So, yet another study showing public education isn't working.

[piasabird]

I think saying kids or children or young adults get stupid is a very blunt statement and is plagued with a misconception. I dont think the young people of today are any less intelligent or capable than children of previous generations. Also the breadth of knowledge that people are required to possess keeps increasing. It is probably time now to get back to the basics. Too much emphasis is on teaching kids about sexual orientation and psycho-babble. Lets get back to math, reading, english, and science.

Perhaps administrators have some problem keeping discipline in school, because school boards have taken away their administative power or they lose money when they expell children. Maybe funding formulas should be changed and linked to the actual results. In other words if your kids get better grades, then you get better funding. This would reward schools for results. Even this is prone to failure. For instance, the grading standards could be skewed by not grading as hard or making tests easier. This is where accredidation needs some kind of Nation-wide testing standard to test at what level of proficiency children are actually at.

Maybe parents of children who get better grades should get a bigger tax deduction. This would encourage a parent to do their job better. Then those parents or better achievers could afford to buy some school supplies and be encouraged to be involved in their childrens education. This in turn would reward the children by being better educatad and being prepared to go to college or enter the workforce. America would be rewarded also by have better employees.

I have always thought that the results at school are also related to the environment at home, and also the social environment that students are going through in their own community. i.e. do children feel safe where they live and at school. The last things kids need is to not feel safe at school.

If the public schools are truly failures then maybe they need to be done away with. I dont see how the state coming in and taking over are going to make them better. The state cant make a neighborhood safer, or keep other students from committing crimes. If students are less safe at school than at home, maybe it is safer to home-school. The books would not cost any more. It might be cheaper to give all kids Internet access and let them go to a virtual classroom. They do Home-schooling in Alaska and it works there.

 

[steppinthrax]

Originally posted by: piasabird
I think saying kids or children or young adults get stupid is a very blunt statement and is plagued with a misconception. I dont think the young people of today are any less intelligent or capable than children of previous generations. Also the breadth of knowledge that people are required to possess keeps increasing. It is probably time now to get back to the basics. Too much emphasis is on teaching kids about sexual orientation and psycho-babble. Lets get back to math, reading, english, and science.

Perhaps administrators have some problem keeping discipline in school, because school boards have taken away their administative power or they lose money when they expell children. Maybe funding formulas should be changed and linked to the actual results. In other words if your kids get better grades, then you get better funding. This would reward schools for results. Even this is prone to failure. For instance, the grading standards could be skewed by not grading as hard or making tests easier. This is where accredidation needs some kind of Nation-wide testing standard to test at what level of proficiency children are actually at.

I have always thought that the results at school are also related to the environment at home, and also the social environment that students are going through in their own community. i.e. do children feel safe where they live and at school. The last things kids need is to not feel safe at school.

If the public schools are truly failures then maybe they need to be done away with. I dont see how the state coming in and taking over are going to make them better. The state cant make a neighborhood safer, or keep other students from committing crimes. If students are less safe at school than at home, maybe it is safer to home-school. The books would not cost any more. It might be cheaper to give all kids Internet access and let them go to a virtual classroom. They do Home-schooling in Alaska and it works there.

You have to understand though children 50 years ago didn't have myspace, internet, american idol etc. etc. etc.... There are more and more forms of idle entertainment or any type of entertainment that keeps kids away from the books today then ever before. I would say in the 50s the best you had was a radio and if you rich a TV. The TV was rather limited. The rest was physical activity as well. This goes kind of along with how our children are consuming more calories due to the high fat content of foods today and doing less. In a way your physical health reflects your mental heath. The one things I always believe is that it starts with the family. Outside the home unfortunatley teachers can't beat your kids. Therefore the behvior modifications start in the home. If the kid dosen't grow up with good role models how do you expect him/her to behave in the school.

Unfortunatley, there is no quick fix for this, many years ago teachers could beat kids. Now that is not possible and I dont' see us reverting back to that stage anytime soon. Also you have a lot of unqualfied parents having children that they shouldn't be having. Unfortunatley again the govt can't put any control over if you have children or not.

 

[dyna]

Money doesn't solve the problem. Kansas city tried an experiment spending 2 billion on public education facilities in poor areas. The student-teacher ratio was 12 or 13 to 1. Yet scores didn't improve.

Here is the article.

Kansas City School Experiment

 

[steppinthrax]

Originally posted by: wiin
I am guessing here that you are not and have never been a teacher. Accountable to the students? Before you blame teachers, very many of whom are working more than their required hours per day, why don't you look at why studens are failing? I can give you several examples to start with. for example, look at the number of students who are failing. You will find that these are the students who don't attend class, don't do their assignments, and are distruptive in class(yapping in class while the teacher is teaching, disturbing other students). Next, look at how many parents go to parent teacher conference and how many complain about their children's failing grade. You will find that these parents do not know anything about their childrens school activities even though thier children are given lessons plan way ahead of time.

America has the best school system in the world. It is free and students are given every opportunity to excell. It is not the fault of teachers or the school system that some students are not doing well. Success in school is a 30/70 proposition. The 70 percent is your( the students) responsibility.

Originally posted by: Shivetya
http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_5438779

Well of course the teacher's union would be opposed. Currently in California a teacher can be fired if they have been there less than two years. Past that an tenure protects them, requiring thousands of dollars to be wasted just to oust a rotten teacher. Some times it can take 5 years to get rid of one.

Of course the teachers claim its the adminstrators that need to be looked into.


I have a better idea, hold them both to the same standards. If more money is needed for teachers then get rid of the over abundance of adminstrative people (and the percentage of them can be very high) but also fire teachers who cannot prove their competence.

We can't fix the system if it not accountable to the students.

Bull ******, You don't have to be a teacher to know that the school system in this country is not very good. I think you are mistaken when you say the US has the best school system. You find many foreigners who leave their country to work in the US as doctors, enginners etc... The academic standards in other contries are much much more strict then in the United States. US public school system is all about confidence and short cuts. Foreign counteries have a lot more power in telling a parent I don't want your fvcken kid in our school if he/she misbehaves again then in the U.S. They also will beat the hell out of the kids there. Also in the US it's all about confidence in the student how much confidence do you need. If the kid can't do 7 x 8 = 56 what difference does unless you make the kid understand he will be flipping burgers at McJob for the rest of his life. Why is it then that private school students do so well. They take a very select population that wants to do well. However, the fact that you have to pay good money to almost guarnette this. Why do I pay my taxes then.

I'm currently working on my Masters in Computer Science. Computer science by itself is no picnic it's a hard subject and requires lots of math and logic. Particularilly programming. Anyway when I walk into the the Graduate student lab of my univeristy I don't see not one american. I see Chinese, Indian, etc. etc.... These are people that were trainined educated at their schools and came here....

 

[fskimospy]

I think you missed another part of my post where I mentioned that the older ACT scores were readjusted to take into account the new test, and when that is taken into account there is no discernable (and certainly no statistically significant) change in test scores.

Also you are cherry picking your information. You specifically include the 1966 to 1970 period in which some of the largest declines in SAT scores took place, when I specifically omitted that from what I wrote. I said from 1970 to present there is no statistically meaningful decline in SAT average scores. This is indisputable. According to this (sorry, you have to scroll down a ways) there has been a 15 point decline in composite scores since 1970. Thats a little bit more then 1%. That is way way within the margins for natural variations based on one of a million things, and is nowhere close to statistically significant.

I don't mean to be a jerk, but while your views may be all correct... your views on education might all be 100% right, your assertion that SAT scores, and the subsequent idea that the quality of American education is dropping (all media hysteria aside) is simply not supported by the numbers.

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: steppinthrax

Originally posted by: wiin
I am guessing here that you are not and have never been a teacher. Accountable to the students? Before you blame teachers, very many of whom are working more than their required hours per day, why don't you look at why studens are failing? I can give you several examples to start with. for example, look at the number of students who are failing. You will find that these are the students who don't attend class, don't do their assignments, and are distruptive in class(yapping in class while the teacher is teaching, disturbing other students). Next, look at how many parents go to parent teacher conference and how many complain about their children's failing grade. You will find that these parents do not know anything about their childrens school activities even though thier children are given lessons plan way ahead of time.

America has the best school system in the world. It is free and students are given every opportunity to excell. It is not the fault of teachers or the school system that some students are not doing well. Success in school is a 30/70 proposition. The 70 percent is your( the students) responsibility.

Originally posted by: Shivetya
http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_5438779

Well of course the teacher's union would be opposed. Currently in California a teacher can be fired if they have been there less than two years. Past that an tenure protects them, requiring thousands of dollars to be wasted just to oust a rotten teacher. Some times it can take 5 years to get rid of one.

Of course the teachers claim its the adminstrators that need to be looked into.


I have a better idea, hold them both to the same standards. If more money is needed for teachers then get rid of the over abundance of adminstrative people (and the percentage of them can be very high) but also fire teachers who cannot prove their competence.

We can't fix the system if it not accountable to the students.

Bull ******, You don't have to be a teacher to know that the school system in this country is not very good. I think you are mistaken when you say the US has the best school system. You find many foreigners who leave their country to work in the US as doctors, enginners etc... The academic standards in other contries are much much more strict then in the United States. US public school system is all about confidence and short cuts. Foreign counteries have a lot more power in telling a parent I don't want your fvcken kid in our school if he/she misbehaves again then in the U.S. They also will beat the hell out of the kids there. Also in the US it's all about confidence in the student how much confidence do you need. If the kid can't do 7 x 8 = 56 what difference does unless you make the kid understand he will be flipping burgers at McJob for the rest of his life. Why is it then that private school students do so well. They take a very select population that wants to do well. However, the fact that you have to pay good money to almost guarnette this. Why do I pay my taxes then.

I'm currently working on my Masters in Computer Science. Computer science by itself is no picnic it's a hard subject and requires lots of math and logic. Particularilly programming. Anyway when I walk into the the Graduate student lab of my univeristy I don't see not one american. I see Chinese, Indian, etc. etc.... These are people that were trainined educated at their schools and came here....

Just to clarify, you're not talking about our university system are you? Because America has, undisputably the finest higher education system on the entire planet. We are the envy of the world.

Also, why does "beating the hell out of the kids" help? Are you suggesting there is a correlation between corporal punishment and student achievement? I haven't seen one.

 

[steppinthrax]

Originally posted by: eskimospy

Originally posted by: steppinthrax

Originally posted by: wiin
I am guessing here that you are not and have never been a teacher. Accountable to the students? Before you blame teachers, very many of whom are working more than their required hours per day, why don't you look at why studens are failing? I can give you several examples to start with. for example, look at the number of students who are failing. You will find that these are the students who don't attend class, don't do their assignments, and are distruptive in class(yapping in class while the teacher is teaching, disturbing other students). Next, look at how many parents go to parent teacher conference and how many complain about their children's failing grade. You will find that these parents do not know anything about their childrens school activities even though thier children are given lessons plan way ahead of time.

America has the best school system in the world. It is free and students are given every opportunity to excell. It is not the fault of teachers or the school system that some students are not doing well. Success in school is a 30/70 proposition. The 70 percent is your( the students) responsibility.

Originally posted by: Shivetya
http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_5438779

Well of course the teacher's union would be opposed. Currently in California a teacher can be fired if they have been there less than two years. Past that an tenure protects them, requiring thousands of dollars to be wasted just to oust a rotten teacher. Some times it can take 5 years to get rid of one.

Of course the teachers claim its the adminstrators that need to be looked into.


I have a better idea, hold them both to the same standards. If more money is needed for teachers then get rid of the over abundance of adminstrative people (and the percentage of them can be very high) but also fire teachers who cannot prove their competence.

We can't fix the system if it not accountable to the students.

Bull ******, You don't have to be a teacher to know that the school system in this country is not very good. I think you are mistaken when you say the US has the best school system. You find many foreigners who leave their country to work in the US as doctors, enginners etc... The academic standards in other contries are much much more strict then in the United States. US public school system is all about confidence and short cuts. Foreign counteries have a lot more power in telling a parent I don't want your fvcken kid in our school if he/she misbehaves again then in the U.S. They also will beat the hell out of the kids there. Also in the US it's all about confidence in the student how much confidence do you need. If the kid can't do 7 x 8 = 56 what difference does unless you make the kid understand he will be flipping burgers at McJob for the rest of his life. Why is it then that private school students do so well. They take a very select population that wants to do well. However, the fact that you have to pay good money to almost guarnette this. Why do I pay my taxes then.

I'm currently working on my Masters in Computer Science. Computer science by itself is no picnic it's a hard subject and requires lots of math and logic. Particularilly programming. Anyway when I walk into the the Graduate student lab of my univeristy I don't see not one american. I see Chinese, Indian, etc. etc.... These are people that were trainined educated at their schools and came here....

Just to clarify, you're not talking about our university system are you? Because America has, undisputably the finest higher education system on the entire planet. We are the envy of the world.

Also, why does "beating the hell out of the kids" help? Are you suggesting there is a correlation between corporal punishment and student achievement? I haven't seen one.

We have the finest college and universities, however, you can't say the same for our k-12 school systems. And, I'm sure there is but don't have the time to find at this moment a study that shows if johnny keeps misbehaving he gets a suspended (vacation for some kids). V.s. if he keeps misbehaving he knows to stop unless he wants to feel the wrath of the whip.

 

[Fern]

study showing public education isn't working

I think we should ingore the report. The people who prepared it are the product of public education.




BTW: Here where I'm at we spend millions on new biuldings all the time. Why can't we build building properly, like in Europe where they last hundreds of years?

Some should do a calc about the average costs of a building, divide it by the average number of teachers in that building. The divide that by about 20 or 30 yrs, see how much more money w/b available for salaries, etc.

Fern

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: steppinthrax
And, I'm sure there is but don't have the time to find at this moment a study that shows if johnny keeps misbehaving he gets a suspended (vacation for some kids). V.s. if he keeps misbehaving he knows to stop unless he wants to feel the wrath of the whip.

I'll save you the time. There are a zillion studies... all of which contradictory, and none providing any usable answers. (if you look, corporal punishment is most used in the south... home of the nations worst schools)

 

[MadRat]

Teachers don't get much of the summers off. The summers continue to get shorter because dirtbags out there enjoy free daycare and demand longer school years. The summers end up costing teachers because they have to attend mandatory professional training and seminars that they often pay for out of their own pockets. And because most states have administrative heavy staffing, teachers end up pulling more and more workload simply because they are the indians of the groups and everyone knows the chiefs don't do anything. Give teachers a break from this unprovoked criticism, they get little credit when credit is due. Blame the chiefs, they are the ones that are wasting your money.

 

[Screech]

Originally posted by: steppinthrax

Originally posted by: eskimospy

Originally posted by: steppinthrax

Originally posted by: wiin
I am guessing here that you are not and have never been a teacher. Accountable to the students? Before you blame teachers, very many of whom are working more than their required hours per day, why don't you look at why studens are failing? I can give you several examples to start with. for example, look at the number of students who are failing. You will find that these are the students who don't attend class, don't do their assignments, and are distruptive in class(yapping in class while the teacher is teaching, disturbing other students). Next, look at how many parents go to parent teacher conference and how many complain about their children's failing grade. You will find that these parents do not know anything about their childrens school activities even though thier children are given lessons plan way ahead of time.

America has the best school system in the world. It is free and students are given every opportunity to excell. It is not the fault of teachers or the school system that some students are not doing well. Success in school is a 30/70 proposition. The 70 percent is your( the students) responsibility.

Originally posted by: Shivetya
http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_5438779

Well of course the teacher's union would be opposed. Currently in California a teacher can be fired if they have been there less than two years. Past that an tenure protects them, requiring thousands of dollars to be wasted just to oust a rotten teacher. Some times it can take 5 years to get rid of one.

Of course the teachers claim its the adminstrators that need to be looked into.


I have a better idea, hold them both to the same standards. If more money is needed for teachers then get rid of the over abundance of adminstrative people (and the percentage of them can be very high) but also fire teachers who cannot prove their competence.

We can't fix the system if it not accountable to the students.

Bull ******, You don't have to be a teacher to know that the school system in this country is not very good. I think you are mistaken when you say the US has the best school system. You find many foreigners who leave their country to work in the US as doctors, enginners etc... The academic standards in other contries are much much more strict then in the United States. US public school system is all about confidence and short cuts. Foreign counteries have a lot more power in telling a parent I don't want your fvcken kid in our school if he/she misbehaves again then in the U.S. They also will beat the hell out of the kids there. Also in the US it's all about confidence in the student how much confidence do you need. If the kid can't do 7 x 8 = 56 what difference does unless you make the kid understand he will be flipping burgers at McJob for the rest of his life. Why is it then that private school students do so well. They take a very select population that wants to do well. However, the fact that you have to pay good money to almost guarnette this. Why do I pay my taxes then.

I'm currently working on my Masters in Computer Science. Computer science by itself is no picnic it's a hard subject and requires lots of math and logic. Particularilly programming. Anyway when I walk into the the Graduate student lab of my univeristy I don't see not one american. I see Chinese, Indian, etc. etc.... These are people that were trainined educated at their schools and came here....

Just to clarify, you're not talking about our university system are you? Because America has, undisputably the finest higher education system on the entire planet. We are the envy of the world.

Also, why does "beating the hell out of the kids" help? Are you suggesting there is a correlation between corporal punishment and student achievement? I haven't seen one.

We have the finest college and universities, however, you can't say the same for our k-12 school systems. And, I'm sure there is but don't have the time to find at this moment a study that shows if johnny keeps misbehaving he gets a suspended (vacation for some kids). V.s. if he keeps misbehaving he knows to stop unless he wants to feel the wrath of the whip.

Our k-12 system is fine in many places, but appears to suck because of a lot of sh1tty students bringing down the averages. It's not like you can't do well/learn in school if you actually put in the effort (or have parents who force you to do so)....which, I think, is where the problem truely lies 99% of the time.