Dear Everyone;
Last week the SF Weekly had an excellent article on Small-By-Design schools in SF. These new style high schools address many of the issues the standard high schools don't or can't. Limited student class sizes - curriculum adapted to students - strong parent teacher input and teachers who like to teach and students who like to go to school.
I wrote an LTE about this and the SF Weekly published it but left off the Libertarian affiliation.
The original article is well worth the time to read. If you have any interest at all in what is happening to government schools and your tax payers dollars supporting them and what can be done to improve education in government schools - other than going to free market free enterprise competitive parent supported schools and no more school property taxes......
http://www.sfweekly.com/Issues/2006-05-03/news/feature.html
Ron Getty
SF Libertarian
http://www.sfweekly.com/Issues/2006-05-10/news/letters.html
Size Matters Bullying big schools:
Ryan Blitstein's article ["A Study in Size," May 3] nails the problems with government schools squarely on the head. Small-by-design schools have class sizes limited to 100 students per grade. School administrators can shape curriculum to the student. Teachers and families work together to develop what will help the students. Most vitally, with small classes, cliques by race do not have time to develop. The biggest overall benefit is teachers who care what happens next. Regular classes demand that the students shape themselves to the curriculum � no individuality allowed. Regular classes are taught with the one-size-fits-all formula. Parents' input is not allowed because of a "what do parents know" mentality. Regular classes mandate belonging to a race-oriented gang for daily survival. The SFUSD should implement this type of program school by school by school, and the results will be educated children who like going to school. Ron Getty
San Francisco