How to improve American Education in 2021.

[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.

 

[SaulGoodmanEsq]

Do they teach anything other than the basics now? Maybe I'm out of touch having not been in secondary school for a couple of decades or so. I went to a private school and, although we had some electives, it was pretty run-of-the-mill stuff like Economics, Architecture, and various art/drama programs.

Everything else suggested is fine with me.

Edit: Stuff we shouldn't have? Education in 'patriotism.' Stuff we should have that shouldn't be considered 'CRT?' The realities of slavery, Jim Crow, the Civil Rights movement, etc.

 

[Paul]

Do they teach anything other than the basics now? Maybe I'm out of touch having not been in secondary school for a couple of decades or so. I went to a private school and, although we had some electives, it was pretty run-of-the-mill stuff like Economics, Architecture, and various art/drama programs.

Everything else suggested is fine with me.

Edit: Stuff we shouldn't have? Education in 'patriotism.' Stuff we should have that shouldn't be considered 'CRT?' The realities of slavery, Jim Crow, the Civil Rights movement, etc.

American history should be taught as it was and that includes the slavery and racism. Kids should not be taught to be victims and others to be oppressors. Patriotism is not an academic subject. The opposite, hatred for America is not an academic subject either.

The Japanese have a more basic curriculum. Over here in America they teach a lot of subjects that do not help the kids academically. Many cannot read or know math upon graduation.

 

[Dragon]

More "Critical thinking" and less "root learning"

As a European who has actually attended both high school and College I was amazed with how much of the teachings that was based on learning the "correct" answers to a lot of multiple choice tests

In DK you can never get more than a B- by just providing the correct answer except when it comes to simple math. Otherwise you need to prove WHY and for social science also argue for the position you take. We don't do multiple choice at all.

Root learning fosters a binary thinking, where everything is either "rigth" or "wrong" while in fact many things can both especially in social science and history. The purpose of those classes is to teach the student to evaluate the texts and be able to support an answer with factual sources.

 

[Paul]

More "Critical thinking" and less "root learning"

As a European who has actually attended both high school and College I was amazed with how much of the teachings that was based on learning the "correct" answers to a lot of multiple choice tests

In DK you can never get more than a B- by just providing the correct answer except when it comes to simple math. Otherwise you need to prove WHY and for social science also argue for the position you take. We don't do multiple choice at all.

Root learning fosters a binary thinking, where everything is either "rigth" or "wrong" while in fact many things can both especially in social science and history. The purpose of those classes is to teach the student to evaluate the texts and be able to support an answer with factual sources.

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.

 

[Dragon]

That is like saying A dog is not necessarily better than a cat. There is no comparison mate.

Please cite the studies that say collectivism improves academic achievement.

Intelligence is the best predictor of success in life
Other factors are important, but G is crucial.

Here you go:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0006899310018317

Research Highlights​

►Children with higher levels of fitness have larger hippocampi. ►Children with higher levels of fitness perform better on a relational memory task. ►Larger hippocampi are related to better relational memory performance in children. ►The size of children's hippocampi partially mediate the relationship between fitness level and relational memory performance.

This is just one of many studies showing the same

 

[Dragon]

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.

Being good at multiple choice exams is not the same as understanding the topics but just being good at remembering/guessing the right answers.

Doing math word problems even in the lover grades is very much possible but requires teachers who knows how to do that with young kids and also a fairly high teacher/student Ratio. Kids in grade 0 or 1 can certainly do those if they are done in at hands-on way - like colored rubber balls in tubs or wooden sticks with different length

But that kind of education requires more work of the teachers.

 

[Farb]

The best way to educate your kids in the country today is to put them in private school or home school.

I don't think the public school system is salvageable at this point, not without a lot of work that the teachers, boards and parents don't want to put in.

 

[Paul]

The best way to educate your kids in the country today is to put them in private school or home school.

I don't think the public school system is salvageable at this point, not without a lot of work that the teachers, boards and parents don't want to put in.

All my five children went to Catholic School from grade K-12. They had a fabulous education. Two of my daughters home schooled my grand children during Covid last school year. They have returned to regular to school this year and so far it seems my daughters covered much more ground than needed.

 

[Goatman saint]

Yeah I’m not touching this one. Nope nope nope

 

[Nebaghead]

The best way to educate your kids in the country today is to put them in private school or home school.

I don't think the public school system is salvageable at this point, not without a lot of work that the teachers, boards and parents don't want to put in.

In Louisiana maybe. Public schools here in Nebraska are some of the best. At my sons school they had 6 seniors get accepted into Ivy League schools last year.
Problem with public schools has to do with funding being based on taxes from the area they are located. This puts poorer neighborhoods at a disadvantage.

 

[brandon]

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.

Well, you've entered my area of expertise, now.

1. I don't disagree that taking the best ideas and concepts that are doing better than us an applying them to our schools is a good idea. Best practices is a thing, for sure. However, this is how things like Common Core were developed, and I'm sure it's not your favorite thing.
2. Every public school I've ever worked for has had uniforms and good discipline.
3. You mean charter schools? Yea, those don't work.
4. Every public school I've ever worked for works very closely with social workers.
5. This would not be what is happening in those successful countries you told us you wanted us to emulate.
6/7. There's a fair amount of this going on already. In my district, many of our students graduate with trade certifications and can immediately enter the workforce. We have parternships with local industry to pipeline students who desire to work in a trade directly into good-paying jobs. College-ready students are prepared more academically, through dual-credit and AP courses. Our students can simultaneously graduate high shool and community college and get a diploma and an Associate of Arts on the same day, without having to pay community college tuition, and shortening their bachelor's to 2 years.

So thanks for all of your insight. The professionals already have it covered, though.

 

[brandon]

The best way to educate your kids in the country today is to put them in private school or home school.

I don't think the public school system is salvageable at this point, not without a lot of work that the teachers, boards and parents don't want to put in.

You just don't know very much.

 

[Paul]

In Louisiana maybe. Public schools here in Nebraska are some of the best. At my sons school they had 6 seniors get accepted into Ivy League schools last year.
Problem with public schools has to do with funding being based on taxes from the area they are located. This puts poorer neighborhoods at a disadvantage.

In the early 1990s Kansas City looked at this issue. They decided to build a high end school in a poor neighborhood where POC were struggling. They spend up to 40K per student (that would be 199o dollars. The school was highly advanced and even had a planetarium. The kids did not improve academically becaise despite having the best school in the world they still had a dysfunctional one parent home where education was not important.

https://www.cato.org/commentary/americas-most-costly-educational-failure

AN EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENT YIELDS SOME ASTONISHING SOBERING LESSONS

www.chicagotribune.com

Those great school in Nebraska are great because the kids come from good homes.

 

[brandon]

Those great school in Nebraska are great because the kids come from good homes.

You have no evidence to cite for this other than the knowledge that Nebraska is overwhelmingly white.

 

[brandon]

In the early 1990s Kansas City looked at this issue. They decided to build a high end school in a poor neighborhood where POC were struggling. They spend up to 40K per student (that would be 199o dollars. The school was highly advanced and even had a planetarium. The kids did not improve academically becaise despite having the best school in the world they still had a dysfunctional one parent home where education was not important.

Nowhere in the article you cited is dysfunctional or one-parent homes mentioned. Nowhere.

In fact, the word parent occurs exactly ZERO times in your article.

You're so forking full of racist shirt it's laughable. In fact, if you were able to comprehend the article, you would realize that the goal of providing additional funds to the schools was to attract more white students (you know, the non-dysfunctional, 2-parent homes you're thinking of) and better desegregate the schools, and it didn't forking work. The conclusion of the article was this:

Until teachers and administrators are rewarded for success and punished for failure--like managers and employees in nearly every other American industry--the supply of failure will continue to exceed the demand. Kansas City has the best schools money can buy, but it has proven once and for all that good schools can't be bought.

Rewarding good teachers and administrators and removing those who aren't good is the key to success according to the article you posted, not fixing "dysfunctional one parent homes where education is not important."

 

[Farb]

In Louisiana maybe. Public schools here in Nebraska are some of the best. At my sons school they had 6 seniors get accepted into Ivy League schools last year.
Problem with public schools has to do with funding being based on taxes from the area they are located. This puts poorer neighborhoods at a disadvantage.

I get it. My son goes to a public high school and I am fine with it because it is a great school system that doesn't push politics or indoctrination so I am fine with it. The Super is my old my football coach from HS. Apart from the mask mandate, I have been pleasantly surprised.

 

[SFIDC3]

The best way to educate your kids in the country today is to put them in private school or home school.

I don't think the public school system is salvageable at this point, not without a lot of work that the teachers, boards and parents don't want to put in.

In Louisiana where they don't put an emphasis on education because no one wants to pay the taxes necessary to, I would agree.

In MD we have some of the best public schools in the nation, better than a whole lot of the private schools out there, we also have some of the highest local taxes.