Education in the US - going strong or a shambles?

Mr. Harley · January 17, 2004, 01:42

First off, I am biased. I was a hyperactive lightly dyslexic child who the Parochial school system, and a wonderful mother, turned into a National Merit Scholar. I have also had major run-ins with the American public school sector (I'm establishing bias here).

One thing that I find utterly horrifying today is that you can graduate college without any training in statistics, and get a degree in the sciences without any courses in logic. Rhetoric is becoming a lost art. "Dead white males" is used to marginalize great writing, instead of being used to increase the number of great texts, like the Tao Te Ching, which I feel should be included in at some level in required college literature classes.

High school gets scarier. You can graduate without understanding that antibiotics will only kill bacteria, and will do nothing for a cold. You can graduate without understanding how to figure out if the buy one/get one free pizza is a better buy than the large one (after you get the radius, of course). You can graduate without knowing more than two paragraphs about the crusades, because that's all that's in the history books.

You can be in seventh grade and not know how to sound out words. I know this personally, a woman whose children I raised for five years in WV, her youngest son was in this situation. They were going to pass him on to eigth grade! You can leave grade school without basic math skills, or high school and not know how to diagram a sentence, or any basic grammer at all. You can graduate college with minimal English composition skills, and still virtually no knowledge of grammer.

Before you suggest that today's primary and secondary education should only concentrate on teaching, remember that a child who is hungry, abused, neglected et al DOESN'T learn. What's even worse is they are the children needing the most intervention. My mother was wonderful, I am indeed fortunate that way, and even with my early problems, her intervention would have helped me succeed. It's the neglected children, who have never had a book read to them prior to kindergarten, who sit around in front of a television all day, whose parents undermine the efforts of schools. Berzerker, when you post about the evils of public school, please mention then how you deal with the children of the poor, and the social problems if you don't educate them.

edited grammer

VetLegion · January 17, 2004, 01:53

Isn't it cheaper for USA to import "finished" workforce than to educate your own? So why are you complaining?

Whoha · January 17, 2004, 02:55

Going strong, all that needs happen is that a parent needs to care about their child's education.

Gatekeeper · January 17, 2004, 03:30

It's spelled "grammar."

On a more serious note, my experience with public schooling has been the opposite of yours — my educators were concerned for my well-being, both personal and when it came to academics. I had a good, solid experience. No, I wasn't a National Merit Scholar, but I earned my place on the honor rolls in high school and at university (and also earned scholarships based on that). Heh. I'm also a member of the Kappa Tau Alpha, the honor society for journalists, FWIW.

Gatekeeper

P.S. Of course, if you listen to the likes of the tech sector, America's education system is now surpassed by China and India. I, of course, suspect it's because the execs can get away with paying overseas workers a pittance.

Nubclear · January 17, 2004, 03:49

Quote:

Of course, if you listen to the likes of the tech sector, America's education system is now surpassed by China and India.

Actually, both cultures place heavy emphasis on intellectualism.
America places emphasis on the physical side of things, and I don't mean athleticism.

Jaguar · January 17, 2004, 04:04

I know, this country is soo lame. I don't know why idiots like us have an astronomical GNP, but we do.

I'm still not sure whether I'm being sarcastic in this post or not.

Nubclear · January 17, 2004, 04:05

Second post

Mr. Harley · January 17, 2004, 04:31

Gatekeeper,

My experiences were as an unofficial stepparent, who had to drag their mother to the PTA's - the latter was my first sign, well, not the first, but the first I couldn't justify, that their mother and I would not make it. So the parent statement is very germane.

Oh, spelling has become a problem in the last year or so, some problems with high blood pressure "bled over" so to speak, I was so focused on heart disease I forgot about the little thing called "transient ischaemic attacks." Unfortunately, if I get a full diagnosis I lose my job for three years, and my retirement, so I'm having to work around my insurance. Unfortunately I've had some memory problems, aphasia and a sudden massive increase in spelling errors. Kismet.

Provost Harrison · January 17, 2004, 07:15

A lot of these things you suggest are a complete waste of time Shaun...

Bosh · January 17, 2004, 09:29

Don't worry, plenty of other countries have badly ****ed-up educational systems too. One of my adult students wants to send her 7/8 year old son to Canada or America to live with relatives (I got a very good laugh when she suggested sending him to Washington DC) to get a better education. Then I get to see kids doing to public school 6 days a week and then having 20 hours (or in the case of one kid, 25 hours) or after school classes on top of that and get told about high school student being at school 16 hours a day in their final year.

Oh course after that, they're so burned out they mostly slack off in college and don't learn a damn thing, defeating the whole idea pretty much. Knew a gyopo (Korean who was born/grew up abroad) who had an engineering job here and before he came he was afraid that he'd have a hard time after hearing about how hard Koreans study and was very surprised at how ignorant most of his co-workers were.

Starchild · January 17, 2004, 09:34

Waste of time? Basic understanding of science, maths, history, and English language skills are a waste of time?

Mr. Harley · January 17, 2004, 09:39

Boshko, thanks for the insight, that's one of the things I was hoping for, some posters who are familiar with other countries.

Provost Harrison, I'm interested. I am seriously planning, in three years when I can retire, if I can afford it, to run for the local school board (I've mentioned it before - cannot till then because of the Hatch act, it makes it illegal for government employees with certain exceptions). Even though it will obviously be local, and not on a college level, what is a waste of time, and why? I don't mind long posts, sometimes I learn more from them because it helps me see another way of looking at it. Of course, then there's Berserker.

Provost Harrison · January 17, 2004, 10:06

No, no, no, some of the teaching of grammar and logic philosophy is. When so many people are struggling with the basic skills I see these as completely insignificant. They should be completely optional depending on the direction of study the individual wishes to take when possessing a sufficient background. The 3 R's first, and then everything else.

Mr. Harley · January 17, 2004, 10:22

Provost, sorry, I really did two threads here because it's a topic that gets me so ticked. The first concerns the primary and seondary schools. I find grammar something that should be taught no later than eigth grade, and preferably starting in sixth. Some sort of statistics should be required in high school, even if it's only a chapter so they know the difference between an average and a mean, plus what a normalized score is.

College is where I see logic, rhetoric, and statistics should be required, as should literature. How can people participate intelligently in a democracy when they don't understand how numbers are being distorted, how they are bombarded all the time with fallacious reasoning, especially during elections, and at least how deductive, and preferably inductive, logic works?

I'm not being elitist. Our founding fathers restricted the vote over those issues, though the same arguments were used to deny the rights of the disenfranchised - give them bad schools, require them to pass a voting test, and presto, you've excluded them. I hear people justify voting for either party based on, well, ridiculous reasoning, and it makes me want to puke. DISAGREE with me, but please do it intelligently, instead of based on some vague feeling. The people FELT good about Hitler and Mussolini, at least at first.

TCO · January 17, 2004, 10:39

It is a popular thing to complain about US education and has been since the 1900. Objective measures show that mid and lower ability schooling is getting better. Gifted and talented schooling has gotten worse in terms of writing. Universities and colleges remain strong. And graduate schools are the world's best.

JohnT · January 17, 2004, 10:45

I think that so many resources have been diverted over the past 50-odd years towards the disenfranchised that it is not surprising that overall test scores have gone down - as resources go to help the "needy", those that benefited more from the previous system don't do as well. Over the long-term this is a good thing: the SAT scores of a Hispanic kid living in Jackson MS are just as important as to the SAT scores of a Manhattan private schoolgirl or a fresh-faced, farm-fed Iowa boy.

Regardless, the initial implementing of a system designed around "equal" access has lead to a number of distortions: Even with an IQ of 135 and a 7th grade reading speed of 600/wpm (and comprehension and retention of a college sophomore), I was classified as "special ed" for 5 years of my school life. Why? Because the school makes far more money if their kids are "disadvantaged" than they make if they are "advantaged"... at least that's how it was in 1978-83. And I wasn't the only one this happened to.

However, there is no need to throw out the baby with the bathwater, and so despite my shitty experience at the hands of the do-gooders, I don't harbor any resentment to the principle of equal access.

I would much prefer a situation where an equal amount of money was spent on the kids above the average as there is on kids below the average. Not knowing jack-shiite about school funding I can't throw numbers out there, but if it's anything like it was when I was in elementary/high school there is a severe shortfall between the disadvantaged "haves" and the advantaged "have nots."

Mr. Harley · January 17, 2004, 11:04

TCO, I have to run so my wife and baby make services (we're going out with her godmother later) but could you supply me with some links. Or at least the title of studies/reports on this? I'm curious, because at least in the areas of grammar and composition that doesn't APPEAR to be the case, but I may be comparing apples and oranges, upper middle class students in the 1950's to the average student of today. I think I see where I could be in error. Average. Which actually dovetails with JohnT's post. I'll check in tonight. Thanks.

TCO · January 17, 2004, 11:05

I dated a special needs preschool teacher. The public schools will spend tax dollars on extremely interactive teaching (1 teacher for 8 kids, with an assistant, with home visits, etc.) on students that are the least likely to develop into superstars. The schools are MUCH more worried about no kid left behind then developing the next Einstein. It is so different from sports.

TCO · January 17, 2004, 11:10

Quote:

Originally posted by shawnmmcc
TCO, I have to run so my wife and baby make services (we're going out with her godmother later) but could you supply me with some links. Or at least the title of studies/reports on this? I'm curious, because at least in the areas of grammar and composition that doesn't APPEAR to be the case, but I may be comparing apples and oranges, upper middle class students in the 1950's to the average student of today. I think I see where I could be in error. Average. Which actually dovetails with JohnT's post. I'll check in tonight. Thanks.

There is a chapter of The Bell Curve that discusses this. Has a lot of references to other studies in it. You can get a copy at any public library. I've read the same stuff in other survey articles (before the Bell Curve, but can't remember where), but the multitude of references in that should be enough to get you started.

If you are interested in history of criticism of schools, you could read some of the stuff from the 50s. Blackboard Jungle is a start. Also, you could get Rickover's book on education (written in the 50's.) Any public library will have the Blackboard Jungle and can get Rickover's book by interlibrary loan. (even if the entire system does not have the book, they can request it free or for a very small fee from another system.)

GePap · January 17, 2004, 11:21

My experiecne with public schools were all positive. For HS that is obvious, given that I went to a magnet school which recieves immense funding from the city and on top of that alumni funds for extracurricular. My middle school was a better example- there was a very strict regime in the school, and with normal resources the school did very well; at least in math and reading/writing it did an excellent job. There were problems in the science education- interestingly enough, with most students knowing things the teachers did not... Of course, the school separated children within it into levels, so not all students were treated the same or with the same level of education (as a way of at least giving the best to the tp and not slowing them by being taught alongside students with less talent or drive)

I agree that graduate education in the US is the best, and that the emphasis on writing in college is sadly not there anymore.

chequita guevara · January 17, 2004, 13:26

Quote:

Originally posted by JohnT
I think that so many resources have been diverted over the past 50-odd years towards the disenfranchised that it is not surprising that overall test scores have gone down - as resources go to help the "needy", those that benefited more from the previous system don't do as well. Over the long-term this is a good thing: the SAT scores of a Hispanic kid living in Jackson MS are just as important as to the SAT scores of a Manhattan private schoolgirl or a fresh-faced, farm-fed Iowa boy.

yes, Yes. YES! Someone gets it!

The school system isn't really designed to handle extremes on the bell curve, but the bulging middle. My school system was very good for those kids, but failed me terribly in many ways. First and foremost, all of my teachers agreed that I needed to be in an excellerated program, but before that could happen, I had to prove myself by succeeding in the system that was crippling me. What kind of backwards logic is this? In order to get out of a program they knew wasn't working for me, I had to make it work for me????? I graduated 179th out of 181 kids, yet I got the highest ACTs (Midwestern academic tests, like SATs).

TCO · January 17, 2004, 13:44

Quote:

Originally posted by chegitz guevara

yes, Yes. YES! Someone gets it!

The school system isn't really designed to handle extremes on the bell curve, but the bulging middle. My school system was very good for those kids, but failed me terribly in many ways. First and foremost, all of my teachers agreed that I needed to be in an excellerated program, but before that could happen, I had to prove myself by succeeding in the system that was crippling me. What kind of backwards logic is this? In order to get out of a program they knew wasn't working for me, I had to make it work for me????? I graduated 179th out of 181 kids, yet I got the highest ACTs (Midwestern academic tests, like SATs).

so what are you doing now? You are an adult. Get it done. time to stop blaming mommie and daddy and the state.

Mao · January 17, 2004, 13:45

Personally, I had a great experience with public schools. Some people consider the public school I went to as being "elite," but it was still a public school in the middle of Boston. I can't say I was particularly happy with some of the attitudes of the administration of the school, but the education and teachers (mostly) seemed to care.

shawn, I was a National Merit Scholar too, or rather an alternate or whatever they call it. But to me, that doesn't seem like it'd be too hard to earn, as, at least now, it's based purely on your score in one test (the PSAT during your junior year) and your parents income. My parents' income was too high (except not really, but FAFSA sucks), so I was an alternate and didn't get any money. It only takes one lucky day to be a National Merit Scholar, and I've seen it happen before (kids getting Cs and Ds would get the scholarship). Of course, you're probably not like them and have earned it, but that scholarship, to me, doesn't mean too much because it's still only based on one test. This is based on recent experiences, of course, so it may have been very, very, different in your time, and probably was, but now it seems to be a joke based only on a standardized test.

chequita guevara · January 17, 2004, 13:47

Quote:

Originally posted by TCO
so what are you doing now? You are an adult. Get it done. time to stop blaming mommie and daddy and the state.

I have gotten on with it.

Imran Siddiqui · January 17, 2004, 14:58

Quote:

College is where I see logic, rhetoric, and statistics should be required, as should literature. How can people participate intelligently in a democracy when they don't understand how numbers are being distorted, how they are bombarded all the time with fallacious reasoning, especially during elections, and at least how deductive, and preferably inductive, logic works?

Ah, that is very interesting. Originally I had no idea why you advocated a mandatory statistics class, but now I understand and agree. Logic, I'd definetly have people take. Literature can continue being optional. Though I'd probably want people to take an American Politics class.

OzzyKP · January 17, 2004, 15:05

I agree, Education in the US is a mess. Abolish compulsory education. Give people a choice whether to go to school and what school to go to and things will improve.

www.johntaylorgatto.com

Gatekeeper · January 17, 2004, 15:20

Quote:

Originally posted by shawnmmcc
Oh, spelling has become a problem in the last year or so, some problems with high blood pressure "bled over" so to speak, I was so focused on heart disease I forgot about the little thing called "transient ischaemic attacks." Unfortunately, if I get a full diagnosis I lose my job for three years, and my retirement, so I'm having to work around my insurance. Unfortunately I've had some memory problems, aphasia and a sudden massive increase in spelling errors. Kismet.

You have my sympathies. I, too, am living with a chronic condition, albeit it's a manageable one.

Gatekeeper

Al B. Sure! · January 17, 2004, 15:40

there's one problem that no one here has addressed which probably is not a problem in suburban public schools (which, by our standards, are incredibly fancy and rich): behaviour.

parochial schools here are basically the same as public ones (which now got uniforms too) except they got more white people basically. i went to a catholic elementary/middle school for two years and it was a mess along with public ones what with over-crowding, too few and incompetent teachers, old textbooks, etc. actually, it was probably in worse shape as can be attested by its computers which were original Apple II's (not e's) whereas the public elementary school which i went to the year before had just bought macintoshes.

in any event, the parochial schools probably have the same amount of money floating around as public ones but parochials seem to slighty out-perform public schools probably due to the fact that parochial schools can kick out students.

there are too many jackasses running around who incite other students to misbehave and they need to be kicked out of the system. a public school, at the very most, can only send the child/teenager to another public school where they'll just continue doing their ****. parochial schools, however, solve the problem of bad behaviour by expelling the student and, as much as students say they hate school, none of them wants to be expelled and be forced to go to a school for people with behavioural problems. open up a 'bad kid school' basically, filled with guards, and send the trouble-makers there and you'll have a better school system.

TCO · January 17, 2004, 15:59

Quote:

Originally posted by Albert Speer
there's one problem that no one here has addressed which probably is not a problem in suburban public schools (which, by our standards, are incredibly fancy and rich): behaviour.

parochial schools here are basically the same as public ones (which now got uniforms too) except they got more white people basically. i went to a catholic elementary/middle school for two years and it was a mess along with public ones what with over-crowding, too few and incompetent teachers, old textbooks, etc. actually, it was probably in worse shape as can be attested by its computers which were original Apple II's (not e's) whereas the public elementary school which i went to the year before had just bought macintoshes.

in any event, the parochial schools probably have the same amount of money floating around as public ones but parochials seem to slighty out-perform public schools probably due to the fact that parochial schools can kick out students.

there are too many jackasses running around who incite other students to misbehave and they need to be kicked out of the system. a public school, at the very most, can only send the child/teenager to another public school where they'll just continue doing their ****. parochial schools, however, solve the problem of bad behaviour by expelling the student and, as much as students say they hate school, none of them wants to be expelled and be forced to go to a school for people with behavioural problems. open up a 'bad kid school' basically, filled with guards, and send the trouble-makers there and you'll have a better school system.

It's cause the pvssy democrats won't let us beat kids. Buncha wimps who want to suck on Saddam's red rosy.

Did you find your jacket?

Al B. Sure! · January 17, 2004, 16:03

it's very disturbing why you like to mock the fact that my mother was abusive. and also mock the turning point when i first started to fight back.