Question 5

[Charlotte Chamber]

How will we continue to improve public education and support the vision of Dr. Peter Gorman and the School Board?

[Don]

Education starts at home. Until parents take responsibility for their children - behaviour, manners, homework, etc - teachers will face an almost impossible task. The move to recognizing excellent teachers needs to continue - and THEY should be asked what they do and how improve the educational system - as a former teacher, parental and administrative support are critical and a lousy principal can ruin an outstanding teacher.

[Priscilla Sawicki]

CMS needs to develop a first class vocational high school for students who do not want to continue to college. This would certainly reduce the drop out rate and be an incentive to learn a trade rather than turn to gangs and crime.

[jeffrey Gitomer]

double teacher salaries and eliminate tenure

[Glen Stephens]

We need to provide more choice for parents. First, we need to create world class vocational institutions for students who do not wish to go to a traditional college. Second, we need to give parents the right to remove their children from schools which are failing to perform. (Oh, and the property taxes need to follow the children to the new school.) We also need to give families tax breaks if they choose to remove their children from public education all together! Public education has no incentive to improve because they will always get the tax dollars of the masses. Promise to remove funding for failure and improvement will follow. Finally, we need to remove politics from the school board. Most other professions use qualified individuals from within the profession to govern themselves. The school board needs to be selected from withing the education profession.

[CARPET DISCOUNT WAREHOUSE]

The teachers have to be paid better. They are the foundation of our children's education and they deserve to be rewarded.

[UNCbrr]

It seems to me that there are three variables that make a school successful - students who want to learn (or at least willing to learn), teachers who want to teach, and parents who take accountability for the school and its students. The problem with the public school system is that its hard to make decisions and changes that are fair for everyone. At some point, we are going to have to stop the political games and make the hard decisions that benefit our students and teachers. That means we need parents and administrators to tackle the disruptive and disrespectful attitudes of their students. And we need to pay our teachers fairly! I know its a money issue, but there are ways to find that money - it just takes thinking creatively and making unpopular choices. Maybe we should think of separating the sport programs from the education system if it will enable the school system to focus on its core initiative of learning? Maybe the Meck Co. Parks & Rec. Dept. should be responsible for public, youth sports programs since they oversee the parks and fields. If that would result in top rate schools, and maintain or upgrade our youth sport programs, why not? Or we could save money to pay teachers by building smaller schools within neighborhoods to cut transportation spending for new buses, bus maintenance, and gas? Or we could cluster schools with other civic amenities like parks and libraries, near transit centers, to offset the costs of increasing teacher salaries. Or why not turn some of these abandoned big boxes into schools? Charlotte Catholic successfully converted an empty office building into a school, instead of building a new campus further outside the city.