How to improve American Education in 2021. (3 Viewers)

[Paul]

The most recent PISA results, from 2015, placed the U.S. an unimpressive 38th out of 71 countries in math and 24th in science. Among the 35 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which sponsors the PISA initiative, the U.S. ranked 30th in math and 19th in science.

U.S. students’ academic achievement still lags that of their peers in many other countries

U.S. students continue to rank near the middle, and behind many other advanced industrial nations, in international math, science and reading assessments.

www.pewresearch.org

My suggestion is rather simple.

1. Study why immigrants from East Asia, India, and Nigeria do well with American education. Apply that insight to other groups (if possible).
2. Manage public schools as if though they were private schools with uniforms and discipline.
3. Create high end special schools for those that are truly disenfranchised.
4. Create a force of social workers to treat family dysfunction with regards to education.
5. Reduce the curriculum to the simple basics and repeat that on a yearly basis.
6. At about 10th grade divide college bound students away from non-college bound.
7. Provide solid basic education and trade training for non-college bound kids. There is no point in offering free college to these kids.

 

[Paul]

Sigh. OK.

8 years teaching in a Catholic elementary school on the east side of Toledo, low-income.
14 years teaching Physics in first ring suburbs of Chicago, low-income primarily African-American.
1 year teaching Physics in middle class district in Chicago area.
11 years teaching Physics and being librarian at inner-city Catholic high school primarily African-American.

That is Mrs. Bird’s resume.

I have massive admiration fro Mrs Bird. As a Catholic (agnostic) I also admire that the Church has schools in inner cities.

I am a frustrated physicist and a fan of all the great ones from Galileo to Hawkins. BTW, Einstein was not great at math (relatively speaking), his papers had math errors and it took him 9 tries to get the math right regarding E=mc2. However, Einstein had a very creative mind.

Congratulations! Circumstances matter. What a stunning revelation. Children with one parent have done well and children with one parent have done poorly. Many times parents are involved, many times they are constrained by circumstances from being more involved and many times parents are not involved.

I do not disagree. My frustration stems from the false left wing belief of throwing money at the schools and not trying to fix the home environment. Baltimore spends 1*k per student, that should be enough and it is more than what any private school can spend.

Children are not raw materials created to specific standards. Nor are they dogs or other domesticated animals that are trained to perform tasks.

Money matters.
Physical structures matter.
Support structures including health, mental/emotional health matter.
Transportation availability matters.
Technology availability matters.
Maturity level of the individual student matters.
Quality of teachers matter.
On and on…

I suggest you read about the Kansas City school experiment of the 1990s. They build the most expensive school in world history with a planetarium, TV studios, a farm, etc. They spent up to 40k per student and could not improve academically. The homes of the kids need attention. That is my stance.

There is no actual bureaucracy on a federal level close to what you and the libertarian/RW imagines. The terminology is agitprop suitable for obfuscation and misdirection. The ultimate goal is not quality of education but destruction of teachers’ unions and creation of drones.

I am a firm believer in unions, but I do not think the NEA has the interest of the children.

Claims of concern over critical thinking are just that, claims.

Trying to teach critical thinking when the kids do not know the rudimentary basics is a serious mistake. BTW, private school teachers also commit this error. Meanwhile the Japanese have a smaller curriculum and drill the basics 24/7.

Dress codes are window dressing (no joke intended). Discipline is important but also cannot be one size fits all.

Why do some people have an allergy to uniforms. Obviously Mrs. Bird did not teach. Uniforms promote unity among students and helps with discipline. Ask Mrs. Bird about discipline while she was teaching in Catholic schools. Do you even realize that kids that are lost sometimes welcome a structured environment?

Talk of indoctrination is also obfuscation and agitprop. It is raw meat for particular groups and meaningless beyond that. Administrivia in schools takes up far too much time. So-called choice has opened a Pandora’s box allowing for fraud and grifting.

I agree. I would only do vouchers for catholic schools in neighborhoods where the local school is failing.

Finally, I find it interesting that various ethnic/nationality groups should studied for what they do in achieving “success” but studying what other countries do in terms of education can’t be done for some nebulous reason regarding homogeneity.

Complex problems are seldom, if ever, solved with simplistic solutions.

I am not sure about your point above. Can you expand?

 

[Paul]

Really there’s dysfunctional families out there? Geez I thought my crackhead sister in law was perfect.
It is simply unfair that you continually equate income and being a better person. It runs through everything you post. Poverty and lower economic status depends largely on opportunities and conditions that people are born into, far less than anything that can be controlled. Being poor, in and of itself doesn’t means someone is lazy, or stupid, poor morals or anything. Material possessions, in and of themselves mean little to some people. Property may mean little or nothing to people. To equate a lack of material possessions to ill character is insulting. Sometimes people are just dealt a tough hand. We could’ve had a nice discussion on the equality thread before you got it off topic and destroyed it.

This is a great post. Humans exist in a spectrum of talent and success and it is unfair to create programs to help the disadvantage with the concept of keeping up withy the Jones.

The normal state of humans is poverty. Those that are not poor are the exception and they likely benefit from the privilege of having parents or ancestors that had done well. These benefits were passed down to the next generation.

The politicians talk about free college when a large portion of the population has no business attending college. They fall short in providing other skills. There is a shortage of welders and you do not see the politicians providing training opportunities in welding which pays quite well.

And really, what is an education? What is the importance? So someone somewhere decided the X was where you needed to achieve. So? And why does that bar continually move higher?

It is the American syndrome of keeping up with the Jones. I agree with you! It is also the tool of the politician when pandering to voters. They love the class difference a sa tool to obtain votes.

Social engineering and keeping people down may have something to do with it. But how this country works tax policies and social policies to keep a relatively cheap and uneducated workforce is one for a different thread.

What’s the judgement of someone being “smarter” than another if they are happy with their life? I’m the most uneducated member of my family. I make the least. Am I of worse moral character than they simply because I care nothing of possessions and live in a by far smaller house than any other member of my extended family? See that’s the crux of your argument which is wrong and infuriates me.
See my mom had my brother when she was a sophomore in high school in 67. My dad was a mechanic. She was the first on that wall. Since her, every living member of my family is represented. (Sorry new daughter in law your ASU flag isn’t here yet). My wife was born when her dad was 14 and her mom 16. Dirt poor. Good people, honorable people just dirt poor from a bad background. So your poor uneducated people doesn’t work with me.

All of us exist in a spectrum of talent. Nothing wrong with that.

 

[cuddlemonkey]

@Paul What is the name of this Kansas City school that you keep talking about?

 

[Goatman saint]

I agree! However, I used to do homework with my children and this is the problem I found. They were trying to teach critical thinking before the kids had a solid grasp of the basics. For example the teacher would give the kids math word problems that required reasoning and that was great, but then I realized the teacher had not spent enough time on the basics.

As for multiple choice question. This is done the benefit the teacher so she can grade the exam with the help of a computer. Nevertheless, I used to do well with multiple choice questions even when I was weak on the subject. I was almost always able to eliminate two choices and then apply logic to pick the best answer on the remaining choices (educated guessing). OTOH, some other kids did not know how to do an educated guess.

But, I will say it again. Comparing a small country to a huge highly diverse nation is not a fair comparison. Over here I see very little unity and hence no one can decide what to teach or how to teach.

Let me break apart this post. First, there is a large difference in a story problem in a book and math problem solving. A math story problem was nothing more than burying a higher level problem inside of essentially a bunch of vocabulary. In essence if a child hadn’t been taught to read and understand the language of math, no reasoning was ever going to take and solve that problem as the number sentence was the only thing they were looking at.
Mathematical reasoning on the other had is essentially given a problem, how do you find the solution using whatever ways you can. This can be through drawing, graphing, manipulatives, what have you without the need for operations. This i do every day in my class as it creates that ability to solve a problem or a task. For the operations, as long as there is good understanding (see math reasoning for concepts) the the computation will sort itself out. After all, who doesn’t have a calculator, spreadsheet or Matlab anymore at work. Nobody does this stuff by hand anymore, but you still have to have the reasoning to understand if the answer makes sense. That’s the shift form NCLB (focus on computation) to common core which is much more on the math reasoning. Now yes I know the internet is full of garbage common core worksheets, but that again is another topic.

Multiple guess tests are a joke. I passed numerous college classes because I know how to read questions and answers

The problem is not that the United States is large. It’s not that we have a varied population. Getting sick of this excuse. It’s that professional growth isn’t prioritized in any meaningful way. Strong mentorship isn’t done, which leaves teachers isolated, alone, and drowning in the day to day issues without assistance.

 

[Goatman saint]

I live in MD outside DC. Taxes are high when real estate values are high and when affluent people live in the neighborhood. The schools in these areas generally quite good, but the caliber of students is also quite high. I believe the biggest factor in a great education is having great parents.

This is by far your favorite topic and talking point. So let’s dive deeper. My brother lives in an area where it is very upper class. Kids have an educated exposure from birth. Plenty of learning opportunities to go around. They are immersed in a culture of literacy and education. Therefore when his kids enter school they are already ahead, and children who enter like this already have their formative years developing curiosity, problem solving, reading, risk taking in speech and play, I could go on. This is where you see the push in Scandinavia to put all the focus on the first 5 years. If they create a successful situation then, kids will naturally progress better. Then we come to the schools. They pay higher, and can be way more selective in who they choose as teachers. They also generally have a model they follow to show success. If they don’t the board meetings will be filled with Karen’s questioning everything.

Now, let’s flip that to a place where I work. Extreme poverty. Majority undocumented. Heavily gang infested. Kids learn to survive. Kids role models are not educated. A teacher, cop or fireman are all they know as educated (using that term lightly) professionals. Kids are not encouraged to take chances with play or language. Nutrition and home life poor. Kids come to kindergarten knowing nicknames but not their own names.

My school no one wants to work at it’s staffed by about 3 outsiders who take pride in what we do and the job we do, and the rest by hometown people who graduated in the system, went to the same community college, then the same state university to finish (one of the worst in California on both counts) get their emergency credentials then dumped into a classroom with essentially no student teaching mentoring, no mentoring or inservice at all in blunt honesty.

Kids are dealt a bad hand. No, there is no possible way to compare these two populations. 5 years of growth and development cannot be made up. Yet, guess what. Those kids who make it through life’s choices, even though they may have poor test scores succeed in college and do succeed in life, simply because once you get that high school degree, all doors are open. Colleges complain, but they realize this, at least the ones recruiting kids like this. What they lack in test scores, they have way more resilience, drive and can weather any storm you throw at them. They are survivors.

So when you go on about great schools and great teachers I’d love to see these great teachers where you are at come work where I am at. I’ll bring the popcorn and soda because it should be fun to watch.

 

[Goatman saint]

So yes. You support stopping the education of kids who are served by poorly performing schools, or forcibly taking them away from their parents and sending them off to boarding schools.

It worked so well for the native Americans form say 1880-1970s in some areas. Great success model

 

[Goatman saint]

Classic.

Never mind the usual vacuous argument that totally fails to recognise that if administrators aren't doing the administrative work, teachers are, and if teachers are doing administrative work, they're not teaching. That is, for the argument to actually have any merit whatsoever, it has to consist of more than, "Oooh, there's a lot of administrators these days." It would have to actually assess the nature and volume of the administrative work, show that the number of people employed to provide administrative support is not appropriate for that volume of work and/or that the work is unnecessary, and illustrate how it could be better organised.

And for someone to do that, they would have to know what an assistant principal does.

Also, the Education Next article linked to is plainly garbage. To give just one example of many, it looks at Bureau of Labor Statistics for the employment and wages of education administrators, and then simply assumes that they must all be employed by public schools. Literally, that's what it does; takes the May 2020 figure of 271,020 people employed as education administrators, takes the 2017-2018 figure of 98,469 public elementary and secondary schools, and simply says "the math works out to nearly three" for every school, which it does, if you simply ignore the 32,461 private schools (source) that also employ education administrators. But that's not how maths works.

Other than that, the article largely consists of speculation, and assertions, and the same, "Oooh, there's a lot of administrators these days," argument. There's certainly valid discussion to be had about organisation, not to mention funding and pay for teachers, but not a lot of it to be found there. It reads much more like the kind of junk pushed by a conservative think-tank's front masquerading as a legitimate journal.

Which is unsurprising, because Education Next is a conservative think-tank's propaganda outlet masquerading as a legitimate journal: https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Education_Next

Odd choice of source for a centrist, but definitely the source of choice for someone who wants to push a particular point of view rather than objectively assess the reality.

As far as admin. All schools elementary level have 1 that would do everything. Most now have 2. Your principal oversees the business side of the school, oversees teacher training, evaluation, that sort of stuff. Your vice principal or whatever title, is usually the parent contact, discipline, hands on with teachers to support as they don’t usually have evaluation power (this can be different though) and oversees the day to day testing and scheduling.
At a middle school roles roughly the same. However in high schools you usually have 3. The business side, the academic side and the discipline side as each job is a little large to combine. So slightly more than 2 as an average is totally on track. It’s always easy to complain, but having a wife that has gone from teacher to vice to full principal, then to county level and now district office level, I can honestly say there is no way I would want any of the jobs she’s done. Admin is a thankless miserable job if you are trying to make a difference and do a good job of it.

 

[Goatman saint]

As I mentioned in the equity thread. California’s funding is different due to a big lawsuit years ago. California was sued because of the huge inequity between districts. An oil rich district was able to pour money into their schools, while poorer districts struggled. So now all school revenue is sent to the state, then the state gives it back on a personal rudest per day funding, plus categorical money. (Massive simplify). It leveled funding through the state. Now there are a couple that have passed local taxes to augment that and still maintain higher funding, but that’s a huge discussion on school funding in California that if you have insomnia would be a great help.

anyway, back to my point. Up until the 80s California educated the white middle class population. This is where you see how California had one of the best educations in the nation. No it didn’t. It was just real selective on how it did things. Fancy way of saying washing out the poor performers.
By the 80s politicians and businesses got together to discuss the future and it became screamingly obvious that there were not going to be enough middle class whites and Paul’s sorts of immigrants to power this states economy. So that’s where they started to push for those who weren’t part of the system to be part of the system. All kids were tracked. All kids tested. Districts held accountable for graduation rates and testing. Much more money earmarked for disadvantaged areas. So, it looked like our schools got worse, when really it was simply including everyone now. Community colleges were pushed to help fill in the holes these children had before they went to 4 year universities. Community colleges are also held accountable for these same things.

So what do numbers show? Poorer quality public education. Poorer quality college education. But when you step back and throw out test scores and look at graduation rates, college attended, college graduated you see huge improvement in numbers. Add that to the fact California does more for DACA students is essential as they are routinely some of the highest performers in the state now that California has opened essentially every door to them down to California having its own loan program set up as they can’t get federal.
Now if you compare California to Asia, to India, to Europe, in most countries not everyone is being educated, as in many countries education is still optional. Also, if you’re not performing at an upper level you get pushed towards a job skill track rather than college education track and you are then washed out of the numbers game. There’s all sorts of tricks countries use to look far better than if you compared every student to every student country to country.

 

[wardorican]

They know that, but theirs's is a new religion so they don't play well with other religions yet. It is much more fun to smile as you type a zinger of a passive aggressive post against the 'old' religions.

To be fair, drive by snark is sort of your jams. They're just giving some back.

And one day, I hope you realize that you are swallowed by the ocean of politics. You started the whole 'indoctrination' point. You can't separate your political ideology from most of these issues. But no, someone else has to be a part of "the new religion". Not everyone is as obsessed with making everything political.

Education had very little to do with D vs R.

 

[wardorican]

False equivalency to mention a college and law school when we're talking about secondary education. On point, are you saying Catholic secondary schools do not dedicate coursework to studying the faith? I stand by my opinion that even ten seconds of instructions on math is more valuable than ten seconds of education on religion. Yes, I'm one of those.

I agree about false equivalency.

I disagree with the rest.

That's akin to saying that math or science (my two best subjects) are more valuable than philosophy, social science history, govermnent/civics, etc.

It's important we teach advanced scientific courses, and the math associated with them, but it's also important to teach people to think and be more well rounded people.

Religious studies, done correctly, teach us to be more conscientious, kind, considerate, giving, and rooted in community. It is not necessary to be taught about 'doing the right thing', but I'd say if I weren't raised catholic, attended k-6 catholic school, then public. Did my Sunday school studies for confirmation, etc. I may not have the same moral grounding and self identity that I do.

It also allows me to argue against BS religious points. It allows us to tap into a common morality at times. Less so lately, with so many non denominational evangelical groups and 'heretical' Christians who don't really follow anything, just believe whatever they feel like. But I digress.

Music, art, dance, drama, literature, philosophy, and even religion, deserves time dedicated just like math and science, for more well rounded, educated students.

 

[Paul]

Religious studies, done correctly, teach us to be more conscientious, kind, considerate, giving, and rooted in community. It is not necessary to be taught about 'doing the right thing', but I'd say if I weren't raised catholic, attended k-6 catholic school, then public. Did my Sunday school studies for confirmation, etc. I may not have the same moral grounding and self identity that I do.

It also allows me to argue against BS religious points. It allows us to tap into a common morality at times. Less so lately, with so many non denominational evangelical groups and 'heretical' Christians who don't really follow anything, just believe whatever they feel like. But I digress.

Music, art, dance, drama, literature, philosophy, and even religion, deserves time dedicated just like math and science, for more well rounded, educated students.

Another poster with the head on the shoulders. Great post!

 

[Farb]

To be fair, drive by snark is sort of your jams. They're just giving some back.

And one day, I hope you realize that you are swallowed by the ocean of politics. You started the whole 'indoctrination' point. You can't separate your political ideology from most of these issues. But no, someone else has to be a part of "the new religion". Not everyone is as obsessed with making everything political.

Education had very little to do with D vs R.

I would agree, educating our youth should not have anything to do with politics but unfortunately, that is not the world we live in. Just look at all the hero teachers that have lost their positions (not jobs, can't fire them, just moved) due to their unhinged political ideology that is being taught in elementary school. And yet, homeschooling and private schools are a strict no no from the left, one has to ask why?

Thank you for noticing my jams. I try and be proficient in them but to be honest, you guys never give me enough credit. It is nice to be recognized.

 

[Goatman saint]

I would agree, educating our youth should not have anything to do with politics but unfortunately, that is not the world we live in. Just look at all the hero teachers that have lost their positions (not jobs, can't fire them, just moved) due to their unhinged political ideology that is being taught in elementary school. And yet, homeschooling and private schools are a strict no no from the left, one has to ask why?

Thank you for noticing my jams. I try and be proficient in them but to be honest, you guys never give me enough credit. It is nice to be recognized.

What unhinged political ideology? I’m sorry, you teach board adopted curriculum and leave your political garbage out of it

 

[Farb]

What unhinged political ideology? I’m sorry, you teach board adopted curriculum and leave your political garbage out of it

I would agree with that and if that was the case, you wouldn't see a migration out of the public school system.

 

[Goatman saint]

Ive had that even with my child being in the system. He had a teacher who would rant off pretty consistent about his right wing stuff. And yes I did go to the principal on a couple occasions and inquire how a classical literature class had anything to do with what god, good republicans and Fox News had to do with Shakespeare. Stay in your lane so to speak. They finally got him to chill when he started slut shaming girls wearing leggings and how they were going to hell because of it.

 

[Paul]

What unhinged political ideology? I’m sorry, you teach board adopted curriculum and l

Ive had that even with my child being in the system. He had a teacher who would rant off pretty consistent about his right wing stuff. And yes I did go to the principal on a couple occasions and inquire how a classical literature class had anything to do with what god, good republicans and Fox News had to do with Shakespeare. Stay in your lane so to speak. They finally got him to chill when he started slut shaming girls wearing leggings and how they were going to hell because of it.

By the same token some elementary school teachers tell their first graders that a boy with a penis can be a girl if he decides to be a girl.

 

[Goatman saint]

Absolutely not and I have no idea where you get such idiocy.

 

[Paul]

Absolutely not and I have no idea where you get such idiocy.

I hope is just a rumor!