General complaints about American public education.

[shortylickens]

Based on what I've heard, seen, and read, the major issue seems to be serious apathy from the parents, which translates into apathy with the kids. Then one day the parents wake up, realize the schools are not doing what they want them to do, the parents get all riled up and meddle with the system, and everything gets worse.

And the teachers are the ones who suffer the most, cuz they're actually trying.

https://www.youtube.com/c/TeacherTherapy/videos

 

[BoomerD]

You're essentially spot on. Parents send their kids off to the babysitter...I mean school so both can work. They expect the teacher to open the child's skull and pour in knowledge and don't bother to check to see if the kid has done their homework...or if it's correct. Many object to their precious little snowflake even having homework.

 

[Moonbeam]

People who hate themselves believe someone else is responsible for their problems and someone else should fix them or die because nobody is going to accept the realization that they themselves as the source of their issues.

 

[biostud]

Maybe you have created a society that favors work and spending over family life, and since you work so much you only have apathy left when it comes to changing the system.

 

[brycejones]

You're essentially spot on. Parents send their kids off to the babysitter...I mean school so both can work. They expect the teacher to open the child's skull and pour in knowledge and don't bother to check to see if the kid has done their homework...or if it's correct. Many object to their precious little snowflake even having homework.

So close yet so far away grandpa

 

[ch33zw1z]

You're essentially spot on. Parents send their kids off to the babysitter...I mean school so both can work. They expect the teacher to open the child's skull and pour in knowledge and don't bother to check to see if the kid has done their homework...or if it's correct. Many object to their precious little snowflake even having homework.

not always the case, IMXP. And IMXP, I have many anecdotes from others that have a similar XP.

Many parents do take an active role,even while working multiple jobs to put food on the table.

These parents trust schools with a child’s mental and physical well-being many hours a day, and to install basic principals and knowledge that transition a child into productive adulthood.

this probably works the majority of the time, unless your child has a learning disability that causes problems.

to a school district, learning disabilities = money. While teachers are willing to accommodate, school admins are basically bean counters who won’t put up unless they have to.

parents who get involved in the appropriate capacity help their child, parents who over step can hurt others.

Americans parents are likely to be the latter in some areas, and the former is others.

there’s no one single solution, except to educate people about how education actually works in theory and practice

edit: and the two working parent thing is designed and implemented by the oligarchy 50 years ago. It was deemed necessary after the 50's-60's where people had too much time on their hands to facilitate social change.

 

[Greenman]

Maybe you have created a society that favors work and spending over family life, and since you work so much you only have apathy left when it comes to changing the system.

Success is measured by acquisition. The question is always "how much can I get" not "how little do I need".

 

[Zorba]

not always the case, IMXP. And IMXP, I have many anecdotes from others that have a similar XP.

Many parents do take an active role,even while working multiple jobs to put food on the table.

These parents trust schools with a child’s mental and physical well-being many hours a day, and to install basic principals and knowledge that transition a child into productive adulthood.

this probably works the majority of the time, unless your child has a learning disability that causes problems.

to a school district, learning disabilities = money. While teachers are willing to accommodate, school admins are basically bean counters who won’t put up unless they have to.

parents who get involved in the appropriate capacity help their child, parents who over step can hurt others.

Americans parents are likely to be the latter in some areas, and the former is others.

there’s no one single solution, except to educate people about how education actually works in theory and practice

edit: and the two working parent thing is designed and implemented by the oligarchy 50 years ago. It was deemed necessary after the 50's-60's where people had too much time on their hands to facilitate social change.

I think your logic is a little circular. "Thanks to technology, women in the 50s and 60s had enough time to push for social change, including being allowed to work. The oligarchs then changed society so they had to work to keep them from demanding to be allowed to work."

 

[fskimospy]

Two things I find most interesting about this topic:

1) Americans are generally satisfied with the quality of the school *their kids go to* while being dissatisfied with the overall system of public education, meaning other schools their kids don't go to and they have little to no experience with. Logically of course this doesn't make much sense.

2) I think Americans' dissatisfaction comes from a relative minority of high poverty schools that truly do have awful outcomes. This is an enormous, maybe impossible problem to solve though as parental and societal factors are far, far more important in most cases than what happens in the schools. Even successful educational interventions generally produce small effects at best.

So when people say 'change the system' I wonder what they mean by changing it and what effects they believe it will have because the answer is almost certainly 'a lot less than you think'. This isn't to say there aren't plenty of places to be improved but people should first, temper their expectations and second, maybe worry about their own school instead of ones they've never been to and don't understand.

 

[Zorba]

Two things I find most interesting about this topic:

1) Americans are generally satisfied with the quality of the school *their kids go to* while being dissatisfied with the overall system of public education, meaning other schools their kids don't go to and they have little to no experience with. Logically of course this doesn't make much sense.

2) I think Americans' dissatisfaction comes from a relative minority of high poverty schools that truly do have awful outcomes. This is an enormous, maybe impossible problem to solve though as parental and societal factors are far, far more important in most cases than what happens in the schools. Even successful educational interventions generally produce small effects at best.

So when people say 'change the system' I wonder what they mean by changing it and what effects they believe it will have because the answer is almost certainly 'a lot less than you think'. This isn't to say there aren't plenty of places to be improved but people should first, temper their expectations and second, maybe worry about their own school instead of ones they've never been to and don't understand.

The problem is there are around 2 million classrooms and teachers in the US, over 131,000 different schools. People then hear about one crazy thing that happened in one classroom and think that is happening everywhere all the time.

People also have a fear of the unknown, and in general you don't get a whole lot of information about what happens day to day at a school your kids are actually going to, much less any other school. For example, Math education, I've heard people bitching about how math is taught for years. I finally found examples of how my school district teaches it all the way through elementary. It is different than how I learned, and obviously better. Instead of just making kids memorize addition tables, they teach kids to actually understand numbers.

 

[HomerJS]

Two things I find most interesting about this topic:

1) Americans are generally satisfied with the quality of the school *their kids go to* while being dissatisfied with the overall system of public education, meaning other schools their kids don't go to and they have little to no experience with. Logically of course this doesn't make much sense.

This is the same answer people give when it comes to Congress

 

[ch33zw1z]

I think your logic is a little circular. "Thanks to technology, women in the 50s and 60s had enough time to push for social change, including being allowed to work. The oligarchs then changed society so they had to work to keep them from demanding to be allowed to work."

it could be, or it could be viewed as the oligarchs using their demand to their advantage.

Ok, you want to work? Good luck with those wages!

Oh? You wanted family time too?? Lulz

 

[fskimospy]

This is the same answer people give when it comes to Congress

I don't agree. First, Congress is (essentially) a single entity just like each school is a single entity. I think saying 'I like my Congressman' is more like saying you like your kids' teacher - they can individually be great but if the larger institution/school is fucked you're going to have a bad time. When people say they like their school they are generally stating satisfaction with the overall product it puts out - nobody is saying that about Congress.

Second, we know how to fix Congress, we just choose not to do it. We do not know how to adequately compensate for those parental and environmental factors that we face in the highest need schools because in the end the answer is probably only that we can modestly mitigate them.

 

[HomerJS]

I don't agree. First, Congress is (essentially) a single entity just like each school is a single entity. I think saying 'I like my Congressman' is more like saying you like your kids' teacher - they can individually be great but if the larger institution/school is fucked you're going to have a bad time. When people say they like their school they are generally stating satisfaction with the overall product it puts out - nobody is saying that about Congress.

Second, we know how to fix Congress, we just choose not to do it. We do not know how to adequately compensate for those parental and environmental factors that we face in the highest need schools because in the end the answer is probably only that we can modestly mitigate them.

How did Republicans manage to convince VA voters whose schools ranked #4 in the country their kids are not being served?

 

[fskimospy]

The problem is there are around 2 million classrooms and teachers in the US, over 131,000 different schools. People then hear about one crazy thing that happened in one classroom and think that is happening everywhere all the time.

Yes, I think it's a good way for news media to activate parents' visceral protection of their kids by showing something awful in another school. I'm sure plenty of people immediately imagine their kid in that situation and get pissed.

People also have a fear of the unknown, and in general you don't get a whole lot of information about what happens day to day at a school your kids are actually going to, much less any other school. For example, Math education, I've heard people bitching about how math is taught for years. I finally found examples of how my school district teaches it all the way through elementary. It is different than how I learned, and obviously better. Instead of just making kids memorize addition tables, they teach kids to actually understand numbers.

This is true, parents have limited information about their own kids' education, much less anyone else's.

 

[fskimospy]

How did Republicans manage to convince VA voters whose schools ranked #4 in the country their kids are not being served?

I don't know that much about Virginia in particular but as far as I can tell pretty much exactly what I said - Youngkin scared parents with nefarious ideas of what was being taught in *someone else's school* and said it was coming for their school next.

 

[ch33zw1z]

I don't know that much about Virginia in particular but as far as I can tell pretty much exactly what I said - Youngkin scared parents with nefarious ideas of what was being taught in *someone else's school* and said it was coming for their school next.

Yes, CRT is coming to a school near you!

 

[HomerJS]

I don't know that much about Virginia in particular but as far as I can tell pretty much exactly what I said - Youngkin scared parents with nefarious ideas of what was being taught in *someone else's school* and said it was coming for their school next.

You mean those things were actually happening or was it just a bald face lie?

 

[fskimospy]

You mean those things were actually happening or was it just a bald face lie?

He was lying of course.

 

[UNCjigga]

We, the American public, have also created a system that provides zero incentives for good public school teachers. Zero. Oh, is tenure supposed to be a reward for good teaching? Well guess what, the shit teachers get tenure benefits too. Oh, you're supposed to get paid more based on the years you stick with this shitty job? Well guess what--younger teachers coming into the system are going to be on a better pay scale than you. There's limited upward mobility into administrative positions, because the PTA will reward their friends and local leaders will reward their friends first. Oh, and even if you do move up, well the pay is still shit. There isn't really any kind of performance based bonus structure (or nothing meaningful) and bad teachers are just as likely to earn the same benefits.

So basically, the people who would've made good teachers will do Teach for America for a few years, get their college loans paid off, and then bounce to a private sector job.

 

[Pens1566]

delete

 

[Zorba]

We, the American public, have also created a system that provides zero incentives for good public school teachers. Zero. Oh, is tenure supposed to be a reward for good teaching? Well guess what, the shit teachers get tenure benefits too. Oh, you're supposed to get paid more based on the years you stick with this shitty job? Well guess what--younger teachers coming into the system are going to be on a better pay scale than you. There's limited upward mobility into administrative positions, because the PTA will reward their friends and local leaders will reward their friends first. Oh, and even if you do move up, well the pay is still shit. There isn't really any kind of performance based bonus structure (or nothing meaningful) and bad teachers are just as likely to earn the same benefits.

So basically, the people who would've made good teachers will do Teach for America for a few years, get their college loans paid off, and then bounce to a private sector job.

In general I don't think "bad teachers" is as big of a problem as people make it out to be. The real issue is just lack of incentive to be a teacher, period. Pays like shit, half of society thinks you are part of a Marxist plot, parents and admin give them shit, etc.

 

[fskimospy]

We, the American public, have also created a system that provides zero incentives for good public school teachers. Zero. Oh, is tenure supposed to be a reward for good teaching? Well guess what, the shit teachers get tenure benefits too.

This is largely true and it's demoralizing for the good teachers because they see the shitbags get paid the same and if anything, do less work because nobody wants those terrible teachers to touch anything.

Sadly, the primary opponents of merit pay are the teachers' unions, not the people running the system they work for.

Oh, you're supposed to get paid more based on the years you stick with this shitty job? Well guess what--younger teachers coming into the system are going to be on a better pay scale than you.

This is not true, at least not in my experience. If it's a union contract all employees of the same title are on the same pay scale. This is actually a problem because the people bargaining for the union are usually long tenured teachers and they often try to backload benefits because 1) the people doing the negotiating directly benefit and 2) they are cheaper for the municipality provide as the total count of teachers in those higher year ranges is smaller. This is also how you end up with useless credentialing bonuses for advanced education - they are cheaper for cities to provide. If anything new teachers usually have it worse than the old ones as retirement benefits have often been made less generous for new employees in recent years.

Also teachers can end up making pretty good money, especially when you consider they work ~180 days a year as compared to 260 for a standard office job. In NYC you max out at around $140k as a teacher before per session work or other incentives (which could add up to $30-40k) which is about $200k if you convert that to a 260 day work year. The main issue is that in the first few years salaries really aren't great and that's when people need money the most but again, thank the unions.

There's limited upward mobility into administrative positions, because the PTA will reward their friends and local leaders will reward their friends first. Oh, and even if you do move up, well the pay is still shit. There isn't really any kind of performance based bonus structure (or nothing meaningful) and bad teachers are just as likely to earn the same benefits.

I imagine this is true in small districts but it's not true in larger ones.

So basically, the people who would've made good teachers will do Teach for America for a few years, get their college loans paid off, and then bounce to a private sector job.

Teach for America teachers are often no better than any Joe Teacher you pick up off the street because the things TFA selects for don't matter much at all and since as you say they all bounce after a few years you end up with a bunch of highly credentialed people who have absolutely no idea what they are doing. (nearly every teacher you meet will admit they were bad at their job for the first year or two... that's why I want more student teaching!) The thing that plagues schools in East New York is not a lack of Ivy League teachers.

 

[akenbennu]

This is the same answer people give when it comes to Congress

Nope, can't stand McConnel or Paul.

 

[JTsyo]

Two things I find most interesting about this topic:

1) Americans are generally satisfied with the quality of the school *their kids go to* while being dissatisfied with the overall system of public education, meaning other schools their kids don't go to and they have little to no experience with. Logically of course this doesn't make much sense.

2) I think Americans' dissatisfaction comes from a relative minority of high poverty schools that truly do have awful outcomes. This is an enormous, maybe impossible problem to solve though as parental and societal factors are far, far more important in most cases than what happens in the schools. Even successful educational interventions generally produce small effects at best.

So when people say 'change the system' I wonder what they mean by changing it and what effects they believe it will have because the answer is almost certainly 'a lot less than you think'. This isn't to say there aren't plenty of places to be improved but people should first, temper their expectations and second, maybe worry about their own school instead of ones they've never been to and don't understand.

One makes sense since parents pick the school by buying a house in that town. They also vote for the school board that decides how the school is run. For number two I think it has more to do with how poorly the US ranks internationally.