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

Users who are viewing this thread

    Paul

    Well-known member
    Joined
    Jun 22, 2021
    Messages
    2,155
    Reaction score
    712
    Location
    Latin American from Potomac, Maryland 20854
    Offline
    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.


    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.
     
    Last edited:
    Bureaucracy and 'experts' are the new clergy.
    Boy, ain’t that the truth. Like all the idiots gulping down Ivermectin because the virus is a hoax and the vaccines are dangerous. At least that’s what they found on the interwebs.
     
    The reason you ask is because you want to say that those that are not in the teaching profession should not have an opinion. Please correct me if I am wrong.
    Didn’t say anything about not having an opinion. This is a democracy and everyone gets to bray.

    That being said, doing a lot more research (the Cato Institute is worse than useless) should be done first. Talking points about dysfunctional families is little more than noise.
     
    Didn’t say anything about not having an opinion. This is a democracy and everyone gets to bray.

    That being said, doing a lot more research (the Cato Institute is worse than useless) should be done first. Talking points about dysfunctional families is little more than noise.
    As for Cato. Sometimes fools are telling the truth. They are no more or less biased than left wing organizations.

    Talking points about dysfunctional families? This is a blind spot for many. They fail to realize that the best schools in the planet will not work for most of the children that come from a crappy home. In America many studies. show that kids form two parent stable homes do much better academically. In fact poverty is less frequent in two parent households.
     
    As for Cato. Sometimes fools are telling the truth. They are no more or less biased than left wing organizations.

    Talking points about dysfunctional families? This is a blind spot for many. They fail to realize that the best schools in the planet will not work for most of the children that come from a crappy home. In America many studies. show that kids form two parent stable homes do much better academically. In fact poverty is less frequent in two parent households.

    Too bad we have to educate kids who don't come from good home situations.

    If we could just eliminate those kids from the education system, everything would be great.
     
    Too bad we have to educate kids who don't come from good home situations.

    If we could just eliminate those kids from the education system, everything would be great.
    Sam: You always come up with the key point!

    There is no point in throwing money at a crappy school if the students come from very dysfunctional home environments. Ideally, the resources should be directed at improving the quality of life at home. Once the home is fixed the school can be tackled.
     
    Sam: You always come up with the key point!

    There is no point in throwing money at a crappy school if the students come from very dysfunctional home environments. Ideally, the resources should be directed at improving the quality of life at home. Once the home is fixed the school can be tackled.
    So if it takes 20 years to cure the parenting crisis, a couple of generations of kids miss out on education?

    We can't just stop educating kids from bad families and expect things to get better.

    You hate that your taxes go to help poor people.
     
    So if it takes 20 years to cure the parenting crisis, a couple of generations of kids miss out on education?

    We can't just stop educating kids from bad families and expect things to get better.

    You hate that your taxes go to help poor people.
    Matthew-Effect-Chart.png


    No one benefits from people that fail to get educated. I know of no one that sees a benefit in that. Who benefits from a perennial underclass? The Democrats? I guess they have a source of voters there. Republicans? How?

    It is quite obvious that we have a system in place the widens the gap between "haves and have nots". Kids from great parents continue to get further ahead of those with crappy parents. Honestly, I would make the teaching of good parenting a priority. I would copy the immigrant model of parenting in East Asian, Nigerian, and Indian immigrants.

    Poverty creates poor education. The priority should be directed an ending poverty. I would certainly use different methods than the 1965 war on poverty.

    As I said above: I rather save a few than save none.

    If the dysfunctional home cannot be fixed I would send the poor kids to boarding schools paid by tax dollars.
     
    Do you know what an assistant principal does?

    I do not kinow what an assistant principal does. However, I do know he or she sucks away money from education.
    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.
     
    Matthew-Effect-Chart.png


    No one benefits from people that fail to get educated. I know of no one that sees a benefit in that. Who benefits from a perennial underclass? The Democrats? I guess they have a source of voters there. Republicans? How?

    It is quite obvious that we have a system in place the widens the gap between "haves and have nots". Kids from great parents continue to get further ahead of those with crappy parents. Honestly, I would make the teaching of good parenting a priority. I would copy the immigrant model of parenting in East Asian, Nigerian, and Indian immigrants.

    Poverty creates poor education. The priority should be directed an ending poverty. I would certainly use different methods than the 1965 war on poverty.

    As I said above: I rather save a few than save none.

    If the dysfunctional home cannot be fixed I would send the poor kids to boarding schools paid by tax dollars.

    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.
     
    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.
    The ultra rich send their kids to boarding school. That could be an option for some poor kids. Why not? The kids would be removed from dysfunctional homes during the week and spend the weekend at home. What is wrong with that? I would also make them wear uniforms and teach ethics. Give them the same advantages the wealthy get. Assign tutors in the school to take the place of parents that have no interest in educating their kids.
     
    @Farb -
    Only my wife and those I truly like call me Mr Grouchypants. Fortunately for you I like the heck out of you for some weird reason :)
    On a serious note-

    I don’t think it is illegal to send kids to private school. I am not sure what you meant.

    @Paul -The whole cost per student is such an overly simplistic and completely dumb way to measure expenditures.

    Portland Public (PPS) has over 200 facilities. My two students will never step foot in over 180 of them. That doesn’t mean that they must be maintained, staffed (union btw) etc. All 200. Cleaning and maintaining doesn’t get cheaper at scale, quite the opposite.

    Private schools have one maybe a handful of campuses to manage. IE one maintenance staff. City schools have entire maintenance divisions with different specialties. And those maintenance buildings need to be maintained too!

    Oh yeah, no free lunches at private school either. We really don’t want to have to add a free meal program to private schools and then look at the Cato Institute (LOL! Biased much) graph. Even more basically, private school “teachers”don’t have to have a teaching certificate (master’s) for private school so they can pay teachers less because they are less capable.

    And finally, why don’t you show the graph of how public educated students do compared to Catholic Schools at the Secondary level? I honestly don’t know but it would seem to be a more accurate data point. Because in Catholic Schools, where there is no monitored standard of education, and no checks to ensure they are not just passing good Christians with good grades so they can continue the cycle of dominance in America.
     
    As for Cato. Sometimes fools are telling the truth. They are no more or less biased than left wing organizations.

    Talking points about dysfunctional families? This is a blind spot for many. They fail to realize that the best schools in the planet will not work for most of the children that come from a crappy home. In America many studies. show that kids form two parent stable homes do much better academically. In fact poverty is less frequent in two parent households.
    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.

    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.

    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…

    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. Claims of concern over critical thinking are just that, claims. Dress codes are window dressing (no joke intended). Discipline is important but also cannot be one size fits all. 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.

    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.
     
    The ultra rich send their kids to boarding school. That could be an option for some poor kids. Why not? The kids would be removed from dysfunctional homes during the week and spend the weekend at home. What is wrong with that? I would also make them wear uniforms and teach ethics. Give them the same advantages the wealthy get. Assign tutors in the school to take the place of parents that have no interest in educating their kids.
    Ethics? Whose? Yours?

    Your “the poor are moral failures” Puritan so-called ethic is showing. Adjust your kilt.
     
    The ultra rich send their kids to boarding school. That could be an option for some poor kids. Why not? The kids would be removed from dysfunctional homes during the week and spend the weekend at home. What is wrong with that? I would also make them wear uniforms and teach ethics. Give them the same advantages the wealthy get. Assign tutors in the school to take the place of parents that have no interest in educating their kids.
    Who says who is dysfunctional? Who is to judge? You are so wrong on just about everything in this thread it’s amazing. It’s taking a huge amount of self control not to blast apart half of what is in this thread, most of which is coming from you. Poor people don’t have ethics? Poor people don’t have discipline? Poor have no interest in educating their kids? Really? Good lord
     
    Who says who is dysfunctional? Who is to judge? You are so wrong on just about everything in this thread it’s amazing. It’s taking a huge amount of self control not to blast apart half of what is in this thread, most of which is coming from you. Poor people don’t have ethics? Poor people don’t have discipline? Poor have no interest in educating their kids? Really? Good lord
    I am sorry to break the news to you, but there are dysfunctional homes out there.
    Secondly, unlike you I love judging. If I made a mistake please point out the mistake. That is the only way to learn something new.
    BTW, I am not saying ALL are dysfunctional.
     
    I am sorry to break the news to you, but there are dysfunctional homes out there.
    Secondly, unlike you I love judging. If I made a mistake please point out the mistake. That is the only way to learn something new.
    BTW, I am not saying ALL are dysfunctional.
    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.

    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? 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.
     

    Attachments

    • C9096E4D-F58E-4DA2-A71A-12AE95FE07B2.jpeg
      C9096E4D-F58E-4DA2-A71A-12AE95FE07B2.jpeg
      1 MB · Views: 103
    Boy, ain’t that the truth. Like all the idiots gulping down Ivermectin because the virus is a hoax and the vaccines are dangerous. At least that’s what they found on the interwebs.
    Never mind, I stand corrected after that brilliant display of mental gymnastics. Well done. I am on your side now.
     

    Create an account or login to comment

    You must be a member in order to leave a comment

    Create account

    Create an account on our community. It's easy!

    Log in

    Already have an account? Log in here.

    Advertisement

    General News Feed

    Fact Checkers News Feed

    Sponsored

    Back
    Top Bottom