16 Ways to Fix or we'll never fix Public Education eBook Harlan S Hansen
Download As PDF : 16 Ways to Fix or we'll never fix Public Education eBook Harlan S Hansen 
Examines 16 ways in which public education can be improved - from teacher education to the training of administrators to eliminating tenure to setting up merit pay to improved teaching skills to new curriculum improvements to parent involvement to a new organization of K - 12 education.
16 Ways to Fix or we'll never fix Public Education eBook Harlan S Hansen
If you believe the most significant mission America must fulfill in order to increase its economic health is to increase the level of educational attainment of our citizens, then read this book.Education chatter is typically reduced to sound bites and the political battlefield and it is easy for laypeople and professional alike to get lost in the labyrinth. That's where Harlan Hansen's 16 Ways to Fix (Or We'll Never Fix) Public Education provides much needed help.
This book benefits everyone, not merely educators. Without moralizing or theorizing, Prof. Hansen outlines the challenges facing our public schools and offers pragmatic solutions acquired from a rich legacy of teacher training and a strong awareness of history. The U.S. ranks 25th in the world in basic skills and Hansen argues that it will always "land further down in the rankings unless it decides to move away from state's rights so some agreed upon national unity in education". His book examines specific means to acquire a national unity by calling for a cohesive relationship between disparate entities: teacher training institutions, school systems, parents, students, administrators, teachers, policy makers, and ordinary citizens.
In bold, simple strokes, Hansen calls to get rid of tenure; identifies the means to link education to the real world; highlights service learning to enhance our citizenship; outlines the mechanisms to create strong administrators and leaders; argues for teaching schools to develop field based training programs; and reminds us that our early childhood education programs are the key to the sustainability of our schools, and indeed, our nation. Along the way, Hansen provides his readers with a bird's eye view into our educational system, complete with its ironies, paradoxes and absurdities.
If you are thinking of becoming a teacher, read this book to understand what you are walking into. If you are a principal or classroom teacher, read this book for the courage to reinvent your school. If you are a college instructor, read it to grasp the reality outside your ivory towers. Most of all, read it if you are a parent. Hansen's clear thinking will open your eyes to the institutional and cultural changes we must address in order to be proper custodians of our children and their future.
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16 Ways to Fix or we'll never fix Public Education eBook Harlan S Hansen Reviews
A great resource for anyone who wants to improve the education of our children. This "fix it book" of practical '"step out of the box" ideas can be used to help make a systemic change in our education process. 16 Ways To Fix Public Education should be on the top of our lawmakers' reading list.
You can tell from the start, that Harlan Hansen is passionate about quality education. This is an excellent reference book for all school administrators who want teachers to show the passion that led them to teach in the first place. Having taught at a college preparatory school for 23 years, many of Harlan's ideas were already in place, such as linking learning to the real world, and including service starting at the kindergarten level (see chapters 14 and 15). I saw how this enriched students' experiences and boosted teacher credibility and enthusiasm, too! The importance of using these practical and educator-friendly applications can be a prescription for improving and fixing public education. This is a significant read for all educators.
Timely text!! Almost daily we are blasted with how poorly our students are doing in our elementary public schools, but Dr. Harlan Hansen has laid out a systematic road to recovery. Now, if only the powers that be would follow his advice in the reasonable and useable step-by-step matter he has designed.
As a practicing teacher, I have grouped the ideas presented by Dr. Hansen in a way that I find them useful for me. I believe the FIX to public education can happen only if/when college/university instructors of teacher preparation courses, pre-service teachers, school board members, civic leaders, superintendents, principals, teachers, and parents get on the same page. Thankfully, Dr. Harlan Hansen has provided a road map for everyone with this book.
Step one seems a no-brainer...begin with the Teacher-Training institutions designing more rigorous four-year programs with courses which cover, in depth, the broad-based subjects that the pre-service teacher candidates will be expected to teach. And, the college instructors would include/model the Standards of Effective Practice for Teachers in their own college instruction which will allow the pre-service teacher students to be exposed them prior to entering their year-long internships. Make the student teaching internship experience at least a year-long in a classroom under the tutelage and guidance of a master mentor teacher. Finally, align the State Department of Education's teacher licensure requirements with the actual content of the methods/pedagogy courses.
Step two seems a bit costly, initially--because some of the school principals today have little training (if any) in the art of leadership. Some have not had sufficient experience in actual elementary classroom teaching experience. Some have opted to become principals in an effort to escape the actual classroom responsibilities. Therefore, it is time to redesign the current course-based programs at the colleges and universities. These programs already tend to include Standards, but often do not include a method to have principal candidates demonstrate their competence implementing/leading their teachers to "think outside of the box" and try new ideas in the classrooms. Dr. Hansen has outlined principal candidacy internship program that would provide the necessary exposure to practicing the Standards and thus allowing for principals to become successful in all facets of their chosen profession.
Step three practically screams at the reader to get rid of TENURE!! There is no procedure in place to remove ineffective teachers. There is no accountability for teachers to prove that additional college-level courses/professional development have anything to do with their classroom teaching. Currently, teachers are paid according to a scale that measures only number of years in the classroom and the number of credits accumulated at a college or university. The credits do not need to be at a graduate level nor do they have to do with a particular content area for future use in a classroom situation. Merit pay seems to be a solution, much like pay increases in the business world. This would require principals to be trained to evaluate the classroom teachers in their schools and that continuing education for classroom teachers actually results in improved teaching and learning for the students.
Step four would give school districts more control about the continuing education of their teachers if/when the cost of professional development was, at least in part, financed by the district. When there is evidence that a teacher is struggling with a teaching skill in one or more of the content areas, the principal could guide the teacher to attend a required program/class. The principal would then follow-up with observations and evaluations to monitor the teacher's success with the teaching/learning in the classroom. Currently, continuing education cost is the sole responsibility of the teacher!
Step five involves the paraprofessionals role in the classrooms. As of now, there is no specific training for these vital individuals. The jobs of paraprofessional are as varied as the positions and the pay is hourly based. Some paraprofessionals are high school graduates, while others are licensed teachers. It would be more cost effective to design and train all paraprofessionals and to be exact about the job description for each one. Paraprofessional need to be cognizant of the "dos and don'ts" so that they can truly feel included in the workings of the school and classrooms. Ideally, some paraprofessionals could/should be included on some of the educational committees, depending upon their exact assignment within the school. And, principal involvement with the observing and evaluation of the paraprofessionals is imperative.
Step six is focused on Kindergarten. Where does this piece of early childhood education fit locally and nationally? Dr. Hansen walks the reader through the varied history of this important stage in every child's educational journey. (Note I am a kindergarten specialist of many years and could rant about this for hundreds of pages!!) At some point, nationally and, at the more local level, state departments of education need to recognize the value of supporting all-day every day kindergarten for all children with a unified consensus about the age of the entrants. To date, very few states require children to attend kindergarten and others have compulsory ages for schooling to begin at six or seven years of age. To fix this flaw it will take money (tax dollars) and legislative mandates (laws) to get our youngest citizens on an equal footing to begin their formal schooling.
Step seven speaks to curriculum and assessment. Currently there is an emphasis on reading, writing, and math scores which are published and compared community by community and state by state. Dr. Hansen touts the importance of educating the citizenry for the future good of the nation and world. He points to better training teachers to become skilled at the art of teaching, not only, literacy and math but to retrain all teachers to be able to teach science, social studies, the arts, and humanities. He suggests that in an effort to teach students about the REAL world and to care for one another, schools must include service learning projects in every grade beginning with the kindergarten.
Step eight addresses a new approach to behavior management that involves inserting reason between impulse and action. Dr. Hansen suggests that it is best to start early, not to wait until the intermediate grades. He says that when students cannot read, teachers teach them to read. Then he continues, if students come to school not knowing how to behave, teachers should teach them how to behave! This premise works with the very young children who are just beginning to understand how to work and behave toward/with others. Young students are developmentally at the impulse stage of growth and need lots of practice to LEARN how to behave. Practice, practice, practice in order to understand the expectation of what behavior is desired. (Sounds so simple!) It requires teachers and principals and paraprofessionals to be re-trained to appropriately help youngsters practice and learn how to behave. Guaranteed to have fewer big problems in the upper grades.
Step nine is most important is to create a strong home-school connection. Including families in the inner-workings of the school can only produce positive results. Everyone will have the best interests of the students and their successes as the top priority. When the students are the focus of the powers that be, EVERYONE WINS!! (An added bonus is that the dreaded test scores will go up.)
FIX PUBLIC EDUCATION NOW--or it will never happen!!
If you believe the most significant mission America must fulfill in order to increase its economic health is to increase the level of educational attainment of our citizens, then read this book.
Education chatter is typically reduced to sound bites and the political battlefield and it is easy for laypeople and professional alike to get lost in the labyrinth. That's where Harlan Hansen's 16 Ways to Fix (Or We'll Never Fix) Public Education provides much needed help.
This book benefits everyone, not merely educators. Without moralizing or theorizing, Prof. Hansen outlines the challenges facing our public schools and offers pragmatic solutions acquired from a rich legacy of teacher training and a strong awareness of history. The U.S. ranks 25th in the world in basic skills and Hansen argues that it will always "land further down in the rankings unless it decides to move away from state's rights so some agreed upon national unity in education". His book examines specific means to acquire a national unity by calling for a cohesive relationship between disparate entities teacher training institutions, school systems, parents, students, administrators, teachers, policy makers, and ordinary citizens.
In bold, simple strokes, Hansen calls to get rid of tenure; identifies the means to link education to the real world; highlights service learning to enhance our citizenship; outlines the mechanisms to create strong administrators and leaders; argues for teaching schools to develop field based training programs; and reminds us that our early childhood education programs are the key to the sustainability of our schools, and indeed, our nation. Along the way, Hansen provides his readers with a bird's eye view into our educational system, complete with its ironies, paradoxes and absurdities.
If you are thinking of becoming a teacher, read this book to understand what you are walking into. If you are a principal or classroom teacher, read this book for the courage to reinvent your school. If you are a college instructor, read it to grasp the reality outside your ivory towers. Most of all, read it if you are a parent. Hansen's clear thinking will open your eyes to the institutional and cultural changes we must address in order to be proper custodians of our children and their future.
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