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THE PHILADELPHIA PLAN
EDUCATION -
GET SMART!
We need to educate
the general public, not just students. Widespread public
ignorance of what should be basic knowledge is staggering. We
can run, but we can't hide from catastrophic results of a bad
public school education. That's why Republicans need to
emphasize saving public education, and not simply promoting home
schooling and "school choice". The problem is that these
semi-private institutions must also be closely supervised,
otherwise we have the same problem as with our failed public
institutions.
We support:
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"Bringing Capitalism
Into the Classroom"! The
brain-child of
William Small,
this is a pilot-project
for student & parent "performance & attendance" payments. Simply
put, students and their parents will get graduated payments
for attendance and how well students pass a series of tests
on knowledge and skills; the better the test result, the
higher the payment. This teaches excellence and competition.
Plus, every school should have a school store where items
made by students can be sold to the public, both in person,
online, and at participating stores, museums, and other
entities. There could be auctions, as well. The payment
would be split between the student, their parent(s), and the
school.
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Publicly
available "free" education via online K-College curriculums,
lessons, & testing via
U.S. Dept of Education website (i.e., although not provide a diploma),
so that the general public and students can both learn more.
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Public
online access and review of all school curriculums,
including: text books, work books, plus any and all class
room materials, in order
to see what's going right and fix what's gone wrong.
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Great
nutrition, physical fitness, and
military
preparedness
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Skills
& jobs training from the primitive (basic) to high tech
skills. Work/study
and apprenticeship programs by local businesses and unions designed to help bring
training and funds
into the student's checking account and help with family
finances.
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Fun
& sun, singing, dancing, & band! School has become a
boring prison for too many children. We need to make it fun
and inspiring.
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No cell
phones during school day.
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Ensure that every teacher has a
good starting salary and an aid to assist them.
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Parent
participation & volunteer mentoring. Let the parents
back into the classrooms, so that they can see for
themselves how well their child and teachers are doing.
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Professionally trained "armed security"
and qualified personnel at all schools.
Let's promote successful and enjoyable public schools! Too many
schools are failing students, their parents, and society at
large. We need to turn that around. One of the main causes is not about money, but instead that we have a curriculum that is
not teaching the kids correctly. For example, the students are
no longer required to memorize all of their times tables! That's
crazy. We need to teach subjects using methods that are
time-tested and effective. And the curriculum also needs to be online and
publicly available, so that we all can find out what's going on.
Schools should
also be teaching life skills and job training, from
the simple to the complex, from knitting to welding to
artificial intelligence. We need prepare our students to be
ready to enter the job market... as well as the military. Too
many of our students are unfit for service, and that's not fair
to them or our country. They need to eat right, get in shape,
and learn. We also need to make school as enjoyable as possible,
and that means every day, taking the time for some singing and
line dancing! Our school should inspire as well as
instruct.
We are also proposing a pilot project for
student/parent performance payments or incentives. This is the
brainchild of
VoteWilliamSmall.com. Most of us
wouldn't go to work without getting paid. It's time to consider
payment for performance with students and their parents. The
idea is not to increase the school budget, but instead
re-allocate funds. Clearly, a lot of money is being wasted on
failed programs. Let's direct that money toward the students and
their parents instead. It's worth a try. And lastly, teachers
starting salaries in Philadelphia are too low ($50-$60,000. Teaching is a
really tough and extremely important job, so we need the best
and brightest doing it. We need to put pressure on the Mayor,
City Council, and the Philadelphia School District to make
meaningful changes so that all Philadelphia students are doing
their best.
(Covers City
Council Committees: Education,
Children & Youth)
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