How to improve American Education in 2021. (1 Viewer)

[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.

 

[Goatman saint]

Heck we have 3 teaching positions we can’t fill. We have numerous aid, cafeteria and custodial openings. We have no subs because anyone who wants to teach has already been hired. Education for the most part isn’t in a good place. Good talent isn’t coming in, and a lot of talent is leaving. It will be interesting to see if we can even staff our school the next couple years.

 

[brandon]

The best teachers my kids had in Catholic school were retired people that wanted to teach part time. They had no formal training on how to teach but were experts on their fields and wanted to work part time on retirement. They had tremendous dedication because they were doing it for their own pleasure

Most of the people that teach in our local catholic schools are retired public school teachers. They draw public retirement while earning a private check.

Public schools miss out on these type of teachers with no formal pedagogic training.

Public schools hire people to teach who don’t have teaching licenses all the time. It’s called “Alternate Route” in my state, where a person with a degree in pretty much anything can teach a class if they can pass the PRAXIS II in the subject and take a few teaching methods courses (which they can take concurrently while in their first three years of teaching).

OK, I was unaware the public school systems were hiring people who are experts in their fields with no teaching certification. OK, my bad this must be a new trend and I am glad this is happening.

It’s not a new trend. It’s been an option in most states for decades.

Since you’re wrong on pretty much all of this, perhaps you shouldn’t speak as if you are an expert on the education field.

There are actual experts in this field here.

 

[Paul]

I'm just gonna go ahead and quote you. I figure you'll understand your words better than mine.

Yeah...

Dave: One word posts means you have nothing to say. No argument

I'm just gonna go ahead and quote you. I figure you'll understand your words better than mine.

Yeah...

Your best post ever!
Anecdotes are anecdotes. My anecdotes are also anecdotes.

 

[Optimus Prime]

This could have gone in a number of threads, Covid, CRT, LGBTQ even the Republican Party thread

The article is about how protesters are harassing a school board member about a number of issues
===============================

……..I’m a speech-language pathologist in the Brevard public school system, where my husband is a teacher. I ran for the school board last year because I was concerned about issues such as teacher pay, student equity and, oh yeah, the coronavirus.

As a progressive in a red county, I expected to be a target of conservatives; I did not expect to be called a Nazi and a pedophile and to be subjected to months of threats, harassment and intimidation.

But school board meetings in Florida and across the country, including in Virginia, Illinois, Texas, Wisconsin, Wyoming and Tennessee, have increasingly erupted over politicized issues such as masks, bathrooms and critical race theory — and the chaos, now with menacing if not outright violent overtones, has spilled out of the meetings and into the private lives of public servants.


In Brevard, the protests began with Moms for Liberty, a purported grass-roots organization founded after my election by the incumbent I had unseated. Supplied with matching blue T-shirts, pocket copies of the Constitution and a hazy notion of critical race theory — which is not taught in the public schools — its members began showing up at school board meetings.

Their first battle, in March, was over bathrooms. Moms for Liberty had zeroed in on the county’s LGBTQ guidelines for administrators, a document outlining the rights of students as delineated in state and federal laws, including the right to dress and use bathrooms according to the gender they identify with.

The group carried the torch for fears that their daughters would be exposed to sexual harassment and abuse by their male peers. A disinformation campaign spread through social media, leading the public to believe that this document was newly developed (it wasn’t) and being kept secret.

Protesters became regulars outside school board meetings. Trump flags waved in the parking lot. Young children, accompanied by their parents, shouted into megaphones, “Don’t touch me, pedophiles!”

LGBTQ students tried to speak while adults chanted “Shame!” Meetings were packed, and those who couldn’t get in banged on the windows and doors.

By April, protesters had begun to gather not just at board meetings but also in front of my house. A group of about 15 shouted “Pedophiles!” as my neighbors walked their dogs, pushing their infants in strollers. “We’re coming for you,” they yelled, mistaking friends standing on my porch for me and my husband.

“We’re coming at you like a freight train! We are going to make you beg for mercy. If you thought January 6 was bad, wait until you see what we have for you!”

In July, the battle shifted to mandated masks for students. Brevard is one of 11 Florida school districts to institute mask mandates in defiance of Gov. Ron DeSantis’s executive order banning them.

State Rep. Randy Fine, an anti-mask crusader, posted my cellphone number on his Facebook page and urged residents to call me. When my voice mailbox filled, he encouraged text messages. During televised board meetings, I still receive texts commenting on what I am saying and wearing…..

I have received hundreds of vile emails and voice mails. A suspicious car follows mine around town. All because I won a school board seat. An outed Democrat — school board races are nonpartisan — in a district that voted for Donald Trump over Joe Biden by 17 points. My opponent and I stood on opposite sides of the mask issue; I defeated the Republican incumbent by almost 10 points.

From the beginning of my term to this day, I am the only board member of five who has received these threats and harassment over issues for which there is majority board support. The young, female, outspoken Democrat………

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/10/20/jennifer-jenkins-brevard-school-board-masks-threats/

 

[Paul]

This could have gone in a number of threads, Covid, CRT, LGBTQ even the Republican Party thread

The article is about how protesters are harassing a school board member about a number of issues
===============================

……..I’m a speech-language pathologist in the Brevard public school system, where my husband is a teacher. I ran for the school board last year because I was concerned about issues such as teacher pay, student equity and, oh yeah, the coronavirus.

As a progressive in a red county, I expected to be a target of conservatives; I did not expect to be called a Nazi and a pedophile and to be subjected to months of threats, harassment and intimidation.

But school board meetings in Florida and across the country, including in Virginia, Illinois, Texas, Wisconsin, Wyoming and Tennessee, have increasingly erupted over politicized issues such as masks, bathrooms and critical race theory — and the chaos, now with menacing if not outright violent overtones, has spilled out of the meetings and into the private lives of public servants.


In Brevard, the protests began with Moms for Liberty, a purported grass-roots organization founded after my election by the incumbent I had unseated. Supplied with matching blue T-shirts, pocket copies of the Constitution and a hazy notion of critical race theory — which is not taught in the public schools — its members began showing up at school board meetings.

Their first battle, in March, was over bathrooms. Moms for Liberty had zeroed in on the county’s LGBTQ guidelines for administrators, a document outlining the rights of students as delineated in state and federal laws, including the right to dress and use bathrooms according to the gender they identify with.

The group carried the torch for fears that their daughters would be exposed to sexual harassment and abuse by their male peers. A disinformation campaign spread through social media, leading the public to believe that this document was newly developed (it wasn’t) and being kept secret.

Protesters became regulars outside school board meetings. Trump flags waved in the parking lot. Young children, accompanied by their parents, shouted into megaphones, “Don’t touch me, pedophiles!”

LGBTQ students tried to speak while adults chanted “Shame!” Meetings were packed, and those who couldn’t get in banged on the windows and doors.

By April, protesters had begun to gather not just at board meetings but also in front of my house. A group of about 15 shouted “Pedophiles!” as my neighbors walked their dogs, pushing their infants in strollers. “We’re coming for you,” they yelled, mistaking friends standing on my porch for me and my husband.

“We’re coming at you like a freight train! We are going to make you beg for mercy. If you thought January 6 was bad, wait until you see what we have for you!”

In July, the battle shifted to mandated masks for students. Brevard is one of 11 Florida school districts to institute mask mandates in defiance of Gov. Ron DeSantis’s executive order banning them.

State Rep. Randy Fine, an anti-mask crusader, posted my cellphone number on his Facebook page and urged residents to call me. When my voice mailbox filled, he encouraged text messages. During televised board meetings, I still receive texts commenting on what I am saying and wearing…..

I have received hundreds of vile emails and voice mails. A suspicious car follows mine around town. All because I won a school board seat. An outed Democrat — school board races are nonpartisan — in a district that voted for Donald Trump over Joe Biden by 17 points. My opponent and I stood on opposite sides of the mask issue; I defeated the Republican incumbent by almost 10 points.

From the beginning of my term to this day, I am the only board member of five who has received these threats and harassment over issues for which there is majority board support. The young, female, outspoken Democrat………

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/10/20/jennifer-jenkins-brevard-school-board-masks-threats/

The biggest problem in schools is poor education and America scoring low in aptitude tests when compared to many other nations. Instead the so-called progressives worry about trans people and bathrooms. A total non-issue.

 

[MT15]

The biggest problem in schools is poor education and America scoring low in aptitude tests when compared to many other nations. Instead the so-called progressives worry about trans people and bathrooms. A total non-issue.

Paul, I don’t think it’s the progressives who are worried about trans people and bathrooms. Honestly, how do you get it so wrong?

 

[Optimus Prime]

The biggest problem in schools is poor education and America scoring low in aptitude tests when compared to many other nations. Instead the so-called progressives worry about trans people and bathrooms. A total non-issue.

That’s what you got out of that article?

 

[Paul]

Paul, I don’t think it’s the progressives who are worried about trans people and bathrooms. Honestly, how do you get it so wrong?

I could carer less who gets exited about this. Both the left and right are wrong on this one. School boards should concentrate on providing a better education. Schools should never be used for political purposes.

 

[cuddlemonkey]

I could carer less who gets exited about this. Both the left and right are wrong on this one. School boards should concentrate on providing a better education. Schools should never be used for political purposes.

The school board member in the article is being harassed over health, safety, and the right to pee. Do you think these are political topics?

 

[brandon]

I could carer less who gets exited

God I hope it’s you.

 

[Paul]

The school board member in the article is being harassed over health, safety, and the right to pee. Do you think these are political topics?

She should call the police.

For the love of God. This tribal behavior is so tiresome.

 

[cuddlemonkey]

She should call the police.

For the love of God. This tribal behavior is so tiresome.

You don't think people who engage in targeted harassment, including calling in fake reports of child abuse, should be exposed?

 

[Paul]

You don't think people who engage in targeted harassment, including calling in fake reports of child abuse, should be exposed?

Sure, call the police. I am just sick of tribalism!

 

[samiam5211]

Sure, call the police. I am just sick of tribalism!

Can you define what you mean by "tribalism" for the rest of us please?

 

[cuddlemonkey]

Sure, call the police. I am just sick of tribalism!

Good for you. Back to the original question you avoided: do you think topics of health, safety, and he right to pee in peace are political topics?

 

[Bolo]

The USA: We're stupid but at least we're creative at killing and nickle and diming people.

 

[Paul]

Good for you. Back to the original question you avoided: do you think topics of health, safety, and he right to pee in peace are political topics?

Health: Don't do drugs or shoot each other in the streets. Avoid obesity, smoking, drinking, and exercise.

Safety: Do not be violent.

They have been urinating for centuries. Not an issue.

 

[insidejob]

Health: Don't do drugs or shoot each other in the streets. Avoid obesity, smoking, drinking, and exercise.

Safety: Do not be violent.

The have been urinating for centuries. Not an issue.

Is it just impossible for you to answer a question when asked?