Let's Improve our Public Schools

With this blog, we hope to collect helpful ideas about how our Public Schools might be improved.

How can we Improve our Schools?

Our public schools are a cause for concern. In 2005 the NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) nationwide score for math showed that 63% of fourth-graders and 71% of 8th graders rated below competent. For reading, the scores were 71% below competent for both 4th and 8th graders. The math scores were somewhat better than they were in 1990, but the reading scores were no better at all.

We would like to suggest a way to guarantee that virtually all 4th graders will be competent in English and Math in one year, that all 8th graders will be competent in five years, and that all high-school graduates will be competent in nine years.

This blog will describe how this can be done, and will solicit comments and criticism by anyone -- teachers, principals, parents, school superintendents, and anyone else with an interest in our schools.

The plan we show in these pages will solve the four problems our schools have in trying to insure that all our students can read, write, and calculate . These are the problems.

1. Our schools promote students from grade to grade even though the students have not learned the material.

2. Some students are unruly, noisy, and rude in class.

3. There are a few teachers who do not know the material they are supposed to be teaching. There are others who need help with their teaching skills, or have difficulty maintaining order in their classrooms.

4. Schools have no way to find and use new ideas.


CLICK HERE to read the complete plan in its present form.


We’ve recently run across an alternative, more general approach to solving our school problems. If you CLICK HERE, you’ll find a “School Improvement Planning Guide”.


CLICK HERE to read suggested solutions to the promotion problem.
CLICK HERE to read suggested solutions to the discipline problem.
CLICK HERE to read suggested solutions to the teacher problem.
CLICK HERE to read suggested solutions to the ‘new ideas’ problem.
CLICK HERE to read about other problems which have been suggested as being important.
CLICK HERE to see pertinent comments on schools that we've found here and there.


If you’d like to read more, please click on one of the links below. At each of these other pages, which detail the discussion that led to this plan, there is room to add your own comments and criticism.


Action Hoped-for by the reader:

We’d be delighted to hear from anyone interested in improving our schools. Please give us your ideas and suggestions, which can be added here by any visitor. The first edition of this blog has already been changed as a result of comments made by viewers like yourself, and we hope there will be much more discussion.

To comment, just click the underlined word ‘comments’ at the bottom of this page (or any of the other pages), and tell us what you think. You might like to tell us:

1. Why you think schools don’t need improving.
2. Why we’re wrong about the problems discussed above, and why (or what additional problems exist that we‘ve ignored or overlooked).
3. What you think should be done to improve schools.

(Incidentally, your comment or remark or criticism can be anonymous.)

NOTE: Before commenting, you might look at the other pages in this blog -- the CLICK HERE’s above. They may address your comment, and you can comment there as well as here.

To read comments already made, click the time-of-day down below.
To make a comment, click the word ‘comment’ below.
To send a copy of this page to a friend, click the small envelope down below.