analog

Does it not bother anyone else that people are not only getting dumber, but that no one seems to be doing anything about it or even really care?

Public education: total shit. Utter, complete, and in all ways shit. To say that funding is insufficient is laughable.

It's absolutely ridiculous. Does it not make anyone else mad the way that we have completely dropped the ball on giving kids a fair shot at a future? If you live in the wrong area, your educational standards are way lower than others. You stand a multifold greater risk of dropping out, doing poorly while you are in school, or being exposed to things like gang activity or drugs, and earlier exposure to sex- which you've received piss-poor, if any, education about.

Why is this country allowing itself to be destroyed from the inside? Why does everyone cry "save the children!" but do fuckall about fixing the terrible education most of them are getting? Why is there no public outcry that this "great nation" has a shitty education system?

Do people just not care anymore?

QuasiMondo

It's a collective failure. Parents are disinterested in kids education, teachers are disinterested in their profession, and it's a back burner issue.

Sure there's a few exceptions out there, but they're exceptions, not the rule.

__________________
Cameron originally envisioned the Terminator as a small, unremarkable man, giving it the ability to blend in more easily. As a result, his first choice for the part was Lance Henriksen. O. J. Simpson was on the shortlist but Cameron did not think that such a nice guy could be a ruthless killer.

-From the Collector's Edition DVD of The Terminator

snowy

The problem is that those of us who do protest the education system in America feel as if we are shouting in the wind, though we do our best to somehow change the system from the inside, which in a system ultimately overseen and controlled by the federal government is next to impossible.

Recently, I was talking to someone who suggested the decline in American education can be directly linked to the formation of the federal Department of Education, which was not its own Cabinet-level department until 1980. I disagree with that basic premise, but I do think that No Child Left Behind has given the federal government far too much control over what happens in our local school districts.

That said, one of the biggest things to gut Oregon school was the passing of property tax reform measures. One of the measures passed requires every levy or bond to be approved by a supermajority--a 2/3rd vote--instead of a simple majority. As you can probably guess, this makes it next to impossible to pass levies and bonds, and the difference physically between Oregon schools and Washington schools is very, very obvious. Oregon schools are much more likely to be overcrowded, for one, and they're also more likely to be technologically behind the curve. Fortunately, our new legislature has been able to undo some of the damage, and Oregon has always struggled through despite lack of funding.

Mostly, what worries me is that thousands of American teachers are on the verge of retirement, and school districts around the country are going to have a bear of a time enticing young people such as myself to join a broken system. Personally, I get too much joy out of the act of actually educating others, and I am fortunate to live in a part of the country where the education system is still good, despite funding cuts and NCLB.

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If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

ShaniFaye

I do my part about caring and protesting.....my child is home schooled

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Bill O'Rights

I have long been a proponant of the school voucher system. Public Education is nothing but a bureaucratic meat grinder, and there is no incentive for change.

__________________
"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." - Susan B. Anthony

"Hedonism with rules isn't hedonism at all, it's the Republican party." - JumpinJesus

It is indisputable that true beauty lies within...but a nice rack sure doesn't hurt.

mixedmedia

I care. We've never been rich or in a particularly good school district (until recently - not rich, but in a good school district), but my children have learned.

The larger part of the problem is that people do not value knowledge the way they used to. The concept of knowledge seems to have value only to the extent that it can be used to make you money. We are a couple of generations into this mindset. Therefore little Johnny and little Johnny's parents not only do they not care, but they do not even notice that Johnny is receiving an inferior education at school and Johnny's parents, having received the same education do not place a sense of value on a comprehensive, well-rounded education. If you want your kids to learn more than just enough to pass through the public education system, you have to instill in them an appreciation of knowing. You have to make it attractive and valuable. This is how I have passed a love of knowledge on to my children. It may seem ridiculous, but I made them think it was cool to be smart and knowledgable. And it worked. They have always stood out amongst their friends for "knowing lots of stuff" and that has since translated (as they've grown) into accumulating knowledge about their own interests. When they become interested in something, they learn everything they can about it and very often knock my socks off by how much more they know than me about certain subjects.

So all that said, I think what we have lost is an appreciation of knowledge, as a society, and we are dumber and more shallow because of it. And the public education system is only symptomatic of this phenomena.

__________________
Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

flstf

It seems like it is not just a matter of more money, we already spend more than other industrial nations on education. Perhaps our public schools would benefit from some competition as BOR proposes.

Dilbert1234567

i read the article in its entirety last night, it's a well written article about the dumbing down of America.

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shesus

I agree that public education is not hitting the mark. I knocked myself out trying to help and give the children that I taught a chance. The bottom-line was that they didn't give a shit because the parents didn't give a shit and over half of the teachers didn't give a shit and we weren't funded enough to even have a chance. I didn't have pencils for my students that last quarter of the year because nobody wanted to buy them. I'd buy them and the students would lose them within the same day. Just a small excuse of no one caring. I spent a lot of my own money trying to make my room work, but it was spent in vain because within a couple days it was broke, torn, or lost. I was trying to go upstream in a canoe with a hole in it and no paddle.

A few of my students did have a chance and this is only because the parents CARED. I'd say that of my 3 years teaching in the inner-city, I had 5 parents that actually cared and showed up to any educational event. I remember joking that we should offer beer and maybe they'd care more.

Anyway, I could vent all day long about it. I tried my best and it's a horrid situation. So, I decided to get out of the public school sector when the opportunity arised. Charter schools are one answer to the public system dropping the ball. In my new school, I see parents volunteering 80+ hours a year. I see kids that not only want to learn, but respect the process of learning. It's a good thing.

One person can't fix the problem. Education is just one part of a bigger issue. This country is going down in so many areas. It's pretty scary to me, but I just do the best I can and maybe I did make an impact somewhere along the way by teaching.

Shanifaye: Homeschooling is snother answer and I don't blame you. If I can't find a decent school, that is definitely what I will do too.

I don't know the answer. I think some people don't understand what it's truly like in a public school, at least a failing one, behind the scenes. I find most people are selfish and want to put on a facade that they care, but don't want to get their hands dirty. If we knew the answers, the problem could start getting solved. It's easy to cover your eyes and ears when you aren't immediately affected.

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I heard you sold it

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JumpinJesus

I believe that one of the worst things to ever happen to the public school system was the creation of the Dept. of Education. Here's why: The federal government has no legislative authority over public education at all. None. Zip. Nada. They are prohibited from writing any law affecting how we teach or what we teach. They have absolutely no legal control over us at all. So how, then, do they exert so much control?

Money, naturally.

Since they don't have the constitutional authority to fuck with the school system, they use money as a means of control. I think a lot of us can agree that money is a much greater motivator than the law. The Dept. of Education sits around all day figuring out what strings to attach to all that federal money earmarked for education. Needless to say, every single fuckhead politician with a point to make gets to throw in his worhtless, uneducated opinion into what schools should be forced to do in order to receive those desperately-needed federal dollars.

How can we change or fix this?

Bill O'Rights has an idea: competition and school-choice

Shanifaye has an idea: homeschool your child

Onesnowyowl has an idea: get involved in your public schools, whether you have children there or not.

Mixedmedia has an idea: pay attention to your children and what they are learning.

Honestly, as others have already said, those in charge aren't going to change a goddamn thing on their own.

Teachers' unions exist seemingly for the sole purpose of printing gossip rags on administrators. Administrators exist seemingly only for the paycheck - and trust me, principals make a very nice living. Parents exist seemingly for the sole purpose of dumping their kids in school then bitching about everything without doing anything. Teachers exist seemingly to collect a paycheck and take summer vacations. The number of people who care enough and are willing to do something positive are far outnumbered by the types of people I described above.

There are good schools out there. Oddly enough, the schools with the most successful students aren't the richest schools; they're the schools where the parents, the teachers, and the administrators work closely together for the success of the students.

__________________
"I can normally tell how intelligent a man is by how stupid he thinks I am" - Cormac McCarthy, All The Pretty Horses

Bill O'Rights

You and Shesus have the unique advantage of actually having been in the trenches that are the American classroom. That perspective is valuable to this discussion. I can agree, and sympathize, with just about everything that you guys have brought up. I have a daughter that graduated high school in '05. I have a son that is entering kindergarten in 6 days. (I hope that his current enthusiasm can be sustained) My daughter's high school experience was like a bad made for TV movie. She was harrased by the ghetto element for answering questions in class, and "actin' better'n us". She had teachers that were only available from 9:30-3:30. (sorry, a lot of parents work much later than that) I tried to join the PTA, but that was like Pleasantville from Hell. Mary Jane Rottencrotch's mother, Sally, dominating the entire meeting with the upcoming bakesale. (I shit you not) The administrator's could not put her into a niche because she was both "gifted" and ADHD. The two did not fit into any of their convenient little cubbyholes where they warehouse these kids.

Where are the "good" teachers? They have either retired, or left for "greener" pastures. What idiot, in their right mind, wants to stay in that environment? Where is the incentive? It is, I believe, a wonderful place for lazy ineffective people to spend their lives. That...is Public Education.

BTW...my son is going into Kindergarten reading at a 3rd grade level, and doing 2nd grade level math workbooks. I know that all parents have little geniuses. But, this kid truly is a smart little shit. To smart to be thrown into the Public School meatgrinder, and I can't afford private school.

__________________
"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." - Susan B. Anthony

"Hedonism with rules isn't hedonism at all, it's the Republican party." - JumpinJesus

It is indisputable that true beauty lies within...but a nice rack sure doesn't hurt.

MSD

The problems come from all sides of the issue. Parents don't want their children to learn things that they don't agree with, so we have bans on books and the creationism debate. Teachers' unions want to protect those who pay union dues, so we can't get rid of bad teachers. Kids grow up in cultures where ignorance is lauded and education is shunned, so the kids don't want to learn. The government provides free education in public schools, so even if a parent wants a choice in their child's education, they can't do it unless they have lots of money to spare.

Everyone is the problem, and the problem can't be fixed without a complete breakdown and reconstruction of the system.

roachboy

to my mind the fundamental problem is that the american educational system--which includes public, private, mixed and homeschooling--is a direct reproduction of the class order. that is the primary effect of pegging school funding to local property taxes for public education--and if you imagine that opting for either private schools or home-schooling is opting out of the system of class reproduction, you are simply fooling yourself.

claims to democracy or meritocracy have about the same pertinence when it comes to the way the american educational system operates as the sovet constitution had to what stalin actually did in the exercise of power. it is not even a lie--it is too far removed from reality to be a good lie--it is dreaming.

and it is the primary beneficiaries of this class-stratified educational machine that oppose attempts to change it.

i have taught at ivy league unversities and at public universities. i do not think it's true that "people are getting dumber"--i think that is a facile, one-dimensional rationalization--even the phrase is passive--no agency, no-one doing anything, no system effects--it just happens. "people are getting stupider". like the weather. now its raining. now its not. whaddya gonna do?

what i do see is population of students who go to college with very different levels of preparation and find that in the main---in the main---this maps onto class position. there is no particular difference between kids from good public schools and elite private schools. there is no particular difference between kids from working class schools. but there ARE differences--and very considerable differences--between kids from good public/elite private schools and those from working-class schools. expectations for themselves. beliefs in what they can do. willingness to take intellectual risks. ability to think recursively. academic preparation. this is a class issue. there seems to me to be no way around it.

so you are not seeing the effects of any particular Giant Slide into Stupidity that is happening in the way the weather changes--you are seeing the effects of a rather old story of class reproduction that is surfacing now in the way it is because that system of class reproduction is not only out of phase with the changing labor pool.

the huge problem at the center of all this is twofold: (1) the system itself has been designed such that it cannot be adjusted as a system. so the system reproduces an outmoded labor pool because it continues reproducing an outmoded class profile. as it has been doing. and (2) the american system of social reproduction is being defunctionalized by remaining basically the same as the socio-economic contexts change around it.

when these two large-scale frames were better aligned, the american dreaming would be such that one could imagine that this class reproduction was not already an unbelievable wasting of human potential and talent and capabilities--but it was. one could pretend that american education was equitable because the consequences of the many many ways in which it was not disappeared--spatial segregation on class lines explains many such delusions--the refusal to see in the american system the results of political choices instead of the reflection of some social order ordained by some fictional god (city on the hill blah blah blah) meant that this wasting of human potential capabilities and talents was normal.

i think we are all suffering from the consequences of this dreaming.
if at the very least educational funding levels were detached from local property tax rates and distributed on a flat/even basis across class lines you could make some plausible argument that an educational meritocracy was in place---but it aint like that.
and it may well be that as the socio-economic realities under which the american empire operates--or crumbles, depending on your view--require that kids be educated in ways that privileges flexibility of thinking and openness to innovation--but that too aint happening within a system geared entirely around reproducing the existing class structure. it cant. its out of phase with system requirements.
and it may be that if the american empire is to do anything other than crumble, it needs to have an educational system that ignores class and that encourages intellectual growth and autonomy FOR ALL PEOPLE if only so that a bigger cadre of kids can have access to leadership positions (assuming this degenerate socio-economic order we labor under survives)--but that too aint happening and cannot happen so long as education is a straight mechanism for reproducing the existing class arrangement.

so entire populations of kids are sacrificed, enormous potential squandered.
and we are seeing the consequences of it.
you arbitrarily narrow the pool of folk whose abilities are encouraged and allowed to develop and you fuck yourself in the longer run.
maybe someday when the history of the devolution of america gets written, someone will make a strong case for this being a fundamental error that a future, better culture will not do to itself.

i agree with mm about the substitution of skills-required-to-get over for learning for its own sake.
it follows from the conflation of economic class position with inward qualities like intelligence and ability.
so whatever gets you over must be good. and the wealthy are smarter than others because the money they have demonstrates it.
people believe this horseshit.
you hear version of it all the time. think the cult of celebrity and move laterally. think conservative grovelling at the feet of the wealthy and move in a straight line. start almost anywhere and do almost anything and you'll arrive at the same conclusion.
they have submitted--we have submitted--we submit our kids---to an educational system geared around these same assumptions.
and now--as if all of a sudden--there's a problem.

where have you been?

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

pan6467

I think the problem lies in the fact that since the 70's we have degraded public education. It is evident more today than it was then, but it still is the biggest problem.

If I were going to turn a great, well educated, wealthy country into a weak, easily controlled populace so that I could control more, I would do what has been done the past 30 years.

First, show how test scores continue to decrease,

get people to start believing that the people who dropped out, dropped out not because they wanted to but because the schools were too tough,

start telling people the public education system is falling apart and cut funding,

start lowering the entertainment factor, put on more escapism, more generic, less thought provoking, mind numbing shows and movies

make the populace believe that manufacturing jobs are belittling and the people who work them stupid

get everything politically correct so that everything taught is extremely generic and degrading to the country (look what the white man did.... he was the greatest evil on Earth to the black man and Indian.... why the Native Americans never had so much as the common cold until the European got here..... or..... the tribes of Africa were strong and united until the white man got there and started capturing them as slaves and paying the stronger tribes to sell their enemies as slaves..... etc etc

go after the system and talk about "how liberal it is" and start creating an "our values" vs. "the liberal educational system's values"

start labeling kids ADD/ADHD and feed them all kinds of medication

get it to where both parents have to work so that the kids lack supervision, then cut any after school program so that they have no choice but to roam the streets.

But best of all keep pounding and pounding the same negative attitudes and news (whether existent or not at first) until enough people believe that the system is broken and start demanding that it be fixed.

Then come in, fix the problem by making public education uniform, mind numbing and promote "hive" thinking not self awareness.

Yes, it would take time but about 50 years in this cycle and you could have that great, well educated and wealthy country controlled and following you without questions.

__________________
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QuasiMondo

Vouchers are nice, but you still have problems. The first problem is that it doesn't address the issue of failing schools. Sure, some students will qualify for the vouchers and enroll into a quality private school, but the ones who don't qualify are stuck in a crap school getting a crap education and now have a crap future.

This unintentionally creates the haves (those who can escape the bad schools) and the have nots (those who can't escape). School vouchers does nothing to address the issue of have nots, unless everybody gets a voucher, but then you're just shuffling all of the problems the public schools have onto the private schools. Of course, they can probably raise tuition to compensate, but then that puts the burden on parents who are paying for tuition out of pocket. Government grants might help, but at that point, you have to ask yourself, why spend all this money to help a private school when that money can be spent fixing the public ones?

Vouchers are a good idea doomed by the law of unintended consequences.

__________________
Cameron originally envisioned the Terminator as a small, unremarkable man, giving it the ability to blend in more easily. As a result, his first choice for the part was Lance Henriksen. O. J. Simpson was on the shortlist but Cameron did not think that such a nice guy could be a ruthless killer.

-From the Collector's Edition DVD of The Terminator

abaya

I don't know what we will do with our future children. My husband attended private schools in Lebanon because NO ONE, with any means whatsoever, would send their child to a public school there. That's a similar mentality to what I've seen in the UK, Thailand, plenty of other countries. Now in Iceland, there are no private schools. Only public. Imagine what that does to the quality... people actually have no choice other than to send their kids to public school. All the money goes to those schools. I think it's a grand way to go, but that will never happen in the US, sadly.

Personally, I loved the public schools I attended, from kindergarten through graduation. But our district had all kinds of programs for different groups of kids... I got lucky and was placed in a gifted program, and for good or ill, we also had honors classes and the like (which kept me on my toes). The great thing I remember was that my best friend and I wanted to start a whole new course in Advanced Chemistry our senior year, and we did it. It wasn't offered previously, but we found a teacher, decided on a curriculum, and we got enough of our peers to sign up. This was your run-of-the-mill public high school (granted, in a semi-suburban area), but we were able to really push boundaries and explore what we wanted to learn. I know that doesn't happen in a LOT of public schools, for some very complicated reasons, but my experience of public schools was still a good one. I went back to teach 11th grade in the same district and had a similar experience... those kids had it good. They were also 99% white and upper-middle class. And there's your class reproduction...

I agree with pretty much everything roachboy said. And I've seen the same thing with the undergrads I taught at a public university.We are fucking ourselves. People are not "getting dumber," it is not a passive thing, as roachboy pointed out. We are just getting more and more short-sighted and entrenched in our class, as a nation... and I didn't think that was possible!

__________________
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for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
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roachboy

a clarification: financial success in a particular context means that you happen to be functional within that context. if the context were stable--like a thing, not a process--then setting up an educational system that reproduced that class system--and by extension privileged only those competences which were materially functional now--might make sense. but the context is not stable. it is a cheap political expedient to pretend that it is, trading away not only the potentials of kids but even more the adaptive potentials of the system itself to pretend that the context is like a thing.

private schools and the vouchers that would slightly widen access to them do not even start to address this. there is nothing about a private school that makes it any more likely to not fall into this political circle than a public school--if anything private schools are even less accountable than are public. all they do is privatize the problem, remove it from the realm of the political. such is the conservative solution.
run away from the political.
same thing obtains for homeschooling. you do nothing to or about the political assumptions that underpin the public system by opting out of it and chances are that you impose even more limitations on your kids for doing so.

second clarification: if this class reproduction system were rigidly efficient, i wouldnt be talking. if this class system were rigidly efficient, it would have collapsed long ago. fact is that folk are able to think their way out from under what is and that you can get the tools you need to operate and be coherent--but you have to know they exist and want to get them in order to do so. such tools should be available to everyone.

i think kids should be taught philosophy. i dont think it'd solve everything, but it'd help--because philosophy helps you learn to structure how and what you think, and it enables you to relativize the context in which you find yourself. if this were a democracy--or anything like one--exercising power would require these kind of intellectual tools. the risk involved with this is that such tools can encourage dissent. personally, i think that the risk of dissent is outweighed by the value of this education and that the system itself would benefit from taking that risk.

folk are afraid of risk, they are afraid of change.
and as a political expedient, the american educational system functions to train people to be incapable of dealing with change.

you reap what you sow.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

albania

America is still at the top of the game when it comes to university and college educations, and I’d fathom a guess and say that it would take at least a couple of generations before that could change significantly. Although, I have heard rumblings from professors who don’t like the push for AP classes in high school as the classes themselves tend to only teach to the exam. This leaves something to be desired given that students are allowed to skip courses they haven’t mastered. Especially when AP classes are replacing what were once challenging Honors courses that prepared students in the fundamentals which were then enhanced or solidified once in college.

Back to my point, America will continue to educated the most qualified professional in the world, even with a deplorable public school system in place. In essence, there is no pragmatic necessity to fix the public school system since it seems to play little or no part in providing us with the academics and professionals which make this country great.

That being said, it doesn’t mean that there isn’t a certain sad state of affairs here. It is a shame that a teenage girl could probably tell me in detail about Britney Spears love interests, but the same teenager is unlikely to be able to name the axis and allies in world war II (I might count it a victory if she could tell me which side we were on). It’s also a shame that some middle aged white men know more about Martin Luther King than some high school age black males.

Who is to blame for this? I think it’s society in general, we as a people. When was the last time you took an active interest in the schooling of the people you know? Do you ask your nieces and nephews what they’re doing in school? Do you volunteer your time or donate money to your local library? Do you know who your kids teachers are, who their classmates are? Do you go to the art museum or do you go to the bar on Saturdays? When was the last time you had an intellectual conversation with your friends? Do you encourage the people in your life to further their education if they’re interested in something? Do you take the time to learn new things by yourself? Do you find it more important to improve your looks rather than your knowledge? It’s been pointed out to me a few times that the nice people here at tfp tend to not fit into any one category. Therefore, the “you” that I used is a generic you directed at no one here in particular.

snowy

Most school districts I know of will adjust the curriculum if the students show demand for a certain class. Where I went to high school, you had to start paperwork with the principal and then sign up 10 students beyond yourself to show interest. A friend of mine tried to do it to get a Latin class at our high school--but evidently only he wanted to learn Latin. Similarly, an interest in having a magnet school program for International Baccalaureate spurred a change in the curriculum at a district level there.

Where my dad is principal, there aren't a lot of honors/AP classes, simply because there aren't enough students. It's unfortunate, but the funding models in most states don't allow for classes smaller than 10 students, and you'll be hard pressed to find a district with a single class smaller than 15 students.

And yes, the funding models vary from state to state significantly. In Oregon our school funding comes mostly from property taxes and state income taxes, and that money is divided up on a per-student basis among the school districts because of the severe limits on property taxes in Oregon. A couple of years ago the schools ran into some severe budget problems after mass lay-offs by employers in the state, which caused the amount of income tax collected to drop. To stabilize this, voters have approved the use of lottery dollars to fund schools--the stupid tax at work.

The funding model here plus the supermajority required to pass a levy/bond makes Oregon's education system stagnant. It's not only K-12 that is affected by this, but higher education as well--the more the state has to contribute to districts' operating budgets, the less there is for the colleges and universities. Because of the need to fund K-12, universities in Oregon have been severely limited in their ability to acquire capital improvement funds from the state--money needed for remodeling our deteriorating buildings. Though they try to change, they don't have the flexibility to truly make lasting changes. However, our legislature more than did their part this last spring, and so I hope the next biennium proves to be better for our schools than the last.

We are finally seeing some capital improvement money around here--three buildings on campus are finally being fixed.

Perhaps if we were all a bit more optimistic, and more dedicated to changing the system, we would do the world some good. And changing the system means a variety of things--as JJ suggested in his post. It's an active thing, so we can't all be pessimists about it--that won't get us anywhere.

__________________
If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Infinite_Loser

*Wonders where some of YOU people live because the public education system around here seems to be doing pretty well, seeing as how they're constantly creating more and more magnet programs in the 'minority' communities*

__________________
I believe in equality; Everyone is equally inferior to me.

mixedmedia

Well, if you're talking about Lake Mary you're talking about Seminole County, the same school system my daughter is in...and I moved out here specifically to put her into a Seminole county school. If you go online and check out the ratings of the Orange and Osceola county schools you will see that most of them, unless they are in a high income area, are either failing or hovering around a C grade. There's a site (that I can't remember now) where you can get all this information for free. That's how I decided where I wanted to live when I came back to Orlando.

And last I heard, Jones High School was celebrating their making a D grade this year (more power to them), but I wouldn't call that doing pretty well. Oak Ridge High School and Evans High Schools are D & F rated schools and the last I heard, they're closing Hungerford Prepatory High School in Eatonville (a highly rated magnet school) due to low attendance.

__________________
Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

Walking Shadow

And your evidence for all of this is what, exactly? Normally if you're going to make some huge broad claim such as yours you want to back it up with at least one semi-believable cite, otherwise it just comes across as bullshit.

One thing you obviously fail to understand is just how much stuff has to be crammed into kids minds these days in grades 1-12, especially in subjects like history. There just isn't any time to go into any real depth, you have to cram it all in. Hell, when I was in high school, we barely spent a week on World War II, and even the college class I took on the subject just hit the high points.

If you truly want to go in depth on a subject you have to go for a masters or PHD or do some casual reading on your own.

analog

...huh?

What the hell are you talking about? I'm not talking about the time it takes to "cram" learning subjects, I'm talking about how horribly underfunded education is and how no one seems to care that it's only getting worse. I have no idea what you're saying.

And if you're not aware that education is terribly underfunded and need a quoted resource to prove it, I'd love to know where you got the giant rock you've been living under.

Taltos

The public school system is crap because it was meant to be. It was built that way. I was institutionalized to be that way. Education is, like any other commodity, built around business. Private education is made to create leaders and thinkers and people of greatness, for those capable of affording it. Public education is created to produce supporters and underlings -- people who are told how to think and what to do and strive to do everything they are told within certain deadlines. The fact that the public education system can do anything but produce armies of mindless drones is a testament to the willpower of those who have tried to change things, for good or for ill.

__________________
Though we are not now
That strength that in old days
Moved Earth and Heaven;
That which we are, we are:
One equal temper of heroic hearts
Made weak by time and flesh
But strong in will
To seek, to strive, to find
And not to yield.
-Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Psycho Dad

I ain't got no problim with publik skools.

My problems are with our society in general. Political correctness run amok, a declining work ethic, the belief that the federal government owes us, and most any other belief system that enables people to not be held accountable for their own well being.

__________________
Don't always trust the opinions of experts.

JumpinJesus

Short of writing a book to support and cite everything needed, taltos nailed it. Just simply research the origins of kindergarten. That alone is an interesting read.

__________________
"I can normally tell how intelligent a man is by how stupid he thinks I am" - Cormac McCarthy, All The Pretty Horses

shesus

Have you been to the magnet schools in your area? They can be hit or miss.

Last year when I was teaching in Chicago I was in a magnet school. It was the last shot I gave that district because I had heard all these great stories about how magnet school are different and the kids want to be there. I went and I call bullshit on them. It was just as bad as the regular school I taught in the 2 previous years less than a mile away. The kids didn't care, the parents didn't care, and the administrator didn't care about anything. I was bamboozled and that's when I threw in the towel and left the public sector.

I'm not saying they are all like that. I was in another magnet school that was nice, but not stellar. However, it was the only school that I wasn't scared for my safety in and I saw parents that really did care. Which leads me back to the belief that it comes down to the parents.

Parents to kids are bigger than life. If parents aren't supporting their child's education, they are handing them failure notices. In the areas I have been in, the main problem is that people are having kids too young and can't care for themselves, let alone a child. If they didn't finish school or had bad experiences, they're passing that along to their child not realizing the consequences.

It's a frustrating problem and talking isn't helping it. Being in the trenches didn't help it. There has to be a power bigger than life to fix the problem and unfortunately, I don't see that happening anytime soon.

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I heard you sold it

Choose Heaven for the weather and Hell for the company

flstf

I would like to comment on your assertion that our education is underfunded.
I haven't looked it up for a while but I thought that we in the U.S. already spend much more per student than Europe and most other industrial countries.

I don't have any answers but I'm not sure that adding more money into our current education systems will do much good. Maybe we need to reallocate how the money is being spent, more on teachers and less on administration or something. Perhaps it is like shesus wrote and nothing will improve without parents taking more responsibility for their children's education.

Necrosis

This man speaks the truth.

After observing how well education has been handled, how could anyone oppose turning health care over to the feds?

blade02

If you want to "fix" public education there a few issues you have to address:

1) Parents have to care. You can't simply drop your kids off, work over time at the office, tuck them into bed at night and expect them to get smarter.

2) School Faculty has to be allowed to discipline unruly children. When I was in school, I saw this being slowly stripped away from the teachers. Besides how effective can school be when everytime a kid gets detention or kicked from the sports team, angry parents come complain.

3) People have to accept the fact that there are smart kids and dumb kids. Not every kid has the right to take advanced classes.

4) Schools have to focus on the basics: English, Math, Science, Reading comprehension. Too many people want to skip structured basic classes and go straight to college type "free thinking" classes. This is great if you're in college. But to benefit from it, you need years of structured learning so you actually know a thing or two when its time to explore less concrete ideas.

Charlatan

I really don't get why the public system in the US doesn't work as well as it should. In Canada, our public system works quite well and I don't believe it's all that different from the US system.

With regards to removing your kids from the system by either sending them to private school or home school... you are a part of the problem. Taking your kids out of the system just means there is one less set of parents pushing for the system to be better. Fewer kids in the system which allows funding to be cut.

The most successful public schools are the ones where there is a lot of parent participation and strong community support.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke