As a former teacher and overall semi-cynical person, I can't help but feel that the public education system in America is in a state of decline or perhaps even outright failure (particularly in regard to schools in rural and impoverished communities). I don't personally think that there is a single issue that acted as the coffin nail for the system as it currently exists, but I do feel that there are several factors that have contributed to the current state of affairs, namely:

1. An over willingness on the part of administrators at the state, local, and national level to adopt new policies or goals simply because they are the newest, shiniest thing that promises to fix all of their problems;
2. A poor definition of exactly what is defined as academic success for students (beyond simply an arbitrary label derived from a test);
3. Falling monetary allocations to schools, which in turn leads to...
4. ... a decreased incentive to hire teachers who are the most qualified (as they have a higher minimum salary requirement);
5. A national culture that values spectacle over substance, and which insists that a person's stupidity is as good as another person's intelligence.
*6 (Special regional mention from the southeastern U.S.): A "good ol' boy" system of nepotism and favor-granting that allows those who are less qualified to be hired as teachers or administrators over those with greater qualifications.

Where I'm going with all this is the question of where the Dakka community stands on the issue. Is the system failing as badly as it seems? If so, why? If not, what is going right with it and why is there a perception of failure in the media?

I'm hoping this doesn't devolve into a yelling match....

Move to Canada there is no hope for you in America.

http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/09/27/and-the-worlds-most-educated-country-is/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_Index

As a prospective teacher, I think it is an enviroment that is not conductive to learning. Learning isnt just lectures in my opinion. Its getting students engaged, but in an enviroment on 30+ students(the average for my class) that is very hard. I was lucky to get into the classes that have smaller people in high school and by design we new each other and all had the same classes(we were an experiment in the school.)

 grayshadow87 wrote:

5. A national culture that values spectacle over substance, and which insists that a person's stupidity is as good as another person's intelligence.

Some of the other issues you mentioned are valid concerns, but I'm curious as to what you mean by a culture that insists one person's stupidity is as good as another person's intelligence? Do you have an example or two, perhaps?

 Hordini wrote:

 grayshadow87 wrote:

5. A national culture that values spectacle over substance, and which insists that a person's stupidity is as good as another person's intelligence.

Some of the other issues you mentioned are valid concerns, but I'm curious as to what you mean by a culture that insists one person's stupidity is as good as another person's intelligence? Do you have an example or two, perhaps?

Not sure if it qualifies, but maybe Tom Cruise believing and espousing that there is no such thing as chemical imbalances or Jenny McCarthy( I think it was) insisting vaccinations were to cause for autism in children? Those folks used their celebrity status to promote pseudo-science as fact, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Or I could be wrong.

Some of the other issues you mentioned are valid concerns, but I'm curious as to what you mean by a culture that insists one person's stupidity is as good as another person's intelligence? Do you have an example or two, perhaps?

The Jersey Shore, the media covering celebrities like everything they do is super-important and interesting, you know, that kind of stuff.

US public education takes a pretty heavy hit, fairly constantly. But you look at it compared to various measures on science, maths and english skills and it fairs reasonably well, not great but reasonably well. There are all kinds of individual instances of money wasted on this fad or that piece of goofball technology, but honestly that's true for any public education system, and likely even more common in private systems (just because they're more flush with cash).

That said, the US does spend a lot of money per kid in the system, and could probably claim it ought to be a few places higher in various measures just on that basis but there are two reasons that doesn't happen.

The first is that the US system puts a lot of resources into kids at the two extremes of the system - kids with development problems and extremely smart kids all do very well in the US system. But money dedicated to catch up learning and to high achiever programs means less money for kids in the middle, and that means results in education rankings, which focus largely on the performance of the median student, will drop.

The other issue is that most places spread education dollars fairly evenly, as the money comes entirely from national and/or state programs, and so each kid more or less gets the same amount of funding as any other. But in the US, where a significant portion of funding is raised and spent at a local level, you get wildly varying amounts spent per student based on the socio-economic status of the local government. Education works on an extreme marginal returns scale - the first few hundred dollars gives you just enough to babysit the kids for 9-3, the next few hundred gives you the resources to start teaching, the next few hundred gives you the scope for top level teaching, and any money after that is nice and useful, but will only marginally improve grades. In the US you have schools that are battling to get the funds to just manage babysitting, plenty more with enough for basic teaching from old textbooks, and at the same time you've got schools that are absolutely floating in cash, free to spend on things that really don't improve student results. When you average this out you get a reduced performance.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
As a prospective teacher, I think it is an enviroment that is not conductive to learning. Learning isnt just lectures in my opinion. Its getting students engaged, but in an enviroment on 30+ students(the average for my class) that is very hard. I was lucky to get into the classes that have smaller people in high school and by design we new each other and all had the same classes(we were an experiment in the school.)

Australia has spent the better part of the last 50 years steadily decreasing the student teacher ratio - reducing the number of kids in each class. We're now at a point where we're seeing the results of this, and we're realising it was a mistake. The problem is that the only genuinely sustainable way to maintain and sustain lower student teacher ratios is, over the long term, to keep teacher pay down. So what's happened here is that teacher's wages hasn't kept pace with other professions, and the result is each year more and more talented, hard working people choose professions other than teaching.

The end result of this is that you have a teacher and maybe only 22 students, but that teacher isn't there because he loves teaching, he's there because all the better performing graduates got into engineering and business and only left him a spot in teaching.

First of all... I'm not dismissing that there are issues with the public schools systems...

But the responsibility for the child's education must remain with the parents, and I believe that accountability is lost now.

 whembly wrote:

But the responsibility for the child's education must remain with the parents, and I believe that accountability is lost now.

I don't believe that it is entirely lost, but it is definitely a fading issue, or rather that accountability is fading as many people who have never had any suddenly find themselves with kids of their own.


But, from what I have seen, and it rather baffles me, is that our "Primary" education is a fair wreck compared to our close allies, and yet our "Secondary" (or College/University to those who don't necessarily know) are generally as among the top, if not the tops in the entire world.

IF that is genuinely the case, we definitely have some disconnect somewhere in the system. Of course, I also feel that we need to bring back things like Shop class, Home Ec, etc. Otherwise today's youth will never be exposed to certain jobs that are definitely needed in society, pay very well, and yet are in many places, critically short workers... How is someone going to know whether or not they want to learn how to weld, if in their primary or High School years, they don't even have an option to take shop class? Anyone who has seen the youtube video of Mike from Dirty Jobs "testifying" in congress knows what I'm talking about here.

I'd say the US education system's a complete clusterfeth at present. Everyone else seems to be explaining why much better then I would though.

One way to fix it is to disengage the state/federal money from test results. Let the local school board drive the ciriculum with STATES oversight.

ANd I second the idea to incorporate more "shop" like classes. All to often, we're hearing that "college" is the only way to go... (or at least, the pressure is there) and we're left with shortages of skilled workers (electricians, mechanic, you know... the blue collar jobs).

Public school system is socialism. Evil evil socialism. If you can't afford a good education for your kids they deserve a poor McEmployee's life. Or something.

feeder wrote:
Public school system is socialism. Evil evil socialism. If you can't afford a good education for your kids they deserve a poor McEmployee's life. Or something.

wait... wut?

I'm a product of the public school systems (in St. Louis in fact!).

I only deserve a poor job?

 whembly wrote:
One way to fix it is to disengage the state/federal money from test results. Let the local school board drive the ciriculum with STATES oversight.

ANd I second the idea to incorporate more "shop" like classes. All to often, we're hearing that "college" is the only way to go... (or at least, the pressure is there) and we're left with shortages of skilled workers (electricians, mechanic, you know... the blue collar jobs).

Wouldn't an individual have to take post secondary school for such blue collar skills anyway? Definitely not the standard 5 years for a 4 year degree, but higher education in some form to sharpen those shop skills. Also qualifications for such jobs requires a standard of testing which usually comes from a college-esque institution.

 tyrant of loserville wrote:

 whembly wrote:
One way to fix it is to disengage the state/federal money from test results. Let the local school board drive the ciriculum with STATES oversight.

ANd I second the idea to incorporate more "shop" like classes. All to often, we're hearing that "college" is the only way to go... (or at least, the pressure is there) and we're left with shortages of skilled workers (electricians, mechanic, you know... the blue collar jobs).

Wouldn't an individual have to take post secondary school for such blue collar skills anyway? Definitely not the standard 5 years for a 4 year degree, but higher education in some form to sharpen those shop skills.

Not necessarily.

I know Electricians and Carpenters who apprenticed right out of highschool...

Also qualifications for such jobs requires a standard of testing which usually comes from a college-esque institution.

Sorry... I was referring to elementary education. Standardized testing for college entry is one thing... but standardized testing in the elementary school system and LINKING those results to Federal money is part of the problem.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
But, from what I have seen, and it rather baffles me, is that our "Primary" education is a fair wreck compared to our close allies, and yet our "Secondary" (or College/University to those who don't necessarily know) are generally as among the top, if not the tops in the entire world.

Primary is the first six years of education. Secondary is highschool. College/university is tertiary education.


And I'd disagree with you entirely in terms of which part of US education is failing. In terms of value for money, your college system is about as bad as it gets in the modern world. Sure, you've got a wonderful group of high end places, MIT, Princeton, Harvard etc that lead the world in many fields, but that's just the top end. Most kids will go to run of the mill places and get run of the mill degrees, and these are the folk who will make up most of your professional workforce and therefore drive your economy. Now, they might walk out with a degree that's about as good as a degree from a run of the mill university in any other developed country in the world, but in the US they'll also have a massive debt.

And that isn't just because government picks up more of the cheque elsewhere. The cost of tertiary education, whether the money comes from the student, from government or from private benefactors, is just way out of whack with what it costs elsewhere.

My last job before my current one was at a university over here. I used to look at US universities and just wonder where the hell the money went. We routinely beat colleges that spent three times as much as us per student, and we wasted so much money I actually couldn't even figure out what you squandered money on. It was a running joke around the uni that if you wanted to report that you were doing badly or okay you compared yourself to Australian and European universities, and if you wanted to report you were doing awesomely you compared yourself to American universities.


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 whembly wrote:
One way to fix it is to disengage the state/federal money from test results.

I absolutely agree that disengaging funding from test results is essential. One of the most staggeringly stupid bits of incentive funding I've ever seen, and something our Federal government is unbelievably following you guys into.

Let the local school board drive the ciriculum with STATES oversight.

I really just don't think there's much value in following this. Ultimately, there needs to be some kind of consistency to the information kids are leaving highschool with. It'd be a nightmare to have kids coming in to college with massive variations in what they know. Universities, working with state and federal systems, can considerably reduce that problem by setting the curriculum.

Once the core minimums are met there will be some scope left for teaching what might be of particular interest to the kids. But even then I wouldn't leave that to the collection of weirdos that tend to make up local school boards. Leave it up to the teachers themselves. Back them to know their kids, and know how their kids learn, and set the curriculum accordingly.

ANd I second the idea to incorporate more "shop" like classes. All to often, we're hearing that "college" is the only way to go... (or at least, the pressure is there) and we're left with shortages of skilled workers (electricians, mechanic, you know... the blue collar jobs).

Definitely.

My personal take on the decline of our education system-

We stopped encouraging outstanding performance and began rewarding mediocrity. We stopped allowing our teachers to both discipline our children and be secure in the knowledge that parents would not only support them, but would reinforce the discipline at home.

There are the added issues that there are now too many students per teachers available in many schools, lack of funding for quality educational tools, an increased reliance on electronic media and less on the traditional methods that were proven to work.

I understand and know from personal experience that the electronic aids in the classrooms are beneficial, but, when a teacher is forced to go off of a uniform curriculum rather than one that he or she comes up with that covers the necessary subject matter... All they end up doing is parroting from the slides that they have on the system. I've seen that happen. Then again, I've also seen the most interesting subject I could have ever imagined rendered into pure torture by an uninteresting and uninterested instructor, with out the electronic aids.

Where did we go wrong? Hard to say, really. All I know is that from my own observations and experiences, all of those are contirbutors to the problem.

 Hordini wrote:

 grayshadow87 wrote:

5. A national culture that values spectacle over substance, and which insists that a person's stupidity is as good as another person's intelligence.

Some of the other issues you mentioned are valid concerns, but I'm curious as to what you mean by a culture that insists one person's stupidity is as good as another person's intelligence? Do you have an example or two, perhaps?

I would have to say that the responses following yours largely sum up what I would have said regarding my view of cultural issues facing education in the U.S. On one hand, society is largely focused on superficial issues (e.g. [Insert Celebrity Here] is showing a "baby bump." OMG!), which is detrimental to the engagement of students in their education as it applies to a larger scale. In terms of valuing the stupidity of one as equal to the knowledge of another, there are the aforementioned celebrity status=insight situations, and on a smaller level there is the underlying belief that, for example, because one has the biological capacity to crank out a batch of children, that suddenly makes the individual qualified to attempt to micromanage every aspect of that child's existence as it relates to his or her education. A personal experience with this came early on in my teaching career in public schools. During my first year of teaching, I received precisely five parent calls. A single call was regarding a child's grades and what could be done to improve them. Two of the other calls were from irate parents demanding that I change their children's failing grades because they were "A-level students" who apparently were incapable of scoring the failing grades they had earned despite being given multiple chances to make up missing work. The remaining two were from parents who also happened to be teachers and coaches, both of whom gave me less than subtle pressure to allow key student-athletes to retry tests that they had failed so that they would be eligible to play. When I stood firm against fudging the grades, I received a visit from a handful of administrators who gave me a rather stern talking to and essentially told me that I needed to "be willing to play ball" (not the exact words, of course, but their essence). It's from several incidents such as these and the others that I have mentioned that I draw my conclusion about a society that is ultimately toxic to actual academic gains and value being placed on education.

Regarding the issue of colleges, from my two years working as a graduate assistant (where I had the benefit of sitting in on department meetings and teaching several classes, as well as weaseling juicy morsels of information from my co-workers) and my time spent as a student, I can say that often the budget is eaten up by inflated salaries for university administrators, frivolous additions to campuses that don't relate to academic progress (how many different types of sports facilities does one university really need, after all), and secondary staff to support the aforementioned two sources of expenditures (i.e. overpaid coaches, repair costs for buildings, and hordes of clerks, aides, secretaries, etc.). Only the bare minimum is used for maintaining existing academic department buildings, adding new faculty to understaffed departments who often have to rely on severely underpaid adjunct professors, and accomplishing other things that directly tie to academics. Granted, this may not be the case at every college, but at my lovely alma mater it was most definitely the order of business.

I appreciate the comments so far, and I have to say I'm finding the ideas coming up to be intriguing.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

But, from what I have seen, and it rather baffles me, is that our "Primary" education is a fair wreck compared to our close allies, and yet our "Secondary" (or College/University to those who don't necessarily know) are generally as among the top, if not the tops in the entire world.

I agree with Sebster. There are quite a few amazing colleges and universities in the United States, but they are vastly outnumbered by the ones that the are average and below. As an example, before moving on to the school that eventually granted my doctorate I started taking graduate course at a directional in order to gauge my interest in continuing down an academic career path. The first course I took was Seminar: International Politics, a graduate course that was ostensibly was intended to cover that broad segment of political science in detail. This course not only covered the exact same material that the introductory International Politics covered during my undergraduate experience, but was taught in exactly the same way; from journal articles.

Now, this is method of instruction is standard at the graduate level, but when some undergraduate institutions offer nearly the exact same course to freshmen there is a clear range in overall quality of instruction.

 sebster wrote:

I really just don't think there's much value in following this. Ultimately, there needs to be some kind of consistency to the information kids are leaving highschool with. It'd be a nightmare to have kids coming in to college with massive variations in what they know.

Mother of God yes. Even as it stands its often difficult to effectively teach entry-level courses because you have to find a way to effectively lecture students despite a fairly large range in terms of existing knowledge. Take away state standards and what is presently difficult becomes nearly impossible, at least without massively cutting educational quality.

I won't say that I ever held a desire to teach, but my time spent as a teaching assistant has put me off the idea permanently. I think I might actually prefer going back to training full time, and that's saying something.

Here is what they need to do:

1) Introduce a more rigorous testing system similar to the GCSE and A-level qualifications in the UK, though allow students to take more subjects for A-level (choosing 4 subjects is incredibly difficult). Have a "National Curriculum" - say that all 5th graders should know, buy the end of the academic year, how to do basic algebra, can read to x level, etc. Leave the schools to decide how to do this.

2) Stop cutting school funding. Increase the education budget at the expense of national defence (which is ridiculously high!) and increase the tax burden of the wealthy or in general tax a bit higher. Even a 1% increase could do wonders.

3) Make subjects such as drama, music, art and other creative subjects more prominent. Run extra-curricular activities to supplement what is done in class - have an orchestra, have instrumental tuition for the students - do a lot more.

4) Actually, increasing extra-curricular activities could be pretty good. Having chess teams as well as football or basketball teams would be nice.

5) Pay teachers more money. Make teaching high schools or elementary schools a viable option for college graduates. You'll attract more qualified people.

6) Increase the focus on the humanities. It doesn't help the foreigner's view of your country when your VP nominee for the Republican party in 2008 makes stupid remarks. Change the way history is taught so it actually makes sense!

7) Don't cut funding for failing schools! If anything, increase funding!

8) Censor the media to a certain degree, especially reality TV shows. Do you really think that it helps students study when they see someone like Kim Kardashian roll around in money for doing absolutely nothing? To paraphrase something Obama said: make children aspire to be astronauts, scientists, historians, geologists, farmers, generals, CEOs etc. instead of them wanting to become the next Lil Wayne or whatever,

9) Re-introduce discipline into the schools. You don't want a generation of hoodlums and sluts (as my generation looks like what it will become), you want a generation of intellectual people. I don't feel that parents can do enough - they're somewhere else for much of the day! I'm not saying that they should re-introduce corporal punishment, but have penalties that will make the students sit up and behave.

10) Finally, make sure that you teach the children credible facts that are backed up by information and truth - teach them the latest scientific principles, not creationism.

However, as I have said before, I'm just a 16 year old, so what would I know?

 whembly wrote:
First of all... I'm not dismissing that there are issues with the public schools systems...

But the responsibility for the child's education must remain with the parents, and I believe that accountability is lost now.

Is education actually the responsibility of the parents? That statement always pops up and it always kind makes me raise my eyebrow. In America education has always been the role of the state. If it really was the parents responsibility, then we wouldn't have a public school system. It's a little like saying that your responsible for repairing the street in front of your house. I guess we can always blame the parents, but it's not really their job to teach.

nomotog wrote:

Is education actually the responsibility of the parents? That statement always pops up and it always kind makes me raise my eyebrow. In America education has always been the role of the state.

Not really, public schools have been at least a limited feature of the US since the Revolution, but they didn't become pervasive until around 1900 and even then only at the primary level.

 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:
Here is what they need to do:

1) Introduce a more rigorous testing system similar to the GCSE and A-level qualifications in the UK, though allow students to take more subjects for A-level (choosing 4 subjects is incredibly difficult). Have a "National Curriculum" - say that all 5th graders should know, buy the end of the academic year, how to do basic algebra, can read to x level, etc. Leave the schools to decide how to do this.

2) Stop cutting school funding. Increase the education budget at the expense of national defence (which is ridiculously high!) and increase the tax burden of the wealthy or in general tax a bit higher. Even a 1% increase could do wonders.

3) Make subjects such as drama, music, art and other creative subjects more prominent. Run extra-curricular activities to supplement what is done in class - have an orchestra, have instrumental tuition for the students - do a lot more.

4) Actually, increasing extra-curricular activities could be pretty good. Having chess teams as well as football or basketball teams would be nice.

5) Pay teachers more money. Make teaching high schools or elementary schools a viable option for college graduates. You'll attract more qualified people.

6) Increase the focus on the humanities. It doesn't help the foreigner's view of your country when your VP nominee for the Republican party in 2008 makes stupid remarks. Change the way history is taught so it actually makes sense!

7) Don't cut funding for failing schools! If anything, increase funding!

8) Censor the media to a certain degree, especially reality TV shows. Do you really think that it helps students study when they see someone like Kim Kardashian roll around in money for doing absolutely nothing? To paraphrase something Obama said: make children aspire to be astronauts, scientists, historians, geologists, farmers, generals, CEOs etc. instead of them wanting to become the next Lil Wayne or whatever,

9) Re-introduce discipline into the schools. You don't want a generation of hoodlums and sluts (as my generation looks like what it will become), you want a generation of intellectual people. I don't feel that parents can do enough - they're somewhere else for much of the day! I'm not saying that they should re-introduce corporal punishment, but have penalties that will make the students sit up and behave.

10) Finally, make sure that you teach the children credible facts that are backed up by information and truth - teach them the latest scientific principles, not creationism.

However, as I have said before, I'm just a 16 year old, so what would I know?

I can agree with all of this though on point 8 I'd be okay with shipping Kim Kardashian and those like her to a special penal colony in the antarctic.

nomotog wrote:
Is education actually the responsibility of the parents? That statement always pops up and it always kind makes me raise my eyebrow. In America education has always been the role of the state. If it really was the parents responsibility, then we wouldn't have a public school system. It's a little like saying that your responsible for repairing the street in front of your house. I guess we can always blame the parents, but it's not really their job to teach.

Well, it's the responsibility of both. Teaching is a skill and the person best placed to help your child is a skilled, motivated teacher, but for that to happen you need to have a kid who is engaged and passionate about learning.

I read an interesting stat a while ago, that the average kid entering first grade from a middle class family knows about 5,000 words, while the average kid entering first grade from a working class family knows about 500. The difference being that the middle class families will typically talk to their children more, and then when you consider that they will also read to them more and help them with numbers more, well then you get kids getting in to school with a big headstart that will help their learning.

Not that the problem is entirely a class one. I agree entirely with Whembly that more and more parents aren't taking an active role in their kid's education (or in anything in their kid's lives really), and from recents events over here it appears (anecdotally at least) that these parents are from all social classes - wealthier parents seem just as likely to put their careers and personal lives ahead of raising their children as anyone else.

I think there really is a greater cultural shift, where people are responded to the increasing calls for material success and chasing personal ambitions by, well, chasing more money and their own personal ambitions, at the expense of taking an active, engaged role in the raising of their own kids.

Apart from agreeing with what Sebster wrote above, I'll also blame some of it on the anti-intellectualism that seems to be getting more prevalent, both in the US and here in Sweden. People thinking that their opinion should be valued the same as that of a Professor (UK definition) in the field. The vaccine "debate" illustrates this well.

I blame over-liberalism,

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Apart from agreeing with what Sebster wrote above, I'll also blame some of it on the anti-intellectualism that seems to be getting more prevalent, both in the US and here in Sweden. People thinking that their opinion should be valued the same as that of a Professor (UK definition) in the field. The vaccine "debate" illustrates this well.

Ahtman has a quote in his sig from 30Rock that captured it perfectly - "I'm not an expert but I do have a strong opinion."

That said, I think these are all problems that education systems all over the world struggle with, nothing that might make the US system specifically struggle (which leads back to my original point - the US system, despite all the noise, performs fairly well overall).

Well, take a look at the Finnish system, the best in the world - it's not exactly hard to replicate that system,

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Apart from agreeing with what Sebster wrote above, I'll also blame some of it on the anti-intellectualism that seems to be getting more prevalent, both in the US and here in Sweden. People thinking that their opinion should be valued the same as that of a Professor (UK definition) in the field. The vaccine "debate" illustrates this well.

I think that mode of thinking has always been prevalent in society we're highly opinionated on a lot of things but will only ever be an expert in a few areas.

ExNoctemNacimur wrote:Here is what they need to do:

8) Censor the media to a certain degree, especially reality TV shows. Do you really think that it helps students study when they see someone like Kim Kardashian roll around in money for doing absolutely nothing? To paraphrase something Obama said: make children aspire to be astronauts, scientists, historians, geologists, farmers, generals, CEOs etc. instead of them wanting to become the next Lil Wayne or whatever,

9) Re-introduce discipline into the schools. You don't want a generation of hoodlums and sluts (as my generation looks like what it will become), you want a generation of intellectual people. I don't feel that parents can do enough - they're somewhere else for much of the day! I'm not saying that they should re-introduce corporal punishment, but have penalties that will make the students sit up and behave.

However, as I have said before, I'm just a 16 year old, so what would I know?

I don't see how censorship can solve anything. You're essentially selecting what to allow or censor based upon your personal tastes. There are other methods to encourage true achievement other than censorship to protect children from television.

And I don't quite understand how the sexual promiscuity of women factors into this conversation. However, even beyond that, you appear to be making the assumption that 'hoodlums' are created out of a lack of discipline, which is a very simplistic viewpoint that borders on being outright incorrect.

As young people, we're very impressionable. Don't tell me that a show such as Keeping Up With The Kardashians or a similar show isn't a bad influence. We're obsessed with celebrity and materialistic culture and the reality shows exemplify this. It's not personal preference, since I actually quite enjoy a few of the shows, but because I think it's damaging.

As for discipline. I didn't say that increased discipline would immediately stop the creation of hoodlums. But do you honestly think that with lazy parenting and next to no discipline at schools the number of hoodlums will decrease? Increasing the discipline at schools will reduce the number of these people.

Finally, my mention of the sexual promiscuity of women was not meant to be taken as a point on its own.

 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:
As young people, we're very impressionable. Don't tell me that a show such as Keeping Up With The Kardashians or a similar show isn't a bad influence. .

One would suggest that countering the influence of shows like this is more the job of the parents rather than wider society.

 whembly wrote:
One way to fix it is to disengage the state/federal money from test results. Let the local school board drive the ciriculum with STATES oversight.

ANd I second the idea to incorporate more "shop" like classes. All to often, we're hearing that "college" is the only way to go... (or at least, the pressure is there) and we're left with shortages of skilled workers (electricians, mechanic, you know... the blue collar jobs).

The problem with that (no testing) of course is that, its perfect for an organization that doesn't want to actually be held to a standard.

 reds8n wrote:

 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:
As young people, we're very impressionable. Don't tell me that a show such as Keeping Up With The Kardashians or a similar show isn't a bad influence. .

One would suggest that countering the influence of shows like this is more the job of the parents rather than wider society.

Half the parents probably don't give a gak though.

Education is a three legged stool. It requires the collaboration of the School System, The Parents, and The Students. If anyone of these parts is not up to the task, the entire thing will wobble or fall.

It is easy for the State to do something about the School System. That is really the only part the Government can actually influence. However, that still leaves The Parents, and The Students very capable of destabilizing the stool of Education.

The question in my mind is, how do you influence the Parents and the Students about their role in the Education process?

 Easy E wrote:
Education is a three legged stool. It requires the collaboration of the School System, The Parents, and The Students. If anyone of these parts is not up to the task, the entire thing will wobble or fall.

It is easy for the State to do something about the School System. That is really the only part the Government can actually influence. However, that still leaves The Parents, and The Students very capable of destabilizing the stool of Education.

The question in my mind is, how do you influence the Parents and the Students about their role in the Education process?

That seems to be the major question several people in education and in general are asking, especially in schools that are in PLA (persistently low-achieving) status. I've seen a handful of neighboring districts and even the district in which I worked set about trying to create a "cultural shift" to address the problem of students more interested in disrupting class and/or simply tuning out, as well as parents who are offended at the notion that they might have to take an interest in their children's education rather than treating school as a baby-sitter. In every case, the attempted shifts failed and business has continued as it always has, which leads me to believe that such ideas are largely an attempt by higher-ups to make a name for themselves without actually having a legitimate plan to address the issue of culture.Frankly, I don't even know that such a shift is possible. I'd love to hear any suggestions as to how it could happen.

I've often puzzled over that myself, and I think it's near impossible for a school to affect that kind of change in a community.

Schools are generally expected to cure society's ills, but it's not possible.

One piece I read had a nice turn of phrase: "Schools are museums of virtue". Struck a chord with me, when looking at the hypocrisy of many parents.

Still, there are awesome, dedicated parents and there are wonderful, insightful young people out there. I don't believe it's entirely as bad as it's made out to be. I do believe that academic interference from the social science fields has often had a negative effect when their policies are taken on board wholesale. I strongly believe that if you change a system as complex as a school or education system, you're always going to screw someone over. In the current system, I am aware of who is being screwed and can attempt to compensate. If any large changes happen, it could be 4 years before that institutional awareness reasserts and until then you've got people being really badly let down by the system. For that reason, despite my previous political views, I have become pretty conservative about education reform.

 Easy E wrote:
Education is a three legged stool. It requires the collaboration of the School System, The Parents, and The Students. If anyone of these parts is not up to the task, the entire thing will wobble or fall.

It is easy for the State to do something about the School System. That is really the only part the Government can actually influence. However, that still leaves The Parents, and The Students very capable of destabilizing the stool of Education.

The question in my mind is, how do you influence the Parents and the Students about their role in the Education process?

Of course, if the State promises to apply electrical motivation daily for any grade below a B I think that will take of the issue...

 grayshadow87 wrote:

That seems to be the major question several people in education and in general are asking, especially in schools that are in PLA (persistently low-achieving) status. I've seen a handful of neighboring districts and even the district in which I worked set about trying to create a "cultural shift" to address the problem of students more interested in disrupting class and/or simply tuning out, as well as parents who are offended at the notion that they might have to take an interest in their children's education rather than treating school as a baby-sitter. In every case, the attempted shifts failed and business has continued as it always has, which leads me to believe that such ideas are largely an attempt by higher-ups to make a name for themselves without actually having a legitimate plan to address the issue of culture.Frankly, I don't even know that such a shift is possible. I'd love to hear any suggestions as to how it could happen.

For such a culture shift to occur, I'm not sure a school can do it alone. it has to be a community wide initiative with buy-in and support from local government, community organizations, businesses, and advocacy groups. It osunds nearly impossible. However, you don;t need "everyone" to buy into the culture shift that "Education Matters", you only need more than half of them. Eventually the majority would start to believe it as well.

The other major hurdle is time. A shift like this would take more than a year or two. It might even take a generation. I'm not sure the "need" is strong enough, because the current culture works well enough for most, and benefits a lot of people in different ways. Maintain such an effort would be challenging and require constant reinforcement.

That is not a challenge I (or many) would like to take on in a Community.

You don't need all that, just break out the electrodes. Where there's a will, there's a way.

 Frazzled wrote:

 whembly wrote:
One way to fix it is to disengage the state/federal money from test results. Let the local school board drive the ciriculum with STATES oversight.

ANd I second the idea to incorporate more "shop" like classes. All to often, we're hearing that "college" is the only way to go... (or at least, the pressure is there) and we're left with shortages of skilled workers (electricians, mechanic, you know... the blue collar jobs).

The problem with that (no testing) of course is that, its perfect for an organization that doesn't want to actually be held to a standard.

Goes back to that the parents need to be involved...

Plus with a transparent process and the fact that the school board are elected officials, we could absolutely hold them to a standard.

 whembly wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 whembly wrote:
One way to fix it is to disengage the state/federal money from test results. Let the local school board drive the ciriculum with STATES oversight.

ANd I second the idea to incorporate more "shop" like classes. All to often, we're hearing that "college" is the only way to go... (or at least, the pressure is there) and we're left with shortages of skilled workers (electricians, mechanic, you know... the blue collar jobs).

The problem with that (no testing) of course is that, its perfect for an organization that doesn't want to actually be held to a standard.

Goes back to that the parents need to be involved...

Plus with a transparent process and the fact that the school board are elected officials, we could absolutely hold them to a standard.

Why do you think its atransparent process? Why do you think the school board will be elected?

 Frazzled wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 whembly wrote:
One way to fix it is to disengage the state/federal money from test results. Let the local school board drive the ciriculum with STATES oversight.

ANd I second the idea to incorporate more "shop" like classes. All to often, we're hearing that "college" is the only way to go... (or at least, the pressure is there) and we're left with shortages of skilled workers (electricians, mechanic, you know... the blue collar jobs).

The problem with that (no testing) of course is that, its perfect for an organization that doesn't want to actually be held to a standard.

Goes back to that the parents need to be involved...

Plus with a transparent process and the fact that the school board are elected officials, we could absolutely hold them to a standard.

Why do you think its atransparent process? Why do you think the school board will be elected?

Where I live... the district's Super Intendent and a couple of members are elected...

I'm saying it SHOULD be.

Watch, "Waiting for Superman" it's a documentary on why the US seems to have so many drop out factories compared to other developed nations. It's actually a really good documentary.

However it does place the blame pretty squarely on the heads of the Teachers Unions.

@Ratbarf: I've actually seen the majority of it while hanging out at a friend's house recently, because we're the kind of dorks who enjoy documentaries as hang-out movies. It seemed to me to oversimplify the problems (as you stated) while trying its best to push charter schools as the be-all, end-all solution.

@Frazzled regarding electrodes: Bless your soul. If only we could use such tactics.

 Ratbarf wrote:
Watch, "Waiting for Superman" it's a documentary on why the US seems to have so many drop out factories compared to other developed nations. It's actually a really good documentary.

However it does place the blame pretty squarely on the heads of the Teachers Unions.

It does a good job of highlighting the problems. I'm not sure I agree with what it considers the solutions.

Ratbarf wrote:Watch, "Waiting for Superman" it's a documentary on why the US seems to have so many drop out factories compared to other developed nations. It's actually a really good documentary.

However it does place the blame pretty squarely on the heads of the Teachers Unions.

I've seen this. It's nothing but a commercial for charter schools, which they are in dire need of, considering on average charter schools perform significantly worse than public schools. Additionally, the film appears to worship standardized testing, which has been shown time and again to be a lazy evaluative tool that negatively skews results, and when paired with a top-down administrative approach, encourages 'training for the test' as opposed to actually teaching and educating students.

If you want to improve education, then listen to the teachers, and nobody else.

Contrary to right-wing belief, it takes a lot of work to become a teacher, and your compensation for such will not be reflected monetarily; logically leading one to understand that those aspiring to become teachers are likely doing so because of their own internal motivation to educate students. As such, they will always have the best interests of the students at heart; as opposed to anyone who thinks that the education system should be profit-driven.

The best teachers are not primarily motivated by money. The worst ones are.

 azazel the cat wrote:

Ratbarf wrote:Watch, "Waiting for Superman" it's a documentary on why the US seems to have so many drop out factories compared to other developed nations. It's actually a really good documentary.

However it does place the blame pretty squarely on the heads of the Teachers Unions.

I've seen this. It's nothing but a commercial for charter schools, which they are in dire need of, considering on average charter schools perform significantly worse than public schools. Additionally, the film appears to worship standardized testing, which has been shown time and again to be a lazy evaluative tool that negatively skews results, and when paired with a top-down administrative approach, encourages 'training for the test' as opposed to actually teaching and educating students.

If you want to improve education, then listen to the teachers, and nobody else.

Yup... agreed there!

Contrary to right-wing belief, it takes a lot of work to become a teacher,

Uh... what? Why is that in the "right-wing" domain? I don't think I've ever heard of anyone (from all political spectrum) saying it's easy to be a teacher. o.O

and your compensation for such will not be reflected monetarily; logically leading one to understand that those aspiring to become teachers are likely doing so because of their own internal motivation to educate students. As such, they will always have the best interests of the students at heart; as opposed to anyone who thinks that the education system should be profit-driven.

The best teachers are not primarily motivated by money. The worst ones are.

Yup... that's true. Most teachers I know (and I know plenty, from public and private schools) treat it as a calling...

Oh... azazel, did ya know that Canada ration healthcare there?

whembly wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:
Contrary to right-wing belief, it takes a lot of work to become a teacher,

Uh... what? Why is that in the "right-wing" domain? I don't think I've ever heard of anyone (from all political spectrum) saying it's easy to be a teacher. o.O

Go look up the rhetoric thrown about in Wisconsin.

 azazel the cat wrote:

whembly wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:
Contrary to right-wing belief, it takes a lot of work to become a teacher,

Uh... what? Why is that in the "right-wing" domain? I don't think I've ever heard of anyone (from all political spectrum) saying it's easy to be a teacher. o.O

Go look up the rhetoric thrown about in Wisconsin.

You mean when they passed the right to work bill?

Um... if you want to interpret that... But it was more of a Union vs state thing. o.O

 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:
Well, take a look at the Finnish system, the best in the world - it's not exactly hard to replicate that system,

Its easy when you are a unitary state, which the US is not.

Care to link some of it. Do people think it really it doesn't take work to become a teacher?

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
As a prospective teacher, I think it is an enviroment that is not conductive to learning. Learning isnt just lectures in my opinion. Its getting students engaged, but in an enviroment on 30+ students(the average for my class) that is very hard. I was lucky to get into the classes that have smaller people in high school and by design we new each other and all had the same classes(we were an experiment in the school.)

What are you wanting to teach? I thought you were considering counseling or something.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 grayshadow87 wrote:

1. An over willingness on the part of administrators at the state, local, and national level to adopt new policies or goals simply because they are the newest, shiniest thing that promises to fix all of their problems;
2. A poor definition of exactly what is defined as academic success for students (beyond simply an arbitrary label derived from a test);
3. Falling monetary allocations to schools, which in turn leads to...
4. ... a decreased incentive to hire teachers who are the most qualified (as they have a higher minimum salary requirement);
5. A national culture that values spectacle over substance, and which insists that a person's stupidity is as good as another person's intelligence.
*6 (Special regional mention from the southeastern U.S.): A "good ol' boy" system of nepotism and favor-granting that allows those who are less qualified to be hired as teachers or administrators over those with greater qualifications.

All of your points are good, but I think that you've neglected to add the most important factor to a successful education. The parents.

Parents expect schools to raise their kids. Parents are becoming less involved with making sure that their kids are doing their work. The parents aren't monitoring their grades and then are suddenly surprised that little Timmy is failing math! "How could the teacher let this happen?"

Psst. It's not the teacher. Your kid only did 25% of the home work assignments and failed to study for the tests. Instead of letting him play XBox all night, perhaps you should not let him take out the video games until his homework is done?

I like that question Easy-E, about getting the change in behaviors from parents and children alike.

It is not the schools job to influence this, it is the job of everyone, you, me, average people everywhere. Then the media, then etc etc etc.

How do we go about doing it is still the question. We need to crack down on poor behaviors, and stop letting people get away with the little stuff. Or rewarding poor behaviors.

For instance, 5 or 6 year old child screaming in the market, you have all seen it, they demand something like candy of the parents, whatever. Most parents now a days just let it happen, and try to ignore it. Most on lookers look away and try to ignore it.

Better to let the parent know, "you screaming child and behavior is not welcome here." At least do not look away, look at it, be disapproving, get the message across that this behavior is unacceptable.

Soon enough parents will be hauling their children outside and disciplining them.

We got off track a couple few decades ago, that disciplining your children become a taboo. This is where it all starts.

Poor discipline = bad mindset to learn.

I try not to get on the "it's the parents' fault" track, but it is a highly valid area of concern. I'm somewhat glad to see a drifting away from corporal punishment as a first-line defense against misbehavior, as several... less than savvy parents I've encountered in my life before I started teaching tended to lay out severe beatings for inconsequential or outright non-existent misbehavior (spitting on a sidewalk, asking a question when they thought someone had finished talking, etc.) This could be a regional problem though, so I won't speak for the entirety of the population...

It seems to me that the issue is the way in which the disciplinary pendulum has swung too far in the other direction, leading every child to think they are the greatest thing the world has ever seen, that they are all geniuses and deserve to be the absolute center of attention, worthy of praise and permitted to disrupt class, break rules, etc. while actually being rewarded for such behavior. To put it bluntly, I believe parents making sure to let their children know that they aren't any more special than anyone else and that if they want to be important to others or worthy of attention then they need to actually do something that warrants it.

For a highly psychotic form of such "overly positive" (for lack of a better term) parenting, try pulling up "indigo children" on Google. While such insanity hardly characterizes most parents, I have seen a handful of cases where parents exhibit similar beliefs about their children, barring the supposed supernatural powers.

Bah! You beat me to the Indigo Children example. If ever there was a clear example of backpfeifengesicht, New Age parents are it.

Tangentially, I blame the appearance of cognitive psychology in the forefront of educational theories for many of the entitlement/self-esteem problems currently causing impediments to real progress.

 dogma wrote:

 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:
Well, take a look at the Finnish system, the best in the world - it's not exactly hard to replicate that system,

Its easy when you are a unitary state, which the US is not.

And have seven people, but of course they are manly people worth ten men each! Yea Finland!

 azazel the cat wrote:


Tangentially, I blame the appearance of cognitive psychology in the forefront of educational theories for many of the entitlement/self-esteem problems currently causing impediments to real progress.

Out of curiosity, what makes you say that? I can see certain aspects of cognitive psychology being beneficial in understanding how students acquire new information (e.g. Piagetian theory applied to learning, although I think Piaget is highly overrated), but I'm not quite making the connection with an entitled attitude. Then again I haven't slept in a while, so it's probably staring me right in the face and I'm too slap-happy to see it.

As someone that is a teacher (HS physics)... i would tell people to never become one.

There are a multitude of issues. Money is a big one... but tossing a truck load o money at something will NEVER fix it... it will just encourage more failure... Pay me more for failing? yes please!

Good teachers do need to be rewarded. BUT they need to be rewarded with a reasonable schedule, fair compensation, respect, and help when it comes to difficult students.

The good teachers are instead beaten into mediocrity by the current system.

That is my fear for becoming a teacher(and loss of not having money)
That i will not be respected, that people will walk all over me.

 frgsinwntr wrote:
As someone that is a teacher (HS physics)... i would tell people to never become one.

There are a multitude of issues. Money is a big one... but tossing a truck load o money at something will NEVER fix it... it will just encourage more failure... Pay me more for failing? yes please!

Good teachers do need to be rewarded. BUT they need to be rewarded with a reasonable schedule, fair compensation, respect, and help when it comes to difficult students.

The good teachers are instead beaten into mediocrity by the current system.

Qft. The sheer number of unpaid hours alone is enough that I wouldn't recommend teaching as a profession. The fact that a good portion of those unpaid hours have virtually nothing to do with student learning only adds to the difficulty of it all. I'll still never understand how selling tickets to a basketball game is a major job duty, especially when the same respect isn't afforded to other extracurricular events. It's also pretty much a given that you won't be respected as a teacher, either by your students, your supervisors, or the community at large, nor will you receive any real follow-through with disciplinary actions.

So those whole "teacher forced to change grade so the football player can play in the big game" is all true and not a figment?
Maybe I should become an electrician like everyone says.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
That is my fear for becoming a teacher(and loss of not having money)
That i will not be respected, that people will walk all over me.

You really need to have thick skin...

Teachers are often stuck in the middle of the parents and the principle...

 Frazzled wrote:
The problem with that (no testing) of course is that, its perfect for an organization that doesn't want to actually be held to a standard.

There's a whole excluded middle there between 'no testing' and 'funding directly tied to performance in testing'.

You can, for instance, continue testing and use it to assess the overall performance of your system and even use it to assess how individual schools are performing from year to year. But it gets really stupid, really fast when you just say 'this school got high results, their systems must be awesome let's give them more money' and 'this school got poor results, their systems must be dreadful let's reduce their funding'.

 whembly wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
That is my fear for becoming a teacher(and loss of not having money)
That i will not be respected, that people will walk all over me.

You really need to have thick skin...

Teachers are often stuck in the middle of the parents and the principle...

Years of being bullied i kinda do.
Really, I just see teaching in High school as a stepping stone to my real dream, College teaching, and someday writing research papers about sociology.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
That is my fear for becoming a teacher(and loss of not having money)
That i will not be respected, that people will walk all over me.

You really need to have thick skin...

Teachers are often stuck in the middle of the parents and the principle...

Years of being bullied i kinda do.
Really, I just see teaching in High school as a stepping stone to my real dream, College teaching, and someday writing research papers about sociology.

Then you'll do fine! As long as it's a dream... go for it.

 azazel the cat wrote:
I've seen this. It's nothing but a commercial for charter schools, which they are in dire need of, considering on average charter schools perform significantly worse than public schools. Additionally, the film appears to worship standardized testing, which has been shown time and again to be a lazy evaluative tool that negatively skews results, and when paired with a top-down administrative approach, encourages 'training for the test' as opposed to actually teaching and educating students.

If you want to improve education, then listen to the teachers, and nobody else.

Absolutely agreed. Both on the problems with Waiting for Superman, and with listening to the teachers. In fact, I'd go one further, don't just listen to the teachers, back the teachers. Instead of building more standardised tests and more rigid curriculum, give teachers a bare bones, minimum curriculum, and then provide resources to let them expand any of those points or offer a wide range of elective units... and back the teachers to know what will best work for the kids those teachers see every day.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 frgsinwntr wrote:
As someone that is a teacher (HS physics)... i would tell people to never become one.

There are a multitude of issues. Money is a big one... but tossing a truck load o money at something will NEVER fix it... it will just encourage more failure... Pay me more for failing? yes please!

Good teachers do need to be rewarded. BUT they need to be rewarded with a reasonable schedule, fair compensation, respect, and help when it comes to difficult students.

The good teachers are instead beaten into mediocrity by the current system.

Thanks for posting from experience.

And I hear the part about help with difficult students a lot. A lot of teacher friends of mine say the most infuriating thing is the lack of support they get from within the system.

 sebster wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
The problem with that (no testing) of course is that, its perfect for an organization that doesn't want to actually be held to a standard.

There's a whole excluded middle there between 'no testing' and 'funding directly tied to performance in testing'.

You can, for instance, continue testing and use it to assess the overall performance of your system and even use it to assess how individual schools are performing from year to year. But it gets really stupid, really fast when you just say 'this school got high results, their systems must be awesome let's give them more money' and 'this school got poor results, their systems must be dreadful let's reduce their funding'.

I agree, This wonderful book I read called "Unequal Childhoods" showed several families from varying social statuses and their approach to education.
Basically that families who where poorer(such as on welfare or barely making endsmeet) tended approach education as though it is only the schools duty to educate them. Basic living took up so much of their time that they did not have the energy to help kids or cultivate their kids interests, one such example is the kids where interested in doing a skit for the parents, the parents ignored them and watched television.
While Middle Class parents where often more co-operative with the teachers. Going to them when their kid is failing, often staying up late in the night to help them.
They later did a follow up of that book, where the kids grew up, All of the middle-class kids(excluding one, who I think had a learning disability. but the parents refused to put them in the special education plan) all ended up going to high end colleges. While the poorer students went to lower end schools or dropped out.
Granted its several families, so it is not cold hard fact.

One thing that I think should still be done, IF we have to have a "national standard" is in the realm of the standardized tests... but here's the thing, those standardized tests should not be published prior to students taking them...

If every school district in the country has the same textbook for the same class, then the answer to every test question will be in the book... Every final that I ever took, when a student asked a question prior to the test, my teachers always said "it's in the book"

If you have a "standard" to hold everyone to then you can still see what teachers are doing satisfactory work or not.. especially if they don't know what is in the test that people take.

My wife, both my parents and one grand parent are/were teachers.

At one of the yearly "change the stuff we each based on the latest fads so we can sell more text books" meetings for science the speaker was asked where the students would learn any science, since they were learning history, geography and civics rather than actual science. His reply was that they "hoped students would pick some up along the way".

Similarly, at the regular school inspection, the inspector asked if students doing A level physics but not maths were struggling because of the calculus... Despite calculus not being part of the physics A level for about 10 years...

Return teaching to the teachers, remove the interferance from administrators and politicians and private exam boards.


ents would learn any science

Yeah, I think the teachers hold there end of the bargain up admirably well. I think the big disconnect is how the community (i.e. School Boards, Super Intendents, Parents, etc.) support the Teachers.

But what about bad teachers? I mean one of the big messages of the Waiting for Superman film was the fact that it is incredibly hard to get rid of teachers that are actually bad at teaching. Especially the use of tenure with public and high school teachers seems rather extreme.

Tenure is kinda bad if you ask me when it's used is such a fashion. In my Hs we had a teacher teach the Bible because they could not fire him.

 Ratbarf wrote:
But what about bad teachers? I mean one of the big messages of the Waiting for Superman film was the fact that it is incredibly hard to get rid of teachers that are actually bad at teaching. Especially the use of tenure with public and high school teachers seems rather extreme.

I'm not a fan of wasting a lot of money, energy, and resources on such a small sliver of the problem. The vast majority of the "problems" aren't the people but process and culture driven.

I had a neice of mine start University to become a teacher. I looked at her and asked her, "Is there a reason you want to go to school longer, get paid less, have no social standing, and be treated like the enemy by most of the people you are trying ot help?" She is now majoring in Psychology.... for now.

Personally, i think people realising that it isn't teachers jobs to educate your child totally would go a long way to helping the education system.
I overheard someone say their child couldn't read at age 5, i wanted to strangle them, why would you willfully slow your child? I realise that there may have been mitigating factors but they just seemed so offhand about it , and seemed to think "they will learn all that in school".

Yeah, if your child can't read, write and do simple sums when they start school, something is wrong, and it is not the school system.

But then, kids should not be being moved up to upper schools still not being able to read, write and do simple sums. These kids should not be mainstream schooled - they just go on to be the disruptive elements in secondary schools because, not unsurprisingly, they can't do any of the work as they can't read, write or do simple sums and so often they just act out, ruining school for everyone else and using up all the time of the teachers.

 SilverMK2 wrote:
Yeah, if your child can't read, write and do simple sums when they start school, something is wrong, and it is not the school system.

Really is that the norm? I learned how to read, write and do math once it started being taught to me in school.

I don't know about the norm - everyone in my family and my wife's family could read and write when they got to school at age 4. It isn't exactly a big ask

But the number of kids my wife teaches (she does a lot of intervention classes) who can hardly read and write at 15-16... And she isn't working in some horrific school either.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Tenure is kinda bad if you ask me when it's used is such a fashion. In my Hs we had a teacher teach the Bible because they could not fire him.

I'm about as atheist as they come... so you understand me when I tell you its fine that they can read/study the bible from a literature perspective. However, If they are "preaching" from the bible in the front of class... this is a different matter. And most states public education systems that I know of could build a case to push forward with due process and remove the teacher.


People say Tenure is bad... but to be honest... it's fairly valuable to have. Nepotism is overwhelming in the school boards these days...

IT wasnt a literature perspective i know that.
IT was in a GOVT class.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I agree, This wonderful book I read called "Unequal Childhoods" showed several families from varying social statuses and their approach to education.

Thanks for the story. I know you recognise that it is only anecdotal, but it seems to agree with a lot of other anecdotal evidence, and I believe there are studies confirming much of it as well. I know for instance that they've shown that the children of middle class parents will go to school with, on average, a 5,000 word vocabulary, while kids from lower class families will know 500 words.

I suspect there's probably some studies out there showing what portion of lower class kids make it to college compared to middle class kids.

 sebster wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I agree, This wonderful book I read called "Unequal Childhoods" showed several families from varying social statuses and their approach to education.

Thanks for the story. I know you recognise that it is only anecdotal, but it seems to agree with a lot of other anecdotal evidence, and I believe there are studies confirming much of it as well. I know for instance that they've shown that the children of middle class parents will go to school with, on average, a 5,000 word vocabulary, while kids from lower class families will know 500 words.

I suspect there's probably some studies out there showing what portion of lower class kids make it to college compared to middle class kids.

What a coincidence we were just talking about that in my last sociology class.

As someone who has been in a sociology class(and his chosen proffesion)
Dont listen to the teachers every word, Its very liberal at first(Almost a liberals wet dream). Until you get down the line, it becomes more scientific.
My proff said that welfare is embarrassing and no one take advantage of it. I know Laugh at that because I know plenty of people that do.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
As someone who has been in a sociology class(and his chosen proffesion)
Dont listen to the teachers every word, Its very liberal at first(Almost a liberals wet dream). Until you get down the line, it becomes more scientific.
My proff said that welfare is embarrassing and no one take advantage of it. I know Laugh at that because I know plenty of people that do.

I think that goes with any class, although I think a better saying would be "listen to what the prof has to say but don't necessarily believe everything you're told".

 Cheesecat wrote:
I think that goes with any class, although I think a better saying would be "listen to what the prof has to say but don't necessarily believe everything you're told".

Yeah, that's the art of critical thinking, isn't it? Don't just accept it, but don't just reject it either. Think about it, think about if it makes sense, and look for any decent studies that might hint that it is or isn't true.

This is why I stick to (actual) science and engineering - there isn't all that much you can misrepresent about stem cell differentiation or the mechanics of solid surfaces

 sebster wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I agree, This wonderful book I read called "Unequal Childhoods" showed several families from varying social statuses and their approach to education.

Thanks for the story. I know you recognise that it is only anecdotal, but it seems to agree with a lot of other anecdotal evidence, and I believe there are studies confirming much of it as well. I know for instance that they've shown that the children of middle class parents will go to school with, on average, a 5,000 word vocabulary, while kids from lower class families will know 500 words.

I suspect there's probably some studies out there showing what portion of lower class kids make it to college compared to middle class kids.

IIRC, there was a societal view that the lower class families put more people into the military than other classes, but a study done showed that it was actually the middle and upper-middle class that carried the bulk of the military systems careerists. While not directly related to education, I thought it related to the thread and education levels...

Dont forget, In many inner city schools, good tachers are few and far between. they get paid less and are not respected as much as ones in others schools(even though many schools dont respect teachers much as it is)
I remember my family recommended i teach in the inner city.
I laughed at the idea because why would I want to make LESS money then most teachers?

Perhaps Teacher salary should be standardized so there isn't a disincentive to teach in poorer areas.

Also maybe some sort of incentive bonus should be given if students show improvement in certain areas. But it wouldn't be measured through a standardized test. It would be simple analysis of the normal work the students turn in.



If a teacher has a certain number of students that are flagged as struggling(certain grade or below) and later those same students showed improvement the Teacher would get a bonus. Or perhaps it would be what determines if pay raises are issued.

The only way to increase your salary is to improve your student's grades.

^and that's the whole point about standardized test. You've just come almost full circle. The next point is how do you make sure that the teacher simply isn't fudging the grades to get a higher income?

No idea. Let someone smarter than me come up with that.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Perhaps Teacher salary should be standardized so there isn't a disincentive to teach in poorer areas.

Which comes back to the issue I raised on the first page - because counties fund schools richer counties can provide better education and better salaries for their teachers. Poorer counties, the ones who really need the extra resources, cannot. Fixing this problem will require a complete review of how schooling is funding, to get the standard teacher salary you suggest you'd have to take funding away from counties entirely and put it entirely in the hands of state governments.

Also maybe some sort of incentive bonus should be given if students show improvement in certain areas. But it wouldn't be measured through a standardized test. It would be simple analysis of the normal work the students turn in.

If a teacher has a certain number of students that are flagged as struggling(certain grade or below) and later those same students showed improvement the Teacher would get a bonus. Or perhaps it would be what determines if pay raises are issued.

The only way to increase your salary is to improve your student's grades.

I think at some point we as a society need to get a better handle on monetary incentives, and when they do and don't work. They work fine when the thing being measured is entirely (or at least mostly) in the control of the employee, and when it represents the whole (or at least the overwhelming majority) of what that person does. So, for instance, if you have a machinist producing widgets all day long, then paying him a bonus based on the number of widgets he produces that meet quality control requirements is a good incentive scheme.

But teachers just don't have that much control over the performance of their kids. Most variation in a classroom comes from the talents and home lives of the kids, not from the teacher. You're basically paying someone a bonus to turn up and teach kids who are pretty good, and penalising someone else for having a classrom of less capable kids.

And just as importantly, much of the value a teacher provides doesn't immediately pop out of their tests straight away. A teacher who can engage kids and get them passionate about learning might not see results straight away, especially if she does so by teaching the kids stuff that isn't in the final test. That kind of excellence won't show up in testing, or even in work the students hand in. But in the long term there grades will improve, and teachers in years later will get paid bonuses for the good work of these kids.

Well in that case its obvious that the problem lies not with the School system, but with the children and their families.

It may not be possable to fix this problem, at least in a real world situation. So we should perhaps focus resources on areas that appreciate the education that is being provided.

If the horse won't drink, why give him the water?


Let those who are ungrateful for an education stagnate in poverty.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Perhaps Teacher salary should be standardized so there isn't a disincentive to teach in poorer areas.

While that idea certainly has merit, its unlikely to pass the political test. It also doesn't address the larger problem of low pay relative to educational standards (of the teachers), especially within the mandatory education period (K-12).

Edit: clarity.


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 Grey Templar wrote:

If the horse won't drink, why give him the water?

In order to placate the horse and illustrate that his choice to refrain from drinking is his choice, and not a matter of oppression.