $1.99 course from Peterbuilt. Think how 3D graphics and 360 degree views of every moving part, course so well designed that mechanics quickly master it. Say you have no mechanical ability, download a $1.99 app in the Virtual University Auto Mechanic for Dummies. Want to learn Egyptian history in a quick fun way, download a $1.99 interactive course that is designed like a video game with Lara Croft of Tomb Raider. Bricklaying, framing, welding, plumbing, Microsoft Office, nursing, firefighter, mountain climbing, physics, electrical engineering...you name it, Virtual University has an amazing app on it.


The same way you have all kinds of entrepreneurs creating apps for the Apple site, the same would happen for a federal Virtual University. All entrepreneurs need is the right incentive, the confidence the site will have huge traffic. The government will need to advertise at first, and require the tens of millions on welfare and millions in jail to download apps and improve job skills. If legally possible, you could add further incentive of no taxation on profits from website. Once it gets going though the global traffic will be huge. Maybe the BYU accounting 101 course gets submitted and Virtual University administration thinks it meets the high standards of the university and it is listed in the site. Maybe within five years it is downloaded 30 million times and has 60 million revenue, almost all of it profit.




Second part of my plan to transform k-12. I'll concentrate on the public high school, but many of these concepts would also be implemented in junior high and elementary.

1. Government gets out of running the schools as far as administration, curriculum creating, and teaching. Government's role becomes primarily to fund the schools through vouchers and to take care of facility costs, security, and busing. These vouchers are only for public schools. If you want to take your kids to a private school, you pay your own money or hope they get a scholarship.
2. every high school will be designed with the following degree programs: 1.Action Rescue 2.Math, Science, Tech, 3.Vocation, 4. Domestic Bliss, 5. Music/Art , 6. Bachelor of Arts. Students will be able to minor and have electives in other degree programs and change majors if they want. Complete freedom to pursue their talents and interests.
3. The parents of the students in each degree program each year will use the voucher money to hire teachers and an educational company to provide curriculum, software, and support for the degree program. An advantage will be total flexibility. If they hire a bad teacher they can fire them. A great one they can give him or her a raise. Same with the curriculum design/software educational company. If they are not happy with it, they just change companies. If they are happy they may keep it several years.
4. utilize the virtual university on as many courses as possible. Some classes will be strictly virtual university, where students will sit in the library or school courtyard with simply a labtop or ipad and headphones. Other courses will have a live teacher but utilize the virtual university as an additional resource for the course. Some courses that require live teacher but not much hands on interaction will have very large classes with hundreds of students where the teacher has a projector, is miked, has an internet message board, and has student aides to help with course. Some classes will need to be small student/teacher ratio. A small percent of student body may be more special needs and also need smaller teacher/student ratios or put in other schools that cater more to their needs. Basically there will be a lot of flexibility.

Some examples to get a better picture of this new very American public high school:

Let's say hypothetically 100 students in the high school decide out of the six degree programs to major in the Action Rescue program. Since I am shooting for around 70 or 80% reduction in total k-12 costs, let's say the per capita vouchers from the state/local government is $2000/student instead of the national average of over $12,000. So the parents of these 100 students in this degree program have $200,000 for the year to hire teachers, hire an educational company with curriculum package and support, and any other miscellaneous stuff. The parents with input from their kids carefully study a myriad of different companies that will have popped up for each of the six degree programs. There will be a website where they can go on where dozens of companies will have links to their websites with customer reviews. Let's say they choose to hire one for the year that combines elite EMS, Fireman, Coast Guard, ParaRescue, Rock Climbing training. Part of their curriculum is that the students will study virtual app downloads on the their lab tops from elite training schools to visually and mentally learn techniques, and then get hands on training from three well qualified full time trainers that the company will provide, and it integrates training with local first responders. After four years they graduate a full rescue action hero and many choose to enter military, become firemen, EMS, police, etc. Total cost $120,000 for the 3 instructors, $50,000 for curriculum package with software and support, $30,000 miscellaneous. Let's say another 100 students want to join the Vocation program. The parents of these students go on a website with dozens of educational companies that cater to this degree major. This company utilizes virtual courses from the amazing Virtual University to visually and mentally learn a number of broad trades. For example for the first week they may study bricklaying from the virtual university, then for the next six weeks they all get jobs on a construction site getting real world experience in bricklaying. Then they go back to the classroom and for a week study welding with the virtual university. Then they get a job for six weeks on a job site for welding. For the first two years they could do this for several different trades such as framing, electrician, plumbing, etc then the final two years they narrow it down the a trade they want to concentrate on. They earn money, become good at a broad range of skills, and master at least one. The parents of the students that choose the Math/Science/Technology degree vote on a MIT start up.
 
I think you're considerably underestimating costs, but it's an interesting buisness model. Find someone to fund it and see what happens!
 
You are going to have to build the schools off the backs of the local taxpayers or go without. That is just reality.

I wouldn't say that. You just need to redistribute economic gains downward.
 
I wouldn't say that. You just need to redistribute economic gains downward.

you apparently have not followed Washington politics closely. No way the feds are paying for it, and states are broke, so it is local taxpayers or nothing.
 
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