Why Johnny can't spell or count....... - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Grancey · 03-27-2005, 09:55 AM

Ken Jennings is fortunate that he did not grow up attending school in the New York school system. That's my attempt at humor with this. Seriously, I'm not attacking the New York schools. This is a nation-wide epidemic.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/03....ap/index.html

Quote:

NEW YORK (AP) -- City officials recalled preparation material for math tests that had been sent to teachers after discovering they were filled with math and spelling mistakes.

The materials were designed for math students in grades 3 through 7, and had been sent to math coaches and local instructional superintendents. The errors were found late Wednesday before the guide reached classrooms.

Several answers in the guide were wrong. There were also sloppy diagrams and improper notation of exponents. There were at least 18 errors in the guide, and grammar and spelling issues proved just as problematic as the math. For example, the word "fourth" was misspelled on the cover of the 4th-grade manual.

School officials blamed the mistakes on an ineffective fact-checker.

"We have a clear protocol for review of all materials," Carmen Farina, deputy chancellor for teaching and learning, said in a statement. "In this case, a member of my staff inexcusably failed to follow our protocol, and I have written a letter of reprimand to the person's file. We recalled the materials within hours, corrections to the guide will be made, and it again will be distributed digitally."

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, speaking Friday on his weekly WABC radio show, said he was surprised to hear about the problems but acknowledged that mistakes can happen.

"I'm not the best speller in the world," he said.

"It is a complex world, and every day you wake up in my job and say, 'They did what?"' he said. "There are times when I'm halfway downtown on the subway after reading a few of the stories and I think maybe I should just get off at the next station, cross the platform and go back uptown."

sbscout · 03-27-2005, 11:51 AM

a letter of reprimand... and just how much did this failure to follow procedure cost the taxpayers of NYC?? Probably hundreds of thousands of dollars.

doubleaught · 03-27-2005, 12:05 PM

wow... mistakes will be made, sure. Happens to everyone.

What I don't understand is how such an idiot could be writing tests and distributing them in the first place - I'd think the person whose *job* it is to make tests would not be making 18 mistakes!

Really makes me wonder if the content of those tests was worth anything.

Zeraph · 03-27-2005, 01:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by doubleaught

What I don't understand is how such an idiot could be writing tests and distributing them in the first place - I'd think the person whose *job* it is to make tests would not be making 18 mistakes!

Because #1 good teachers are hard find (or any type in the education system) #2 they get paid shit. Don't blame the system/people who work in it but blame the government and well just about everyone in America for not wanting to put more money toward education. You get what you pay for.

flstf · 03-27-2005, 03:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zeraph

Because #1 good teachers are hard find (or any type in the education system) #2 they get paid shit. Don't blame the system/people who work in it but blame the government and well just about everyone in America for not wanting to put more money toward education. You get what you pay for.

I'm not so sure that spending more money is the answer but maybe some thought should be given to how we are spending it.

Quote:

USA Today
U.S. tops the world in school spending but not test scores
WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States spends more public and private money on education than other major countries, but its performance doesn't measure up in areas ranging from high-school graduation rates to test scores in math, reading and science, a new report shows.
"There are countries which don't get the bang for the bucks, and the U.S. is one of them," said Barry McGaw, education director for the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which produced the annual review of industrialized nations.

The United States spent $10,240 per student from elementary school through college in 2000, according to the report. The average was $6,361 among more than 25 nations.

warrrreagl · 03-27-2005, 07:20 PM

At the college where I work, several employees can't spell and don't really seem to care. Although they aren't faculty, they frequently send out e-mails which are read by all faculty and staff, and it's downright embarrassing.

How many times have I heard other faculty members say something similar to this to their students? "No, I won't count off for spelling because this isn't an English class." And I'll bet the morons who created the calamitous guidebooks for NYC had college instructors who told them the exact same thing.

jorgelito · 03-27-2005, 09:24 PM

So if it's not money then what is it then? I always thought the US spent the least amont of money...uh-oh...

liquidlight · 03-27-2005, 09:39 PM

The money spent is a national average, you'll not. . . that doesn't take into account that there are areas that the number doesn't amount to diddly because someone is paying a private school $30,000 a YEAR to school their child versus the less than $200 a year is being spent on a public school student. I would be interested to see what the statistics look like if you leave the private schools out of the calculation.

flstf · 03-27-2005, 10:35 PM

I haven't been able to come up with the exact number for private school spending in the U.S. but from everything I have read it is small compared to public school spending. It will probably not effect the $10,200 number by more than a percent or so which is why it is not tracked that closely.

Below is one article attempting to explain why we are behind. I think that probably our huge diversity and inner city school problems has something to do with our high costs and low test scores compared to other industrial countries.

Quote:

Dollars in the Classroom
Politicians and the media have long had a misplaced obsession with levels of school spending. The truth is that America's schools aren't the desperately underfunded financial basket cases they're always portrayed as being. What's more, the evidence indicates that the system's major problems can't be solved with more resources.

Education spending per pupil has been climbing steeply for 60 years. In 1945--46, public primary and secondary schools spent $1,214 per pupil in inflation-adjusted 2001 dollars. Ten years later, that figure had roughly doubled to $2,345. It roughly doubled again in another 16 years, reaching $4,479 in 1971--72. And 30 years later, it had doubled a third time, climbing to $8,745 in 2001--02.

It's difficult for us to know what the exact effects of this increase in spending were before the 1970s because there were no standardized tests given to truly representative samples of students at that time. This leaves us with no reliable way to gauge how the performance of the school system responded as new dollars came flowing in. College entrance exams were given, of course, but they are taken only by the very brightest students, so they don't give us an accurate picture of the whole system.

Starting in the 1970s, we can measure the effectiveness of increased school spending because that's when the federal government began administering the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a basic skills test given to a nationally representative sample of students. Sometimes called the "Nation's Report Card," it's a highly reliable measurement of student performance.

The results of these exams are startling. During a period when per-pupil education spending doubled from $4,479 to $8,745, student performance has been flat. Twelfth-grade test scores, which represent the final results of the K-12 education system, haven't budged. The average reading score was 285 in 1971 and 288 in 1999 (the latest year from which comparison-compatible scores are available); the average math score was 304 in 1973 and 308 in 1999; and the average science score was 290 in 1977 and 295 in 1999. On a scale of 500 points, these are trivial differences.

High school graduation rates, the other major indicator of the school system's final outcomes, are also flat. In 1971--72, high school graduates made up 76 percent of the 17-year-old population (the age-group that is the field's standard of comparison), while in 1999--2000 they made up 70 percent. Early estimates for 2000--01 and 2001--02 indicate that the rate may have gone back up to 72 percent. That leaves it essentially unchanged from the level it had been at 30 years earlier.

How can it be possible that we are spending twice as much money (in constant dollars) on our students and seeing no change in their performance? Where is all the money going, and why isn't it producing improvement?

One place the money is going is to costly additional services that schools now provide. Schools have health, nutrition, and safety programs, dropout retention efforts, and a host of other projects that simply weren't offered, or weren't offered on nearly the same scale, in 1971. Today, schools offer students not only subsidized lunch but subsidized breakfast. The latest addition in the past five years has been an explosion of antibullying initiatives. Programs to teach English to immigrant children have also expanded significantly since 1971.

These new or expanded programs were originally implemented largely on the strength of arguments that they would improve student learning. How can students learn, the reasoning went, if they are hungry, sick, in danger, tempted to drop out, or unable to speak English?

But over time, these programs have come to be seen more as ends in themselves than as educational support services. Serving breakfast and running health clinics are viewed in much the same way as heating and plumbing--just part of the overhead. So even though these programs have failed to raise student achievement, they are in no danger of being reformed.

Another major source of additional spending that hasn't improved student learning has been the growth of school bureaucracy. Schools now hire substantially more administrative staff members per student than they did in 1971. As with supplemental services, the expansion of administrative staff is widely accepted as an overhead expense. There is no general expectation that spending more on school administration will lead to better-administered (and therefore better-performing) schools; this lack of expectations is confirmed by flat test scores.

Finally, another major source of additional spending that hasn't improved student learning has been the hiring of many more teachers to do much less work. The number of students for every teacher in public schools has shrunk from 22.3 in 1971 to 15.9 in 2001. That's about a 40 percent increase in the number of teachers relative to the student population. But the average number of students taught per day by each secondary public school teacher dropped from 134 in 1971 to 97 in 1996. That's a 28 percent decrease in each teacher's classroom burden. These lower work levels have not been reflected in teachers' annual salaries, which have grown at about the rate of inflation in that time. So schools are now getting the same total output from a much larger number of workers who each work less but make the same income as before.

When it comes to schools, there's no subject where popular perceptions diverge from reality as decisively as they do for the effects of spending. Most people are inclined to believe the National Education Association's claim that "our students are hurting from budget deficits and cutbacks every day." But the reality is that, far from having been cut back, education spending has gone dramatically upward while school performance has been--if such a thing is possible--dramatically flat.

warrrreagl · 03-28-2005, 05:17 AM

I probably should stay out of this, but I really don't see where money is an issue at all here. Proper spelling is an attitude; either it matters to you or it doesn't. No matter how much money is thrown at schools (public or private), people won't take the effort to spell correctly unless they're expected to.

Johnny can go to a school that spends $100,000 per student, but he still won't care about spelling unless his parents, siblings, relatives, and friends give him shit over it. And if they don't, he'll get a job making test guidebooks loaded with incorrect spellings because it was never that big of a deal to him before.

Squishor · 03-28-2005, 06:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by warrrreagl

I probably should stay out of this, but I really don't see where money is an issue at all here. Proper spelling is an attitude; either it matters to you or it doesn't. No matter how much money is thrown at schools (public or private), people won't take the effort to spell correctly unless they're expected to.

Johnny can go to a school that spends $100,000 per student, but he still won't care about spelling unless his parents, siblings, relatives, and friends give him shit over it. And if they don't, he'll get a job making test guidebooks loaded with incorrect spellings because it was never that big of a deal to him before.

Yes! The main thing I've been noticing lately is apathy about things like spelling and grammar. Take internet forums for example. I feel embarrassed if I misspell a word, so I take the time to look up anything I'm unsure about before I hit the "submit" button. Others just snarl and don't care when their errors are pointed out - they simply don't care. Someone points out an error and they say "well im a bad speler so STFU." It's all in one's attitude. Take my case for example - I didn't have the benefit of the most comprehensive and well-funded education. In fact, I was basically out of school from the first half of 3rd grade all the way through to the second half of 6th grade. However, I came from a family where people cared about using the language well, so I care. Somehow an entire generation of people seems to have lost their sense of pride in writing and using the language skillfully, or at least they've redefined those terms for themselves.

joemc91 · 03-28-2005, 07:33 AM

I think it all comes down to the attitude regarding education in this country. Until arriving in college it wasn't perceived as "cool" to do well in class. The students, as well as our culture in general, continues to label intelligence and a desire to do well in class as nerdy and/or geeky. Look back to the countries that produced that great scientific thinkers of the twentieth century, Germany, Poland, Austria, Britain. The scientists of that era were treated like the rock stars of today. People recognized them whereever they went and they were renowned for their accomplishments. Thus, people had real incentive besides money to go to school and succeed. The culture promoting intelligence and academia was what made their education system so good.

This type of culture doesn't exist in America. For instance, how many people can name a well-known (in scientific circles) contemporary scientist. Very few I'd wager. This has lead to an apathy regarding education and now even common reading and writing. How many people do you know who take pride in how they don't read? I know too many. Most homes I visit have very few books in them, and if there are books, it is usually the bible. I'm sure quite a few of you have noticed this as well. With academia pushed out of view of the mainstream, I'm not sure this will change in the near future either.

BigBen · 03-28-2005, 10:26 AM

Apathy on the students part belongs on the doorstep of asshole parents.

When I was in school, the teachers were banned from using the 'strap' for about 2 years. They hung it on the wall as a testament to the GOOD OL DAYS. Instead, if I misbehaved in class or was doing poorly in the academic sense, my parents were brought in and they
a) sorted me out so fast it hurt or
b) there was no alternative. Go back and read a) again.

Parents not sending their kids to school with a proper breakfast?
A proper lunch?
Don't care about their child's academic performance?

The buck stops here, friends. I cannot change the world, but I can change my child's world. I REFUSE TO ACCEPT EXCUSES FOR POOR PERFORMANCE.

Johnny has a learning disability? Then Johnny is going to have a tough time in my house. Extra work, tutors, quizzes, and little leisure activities.

Jane is being bullied at school? Then the parents, teachers and bullies better watch out, because I will stop at nothing to protect her.

Fucking parents think that making more money is equivalent to raising children. Nice clothes and cool toys only go so far to help a dumbass feel good about themselves.

Don't miss the forest for the trees people. I will not respond to attacks of "It's not my fault my kid has a learning disability..." Look at the solution instead of blaming someone/thing for the problem.

How can society accept any excuse at ALL for parents not feeding their children? That was a serious question, not a rhetorical one...

pocon1 · 03-28-2005, 11:02 AM

A couple of areas that cost a lot more nowadays are all of the computer access and supplies, and the aforementioned special ed and LD support. A woman I worked with pulled her kid out of the $20,000 private school (washington DC prices) and put him in public school because they could give him the support he needed. He ended up going to a decent college, so in his case it worked.
As far as teacher's salaries goes, I know teachers are not as well-compensated as they should be. My mom had 25 years of service In Montgomery Co. Md, which is considered one of the top counties in the Nation. She had her master's and had a so-so wage, but a lot less then she would have had in the private sector. She was also a team leader at her school so she had administrative work as well. My sister also has her master's in education and now teaches out in Tucson. My stepmother was an elementary school principal and when she retired in 1995 she was making around $80-$90,000 a year. Sounds pretty good until you realize that she was effectively running a small corporation. She had dozens of teachers, support staff, administrators, custodians, and other employees to manage. She also had hundreds of students to attend to. On top of that is hundreds of parents putting pressure on the school. Then you add in the bureaucracy of the county administration that hamstrings your every move. The stresses are gender, wealth, classism and ethnicity on the school system. Then on top of all that you could not fire anyone. You have a bad employee, there are ways of getting rid of them. How do you get rid of a bad student? Or lousy parents? Being a principal really sucks. don't forget the 60-70 hours a week of work, plus the unpaid time for PTA meetings, school events, and other issues like county council issues. Pay teachers and administrators what they are worth. The love of teaching starts the process, the low pay insures that what is left after several years is a lot of incompetent teachers who cannot get a private sector job.

doubleaught · 03-28-2005, 06:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zeraph

Because #1 good teachers are hard find (or any type in the education system) #2 they get paid shit. Don't blame the system/people who work in it but blame the government and well just about everyone in America for not wanting to put more money toward education. You get what you pay for.

Blaming the entire education system is one thing and would make sense if this were more widespread. Who knows, maybe it is (I do know the textbooks are PC crap nowadays).

In this case we're talking about one employee. Even if it's a few people this kind of mistake is not a reflection on the system, it's a reflection of the department who let this get to the printer. Point is: the guy/gal who wrote this should have never been hired if this is a typical example of their work. A person who writes tests should be educated enough to not make those mistakes in the first place, and that means not hiring a person who has been let down by the state of education in the first place.

MageB420666 · 03-28-2005, 06:58 PM

I think it has a lot to do with the learning technologies that exist now. It's not just spelling and grammar that are going down hill, it's also hand writing skills. I should know, my hand writing looks like I'm an amputee holding a pencil between my elbow stubs. Because of this decay in hand writing, many teachers require their students to type out papers instead of writing them by hand, and as a result, the kids don't bother to learn proper spelling and grammar, because all they have to do is a spell check.

The same thing goes for a lot of adults now. They don't bother to check their papers, because they assume that spell check has done it's job. People don't put the same effort into learning the english language because they believe that computers can fix all of their errors for them.

I think it might have been a neat study to have distributed the faulty papers and had students check them for the errors. It would have been neat to see if the elementary school students knew how to spell better than the test writer.

03-27-2005, 11:51 AM	#2 (permalink)
sbscout Disorganized Location: back home again...	a letter of reprimand... and just how much did this failure to follow procedure cost the taxpayers of NYC?? Probably hundreds of thousands of dollars. __________________ Always question authority... it'll keep the bastards on their toes!

03-27-2005, 07:20 PM	#6 (permalink)
warrrreagl pinche vato Location: backwater, Third World, land of cotton	At the college where I work, several employees can't spell and don't really seem to care. Although they aren't faculty, they frequently send out e-mails which are read by all faculty and staff, and it's downright embarrassing. How many times have I heard other faculty members say something similar to this to their students? "No, I won't count off for spelling because this isn't an English class." And I'll bet the morons who created the calamitous guidebooks for NYC had college instructors who told them the exact same thing. __________________ Living is easy with eyes closed.

03-27-2005, 09:39 PM	#8 (permalink)
liquidlight AHH! Custom Title!! Location: The twisted warpings of my brain.	The money spent is a national average, you'll not. . . that doesn't take into account that there are areas that the number doesn't amount to diddly because someone is paying a private school $30,000 a YEAR to school their child versus the less than $200 a year is being spent on a public school student. I would be interested to see what the statistics look like if you leave the private schools out of the calculation. __________________ Halfway to hell and picking up speed.

03-28-2005, 05:17 AM	#10 (permalink)
warrrreagl pinche vato Location: backwater, Third World, land of cotton	I probably should stay out of this, but I really don't see where money is an issue at all here. Proper spelling is an attitude; either it matters to you or it doesn't. No matter how much money is thrown at schools (public or private), people won't take the effort to spell correctly unless they're expected to. Johnny can go to a school that spends $100,000 per student, but he still won't care about spelling unless his parents, siblings, relatives, and friends give him shit over it. And if they don't, he'll get a job making test guidebooks loaded with incorrect spellings because it was never that big of a deal to him before. __________________ Living is easy with eyes closed.

03-28-2005, 10:26 AM	#13 (permalink)
BigBen Comedian Location: Use the search button	Apathy on the students part belongs on the doorstep of asshole parents. When I was in school, the teachers were banned from using the 'strap' for about 2 years. They hung it on the wall as a testament to the GOOD OL DAYS. Instead, if I misbehaved in class or was doing poorly in the academic sense, my parents were brought in and they a) sorted me out so fast it hurt or b) there was no alternative. Go back and read a) again. Parents not sending their kids to school with a proper breakfast? A proper lunch? Don't care about their child's academic performance? The buck stops here, friends. I cannot change the world, but I can change my child's world. I REFUSE TO ACCEPT EXCUSES FOR POOR PERFORMANCE. Johnny has a learning disability? Then Johnny is going to have a tough time in my house. Extra work, tutors, quizzes, and little leisure activities. Jane is being bullied at school? Then the parents, teachers and bullies better watch out, because I will stop at nothing to protect her. Fucking parents think that making more money is equivalent to raising children. Nice clothes and cool toys only go so far to help a dumbass feel good about themselves. Don't miss the forest for the trees people. I will not respond to attacks of "It's not my fault my kid has a learning disability..." Look at the solution instead of blaming someone/thing for the problem. How can society accept any excuse at ALL for parents not feeding their children? That was a serious question, not a rhetorical one... __________________ 3.141592654 Hey, if you are impressed with my memorizing pi to 10 digits, you should see the size of my penis.

03-27-2005, 12:05 PM	#3 (permalink)
doubleaught Psycho Location: OMFG BRB	wow... mistakes will be made, sure. Happens to everyone. What I don't understand is how such an idiot could be writing tests and distributing them in the first place - I'd think the person whose job it is to make tests would not be making 18 mistakes! Really makes me wonder if the content of those tests was worth anything.

03-27-2005, 09:24 PM	#7 (permalink)
jorgelito All important elusive independent swing voter... Location: People's Republic of KKKalifornia	So if it's not money then what is it then? I always thought the US spent the least amont of money...uh-oh...

03-28-2005, 07:33 AM	#12 (permalink)
joemc91 Insane Location: Chicago	I think it all comes down to the attitude regarding education in this country. Until arriving in college it wasn't perceived as "cool" to do well in class. The students, as well as our culture in general, continues to label intelligence and a desire to do well in class as nerdy and/or geeky. Look back to the countries that produced that great scientific thinkers of the twentieth century, Germany, Poland, Austria, Britain. The scientists of that era were treated like the rock stars of today. People recognized them whereever they went and they were renowned for their accomplishments. Thus, people had real incentive besides money to go to school and succeed. The culture promoting intelligence and academia was what made their education system so good. This type of culture doesn't exist in America. For instance, how many people can name a well-known (in scientific circles) contemporary scientist. Very few I'd wager. This has lead to an apathy regarding education and now even common reading and writing. How many people do you know who take pride in how they don't read? I know too many. Most homes I visit have very few books in them, and if there are books, it is usually the bible. I'm sure quite a few of you have noticed this as well. With academia pushed out of view of the mainstream, I'm not sure this will change in the near future either.

03-28-2005, 11:02 AM	#14 (permalink)
pocon1 Banned	A couple of areas that cost a lot more nowadays are all of the computer access and supplies, and the aforementioned special ed and LD support. A woman I worked with pulled her kid out of the $20,000 private school (washington DC prices) and put him in public school because they could give him the support he needed. He ended up going to a decent college, so in his case it worked. As far as teacher's salaries goes, I know teachers are not as well-compensated as they should be. My mom had 25 years of service In Montgomery Co. Md, which is considered one of the top counties in the Nation. She had her master's and had a so-so wage, but a lot less then she would have had in the private sector. She was also a team leader at her school so she had administrative work as well. My sister also has her master's in education and now teaches out in Tucson. My stepmother was an elementary school principal and when she retired in 1995 she was making around $80-$90,000 a year. Sounds pretty good until you realize that she was effectively running a small corporation. She had dozens of teachers, support staff, administrators, custodians, and other employees to manage. She also had hundreds of students to attend to. On top of that is hundreds of parents putting pressure on the school. Then you add in the bureaucracy of the county administration that hamstrings your every move. The stresses are gender, wealth, classism and ethnicity on the school system. Then on top of all that you could not fire anyone. You have a bad employee, there are ways of getting rid of them. How do you get rid of a bad student? Or lousy parents? Being a principal really sucks. don't forget the 60-70 hours a week of work, plus the unpaid time for PTA meetings, school events, and other issues like county council issues. Pay teachers and administrators what they are worth. The love of teaching starts the process, the low pay insures that what is left after several years is a lot of incompetent teachers who cannot get a private sector job.

03-28-2005, 06:58 PM	#16 (permalink)
MageB420666 <Insert wise statement here> Location: Hell if I know	I think it has a lot to do with the learning technologies that exist now. It's not just spelling and grammar that are going down hill, it's also hand writing skills. I should know, my hand writing looks like I'm an amputee holding a pencil between my elbow stubs. Because of this decay in hand writing, many teachers require their students to type out papers instead of writing them by hand, and as a result, the kids don't bother to learn proper spelling and grammar, because all they have to do is a spell check. The same thing goes for a lot of adults now. They don't bother to check their papers, because they assume that spell check has done it's job. People don't put the same effort into learning the english language because they believe that computers can fix all of their errors for them. I think it might have been a neat study to have distributed the faulty papers and had students check them for the errors. It would have been neat to see if the elementary school students knew how to spell better than the test writer. __________________ Apathy: The best outlook this side of I don't give a damn.