Systematic Failures in U.S. Math and Science Infrastructure Threaten Global Leadership

[charrison]

Originally posted by: rchiu

Originally posted by: Riprorin
I think that most intelligent people will acknowledge that the educational system in the US needs to be reformed.

Can any liberals tell me what your ideas are for improving education in the US?

Systematic Failures in U.S. Math and Science Infrastructure Threaten Global Leadership

Cut 15% of the $400+ billion military budget and add that to the ~$60 billion education budget. That would double the education budget right away. American military is already the strongest in the world, do you need to spend almost as much as the rest of the world COMBINED?

and that 60B would be a drop in the bucket compared to local and state spending. But adding more money to broken is not going to fix it.

 

[Velk]

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: rchiu

Originally posted by: Riprorin
I think that most intelligent people will acknowledge that the educational system in the US needs to be reformed.

Can any liberals tell me what your ideas are for improving education in the US?

Systematic Failures in U.S. Math and Science Infrastructure Threaten Global Leadership

Cut 15% of the $400+ billion military budget and add that to the ~$60 billion education budget. That would double the education budget right away. American military is already the strongest in the world, do you need to spend almost as much as the rest of the world COMBINED?

and that 60B would be a drop in the bucket compared to local and state spending. But adding more money to broken is not going to fix it.

That's true, but it's also true that fixing it is going to require more money.

An excellent plan that you can't pay for is just as useless as a lot of money and a terrible plan.

 

[SuperTool]

Government should not collect taxes from engineers to encourage people to go into engineering

 

[Kibbo]

Originally posted by: TuxDave
Wow... a topic that I agree with. Yes! Our math and science foundation is very weak in our college students. Maybe I'm just griping but maybe... MAYBE they could stop making more verbal/writing intensive tests over math. Look at the new GREs and new SATs. Math is now only 1/3 of the test compared to reading/writing. Hell, even scholarships that are based on standardized test scores give twice as much credit to your verbal score over your math score. There's something in the system that seems to place higher weight on english skills over math skills.

What's the number one complaint of technical employers? Lack of communication skills among recent grads. To have college grads who can't write an essay is just as much, if not more, of a failure than not understanding F=ma or integration.

Yet another reason public policy economics is the dicipline of the gods .

Sounds like a great plan. Except it won't work, sadly. Decision-making always goes to the entity doing the funding (in this case, the feds). This is how we got where we are in the first place. Once, our schools worked based entirely on local decision-making and funding. And our schools were among the best in the world. Except that they weren't equal. So the plan came to use the federal government to redistribute funding and equalize the schools. And the feds took over and ruined the schools.

Look up here in Canada. Our Provincial governments have a ton more autonomy in terms of what they can do in education. The only way that the federal government can dictate standards is for every Province to agree on a proposal. Provincial jurisdiction is actually upheld in the courts up here. (Thank you Quebec! I swear, almost everything I like about my country's policies is here by virtue of Quebec's political influence.)

The way the feds get them to do so is with a ton of money. This kind of deal is expensive, and so federal interference is kept to a minimum.

Oh, and interregional redistribution is a fundamental part of the structure of our federation, and it's not going anywhere soon.

Kibbo's model sounds a bit complicated, but I could see more aggressive reviews of individual school performance (not 'standardized test scores'), allowing more frredom of movement between schools (and using the aquired 'preference' information to target underperforming schools for improvement in staff/programs/whatever).

The thing that makes my model complicated is that it's a bunch of disjointed policies smacked together. It could easily happen one policy at a time, a project over a few diffeerent administrations.

Oh, and one other bit (possibly the most important part) of info for parents to chew on, there should be a measure of average parent involvement in the school, both academically and extra-curricularly.

 

[Orsorum]

Hmm, I really should take some of the public policy courses the UW's econ dept offers. Pity I didn't have the time earlier in my college career.

 

[Red Dawn]

Lengthen the School Year, increase the Teachers pay scale to attract the best and the brightest who are now in the private sector and open up Magnet Schools for those students who are gifted in Math and Science.

 

[Cerb]

Schools should not have much of their workings mandated aby anything higher than the state level. Period. Public education should be discouraged. Equality should be laughed at. Acceptance of diversity and inequality should be the norm--not mandating it. Pharms should be kicked out entirely (without pill-pushing corporations and crap food manufacturers, do you think all of these learning disorders would be treated like they are?).

 

[Dissipate]

Here is the solution. Please read carefully. Get the government the fvck out of education, PERIOD.