Educational Philosophy

All students should attend a school in close proximity to their own home. All students should attend classes five days a week for at least seven hours a day with at least a half hour study hall and another half hour break for lunch. This will prepare them for a 40 hour work week when they enter the workforce. (It will also help out parents who work 40 hours a week.)

Teachers should have at least one half hour planning period for every hour they teach and should not teach more than five classes a day. There should be no more than 15 students to regular education classrooms and 8 students to special education classrooms. Special education students should be separated by exceptionality and reading level.

Each classroom needs to have one assistant teacher for the first ten students and two assistant teachers if there are more than 10 students. Each school should have at least one counselor on campus for the first 50 students, two counselors for 51 to 100 students, three counselors for 101 to 150 students, etc.

There should be at least one computer with Internet connections for every teacher and assistant teacher in the classroom. All teachers and assistants need to have access to a telephone in the classroom.

There should also be at least five computers in every classroom for the students to use. These computers need to be networked together and should not have filters on them which would prevent the students from doing advanced research. The entire school needs to be on a Local Area Network.

There should be three semesters of equal length to each school year, which needs to begin in early January. Each semester should be divided into two periods (one 7 weeks long and the other 8 weeks long) with one week of vacation between the two periods and one week of vacation between the semesters. The third semester should be the same except for having two weeks vacation between this last semester and the first semester of the following school year.

Each school should have a community group home as part of the school where all children can go for counseling, advice, food, supplies, sleep, vacations, escape from abusive situations or whatever else they may need in order to continue their education. This group home needs to be managed by loving, caring adults who live on the premises and who have a master’s degree or better in counseling or similar subjects.

Each school also needs a discipline room where all misbehaving students should be sent. Teachers should not have to deal with misbehaving students. The discipline room also needs to be managed by loving, caring adults who have a master’s degree or better in counseling or some other appropriate subject. Any student sent to the discipline room should remain there until they are no longer a discipline problem. No student should be suspended or expelled from school.

However, misbehaving students should not be allowed to intermingle with the other students in any way. Instead, they should receive all their instructions from the discipline teacher(s), who should be specially trained to deal with misbehaving students.

Both the group home and the discipline room should have at least one paraprofessional to help in the education of the students. Both also need to have paraprofessionals on call (similar to substitute teachers schools have on call) in case the number of students attending them becomes excessive.

Finally, no student should be home schooled except for urgent medical reasons.

Teacher assistants and other paraprofessionals should have at least a high school education. All teachers should have at least a bachelor’s degree from a reputable college or university. Principals should have at least a master’s degree in education or special education and school counselors should have an appropriate master’s degree in their field. Teacher assistants, paraprofessionals, teachers, principals and counselors should be forced to obtain certification; an appropriate degree from a reputable schooling institute should suffice.

Control of local schools should be by those who work with the students on a daily basis and are in a better position to know the needs of those students who are attending the school. Thus, control of local schools should be primarily at the discretion of the principal and administrators of the school, secondarily by the teachers of the school and finally by the parents whose children attend the school and the local school boards.

The state and national governments should have minimal control over local schools. Those in political offices should not be allowed to have any direct or indirect influence in the curriculum, the standards or the benchmarks of any school. For when our schools are governed by politicians instead of educators then our children receive an ersatz education, because politicians are looking out for their political careers, not our children’s future.

The school board should be composed entirely of principals, teachers or counselors with at least a master’s degree or better in education, special education or some other appropriate degree, and who have had at least seven or more current years experience teaching in a local school. They should be allowed to remain on the school board for no more than about seven years.

They should not be allowed to publicly endorse anyone for political office while in they are in office. Nor should they be allowed to hold any political office or be appointed to any public position for at least five years after leaving the school board.

(This latter is aimed at preventing someone from using the school board to help jumpstart their own political career – as many individuals do who do not care about our children’s future but care solely for their own political future.)

The financial support for local schools should come primarily from the national government, secondarily from the state government and minimally from the local government. However, no elected official or government representative should be allowed to use finances as a means to get the school to follow a particular course of action. No one should be allowed to bring direct or indirect influence upon the principal or anyone else who might control local schools.

Anyone who donates money or gifts to a school should get a tax break for such. All school revenues (monies or gifts) should be free of all political influence. No school should be privately owned or under the direct or indirect influence of commercial interests. National, state and local governments should also finance a student’s postgraduate education or his or her apprenticeship in a vocational, professional or artistic school.

In order to keep up with advances in technology, everyone needs to continue their education after graduation regardless of whether they have chosen an academic (college), a professional (vocational) or artistic career.

Thus, about every five years minimally, a person ought to go back to school for refresher courses in their chosen field or even for further education in other fields. This should not be mandatory.

No one should be denied the right to pursue either an academic, professional or artistic career. In order to supplement any lost wages while away from work and taking refresher courses or even studies in other fields, a person should receive an appropriate tax free grant or subsidy from the government.

Many may disagree with this and claim that the government should not have to pay for postgraduate studies. But by doing so the government is investing in its future and gaining an intangible asset for itself.

The Curriculum