SENATE BILL: The Duke-Scott Educating The People Reform (Debating)

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Earlier this year, Duke and I agreed to form a partnership on the issue of education reform.  This bill is the first in what we hope to be a series of reforms aimed at achieving that.

The bill, in essence, establishes standards for all public schools in Atlasia and gives smaller schools the opportunity to improve.  It grants teachers autonomy over the schoolbooks they use to educate their students, expands internet access and puts recess back in schools, a period that most students no longer enjoy after elementary school.

We are pleased to present this bill to the Senate and anticipate amendments that will help the bill achieve its goals.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

If we want schools to offer these let's just fund it as opposed to a mandate that is probably unconstitutional.

I don't understand section IV.  Are the teachers choosing the textbooks or are the school districts?

It's not really a mandate.  The government decides how the public schools are run and provide the appropriate funding for their services.  The teachers choose textbooks that are permitted by the districts.

A few concerns:

1. A lot of the stuff in section 1 is very vague- what does healthcare mean for example?
2. What about rural schools with like 20 people, should they have on site guidance counselors? on't that cost a fortune?
3. The textbook stuff seems to be a disaster waiting to happen, for one thing, most teachers won't need a thousand dollars worth, but others might need more. As well, not every teacher  needs to individually choose the textbook, it makes sense for that to be a schoolwide system, so classes are interchangeable, and there's continuity when people change classes or move up a year. Finally, and this is the big problem to me, even banning creationism (however that's defined) still leaves a huge amount of possible objectionable choices. What about a book teaching homosexuality is evil? Or one advocating, say, atlasian exceptionilism?

Healthcare is pretty much a standard benefit for students.  That part of the bill merely reenforces it.  This bill was crafted shortly before or around the time the glitches in our healthcare system were brought to light, so school-provided medical care might need to be further explored.

As for your second point, I'm honestly not familiar with any rural schools that only have twenty students.  But, regardless of how large a school is, I think we should provide students with access to guidance counselors.

Thirdly, I agree that the textbook section can be improved and the means of funding made more flexible.  We're going to run into problems no matter how we reform our textbook standards, and those problems won't go away as long as education is so politicized, but the least we can do is provide some oversight so that students aren't being taught to a biased or unscientific curriculum.


Now, a question for TNF - why do you believe high school seniors should be allowed to leave school grounds during recess time without earning the privilege first?

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

If we want schools to offer these let's just fund it as opposed to a mandate that is probably unconstitutional.

I don't understand section IV.  Are the teachers choosing the textbooks or are the school districts?

It's not really a mandate.  The government decides how the public schools are run and provide the appropriate funding for their services.  The teachers choose textbooks that are permitted by the districts.

It is a mandate since it says to schools "do this, and maybe we'll help you fund it if you apply for it." Though I guess it could be interpreted as a mandate on the school district rather than the region, so not unconstitutional.   Still, I will not vote on any education bill that further restricts the regional and local role in education.   If regions are going to be completely subservient to national policy when it comes to something like education, we might as well not have regional governments at all.

The bill doesn't place any restrictions on the regions, it just establishes some very basic standards for what the public schools provide so that they may be successful.  If the regions feel that these services are best provided a different way, they will still be able to do that.

A few concerns:

1. A lot of the stuff in section 1 is very vague- what does healthcare mean for example?
2. What about rural schools with like 20 people, should they have on site guidance counselors? on't that cost a fortune?
3. The textbook stuff seems to be a disaster waiting to happen, for one thing, most teachers won't need a thousand dollars worth, but others might need more. As well, not every teacher  needs to individually choose the textbook, it makes sense for that to be a schoolwide system, so classes are interchangeable, and there's continuity when people change classes or move up a year. Finally, and this is the big problem to me, even banning creationism (however that's defined) still leaves a huge amount of possible objectionable choices. What about a book teaching homosexuality is evil? Or one advocating, say, atlasian exceptionilism?

Healthcare is pretty much a standard benefit for students.  That part of the bill merely reenforces it.  This bill was crafted shortly before or around the time the glitches in our healthcare system were brought to light, so school-provided medical care might need to be further explored.

As for your second point, I'm honestly not familiar with any rural schools that only have twenty students.  But, regardless of how large a school is, I think we should provide students with access to guidance counselors.

Thirdly, I agree that the textbook section can be improved and the means of funding made more flexible.  We're going to run into problems no matter how we reform our textbook standards, and those problems won't go away as long as education is so politicized, but the least we can do is provide some oversight so that students aren't being taught to a biased or unscientific curriculum.

Hmm, things in atlasia are obviously different, but in the UK schools are just, well schools, and the idea that they'd be offering healthcare of any sort is seen as a bit weird. But if healthcare is seen as a duty of schools then I suppose I'm OK with that.

I was thinking of places like the Aleutian islands, which have a very small population and are quite isolated. And, sure, it would be nice for them to have an on site guidance counselor at all times, just like it would be nice for that school to have, say, a large library, but it's not essential in the same way that it is for a 1000 strong school.

I think the problem is the ban on creationism seems a little ad hoc, and doesn't seem to solve the main problem, that of teachers using their influence to teach kids something awful. I would probably give the power to buy to departments, instead of individual teachers, subject to moderation by the regional boards, with some agreed standards. It's probably also better to have an agreed list of texts that can be purchased (that can be easily added to, and is very large) than certain texts being excluded.

I'm okay with that change as long as the teachers have some say in the books they use to teach their material.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Still arguing the finer points of wifi and technology, it seems. To think Scott and I had at least 2 more parts to our education reform. They'll never see the light of day now.

This debate certainly isn't going in the direction I thought it would, but I'll have to take some responsibility for that...

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]