Metropolitan Rural

We had a fun field trip earlier this week as part of a local homeschool group.  The plan was to start off in the morning at Fort De Chartres in Illinois and then take the ferry across the river to St. Genevieve for the afternoon.

 I printed out some directions from Google to the Fort realizing they were different than what we were given.  Our directions were shorter, but also got us off the highway for a nice view of the country side.  It was really beautiful too.  The trip through the hills and trees with all kinds of birds was pretty cool.  Then we opened out into the lowlands and farms.  There were a couple of blue herons wading in the receding flood waters of the fields.  It was a beautiful day as well.  At least, until we were about a mile from the fort and our last road was under water!  Oh well, back to the regular route, good thing we left in plenty of time.

The fort was pretty cool.  It’s from the 18th century and has been partially rebuilt on the old foundation.  Only 1 building on the site was still orignal and intact, the rest has been “removed” for other uses over the years by local residents in pieces as the flood waters aided in deterioration.  Neat place to stop and visit for an hour or two like we did.

We had some lunch in the picnic area there and then had originally planned to take the ferry across the river.  Of course, with all the rain this year, the river was too high and we were forced to drive down to Chester and back around.

We made it over to St. Gen. around two and stopped in the visitors center.  We had arranged for a tour of the Bolduc House.  There were plans to see more, but with the extra driving our schedule wasn’t quite going to work for that.  I was very impressed with the detail the tour guides covered the construction of the houses.  The details of the mortise & tenon joints, the vertical log construction, the wrap around porches to control sun, the opposing windows & doors for breezes, and even the dirt back yard as a fire break from the cooking kitchen.

We did get a chance to walk around the town some before dinner.  There wasn’t much going on for a weekday afternoon in a tourist town so that was pretty bland.  We did get a chance to stop by and sample some wines and bring a couple of bottles home with us.

It was a fun trip and a beautiful day for it.  I think we had somewhere in the neighborhood of 60-70 kids & adults total (including a rented school bus full).  It’s always fun to go on field trips with homeschool groups like this.  It’s good to watch 16-18 year olds who are comfortable being around adults and much younger kids.  They are always very helpful with keeping the younger ones in order and letting them know when it’s time to be quite and listen, and when it’s okay to be wild and noisy.

The public schools in the city of St. Louis has been a big contreversy of late, with it’s recent unaccredidation by the state and the state takeover of the school board. There was a big hoopla about the takeover, but since then the press has seemed to die down. You still hear some occasional news, but the big ruckus is mostly gone.

I was reading an article in the Post-Dispatch today about New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and the changes they’ve made in city schools. You can read the whole article here.

Here are a few quotes and some comments from me (in blue):

In New York City, he said, graduation rates have improved by 20 percent
since city officials lengthened the school day, imposed stricter standards on
student behavior, increased advanced-placement class offerings and abolished the
city Board of Education. Longer days? Why? I’m not sure the cause and effect relationship is there. I can see the standards of behavior, but only if they start in elementary school. Then that takes 12 years to really make an effect on HS and graduation rates. The increased AP classes are nice though. Get the best and brightest together to learn without being held back by slower students. They can help bring up average test scores too… not just bringing up the rear. The focus of “No Child Left Behind” is trying to bring up the slow students and is leaving those that could be farther ahead to slide back to the center. I don’t see that making enough progress to really help the schools.

The pay and job security of New York teachers and principals also is now partially tied to performance, which Bloomberg acknowledged was a tough sell to the city’s teachers unions. Sounds good, makes the teachers and administrators more like the rest of the workforce. Teachers are an invaluable resource, but that doesn’t mean they should be given pay with no responsibility. Good for them for paying based on performance. It’s a great incentive for anyone to get better at what they do.

“First, we’ve raised teacher salaries by 43 percent, which helps us attract the best and the brightest,” Bloomberg said. New York also has created financial incentive programs that offer:

— $15,000 signing bonuses to science and math teachers.

— Annual pay raises of $10,000 and $25,000, respectively, to top teachers and principals who agree to work in low-performing schools.

“Let’s stop pretending that offering teachers financial incentives somehow diminishes their motives,” Bloomberg said. Much the same as above. Just because these are teachers doesn’t mean they aren’t motivated by money. From teaching economics, the higher the pay, the more supply there will be. If you pay enough, most anyone would want to be a teacher and that gives the schools the chance to pick the best. It’s still about incentives and choice in a free market.

Bloomberg also called for tackling another touchy issue: teacher tenure, a system in place in many states in which it is difficult to fire veteran teachers. Tenure is one of several issues that needs federal government involvement, he said. It’s about time someone does something about this. Just because you’ve been at your job and done well for 5 or 10 years, doesn’t mean that will continue to be the case. If we are going to judge and pay based on performance, you can’t rule out firing under performers. Even if they’ve been there 20 years. This is about the kids learning, not about the easy life for a teacher who can’t be fired.

I think we still have a long way to go to make our public education better here in St. Louis and the US in general. First and foremost we need the money to do it. A basic education should be available to all, but not everyone needs to be college ready and bound. We need more technical and trade training and there will always be jobs in retail, restaurant and hospitality. I don’t need someone with a college degree serving me my big mac, but they better be smart enough to give me the correct change when the machine is down!

We have some of the best universities in the world here in the US. With a strong mix of both public and private universities. We lack much of that in the elementary and secondary schools though. With better access to private schools at a younger age, the public school HAVE to be better to compete for students. That’s what has killed the city schools in St. Louis. It’s not that the schools and teachers are just terrible, but that those who can, do send their kids to private schools. The overwhelming number of private and parochial schools here in St. Louis just bleeds the public schools of potentially good students. Nothing brings down an average test score faster than getting rid of the high scores.

I’m not trying to say that we should forget about trying to educate those who need more help and more attention, but that we need to stop forgetting those students who are above average. I know from my own schooling in my graduating class of 25. I learned as much in my advanced math classes helping out my classmates than from the teacher. If students like me aren’t around to help the teacher teach other students, then the whole class is worse off and the teacher has too much to do.