Disgusted by this, I went to one of those shools in that district :(

I hate to break it to you, but with three quarters of a million kids, LAUSD makes the news more than most other school systems in the USA. I teach in a much smaller rural system that is majority minority and economically disadvantaged. My school has 6 permanat substitutes because there are simply not enough licensed teachers on the market to take a job that pays badly compared to the credentials required to do it. The only requirement to be a substitute is to have graduated high school and be at least 21 years old.

That's a lousy standard to select a person responsible for children. If you are a Democrat leaning person, you probably want to see public education get better funding. If you are a Republican leaning person, you probably want to see public education abolished in favor of a voucher system that allows you to use public money to send your kid anywhere you want.

Right now, I don't care which is picked, but sitting in the middle causes a broken system with appallingly low standards, poor results, and dangerous hiring practices.

I'm disgusted by this too, but it's not just L.A.

If you want teachers to be better, here's what I'd recommend (and sadly, this is a plan that would probably enrage both Republicans and Democrats in Congress even though it's pretty much common sense).

1) Pay teachers more. A LOT more. Not new teachers, the scale can still be a sliding scale as it is now, but good veteran teachers should have the same earning potential of other positions that require the same level of education (since most teachers are pretty much expected to get Master's Degrees eventually). The scale should allow teachers to push up to $100,000 a year. This number should be even higher in more "high-risk" schools, like inner-city schools. It's easy to look like a good teacher when you're teaching in a wealthy suburban school, but can you reach the kids in an inner-city school that is more likely to fall through the cracks? Think of how many talented people decide to go into fields based on how lucrative they are. I don't want to take away from engineering, medical or law fields, but obviously a good engineer, lawyer or doctor can bring in 6 digits quite easily by the midpoint of their career. This isn't the case for teachers.

2) Reform the tenure system. Tenure can exist to some level, where it's impossible to fire a tenured teacher for economic reasons, but make it easier to get rid of teachers who simply aren't performing and are simply doing the bare minimum to keep their jobs. These bad teachers in MOST school districts are a huge minority. However, there are also a lot that I would consider mediocre teachers, and being a teacher myself, I can't blame someone who's taught 20 years, has a Master's and is making $45,000 a year when they aren't putting in those extra hours to try to keep up on the most recent ideas in pedagogy when they know it won't actually benefit them financially (Again, as a teacher, the idealistic "I'm doing it for the kids" attitude wears off to some degree when you're no longer in your mid 20s, have a wife and children and can barely find time to keep up with everything).

Of course, the two have to go hand-in-hand. Either one by itself wouldn't fix the problem, but I fully agree with Terror that substitute teaching, especially, typically has very low standards because it's a pretty awful job if you're not familiar with the kids and it's not terribly lucrative either. Raise the standards, but raise the pay as well.

And if this plan sounds familiar at all, it was suggested in Minnesota in the early 2000s by then governor Tim Pawlenty--too bad he didn't do so well in early polling, I'd have liked to hear his thoughts on many of our national problems. I don't think it ever happened, but I thought it was a fantastic idea.

That sounds good to almost anyone except when you start talking about paying for it. I'm at a point in my career that for selfish reasons it wouldn't phase me much to do away with public schools and work for a charter school that would pay me that 6 figure salary and be a teacher for the children of parents who of course also have six figure salaries.

However, I also know that one of the things that built this country was offering fully government subsidized (not free) education for any child regardless of their family wealth.

The sad truth is that a large portion of the wealthy Americans would prefer to pay only for the education of their own children. Also, a large portion of poor Americans don't care enough about education of any kind enough to stand up and defend it, so when it comes to establishing a tax to pay for it, nothing comes of it.

It's pretty sad that we can get fired up to fight wars, but when it comes to paying for services to make the lives of citizens better, no one wants to pay for that. Split all the money that went into fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan among every public sector employee including fire fighters, police officers, and the support staff for them as well, and I bet we'd all get a pretty big bonus.

Ill just send my kids to pvt school, thank you ;)

Can't blame you there. I'm not actually advocating for this plan of action (since I actually do teach at a private school and I'd lose my job), but I heard one person make a very good point that if real education reform was going to happen, abolishing private schools would be a good start because it would force the wealthy (who typically will send their kids to private schools if they live in an area with sub-par schools) to actually invest emotionally in the school systems more, which would lead to greater accountability and funding.

Again, I'm not actually advocating for abolishing private schools. The only "public" schools I've ever attended are the universities I've attended, so it would certainly be hypocritical to turn my back on that, but I do think there's some truth to this. As long as the most wealthy and influential Americans have the ability to opt out of public schools if they're not good in their area, it makes it very difficult to create any wholesale change in the system.

Twain, the only way they can do that is if we go full blown socialist and the Gov takies over all pvt sector, not happening in our lifetime!

Believe it or not, I think it would be better to go the other way with a voucher system. Send your kid to any school he/she qualifies for, but the school can only accept the voucher from the state--not private contributions. What happens then is the rich people hire a private tutor to make sure their kid gets good test scores and gets to go to the best school. Maybe this sounds a bit unfair, but I used to be a private tutor for $20 an hour. Even a poor family can handle $20 once a week if it's important. When I see all these kids in my school with the latest and greatest products from Apple when 90% of the kids qualify for free or reduced price lunch, a shift in priorities is in order.

I fully agree (From the way the McCain thread went, I didn't think I'd be saying that to you any time soon.). And like I said, I don't think it should happen, it's just a good hypothetical situation to discuss some of the problems that face the educational system in America.

Its a mess that's been brewing for decades, it'll take decades to fix, and ain't going to happen with the "just throw more money at it" mentality our politicians have, and excuse me grammar, this isn't my main language :/

More money will help, but you're right, by itself, it will have minimal effect.

Coupled with greater accountability, more money can have a major impact though.

These fluffers keep popn up! Sick!