Why has the quality of schools steadily declined to the point where our students are among the most poorly educated in the world?

I feel that Drugs, the boob tube and the unprecedented emphasis on sports wich takes funding away from real education are among some of the contributing factors.

Shhhhh troll, noone is interested in another weak flamefest from you.

Fandros

Shhhhh troll, noone is interested in another weak flamefest from you.

Fandros


Well since you seem to be the biggest flame! I'll take your word on it.

I'd say parenting has something to do with it along with those things you list.

I'd say parenting has something to do with it along with those things you list.

Yes, I agree because many parents need to work two jobs decreasing quality time. The lack of quality time increases exposure to friends, internet and T.V. wich can play a negative role in shaping young peoples values.

Television
Parenting, or lack thereof
Peer pressure - skipping school etc.
Extra-curricular activities
Lack of discipline - at school and at home
Passing students who didn't actually make the grade
Allowing students to take tests until they pass
Being so worried about no child being left behind that we forget those who are leading the pack
Global warming... <shrug>... okay, maybe not

In my years in the educational system I have seen a steady decline in the overall level of education that students receive or retain. It really irritates me to see a child who COULD do better if there was more help from home, school administrators, (insert responsible party here). As an educator, I can not do it all.

A large number of the students I deal with lack social skills as well as learning skills. Many of them don't know how to study when they come to my class, much less how to write a term paper or research a topic.

Add to this problem the issue of budget cutting, fewer resources, fewer teachers who have the years of experience (younger teachers cost administration less money), and it turns into a slow spiral heading down.

I and a few colleagues still try to maintain the quality of education by dancing around the administrators rules as best we can. This usually means long hours spent in tutoring those who fall behind, spending more one-on-one time with the slower students. At the same time, we try to challenge those who outpace the rest of the students.

We do the best we can with what we have. In the end, I feel it's worth it. I like to think that I have had a positive influence in the lives of my students.

*looks around for Nydia, hoping to hear her remarks*

Gandaar

Some do some don't, but just instilling values into the child is the big thing. Maybe I'm sheltered, but I don't know many families where both the parents work 2 jobs. I've seen some where 1 parent works 2 or more jobs and the other has one or none. I'm not saying that parents have to sit there with their kids every day and night that they aren't at school, but just sitting around the table and saying please, thank you, your welcome at the younger ages plays a HUGE factor.

So in answer to your question as to why the decline of education, I'd start off with Parenting, friends, activities (reading books, watching TV, playing games, shopping, stealing, doing drugs, etc) are going to dictate how a person views/applies themselves to education. If the parents do their job, then the child will be less likely to associate with the thugs/juvinile delinquents in the schools, their activites will be more along the lines of reading a book, shopping with friends, going to the library with friends, play games (board or video (of the age appropriate variety)), etc. Just my thoughts.

Gandaar,

Everything you just wrote made me wonder.... why?

Why not just flunk the kid? I have one theory. During my stint as an adjunct professor for a tech college I learned something.

I learned that the dean didn't like when I failed kids. If in my class of 40, 39 were pulling their weight except for one jackoff who didn't really want to be there anyway, never turned in home work, missed labs......why shouldn't I fail him? It boiled down to money, the dean made it clear to me that they didn't want me flunking people. I finished out the quarter and told them I wouldn't be back. I still flunked him, he didn't do what was needed to pass the class. I don't care how much mommy and daddy spent for him to attend.

In the real world, if you don't pulll your weight where you work you flunk and the repercussions are much worse. If you can't hack it you shouldn't be passed to enter. Schools care too much about numbers and not about the quality. At least some do.

I wonder if there is an actual ranking system of the world's schools and the differences between them? I know Japan has longer school days and longer school years compared to the United States but do you think that makes a difference? Socially I think it might have an impact wich could be a negative depending on how you look at it. The negative might be exposure to drugs because of to much free time wich equates to poor school production from the students. Less free time could be a direct link to better production. I'm in favor of longer school years and longer school hours just like the Japs do. The catch 22 is how do you fund it? I say sell corporate sponsorships for the entire public school system. If coke, pepsi, microsoft or any other large company wants to billboard the hallways of our schools I say let'em as long as they foot the bill to lower our property taxes and equipt the schools with new computers and books be my guest. Nobody at any age escapes or can be protected against the daily barage of advertising so let the public education system atleast profit from it.

Peace

Christ don't even get started on property taxes. My district is building a new school to the tune of 80mil. I'm already paying 3k in taxes and I'm about to see it go even higher.

Gandaar,

Why not just flunk the kid?

... the dean made it clear to me that they didn't want me flunking people.



Fildien, therein lies the problem. Schools, no matter what their source of income, do not want you flunking little Johnny because he is a source of income. I DO flunk students, but only as a last resort.

I have the reputation of being one of the toughest on campus, people actively look for ways to avoid my class, or they line up to get in... depending upon their motivation and committment.

If a student comes to my class and truly WANTS to learn, I will go out of my way to see that they get every chance to pass. The student who sleeps in my class... will only do it once. I have one of the highest retention rates in the school. Students WANT to come to class, but it's those who WANT to learn that wind up staying and making the grade.

Fortunately, we are protected by law and if we give a failing grade, there's not an administrator in the state that would change that grade unless there were VERY clear and overwhelming reasons to do so. Of course, I could still not have my contract renewed, but that's the price we pay for maintaining our integrity. As long as the administration will stay out of my way and let me run the class the way I need to, and grade accordingly, I will stay.

It's just frustrating to see so many who COULD do the work and make the grade but WON'T.

I intentionally make my classes tough because those who walk out my door for the last time can be assured that they KNOW the subject.

/rant off

I love teaching... I enjoy watching people learn new skills and discover things that they can use in the real world. I enjoy watching the light come on in their eyes when they see something in a whole new way and they learn to appreciate that concept.

Gandaar

Gandaar,

I learned that the dean didn't like when I failed kids. If in my class of 40, 39 were pulling their weight except for one jackoff who didn't really want to be there anyway, never turned in home work, missed labs......why shouldn't I fail him? It boiled down to money, the dean made it clear to me that they didn't want me flunking people. I finished out the quarter and told them I wouldn't be back. I still flunked him, he didn't do what was needed to pass the class. I don't care how much mommy and daddy spent for him to attend.

In the real world, if you don't pulll your weight where you work you flunk and the repercussions are much worse. If you can't hack it you shouldn't be passed to enter. Schools care too much about numbers and not about the quality. At least some do.

Wow..cool some really good input coming in. This is a deep topic, some really good posts so far.
Fidien if the number of students who should be flunked keeps increasing every year how does society go about reverseing that trend?

Some do some don't, but just instilling values into the child is the big thing. Maybe I'm sheltered, but I don't know many families where both the parents work 2 jobs. I've seen some where 1 parent works 2 or more jobs and the other has one or none. I'm not saying that parents have to sit there with their kids every day and night that they aren't at school, but just sitting around the table and saying please, thank you, your welcome at the younger ages plays a HUGE factor.

So in answer to your question as to why the decline of education, I'd start off with Parenting, friends, activities (reading books, watching TV, playing games, shopping, stealing, doing drugs, etc) are going to dictate how a person views/applies themselves to education. If the parents do their job, then the child will be less likely to associate with the thugs/juvinile delinquents in the schools, their activites will be more along the lines of reading a book, shopping with friends, going to the library with friends, play games (board or video (of the age appropriate variety)), etc. Just my thoughts.

So let's break this down a little, are the parents and school system failing the children or is society as a whole (TV, drugs, internet, sex, violence, corrupted leaders athletes, roll models, commercials...ect) failing the children or could it be a combination of all them?

One of the biggest problems with our public schools is tracking. It just plain doesn't work the way it was envisioned to. It leads to tracking of teachers in most cases (ie, the best teachers are teaching the best students, and the worst teachers get the worst students), and that leads to a bigger gap between the top and the bottom. But then again, in order for capitalism to survive this gap must persist.

I think at the university level, something has to be done about grade inflation. College students these days have come to think of the grading scale as A-C, and thus a C has become like failing to them. Many students expect at least a B for poor to average quality work. College then becomes a search to find the most lenient teachers in the easiest classes. Ahh America...the land of shortcuts and instant gratification.

I'd say a combination of all the above contribute to the whole of decline of it.

Hey Gandaar :)

Unfortunately, this is the last full day of dead week down here, and a 12 hour day for me anyway (I teach 9:30am-9pm with two one hour breaks, as I have two labs today), and my majors' class is giving its semester research presentations in about 45 minutes. So I have very scant time to devote to threadwatching today, but here are my thoughts as to causes, in no particular order:

Lack of accountability on the part of the students (this has several root causes, including grade inflation due to pressure on teachers by administrations not to fail students, and interference by parents who don't believe that *their* child could be responsible for his/her poor performance);

Meaningless performance 'standards' based on a manufacturing model that do a grave disservice to *all* students, whether gifted, special needs, or average, by reducing the joy of education to stifling rote memorization, thus ironically causing sensory *deprivation* and students, especially brighter students, to tune out en masse;

Low pay and status for teachers, coupled with a high administrative burden and little freedom in teaching, causing those who *can* seek employment in other fields to do so, and lowering teaching quality;

Permissive, troubled, or neglectful parenting;

Biological factors, including diet, light exposure, the resulting greatly accelerated physical maturation, and lack of exercise. America is the one of the most malnourished (overnourished, but poorly) industrialized nations in the world, and a very provocative large scale study, the results of which were just released in Great Britain, showed that administering an omega-3 fatty acid supplement daily to 6,000 primary school children with ADHD (epidemic here in the US) eliminated symptoms in nearly all of the students. The British government has been sufficiently impressed by the results of this and other studies that it has set strict new nutritional guidelines for food served in its schools.

I too have noticed a steady decline in the readiness of my students over the years (here in Texas we've had funding tied to standardized test scores for over a decade now, so we have a generation of students now hitting the colleges who have done nothing but regurgitate for their entire academic 'career'), most noticibly in their ability to think critically about a topic. This seems to be the area in which the manufacturing model just completely falls apart; the collection of meaningless 'facts' they've accumulated (assuming they even cared to retain any of them after the relevant exam) is of scant use to them when asked what they *think* about a topic, or what they might expect to see from a laboratory experiment. I too am committed to awakening and bringing that portion of my students' minds to life, and hopefully producing both decent scientists and functioning citizens in the process, but at times I feel that I've arrived too late, and am effectively perfoming CPR on something that has atrophied, its neural plasticity allowed to wither, long ago.

On the bright side, I had one of my underachieving students deliver an amazing presentation on apoptosis (programmed cell death) last night, and it was clear that he actually understood the research and came up with his own synthesized conclusions based on actually evaluating the data... It's moments like that
that keep you going on those darker days when you feel like a tired circus performer going through the motions for the meaningless amusement of your captive audience.

Oop, speaking of, it's time to trot my dog and pony back into the ring. Thanks for your contributions, both to this thread and to your students, as well...

Regards,
Nydia

I blame internet message boards ;)

I will boil it down to one word and one concept. Integrity. Integrity and success/achievement are mutually exclusive, at least in today's society. It has not always been that way. Most of the complaints people have voice previously in this thread are because of this. Students searching for the easiest classes to get the highest grades. Teachers not accurately grading students, because bad grades means bad students means bad teachers. To be successful and maintain or improve integrity is very hard work that most people are not willing to do. They want instant gratification. It really depresses me when I think about the lack of integrity in the world today and the lack of regard people have for integrity as a desirable personal value.

Couple things, and this'll rile folks I'm sure.

First of I believe it's incumbent upon the parents/home to drive it home to jr that his first and foremost priority at school is education. Forget the extracurricular, forget flirting with betty ross down the row and forget all but the core.

Secondy, and this is the kicker, is that our educational system is ran by folks unafraid of losing their jobs. In the noneducational world( and in other countries ) if you're not cutting it your out or reeducated. Once a person becomes "safe" too damn many lose their drive to excel. Tenure/unions have all but ruined too many job fields before they were corrected. The auto unions nearly drove our product to the ground in the 70's before they woke the hell up.

You have to be hungry to succeed, and atm neither students not enough of the teachers are. Granted the teachers themselves are really not to blame, instead I blame politics inherently built in by upper management/pta's and such for not giving them the teachers the tools and inspiration to succeed.

Fandros

/WARNING- Politically Incorrect Opinion to Follow /

We have only ourselves to blame for the declining educational standards. Too much of our focus is on ourselves, our own careers and what is convenient for us, not on what is important for our children. Parents rely too much on others to do their child-rearing for them. They expect the teachers, coaches, day-care workers, etc. to do the job that the parents used to be responsible for. Everyone else is to blame when the kid turns out to be illiterate after twelve years of school.

I think that the family structure has degraded over the decades with an attendant loss of parental oversight. People get divorced at a drop of a hat rather than spend the considerable effort to reconcile a marriage. This instability in home life can't help but be a major distraction to children involved. How can they be expected to learn to their potential if they are stressed over their parents splitting, having to move several times, new "significant others" appearing in their parent's lives and possibly even new step-siblings coming and going?

I think too many people rely on the TV to act as a babysitter. TV in moderation is fine, but it shouldn't be a replacement for personal interaction with the parents. With increased interaction, the parents can monitor their kids better and step up to help in areas they may be behind in at school. It also helps prevent the kids from feeling like they are ignored and unimportant. If you want to improve your kid's self esteem, the way to do it is to spend *your* time with them, not rely on their teachers to artificially pump them up even when they are failing in class.

So how do we improve things?

IMO, one of the things we need to do is reorganize the school system and cut the administrative fat to improve the teacher/student ratio. When I was in high school, my school had *3* administrators. Twenty years later there were 49 to do the same amount of work for roughly the same number of students. You can't tell me that payroll money would not have been better spent on teachers rather than paper pushers. How many "councilors" do we need anyway? Get that class size down so the kids get the personal attention they deserve.

Other things I've noticed are a de-emphasis on learning by rote as opposed to more "modern" methods of teaching. I think it is well past time to reconsider that approach. Learning by rote may not be in favor these days, but it seemed to have worked for earlier generations. Let's get back to it for the early grades at least.

Limit the useless curriculum (i.e. we don't need basket-weaving). Ethnic/women's studies can probably wait till after high school. Emphasize literacy, math, science, and civics. Don't neglect geography and history either. Given our national problem with obesity, keep physical education mandatory through grade school at least.

Most importantly, put your kids first. Spend time with them in social activity instead of going out with the guys or vegetating in front of the TV. Read to them while they are young and do everything you can to encourage their own reading when they are of age to do so. Don't allow them to spend endless hours playing a video game or watching sit-coms. Know their friends and their backgrounds/families.

/End Rant/

Couple things, and this'll rile folks I'm sure.

Secondy, and this is the kicker, is that our educational system is ran by folks unafraid of losing their jobs. In the noneducational world( and in other countries ) if you're not cutting it your out or reeducated. Once a person becomes "safe" too damn many lose their drive to excel. Tenure/unions have all but ruined too many job fields before they were corrected. The auto unions nearly drove our product to the ground in the 70's before they woke the hell up.

Fandros

It would seem that running the public school system like a private entity would work better but it wouldn't allow for equal education wich is what the public school system is there to provide. Having a sliding pay scale based on performance would be devastating to poor school districts. How would you be able to compromise a fair and balanced solution to pull poor school districts into this form of equation? (Robots and webcams maybe!.... lol )

Our culture may be to blame for most of this since it's diverse and diluted. If we look at other countries such as India, China and Japan we can sum up that they incorporate respect at a very young age wich meshes well into learning. They are very disiplined in there cultures when it comes to respecting all elders and education. This lack of instilled respect or values would be a contibuting factor in my view.

Gulor touched on something.

The kid is in some class this 9 weeks called "facts" class. I asked what is it? She says, I don't know but we are sewing things. I asked how often do you have PE? 2x a week. And how often is this sewing class? 3x a week.

Why, someone tell me why!?!? Don't kids have PE anymore? It's no damn wonder there are so many fat kids today.

Anyway what I am trying to say is that I agree with you Gulor. The curriculum is awash with garbage. And as others have said this standardized test crap has become an "Educational Hell". Kids have a 1 in 4 chance on most tests in getting the right answer and actually if you know a sliver of the material it's probably 50/50 or 1 in 3. Who needs to think with those odds? I have never been a fan of multiple choice tests I think those cognitive thinking skills should be put to use as well as those lined blue notebooks.

The focus on standardized tests has made teachers start teaching the test and not subjects. And Fandros, I'm with ya bud....school first, sports, and bf/gf second. I'm one of those parents kids hate, I review the assignment book nightly and ask to see the homework and I frequently chat with the teachers. It doesn't take much, I don't know what some parents are doing.

<---same here

I spend more time , both during and after work, going over his grades and assignments, emailing teachers and looking for help than I do on my writing anymore...

Sadly when you have teachers letting the kids grade each others homework days after it's turned in I think it's an uphill battle.

And no, I don't email the teachers bitching at them. I ask them what I can do to help in his trouble classes ( read anything under a C+).

I got him a tutor for algebra ( he's in 8th) that he sees twice a week. You really can't get anymore involved than I have been. Unless you are his Mother, and her idea of helping was doing it for him....ugh that took forever to work through once he moved in with me. heh

Fandros

Well since I've had custody I have seen her grades go from failing and needing summer school to making the honor roll for the first time ever. /pats back. But yeah it's definitely an uphill fight...she's in 7th and should 8th so I feel your pain Fandros. Thank God she's with me now though.

Color television is the problem.

When television was only black and white, we had *Leave It To Beaver*, *Father Knows Best*, *Andy's Gang* (a Saturday morning show), *I Love Lucy*, *Dobie Gillis*, and on and on.....

Television programming was meant to entertain the family in the afternoon and evening, when the family would be home from school and work. The programs always seemed to have some moral to the story that could be used to reinforce what the parents were teaching their children. The programs also did a greatjob of showcasing what were for those days "typical" families, and seeing them all sit down to dinner each night reinforced the importance of family communications, as they would share the events of the day over dinner.


When television went to color, it opened up people's eyes to new possibilities, and programming took off in many directions, giving us *Laugh In*, *All In The Family*, *I Spy* and *Julia* (the first two prime time series to star black actors), *The Smothers Brothers*, and so forth......
Suddenly, conventions were being ignored, traditions challenged, satire used to educate as well as entertain, etc. No longer was the traditional family the primary focus, but all the non-traditional aspects of family life became the highlighted subjects, and the more people saw these things on television each night, the more acceptable they became.

The advertising industry had a field day preparing new and innovative campaigns for their products to be aired in prime time slots, some of them becoming staples of pop culture (Think the Coca-Cola spot featuring the song "I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing"). As people sought to have the things they saw on television, and still afford to take care of their children, the spouse entering the workplace became more commonplace, to supplement the family income.

And it all snowballed........ sorry, break is over, so I will stop here.

Grixxly hit it. Everyone should be Asian like me. That would solve our declining education problems. So bring out the bamboo stick for every grade below A, and for every SAT score below 1500. "Everyone loves an asian boy." Suckers!

I’m kidding; it was interesting to read your quaint reactions. Asian and Confucian values help, but the stereotype of Asians as the model minority (ironically, the majority of the world) is not always true. I was valedictorian in high school, yet my efforts were, at most, minimal. I was one of the best procrastinators the school had seen in years.

It has always been about the test. The civil servant examination was created by Asians. That's why Asians excel so well in school because of their Confucian traditions. The educational systems of Asian countries rely on national examinations. I moved from Taiwan to the United States at age 12, but I can tell you, everyone studies for the test. Our society is so deeply intricately woven into the test that we have one for everything; a test for those about to take the Hippocratic Oath (that is, doctors), a test for those to join the bar (that is, lawyers), a test for those who wish to become a barista (that is, an employee of Starbucks), and a freakin' pregnancy test for those about to be pregnant.

Warning about procrastination to those still in school: "Procrastination is like masturbation; it feels good until you realized you fucked yourself." I know from personal experience.

Color television is the problem.



That makes sense! I'd like to throw in all the over the top TV news outlets that still glorify violence and corruption 24 hours a day. If the media would sensationalize good instead of evil we would see a behavioral impact in society. This constent 24 hr assault of negative news inspires ideas and highlights the worst that society has to offer. It's a psychological brainwash over time, monkey see monkey do that undermines family values. Our Nations leaders realize the fact that TV impacts the masses, they went so far as to pay the Iraqi's to spin positive TV stories last week

Ok, home from work, and a few more things to add to my prior post.

As the programming became more diverse, the *celebrity worship* movement took on a life of it's own, as we were treated to musical acts on *Shindig*, *Hootenanny*, *Hullabaloo*, as well as the hold-overs from black and white days *American Bandstand* and *The Ed Sullivan* show. Sports were now there in living color, making it much easier for the kids to picture themselves playing with their idols. And, the lifestyles of the entertainers and sports figures became a part of the daily news, giving more fuel for emulation.

Few programs were offered up to provide positive role models for the youth of that period: *Mod Squad* showed an unrealistic trio of late teen-early 20's becoming undercover police (copied years later in the form of 21 Jump Street) and showing the occasional crisis of peer pressure vs. following the rules; *Room 222* was set in a high school, and was one of the few early programs to reach out to kids with some serious attempts at portraying the problems they faced and options to deal with them (most folks seem to recall this show for introducing them to Kay Lenz:rolleyes:); and, *Head Of The Class*, a relatively recent program in this time line that highlighted the "brainy" kids and the varied crises they faced, although usually approached from a comedic point of view, since Howard Hesseman was the teacher.
There have been a few more school/education oriented shows, but few and far between. Portraying young people in academic settings is not exciting entertainment; showing young people making it in other avenues than sports or entertainment fields does not give high Nielsen ratings.

Television no longer is geared toward entertaining the family together with quality programs aimed at reinforcing family values, because those no longer sell, and advertisers want what sells. Most households have more than one television and with the added options of cable/dish, the family does not often sit down together to watch programs and discuss what they are seeing. It is now geared to giving something interesting enough to keep your attention (read sex, violence, drugs, celebrities) between commercials.

And that, my friends, has impacted kids and families over the course of the past 45 years tremendously. And, if you are unable to tie that into the topic of this thread, you failed this course.

Sometimes I think the problem might lie in the lack of hope for the young.

Back when i was in school if your grades weren't up to par or you were more mechanically inclined rather than academically there were jobs available in manufacturing and other trades that one could go to, earn a decent wage and still be part of the American dream.

Now, it seems, even some of the jobs that were for the less mechanical such as computer programming etc... are now being outsourced to India, the Philippines.

Maybe its a lack of motivation based on the reality of the ever widening reach for the American dream.

Sometimes I think the problem might lie in the lack of hope for the young.


Lack of hope? Hmmmm..... if that's found to be true I highly recommend we get the school nurse to pass out prozac along with every trojan.

Oooh, long day at work and I missed a fun thread. Education seems to be the hot topic these days on the forums.

I've given my opinion as a teacher before, and I'll state it again - the problem lies in declining support from parents, and later community. Out of my freshman English class of 36 I have maybe four parents that regularly check up on their students. Another three or four I can reach by phone who will back me up. A growing handful who have parents that, when I call, usually redirect the corrective action back on me. "Sorry, junior was tardy? Well, he sleeps in a lot, and hits the snooze button...maybe you could talk to him Mr. Teacher and tell him it's important to come to class?" I'm not making that up. It is not my job to raise your child for you.

Hell, my parents would have turned the hose on me if I ever tried sleeping in and being late to school. But more and more I'm seeing parents with a laid back attitude. Kid didn't do their work? What extra credit am I willing to assign them?

Last week a student called a fellow teacher a stupid bitch to her face. It was for an extra-curricular class, so she wanted to drop him. The parents complained that the teacher was just being mean. I was shocked...if I'd ever spoken to a teacher that way, my behind would still be sore and I'd still be grounded, my parents never would have put up with that. Moreover, it never would have occurred to me to speak to a teacher like that.

Failing students is oddly enough not the best solution, although I'd gladly fail students in greater numbers if I thought I could get away with it and not get sued. What do you do with students who continually fail? We can't kick them out of school - by law they're required to be in class. Every year they fail they add to the growing remedial classes, which bring down test scores causing schools to be ranked poorly. Thank you NCLB.

Comparing the US to other countries isn't completely fair. I know many countries use tracking systems that by the high school level either have the kid headed into academics or into a vocational program. We give our students complete freedom, so the knuckleheads are mixed in with the academic kids. When you compare our test scores overseas the averages don't quite line up. I've been told that our scores are actually up 1 and 1/2 percent over the last two years, but I can't cite a source for that. Supposedly we are improving.

Oddly enough researchers will usually point to the average kids as the bigger problems for increasing test scores. A students are always trying to achieve more, and F students are easy to bring up. Junior with a C average just doesn't care and is skating by, mom and dad sure aren't gonna do anything to push him. I waste more time in the class trying to deal with those types than anything else.

Hands down I'd say the biggest time waster for teachers at the high school level is discipline, and it's because we don't get the backing from the parents or the school district that we need. I spent over an hour today on the phone with parents breaking up a fight that's been brewing in my class between some girls. Great fun...and two of the five parents basically refused to take any action. I'm betting within a week I'll have a catfight on my hands, which means more time wasted dealing with these girls instead of teaching.

I've worked on and off as a math tutor the past two years. In that time, I've found that most of the kids I work with belong at least a level or two lower in the math progression. This means that if I help them with the material they are covering in class, they will not secure the knowledge because they don't understand a previous step.

It gets pretty extreme. One of my students is failing algebra; she's fifteen or sixteen and does not even know the multiplication tables, much less anything to do with variables. Of course I try to go back and cover the gaps in her studies; working on her class material is like trying to save the Titanic with a band-aid.

When I see that student asking for a calculator to divide 18 by 3, one question comes to my mind: "What fucking incompetent boob* allowed her to pass the preceding math class?"

I blame the schools.

*no offense intended to boobs.

no offense intended to boobs.[/size]

The cracks in the school system are growing wider and wider, that is the reason I posted the topic. From a teachers persective what do you feel would be the best way to improve the cracks in the current system long term? All teachers here feel free to chime in again if you have a reasonable solution. I'm not a teacher but I agree with the poster who pointed out smaller classes but how do you finance more teachers and larger schools? These are just some of the key issues that have gridlocked the system for many moons. The fact that nobody budges from the adminastive side, teachers union side or the community side (vetoing school budgets) promotes today's poor school enviorment. Until there's a fix it will continue on a downward spiral. Any suggestions for a possible fix please step forward?

One of my students is failing algebra;

Algebra is a very strange subject. I took Algebra in 8th grade, and failed the first semester which put me back into general math for the second semester. I then took the Algebra summer school class, and received a D-. In 9th grade I managed to progress to D.

Now, in my elementary and junior high years, I always scored in the top percentile on the IQ tests. I could do most any division or multiplication problems in my head, and could convert to decimals with no problem. I just never was able to grasp the basics of Algebra, because I was unable to see any application to my daily life. Even years later, when I was assistant instructor in a GED class, I handled everything but the Algebra material; I left that to the regular instructor, who was happy to leave the English and History and Reading Comprehension and the rest to me.

Some people just are not wired for Algebra and the higher mathematics concepts, I think. I cannot say the teachers were bad, as I had three separate teachers.

Algebra is the only subject my son cannot seem to grasp. It's lack of applicability is likely at the root as well as I often here him say "what would I use this for in real life"

Now, I try the ole saw of explaining to him it's teaching him to solve problems with logic ( especially word problems that you have to decypher) but that's lost on him as well.

Fandros

I always thought that geometry was the "get it or don't" class for high-school mathematics. There were pretty much three classes of people when I took geometry. Those of us who "got it" and could walk though it. Those of us who didn't "get it" and would struggle through it. And those of us who simply gave up becuase they were never going to "get it."

I was fortunate to be part of the first set of people. I'm wired for logic, and not so much for emotion. I'm fantastic with directions, spacial orentation, logic -- and not so much with spelling, art, poetry. While I'm capible of *pretending* to be able to write creative works; I'd rather write another 40 page document on how my unattended DVD works or give class on how public key encryption works than write a 4 page short story or describe how the sunset looks.

I honestly believe that anyone who even remotely tries - who doesn't have some sort of hardship situation outside of school - can make it through high-school. The problem is that at 14 or 16 or even 20, we don't see the consequences of our actions. A 14 year old doesn't realize that working at Best Buy as a cashier isn't a good life-goal. Sharing an apartment with a buddy for the rest of your life doesn't sound so bad when you're thinking of skipping class for another bong hit.

Bylimet, a few of my algebra students are in the same boat, as is my best friend. I wholeheartedly agree that the abstraction of variables doesn't click for some people. But for the most part, the problems lie with the students who are promoted beyond their level of competence*, often repeatedly. They are doomed to fail the material and repeat it endlessly, or to become promoted again without earning it (continuing in the same way on the next level, or devaluing whatever credential or diploma they obtained). They also tend to be the ones who disrupt class.

Parents have a responsibility to assist their kids. This is frequently difficult, though - the student mentioned in my post above has a single working parent who does not have the time to help directly and hires a great mathematical prodigy** to tutor her kid. Now under optimal conditions, I might get her to catch up to the algebra level in maybe half a year. In the meantime, she's getting absolutely nothing but a hatred for math out of her algebra class, and the class continues to suffer from her disruptions. By all rights, her prealgebra teacher (and possibly two or three math teachers before that) deserve to be kicked in the teeth.

I despise the reasoning behind this stuff. In college, a pass-fail ratio may reflect a teacher's performance just fine - everyone is there voluntarily, and competence usually follows a standard distribution in any class. A K-12 school is a coerced environment - almost none of the kids want to be there. Unless the class is honors, gifted, advanced placement, or otherwise self-selecting, of course there is going to be a much higher rate of failure. Padding the grades and hiding this obvious fact to appease parents and administrators is simply disgraceful.

*Is there a newer edition of (or sequel to) The Peter Principle that covers this? If not, there should be.
**who happens to be ineffably humble, too

But we're producing more highschool and college graduates than ever before, our metrics say we must be winning the war on education!

But we're producing more highschool and college graduates than ever before, our metrics say we must be winning the war on education!

Do you have a link to the metrics?

And for what it's worth, some of the students in my college are shining beacons of knowledge. On one occasion, I had to explain the obscure concept of the so-called 'centimeters' to my panicking chemistry lab group. Thankfully, they reluctantly accepted this stunning revelation. It could have been worse in a different state, say Kansas:

http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Acres/4040/stake.jpg
"The metric system is a tool of the devil! Burn him!"

From a teachers perspective what do you feel would be the best way to improve the cracks in the current system long term?The current system needs to be scrapped.

First off, I'd move school administrators to the top of the food chain, NOT the district personnel. Most people don't realize how much power the district personnel have, and yet most of them are not doing their jobs for the good of the children, they're doing their jobs to have a job. More boneheaded and flat out stupid things happen at schools because the real power is held by people who don't really care - site administrators (principals and assistant principals) have very little power, and most of their time is wasted on public relations crap. So right off the bat, give them control of their schools. District personnel should be supporting the schools, right now it's the other way around in many places.

Second, we need to get real about educational funding, and admit that we need to put money into the system. From poorly paid salaries to crappy facilities (three more mold infested tiles fell off my ceiling this week as temperatures drop) there just isn't enough money to go around. That, and a lot of it is wasted at the district level.

Third, double or triple teacher salaries - right from the go you'll see an improvement. First off more qualified people will be attracted to the job, which will help with the teacher shortage. I agree that many teachers are deadweight, but at the moment there just aren't bodies to fill those positions. Teachers should be paid right behind administrators, and fire the ones that aren't pulling their weight.

Fourth, move to a more unified national curriculum that functions grade level by grade level. Get schools teaching the same thing. Right now what I teach in my English class is likely very different than what someone in another district is focusing on, even though we're six miles apart.

Fifth we need to stop funding schools according to test scores or by student population. Right now school districts (see #1) don't want to lose students. If we fail or expel a student (or an exchange student moves away, or someone changes districts, or a migrant family goes back to Mexico...) it counts against both our funding and graduation rate, and directly affects our school standing. Test scores are just as bad - Arizona just started a new push to make sure every student is enrolled, which is the law anyhow. BUT this includes migrant students, homeless students, expelled students from other districts...want to guess what those students do for test scores? By all means let them in, but stop judging schools by tests.

Sixth, create a real and realistic standard to measure teacher effectiveness and to measure schools. None of the ones that I've seen come anywhere close to accurately evaluating my job.

Seventh, and maybe the hardest, we need to legally back schools and require some sort of compliance from parents. I'm tired of lawsuit threats over bad grades or participation in school activities, and on the other side of the scale I'm tired of parents who don't care and won't back me on disciplinary/academic situations.


Sorry...long and ranty, but you asked.

Kanli very good post!

Higher education instruction is so much easier than high school level instruction, mostly for the fact that students who are there want to be there, have passed some sort of rite of passage to be there, or have a very good incentive to be there. To get into college is one thing, but to get out is another. For this reason, I still have a lot of faith in the U.S. higher education system.

There are inevitably problems with the system, and Kanyli mentioned bureaucracy. This is far too severe at both the university and district level; however, the situation cannot be easily ameliorated at the university level when a school, such as Arizona State University, has nearly 50,000 enrolled students. Furthermore, untenured instructors do not receive much respect nor pay incentive. If there is to be any improvement to the educational system, it must start with those who teach. Universities, thankfully, monitor such progress through class evaluations. Instructors who are unpopular with students can lose their jobs for poor evaluations, not because of low grades. An instructor can be a fair grader yet an excellent teacher.

Universities have no obligations to retain matriculated students: a single disciplinary incident is enough cause for dismissal from the university; the same could be said for consistently low grades and insufficient credit standing, as students taking classes over and over again will squander tuition for an untimely graduation. Some schools, such as UCLA as part of their honors program, require students to defend a senior thesis during their final undergraduate year (a joyful experience I wish upon everyone). No matter what can be said about a college degree, it is not exactly a cake walk--nevertheless the number of degree-receiving students has grown in recent years. What can be said of this is still up to the jury.

The most pressing issue I faced as a graduate teaching assistant of CSE 200 was academic integrity, but for what it's worth, I didn't give a damn. I told my students the first rule of academic integrity is not to get caught. Perhaps such a rule is more important in the business college. Businesses live by this rule when preparing financial documents, and usually weigh the costs versus benefits to cheating (name one major public company who hasn't been slapped on the wrist by the Securities and Exchange Commission).

On an unrelated note, I still cannot forget what my favorite philosophy professor told my class once: "Think of a first draft of a paper like masturbating. Just throw it all out there, and clean it up later."

Higher education instruction is so much easier than high school level instruction, mostly for the fact that students who are there want to be there

At the graduate level, and outside the popular career degrees, sure. However any real job has a sticker on it saying BA or BS required, making college education effectively mandatory and creating the same pass-pressure in the common required credit courses.

Note to Algebra:

Has alot to do with thought process and simply how the person thinks.

I learned alot of Algebra from being thrown into Calculus.

Algebra=Logical Math
Calculus=Illogical Math.

In my (addmitedly limited) experience, alot of people (who bother trying) grasp either one or the other very well, rarely both.

Like I have no problems what so-ever with Calc, where I'm fully aware I'm applying Algebric concepts to a calculus end(a practical application).
Though I often have extreme diffaculty with a algebric concept to an algebric end.

Conclusion: My thought process is illogical.
So its my opinion at least that alot of people's brains are not wired well for the "Spectrum" of math, but if the cirriculum allows they will often find aspects of it they are talented at.

To use a traditional lame and probably inaccurate analogy!:
Math is like Apples and Oranges cross-pollinated into one bland fruit, many people like apples, or oranges, very few like the Appange.