During the first week of school, NHPR aired a series of excerpts of teachers talking about education. (See the QUALITY SCHOOLS link to the left.) Among other things, they challenged the value of the state?s current testing program. They discussed the role that business could play in schools. And they tried to describe the attitudes that make some teachers excel in the classroom.
We invited listeners to post their comments on our web site. NHPR?s Trish Anderton and Jon Greenberg offer some of those reactions now.
Among the comments was one from Steven Reynolds of Salem.. Mr. Reynolds says that Schools dilute individual achievement. He writes.."My most frustrating experience as a student in high school in New Hampshire, between 1994 and 1998, was the emphasis on group work. Constantly, the high achieving students were divided apart and given the lowest achievers to work with. To get the underachievers to do any of the work, the high achievers had to compromise their opinions with those whom they knew were wrong.
In schools today, we have a redistribution of success, a concept similar to the Marxist concept of wealth redistribution. Threatening successful students with an failing grade in order to get them to pull along those who cannot or will not do the work is not a good thing to do.
Ann McKinnon in Lee says her local school curriculum doesn't challenge her kids
I am dismayed by what I see as a lack of academic rigor in the schools my children attend. I have a freshman and a seventh grader, neither of whom know their times tables or more than a smattering of grammar. They are offered only two languages. There is no enrichment program and a very disturbing paucity of art and theater programs. I hesitate to fault the teachers, since they are severely underpaid. However, at some point we need to recognize that we are not doing our children any service by permitting them to get by with adequate work rather than challenging them.
Peter Buckley from Durham urges us to Be frugal, but think long term. Mr. Buckley writes...
Education is our future as well as that of our children. We only think that we pay a lot in taxes, however compared to other states we are cheap. I love NH and I am willing to invest in it. I am also a Republican, but if it costs more to improve the quality of life here then tax us for it. Sin tax,sales tax,gas tax or income tax as long as it is flat and no one can get out of paying I am in favor of it.
Laura Ryder in Mont Vernon wonders Why don't schools make more use of the help that outsiders offer?
I would like to know how teachers see the opportunities for hands on and meaningful field trips that support curriculum? What are the barriers that keep them from taking advantage of free programs offered by various groups and organizations. I'm interested in knowing if funding and the structure of the school day are problems that get in the way of some very good opportunities that are free to schools.
Finally, State Representative Art Pelletier from Dover sent in a lengthy comment. Representative Pelletier makes many points. On testing he writes Test results don't determine quality of education and the state "report card" encourages simplistic comparisons and unhealthy competition to be "number one" based on test scores. Testing in every grade would not measure "progress" and would take even more time away from learning.
And regarding public participation in shaping the curriculum, he volunteered at his local school and found that "" The entire local program for curriculum review and approval proved to be a sham. The administration does not want public input; repeatedly utilizes a top-down, unilateral, approach to policy, program and curriculum changes, and disregards community desires. It ignores input from, and retaliates against experienced teachers who disagree with them.
You can read the full text of Mr. Pelletier's comments and all the other comments by going to our web site at www.nhpr.org and going to the Quality Schools web page. Throughout this year, NHPR is working with a number of state-wide nonprofits to encourage discussion of what a quality education ought to be. We hope you will add your views. We will post them, and use them to help us decide what stories we ought to do. Please visit the Quality schools web page at nhpr.org.
