ABC 20/20 Tonight: Stupid in America, How we Cheat Our Kids

Parent Cafe
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<p>Thanks for bringing this show to my attention. I probably wouldn’t have watched it otherwise. He did a very good job of making teachers unions look very bad. </p>

<p>The test of the Belgian vs NJ kids bugged me. So, what was on the test? He flips to Jay Leno’s bit, and the implication is that the test included questions like, “What state hosts the Kentucky Derby?” which apparently Belgian kids can answer correctly at a higher rate than NJ kids. </p>

<p>Interesting, provacative show that I take with pounds (as opposed to grains) of salt, but hopefully as he said at the end of the show, will spark debate.</p>

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<p>I have to say that John Stossel did a stupendous job on the show… Gets down to the point and doesn’t let the BS that spews out of some of the peoples’ mouths go unanswered.
By the way, did anybody watch the endpart of dateline? That was another excellent expose and the entire segment in early February should be very good. Our media does get the hot end of the stick, but many times they are extremely beneficial to us.</p>

<p>Has anybody ever seen Penn and Teller: Bull****? If any of you don’t mind some profanity and enjoy the kind of work done by Stossel and the rest of the 20/20 team, then I believe you would enjoy these segments. I do admit that there are a few that I do not agree with (including second-hand smoke), but they are very enjoyable to watch.</p>

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<p>Sounds interesting, hopkinslax. Yea, what people should remember, especially the hardcore libs on the board, is that shows like 20/20 are as much entertainment as anything…and nothing gets me more hot and bothered than union-bashing and talk of incentive-based educational reform. :)</p>

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<p>"The test of the Belgian vs NJ kids bugged me. So, what was on the test? He flips to Jay Leno’s bit, and the implication is that the test included questions like, “What state hosts the Kentucky Derby?” which apparently Belgian kids can answer correctly at a higher rate than NJ kids. "</p>

<p>NJRes, have some faith. Jay Leno did not write the Stossel test! There are a number of test that are routinely given to students from various countries. Google “OECD and Pisa Report.” </p>

<p>One report is <a href=“http://www.oecd.org/document/28/0,2340,en_2649_201185_34010524_1_1_1_1,00.html[/url]”>http://www.oecd.org/document/28/0,2340,en_2649_201185_34010524_1_1_1_1,00.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Now, what would have been hilarious is to give the same test to the the NJ and Belgian teachers.</p>

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<p>can the instruction in belgium be replicated here in the united states? because those classes looked pretty empty to me compared to my 40+ classes in my school</p>

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<p>Elizabeth, size of classes does matter. So does the size of a school. Smaller is better. Moreover, it is not the “things” that matter (the fancy buildings etc.) but the interaction between students and teachers, and parents. The factory model school as a state run entity has become a reality because parents have let it become that. Our lifestyles and values have let it become that. At some time in our distant past the reality was small community schools funded & run by the parents. And there probably still are some. We cannot compare schools in European countries and schools in the states until our schools are run totally at the local level once more. European states are small.</p>

<p>Because we are preparing for the bird flu (better to prepare and not have to do anything than to be caught unawares) here which might close down the schools for awhile, I have been investigating the real use of technology so that schools can be run for a while via the web. It has just opened up so many great possibilities: the sharing of great teachers and materials in small communities. We need to get out of our boxes, tritely said. I do not think this will involve vouchers or competition but maybe it will. I do think the right use of technology will allow us to be small again.</p>

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<p>Flipping channels one evening I caught one of these “education channel” shows that featured a prof from the Univ. of WA who maintained (with charts, data, etc.) that the comparisons between US and other countries’ education tests are flawed. He maintained that when one controlled for who is tested (US includes more diverse groups that are not tested in other countries) the US students are as good or better than the others. The counterparts of those that do so poorly here are simply not tested in most countries having been tracked out of the educational mainstream at an early age. How accurate this is or to what countries it applies I can’t say, but it is equally as thought provoking. And, it is not excuse for our failing schools.</p>

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<p>That’s actually a very good point, idad. I believe in europe they start tracking the dimwits and dullards off the academic path before they hit high school, leaving only the competent students.</p>

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<p>so they not only are able to cull the inefficent teachers but the inefficient students?</p>

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<p>I believe so. One of my french teachers in HS who was from Belgium discussed the merits of this process at length. It’s good and bad…good in that it cuts out the crap, but bad in that it doesn’t provide much of a second chance for kids who were “eff-ups” as youngsters, although, as she explained it, 99% of kids took the required testing fairly seriously.</p>

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<p>The culture related in all these. They can use Belgium to explain the goodness of marketized education, but proponents of increased public school spending can also say, well, Asian schools are nearly all public* and they clearly fared pretty well.</p>

<p>*Of course in Hong Kong, where I live, by “public” it’s more like charter schools.</p>

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<p>I am a teacher. I didn’t see the report so it is difficult for me to comment on what John Stossel had to say about public education. I will say this, we are one of the very few societies in the world that attempts to educate every child regardless of ability beyond what would be the equivalent of our middle school years. Other countries do still educate these kids but much of that education is related to learning a trade. I had an exchange student from the Czech Republic a few years back. She was a very bright young lady but had to choose where to go to school at a fairly young age. She chose a school related to hotel/motel/restaurant management and culinary arts. There is nothing at all wrong with that career path, but as a result of her decision opportunities to go to college after high school were extremely limited.</p>

<p>I also believe strongly that most of our suburban public schools do a pretty good job of educating kids who want to get an education. The same may not be true of large, urban school systems or extremely small, poor rural ones.
But in most suburban school systems a child who is motivated to get the most from their educational opportunities enter college pretty solidly prepared.
In the twenty years I have been teaching I have seen very few students who worked diligently in high school not go on to be successful in college as well as in their chosen career field. Perhaps much of that may be attributed to work ethic. In fact, I would say that for most of the students I have taught over the years who have not been as successful in high school, motivation and work ethic were the culprits far more often than a lack of ability or poor teaching.</p>

<p>I am not going to deny that their are poor teachers or poor school systems. There are also poor doctors and poor hospitals just like there are people who perform poorly in all walks of life. Why single out teachers?</p>

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<p>“I am not going to deny that their are poor teachers or poor school systems. There are also poor doctors and poor hospitals just like there are people who perform poorly in all walks of life. Why single out teachers?”</p>

<p>This is at the heart of our current conundrum: </p>

<p>Specific hospitals cannot force you to be their patient when their services are required—go to a different hospital or doctor. Public school systems can and do demand their patients. The argument is for vouchers; putting the money in the hands of the customer, the one who actually requires the service, not the service provider. To argue the opposite goes against everything we know about human nature…we can only hope that some day public schools will perform as well and as efficiently as that other great publicly funded institution: the DMV (I know, why single out the DMV specialists).</p>

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<p>“Specific hospitals cannot force you to be their patient when their services are required—go to a different hospital or doctor. Public school systems can and do demand their patients. The argument is for vouchers; putting the money in the hands of the customer, the one who actually requires the service, not the service provider. To argue the opposite goes against everything we know about human nature…we can only hope that some day public schools will perform as well and as efficiently as that other great publicly funded institution: the DMV (I know, why single out the DMV specialists”</p>

<p>I’m going to respond to this in a way that many people are going to find troubling. The argument can be made that that public schools have given the American people exactly what they want, mediocrity.</p>

<p>In twenty years in the classrom I have heard many parents claim to want high standards and excellence from public schools. That is until it is their child who fails to meet the standard. Then the complaints come loud and clear that the standards are too high, the expectations are too great and should be lowered. They say that A.P. teachers give too much work, or grade too harshly for example. Teachers are continually deluged by requests from parents to accept assignments late that were due weeks prior to the end of the marking period because he/she won’t be eligible for football/basketball/NHS. We are inundated by demands to excuse absences and provide missed work to students who have to miss a week of school due to a once in a lifetime opportunity to spend a week at Disneyworld. </p>

<p>Several years ago an A.P. student did none of the summer reading assigned by a colleague of mine. As a result they started the first marking period with two zero’s. One for the assigned reading logs and one for the test on the material that the student could not answer a single question on as a result of having not read the material. As a consequence, the student failed A.P. Lit for the first quarter. Later that year the student’s father, a judge, wanted the teacher to write a letter to the colleges the student was applying to. He wanted the letter to tell them what the kid’s grade would have been if the summer reading grades were not factored in with the grade for the marking period. In other words he was demanding a letter saying my son would not have had an “F” in A.P. Lit if the teacher had not expected him to meet the expectations for the course. (Certainly mandatory summer and holiday assignments themselves are an entirely different debate)</p>

<p>As for vouchers, all children in our society are entitled to a free, public education. If a parent chooses not to take advantage of that entitlement for whatever the reason that is their right. IMO they have no right however to expect the taxpayers to subsidize a private education when a free, public one is available to them.</p>

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<p>I did not watch the show, so I won’t comment on it. But I will make a few points based on French education, which is similar to Belgian education.</p>

<p>Most education is public. There’s very little that is private, and much of the private education is religious. Classes, even in private, non-religious schools are large. 40+ students is the norm rather than the exception. There are a few high profile prestigious high schools (Louis Le Grand, Henri IV, for example) where it is expected that profs have Ph.D.s (Sartre taught at one). </p>

<p>Students are tracked at age 11, though not necessarily by ability, into sciences, social sciences and humanities tracks. All students study the same subjects but at different levels of difficulty depending on the track they’re in. For example, students in the humanities will study less math and sciences and students in the sciences will study less literature. But they will study every subject (that means, among other things, that everyone studies biology, chemistry, physics and everyone is exposed to some calculus). Students who fail one subject are expected to repeat the whole grade. Students take an exam at the end of 9th grade. If they fail the test, they must repeat the grade and the test. They may leave school after 9th grade and many do. That is not the same as dropping out.</p>

<p>At the end of 11th grade, students take the Baccalaureat, part 1. They must pass it in order to proceed to 12th grade, at the end of which they will take the Baccalaureat part 2. Routinely, 1/3 to 1/2 students fail the Baccalaureat.</p>

<p>My brother noted that his local high school in a Paris suburb had a pass rate of 30%. He enrolled his daughter in one of the two top private schools in Paris which boasts a pass rate of 100%. However, this phenomenal pass rate is a bit of a fraud. There is a high bar to admission into the school to begin with. Then, at the end of 10th grade, routinely 1/3 to 1/2 students are made to repeat the grade even though their performance indicates they should be able to move on. So those who survive into 11th grade and the Baccalaureat Part 1 are the best of the best.</p>

<p>The problem with international comparisons is comparing different types of cohorts. At 12th grade, French students–and Belgian students-- have passed through a barrage of tests which has filtered out the weaker students. Our 12th graders, on the other hand, have passed no such tests. </p>

<p>Re vouchers: It is interesting that discussions on how to improve education in this country tends to focus on vouchers and charter schools. In Europe, this is not the case. My brother’s solution is one that very very few people adopt (and it’s not just because private schools are expensive). I have nothing against vouchers and school choice (our district has school choice, and we made use of it ourselves). I note that the people least able to make use of school choice, with or without vouchers are the ones who would most benefit from being able to send their kids to better schools. For them, being able to walk their child to school is important; and it is important for the school to be within reasonable distance if the parents are to be involved in their child’s education. </p>

<p>The recent riots in Paris ought to show that there is a huge underclass in France and in other European countries whose teenagers are not being educated and are unemployed and unemployable. It is not so dissimilar to the situation in this country.</p>

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<p><a href=“http://edmonson.paunix.org/temp/ibm_sloth_slough.mp3[/url]”>http://edmonson.paunix.org/temp/ibm_sloth_slough.mp3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>It seems like the teachers’ unions and the public system is being set up as a straw man. It’s important to note that US students scored very well in elementary school and only fell behind during middle school. Teachers’ Unions and public education exists before middle school, so clearly it cannot bear primary responsibility for the later poor performance of schools. Instead, we should look to our culture which promotes consumerism, instant gratification rather than education. Also, most parents care little about what their child knows and seems to care more about their child’s grades. Most education occurs inside the home-parents need to demand more of their schools and children. Also, parents and schools focus too much on socialization during middle school. Educational progress is minial in these years and naturally, given the focus on socialization, American students lag their international peers.</p>

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<p>PHampson is correct about the middle school curriculum. Sixth grade is when students in France and elsewhere are expected to start performing at a higher level, not slow down. My own Sixth grade curriculum (Classics) included: Latin, English, history, literature, geography, physics, chemistry, biology, math (beginning algebra), phys. ed. In eighth grade, I added Greek. Other students not in Classics added a second foreign language. I never heard about the importance of socialization and developmental issues until I came to this country. I have to assume these are universal, yet, in other countries, the curriculum does not seem affected by them.</p>

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<p>The public education has been made scapegoat for the uneducated kids. I agree that in there is a tremendous amount of waste in schools.</p>

<p>However, the other side of the coin is that the parents don’t care either. They complain that homework is too much or too hard or teachers grade too harshly. When my son was in elementary school, I had started a ‘voluntary’ math program called math super stars (developed by Florida PS system) in a GT class. It involved kids doing about a dozen problems in a week.</p>

<p>After few weeks it was stopped because the parents complained that the problems are too hard, the kids get frustrated and they didn’t want their kids to experience failure.</p>

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<p>Our public education system is the canary in the coal mine. If teachers are incompetent, if students are unmotivated, if schools are unsafe and underperforming–we would do well to look at ourselves. We can talk forever about school choice, teachers’ unions, and NCLB, but the fact remains that there is something larger at work. For all our talk, we don’t truly value education; if we did, our cultural ethos would be different, and there would be an implicit, unspoken sense of respect for teachers, for school, for the process of learning (not just the results). To the extent that these problems can even be addressed through changes to our education system, here’s my modest proposal:</p>

<p>1) Keep schools small
2) Eliminate tenure; introduce merit pay
3) Raise starting salalries for teachers to around 60K
4) Require middle and high school teachers to have a Master’s degree in the subject areas they teach (not just an ed degree).</p>

<p>How’s that for a start? There’s a little something in here for everyone. Teachers lose some cherished benefits, but they also gain a lot more in pay. Free-market folks will have to pay more in taxes, but they get a system that truly adheres to the logic of their principles (after all, in the market economy, you need to pay to attract and retain talent). As for school choice, I suppose it could be incorporated somehow, but maybe it wouldn’t be needed. After all, I’ve just altered the ethos of the culture!</p>