It's Tennessee
That's as far as their intelligence (if you want to call it that) makes it anyway.
Southern States:
Alabama - First grade
Mississippi - Second grade
Tennessee - Third grade
Louisiana - Forth grade
Georgia - 5th grade
Just ask Jeff Foxworthy
The American school system is a joke. We refuse to do what is necessary to produce top high school students.
1. We need to ditch the 3 months off in the summer. Johnny and Jane aren't going home to help with the harvest as was the case back at the turn of the century. Keep kids in school year round with appropriate vacations (15 weeks on, 2 weeks off). Of all the industrialized countries, the US spends the least amount of time in school. We have to change this.
2. Adopt a federal set of standards for teachers. There's too much variability even in the same county. For example, when I went to school, Glenbard South was consistently ranked higher in nearly every category vs Glenbard North and that was just a few miles difference. There's too much leeway on what makes a qualified teacher. Some teachers in the inner city barely know their subjects while other teachers in the suburbs have MS and PhDs in their subjects. There should be a minimum knowledge guideline that is federally mandated and federally funded.
3. Teacher salaries need to go up drastically. Very few people want to earn a subsistence level pay. There are many intelligent people who want to teach but chose not to because of the lack of pay. There needs to be a salary floor that is attractive to talent so that we don't have a shortage of qualified teachers.
4. We need to remove property tax and school funding and simply apply a set amount of money to each school, based on the number of students. It's simply not smart to have one district funded at a 15,000 dollar/student level while the next district is at a 5,000 dollar/student level.
Of course, none of these things will ever make it to pass. There are too many entrenched interests that oppose reform. So while we bicker over the future of our children, other countries are catching up and eventually surpass us. Already, the majority of engineering and science PhDs are foreign born, mostly from China.
1. We need to ditch the 3 months off in the summer. Johnny and Jane aren't going home to help with the harvest as was the case back at the turn of the century. Keep kids in school year round with appropriate vacations (15 weeks on, 2 weeks off). Of all the industrialized countries, the US spends the least amount of time in school. We have to change this.
2. Adopt a federal set of standards for teachers. There's too much variability even in the same county. For example, when I went to school, Glenbard South was consistently ranked higher in nearly every category vs Glenbard North and that was just a few miles difference. There's too much leeway on what makes a qualified teacher. Some teachers in the inner city barely know their subjects while other teachers in the suburbs have MS and PhDs in their subjects. There should be a minimum knowledge guideline that is federally mandated and federally funded.
3. Teacher salaries need to go up drastically. Very few people want to earn a subsistence level pay. There are many intelligent people who want to teach but chose not to because of the lack of pay. There needs to be a salary floor that is attractive to talent so that we don't have a shortage of qualified teachers.
4. We need to remove property tax and school funding and simply apply a set amount of money to each school, based on the number of students. It's simply not smart to have one district funded at a 15,000 dollar/student level while the next district is at a 5,000 dollar/student level.
Of course, none of these things will ever make it to pass. There are too many entrenched interests that oppose reform. So while we bicker over the future of our children, other countries are catching up and eventually surpass us. Already, the majority of engineering and science PhDs are foreign born, mostly from China.
Most northern states are year round schooling
2,3 and 4 are all one in the same.
Rich get edumedcated, poor you don't. Simple
Our governments in general are getting dumber and dumber. If you pass a kid onto the next grade that could not pass the previous one what makes them think the kid is EVER going to catch up? They don't want to teach anymore they simply want to babysit. The public school systems all across the country are a joke. The only way you come out of one in decent shape is if you are naturally smart of self motivated.....the schools sure are not going to actually help you. They would rather practice zero-tolerance rules than solve a problem or have to think and apply logic to a situation. The school administrators are dumb so it is irrelevant if the teachers are smart or not as their hands are tied by rules that only goals are to satisfy politically correctness instead of addressing problems.
Most of you here are spot on. Let me give you some insight from my public school (I'm a senior in IL).
1) Whoever said that schools are now focusing more on standardized test scores than teaching real subjects was exactly correct. Since my class did not pass AYP, and this is the 3rd year in a row, my school completely redid their entire process of education. EVERYTHING is centered around the ACT. We have been forced to take practice tests already and the PSAE isn't until April. Rather than make the classes harder, they just focus on the test scores. It seems like they only want to keep their jobs, they don't care how we do after we graduate.
2) Schools are too concerned about kids dropping out. 17% of my class dropped out. We went from around 300 to about 250. I say BIG FREAKING DEAL. The dropout rate in inner city schools is well above that, sometimes around half. Let the idiots dropout! Rather than letting them leave, my school is doing all they can to pass them and graduate them. Do you know how hard it is to get an F at my school? Nearly impossible! Teachers basically hand you a B no matter what you do, and it requires very little work to get an A. So the problem here is that all of these kids who want to drop out bring everyone else down with them, and also skew the standardized test scores. Want higher scores? Let all the idiots drop out. There goes most of your <20 ACT scores.
How do you solve these problems? Simple!
Quit worrying about the dropouts, they'll either come around or they won't. Their choice.
Focus on the students who are motivated. You have to make all classes harder, starting back in elementary school. If they learn that they have to work early on, they will *most likely* continue that throughout their education. The entire elementary/junior high system has to be fixed before you even think about high school. Teaching harder classes will cover more of the material that is on the ACT, and then you don't have to focus on the ACT anymore.
Basically... If you stop babying your entire school population and actually make them work, then you will have no problems. Except for NCLB, that is the real problem, but all of you already know that.
1) Whoever said that schools are now focusing more on standardized test scores than teaching real subjects was exactly correct. Since my class did not pass AYP, and this is the 3rd year in a row, my school completely redid their entire process of education. EVERYTHING is centered around the ACT. We have been forced to take practice tests already and the PSAE isn't until April. Rather than make the classes harder, they just focus on the test scores. It seems like they only want to keep their jobs, they don't care how we do after we graduate.
2) Schools are too concerned about kids dropping out. 17% of my class dropped out. We went from around 300 to about 250. I say BIG FREAKING DEAL. The dropout rate in inner city schools is well above that, sometimes around half. Let the idiots dropout! Rather than letting them leave, my school is doing all they can to pass them and graduate them. Do you know how hard it is to get an F at my school? Nearly impossible! Teachers basically hand you a B no matter what you do, and it requires very little work to get an A. So the problem here is that all of these kids who want to drop out bring everyone else down with them, and also skew the standardized test scores. Want higher scores? Let all the idiots drop out. There goes most of your <20 ACT scores.
How do you solve these problems? Simple!
Quit worrying about the dropouts, they'll either come around or they won't. Their choice.
Focus on the students who are motivated. You have to make all classes harder, starting back in elementary school. If they learn that they have to work early on, they will *most likely* continue that throughout their education. The entire elementary/junior high system has to be fixed before you even think about high school. Teaching harder classes will cover more of the material that is on the ACT, and then you don't have to focus on the ACT anymore.
Basically... If you stop babying your entire school population and actually make them work, then you will have no problems. Except for NCLB, that is the real problem, but all of you already know that.
my roommate graduated with 60~ people, like 10 of whom graduated with 4.0's
I graduated with 600+ students and had no 4.0's.
My highschool had an average act score of 23.something, his was around 19.something.
I bet you can pick which metric better predicted college performance in this example (it was the standardized test). Getting an A doesn't mean shit if there is no metric of comparison.
The federal government needs to make a concerted effort into public schooling; the current ad-hoc system is a complete disaster, and states are completely incapable of doing anything themselves it seems.
- Oct 30, 2000
- 42,589
- 5
- 0
Kindergarten is not pre-school/day care
By the time a child is ready for the First Grade, they should be able to understand their numbers, preliminary plus/minus math, know the alphabet and recognize basic spelling of objects that they interact with.
If they are going to Kindergarten; they that part of the school system should ensure that the child has those basic defined skills.
MovingTarget
Diamond Member
- Jun 22, 2003
- 9,002
- 115
- 106
This, with a few caveats:
1) Coming from a rural community myself, we absolutely do harvest in the summer. In my area, we grow watermelons, honeydew melons, peppers, tomatoes, etc. That is peak time. This is also high-time for the local seafood industry, which begins in July. I say keep the reduced summer schedule, allowing kids to go only a few days per week to keep them in practice while still allowing them to be kids during the summer. Let them go outside...
2) Good idea. Alabama, despite what many may think of that state, has higher certification requirements than many other states. Many teachers who transfer/move here have to take extra courses and pass extra tests before they can become fully certified here, but not the other way around on average. We also have one of the toughest basic hs graduation exams, which says something about the state of hs education in this country. That being said, I plan to apply to the Alabama state board of education after I have had my first lobotomy.
3) YES. Teacher salaries SUCK especially when you consider what job they are expected to do. The pay really is a joke...
4) Lets keep the property tax - it is a good system. It is the disbursement of those monies that is the problem. When you split/fragment your school systems so much that the rich/affluent areas are so well-funded that they beat out private schools and even some small colleges, something is wrong. When you drive a few miles out of said affluent area and you have schools falling apart, teachers with 60 people in a math class, and a low teacher/student retention rate - something is wrong. It is the fact that property tax collections are only kept within their particular school district that is the problem. If pooled/distributed statewide, even county-wide, it wouldn't be a problem.
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