Education on America

[piasabird]

Piasabird works at a community college. Education topics are more than just a hobby to me. I went back to school at the age of 39 and earned an AAS in MIS. Education could very easily be more flexible with different kinds of high schools, similar to how there are different programs of study at a college or university. I believe trying to make every person meet the same standards is not cost effective. Being well-rounded is nice, but I dont think High School is designed to make well-rounded students. It is designed to make cookie-cutter zombies.

 

[BoberFett]

LOL at question 31. With the full blank page it almost seems like they are encouraging the kids to manually write down all permutations. At a high school level, kids should know how to count.

Shouldn't be any need to count. At a high school level, kids should know what a basic factorial is.

 

[fskimospy]

Our educational system has become nothing more than a taxpayer funded daycare center. Most parents have little to no interest in what, if anything, their kids are learning. The kids are gone and out of mind for the most part. Some kids are motivated and do absorb a lot of the information presented to them but the vast majority don't. My sister worked at a community college and had to teach many of the new kids how to read and write before they could enroll in regular classes.

Haha, the old 'kids these days are bad' bit. Every generation does it, and every generation is wrong.

 

[Chris27]

Shouldn't be any need to count. At a high school level, kids should know what a basic factorial is.

I agree; they should know that a factorial counts permutations. By count, I don't mean pointing at things and going "1, 2, 3, ..." but using mathematical tools to determine the size of defined sets.

 

[DonaldC]

Haha, the old 'kids these days are bad' bit. Every generation does it, and every generation is wrong.

I thought he said the schools and parents are bad.

 

[bfdd]

While true, I do think there is an education problem as well. I've posted quite a bit here about our education system and how it's not even close to optimal.
However, the biggest "problem" with education in America is parenting which isn't something easily addressed.

The education system here in California is absolutely terrible for the most part. There's some good school districts here and there, but more than not it's terrible. Teachers are horrible too and the fact they can't exactly control a class makes it harder also. We need a total reworking of our public school system or we need to start letting it move to a privately ran system because it is absolutely terrible. I can't believe no one here has been trying to move towards an Eastern Asian style system.

 

[BoberFett]

I agree; they should know that a factorial counts permutations. By count, I don't mean pointing at things and going "1, 2, 3, ..." but using mathematical tools to determine the size of defined sets.

Gotcha. I figured you meant something other than counting on their fingers. LOL

 

[DucatiMonster696]

No amount of money spent on education can force a child who does not want to learn to become a star student. Neither can excessive spending on education fix parents who do not care about their child's educational goals beyond them using schools as a public baby sitting service.

Star students, well performing students are created in the home and not by politicians, social programs, school officials, teachers, etc.. and their spending habits. Our school system is well funded and for the most part our teachers are well trained and educated. The problem of under performing students cannot be solved by increasing spending or instituting more meaningless standards or social programs when the real issue around under performing students revolves around the lack of good parenting.

 

[glenn1]

our schools are poop. it's daycare. even for those who actually want to learn, the opportunities to do so are minimal. and for those who don't, they're basically allowed to drift through.

i'm not quite sure how you can force education, but it needs to be done...

The education system is a farce for many kids, particularly those in inner cities. It's like the old joke about the Soviet economy - "they pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work" - only substitute that we pretend to spend resources on inner city schools, and the kids don't bother to pretend they want to learn. The only reason why we even bother with school for millions of kids who don't want to be there, is that we can't think of anything better to do with them until they reach the legal age where they can drop out.

 

[Zebo]

Some are good some are bad. Just like parents some are good some are bad. I'm not sure the three R's are all that anyway - American's still come up with interesting IP in arts and science all the time. Personally I wish they'd teach two semesters on Constitution in HS because those founders were some smart SOBs & united we stand divided we fall.

 

[blackangst1]

No amount of money spent on education can force a child who does not want to learn to become a star student. Neither can excessive spending on education fix parents who do not care about their child's educational goals beyond them using schools as a public baby sitting service.

Star students, well performing students are created in the home and not by politicians, social programs, school officials, teachers, etc.. and their spending habits. Our school system is well funded and for the most part our teachers are well trained and educated. The problem of under performing students cannot be solved by increasing spending or instituting more meaningless standards or social programs when the real issue around under performing students revolves around the lack of good parenting.

BINGO. A good reason our education system fails is we really dont give a fuck about kids. We say we do, but we dont foster learning as a strength. We foster external things like sexiness, making sure they are not only well informed about sex but have proper birth control, elitism, etc. Parents expect more from the schools, but not from their own kids. THAT is the problem.

 

[Carmen813]

I work as an after-school tutor in one of the poorest districts in the country. I work with 4th and 5th graders. The biggest problem I deal with on a day to day basis is discipline. Many kids simply do not listen to adults, and because of that, I spend a lot of my time babysitting. I work with 6-7 kids on average, 3 of whom want to learn and 2 of whom I could teach if they weren't distracted by the other 2 causing hell.

Since it's after school and optional, those 2 shouldn't be in the room to begin with.

For all the talk of teacher unions, merit based pay, and voucher systems, none of these will fix the underlying problem. The fix needs to begin at home, and I don't think there is much government can do about that.

You can blame the kids all you want, but a child is not an adult. They are not fully developed, and their understanding of the world is very simplistic. I wouldn't label any of the kids, even the troublesome ones, as "bad." They simply don't know any better because of the environment they grew up in. They don't understand that education is important because they don't see how it is relevant. If you are worrying about getting food every day, it's hard to give a damn about learning language and mathematics.

Personally, for an inner city school, I'd start by instilling some sort of disciplinary program. Get the kids to respect themselves, peers, and adults, then worry about the rest.

 

[BoberFett]

No can do. Discipline lowers a child's self esteem and lands people in prison.

 

[Carmen813]

No can do. Discipline lowers a child's self esteem and lands people in prison.

I know you were being sarcastic, but you hit an interesting point. My undergrad is in Psychology and I'm currently working on a Master's in Mental Health Counseling. There has actually been a change (from the psychological standpoint) about self-esteem in children.

During the 80s it was assumed that problematic kids had low self-esteem, if we raised their self-esteem they would stop being troublesome. That was probably accurate, but the pendulum swung to far. Now the problem is problem kids have self-esteem that is too high, bordering on a childhood form of narcissism (i.e., they think they are better than everyone else). A lot of these kids do need to be taken down a notch, but not in a humiliating way.

Basically, it's all about balance. Kids need to learn that failure is okay, and that disregard for the rules will make their lives difficult.

On a second point:
As for parents, have any of you tried doing some of the homework these kids do today? I'm fairly intelligent, and sometimes I get shown things that just totally boggle my mind. I can figure them out after a couple minutes, but if it's confusing to an adult, how the hell is a 9 year old going to get it? My school is teaching multiplication arrays to kids who can't do 1x1 to 10x10 in their heads yet. It's like making a kid learn to ride a bike without training wheels.

 

[Fenixgoon]

I work as an after-school tutor in one of the poorest districts in the country. I work with 4th and 5th graders. The biggest problem I deal with on a day to day basis is discipline. Many kids simply do not listen to adults, and because of that, I spend a lot of my time babysitting. I work with 6-7 kids on average, 3 of whom want to learn and 2 of whom I could teach if they weren't distracted by the other 2 causing hell.

Since it's after school and optional, those 2 shouldn't be in the room to begin with.

For all the talk of teacher unions, merit based pay, and voucher systems, none of these will fix the underlying problem. The fix needs to begin at home, and I don't think there is much government can do about that.

You can blame the kids all you want, but a child is not an adult. They are not fully developed, and their understanding of the world is very simplistic. I wouldn't label any of the kids, even the troublesome ones, as "bad." They simply don't know any better because of the environment they grew up in. They don't understand that education is important because they don't see how it is relevant. If you are worrying about getting food every day, it's hard to give a damn about learning language and mathematics.

Personally, for an inner city school, I'd start by instilling some sort of disciplinary program. Get the kids to respect themselves, peers, and adults, then worry about the rest.

agreed. education starts at home, not in school. as long as some parents don't care about instilling values for education in their children, school performance will be sub-par

 

[Modelworks]

Like anything it varies. I had some outstanding teachers and I had some that were so sorry they should have lost their job. Some examples:

6th grade , this was in 1979 I think , I was asked to go to a charter school. This school was created for students that were behavior problems or poor performers. I didn't have those problems but was asked to go because of some of the programs they offered. They took an old high school and began offering vocational based classes starting with the 6th grade. Their approach was that the reason these students were problems was because they saw no use or value to learning something like history . So the school taught these subjects but interconnected it with other classes like drama. So when you took drama class they taught history in that class then applied it to acting on stage. Classes like carpentry were used to build stages and interact with other classes like algebra to show how it is used in building. I took the electronics classes and they did the wiring and lights for the stages while teaching things like how to figure out current and voltage. I owe that school with getting me interested in electronics. The teacher was a long time HAM operator and taught us how to build radios out of nothing but a coffee can , some wire and a toilet paper holder. I was hooked.

The classes we had were only about 20 minutes on each subject and the rest of that class was spent applying what we learned, not sitting in a desk watching a teacher write on a board. If we studied triangles , we did so for about 20 minutes then started building triangles with wood to construct a bridge. Get the figures wrong and your bridge would fail .

The school was a success , out of 540 charter students only 4 were dropped from the program and kids that had lost interest in school now wanted to learn.

So what happened to the program and why isn't it in schools now ? It was too costly and required teachers that thought outside the box. They couldn't just tell students to open a book to page x and do problems 1 - 10 for homework.

I had one teacher so bad in high school that he would walk in the room , write the pages he wanted us to read on the board, then he would sit down , put his feet up on the desk and tell us to come to him if we didn't understand something. He was the schools championship football coach so to the school too much of an asset.

 

[shadow9d9]

Where I grew up in middle NJ(Marlboro, NJ), the education was excellent. Harder work and classes than my college.

 

[Mani]

Public school is too structure and too boring. It is just a way of brain washing liberals.

So that's the excuse you use for your shitty grades.

 

[BrownTown]

I know where I grew up if you wanted to be somebody in life you had to go to private school. The valedictorians of the public schools were going to the same crappy public colleges as the bottom third of the private schools.

 

[TruePaige]

I know where I grew up if you wanted to be somebody in life you had to go to private school. The valedictorians of the public schools were going to the same crappy public colleges as the bottom third of the private schools.

Some of the top ranked colleges in the country are public...

 

[Carmen813]

Some of the top ranked colleges in the country are public...

Hell yah, state universities rock. I've attended a public university (SUNY Geneseo) and two private ones (Rochester Institute of Technology, Syracuse University) and the quality is at least equivalent. Hell, I'd rank Geneseo ahead of RIT.

 

[werepossum]

Hell yah, state universities rock. I've attended a public university (SUNY Geneseo) and two private ones (Rochester Institute of Technology, Syracuse University) and the quality is at least equivalent. Hell, I'd rank Geneseo ahead of RIT.

One difference is that in government universities and colleges, you have to want to be there. You have to at the very least fill out forms to get public money to buy your books and pay your tuition. Parents of kids in university allow kids to be failed if they fail, thrown out if they are disruptive. Up through high school, kids are required to be there and it costs them nothing. Far too many parents raise holy hell if their precious little DNAlettes are scolded, or held back, or kicked out. And the teachers' and principals' bosses are politicians who want those parents' votes.

The other big difference is that all universities and colleges are dealing with the creme of the primary school crop, for the reasons above. University students are all, on average, smarter, better prepared, and more motivated than primary school students. This is also the biggest advantage that private primary schools have, because they can easily dismiss children who are disruptive or otherwise not able to keep up with the class. Within the government primary school system it's almost impossible to get rid of these children unless the child brings a weapon (or in some cases, draws a picture of one, pretends his finger is one, etc.) so they disrupt or slow down the whole class. A government university does not have this problem; a state college might be forced by law to take all state high school graduates, but once in you compete with the others, and if you flunk out, you're gone. Government universities can thus compete on equal terms with private universities after the first two semesters, and are generally better funded as well. So it's no surprise that government universities can compete equally with most private universities while government primary schools cannot compete with most private primary schools.

 

[Patranus]

Education is a local issue and as such should be handled by the state/county/city. The federal government should have no part in public education.

Think of how much money local governments could tax in the bureaucracy which is the federal government didn't tax dollars, remove the majority of it to pay for the bureaucracy, and then give it back to the state/county/city.

Per the constitution, the powers not enumerated in it are granted to the local governments/the people.

 

[waggy]

Education is a local issue and as such should be handled by the state/county/city. The federal government should have no part in public education.

Think of how much money local governments could tax in the bureaucracy which is the federal government didn't tax dollars, remove the majority of it to pay for the bureaucracy, and then give it back to the state/county/city.

Per the constitution, the powers not enumerated in it are granted to the local governments/the people.

that idiotic. if it was up to just local/state there would be a huge (well bigger then there is now) gap in education from across the country.

I blame most of the problem with education with the baurcrasy of the system. Its not so much about haveing the student learn as it is getting the students to do well on the fed test.

My wife taught 3-5 grades years ago. She was frustrated with her boss's telling her to start teaching the test a month or two before they took it. they were nto teaching the information but on how to do the test. Also the books/test/quides she was to teach were sometimes wrong but they were getting paid to use them. Finally she quite in frustration (and shitty pay) and is happy to be out.


we are lucky in the school my kids are going to. the class size is small and teh teachers are great. my daughter is in the second grade but has tested in the 3.8 grade according to the test and she is 4th highest in her class (wich has 11 kids). In the federal test the school has a 100% pass rate. i think the reason is the school is "old school" in that it fallows the 3 r's and push's it hard. There is none of that new age "teaching" that is harmfull. IF you fail you fail and the parents are called in.

 

[brblx]

Education is a local issue and as such should be handled by the state/county/city. The federal government should have no part in public education.

Think of how much money local governments could tax in the bureaucracy which is the federal government didn't tax dollars, remove the majority of it to pay for the bureaucracy, and then give it back to the state/county/city.

Per the constitution, the powers not enumerated in it are granted to the local governments/the people.

please shut the fuck up about the constitution, you're more than willing to wipe your ass with it when it suits your agenda.