By Andrea Pigneri
Public schools currently seem more like entangled structures that only get more snarled in itself as time goes on.
There are so many ways of looking at this peculiar situation and so many differing ideas on what can be done.
However, with any system that has lasted for decades, changes need to be easy and swift to be implemented with success. Here are a few alterations that are not enormous, but have enormous positive results for students in public schools.
The first alteration that must be done is fining parents for their child’s absenteeism at school.
This can be done easily by having a police officer in every school to write up tickets for the parents/guardians of children that did not show.
This places pressure on caretakers to make the extra effort to ensure that their kids are really at school and staying at school for the full day.
For a whole academic year, there will only be three unexcused absences allowed. Only doctors’ notes are permissible for an excused absence.
If the child cannot get to a doctor, then the child will still come to school and the staff nurse will decide if the student is too sick or not.
It is practically common sense that students with good attendance records do better than those who do not, and stressing attendance would help boost the productivity of the school as a whole.
The second rule that needs to happen is to have all schools run on a year round schedule. This means that instead of a nine month cycle, it would last eleven months.
The breaks and days off would simply be spaced periodically throughout the year. Year round schooling has shown to greatly improve retention of information, effectiveness of class time and better test scores.
An example of some outstanding results is the “Oxnard, Calif. school district [which] has a long record of successful year-round schooling. . . A nine-year analysis shows significantly improved test scores, without changing the basic education program,” as cited by http://www.pbs.org.
No changing of buildings, administration or anything. Simply a change of schedule can do the trick.
And lastly, but definitely not the least, is to enforce uniforms. This is definitely the most deceiving of the three rules because it seems so unimportant.
Uniforms are viewed as more of a physiological pillow to help students unify rather than pick out differences.
However, the deeper impact is absolutely shocking: “The White House Manual on School Uniforms[11] revealed that several schools with mandatory uniform policies have shown subsequent decreases in school violence and truancy and increases in positive student demeanor,” according to http://wicip.org/ncs/forumuniformseval.htm.
This occurred simply because of wearing the same apparel. Schools would have to receive a little more federal aid to ensure that every student has a uniform at no cost to the family.
Clearly, these three rules may seem small but have a huge positive impact on schools. By ticketing for absent students, instituting a year-round schedule and enforcing uniforms can make a big difference despite their seemingly small value.
Hopefully one day these or other implementations will help schools develop more students into successful people.
