What improvements can a school make to better prepare students for the real world?

Question

Try to be specific. Thanks a lot.

Answer 1

The elimination of career teachers and the teachers union in general is a good start.  At times, public education becomes an introverted circle of career teachers teaching students who become teachers themselves with only experience in the school system their entire career.  

I'm a very strong supporter having schools host guest teachers of achieved professionals teaching a course for a month to a half school year showing what they consider relevant in the curriculum that is present.  This goes a long way beyond the guest speaker where someone comes in just for a day to talk in an auditorium.  Also, these guest teachers should get tax credits for their time as a guest teacher in these school.

Ironically, various teachers unions have continually been opposed to this open faculty policy for the past almost seventy years now.

Answer 2

extend school hours so we can learn more and get better teahcers with at least some kind of a degrees not like some dude off the street

Answer 3

Structure -

=> Lengthen the school day

=> Use broader curriculum options for students who have exceeded NCLB targets prior year - options like art, music, more science, etc instead of more NCLB work.  Tap PTAs and local businesses to help with funding if needed.

Responsibility -

=> Make parents responsible (yeah...I know...dreamin'...)

=> Publish start of year and end of year test results to catch incoming kids who may not have been in the current school system yet impact NCLB metrics

Curriculum -

=>  Balance skill & drill with applied math from pre-Kindergarten.  There's NO reason a pre-Kindergartener who like fruit, cookies, candy etc. can't be helped to reason out things like how many, how many more, how many groups of, etc.

=>  Assign writing in non-liberal arts classes.  Again, have 1st graders write a list of all the times during a chosen day that something quantitative occurs.  Make  them then revise the list into sentences and the sentences into prose/paragraphs.  Do the same for science - if they still teach it...

=> Correlate the curriculum so that the language arts tie into the history which ties into the science, etc.  Correlating curriculum makes it easier for parents without solid educations themselves to at least oversee what a reasonable homework product should look like.

=> Use college Ed majors as after-hours homework mentors and REQUIRE it - don't pay them.  There are at least 7 four-year colleges within 17 miles of me.  If these folks are gung-ho to teach, before they step foot in a classroom, they should spend time teaching via web and phone.  It will be easy to weed out the ones who aren't subject experts.  By doing this at the local level it will be easier to coordinate basic training on what the schools are teaching and what textbooks should be in the call center.

Teachers -

=> Get serious at the principal and school system level with discipline so teachers can teach.

=> Request security monitoring to re-establish classroom control.

=> Revise unions to allow more results-based evaluation BUT only when a teacher's result differ from in-school and in-district peers.

There are more, but this is a good start.

Answer 4

Teach them to speak English, instead of the c**p they are all using now,  teach them to read and write and pull their pants up.

Answer 5

Teach us subjects that ACTUALLY matter in the real world,and that we will use.

They should offer more types of classes,for more specific jobs.

Things like IPC and Algebra will almost never be used,unless you have a job that relates to them,so to me they are just stupid classes.

Answer 6

honestly i think schools (at least mine) arent strict enough. like when kids forget to do their work, whoopdeedoo, 5 points taken off the assignment. in the real world if you don't do your work at work there are larger consequences. i learned that this summer at my job. i have another one not for school but for parents. so many parents these days buy their kids everything and don't make them lift a finger, or get a job. and when they have problems their parents fix it. one thing parents can do is tell kids to get a job and quit babying them so much. i have classmates who whine when their parents say no but they don't want to do anything about it. i applied for several jobs when i turned 15 and i worked my butt off all summer and saved my money to pay for stuff i wanted. my parents never babied me and i thank them for that. in the real world mommy and daddy arent going to be there to help you forever. you have to take responsiblity some time.