Home > Erik's Blog > October 19, 2011 - Wakeboard Park or Education?

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Today’s Pasco Times headline, “No park in plans for Starkey”.  Still on the table, though, is a Wesley Chapel 160 acre ball field complex and an Aripeka wakeboard park.  With all due respect to our commissioners, we don’t need any more parks right now.  Pasco already has a great park system.  It’s a great quality of life here and parks are not the urgent need.  Jobs are the urgent need.

How do we attract jobs?  We attract companies with tax incentives, high quality of life for employees, and an educated work force.  It seems we have been able to provide two of the three and educated work force is not one of them. 

Maybe, Pasco can be a real leader and put the allocated park money toward education by way of rewarding and recognizing excellent teachers.  Education starts with the teachers.  If we paid teachers more money, we would have better teachers.  But, it should be performance-based pay and rewards for measurable results.  And excellent teachers should not be pigeon-holed with state requirements like the FCAT.  Teachers should have flexibility in how they teach; within reasonable guidelines.  Maybe 30% of their time can be flex time teaching.  Maybe we give the teachers some creative freedom.  Maybe TOO MUCH GOVERNMENT is screwing up our society.  Results could be measured by how many of their student’s graduate College.  Maybe we could survey graduating High School students every year, to find what teacher had the most profound effect on their lives.  Hold a county wide prestigious award ceremony and recognize and reward the best from each school. 

  This would not be easy to put together but, my understanding is that Colorado already has a good program in place.  I think Washington D.C. also has a program that has been very successful.  Again, this would not be easy to put together, but anything worthwhile very seldom is. 

Virtually every developed country in the world is kicking our butts in education; especially in mathematics.  Jobs are scarce and will become more so, in the future due to innovation, automation, and outsourcing.  The federal government is ineffective and ridiculously impotent.  It has to start at the local level….  In my humble opinion…

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