http://www.alternet.org/story/95109/

I say in my book that Americans are unwilling to look at how really bad our educational system is because we've all been propagandized with the idea that we're number one. That may have been true after World War II, but not anymore. The idea that we're number one and special and better than everybody else is a very powerful factor in American life, and it prevents us from examining certain respects in which we're not number one.

That's so true.

K-12, our public schools just don't do much to reward learning. Instead, they seem perfectly happy turning a blind eye to a social paradigm that brutally punishes academic excellence. I saw that firsthand when I was in school.

I was lucky enough to have a bit of athletic ability and do alright socially, to balance out the fact that I enjoyed learning. However, too many of the smart kids were pushed further toward being social retards than necessary, due to the environment we were thrown into. By the same token, too many intelligent kids ended up falling terribly short of their potential because they actively hid their intelligence for fear of social ostracism.

As bad as is was when I was in school, the effect seems to have only been worsening since, manufacturing legions of "cool" morons. Out with 60 Minutes and in with a dozen variants of American Idol!

We're fucked.

This is not to argue with Sanchek, but to follow the problem in a different direction.

No. No no no no no. Grrr. Damn it, the solution isn't to always blame the educational system, especially with broad sweeping generalizations such as those proposed by the article. Anecdotal evidence and a flawed testing system between countries does not point to a failing system, it points to a failure to conduct a proper statistical study. For example:American 15-year-olds rank 24th out of 29 countries in math literacy, and their parents are as likely to believe in flying saucers as in evolution; roughly 30 to 40 percent believe in each. Their president believes "the jury is still out" on evolution.First off, here's how comparisons are typically done. We test every single 15 year old, and then we compare them against countries which test only the best. Then we run around shocked when ours don't stand up to the test. Study for example how many European countries handle schooling - they don't shuffle everyone down the same path. As for evolution, that's the biggest non-issue ever. Really. Whether you believe in it or not, what possible practical affect does it have on your life today? If you're religious, no where in Christian doctrine does evolution affect your salvation. If you're an average Joe, evolution probably won't have a big effect when it comes to getting to work today to land the next big client. I find it hilarious that we're focused so much on that, while ignoring things that the public should be interested in, such as class sizes, teaching techniques, funding, waste of funding, etc.

Oh, and some of those nation to nation comparisons are done on standardized tests, like the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. Did you know you're not supposed to score high on the ITBS? It's a ranking tool within the US. And when ITBS scores are compared to other countries, they're not using the same test. Or educational standards (standards meaning specific items students are meant to learn). By the last report I saw, admittedly four years ago, our schools had made statistically significant improvement in the average education.

As for the President, we all think he's an idiot. That's just a cheap shot - our 15 year olds didn't vote for him. :)

NCLB (see the above idiot) has royally screwed over intelligent kids (and yes, I know it originates before Bush, but he's the big cheerleader for it) - but you'd be hard pressed to find a school in the US that's happy about that. NCLB caters to the lowest level, so the mid range kids who are happy with a C keep their C and don't really improve much. They also screw up the schools who need to make Adequate Yearly Progress. Honors kids are in the worst group, because their scores get used to help pull up the average C's, but support classes go to the F and D crowd. And if we miraculously get all those kids to A students, then the school still can't make AYP unless the honors kids turn out to be geniuses, which throws pressure on them, while at the same time not having the resources to support them with honors classes. We opened, for example, 1 new honors section this year, and I think somewhere around 10 support classes for English and math. Oh, and our school population surged, in an attempt to get enough funding from the state to survive. I have 42 students in one class - a Brit lit teacher has 54. Educational research suggests the ideal HS learning size to be between 23-27, on average. 33 according to union rules. We're 400 students over capacity, with no trailers or extra rooms. Good luck kids! We would love to promote intelligent students and not punish academic excellence. Give teachers the tools an environment to do that, and stop voting against educational initiatives that actually help.

While I am told repeatedly not to pass the blame, I look squarely at those in the public who have done two things - support idiot educational legislature like NCLB, and failed to provide minimum funding to schools. There's a great article on how throwing money at a problem doesn't solve it, but I can't find the school the article talks about. Every institution I've been at is dying for funding. Seriously - we can't hire more staff so your child doesn't end up in a 54 student class trying to discuss Chaucer's use of the semicolon.No country in the West democratized education earlier, but no country has been more suspicious of too much education. We've always thought of education as good if it gets you a better job, but bad if it makes you think too much.Schools in the US were originally structured in a way that helped control public knowledge and was supposed to give kids only enough information to work, without rocking the boat. If you really want the reference, I'll try to dig up the article later. But really, it's been a phenomenal shift trying to change that in say, the last 150 years. A better argument might be to examine where school ranks as a national priority, and compare that across the ocean.

Look outside the schools, and look at the media (for example, sorry Kelraz). They had a field day with Obama's elite comment. They paraded it around and made sure everyone in the US knew better than to be elite. And that's why Clinton used 'Elite' when speaking about the gas tax (from Sanchek's article), because of the media spin. By comparison, when Bush was first running we heard countless articles on how educated he was, and if you spoke to him in person it was like sitting down with a regular guy who knew everything. Whichever magazine it was that endorsed the hell out of him - Time? - kept running articles on his education level. Elitism is a fashion, apparently.Evidence involving infant mortality and life expectancy. Though the very rich in this country get the best health care in the world, by all of the normal indices of health, we are worse off than Europe and Canada.Bad anecdotal evidence. Search here for that fun thread we had a while back on health care - there were more facts there, and it isn't as cut and dry as he would like to make it. And Europe isn't one country. And I don't know anyone who believes our health care is perfect.

The article starts to talk about parents, and then misses the point. Look at our national obsessions, most of which are low thinking activities. Oooh, American Idol, where the judges tell you what to think. Sitcoms, which are increasingly insipid and recycled (with few exceptions). And sports. I would far rather teach an honors class than coach a sport. Screw up in an honors class, and you might get an angry email from a parent. Might. Screw up as a coach, and you create a community uproar, and will have parents chant regularly at games to have you fired. I see almost 200 students a day, and I was hired by two people. Our last football coach had to be hired by a committee of school officials and community members. And this isn't even Texas, where high school sports beat all.

All this is to say that the article misses the point, and if anything creates that elite-gap by coming off rude towards people who are not as educated. How dare they believe a religious book! And anyhow, we need to look at the anti-intellectualism being fostered by adults in the general community, not just what shows up in schools.

To understand this emerging theory of American defeatism within the country at large, especially viz. foreign standing - both economically and militarily - it would be congenial to look at works on Edwardiasm in Britain from the death of Queen Victoria in 1901 to the beginning of the First World War in 1914.

The Victorians were titans, pretty much ruling the world academically, culturally, economically and militarily. They were bold, confident and arrogant.

At the turn of the century, however, though Britain remained the predominant colonial, naval and commercial power, industrially it had been overtaken by Germany and America in the production of advanced manufactures (chemicals, machinery, etc), in staple industries such as steel, and in the sciences. The Edwardians have been viewed as a generation that witnessed a growing disillusion with Britain's standing in the world, a conscious consideration of being matched and ovetaken, ultimately ending in a sobering revision of British ability and power at the end of the First World War.

In hindsight we can see that a lot of these problems were inherited by the late victorians who, although stood at the zenith of British power, ultimately created or presided over many of these issues that only became domestically and internationally noticable under the Edwardians.

An interesting comparison.

Edit: In fact, perhaps insightfully a look at how the Edwardians dealt with these issues would be relevant to American policy-thinkers of today. Some of the main resolutions were sought by transforming Britain's free-trade economy into an Imperial Protectionism, promoting trade within the Empire to encourage imperial revenues while protecting British manufactures from increasingly competitive Americans and Germans. Furthermore, under the Foreign Secretary Chamberlain, an Imperial unity was also sought by making colonies and self-governing dominions do more for the support and defence of British interests abroad, while Britain concentrated on garrisoning and patrolling home waters. Of course, the success of these measures are very debateable. Interesting, nonetheless.

I recently moved my son to a special charter school that focuses on engineering.

His old school had almost 40 kids in a classroom. They alternated daily schedules and only sat in the same classroom 3 times a week at best.

Now his classroom is 15ish average and a very large focus on all aspects of his education. They actually take 3 days a quarter and work in teams on a project that applies all they've learned in that quarter.

I think I tend to agree with the basic argument presented by Sanchek in this thread, at least to a degree. Here in the South especially, my high school for instance was completely based on and obsessed with football of course (not talking about the student body liking it a lot per say, just the attention, emphasis and funds the school system and administration placed on it... probably for economic reasons).

Back when I graduated high school I was number 12 in my class, and most if not all of the people ahead of me were guys/gals that I thought were pretty dumb, but they obviously just did a good job of hiding their "smartness" in order to preserve their social standing.

The problems are legion.

Most of it starts at home. For example: I have kids come into my first period class drinking fucking slurpies and eating candy. FFS. They hit a nice sugar rush where they act like they have ADD for 30 minutes then they crash and cant do shit for the rest of the day. Its an epidemic. I banned all food in my class right from get because of it. But I cant control whats coming in before or after. Nutrition is in the fucking toilet. You cant expect a kid to learn with the shit they are being given by their parents.

Another problem. I can go in a classroom, either kindergarden or 12th grade and I can with about 99% accuracy pick out the kids whose parents read to them when they were 2, 3, 4, 5.. ect. I can show the kids whose parents have.. FUCKING BOOKS in their houses. The parents who limit their kids to 2 or 3 hours of TV a day.

When a parent gives me unwarrented shit, I ask them:
Do you sit with your child and go over their assignments each day?
Does your child do his homework with at least one parent there or checking in on him?
Do you help your child review for tests and quizzes on a regular basis?
Do you ask your child what he learned that day and demand complete answers.

The problem is.. and this is gonna leave a bit of a mark... so many of the kids from the inner city and poorer sections are basically feral. The parents are kind of there, but mostly they are too wrapped up in their shit to deal with their kids. Grades arent checked, there are no consequences for actions, there is no parent involvement, until the shit REALLY hits the fan. Then the parent overcome with guilt for doing such a shitty job for the last 15-17 years decides he or she is going to defend their child to hilt no matter what, not even realizing that they are only hurting their child even more.

Kids from the suburbs are so pampered and coddled to same level of detriment. Maybe its the constant barrage of crazy awful shit that happens to some kid somewhere that has parents scared to death to let their kids outside to play. We get pumped up 24/7 with one horrible story after another that many parents are happy the kids are inside playing video games. The streets are empty and the neighborhoods are silent. Parents have become so overprotective of their kids that they have pretty much stripped away any toughness they will someday need. Anything that goes wrong, Mommy and Daddy will fix it. Little Johnny or Little Suzie can do no wrong. We live in a society where GRADUATE SCHOOLS are regularly fielding calls from parents of applicants who didnt get in and demanding they accept their little snowflake.

These things are the tip of the iceberg.. I could go on listing issue after issue.

There a good teachers, and their are bad teachers. There are good schools and there are bad schools. But if the child doesnt show up with the very basic tools to learn, it doesnt matter either way because the kid isnt going to learn.

I never knew you were a teacher LL!

There's a great article on how throwing money at a problem doesn't solve it

Funny thing...turns out that's political code for...privatize it and be sure to award the contract to my friends company which just started up last month but is very good at educating kids if the contract is profitable for the owner of the company.

Well said L2. Its very very true. Parents dont take an active enough roll in their kid's educations then blame the schools for their kids shortcomings.



I went to a small "football" school. The jocks were kings and anyone with brains was treated like crap. I was one of those kids who was afraid to show how smart I was so i fucked off a lot, grew my hair, and tried to play the rebel roll to fit in. I had to pass most of my high school classes in my senior year.

Of course, I giggle when I see all this angst of people trying to "fit in" when they were in High School.

I had decided that fitting in wasn't my style, and no I don't mean like "emo kids". I had friends that were Jocks, Preps, Freaks, Nerds, yet I wasn't associated with any 1 particular group.

I excelled in the subjects I was interested in, and didn't at the ones that I wasn't. Who do I blame for those shortcomings? Ultimately I was to blame for not realizing early on where a good education could take me. I blame neither my single, working mom, nor my teachers for my lot in life.

Regardless, people will tend to point away from themselves when playing the blame game.

Of course, I giggle when I see all this angst of people trying to "fit in" when they were in High School.

I had decided that fitting in wasn't my style, and no I don't mean like "emo kids". I had friends that were Jocks, Preps, Freaks, Nerds, yet I wasn't associated with any 1 particular group.

I excelled in the subjects I was interested in, and didn't at the ones that I wasn't.

I think that made you a normal average highschool student. Your story probably fit 75% of students.

The problem is.. and this is gonna leave a bit of a mark... so many of the kids from the inner city and poorer sections are basically feral. The parents are kind of there, but mostly they are too wrapped up in their shit to deal with their kids. Grades arent checked, there are no consequences for actions, there is no parent involvement, until the shit REALLY hits the fan. Then the parent overcome with guilt for doing such a shitty job for the last 15-17 years decides he or she is going to defend their child to hilt no matter what, not even realizing that they are only hurting their child even more.

I've volunteered quite a bit at an elementary school where half of the school gets free lunches and can say from my experiences that everything in this quote is 100% correct.

I was always told there was no such thing as a free lunch.....

So the answer is, a license to breed? You can't legally drive a car without a license, because you might ruin someone's life by running them over, yet the same logic doesn't apply when it comes to ruining someone's life because you are a crappy parent?

You can't legally drive a car without a license, because you might ruin someone's life by running them over, yet the same logic doesn't apply when it comes to ruining someone's life because you are a crappy parent?

I used love to use that one too, except there is no answer unless you want to adopt the Chinese's idea of Government and institute forced sterilizations for those deemed unworthy to procreate. Maybe you don't allow people the tax right off unless they undergo a rigorous coarse load of parenting classes...and pass a certification class..that'll go over well. :')

Perfect example.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31pQOiclaTo