Lean Production: Inside the war on public education

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18. I appreciate your thoughtful response.

I don't want videos replacing teachers. I want videos and teachers. Depending on the subject; the teacher to student ratio can be higher. They certainly are in the university; we should start training our young people to pay attention in a lecture hall at an early age.

Some of the technologies that you mention are, in my opinion, a waste of money.

Simply purchasing expensive electronic equipment isn't teaching children anymore than building a nice football field teaches children.

One of the things that children need to learn is how to succeed with the resources that they have. You could buy a dozen used computers for the price of a single iPad and use it to teach children the use of spreadsheets, word processing, databases, high level programming and CAD all on open source software.

These are skills that I would like to see young people come away from elementary school with. Unfortunately, the teachers that I interact with have no knowledge of such things. If they were watching videos; then they could learn these skills at the same time that the children are learning them.

We are always hearing that "we need more scientists and engineers". We aren't going to have more scientists and engineers unless we start teaching children how to work with the tools of the trade when they are young. Spreadsheets and databases are the foundation for the kind of information management and calculations for those professions and haven't changed significantly in function for quite some time. Teachers can't be expected to teach children subjects that they aren't familiar with; watching videos made by someone else would help them learn subjects that have advanced since they were in school.

The latest and greatest things going on in the world are constantly changing and it makes sense to distribute this information through media that is easily shareable. Videos through youtube have an efficient distribution system and can be created quickly and inexpensively. They can be viewed over the Internet on 10 year old computers and created with open source software. It is a tool that has been around for a while; why anyone would challenge its value as a teaching medium is frankly, beyond me.

I'm not beating up on teachers; I just think they they are operating within a system that is in serious need of updating. I think people look to charter schools because the current system is not responsive. It is not teachers faults that so much of the school budget goes toward bloated administrative positions, but that is a huge problem with the current system. While it is not the teachers fault; they are in a better position to do something about it than parents.

I have no experience with charter schools. I am simply telling you that IMHO when schools do not respond to parents (which seems to be a common complaint); it makes sense to me that they are drawn toward that kind of solution.

As far as the down side to charter schools. I get a magazine from the utility company that tells me how bad solar panels are. I tend to weigh the 'source' of the information. Public school teachers aren't going to sing the praises of charter schools.