Recent press coverage claims the United States is far behind such countries and city states as Finland, Shanghai, and Hong Kong in math and science testing as well as other areas. Personally, I’d like to see the variables involved. Who’s taking the test? Is the United States competing against honor students from other countries? In other words, are we dealing with ringers? Finland is a country with approximately five million people. I find it hard to believe Laplanders are beating Americans in math and science. Are they taking the test? Then there’s the culture; they value education. Their teachers are treated like rock stars, and they’re paid well. If an American teacher even looks at a kid wrong, she gets a call from the parent or is put on the hot seat by a butt-protecting principal. Then there’s the political arena. How many of these “test” results are coming from the Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation? Teachers belong to unions and governors such as Scott Walker in Wisconsin and Chris Christie of New Jersey have targeted their pension funds and their reputations. Instead of throwing Walker out on his ear during the recall election, Wisconsinites voted him back in, possibly because he was running against the same guy he bested the first time. Not smart, democrats.

Okay, let’s put the testing controversy (I’m calling it that because I don’t see my questions answered in the news) aside. How can we make American education better without robbing the teachers? They’re already the lowest paid professionals in the country, and they’re expected to keep going to school at night and during the summer until they retire (only a slight exaggeration). I went until I was over forty. But if you want to make a living wage you have to keep piling up credits. A teacher with a masters degree makes more than one with a B.S. a teacher with a masters plus forty-five credits might hit sixty thousand a year or more in some states like New Jersey.

1. What about charter schools? I looked into them a bit when I was searching for a class to take during the summer. It seems the teachers run the school; at least that was the original idea. This is a good idea. Under our present state of affairs, a principal with a specialist’s degree only needs to teach three years. But that was ten years ago, so maybe it’s changed. I doubt it. The principal at my old school has over ten years of teaching science on her resume. I would have listened to her before I listened to an art teacher with three years, not that there’s anything wrong with teaching art. So, how about we hire an administrator to answer phones and handle all the busy work that principals do, and make one of the teachers the principal. That’s what the word used to mean, principal teacher. She’ll have a lot more respect from the teachers. I wouldn’t give her a full load, though. She must evaluate teachers, you know. I always thought that if I went over to the dark side, I’d be out there in the classrooms all day, so the teachers wouldn’t have a bird every time I stepped in their rooms. I’d also know what a parent was talking about if she called me. It’s usually the moms.

2. Get rid of the Homecoming popularity contests. King and queen of Homecoming, really? They even have a court consisting of the other grades with the good-looking kids and the popular ones wait their turns for the top job. This isn’t sour grapes. I went to a Catholic school; we had Homecoming but no king and queen or court.

3. Let’s work on giving credit where credit is due, huh? Should sports get as much coverage as it does? How about the valedictorian or speech and debate? Boring, you say? Why don’t you go to a meet some time. I used to coach speech, and it was every bit as riveting as a football game. Okay, I’m a little prejudiced, but I never gave a competitive speech in my life, and it was still my favorite activity. I used to call the education reporter at our local paper and beg for a little coverage. Every once in a while, we got it.

4. We are doing some things that I like. In some schools new teachers have a mentor they can turn to when things get rough, and they will get rough, especially in the discipline realm. Half of our new teachers quit before their fifth year, and I don’t think that has that much to do with salary. They knew what they were getting into when they took the job. The mentor shouldn’t be some shrew chosen by the principal, either. I heard some pretty nasty stuff about student teachers from their own supervisors. I always loved student teachers. All of them were girls, so maybe that was it.

5. Study halls also seem to be a thing of the past in some schools. Block scheduling was the rage when I left teaching. They are ninety minute classes where teachers have the option of giving students time to do homework, and they’re right there to help. Study halls were the plague on teacher sanity, especially if you were supervising one. Kids wanted to talk, and it was like a hundred to one it was in the lunch room.

6. Principals, if they’re the old fashioned kind, should work on teacher morale. A pat on the back here and there works wonders. A teacher of the month could be posted, but the other teachers might be jealous if they don’t get any reinforcement; you need to work hard at that. We’re all little kids at heart. I always despised teacher of the year awards. There’s a process where you have to apply for the honor; you can be the greatest teacher since Socrates and still get passed over because you’re wearing a dress.

7. Mix it up a little. Does the same science teacher need to teach chemistry twenty years in a row? You might say they do because they have so much experience, but it must get a little monotonous after twenty years. I got to teach American and World history, psychology, sociology, British lit, Business English, creative writing, journalism, English 8, English 9, and Communications and I’m sure I’m forgetting a few here and there. Sometimes I was a rookie, which was a bit of a drawback, but it was different.

8. Don’t go solo. If you’re not married, get a roommate. You need to vent, and you need support. You may not be getting it from your principal or the other teachers. Form a singles club. I saw one of those in another school once. Single teachers were as rare as hen’s teeth in my school.

9. Technology seems to have taken a huge jump. I keep seeing articles about schools giving students computer tablets. Of course, if you lecture, you’re going to run into the smart aleck who’s checking up on what you say. Don’t lecture anyway. It’s not a very good delivery system. Learn by doing was a good idea when John Dewey came up with it, so was The Profiles of Learning. Unfortunately, the Republican party in Minnesota used it as a campaign issue, and we got “No Child Left Behind” instead. If they’d asked teachers what they thought of that, they would have gotten a resounding negative answer. Kids hate state tests. A lot of them don’t take them seriously. What’s the worst kind of test you can give? Multiple choice. Some call it multiple guess for a good reason. When a college teacher gave me a multiple choice test, I was overjoyed. That didn’t happen that often. Profiles of Learning was like a resume of a student’s educational background; students were doing projects rather than sitting there taking notes. Off of the top of my head, one might be doing a genealogical study of your family background. My God, the kid might actually have to interview his parents and grandparents. Unheard of.

10. Limit the amount of time your child can watch television, play video games or participate in social networking. Read to your kids from day one, even when they’re teenagers and don’t want to be seen with you. You feed them and provide a bed and a roof over their heads. Besides readers are curious and curious students are your best students; I’ll wager even better than those in Finland, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. You should remember America boasts the best university system in the world. Where did the professors come from? Mostly public schools I’d say. Let’s take a poll, huh?

11. Almost forgot, and this is my favorite: Year round schools. You still get two months off during the summer, but in some versions, there's a ten day break between quarters. This would help teachers prepare better and motivate students to return to school. Most actually want to go back to school after summer vacation, if only to see their friends. There would also be more retention, something summer vacations really hurt.

Dave Schwinghammer's unconventional mystery, SOLDIER'S GAP, is available on authorsden and at Amazon.com, new and used.