New Jersey to Outsource High School Teaching to Students

Because of looming budget cuts and potential drastic state-wide teacher layoffs, school districts are looking for ways to continue providing students with an education while watching the bottom line. Some districts are trying to think creatively and ensure their students are not shortchanged by potential staffing changes. If teachers are laid off, class sizes will grow, leading to a more difficult learning environment, especially for less-abled learners. One New Jersey district, however, has come up with an inventive way to overcome these obstacles.

[caption id="attachment_698" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Schools can't even afford real black for the blackboard.""][/caption]

Johnsonian High School sits atop a hill, surrounded by lush meadows. From the outside, it looks like any other high school. Upon entering, it soon becomes clear it is much different than any high school you’ve ever seen. In classroom C-395, the students are working in small groups, engaged in their activity, yet a teacher is nowhere to be found.

The high school is experimenting with a new form of cooperative learning. Generally, cooperative learning means that students work in groups to help each other learn new information, with a teacher’s guidance. Johnsonian Superintendent John Johnie thought that the approach could be streamlined further: “If students are helping each other learn, is the teacher really involved? Can’t we find some more cost-effective way of allowing students to help each other learn? I wrestled with those questions for several minutes, and then found a better way.”

Johnie’s idea was to go even further than any educational researcher had dared and eliminate the teacher from the classroom altogether. Instead of paying a teacher a yearly salary, students are paid based on how well they do on their tests. A student, who asked to remain anonymous, said, “The administrators providing the tests have no clue about literature, math, science, whatever. They just give us tests they found on the internet. It takes us about three minutes to find the test using our iPhones, and then someone outside the camera’s view shouts out the answers to the rest of the class. I want to be a student forever.”