What is wrong with America's high schools?

[IGBT]

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile
This is what happens when our culture no longer puts an emphasis on education.

..nobody's learning anything. The've turned into hiphop cell phone fashion shows graduating unemployable ignoramus minions. Most of em can't pass a 8th grade level math test.

 

[Beige]

Originally posted by: BrianH1
Which of these answers is more correctly identified with the passage?
A. It's the parent's fault for the kids failing.
B. It's the teacher's fault.
C. It's society's fault.
D. All of the Above.
E. None of the Above

Where is the choice "Its the kids own fault?"
I know there is none of the above but i'd rather have that choice lol..

 

[Yossarian451]

Originally posted by: EyeMWing

Originally posted by: SagaLore
We have to get back to basics with our curriculum.

- Math
- English
- Science
- Geography/History

We need to feed students better food, remove vending machines, and replace soda with fruit juice and sports drinks.

We need better communication between parents and teachers. Perhaps we need to increase the student to counselor ratio, and assign counselors to a group of students (like advisors in college) who only focus on the group and track their progress from 8th/9th grade until graduation. Instead of teachers meeting with parents (and any given student can have a number of different teachers each semester), the counselors would be the mediators.

Ima argue with you on this count. College students can thrive on vending machines, soda, and ****** food - why can't high school students?

The latter paragraph is the way my HS had it set up - it worked brilliantly well.

But in the end, it comes down to the students wanting to learn. Take, for instance, the stark contrast between the unending success of my HS when my group of students was enrolled, to it's present state. We were, for whatever reasons, a very highly motivated bunch of students. Most of us were in upper-level classes, chronic drug and alcohol usage was relegated to maybe 10 or so of us, and as a group, we accrued such a ridiculous amount of scholarship money and other honors that it was absolutely ridiculous to sit through our final awards assembly the day before graduation. Over 90% of us were bound to a place that didn't end in "Community College". Only one of us died - in a car accident, in which he was not at fault.

And then there's this year's graduating class... Despite being only 1 year younger, they're literally our polar opposites. Most of them have drug problems - upper-level (AP, GT, Honors) courses were actually CANCELLED due to low enrollment. Over 50% have no declared intention to continue their education. 36 kids have been arrested this year alone on drug and weapons violations. A police officer was assaulted in the cafeteria. Several teachers who I remember as loving their jobs just 12 months ago have actually QUIT and left education altogether. On-campus police presence has grown tenfold. Attendance is down from 90% daily to 60% daily. From what I remember, they're in the double-digits for the death count - ranging from a murder to several suicides to several overdoses and NUMEROUS severe car accidents, all of which involved alcohol or drugs. Gangs have surfaced.

I don't know what the difference is - all I know is that I don't know a single person born after 1988 that I like, trust, or can get along with. If we find out what changed from 1988 into 1989 that made them so much different, I suspect you'll find the root cause.

We said the same thing about the 86' crowd in my school. We had an incoming freshman class where for the first time ever 90% of the class failed at least one course. This had never happended before. Things got bad, we had open drug dealing where there had been none before. Things changed and they couldn't really tell why. It is the story of many generations. But seems as though every generation has a story like this so I will just say part of it is perspective, but possibly a real trend.

 

[classy]

Originally posted by: Azndude2190
I'm a Junior at my HS...and starting next semester(basically next year)kids with GPA's lower than 2.0 are going to be "kicked out"(well transferred to smaller community HS in a neighbor city untell they can up their GPA)

So I guess this is their solution(well our).Get rid of the bad kids.

Just because a kid gets bad grades, doesn't mean they are bad kids.

 

[Azndude2190]

Originally posted by: classy

Originally posted by: Azndude2190
I'm a Junior at my HS...and starting next semester(basically next year)kids with GPA's lower than 2.0 are going to be "kicked out"(well transferred to smaller community HS in a neighbor city untell they can up their GPA)

So I guess this is their solution(well our).Get rid of the bad kids.

Just because a kid gets bad grades, doesn't mean they are bad kids.

Your right...but lets be honest most students at my school who get bad grades are because they ditch and do drugs and try to get laid. Seldom do I see someone who gets bad grades but gave it their all.

 

[someone16]

I don't think you can blame anyone except the students themselves. If they have no motivation go to school/do homework you can't force them to. Attendance isn't really that big of a problem if the students actually try to pass the courses. I mean..i had about 70 absences and 100 lates but still graduated fine.

 

[classy]

The biggest problem we have is that the American Dream is only for a select few. Our culture is overly dominated by education. Kids are not taught to develop skills and pursue jobs they can enjoy, so they are easily discouraged and quit. Its not cool to teach kids about being farmers, hair dressers, or mechanics anymore. They even have kids being required to take 2-3 years of a foreign language, which is stupid. We're not developing people anymore, we are developing curriculums. And the curriculums are not geared towards developing the child to excel at what they are good at.

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: Sphexi
Let em, the world needs drive-through workers and garbagemen.

Nah, we can outsource drive-through to India via IP (McDonalds is already testing it). We don't need no stinkin jobs! :shocked:

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile
Go watch MTV's Sweet Sixteen and you'll see what the problem is. America's children are so spoiled rotten that many feel that they DESERVE success. It will simply be handed to them on a silver platter.

OMG, I hate that fvcking show!!! QFT ^ infinity!!!

GD bitches (and their parents) need to be stomped into the ground! :|

 

[AznAnarchy99]

Originally posted by: Fenixgoon

Originally posted by: EyeMWing

Originally posted by: SagaLore
We have to get back to basics with our curriculum.

- Math
- English
- Science
- Geography/History

We need to feed students better food, remove vending machines, and replace soda with fruit juice and sports drinks.

We need better communication between parents and teachers. Perhaps we need to increase the student to counselor ratio, and assign counselors to a group of students (like advisors in college) who only focus on the group and track their progress from 8th/9th grade until graduation. Instead of teachers meeting with parents (and any given student can have a number of different teachers each semester), the counselors would be the mediators.

Ima argue with you on this count. College students can thrive on vending machines, soda, and ****** food - why can't high school students?

The latter paragraph is the way my HS had it set up - it worked brilliantly well.

But in the end, it comes down to the students wanting to learn. Take, for instance, the stark contrast between the unending success of my HS when my group of students was enrolled, to it's present state. We were, for whatever reasons, a very highly motivated bunch of students. Most of us were in upper-level classes, chronic drug and alcohol usage was relegated to maybe 10 or so of us, and as a group, we accrued such a ridiculous amount of scholarship money and other honors that it was absolutely ridiculous to sit through our final awards assembly the day before graduation. Over 90% of us were bound to a place that didn't end in "Community College". Only one of us died - in a car accident, in which he was not at fault.

And then there's this year's graduating class... Despite being only 1 year younger, they're literally our polar opposites. Most of them have drug problems - upper-level (AP, GT, Honors) courses were actually CANCELLED due to low enrollment. Over 50% have no declared intention to continue their education. 36 kids have been arrested this year alone on drug and weapons violations. A police officer was assaulted in the cafeteria. Several teachers who I remember as loving their jobs just 12 months ago have actually QUIT and left education altogether. On-campus police presence has grown tenfold. Attendance is down from 90% daily to 60% daily. From what I remember, they're in the double-digits for the death count - ranging from a murder to several suicides to several overdoses and NUMEROUS severe car accidents, all of which involved alcohol or drugs. Gangs have surfaced.

I don't know what the difference is - all I know is that I don't know a single person born after 1988 that I like, trust, or can get along with. If we find out what changed from 1988 into 1989 that made them so much different, I suspect you'll find the root cause.

holy crap

Um yea, my school already removed all of the vending machines, soda, and replaced it with fruit drinks and the crap they serve at lunch... its 100x worse than what they serve at McDonalds. Id rather eat the old grease in McDonald's microwaves than eat what they serve us at lunch.

 

[Fenixgoon]

Originally posted by: AznAnarchy99

Originally posted by: Fenixgoon

holy crap

Um yea, my school already removed all of the vending machines, soda, and replaced it with fruit drinks and the crap they serve at lunch... its 100x worse than what they serve at McDonalds. Id rather eat the old grease in McDonald's microwaves than eat what they serve us at lunch.

i was holy crapping at eyemwing's story.... i've made my own lunch for quite some time and it worked quite well

 

[Doboji]

THe real question is... what's RIGHT about America's High schools?

the answer....

NOTHING...

-Max

 

[villageidiot111]

Originally posted by: classy
The biggest problem we have is that the American Dream is only for a select few. Our culture is overly dominated by education. Kids are not taught to develop skills and pursue jobs they can enjoy, so they are easily discouraged and quit. Its not cool to teach kids about being farmers, hair dressers, or mechanics anymore. They even have kids being required to take 2-3 years of a foreign language, which is stupid. We're not developing people anymore, we are developing curriculums. And the curriculums are not geared towards developing the child to excel at what they are good at.

Curriculums are geared towards general knowledge everyone should possess. If there is a particular career you wish to persue, then there almost always is an elective for it. And the requirements for foreign language courses are acutally lower than they were 30 years ago. At least 2 years of Latin used to be a graduation requirement in many schools.

 

[Doboji]

Originally posted by: SagaLore
We have to get back to basics with our curriculum.

- Math
- English
- Science
- Geography/History

We need to feed students better food, remove vending machines, and replace soda with fruit juice and sports drinks.

We need better communication between parents and teachers. Perhaps we need to increase the student to counselor ratio, and assign counselors to a group of students (like advisors in college) who only focus on the group and track their progress from 8th/9th grade until graduation. Instead of teachers meeting with parents (and any given student can have a number of different teachers each semester), the counselors would be the mediators.

Ah yes because what we really need is to make high school dryer and less engaging.

:roll:

We need to wake up and smell the 21st century... make the learning applicable to the real world... give them something to bite into. I think if you did a little research into the schools that ARE successful they're not succeeding because they've "returned to basics". They're succeeding because of innovation and creativity.

-Max

 

[Azndude2190]

Yeah the food they feed at my school as actually regressed. Just greasy and sugary foods.

 

[Subhumanguy]

My high school was ran like a concentration camp. Instead of focusing on programs to help with education or job-related interests, they spent their time giving students in school suspension for not having their shirts tucked in. The school eventually went on to implement a 'uniform' policy that ended with quite a few students dropping out and going to the local community college to finish graduation. The students were mostly motivated, since almost all of the people that dropped out of the high school went to community college to get their diploma, but the administration at the high school was just terrible.

 

[GeekDrew]

Originally posted by: classy
The biggest problem we have is that the American Dream is only for a select few. Our culture is overly dominated by education. Kids are not taught to develop skills and pursue jobs they can enjoy, so they are easily discouraged and quit. Its not cool to teach kids about being farmers, hair dressers, or mechanics anymore. They even have kids being required to take 2-3 years of a foreign language, which is stupid. We're not developing people anymore, we are developing curriculums. And the curriculums are not geared towards developing the child to excel at what they are good at.

I think that this is probably the most accurate post in this thread thus far.

It's not so much that kids don't care, or that they are unmotivated, but more that they become discouraged by the fact that everyone is now expected to go to college, and to get a high paying job that is "successful", where successful is defined by the public at large, and not by that individual person. The nation is going to be in much more trouble, IMHO, than anyone predicts right now, in the next 30-40 years. There are too many people going to college, and not enough people willing to do what they enjoy, rather than follow society's dictation. I think we'll see fewer and fewer people be willing to work in positions such as maintenance, janitorial, mechanics, etc., and those that do will probably accept the position because they can't find anything else due to college-education people displacing them, and will thus be disgruntled... causing a loss of quality and satisfaction.

I've talked to many teachers and guidance counselors about this, at length. There are a lot of students that drop out because they just don't care, etc., as is stereotypical. They've all said that they started seeing students that were otherwise "good" drop out of school because they felt discouraged, and that life wasn't "worth it". I completely agree with those students, though I graduated from high school; I didn't want to shoot myself in the foot, in case I later decide I want to go to college, or otherwise pursue higher education.

I think that society has a fetish for college, and those that have not been to college are inferior in nearly all respects. I thoroughly disagree, though I will admit that it's sometimes hard to discern the difference betwen those that did not go to college and still "have a head on their shoulders" and those that did not go to college and did so because they would never have made it. Now that I think about it, though, therein lies a problem: many people are under the false assumption that getting a degree proves that you are "well rounded", "smart", or otherwise qualified for a job or function. I don't think that anything could be further from the truth -- I know many, many people that have been to college, and are much less able to do a job than me and others like me.

Unfortunately, I don't see the situation changing *at all* in the near future, because corporate America also has a fetish for hiring only individuals that have donated years of time and thousands of dollars to colleges. I assume that I'll probably go to college at some point, but I'm not ready to do so yet; there are other things that hold much higher priority to me than bowing to society's whims. I may be considered mentally deficient, "stupid", "retarded", etc., for my opinions, but I won't pursue a job solely because it will bring me "success" -- I will only pursue a job that I know that I will enjoy for the rest of my life. I've lost many close friendships because of that opinion, and I'm sure that I'll lose more in the future; so be it. This is something I'm convinced that I'm right about.

 

[Ornery]

Today's "liberal culture" is a huge part of it:

Britney in crop top, Mom, 2(?) sisters- Britney a role model or bad example?

Originally posted by: Ornery

Gee, what's not to like about being slutty? Role model? Pffft, that's so antiquated. Hell, everyone knows whoring around, and having kids by several different men is a better "culture" to espouse!

Murphy Brown Speech

• It doesn't help matters when prime time TV has Murphy Brown - a character who supposedly epitomizes today's intelligent, highly paid, professional woman - mocking the importance of a father, by bearing a child alone, and calling it just another "lifestyle choice."

Out-of-Wedlock Births

• Out-of-Wedlock births are the most rapidly increasing social pathology. On a national basis (in 1991), 29.2 percent of births were to single mothers, with a range from 14.3 percent in Utah to 65.9 percent in the District of Columbia. Since 1960, the illegitimacy rate has increased from 2.3 percent to 22 percent for whites and from 21.4 percent to 68 percent for blacks. A substantial part of the current generation of inner city young people has grown up without a father, a contributor to the increase in violent crime and the decline in school performance as well as to some of the pathologies addressed in this study.

Originally posted by: Ornery

Originally posted by: Insane3D

Oh, and he quoted Dan Quayle.....BAHAHAHAHAH!

Too bad he was right. Laugh that off, lugnut.

who said she was a whore?

That's right. Acting and dressing like a slut or whore does not make you one. It's simply the "culture" embraced by her and her followers. Is that a "good" thing? When it yields a bunch of unwed mothers and bastards to feed, I guess it's pretty obvious.

Originally posted by: Ornery

Screw what society expects of you... do your own thing

Besides teen pregnancy, unwed mothers living in poverty, not even knowing who the father is, this wondrous liberal culture has even more to love!

STDs on the rise

• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports there are more than 65 million people living with incurable STDs in the United States, and at least one in four Americans will contract an STD at some point in their lives.

POLL: Do you think todays 17-25 year olds lack discipline?

Originally posted by: Ornery

Discipline and common courtesy. But, I'm sure they believe in their hearts, that people enjoy listening to cRap bass from their riceboxes all day long. :roll: Honestly, they ought to be stuffed head first up their fvckin' fat fart pipes!

 

[Ornery]

Our culture is overly dominated by education. Kids are not taught to develop skills and pursue jobs they can enjoy, so they are easily discouraged and quit. Its not cool to teach kids about being farmers, hair dressers, or mechanics anymore.

My dad retired from teaching Vocational machine shop, and told me about how vocational education was "looked down upon"... over twenty-five years ago! That ain't nothing new.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Originally posted by: IGBT
The've turned into hiphop cell phone fashion shows graduating unemployable ignoramus minions.

QFT. Hell, for PE instead of running or lifting weights we danced to hiphop. It's all about parties, music, and other unimportant things.

 

[TitanDiddly]

The people.

 

[HardcoreRobot]

life is easy, there is no motivation to work hard

 

[RallyMaster]

I blame emo/skater/goth culture. "I hate school! I want to cut myself! I hate my parents! I want to run away! Life sucks!" Yeah whatever, STFU you n00bs and stop whining. Life is a war and you better start shooting, soldier.

 

[markgm]

No one mentioned studends yet?! I think I found what's wrong...

 

[GTaudiophile]

It's also our culture of entitlements. People think that if they fail, welfare is there to save them.

Can I be radical for a moment? What about the following suggestions?

-National uniform consisting of inexpensive clothing (blue jeans, button-down shirt)
-Segregate schools by gender until high school
-Year-round school (5 weeks summer vacation)
-College-like schedules (fewer but longer classes per day, based on MWF or TTr)
-Minimum 2.0 GPA requirement to play any high school sport
-Encourage teachers to give a minimum of 2 hours combined homework per night (School is not just about learning but learning a work ethic)
-Pay teachers more, more like $80K/year to attract professionals from other industries
-Requirement to memorize the US Constitution and Bill of Rights before graduating
-Mandatory Life-Economics class where students learn about credit cards, loans, checkbook balancing, and how to complete a 1040 form
-Restrict sex/drugs/alcohol class to one week of study in high school biology class (9th grade where both abstinence and birth control are discussed. Condoms and other forms of BC would not be distributed in school)
-Students who are discipline cases or simply refuse to learn would be forced into some sort of military-style school.
-Students with learning disabilities would be placed in a special school. (Many teachers are forced to devote a majority of time to one or two challenged students while the rest go unchallenged.)
-Teachers should not be allowed to simply teach towards the lowest common denominator. It should be the other way around.

I know a lot of this is not PC, but it's the PC movement that is killing our education system. Our competitors in India and China force their kids to study from sun-up to sun-down and the entire family applies pressure. It's tough. The kids cry, get nervous, compete, fear for their future. We need to be much harder on our kids here in the USA. If kids aren't crying because they got lower than a "B" then something is wrong.