Educational disaster still ongoing

[Urwumpe]

But if they have poverty at home, a disfunctional family, or lack of motivation, no teacher or school can fix that, specially because of the size of groups.

Why should the school then even try to fix that? The schools are not there for correcting the errors of the parents. No school can correct in 12 years, what the parents did wrong in 18.

 

[ar81]

Why should the school then even try to fix that? The schools are not there for correcting the errors of the parents. No school can correct in 12 years, what the parents did wrong in 18.

Exactly.

So school performance will be strongly influenced by that what parents did. If anyone shuts down schools based on performance, you are denying opportunities to those who need them the most.

 

[Belisarius]

Fascinating debate so far, let's see if we can sum up

1. We're all agreed that the English-speaking world's education has in general declined drastically. According to the PICA study provided by Urwumpe, this is also true of Europe a whole, except Finland.

2. Opinions differ as to why this is so. But some themes come up again and again. Lack of interest in achievement, bureaucracies interested in test results rather than true performance faking the results, lower expectations in society generally, and an ideology of equality taken to extremes, in which failure is not an option despite low aptitude or effort.

3. Solutions proposed involve privatising the system either outright or with some kind of voucher system, which brings the inevitable problem raised by ar81 that those most disadvantaged will be most harmed as their schools close. What happens to those from failing schools? The teachers are sacked, the pupils relocated.

4. Meanwhile the Japanese, South Koreans, Finns and who knows who else seem to be doing fine.

My proposal is simply to copy them. Find out what the South Koreans are doing and copy them exactly. It seems to me we don't have much time to research all the ins and outs of this if we're going to make it better for the class of 2020.

PERSONAL NOTE: Where I live, in Spain, you can't exactly say the education level has declined, because it started the democratic period (from 1978 onward) at a fantasically low level thanks to the efforts of Franco to dumb his people down and turn them into obedient Catholic dummies. He succeeded, except in the Catholic part. Now the education standard has stabilised, or stagnated, at the normal European level. The private system is partly supported by the state, not a bad solution. My kids go to the best schools my money can buy.

 

[n0mad23]

My experience on the other side of the classroom desk has only been in Washington State and Arizona, but I think the things I've observed extend throughout the Union.

Sorry to say there are no single problems that will fix the slow spiral down. The strength of any teachers' union is really dependent on which state you're in. For example, here in Washington the Bellevue School District just went on strike over salary and class size issues, but in Arizona there are districts where there is absolutely no membership at all. Even here in Washington now there are schools advertising themselves as "union-free zones." My own experience here is similar to other labor unions I've belonged to - at some point the members are simply another exploitable resource. It's about the dues and no backing.

Back in Arizona, my spouse taught middle-school language arts. A lot of her kids simply refused to do any work at all, and the administrations refused to discipline the students. I'm not exaggerating. Teachers had to not only assign detention, but they had to administer it in their own classrooms after contract hours were up. At the end of the first year she was mortified to learn that not a single student her classes had been failed. The principal canceled every one of them and passed the kids on. I had a confrontation with one of these administrators, who told me his job was "PR."

But consider this for a moment. If the administrators don't back up the teachers, how can the students see discipline as anything other than punitive measures by mean teachers? They serve as judge, jury, and executioner.

Economics does apply, but mostly in that it keeps good educators from staying with the profession. Teaching is incredibly demanding and the day doesn't end just because the last student's out the door. For those of you that hated writing language art papers, just consider how much time it takes to come through each one in order to evaluate it. Now think about going back through it to give suggestions to make it better.

Many teachers I know have bailed because the lack of money becomes intolerable when coupled with the absolute lack of respect that comes with it. Fill in the blank here, "Those who can, do - those who can't ________." See what I mean?

And there are societal forces at work as well. Who are our national heroes? Who are yours? Professional athletes make more in a single year than a teacher does in 3 decades. What does this say about priorities? You think students can't figure this out, too? Consider the current ratio of women teachers to men, and it's hard to see it as anything other than a hobby job. In other words, you can't have two teachers in the same family - not if you want to eat regularly.

Nearly 80% of college professors in the US today are adjuncts. What does this mean? Scholars want part-time jobs, that pay 40 cents on the dollar a full-time professor makes? What kind of education can you really get from professors that don't even have access to office space? How many have to teach more classes than their allowed by lying to several different colleges about their employment status? At the community college level, you can teach 4 classes a quarter/semester and still gross somewhere between 15 and 18k a year. You can actually do better working at Wal-Mart.

But I personally think the largest problem is at the family level. People that hated school and found it a waste of time procreate and raise kids to feel the same way. When little Johnny doesn't do well from lack of effort and participation, the parents and the administrators dump it onto the teachers. Guess what the number 1 complaint I've heard is? "The customer is always right."

I've had student's at the freshman level who were beyond functionally illiterate. I'm not kidding, my 9 year old daughter is actually a better reader and writer than some of my students have been. Back in AZ, these same students I failed had their grades changed by either the Dean or the Provost who sent me threatening emails because I refused to come to the mandatory (and unpaid) workshops with titles such as "dealing with difficult customers in the classroom," and "successful customer support in the community college environment."

 

[RisingFury]

English is a hard enough language for foreigners to learn without having a whole load of different spellings for words because teachers are too lazy to teach kids how to spell properly, or kids are to lazy to learn.

Being a foreigner myself, I seriously disagree with this.

My native language is Slovenian (because I live in Slovenia). On top of that, I learned English and some German.

The only thing in English language that is difficult to learn and understand are tenses. Because you've got 12 of them... other then that, English language follows very strict rules.

There are structures and variants in other languages that English doesn't even have a good enough word to describe.

Sure, learning any foreign language it tough, but English is still relatively easy to learn. The only *real* language that I know of that's easier to learn is Dutch.


However, I agree that the state of education in US and quite a lot of other countries (unfortunately) is very poor. While a lot of European countries (including Slovenia) forces kids to gain excessive amounts of knowledge and skills, I believe that's still better then learning few.

 

[Capt. Speirs]

From yesterday's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

"Three-fourths of students who took the ACT college entrance exam in 2006 lacked the knowledge and skills to succeed in entry-level, credit-bearing college courses in reading, math, social studies and science, even though they had taken a high school curriculum designed to prepare them for higher education, according to an ACT study."

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08245/908603-298.stm?cmpid=MOSTEMAILEDBOX

Three-quarters? 75%?

From the comments of the younger English-speakers on this and other forums I had some idea that something was up, but I honestly had no idea it was this bad. I'm sure similar results would be obtained in the UK, Ireland, Australia, NZ, Canada and SA.

On behalf of the over-40s I'd like to apologize sincerely to the younger generation for having let them get this way. We let you down, kids. I suppose we got distracted with other stuff (though I can't remember what right now) and we decided it would be cool to let the educational establishment do some fun experiments with your lives.

After all, everyone enjoys watching children play, and it's boring and heavy to make them work hard to improve themselves. I guess none of us wanted to be the tough guy.

Maybe we can fix things in time for the next generation?

Speak for yourself in that apology, please. My wife and I took the responsibility for our two boys and their education. They are 16 and 17; both are doing very well in public school. Both have GPA of 3.8 (lazy, they could do better) and are talking college because we never made it an option not to. Early on in their lives when talked about education and when they (not, if they) go to college.

It is up to the parents to take the responsibility of their children’s education. Yes the school system sucks, so fix it, we did. We had 3 teachers and 1 principal fired. The math teacher not only couldn’t spell arithmetic, but did not know the definition. Teachers today mainly teach from guide with no or little deviation. My teachers taught the individual students not the class.

Kennedy was to blame for this scholastic disaster, after Sputnik, he demanded the education system be stepped up, and that every child learns to read in kindergarten. Children’s auditory response system isn’t even fully developed till they are 8 years old. What Kennedy effectively did is start a mind set of “meet the needs of the school, not the needs of the students”. Schools will promote students to higher grades, despite the holes in their education, just to cash in on the funding. If a student fails the school loses that child’s funding.

Sorry for the rant, you just touched a nerve, enough siad.:sorry:

 

[ar81]

Unions use to form where people get low wages for tough jobs.
Education can get on your nerves easily.
Unlike office work, a single moment of distraction could cost your students to lose focus and misbehave.

Costa Rica have had the problem of poor education for a long time.
The most capable english teachers are hired by companies that seize their skills.
A call center pays better than teaching and it does not get on your nerves as easily as teaching.
So if you are smart enough, you will leave your job as teacher, or you will join a union and struggle for a better pay.
The most incompetent teachers remain teaching, or those who are masochist or those who accept the sacrifice merely by vocation.

I was teaching arts for some time, and after me there was an art teacher who used a projector to project drawings on the board and used her pilot to follow the projected image. Some other days she brought objects and put them on the desk and said "ok, draw this...".

I loved being a teacher, but it does not pay enough. However I realized that being a teacher can get on your nerves, so you need very good stress management. I know another guy who left education to become a diplomatic in a foreign country.

One common problem I have found with kids that have low grades is family disfunctions (you can't get good grades when you are in a family that is in a constant state of hostility), poor infrastructure (kids do not have a suitable place to study, that has silence and enough light where you can calmly study) and lack of interest (they see primary and high school as a loss of time, useless knowledge for life). In some extreme cases, poor nutrition lowers student IQ.

I was talking to a principal from USA and he compared education in Costa Rica and USA. He has been there and here, so he knows what he is talking about.
He feels that today education is better in Costa Rica than in USA.
He is quite concerned about that. According to him, kids are having better grades here than in USA and kids here are reaching better positions in international math champioships.

 

[movieman]

Solutions proposed involve privatising the system either outright or with some kind of voucher system, which brings the inevitable problem raised by ar81 that those most disadvantaged will be most harmed as their schools close.

Uh, why? Currently the 'disadvantaged' kids go to lousy schools because the state runs them and they have no choice. Give their parents a voucher to buy education wherever they choose, and they can pay for their kids to go a decent school; the lousy schools will all either improve or go bust.

I can't see a single reason for opposing this scheme. How can 'disadvantaged' kids be worse off if their parents have at least some control over the school they'll be going to, and where their parents can move them to a different school if the teaching isn't any good? The reason lousy schools are lousy is because they have no incentive not to be; indeed, lousy results often mean they can go to the government demanding more money so they will improve, which gives them an incentive to be lousy.

Obviously the best schools will charge more than the voucher so parents who can't afford to pay extra fees will be unable to send their kids there unless they get a scholarship. But they're still better off going to an average school than a lousy one.

 

[n0mad23]

Uh, why? Currently the 'disadvantaged' kids go to lousy schools because the state runs them and they have no choice. Given their parents a voucher to buy education wherever they choose, and they can pay for their kids to go a decent school; the lousy schools will all either improve or go bust.

I can't see a single reason for opposing this scheme. How can 'disadvantaged' kids be worse off if their parents have at least some control over the school they'll be going to, and where their parents can move them to a different school if the teaching isn't any good? The reason lousy schools are lousy is because they have no incentive not to be; indeed, lousy results often mean they can go to the government demanding more money so they will improve, which gives them an incentive to be lousy.

Obviously the best schools will charge more than the voucher so parents who can't afford to pay extra fees will be unable to send their kids there unless they get a scholarship. But they're still better off going to an average school than a lousy one.

Do you honestly think these schools will attract better teachers than public ones? Check out the salaries provided by private schools and you'll find that the vast majority (99% +) pay substantially less to teachers than do public schools.

And this will attract good teachers how? Please don't say "it's a higher calling."

Check the stats for Phoenix, AZ. Over 80% of the charter schools failed the state mandates last year. Contrast this to less than 15% in the public area.

 

[Belisarius]

To lighten the tone of the debate just for a moment, a nice clip from the BBC series Yes Prime Minister on the very solutions we're seeking

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DIy-C4cQ-M"]YouTube - Yes, Prime Minister: Exterminate it![/ame]

 

[ar81]

You might like to add this to the problems teenagers face in US. Not only they face educational pressures, they face social pressures, and disfunctional family models.

The US is said to have one of the worst annual rates of teenage pregnancies in the developed world.

Source http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7593735.stm

 

[Urwumpe]

Oh. What special problems. Oh the humanity.

In Yemen, you are already sold and married to a ugly old man as girl when you are nine (and that legally after the Islamists came into power and revoked the law that marriages below 18 are illegal).

Compared to the problems, teenagers elsewhere have, the western world teenagers actually lack challenges. In rare moments, you have teenagers volunteering or having to help parents on their farms. But most of the time, you have teenagers who feel happy when they just suck in Quake.

But oooooh, the USA are so bad.

The question you fail to answer is: Are teenage pregnancies a problem? What makes a teenage pregnancy in the western world worse, than in India for example?

I can tell you my view of it: It is a problem for us, because we fail to see any responsibility or reason behind our own children, and shaped our culture around teaching children a lot of stuff, which does not enable them to survive, for the sake of a very oppressive definition what our culture has to be.

 

[ar81]

You can compare things with worst case scenarios, or you can compare with what it should be.

I am presenting a challenge that is being denounced by BBC. Americans will have to determine how good or bad it is.

Teenager mothers are kids raising kids.
Being a mother when too young creates limitations for them, and also their kids may have less opportunities because of economical conditions of a mother who must play the role of mother and father if the father just run away.
That complicates things in a time of economical crisis and problems with an educational system.

 

[Urwumpe]

Again, you just generalize. I know quite many teenager mothers, where the father did NOT run away. And who of course rely on their parents and family as help - but not more as if they would be 25. Who manage to handle the situation even better as many adults, as they have no 40 hour job as obligation.

Things get only hard, when society does not accept the situation and imposes a standard model on them. When you are forced to do school just like a lazy upper class kid, which has neither problems with expensive books, nor time for school, of course you will make it hard.

But you won't change the fact by being so naive to still regard a 14 year old as kid. When they are 17, you have adults in front of you. Maybe unexperienced adults, but still, people with their own mind and problems. What you can expect and do with 10 year olds, does not work for 14-18 anymore, you have to be as flexible and dynamic as they are as school.

 

[ar81]

No. I am not generalizing. This is what I said. Read again please.

Being a mother when too young creates limitations for them, and also their kids may have less opportunities because of economical conditions of a mother who must play the role of mother and father if the father just run away.

And you can't deny this

Teenager mothers are kids raising kids.

If you want to practice refuting as exercise, it is Ok.
But that's not my game.
My game is about sharing with people.

But you won't change the fact by being so naive to still regard a 14 year old as kid. When they are 17, you have adults in front of you. Maybe unexperienced adults, but still, people with their own mind and problems. What you can expect and do with 10 year olds, does not work for 14-18 anymore, you have to be as flexible and dynamic as they are as school.

They look like adults, but they are not. And when you are 14 you are not an adult. Else the age for adulthood would be 14, not 18 or 21.

This debate is about education. I will not engage in microdebates on off topic statements.
I prefer to focus on the main point of debate, not off-topicness.

 

[Thunder Chicken]

But you won't change the fact by being so naive to still regard a 14 year old as kid. When they are 17, you have adults in front of you. Maybe unexperienced adults, but still, people with their own mind and problems. What you can expect and do with 10 year olds, does not work for 14-18 anymore, you have to be as flexible and dynamic as they are as school.

So - the question is, where is the cut-off? How do you create a flexible educational system that accounts for the vagaries in behavior, independence, learning types, etc?

I plan to force my kids to stay home, fly Orbiter (NASSP), and post opinions here - they'll learn so much about math, orbital mechanics, politics, and rhetoric!

 

[ar81]

I recall when I was 12. I felt like "almost adult".
When I was 15 I was like a grandpa.
Today I am more like a kid, I feel fascinated with things that other people find ordinary.

Kids say "I am an adult". But imagine a mother whose 14 year old daughter says she will date a 40 year old man, and you will see how much a mother will think her daughter is an "adult". Also, let that to be known before police, a judge or the press, and you will see how much press, judges and police think that such a 14 year old kid is an "adult".

To me it is important to enjoy every age. If you are a kid, enjoy being a kid and play games. If you are a teen, make friends and prepare your future. There will be plenty of time in the future when you are adult to take care of things of adults.

 

[Thunder Chicken]

We should be honest here - most school systems are marginally glorified day care centers. Tell parents that they must devote time to the education of their child - this can work if you have a stay at home parent. But how many want to (or can?) sacrifice their careers and their income for this? Some do, bless them, but for the mainstream American trying to pay the loans and mortgages and live 'the American Dream', there just isn't enough time and money. Much easier to pay taxes, cajole their kids onto the bus in the morning, and blame the system for the lackluster education. I'm not saying this is what parents want, but if you look at the economics this is the path of least resistance.

 

[ar81]

We should be honest here - most school systems are marginally glorified day care centers. Tell parents that they must devote time to the education of their child

The problem is not that parents are out, but when they are at home they are also absent sometimes.

At another forum I had to save an american kid from suicide some months ago. When he posted about his intentions, everyone jumped on him and called him with many insulting adjectives regarding attention-grabbing.

I took this seriously, since a cousin of mine, who was like my bro, committed suicide when he was a teen. I learned a lot about that. And I could save him.

I said some things. And a few days later he PMed me saying that he felt that I had saved his life. He was an american kid, who trusted a stranger more than his own parents. Fortunately it was me. I said that now that I had saved him, since nothing is free, he should save others. A few days later he discovered that a girl, a classmate who was friend of him, was being abused at home... It was horrifying for everyone, but if he had died, she would have had no one to talk to. This kid took it as a personal mission to help her...

It was a happy ending story in a way (kid saved from suicide and abused girl having someone who helped her) but also extremely sad at the same time (because of the abuse)...

 

[Thunder Chicken]

The problem is not that they are out, but when they are at home they are also absent sometimes.

Yes indeed.