In a speech on Friday, Mr. Gates — who is gaining considerable clout in education circles — plans to urge the 50 state superintendents of education to take difficult steps to restructure the nation’s public education budgets, which have come under severe pressure in the economic downturn.

He suggests they end teacher pay increases based on seniority and on master’s degrees, which he says are unrelated to teachers’ ability to raise student achievement. He also urges an end to efforts to reduce class sizes. Instead, he suggests rewarding the most effective teachers with higher pay for taking on larger classes or teaching in needy schools.

The poor coverage of Gates’ speech lead to some understandably vitriolic but ultimately misplaced outrage on social networking sites like Twitter. The point that Gates tried to make in his speech, and the one that was ultimately missed by the New York Times article, is that school budgets are still constructed based on old and outdated ways of thinking about education. In light of recent advances, Gates advocates a move to a data-driven free-market based approach to improving the educational system for all involved.

Until very recently, it was nearly impossible to objectively measure student achievement, because students are dispersed geographically and come from a wide range of economic, social and religious backgrounds that impact their styles of learning and interactions with both teachers and other students. The introduction of standardized testing, while controversial, has allowed researchers to eliminate these disparate variables and isolate for the one factor that we’re actually interested in: the difference that one year’s worth of study has on student intelligence and accomplishment. After all, what is a school if not a place that we send our children to become more educated and informed members of society?

Once we can isolate for achievement, we can map it against the various factors that might influence it, including teacher salary, seniority, and education level; classroom size, and the ratio of adults to students in a classroom environment. These variables can then be altered and their configurations tested in order to optimize student achievement, thus producing a more efficient educational system that churns out smarter individuals who are more capable of contributing to society in a positive and meaningful way. At the same time, we can be certain that the money that is poured into educational reforms is spent wisely, and can be directly mapped to student advancement.

As Gates points out, these are important concepts, because the American educational system is reeling quickly towards a crisis of both funding and inadequacy. Reforms are required across the board for three main reasons:

1. Since the 1970s, the cost of maintaining the educational system has increased dramatically, while measurable student achievement has stayed essentially flat.
2. In the same period, graduation rates have dropped from 2nd in the world to 16th.
3. The United States now ranks behind 16 countries in scientific achievement, and behind 23 countries in mathematics achievement among students.

Combined with the stresses of the recent financial crisis, schools are being squeezed between a rock and a hard place. They need to change the way that they do business, but can’t afford to do so. This has lead school administrators to react to shrinking budgets by cutting personnel, using old and outdated equipment and text books, and closing down poorly performing schools. Although each of these strategies may help a district to balance its budget in the short term, all impact students negatively over time.

Gates’ argument is that this problem can be sidestepped by addressing the way that we pay teachers for their efforts. As would be expected, a large portion of the educational system’s operating budget is dedicated to teacher salaries. With this in mind, we must consider the two primary components of personnel costs: student to teacher ratios and instructor compensation models. Gates suggests that by changing the way that these two factors are considered, we may be able to better allocate funding, and ultimately, improve student learning.

Past reform efforts have concentrated on reducing classroom sizes. In 1960, the average classroom in the United States put one teacher in front of 26 students. Today, that number has changed dramatically, with one teacher now in charge of just fifteen students. The argument in favour of this movement has been that students benefit from more face-to-face time with teachers. Standards-based testing has shown that this simply isn’t true: There is little correlation between smaller teacher to student ratios and higher student achievement.

Gates also points out that current pay structures reward teacher seniority instead of great teaching. Teachers who have been in the system longer tend to make more money, under the assumption that they get better at their jobs over time. Again, this isn’t necessarily true: studies show that after their first five years of teaching, most teachers don’t increase the positive effect that they have on student achievement, regardless of how many more years they spend teaching thereafter.

Gates argues that by stopping our race to shrink classroom sizes and taking some time to reconsider the elements that influence teacher’s salaries, we can spend educational funding in a more positive manner. In particular, he suggests that teacher salaries be linked to the performance of their students, thus rewarding great teachers and providing constant incentive of lackluster teachers to improve. He makes a point of noting that this pay restructuring wouldn’t mean lower salaries. The average salary of all teachers could stay the same, but those who perform well would be better compensated for their efforts, creating a positive feedback loop that ultimately benefits students. In addition, Gates advocates that the best teachers be paid extra for taking on more or troubled students, which means that his new proposal could even benefit traditionally troubled poorer neighbourhoods.

“Conservative estimates suggest that we can save more than $10,000 per classroom by increasing class size by just four pupils. If we pay some of that money to our best teachers for taking in more students, we accomplish three goals at once – we save money, we get more students in classrooms with highly effective teachers, and we give our best teachers a real raise, not just for being good, but for taking on more work.”

For me, the most important part of this speech was not the claim that Gates made, but rather the reasons behind it. Once you understand why he’s advocating larger classrooms, you can see that the motivations behind such a statement are pure, and start to understand what he would like to accomplish. Essentially, he is attempting to build an economy around great teachers that rewards the best and encourages the others, while always striving to increase student achievement. That’s an admirable goal.

Photo from Facebook group "I judge you when you use poor grammar."

I say it’s good fortune because an awareness of the problem means the potential to fix the problem. You don’t have to be capable of writing at Giller Prize-winning levels, but everyone should be capable of distinguishing between they’re, their and there. Not everyone has a copy editor available to them, so you must become your own copy editor. Misspelling easy words is a good way for your resumé to get thrown in the trash, for your coworkers to question your intelligence level, and generally to cause all sorts of unneeded confusion.

It’s hard to say where chronic misspelling stems from. Depending on the child, it could be a result of parents who did not take the time to help them with their writing, or a teacher who told them to ‘sound it out,’ even though sounding out rhythm will never produce the correct result. In recent generations, the accessibility of spell check on computers gives students an excuse not to bother learning the correct spelling of a word, since the computer will automatically fix it for them. However, everyone knows that spell checkers are not flawless. The library in my high school has this poem posted by the computers to remind us that relying on a spell checker was not enough:

Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rare lea ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect awl the weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.

Students who struggle with spelling face lower grades when they are docked for extensive spelling and grammar problems in papers. Most grading rubrics incorporate nearly a quarter of the student’s mark for good spelling and grammar. Scoring poorly on this section can mean a drop from an A paper to a B paper, or a B paper to a C paper. University professors receive more and more students whose papers are filled with spelling errors, but their job is to teach critical thinking and how to structure an argument, and so they do not have the time or resources to help students (aged 17 to 23) with their spelling. Universities are beginning to deal with problems that were not addressed in high school. The University of Waterloo currently makes its students write an English-proficiency test after they are accepted to the school; an astounding 30% of them do not pass. These are not foreign exchange students, but some of the brightest minds out of our Ontario high schools. At this level, it is often grammar that students struggle with. Paul Budra, an English professor at Simon Fraser University, says that “Punctuation errors are huge, and apostrophe errors. Students seem to have absolutely no idea what an apostrophe is for. None. Absolutely none.”

Colons and semi-colons are notoriously tricky to use, but this humourous post from theoatmeal.com explains the correct circumstances in which to use a semi-colon (I’ve posted a preview to the side). Apostrophes are causing problems too, as seen with the common exactly of it’s and its (the first is a contraction of ‘it is’ while the second is possessive). Capital letters belong only at the beginning of a sentence and on proper nouns, never in the middle of a Sentence like I’ve done Here.

People often blame chronic misspelling on the Information Age; that is, access to instant messengers and cellphones have fostered bad habits in millions of people. We type u instead of you, and the result it that some people find it difficult to differentiate between when it is okay to write like this and when it is not. A former TA of mine once told us that she received a paper for a second-year English class that was written entirely in text-speak. Computers have made everything so easy for us that actually learning for ourselves has become difficult.

In the business world, misspelled words can be devastating to a career or a business. Companies who receive hundreds of applications for a single position often use poor spelling and grammar as a way to narrow the field, which means an extremely well-qualified person with a single error on their resumé will not be considered for the job. Many businesses require their employees to fill out paperwork or send emails on an everyday basis, and errors in these reflect poorly upon the company and the employee. Poor spelling and grammar skills are simply unprofessional. Most people tend to dismiss spelling once they get past the dreaded spelling tests of elementary school, but it is a critical skill for a majority of careers.

I’m not asking for perfection; even I slip up on Renaissance and Mediterranean from time to time. English is a rather confusing language, considering that it has stolen bits and pieces of nearly every other language in the world, and the grammatical rules we follow (“i before e except after c”) always have exceptions (seize, either). But that doesn’t mean that we cannot try to improve. Spelling tests usually end in Grade 6, but that is not the end of our spelling careers. There are so many ways to help ourselves with this problem; I find that simply reading books is a good way to learn how sentences should be structured, how words should look, and where commas and apostrophes actually belong. Don’t rely solely on your computer’s spell checker, but have a friend read your work and point out your mistakes. Check out this list of the 100 most commonly misspelled words and see how many you can get right. Practice spelling the words that you struggle with, especially if you use them frequently at school or in the workplace.

Correct spelling and grammar allows us to transmit our ideas to others in a comprehensible way, so that you not only are intelligent, but you also appear intelligent to the people around you. There is no shame in keeping a dictionary at hand, or asking for a bit of editorial help from your coworker who sends flawless emails (they’ll likely be happy that you’re asking, to be perfectly honest). Watch as your marks improve and your word processor stops making those angry red squiggles under your sentences. Pass on your new-found knowledge to your children and your students so that we can avoid the widespread problem that misspelling has become today in the future. Take pride in your work, in your words and never forget that definitely is definitely never spelled with an a.

1. University isn’t your only option:
   There seems to be a stigma in high school that assumes that the most successful students are university-bound from the start. Courses are partitioned into college and university levels (sometimes called applied and academic), and the ideal of a university education is perpetuated to the students that the school deems have the marks necessary to pursue one.
   While it is true that you’ll need some kind of post-secondary education if you don’t want to work in retail for the rest of your life, it is important to remember that university is not your only option. For those who are more interested in working with their hands and those who don’t really enjoy school, a trade apprenticeship can be a great way to secure an enjoyable job with an enviable pay check. My little brother started his apprenticeship with a co-op program when I was in my second year of university, and now makes far more money than I do, and indeed far more than I will for the foreseeable future.
   For those who don’t have any idea what they want to do with their lives (don’t worry – it isn’t uncommon), I might suggest a college education instead of a general arts degree; the advantage being that a college diploma is immediately applicable to a job in your chosen industry. A general arts degree in history or psychology yields very few job opportunities aside from clerical work unless you plan to follow it up immediately with a college degree.
2. Always have an exit plan – What will your degree do for you?
   In my experience, the biggest mistake that students make when applying to university is to choose a degree that they aren’t interested in or don’t know anything about, either because it seems like the most interesting option available, or because of pressure from a parent or loved one. Unless you happen to be extremely lucky, this is almost always a mistake.
   Take some time to figure out what is involved in the degree that you’re considering before signing up. Check out the website of your chosen school and read course descriptions for classes at all levels of the program to ensure that you’re interested. Call some local companies that you’d like to work for, and ask them what they’re looking for in a recent graduate – they’ll be happy to tell you what’s important to them.
   If you have no idea what you want to do with your life (again, don’t panic – this is normal), consider using your first year of school to take a number of different courses from a wide range of disciplines, and try to figure out what you might enjoy doing for the rest of your life. This may sound like an expensive experiment, but believe me – one year’s worth of tuition is better spent on finding something that you love to do than on dropping out or switching programs in your third year because the courses got tough and you don’t enjoy it any more. Plus, all of the courses that you take during this time can serve as electives towards your actual degree once you choose it.
   Even though it sounds scary, remember that choosing your degree is really the first big choice of your adult life, and that will affect you for the rest of it. If you need to take some time to figure it out, don’t be ashamed of taking a year off to think it over and research your options. Just make sure that you get a crappy job during that period so that you have some incentive to return to school.
3. High school did not prepare you for this:
   Remember all of that crap that they told you in high school about adequately preparing you for university? They lied. If you were lucky, you had one teacher who took the time to actually tell you what university is all about. The truth of the matter is that even if (perhaps especially if) you were really smart in high school and got great grades without even trying, you’re nothing when you get to university.
   Remember when you did really good in track and field in grade school, and then went to the regional meet, only to find out that you absolutely sucked compared to the other kids there? Same thing. Just because you were a great student in your small local high school does not mean that you are going to automatically be one in university.
   University is really hard. In my first year, I managed to fail two math courses, and barely scraped by with a D in one of my physics courses. You see, in high school, I got 80s without even trying, and when I got to university, I didn’t really know how to study or budget my time, or apply myself in any meaningful way. But it wasn’t a big deal. I spent a term on academic probation, got it together, and am getting ready to graduate with a B+ average.
   I’m not trying to scare you (well, not really), but I am trying to make you aware. When you get to university, you’ll be surrounded by a bunch of really smart kids, and taught by a bunch of really smart professors who by and large will not take mediocrity lying down. They know who is capable of more, and they’ll make sure that you figure it out in short order.
4. A minor is good, especially in a technical program:
   The degree that I’m working toward is in Honours Computer Science, which is a pretty great program, and I’m lucky to love what I do. In the last couple of months, I’ve gotten a job with a small local company that finally gives me the opportunity to make some money with all of the knowledge that I’ve gained in the past five years. In addition to computer science, I have been working towards a minor in history, and I consider this to be every bit as important as my primary degree.
   The problem with a lot of technical programs like computer science (at least at Laurier) is that they don’t push important skills like research and essay writing on their students. Throughout my entire program, I only had one computer science professor who forced her students to write papers on a regular basis. As much as writing essays sucks (I’ve come to hate the thought of another evening in the campus library), it’s an incredibly important life skill. It teaches you the basics of finding and vetting information for accuracy and importance, and the skills that are required to be taken seriously in written form.
   I can virtually guarantee that your future job will require you to write something, be it a report or a recommendation, a letter to a client, or a business plan to pitch to a bank -  you need to know how to research, write, and edit your own work so that you can impress people when your winning personality isn’t in the room. Want to stand out from the pack when you start to look for jobs? Get yourself some skills that the other candidates don’t have. If you’re going into a technical field, this means that minoring in an arts program is the way to go.
5. Keep your loans in check:
   For some reason it seems like many of my friends have run up tens of thousands of dollars in personal debt during their university careers. This is no way to start the rest of your life. Granted, I’ve been lucky because my parents saved up a bunch of money and were able to help me out with my books and tuition, but I probably could have made it on my own if I had been forced to.
   Coming out debt-free requires a combination of hard work and sacrifice. I have a friend who was able to fund most of his first couple of years of tuition solely on bursaries and scholarships. It took him most of his grade 12 year to research the available options and to apply for them all, but the end result was a significant amount of money in his pocket that he would have had to otherwise borrow.
   Too many kids don’t work during school. Sure, it was stressful, but even though my tuition was paid for, I worked twenty hours a week at a part time job in order to take care of my living expenses. Working as a waiter, I pulled in just under $18K a year, which would have easily covered my tuition if I had lived at home. Taking care of these costs yourself teaches you valuable lessons about hard work and budgeting, and sets you up to enter the next part of your life without a huge debt (that all of the sudden has a hefty interest rate) hanging over your head. OSAP is great if you have nowhere else to turn, but remember that it’s designed for kids who actually don’t have anywhere else to get their money from. If you can get out of school without a hefty debt, do so at all costs.
   If you’re a parent reading this, start saving up some money for your kids’ educations now. The reality of university is that tuition and books will run you close to $7000 a year before living expenses. Even if you can only manage a little bit of money, it’s better than nothing, and is the most important gift that you can give to your child.
6. Friends are your most important asset:
   You probably won’t have the good luck to graduate with a core group of friends who are interested in studying the same thing as you and are applying to the same schools that you are. I was exceptionally lucky in this regard, and ended up going to school with two of the best friends that a guy could ask for, and living with two more who have become some of the most important people in my life.
   Remember that your friends are your support structure and your home away from home. Your mom won’t be there to hug you when you fail a test or get dumped by the love of your life, but your buddies will be there to take you out for a beer and cheer you up. They’ll also be there to make you some toast and a coffee when you’re too sick to get out of bed the next morning.
   If you’re leaving home for school, making some good friends early on in your university career is especially important. You can’t be studious all the time, and everybody needs to go out and let off some steam now and again. Get yourself some good pals that can be counted on to support you when times are tough, and who will go out and get crazy with you when they aren’t.
7. Grades aren’t all that matters:
   After years of dragging yourself to early morning classes and pulling all-nighters in the library working on that paper that’s due tomorrow at 8am, you’ll be ready to go looking for a job that lets you move out of the stinking hovel that is student housing and prioritize both beer and food on each week’s budget. At that point, you may find out the hard way that a lot of companies out there are looking for something more than just good grades.
   I hate to be the one to break it to you, but the people who will be interviewing you for that great job with a company car and an office with a door on it are probably interviewing about 100 other people for the same position. You need to be able to win them over without being in the same room, and this requires you to stand out from the crowd of other applicants who probably got the same education and the same grades from the same school that you did.
   The best way to circumvent this problem is to take up some extracurricular activities that will help to make your resume jump off of the paper that it’s printed on. In your struggle to complete the requirements of your degree, remember to take some time for electives that you actually enjoy, and to complete at least one major project on your own time that you aren’t required to do in order to pass a class (Check out this post for a great discussion of this).
   In computer science? Write some kick-ass software and grow a user base that you can boast about. Studying political science? Maintain a blog that puts your personal spin on what your government is up to, and get yourself some loyal readers. Love music? Start a rock band, play some gigs, and maybe record an album that you can be proud of later on. If your school offers a co-op program, jump in with both feet and work for some impressive companies. The idea here is to show potential employers that you had a life outside of school and that you aren’t just another cookie-cutter graduate with no individual aspirations or point of view.

So there you have it, the seven things that I think that all kids considering a university career ought to know before getting started. Feel free to drop me a line in the comments if you think otherwise, or have something to add to this list.

Cheers,

Jon