Funds spent on students in education and textbook teaching?

Question

In some schools, students have more money spent on them than in other schools. Why? How do you propose that we can fix this problem?

And plenty of teachers teach from the textbook, or just having their students memorize things. What are the downfalls of this?

Answer 1

School funding is tied to property taxes.  A rich community = rich schools.  The only to do away with this is to demand the rich to give to the poor. And since the rich always vote and the poor don't = nothing will change.  Not that it should.  Taxes are a *****.  An extra $200 a month on my mortgage payment.  Would I pay an extra 25$ a month so a poor school district has more money: no.  And I teach in the poorest school district in western KS!  

As far as rote and drill teaching, it works for "smart kids" who are expected to do good in school by parents (i.e. well to do communities).  The thing is, many kids have yet to buy into school.  For this section of students, education is just a spectator sport.  They have to be reeled in by relevant lessons and a variety of instructional practices.

Answer 2

I'll address the second question first. There are two types of content areas: concept based and skills based. English and math are skills based. In english you are learning skills to apply to any text and in math you are using skills to do problems with any number set. Science and history are more concept based. higher level science will then be more skill based. Same with history. In higher level history courses, you analyze primary texts and create a thesis as to the reasons things happened.

However, students need a base of knowledge for history and science. This knowledge is often memorized, but it is a key understanding the bigger picture. If a kid doesn't understand chemicals work a certain way, what is the point of figuring out the math of the reactions?

To answer the money question, you can't. We do not have the ability to change this. It would be like saying people should be able to choose how the government spends money on the military. The decision makers are (we hope) the people who know what is best. As a teacher, I don't believe this about my state board. but as a teacher, I am more concerned about how the state board is s******g up the curriculum and making us step back in time.Unfortunately, people who are more politicians than educators make decisions.