Why Is Public Education Failing Students and Teachers?

Many surveys suggest that parents and teachers are increasingly frustrated with our education system. In this week's episode, we ask, why?

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[kyleflamm]

I really appreciate the analog. I wish more people would realize the actual difference between government run and privately run.

[Kenneth]

This is true. My mom was a public school teacher for 38 years before she retired. She outperformed colleagues and got students who were years behind a lot closer to their grade level than their previous teachers did, and yet on the few chances to give credit to the teachers like my mom who did the work, principles gave the credit to teachers that were recent hires and hadn't been involved with the students that were lagging behind. There aren't any bonuses for teachers that get students that are behind back up to speed. Things definitely need some kind of change, even if it's just performance based bonuses, bringing more of the curriculum choices to the local level and having more competition for which schools students go to (such as with a voucher program).

[iamjohnporter]

My teacher told me before I graudted high school back in 2013 that she plans on "Quitting her job" because she doesn't get paid well and she finds the system to be "So outdated and not up to modern standards" and after 10 years I can see why this problem has gotten worse.

[nimarus]

One thing I noticed in school in the early 2000s was that they cared more about advanced learning than they did about everyday skills like balancing a checkbook and how credit card interest works. Your parents should teach you how to write a check or if a credit card's interest is predatory or not. Just focus on applied physics. Bah, don't worry about what APR for credit card interest means. You'll need to understand how to calculate the velocity of a 0.5 pound ball thrown at a 90 degree angle with 25 pounds of force to find out where it will land.

[fairallni]

These are great. I look forward to these videos!

[brandonboulton]

Fantastic comparison. I love it because the comparison shows what the socialists want in the food economy as well. Everyone loses with socialism.

[NvdVeen]

Keep up the great work! I hope more people see this

[ratsu]

How how is this not the messaging across the board for the gop

[sailorbychoice]

3:32 did he say a million of morons online? Oops, my dyslexia kicked in.

[SuperKevin]

These videos are the best. We gotta get more people seeing these

[dannydebeeto]

Firstly, public school spending is pretty heavy correlated with how well off a school is. That’s why rich neighborhoods have nice schools, a poor neighborhoods have notoriously bad schools. This is because schools are largely funded by property tax. Secondly, the reason we have bad education nationally on average, is because of our focus on standardized testing. Having a more liberal approach to learning and staying away from the dozen of hours spent on standardized testing and practicing for said tests would undoubtedly raise our education. I’m assuming the answer that you think we should go for is private schools. The thing is though, this would only further exacerbate the education gab between kids in wealthy neighborhoods, and those in poor ones because education wouldn’t be connected to where you live, but directly connected to how much money you have. We don’t exactly have a meritocracy in our education system as it is, this would make that even less true.

[myideas]

Love your videos. Please keep up the wonderful work..

[Jaegan]

Nailed it on the analogy there and I agree completely on your conclusions. My only correction would be on the pay for performance system. Even though it sounds good, In a publicly funded system it fails spectacularly. That's because in a private system/business/grocery store a good employee will make the business more money so paying them more makes sense. In a publicly funded system there is a finite amount of tax dollars. I can be the best teacher on the planet but I won't make a dime more for the state, so if you pay me more you necessarily have to pay someone else less. In places it's been tried the only way to do it is to start by paying everyone less which gives room to pay the top performers more (which is a synonym for the sycophants who jump through the most government mandated hoops). But in that system even those that get paid more just barely reach the median for the rest of the surrounding districts. Teachers know this and the good ones (in proper free market fashion) leave get jobs in other districts with less hoops leaving only the bad ones in the pay for performance district. (This is what happened in my district where I taught math, I got out and made 5k more overnight). In short, unless you change the funding model you can't change the payment strategy.

[VickieWheeler-nk]

Thanks, Nick….appreciate your videos.

[nancydrew]

Public school tenure is on the way out and in many states there is no teacher tenure for public school teachers.
The same needs to be done for university tenured professors.
Also lots of dialogue by many who have not personally been in the trenches themselves and experienced what it is like " first hand" to be a public school teacher.

[phillip]

This was a genius analogy, thank you!

[congregationbethsimchaoflu]

The problem is that states began taking federal money, and when government puts a penny into anything, it takes control. Education needs to be completely and totally out of federal interference.

[Brumsey]

Man I hope this channel is as good as I think it could be!

[PharrowlOG]

This alone wouldn’t fix the education system entirely, but it’d be a pretty good start.
Once the students themselves have a voice that can enact change, THEN we’ll really start getting places.

[donnacampbell]

Thank God for men like Nick Freitas. We need more men like him