Education in the US - going strong or a shambles?

[TCO]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
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.

I like you better now than then. I will throw you that bone. You are still an AOE Heaven scum.

[Mr. Harley]

Albert, we actually have a system like that here, where the problem students in Junior High and High School are segregated. An ex-Air Police friend, late 30's about 6'4" who works with overweight/irregular boxes at UPS won't substitute teach at the Junior High. His statement about those kids being more dangerous than the High School ones is interesting.

Mao, you're right that the National Merit Scholarship test is very misleading as to ability. I mentioned it as a simple indicator that the school's had not failed me at all. I took the SAT's first to find out what the PSAT would be like, because if I didn't get a Scholarship I wouldn't go to college, or at least not a good pre-med program. I busted hump on my verbal score that summer, and pulled it up so I did quite well, actually. Plus it helps that I'm a natural test taker, the opposite of my brother who freezes and tests worse than his intelligence would indicate. When I took it financial need had no standing, has it changed that much?

[Sava]

It depends...

rich suburbs
poor urban areas

but that's how it is in the US... there is no strong national system, so the rich get good services, the poor get ****ed.

[TCO]

spending per pupil is higher in Washington DC than almost any suburb. Yet the schools are abysmal. Money is not the answer, Sava. But then again...you are a moron.

[Sava]

I said nothing of spending per pupil.... nor did I say money was the answer... but nevertheless, rich suburbs are good, poor urban areas are bad... I'm right, you are wrong...

and it's pathetic that you have to hurl insults because you can't accept that fact...

[Theben]

Actual spending in inner city schools is much lower than wealthier districts. That shouldn't be too shocking since they have a higher tax base to draw from. Spending per pupil is higher b/c of a larger number of students with special interest needs, who cost about 4 times as much as a "normal" student.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
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.

[yavoon]

I think we spend too much on education.

[mrmitchell]

Originally posted by shawnmmcc
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're not supposed to be able to. It's taught, at some point in the educational system or another.

You can graduate without knowing more than two paragraphs about the crusades, because that's all that's in the history books.

Well that's your beef with the textbook publishers (although the public edu system could demand better 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.

Again, you're not supposed to be able to. It's taught, at some point in the educational system or another.

If they're passing him on, there's something wrong with the district's pass/fail policy, and you need to do all you can to get it fixed. OR that particular aspect just wasn't emphasized in the class. But it isn't very likely that it was never gone over at all, and if it really wasn't, it's your duty as a citizen to work to get it fixed.

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.

IOW, parental involvement=better child? Good job! Now let's all say a big huge 'DUH' to shawn for telling us something that is obvious to anyone who has a pulse.

[Al B. Sure!]

we got a free lunch program for the hungry children...

[Verto]

The extensive athletic programs that dominate most public school districts should be severely limited, providing the necessary exercise for students, while removing the multi-million dollar football stadiums and other idiotic and frivolous expenditures.

Curriculum should focus on the core subjects - English, Math, Science, History(more emphasis needed on history), with many 'elective' courses being dropped, and more time being devoted to the important subjects previously mentioned.

[mrmitchell]

The extensive athletic programs that dominate most public school districts should be severely limited, providing the necessary exercise for students, while removing the multi-million dollar football stadiums and other idiotic and frivolous expenditures.

My idea: Schools can keep their football programs if they are profitable (at least self-sustaining). Otherwise, it's a waste of school money. Forget about it, just keep the kids exercised, no need for the big bucks programs.

[mrmitchell]

Curriculum should focus on the core subjects - English, Math, Science, History(more emphasis needed on history), with many 'elective' courses being dropped, and more time being devoted to the important subjects previously mentioned.

I disagree with dropping electives, but the rest is fine.

[Mr. Harley]

Mr. Mitchell, don't quite follow (refence pizza and geometry).

You're not supposed to be able to. It's taught, at some point in the educational system or another.

I'll argue that it is taught poorly. Many school systems/teachers do a terrible job at educating children when it comes to word problems, i.e. applied math. I used the pizza example to make it more concrete, and real (by the way, it's also true - when I used to ask for the radius in my days prior to lipitor, I would estimate three out of four of the employees at pizza joints gave me a very puzzled, non-comprehending look.

Unless you are splitting hairs over understanting versus taught. If you are, that's just silly. You should understand what you are taught, because if you don't then what was the purpose of the instructor spending all that time. If you are saying the "taught" portion is the critical way to phrase it, do it that way instead of little smileys with the tongue sticking out.

That way I can counter that "teaching" the knowledge without bothering to make sure the child is gaining understanding is futile, and is often what lazy "instructors" use to justify their lack of teaching methods that connect to the audience. By the way, I am a certified on-the-job instructor in the Federal Aviation Adminstration, which while not putting me at the same level as a good teacher or professor, means I had had a fair degree of training in this area, and some successes with trainees that had been written off as failures.

If you had bothered to read my post, you would know that I have every intention of becoming very involved in my local school board, once I can legally run. Plus, with the seventh grader, since I was not married to his mother, just raising the kid, any criticism I had was blown off. The school system and I ended up in quite a blow-up, with the only result being that you no longer had to send a note to keep your child out of the fundamentalist Bible classes taught in the public school - mid 1980's West Virginia. They still refused to teach phonics, nor would they change the automatic pass-on system (his mom and I finally got them to hold him back, and he thrived after that, but it was two, almost three year fight). How many run-ins, and successful ones, have you had with primary and secondary school administrations that are being thick-headed. Now THAT would be useful info, if you succeeded.

The point I'm trying to find out, and you are the only sarcastic, largely useless sod on the thread so far, is what works for those other cases. It's EASY to educate the kids with good parental involvement. Or, to borrow from you, NO DUH . What I'm trying to get are useful insights, which most of the other posters thankfully are attempting (or like yavoon, they are keeping their editorial commentary succinct and one line). The comment about the bell curve and the schools general not helping either extreme was to the point, and the others about exceptional students not receiving the necessary resources (in my school they did).

I am following your exchange on athletic programs in the thread right now, I will almost certainly be facing that exact issue if I succeed in getting on the Board of Education. So far it's all been to your standard of NO DUH, but I will hope someone will come along and make a germane comment.

[mrmitchell]

Ah, word problems. Well, don't worry--more emphasis is being put on them AFAIK. If teachers are terrible, then that's not a problem of the public school system but rather we can't or don't train enough good teachers--IOW, we need to teach our teachers how to teach better (ack ).

Well, it is indeed taught. I'm sure they could do a better job of making sure it's understood too, though--I was just pointing out that you're not supposed to be able to graduate without understanding it, and maybe the pass/fail policy is screwed up.

Don't worry. I read your full post. All I can say about that is, expecting anything at all out of West Virginia is like expecting a congressman to be honest. It's good that you tried though, and that you will try as soon as legally possible.

There's no need to call names. I already knew I was a useless sod anyways

[Mr. Harley]

Okay, apology accepted. I thought you were trying to be a smart ***, I'm hideously short on sleep and my patience is wearing a bit thin - I made a run all the way into work just to be told I had a 3330-42 instead of 3330-42-1. I cannot wait for my 25 year retirement.

I agree with much of your post, though much of that I won't be at a level to make a personal difference except voting. Teacher certification, etc. is a state level thing, and I'm enough of a realist to know I have the charisma of Al Gore .

See, delivery may not be everything, but it does make a difference in who listens - look at my reaction to that first post, and then this one. Think about it this way. This time you're not just arguing and posting, you have an audience that hopes to get into a position to make a difference. Convince me.

[Asher]

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

ABBA-lite, it's math -- not maths.

The whole point of having it shorthand is to remove extra letters. Mathematics -> Math.

This makes sense, you chop off all but the first four letters.

The Brits have gone and ****ed it up and removed the middle section: Math------s.

They ought to have their school system reformed for this atrocity. Such a lack of basic understanding of reason and English language skills is upsetting, to be sure.