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Blizzpub » Mature Discussion » Theory about why American education fails
Originally posted by: Taknarosh
Originally posted by: wc3kid
We call smart kids nerds.
Most people are competitive but hey it isn't cool to compete academically.
wtf - did I say that? tbh I always thought is WAS cool to compete academically.
Sure, we call smart kids nerds.
We call sports kids jocks.
Everyone has a label, from time to time.
Wc3kid - not at all saying I disagree with your or agree with you even, I am actually not all sure what exactly your main point is, to be honest. You start by disagreeing with Dany which would lead me to believe you are arguing the opposite of what he is saying, but then you end with "So, who "wins"? I don't think that either of them are a clear stand out..."
"What is completely overlooked here is the political game that the Mgmt trainee has to play ..."
Not sure what exactly you were specifically pointing to here, but if you were trying to account for the bureaucracy factor, I don't want to give that one to you. Teachers have to deal with this a lot. In fact I have talked to a lot of teachers ( 5ish ) about their job and at least 4 of them without any brainstorming shot back with the bureacracy of the work, and the politics of the workplace.
Second, in high school my friends and I became aware of a list you could go to on a government webpage and see exactly how much each one of our teachers were being paid. We printed it off, looked at it, and brought it to school mainly to cause a shitstorm at the time, but the point is that in my area, teachers were extremely lucky to retire at 50k, which is half (!) of what you said that teachers in your area eastily can retire at. Given this is the midwest and you are in NYC, but not everywhere in our country is NYC, know what I mean? You need to take the cost of living factor in to account here, and the big city paycheck. More than that, many new teachers were still being paid ~25k. TWENTY-FIVE. That is absolutely horrible for the amount of schooling required for the job.
Third, you completely ignored the required schooling for your management trainee and the teacher. My stepbrother, a business major who could finish school with a low GPA at only a Bachelor's, paid a lot less to go to school and had to take out a **LOT** less loans to pay that off as opposed to a typical teacher's scenario, who is getting at least a master's and must do much better in school relative to my stepbrother. He also still landed a job btw.
You say you know all these teachers, well then you should also know that school systems often change what is required by state and federal laws and regulations for their students to learn. Also, a *good* (keyword: good) teacher will do much more with their lesson plan than throw it together within the first year of school. *Good* teachers are constantly evolving their teaching methods and lesson plans even when the state does not require it.
While I am on the subject, I think you are overstating the tenure subject relative the management trainee. Yes, tenure is a problem, and yes, it needs to be reformed. No arguments there. But are you telling me that the business workplace has no such problems? One of the reasons a game store owner I know quit his old business management job was because he was pretty much powerless to fire certain problem employees. The employees in question knew this, and totally exploited it. Particularly employees who knew that if they were fired they could sue the company for some kind of discrimination. In the business world, these problem employees are actually sometimes more likely to be promoted than fired, just because their current boss has no other idea how to get them out of their hair. But I am talking about people who come in to work late every day, leave early, never do *any* work, and talk long distance on the phone all day on the company's dime.
So I guess what I will say is what I said before, I don't know if *all* teachers are necessarily underpaid, I would say they are obviously mostly under appreciated. But sitting around grading papers sucks ass, try it sometime. To somebody who is trying to do a good job anyway, it isn't as easy as passively doing it sitting around in their PJ's. Not to mention, as I stated in my earlier post, that the work conditions for a lot of teachers are absolutely shitty.
All in all, in regards to teachers, bad ones can keep their job doing a pis-poor job, good ones don't see another dime, and are sometimes underpaid in the first place, and the work conditions can be terrible.
It's not uncommon to see teachers in the HS that I graduated from making $100k+ a year. So I very strongly disagree that compensation is a factor into why American education fails.
There's a lot of informative, and helpful things in your post Mike. There are a few major points I have to argue with you, though:
1) Education starts at the bottom. You're talking about High School Teachers - my pay references are to Primary School Teachers. When your primary level education fails, your secondary cannot succeed. I imagine it's the same in the states, but here in NZ, High School Teachers get a pretty decent head start on Primary in pay - and I happen to think that lesson plans are a lot easier for a Secondary Teacher.
2) Tenure doesn't exist here, so that's a bit of a different ball game. Compensations are on a similar level - since our healthcare is statefunded, things like that don't play in here. Comparatively, looking at it this way, American Teachers are getting a definitely better deal pay-wise. Don't get me wrong, I don't think the failure can be attributed solely, or even majorly to pay. I do still think that teachers' aren't paid for what's expected now.
3) Not an argument point, just some information from my side - teachers and schools are funded out of a national education budget which simply comes out of all the revenue the government gathers. Any taxes go into the government, set amount is allocated to education. So improvements don't cost one area specifically, etc.
4) I wouldn't think much of what's done outside the school is overstated - but it depends largely on subject, and age level of students.
Again, I guess ultimately one of the biggest misunderstandings for my arguments is to assume they apply universally to all teachers. In my opinion, your education is failing on a ground level with the youngest students, and because of that, you have high school students who can't read - and there's no wonder why they don't make it anywhere.
Sidetracking a bit further here - the biggest thing I think affects education systems universally in a negative fashion is the level of extra responsibilities added onto teachers. Teachers no longer are responsible for simply teaching the academics: there's teaching, we have to consider emotional and social well being, looking after medical needs of certain students, running extracurricular activities, meeting with parents, teaching healthy eating - and in general, things haven't been altered to reflect what's been added to the profession. There's a lot more to teaching now then just learning reading, or maths.
Originally posted by: Legal_My_Deagle
Wc3kid - not at all saying I disagree with your or agree with you even, I am actually not all sure what exactly your main point is, to be honest. You start by disagreeing with Dany which would lead me to believe you are arguing the opposite of what he is saying, but then you end with "So, who "wins"? I don't think that either of them are a clear stand out..."
I don't disagree with Dany at all... I was attempting the clarify the other side of the argument that teachers are under paid for the work they do. The "win" I was referring to is the comparison between the teaching and mgmt jobs straight out of college - the point being which is more appropriately compensated. In the end, I was inferring that they were equal.
"What is completely overlooked here is the political game that the Mgmt trainee has to play ..."
Not sure what exactly you were specifically pointing to here, but if you were trying to account for the bureaucracy factor, I don't want to give that one to you. Teachers have to deal with this a lot. In fact I have talked to a lot of teachers ( 5ish ) about their job and at least 4 of them without any brainstorming shot back with the bureacracy of the work, and the politics of the workplace.
There's politics everywhere, even within family dynamics. So I'm not intending to take that away from teachers. When people argue for how much work that a teacher does outside of school, they sometimes don't realize that most jobs require work outside of regular hours. A teacher is a professional and should be compared with other professionals.
Second, in high school my friends and I became aware of a list you could go to on a government webpage and see exactly how much each one of our teachers were being paid. We printed it off, looked at it, and brought it to school mainly to cause a shitstorm at the time, but the point is that in my area, teachers were extremely lucky to retire at 50k, which is half (!) of what you said that teachers in your area eastily can retire at. Given this is the midwest and you are in NYC, but not everywhere in our country is NYC, know what I mean? You need to take the cost of living factor in to account here, and the big city paycheck. More than that, many new teachers were still being paid ~25k. TWENTY-FIVE. That is absolutely horrible for the amount of schooling required for the job.
That list is available everywhere and how I know what teachers make here... With regard to the actual salaries, you failed to quote the other key points I made with regard to the affluence of my area and the corresponding property taxes. The folks who are making $25k and retiring at $50k are working in areas where the property taxes are lower and the general cost of living is cheaper. A median home price in my school district is round about $500k. If the teachers you are referring to are working in a school district where the median home price is that high, then you have a major discrepency and I would agree that your teachers are under paid.
Third, you completely ignored the required schooling for your management trainee and the teacher. My stepbrother, a business major who could finish school with a low GPA at only a Bachelor's, paid a lot less to go to school and had to take out a **LOT** less loans to pay that off as opposed to a typical teacher's scenario, who is getting at least a master's and must do much better in school relative to my stepbrother. He also still landed a job btw.
Do your schools have requirements that I don't know about? For public school teachers here, they are required to have a BA to apply. They don't have to have a Masters for 5 years from their start date. In fact, most of the school districts in this area prefer to hire teachers with just a BA since they can start them at a lower salary... Salary is based on the degree level + continuing credits. Typically it works something like BA+15, BA+30, MA+15, MA+30 and such... meaning they get salary bumps for every 15 continuing education credits they receive. Yes, they need a teaching "certificate", but that's just a form to complete and a very simple standardized test. The decent mgmt jobs have pretty strict and competitive requirements... they're going to want to see a decent school and GPA. In fact, my Sister got her teaching job with a BA degree from SUNY-Plattsburgh and a 2.8ish GPA. During her interviews they put alot of weight on her test lesson, which she kicked ass on. BTW - she's just finishing up her Masters (part time) and found a nice way to have some classes count towards continuing credits as well as the degree - she's getting this degree from a decent local college. Honestly, I would say there's more emphasis on school and grades for *good* Mgmt jobs... the fact that your stepbrother landed a job doesn't change that - unless of course he's working in an Fortune 100 company trainee program.
You say you know all these teachers, well then you should also know that school systems often change what is required by state and federal laws and regulations for their students to learn. Also, a *good* (keyword: good) teacher will do much more with their lesson plan than throw it together within the first year of school. *Good* teachers are constantly evolving their teaching methods and lesson plans even when the state does not require it.
Dude... come on now. Like I said, I've seen behind the curtain. A good lesson is a good lesson and the requirements don't have significant changes that often. If you read what I wrote, you understand that the "good" teachers are putting tons of work into developing the lesson plans up front as they are being reviewed often by administration for tenure. Once this upfront work is done and refined over the first several years, they find something that works. Of course they modify it over time, but if they're teaching 8th and 9th grade history for 10 years, they most definitely don't work as hard simply because they understand how the whole thing works and they have the experience. This doesn't make them "bad" teachers... if it's working (and it should be if you are a good teacher), the maintenance of the lesson plans isn't nearly as difficult as the first couple of years.
While I am on the subject, I think you are overstating the tenure subject relative the management trainee. Yes, tenure is a problem, and yes, it needs to be reformed. No arguments there. But are you telling me that the business workplace has no such problems? One of the reasons a game store owner I know quit his old business management job was because he was pretty much powerless to fire certain problem employees. The employees in question knew this, and totally exploited it. Particularly employees who knew that if they were fired they could sue the company for some kind of discrimination. In the business world, these problem employees are actually sometimes more likely to be promoted than fired, just because their current boss has no other idea how to get them out of their hair. But I am talking about people who come in to work late every day, leave early, never do *any* work, and talk long distance on the phone all day on the company's dime.
I'm not sure what I said to prompt this, but I agree for the most part... in a large corporate setting they can have nearly as much difficulty firing someone.
So I guess what I will say is what I said before, I don't know if *all* teachers are necessarily underpaid, I would say they are obviously mostly under appreciated. But sitting around grading papers sucks ass, try it sometime. To somebody who is trying to do a good job anyway, it isn't as easy as passively doing it sitting around in their PJ's. Not to mention, as I stated in my earlier post, that the work conditions for a lot of teachers are absolutely shitty.
I've watched my wife grade papers... in her pajamas! and I would venture to say that she's a very good teacher. She never complained and said it sucked ass at all - maybe because she truly loved what she did. There are aspects of most any job that someone could say "sucks ass". Frankly, if it's that bad then the person should look for another career. Bottom line... the flexibility a teacher has to get that work done doesn't change, which is my main point.
All in all, in regards to teachers, bad ones can keep their job doing a pis-poor job, good ones don't see another dime, and are sometimes underpaid in the first place, and the work conditions can be terrible.
Don't you think this is stating the obvious... and if you took out the word teachers, don't you think this could be applied to many, many jobs?
Originally posted by: Dany
1) Education starts at the bottom. You're talking about High School Teachers - my pay references are to Primary School Teachers. When your primary level education fails, your secondary cannot succeed. I imagine it's the same in the states, but here in NZ, High School Teachers get a pretty decent head start on Primary in pay - and I happen to think that lesson plans are a lot easier for a Secondary Teacher.
I think Primary equals our Elementary (grades K-6)... going on that assumption. Agreed 100%. The HS teachers have lesson plans towards individual subjects where Elementary covers all.
2) Tenure doesn't exist here, so that's a bit of a different ball game. Compensations are on a similar level - since our healthcare is statefunded, things like that don't play in here. Comparatively, looking at it this way, American Teachers are getting a definitely better deal pay-wise. Don't get me wrong, I don't think the failure can be attributed solely, or even majorly to pay. I do still think that teachers' aren't paid for what's expected now.
Yeah, can it be better? Should teachers be better compensated than the Mgmt trainee based on what they do? I can see the point there.
3) Not an argument point, just some information from my side - teachers and schools are funded out of a national education budget which simply comes out of all the revenue the government gathers. Any taxes go into the government, set amount is allocated to education. So improvements don't cost one area specifically, etc.
This is one of many examples where out govt structure hurts us. Not going to open that can o' worms tho. 
4) I wouldn't think much of what's done outside the school is overstated - but it depends largely on subject, and age level of students.
Again, I guess ultimately one of the biggest misunderstandings for my arguments is to assume they apply universally to all teachers. In my opinion, your education is failing on a ground level with the youngest students, and because of that, you have high school students who can't read - and there's no wonder why they don't make it anywhere.
Sidetracking a bit further here - the biggest thing I think affects education systems universally in a negative fashion is the level of extra responsibilities added onto teachers. Teachers no longer are responsible for simply teaching the academics: there's teaching, we have to consider emotional and social well being, looking after medical needs of certain students, running extracurricular activities, meeting with parents, teaching healthy eating - and in general, things haven't been altered to reflect what's been added to the profession. There's a lot more to teaching now then just learning reading, or maths.
Back to my original point (waaaay back)... I think the issue rests with the parents and the best way to attack this overall issue. Parents need to become more involved and work with the system - on all the aspects that you mention. Supporting the teachers and what they do (not micromanaging mind you), helping to reinforce the importance of education and incorporating it into their lives with the appropriate importance. Too many parents view school as "free babysitting".
Too many parents view school as "free babysitting".
Too true. Then again, I think part of the issue is also that there are way too many parents that shouldn't be parents. But thats another can o' worms I'm not going to open. 
Originally posted by: Aeryx
Too true. Then again, I think part of the issue is also that there are way too many parents that shouldn't be parents. But thats another can o' worms I'm not going to open.
See, I have to admit that I am guilty of it to some extent... my oldest son starts pre-K this week. On several occasions I've discussed with my wife about how nice it will be to get him out of the house. You talk to other parents (many of which that I consider to be very good parents) and it's the same thing. It's in the culture - it needs to change.
It's really a complex issue and the reason why I think education is failing has to do with a couple of things. I'm not going to write an essay because no one reads long posts and they're a waste of time.
1. Students come from families that are not supportive of their educational goals.
2. Students are poor.
3. Students lack economic resources at home to be successful in the class room.
4. Teacher unions are too strong and thus under performing teachers are protected at the expense of new talent.
It's really hard to say if a teacher is inept or her students don't have the resources to succeed. That's why I have mixed feelings when it comes to classroom competition, because what if you have a class full of poor students. Those students lack the resources to succeed, should we blame the teacher for that? And also this competition will make teachers falsify records or rig test scores just so they don't lose funding. In that case everyone loses the students and the system.
It's really easy to open up Milton Friedman's "Capitalism and Freedom," and start blurting out lines from his chapter on school vouchers as a cure all for this situation, but that would make a giant straw man out of this problem. This problem is way too complex for entry level macro econ assumptions. This problem is deeper than economics, it's a social, political, and moral issue. I don't have the solution, and many of us here don't know the solution. But at least we can agree that we have a problem.
I'm the prime example of a bad parent:
I'm young and not ready, not secure enough financially, lazy, extremely impatient, extremely selfish with my free time, and would likely be a horrible father figure. I'd make a pretty awesome "cool uncle" but thats about it. Lets not forget my utter disgust for babies, toddlers, children and teens. I don't like needy people and therefore would be a terrible parent. I know this and will NOT be taking part in the spawning of my own demon children.
I see more than enough parents that fit the same bill, yet have kids anyway and think they SHOULD. They are impatient with them and push the parenting responsibility off onto the school and don't spend any time with the kids. School is a free daycare where they go to 'learn'. Parents write it off as completely automated -- you send em to school and they come home educated, no need for extra work.
Looking back at my experience in high school I can largely say that it was a giant waste of time from an academic standpoint. There was a lot of value in the social interaction and experiences during those 4 years, but as far as academics I didn't walk away with very much. I spent the majority of school sleeping because (with the exception of AP classes) everything was tailored to the weakest links in the school system. I wasn't super smart or anything, I just think the bar is set so low that anyone with half a brain learns jack shit and the idiots come out with a degree that says they earned something worthwhile.
The craptastic education system and poor parenting are working together for a retarded America.
Originally posted by: wc3kid
Originally posted by: Aeryx
Too true. Then again, I think part of the issue is also that there are way too many parents that shouldn't be parents. But thats another can o' worms I'm not going to open.
See, I have to admit that I am guilty of it to some extent... my oldest son starts pre-K this week. On several occasions I've discussed with my wife about how nice it will be to get him out of the house. You talk to other parents (many of which that I consider to be very good parents) and it's the same thing. It's in the culture - it needs to change.
it's one thing to be glad to get the kids out of the house for a while...I think it's every parent's right to be excited about that (especially after all those late night feedings...woot for parental nap time)...it's what you do once they come home that matters, i.e. help with homework, ask about what they learned that day, show interest in their education, get them involved in making dinner and doing little chores, that sort of thing...it's when you plop them down in front of the boob tube after school and ignore them till dinner that things start going awry imo
though I gotta say, the "No child left behind" system, while good in the theory that we're not letting anybody fall through the cracks, has lowered the bar so much that America as a whole is suffering...also, NCLB has always struck me as a little bit like "1985" and "Brave New World" in that there's no room for extraneous learning...everybody learns exactly the same thing at exactly the same time and the government has final say over the knowledge provided to its citizens...very fishy imo.
Let me posit it from a different angle. Obviously to say America's education sucks is true of 95% of the country, but that 5% does exist. So we should look at what's happening in the school districts which are succeeding.
Jericho, Great Neck, Rockville Centre, Cold Spring Harbor, Syosset, Old Westbury, Port Jefferson, Manhasset. What are those? Those are names of some towns on Long Island whose schools are frequently in the top 200 list whenever Newsweek and US News release their "top schools in the US" reports. Why do I point this out? Because salary, what people complain about, is exactly the problem. But you're looking at it the wrong way. If you're interested in this topic, I recommend you borrow Johnathan Kozol's book, Savage Inequalities, from the library. He uses Great Neck as a case study in showing his point.
In Great Neck, the amount of money spent in their schools is $14,000 per student per year.. In Rockville Centre, the amount spent is $12,000 per student per year. Similarly, in all these school districts I mentioned in the last paragraph the average spending is above $10,000 per student per year. Approximately 65% goes to salaries, the rest goes to equipment and groundskeeping, etc. I worked for several years in one of those school districts, (but not as a teacher, I fixed computers.) and I can tell you that there were teachers retiring with salaries beyond $100,000. When I went to school, I was lucky enough to go to one of these schools, where I was taught by engaging, fun, interesting, and involved teachers. These teachers went above and beyond to make sure the students got proper attention, prepare great lessons and study guides, do fun activities, and so on. Legaia's example teacher is exactly what most of the teachers were like at my school. Why? salaries.
It's basic economics. Teachers want to move up, just like people in any job field. They move to school districts where
a) the kids are more disciplined / easy to deal with and
b) they get paid more.
Working in such a school district, I heard the gossip, and I know how hard it is to get a job in one of those. The new teachers had to struggle to prove their worth and get tenure (not many did). Teachers who were good have stuck around for 30 years or so. Hearing the gossip, I knew which good teachers would go on to become a principal at another district, many of which were well-deserved promotions, and so on.
Now let me compare this to another part of Long Island, Roosevelt. Roosevelt is a poor area, it is dangerous, and there's no sugar coating about it, it's slummy. Violence in the schools and lack of education quality has led to the point the NY board of Regents has planned to shut some of their schools down. It's scary to be in those areas. And the district is nowhere in that top 1200 list. How much is given per kid in these school districts? on the order of about $1200 per kid. That's right, one tenth what is given in the top 100 school districts. With so little money, and having to make a base salary available to hire anyone at all, only a meager amount goes to supplies, groundskeeping, and textbooks.
Jonathan Kozol highlighted several of these super-poor school districts. The situation in them was sad. They didn't have textbooks, or what few they had were 15+ years old. Their class map still showed USSR where Russia should be, and many of the borders were out of date. They had no supplies for the kids, and everything was in a state of shambles. They had no athletic fields or money to participate in inter-school sports. This goes directly back to how much money is spent per kid.
So I return to the argument at hand. If teachers in general are overpaid, then why is it that the school districts in where the teachers are paid substantially more than what you call "overpaid" the ones in the top 100? And these are all public schools I'm talking about. Yes, the salary isn't everything to do with it. Maybe the kids are more well-behaved to begin with, being from more affluent families. But those kids growing up in these towns likely have two parents working in manhattan, away for most of the day. They're being raised by their teachers just as much as the kids in the poorer schools are. They just happen to get better districts.
There's no simple solution to this problem. Why is it that neighboring towns don't share any money whatsoever, and one's a top 100 school and one's a dump? Because that's the way the system works in the USA. A more socialized system would cause equal distribution to all the kids, and maybe the kids in the poorer areas will get a better education, but possibly at the cost of the top-end schools. But even knowing that; I, being someone whose mother worked ass off to get to where she was, to get her degree and to become a doctor in order to live in one of those affluent towns, I feel a sense of entitlement. In America, we work our asses off to get opportunity for our kids. To become more like Europe or new Zealand (equal distribution on a national level) would be better for the country as a whole in competing with other countries. But to us in our individual microcosm, the way we have it now is better for us.
Top 1200 schools in the US: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12532678/site/newsweek/
Savage Inequalities: http://www.amazon.com/Savage-Inequalities-Children-Americas-Schools/dp/0060974990/
There's no simple solution to this problem. Why is it that neighboring towns don't share any money whatsoever, and one's a top 100 school and one's a dump? Because that's the way the system works in the USA. A more socialized system would cause equal distribution to all the kids, and maybe the kids in the poorer areas will get a better education, but possibly at the cost of the top-end schools. But even knowing that; I, being someone whose mother worked ass off to get to where she was, to get her degree and to become a doctor in order to live in one of those affluent towns, I feel a sense of entitlement. In America, we work our asses off to get opportunity for our kids. To become more like Europe or new Zealand (equal distribution on a national level) would be better for the country as a whole in competing with other countries. But to us in our individual microcosm, the way we have it now is better for us.
Now we're getting into the interesting parts - you argue that your parents worked their ass off to get their educations and send you to a good school district. What happens though, to the kid who's brought up in the lower district? He gets worse teachers, worse grades, learns less, and as such can't compete for these high salary jobs. So he ends up earning, if he's lucky, a middle income job and his child ends up going to a very similar school. Do these children deserve less of an education simply because somebody else's family had a better head start here?
I disagree with policies based on ethnic and racial requirements - I'm much more for giving the funding and assistance to anyone who needs it as long as they do. But it's almost impossible to ignore the effects of race on socioeconomic status, and the fact that within your education system, social class just compounds itself.
I'm a supporter of equal opportunity. The kid in the poor area should have the same chances at his education as the kid in the rich area - but they need to work for it as well. As it stands, it really doesn't matter how hard the child works or how smart he is - the teaching standards and resources in the poorer areas are a huge barrier to their success. Some people overcome it, but the majority are going to simply relive the same social class their parents did. The son of someone who makes burgers at McDonalds probably won't end up being a highly paid lawyer. He probably won't get to go to University at all, and if he's lucky he might get to manage that McDonalds some day but that's probably going to be it.
In addition to needing the support from the home, particularly now with reference to your post Crast, I'd have to say that a huge problem is the inequality in the education system. My country is smaller - it's a bit easier to attempt to create this equality. Even here though, there are areas where the school quality is worse - but the teachers there get paid the same, so they do their best to lift the state of the school. In fact, areas with lower socioeconomic status (or decile) get more funding for their education then the higher areas, the idea being hte higher areas get more support from the parents. The interesting thing there is a school in the less desireable areas can have equal or sometimes even better resources, so it's easier to get staff, and the effort is made to stop social classes from simply propogating themselves.
crast, I think it's a lot more complicated than you make it out to be, and I think Dany touched on that a little bit. Most of what you pointed out is a correlation, not a cause. The problem is, the high class and low class have become so seperated that they are two entirely different societies at this point (not that this is the first time we've seen class seperation in history; according to manuscripts looked at in my brit survey class, nobleman in early England were allowed by law to rape peasant women if they felt they needed to, as long as they were discreet).
But as much as we're supposedly the land of equal opportunity, we're quickly becoming seperated into different classes. Lower class kids see no point in education; higher class kids do. There is some amount of crossover but not much. Thus in higher class schools, you don't get mocked for doing well; in lower class schools, you can get your ass beaten for doing well.
Which leads me back to the original post and stating it as an obvious cause of the problem.
Not the only cause, of course.
Another cause I'd point to is the fact that authorities granting money to school districts base the funding they give on the grades the school puts out. Teachers are encouraged to set easy standards; If everyone passes with an A, the schol receives more money, so who cares that this kid didn't do his homework or know anything about the subject, his mom is part of the PTA. Give him an A and everyone wins, right?
With this sort of lower standards being applied, why would some kid want to be better than everyone else? ...it's not like he's going to pass and the other kids aren't; all he's doing is trying to prove his superiority over other students, as they see it. I mean, let's be honest here, of all those kids that you knew that were dumb as a brick and picking on smart kids, how many of them really didn't graduate?
Anyway, it's a complicated matter with a lot of causes; money appears to be the issue, but is only a portion of the equation. To truly solve the problem, I think we're going to have to revamp our economic system; without this, the gap between the rich and the poor is only going to get larger, school is going to mean even less to the poor kids as success becomes entirely unattainable. The face of American society will look very different in 50-100 years, I think, and school isn't the problem; it's only a result of the problem.
I believe our education system can fail because education doesn't end in the classroom. Education is an on going process that continues in the household. If students are lacking the necessary supervision at home they will have a tough time preparing for the next school day.
Private schools can weed out the underachievers through economic and academic mechanisms. Public schools lack the ability to do so because they have to educate anyone regardless of their background. Being that some students come from backgrounds where their families are completely dysfunctional they are not able to study or maintain the same level of academic performance as their peers. Because of this teachers are forced to dumb down the curriculum which leads to a poor outcome for every individual in the classroom.
I remember going from private to public high school. What I was learning in my sr year of public high school I learned in my 7th grade year at my private elementary.
But this is just my take on the problem there are probably a whole multitude of factors that lead of to the poor performance.
Last edited by jordan (2008-08-22 23:30)
I was just reading this article a few days ago that was basically a rant by a public school teacher against the No Child Left Behind act, and that is basically what the teacher was saying - that that act basically makes it so the only way to get a decent education is to go to a private school.
Blizzpub » Mature Discussion » Theory about why American education fails
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