by Rick Lowe
Ms. Mr. Makia Gibson, in a thoughtful response to Mr. Ralph Massey's letter on The Bahamas dismal school exam results tells us his proposed solutions of increasing the length of classes, school days and school year along with a voucher programme and charter schools is a "a misguided model for educational improvement".
She goes on to offer a three point plan for improvement:
- "Significantly increase the investment in ongoing teacher professional development to at least two percent of the Department of Education (DoE) budget."
- "…set clear national targets for school improvement…"
- "Ensure that curriculum goals in mathematics and language arts are sufficiently clear…"
Of course personnel development is important for any business, but to throw out a figure of 2% of the DoE budget, that for 2012-13 is just over $201 million, is suggesting an expenditure of $4 million for ongoing teacher professional development. This seems like a lot of money and would have to be quantified in much more detail than possible in a letter to the editor. Simply put I don't buy into it without a heck of a lot more information.
Forgive me for being blunt, but if the school administrators and even the Minister of Education do not have clear targets for school improvement at this point - after decades of failing our students - the public school system should be shut down and sold to the highest bidder.
Likewise if teachers, many of whom hold masters and doctorate degrees in education are not clear on curriculum goals, one must wonder how they earned their degree or what they were taught.
Ms. Mr. Gibson also advises that "we must be careful not to damage our public relationship with our teachers and schools". Surely she means the school administrators, teachers, and Ministry and Department of Education staff must be careful not to raise the ire of the public that pays their wages through our tax dollars and start to give students value for money.
As for misguided polices, I think the answer is clear. The public educational establishment should at least test Mr. Massey's proposals to see if they will help improve results. Our future generations deserve no less.
