Another shocker: American students have high self-esteem but performed below average in an international mathmatics survey. From the New York Times (reg.req):
High school students in Hong Kong, Finland and South Korea do best in mathematics among those in 40 surveyed countries while students in the United States finished in the bottom half, according to a new international comparison of mathematical skills shown by 15-year-olds.The United States was also cited as having the poorest outcomes per dollar spent on education. It ranked 28th of 40 countries in math and 18th in reading….
The study looked not only at the average performance of students, but also at how many from each country were top performers. It separated students into seven groups, ranging from Level 6, the best, to Level 1, which the authors viewed as a minimal level of competence. The remaining students were below the first level, a category that included more than half the students in Brazil, Indonesia and Tunisia.
In the United States, 10 percent of the students were in one of the top two groups, less than half as many as in Canada and a third the total of the leader, Hong Kong, which had 30.7 percent of its students in the top two categories.
And so on and so. Nothing new here.
Update: For my views on the voucher program in DC, see Liberals and Their Advice and Pro-Choice for DC’s Black Students (renamed by the Washington Post). In fact, check out the whole Education category.
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My son is in the first grade at a private Christan school. We were told last year that the state pays over $8000 per student per year to educate public students, while the school my son goes to is able to invest around $4000 per student per year.
My first grader can multiply and divide, can figure out most spelling words of up to three syllables, reads “chapter books” such as the boxcar children and so much more.
By way of contrast, my nephew goes to the public school that is touted as the most diverse in the state. He has trouble reading the simplest words, as they learn using “sight words.” He doesn’t have the concepts of math down beyond simple addition and subtraction. He also (according to his parents) is toward the top of his class.
Before you say that schools are underfunded, you need to look at what they are producing and shop around. You are likely doing this very thing to select Christmas presents that will be forgotten in a month. As parents, we owe it to our kids to shop just as hard and take just as many “sacrifices” for the sake of our children.
To some degree you are comparing apples to oranges.
Private schools can pick and choose students, and thus do not have to be hampered by ‘problem children.’
Public schools serve all.
Education in this country does need an overhaul, but remember in many of these other countries, ALL children are not equally educated. For many, less promising children are funnelled into trades and farming, thus they come out of the sum.
Remember there are lies, darn lies, and statistics.
As a product of public schooling until law school, I can say that the quality of my education matches competetivly to what others recieved. I think that to some degree much of this is overblown.
By the way Lashawn, did your Bulldogs beat my Eagles yesterday? Darn
That “high self-esteem” will sure come in handy when your job is outsourced to contractors in India or Hong Kong.
Wade,
Outsourcing is inevitable. Education levels will not stop it because it is rooted in the simple notion that in America it costs me $20.00 an hour for a customer service rep, and in India it costs me a mere $5.00. In fact, perversely, increasing eduction levels here would actually increase outsourcing, because the better educated worker would demand more money for the job.
The global test.
The higher level of public scrutiny of high school graduation rates is now creating a two-tier school system. To raise high school graduation statistics, school counselors are ‘recommending’ the GED to those children who are having problems. Night school is not compulsory and approximately 60% of the GED students graduated in 2002. The number of GED students less than 19 years old has grown steadily since 1997.
When the governor of my state began talking about testing students to see if they were performing at grade level, I began talking to everyone involved in the school system–a school board member, a teacher, a former teacher, a school nurse and parents. The only ones in favor were the parents. Everyone else had an excuse why testing was unfair and shouldn’t be done–including the reason that it might lower the students’ self esteem. Why would that be?
I think that all schools should be private schools (cost would go down even more as competition would go up), and that gov’t schools should be there only for those who cannot afford it. Give the people their money and let them decide where best to spend it on education. IMO, you can thank unions for outsourcing.
I hope that you are joking Rep when you suggest all schools become private. Here I thought I was economically conservative.
All schools private? Well, the libertarian position is that all schools should compete for students in the open market. I lean that way, myself.
It works in other countries. Combine that with vouchers (to ensure that everybody gets an education), and you might see some real change.
Why is it corporate monopolies are so feared by the left (and rightly so), but a state monopoly is so dear?
My son is 12 now.
In his fourth grade “gifted” program, his teacher explained to us on parent’s night that she could not spend any time with our son because she had kids in class that could not read.
In fifth grade, he attended a “highly gifted” program at another school. In reality we discovered that they had simply planted a high profile program in the county’s worst school just to get more funding? Visibility? I don’t know. We didn’t like it one bit.
In sixth grade, we tried an “engineering magnet” school, which turned out to be the worst of all. Metal detectors and gang violence. In sixth grade? Ugh.
Welcome to Seventh Grade. Trinity Lutheran. 15 children in his class, lots of one on one time with his teacher, a retired CEO giving back to the community. The classroom is not rich and white, it is fairly diverse. It doesn’t even cost that much, though we pay retail for supplies and field trips. Leadership workshops? Community service? No complaints here!
Give us vouchers to vote with so we can shut down these awful public schools. They’ll figure out soon enough what works and what doesn’t. I’m tired of the free ride on my tax dollar.
Stephen wrote: Private schools can pick and choose students, and thus do not have to be hampered by ‘problem children.’
As a former Christian school teacher, I can’t tell you how tired I am of hearing this excuse as to why the public school teacher’s job was so much harder than mine. While it is true that Christian schools can expel the worst of the worst, (as can the public schools) we do not have a classroom full of little angels, and we have no “special needs” expert to send them off to and have them pumped full of Ritalin. Learning problems are just as common among the Christian School population as they are among others, but we have no special ed. lab to which we can send the slower learners. I had to teach classes of twenty-some first graders, some of whom arrived on the first day of school with their “Little House on the Prairie” books tucked under their arms, and others who couldn’t differentiate between a “b” and a “d” and couldn’t remember with which hand they should hold their pencils. Some years I taught first and second graders together in the same classroom, teaching two math classes, two hstory classes, two spelling classes–well, you get the idea.
I had no teacher’s aide. I had no breaks, all day long, other than the breaks that I took with the children, supervising them, tying shoes, and handling disputes. Lunch was in the lunchroom–with the kids–and often included playground duty. I had no afternoon–nor even an hour–off at any time to grade papers or make lesson plans. All that was done at home after my family’s needs were met.
Don’t tell me the public school teachers have it worse. I know better. Christian school teachers work much harder, for less pay, with short supplies, under adverse conditions. And we love it. And we get better results. And nobody is going to rob us of the satisfaction of knowing that our students have been well served.
Too right Dory.
Larger school districts even have entire schools devoted to the problem children.
The truly elite private schools, like the ones the folks in the Senate send their kids to, they get to be picky. Most private schools don’t have that luxury. And I know more than a few religious schools that see taking the problem children as a responsibility.
Dory, you do a disservice to compare yourself to public school teachers. A disservice to you and a disservice to them.
You teach in a Christian School, and you know behavior problems. That is ok. But on the whole, your parents are probably more involved with their children’s lives than peers at ’some’ public schools. There are public schools where most of the children are on welfare or some other form of support. MOST…
There are public schools where your 6th grader has seen and done more than some adults.
Please recognize that there is a difference between your classroom and some of your public school co-horts.
And if you do work ‘harder’, and ‘do more’ with ‘less’, and all other things are identical, then my dear, why not just mosey over to the board of education and take one of those “higher paying” public school jobs?
Nothing will change until parents can sit across from the principal and say: educate my child well or I’m taking my money elsewhere.
Parents need power.
Gee stephen, maybe she wants to work where she can make a difference, and have an administration that will support her. And doesn’t have to parrot the union line…
Steven,
Also correct. The shame is, so many parents won’t, and their children will continue to suffer. But I don’t see why the others must suffer along with them.
“Gee stephen, maybe she wants to work where she can make a difference, and have an administration that will support her. And doesn’t have to parrot the union line…”
And I guess those ‘unfortunates’ in public school will bear the cost of that political stand, huh?
Remember, we ARE talking about children; or doesn’t that matter anymore if there is a political point to make.
So, she chose to get less money to do more good, and that is a political stand that hurts the children?
OK.
But if you’re meaning my response to Steven, at what point do we stop hurting one group of children to give dubious help to another?
Stephen, the idea behind competition is that schools will have to improve in order to keep their students. Most parents send their children where the government tells them to. The schools teach our children what the government them wants to. We have little say.
Liberals and conservatives should be able to get together on this. This is where we really need “choice.”
Stephen said: And if you do work ‘harder’, and ‘do more’ with ‘less’, and all other things are identical, then my dear, why not just mosey over to the board of education and take one of those “higher paying” public school jobs?
Because I wouldn’t sacrifice Covenant children to Molech’s fire. Dear.
First of all, I no longer work in a Christian School. I home school now, which is even more sacrifice for even less reward, humanly speaking.
The sacrifice that parents make to home school their kids or send them to Christian schools and the sacrifices that teachers and administrators make to provide a quality Christian education to the next generation are sacrifices that are cheerfully made and driven by conviction. We would have it no other way.
What I was objecting to was not the conditions I worked under. What I was objecting to was comments such as these that demean the work these people do and dismiss it with the sweep of a hand and a host of excuses to explain why even with resources cumpulsorily taken from the rest of us, your public schools cannot maintain order and cannot compete academically.
But Dory, to point out that private schools (ALL private, not just Christian) may pick and choose students, either de facto (setting price) or de jure (admissions exams, etc) is not an attack, just a statement of fact.
I object to those who demean the work that is done by those teachers who, like yourself strive to educate for a greater good.
It has become politically ‘trendy’ to bash the ‘liberals’ who teach in the ‘inner city’; as though they do no good for society. And being the son of two of those liberals, I take exception to it.
Your beef is really not with the teachers. Your beef is with the administrations and beaurecrats ‘down town.’ However the teachers get it on both sides.
I do wonder, if the sacrifices made to give a ‘good’ christian education to ‘good’ christian children means that we sacrifice the other children.
Further I wonder how the Jews manage to ADD Hebrew school on TOP of regular (for many public) school.
In short, I do not want to fight over who is doing more good, because if you are doing good, then great. You need not rip anyone else who is doing differently, as doing LESS. And if that sounds ‘liberal’ then it is what it is.
I won’t even address ‘covenent’ children. NO CHILD HAS A HIGHER PLACE OR PRIORITY THAN ANOTHER, for they are all innocents.
Stephen,
You said:
“You teach in a Christian School, and you know behavior problems. That is ok. But on the whole, your parents are probably more involved with their children’s lives than peers at ’some’ public schools. There are public schools where most of the children are on welfare or some other form of support.”
What does being on welfare or some other form of support have to do with parent involvment? Nothing. I grew up in a poor family and in public school, however my mother, my grandmother and even my uncles went to school for my parent teacher meetings when my mom could not attend. That is just an excuse and we all know it.
Three of my family members are now in the public school system teaching and they all complain that parent involvement is one of the issues… EVEN… if they go to the house themselves. The parent does not care and no amount of money or income change will fix that (just a reason for another excuse not to be involved…to busy spending money).
Also…
I don’t know about everyone elese here but I am guess quite a few of us remember reading, writing, english, math, social science or history, and some form of gym and art classes as our educational cornerstone. We also were allowed to read the Decalration of Independence and other historical documents with the word God without having the ACLU and some crazy principal having a hissy and trying to make us read Tupac’s rap lyrics instead.
Go figure
Renee,
Again, what goes on in California should not be imputed to the rest of the country. But you made my point for me.
You said “Three of my family members are now in the public school…they all complain [about] parent involvement…… EVEN… if they go to the house themselves. The parent does not care and no amount of money or income change will fix that (just a reason for another excuse not to be involved…to busy spending money). ”
By my comment, I was only trying to get you to remember that this is the parent that your Public School contemporary must deal with. You have done an excellent point of speaking for me, and I thank you.
Steven- Renee also reminds me that a disinterested parent will not suddenly become an interested one because you give him/her a voucher.
In the end, the only thing being overlooked is the child.
I believe that the Teacher’s Unions should go, that teachers be financially rewarded for a high percentage of children doing well on standardized testing, and that MORE money should be spent on inner-city/rural community (white black brown, the poor get the worst education) schooling.
I would beg to differ Stephen. The parent that is asking for a voucher in my opinion is probably paying attention to what is going on with there child to even put in the application.
As far as California, you would be surprised,k it is going on in other places.
I commented on what you said about people being on welfare. Your comment implied that that was a REASON to not be involved. It is not.
You are welcome for my good comments
I agree, the Teacher’s Union needs to GO AWAY!!!!!! Quickly!!!!
Stephen: I think that you will find that when parents have ownership of their child’s education, you will see an improvement in parental involvement. I wish that I could convince you of the power of the market. Freedom works!
Renee touched on a sad but important point, some parents will never raise their children right. Poverty is more than how much you have in the bank. Our culture needs to change, we are loosing our civilization.
I’m glad that I found so much common ground with you on education. That is a very good start. I have 5 children in public school and have been blessed with some very good teachers.
It is liberalism that is letting our kids down, not the lack of money!
Again, when do we stop hurting one group of children (and arguably the larger group) to give dubious help to another?
While I wouldn’t abandon the children who’s parents are apathetic, I don’t see why their bad parenting should dictate policy for everyone.
You may want to look at the November issue of Washingtonian Magazine. The private schools in Washington, DC where the politicians send their children cost $15K up to $35K plus. None of them cost $4k. And guess what? Most of them do not produce a better median SAT score than the public high schools of Fairfax or Montgomery County with all of the problems.
Also, remember than even at a school like Stanford, almost 80% of the freshmen are public school graduates.
Exactly SCSI…
It does nothing to fix the root problem and instill in the children and the parents the lesson that needs to be learned.
And that doesn’t cover the costs of blazers and equestrian lessons! And the polo field fees!
Divots, hoof prints and manure, oh my.
Makes patrolling the pitch after a rugby match seem like light duty…
Why would anyone want to send their children to school with a bunch of spoiled liberal brats?
Again, proof positive that more money does not mean better education.
Fairfax County (since my son goes there), is having it’s own issues. Sure it is still a good school system for the most part, but it is beginning to cost more to teach the children due to the ESL and non-english speaking influx. Lack of parental involvement among native English speaking Americans, is one of the least problems here but it is an issue with a large number of the non english speaking parents (according to teachers here). The bigger issues are with language barrier and gangs in the areas.
This is not all non native English speakers.
There is a portion of the non native english speakers in this area that are a part of the professional (technology) work force and are more pro active than Americans regarding their childs education. Many of these parents also speak English (so their is not a language barrier).
Washington DC school system was forced to experiment with school vouchers (thanks to Congress) and I was saddened by the number of eligible students/parents who declined to use them, citing transportation concerns, etc.
Thanks for that EG. I had read that not all the vouchers were applied for (at first). I didn’t read the transportation issue. I have read that those who did apply and are currently in the program are pleased so far.
EG, those school vouchers are the only hope for some of the kids stuck in that dilapidated system. I’m glad Bush kept pushing the issue. If only a handful of kids are helped, it’s worth it. Contrary to popular belief, the DC voucher program takes no money from the government schools. It’s a dedicated fund. With one of the highest expenditures per pupil, DC schools don’t need any more of my tax dollars for their shoddy product.
I’m going to post some links. It seems you might be a little short on information concerning this issue.
Stephen said: It has become politically ‘trendy’ to bash the ‘liberals’ who teach in the ‘inner city’; as though they do no good for society. And being the son of two of those liberals, I take exception to it. Your beef is really not with the teachers. Your beef is with the administrations and beaurecrats ‘down town.’
No, Stephen, I did not complain about public school teachers or administrators. I did not complain about liberals. I didn’t bash anyone. I didn’t demean Hebrew schools. (It think it’s wonderful Jews provide that for their covenant children. God bless them!) My complaint was with you using the “Public schools get to hand pick their students,” line to dismiss and minimize the success of Christian schools, as if their job was somehow a cakewalk. I also pointed out just a few of the many challenges that Christian school teachers face. It’s as if you are saying, “If we got to teach those kids, we’d have better results, too.” A claim, by the way, which proves false on closer examination. (Just look at the academic success of inner-city Catholic schools, most of which operate almost totally on scholarships with a poor, minority student population.)
You also objected to my use of the term “covenant children,” by stating the equal value of all children. You misunderstand my meaning. The difference is not one of value, it is one of obligation. My faith teaches me that parents have the primary responsibility to educate (as well as feed, clothe, etc.) their own children. Not because they are better children, but because they are our children. When we covenant together as church families, we take vows to assist one another (without taking over any authority) in these duties. Hence, I have a higher obligation to the children of the Church than I do to other children. Of course, we also believe we are to reach out to the poor, and most church schools I know of do so as soon as they are financially able to do so.
This came up because you suggested I go work in the public schools. I have no need to work. Any work I do in Christian education is a part of the covenant obligation I have toward my own and other covenant children. To go to work in a school system that teaches from a philosophical and religious standpoint that is in opposition to my faith, would be to participate in a great disservice to any covenant children who may be in that system. I would argue that it works against the other children, too, but of course, that decision is the responsibility of their parents.
None of the Christian schools I know of require that their students come from Christian families. Most would be happy to educate children from your “liberal,” as you say, families. But I suspect you would not want your children educated there. I also suspect that you wouldn’t want us compulsorily taking tuition payments from you to teach your children from a religious perspective to which you are opposed, especially if you are then left to pay for another education elswhere where your religious needs can be met. Yet this is exactly what the Christian community faces every day.
“To go to work in a school system that teaches from a philosophical and religious standpoint that is in opposition to my faith, would be to participate in a great disservice to any covenant children who may be in that system. I would argue that it works against the other children, too, but of course, that decision is the responsibility of their parents.”
Great way to put it Dory.
I think LB had an earlier post asking the correlation between the US taking God out of the scholls and the decline of our school systems (and other facets of society).
LB,
Thanks for the update and the links.
I am for school vouchers. I was upset that parents after applying and being accepted, decided not to attend
Andy 12.07.04 at 11:39 pm
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Chris Roberts 12.08.04 at 12:43 am
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La Shawn 12.08.04 at 5:23 am
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firebird 12.08.04 at 10:09 am
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stephen johnson 12.08.04 at 10:22 am
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SCSIwuzzy 12.08.04 at 10:41 am
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Jim R 12.08.04 at 11:54 am
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Tiffany in Minneapolis 12.08.04 at 1:17 pm
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SCSIwuzzy 12.08.04 at 2:45 pm
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Renee 12.08.04 at 7:10 pm
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Andy 12.08.04 at 10:47 pm
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Andy 12.08.04 at 10:52 pm
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Tiffany in Minneapolis 12.09.04 at 12:45 pm
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Chris Roberts 12.09.04 at 11:43 pm
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Chrissy 12.11.04 at 9:32 pm
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Well said Dory.
Stephen, please don’t give out excuses. What passes for liberal compassion is really cruelty of the worse kind — discounting a mind.
What if my mom broke down and said it didn’t matter if I gave up on long division since she couldn’t stand to see me crying so pitifully when I was in 5th grade and struggling with homework? Education doesn’t really matter, uh? I remember defiantly telling Mom, ore than once, that when I grow up and have kids, I’d let them do anything they want, skip or even drop out of school if they didn’t like it.
She would just give me that weird smile and practically shove my face back into my homework. Now I know and understand how important an education is
I don’t know if I’d be as patient as she was, but ain’t no way any kid of mine is going to bring home any Cs or Ds, nor tell me they ain’t gonna… As Coz used to say, ‘I brought you into this world and I’ll take you out’.
Problem with apathetic parents is that they’ve already been brain-damaged by the victimization culture and “don’t-worry, Uncle-Sam-is-here-to-do-all-the-heavy-lifting, just-sit-back-and-we’ll-take-care-of-you-from-cradle-to-grave, as-long-as-you-vote-for-me’ society.
At some point we just have to acknowledge that some are beyond help and cut our losses w/public school uneducateable kids. It’s either that or bring back discipline backed up with corporal punishment.
This is what most other countries do. Where is it written in stone, “Thou shall teach a child from K-12, even if he don’t want to”? The truth has always been to study well and you will be rewarded. Glossing that truth does nothing but perpetuate the soft-bigotry of classism.
Imagine if the parent’s of today’s kids had to scrape and grapple with menial jobs with no welfare etc to bail them out? Those kids either wouldn’t be here or their parents would be demanding that they crack the books. Instead, they’ve been sheltered from the consequences of their sins and found it cushy, thus no imperative to ensure their kids do better by avoiding their mistakes.
Another issue in education is the quality of the individual being hired to teach and the difficulty in retaining quality teachers in “inner-city” or “tough” schools. It is very difficult (and I learned from experience) to teach and continually reach out to students who show little regard for simple values and who are entitled to behave as they wish with little or no consequences. Why are the consequences weakened? I was asked in my previous teaching job to submit a list of “tolerances” for inappropriate behaviors that would be handled with classroom “consequences.”
Another question is parental invovlement. Much as WW alluded to in his piece that LB highlighted, there are many things that were taught in the home by most everyone in the past. Parents have a duty to educate their children at home and not leave all the education to the “professionals.” Too many children are showing up to school without that education from home that is so needed. Therefore they start way behind, have a desire to fit in and not have attention drawn to their shortcomings and presto…..behavior problems. But of course, as long as parents have a bailout program (fed govt.), then many will have little or no interest in taking education seriously at home.
Note that I am talking about some parents, not all!!!
BTW, private schools are less agenda driven (not any less political), and I will for sure take a job at a private school in the future than return to public education. My experiences have taken whatever naivete I held about being a difference maker in public schools and turned it on my head.
I hope we can ALL work together to solve our education problems.
EG – Sorry for jumping the gun. I guess the word “forced” threw me off. It sounds like the language of a voucher opponent.
Its been proven time and time again that kids educated at home do better then the one educated at these goverment run schools and frankly its time to eliminate the dept of education and return to home schooling its time to end the brainwashing thier going through at the hands of the leftists and the NEA(National Education Association)and get them away from the eco-freaks revolutionists and terrorists and radicals
Dory- You suspect wrong about me. (Which goes more to the idea that we tend to catorgorize people by their belief on one issue. Not a fan of litmus tests).
I am not bashing Chrisian education. My original post was about ‘private schools’ which should not be ( and I did not intend to mean) exclusivly Christian.
But as a Christian (which I proudly am), I do not see any child (we are talking about children) as un-reach/teach-able. And a weird thing popped up as we took this rhetorical journey…the idea that some were/are doomed to fail.
This is the main divergence of the Public/Private school mandate. The public school-woeful as SOME are, has a mandate to teach ALL children, without regard to what their home or personal situation may be. WHEREAS the Private school benefits from being free from that burden.
In pointing out that one gets to choose its students, AND has the benefit of parents who get to choose the school (thus showing a level of involvement,) I was not demeaning the success of CHRISTIAN schools. I was pointing out that the two differ in operation as well as mandate.
You got a little defensive because you read private to mean Christian; and while all Christian Schools may be private, ALL private schools are NOT Christian. There was nothing in my original comment to suggest such a thing; beyond your determination that I am a liberal (a wrong determination, I must add).
My point about you taking the “higher paying public school job” was intended to show the irony of the words higher.paying.Public.School.Job- which seems almost oxymoronic.
The truth in this lies in the middle. Many Private schools do a fine job educating their students (on average) and perhaps the worst private school is better than the worst public school; but one must acknowledge that the two are very different. I never said ‘you have it easy because you teach in private school’, though that is exactly what you inferred from my comment. I stated that to SOME degree the two differ. A point that I think you acknowledge, because of the level of defenses that went up.
Renee- You are right, my ‘welfare’ statement created a negetive connotation and gross generalization that is wrong and was unintended. You took me to task on that matter, and I apologize.
All my other points, though, are right on the money. As economically conservative as I may be, and believe you me I am, I do not think that the market is equiped to handle some social situations. At least not in a developed nation.
What some have suggested on this blog harkens back to before the founding of this country.
Chris R,
Your comment resonates with me. I got out of the teaching path when I saw all of the BS that has now been heaped on teachers, as well as the teachers that reveled in it.
I still think that someday, when the mortgage is paid off and my own future is secure, then maybe I’ll go back an teach part or full time (aside from the English as a second language classes I did a few years ago).
LB: “All schools private? Well, the libertarian position is that all schools should compete for students in the open market. I lean that way, myself.”
Competition is the key. It makes us all try harder. What would your response be La Shawn to those who worry about fractionalization of America into say Christian, Muslim, Liberal, Conservative…etc. via voucher funded schools?
How could that be avoided, or do you think it should?
Right now, even though I believe it is changing somewhat, our schools and colleges seem to be fully gov’t funded liberal run schools without competition. The problem.
Stephen Johnson:
Thanks for your comments..I am also the daughter of a public school teacher and and am amazed at the vitrolic comments aimed at teachers, who simply are trying to do their best under the circumstances they are dealt with. Does my mom have plentry of complaints about the administration, the union and uninvolved parents? Sure she does, but she still doesn’t write off the CHILDREN, even the ones deemed unreachable (which often translates to POOR AND MINORITY) by some of the folk on this thread. I remain in awe of being with my mom in public settings and how past students will come and tell my mom hello and how much they appreciated her trying. Quite often, after the past student has left my mom will mentioned how that person gave her HELL in the classroom.
I guess you never know how you will impact someone do you?
And to those who think some children are unreachable/unteachable, thank God you chose another career path.
tiffany,
I never said some were unreachable and should be abandoned. But I still don’t think that the small number who are nearly so, should dictate the policy for those who aren’t. Any lowest common denominator system will punish the those who excel, just as a system that aims for the median will fail those at the extreme ends of the quality curve.
If the monies collected to teach the children were given back, in part, as vouchers to those who want something different, that leaves more resources for the children who stay behind. Instead of having 1 or 2 children in a class (and yes, I know some schools have whole rooms of them) that are from the apathetic families or have other things going against them, you could consolidate them and concentrate on them. Right now, we always hear about how the teachers cannot give the exceptional (again, both ends of the bell curve) the extra attention they need at the expense of the rest of the class.
I want to see the parents and students given the chance to make the decisions that are right for them, not what some beuraucrat thinks. I want the teachers that are trained and equiped to deal with the exceptional children to be able to.
Now, I’ve seen some bashing of the NEA/unions, but not a bashing of teachers as a whole. Union = beuraucrats.
I always found this article from a past Issues and Views write up of interest when thinking of education:
http://www.issues-views.com/index.php/sect/1000/article/1017
Tiffany, my view on unreachable/unteachable is that it is unfortunate but if implemented, it can serve as a wake up call. I’m speaking from a tough love POV.
Realistically, I’d say that no one is unteachable if held to account. And yes maybe parents have to be dragged kicking and screaming into participating or risk punitive curtailments of their ‘rights’ & freedoms. Perhaps, everytime little Johnny gets a D, the parent(s) have to pay a fine equal to 1/10 of their monthly income. This is but just one option to be tested and explored.
Just as a gardener has to prune a tree to maximize the output, there has to be a way to prune away the factors that marginalizes the education process.
For starters that means raising standards and enforcing discipline. Students are not ‘little people with valid perspectives’ or whatever the catch phrase du jour may be. They are children to be shaped and molded. In the case of black kids, that means ‘acting white’ or suffer the consequences of not applying themselves to the 3 Rs.
As long as we have the let-it-be culture, there is no imperative for them to exert themselves. Would you rather a small percentage get hit with this bitter truth or 50% of the student body obliviously drifting along to a life of shortchanged hopes and dreams? Which is crueler?
At this late stage we have had at least 2 generations critically damaged by the liberal elites. Of course any course correction will involve hard decisions and yes even pain. But to let things drift along for another generation or two is unconscienable, not to mention a drain on society at large.
Renee, as usual, another excellent link
I always believed that integration was a double edged sword.
Andy you make an excellent point, but when the President’s education agenda is titled “No Child Left Behind,” that tells you everything you need to know.
Dennis Prager’s book on Hard America, Soft America sheds some great light on this problem.
we as a country put more time into being entertained than being educated and educating our children. Children spend too much time watching TV instead of playing sports, listening to pop music instead of learning to play an instrument, and reading junk magazines instead of real books and writing on their own. None of the things that they do really develop any of their analytical skills. I was listening to a show on the radio the other day, and the story insisted that video games benefit children because it makes them savvy risk takers and helps them focus on mastery. But they master a VIDEO GAME, not a useful skill that makes them a productive contributor to society. Children are filling their lack of challenges with things ranging from video games to drugs (prescription and illegal). Why can’t we get them to focus on mastery of Trig and Calc (which can be learned by every child by the age of 18 if we made it a real goal instead of putting them in counting classes)? Can we teach them to focus on perfecting a craft in their life, instead of having them go to school to get degree after degree without having anything to show for it???
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