I believe that
I believe that the early years are the most important ones of a child’s educational life. They deserve the most qualified teachers and our immediate future as citizens depend on it. Therefore, beginning elementary school teachers should be paid more than they currently are. Qualified beginning teachers for all grade levels should be courted away from competing industries with competing salaries. And teacher salary should be based primarily on merit with fewer artificially-imposed advances such as steps and lanes. Great teachers should be paid accordingly; poor teachers should be encouraged to find other ways to make a living. Professional educators should expect life time job security no more than doctors, lawyers, engineers or broadcasters.
I believe we should reverse the trend to bigger schools that waste student time shuffling through crowded hallways to overcrowded classrooms. Students should learn in smaller settings, and we should increase the use of computer-enhanced education. Those smaller settings should be closer to their homes and we should stop using up student lives by shipping them across artificial boundaries in lengthy school bus rides.
I believe the primary focus of K-12 public education should be to pass on the lessons of
I believe K-12 public education should be controlled locally by concerned parents and community members without interference from outside special interest groups, including state and federal governments. All unfunded mandates should be repealed and disallowed in the future. Too little tax money reaches the classroom and too much finds its way toward supporting overly generous health plans, retirement programs, questionable educational school fads and expensive consultants selling theoretical programs untried in the real world.
Finally, I believe we must transform
These challenges will not be accomplished overnight but trends weakening our education system and endangering our student’s futures must not continue. These trends must change and those changes should start now.
2 comments:
Mr. Pundt,
I think you need to reexamine your use of the term "unfunded mandate." First there are many mandates that are funded (the state curriculum, just to name one), are you suggesting that these also be repealed? Considering your stance on local government controlling education, one would plausibly conclude that you are suggesting this. Truly, it would seem that you are against mandates of any stripe.
However, this seems rather incongruent with your stance on teacher pay. How exactly do you plan to institute this? Will you, as state representative, repeal any mentions of teacher pay from the state code and then replace them with a law stating that teacher pay must be based on merit? Because if this is your plan, that is a mandate. And unless you supply funding for the transition, teaching insentives, monitoring, etc. it would be an unfunded mandate at that. Or, to avoid this conflict of interest, do you plan just to serve one term as state representative and then resign and run for school board in Brainerd? Considering your insistence on local government, maybe this might be the best route for you.
And what about federal mandates on education? What do you plan to do about those? Should Minnesota refuse to comply and give back all federal funds for education? Further, do you believe that the state should have no say in what a school teaches? If a majority of citizens of Brainerd want their children to only learn how to scavage for food and play the clarinet, should they really have that much say of the curriculum? Or is it perhaps better that the state does mandate a number of years in math, science, and English?
As someone who was raised by a Brainerd area educator and spent 18 years in the Brainerd School District, I feel that education policy is very important. As a college student now, I have found that having had an excellent education has been the key to success at the next level and vital in preparing me for entry into the "real world." Quite frankly, I find that your promise of "making sense" of education is perhaps a bit premature and maybe a little misleading. If you could clear up these ambiguities in your policy stance, I would much appreciate it.
Tay Stevenson
Dartmouth '10
Hi Tay - My point, much like Brainerd School Board member Lew Hudson's is that all mandates from state and federal government should be funded or not mandated. The most recent one I'm familiar with would require anyone who drives students anywhere in car, van or small bus to have the same licensing as those who drive full-size busses. Hudson said it will cost the Brainerd district about $3-Million this year alone.
My position is just that, a goal, an ideal environment for education. How we get there will be a long and involved process with lots of small steps. But first, we decide where we want to go. Regards, David, USD '81
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