<p>I hate school. This stupid modern society is not allowing kids to be just be kids. I bet the most stressful segment of any person’s life is from ages 14-20. Most adults have it better than kids. </p>
<p>If only I was born at an earlier time in a nicer more refined society, where school was not placed ahead of everything else, including religious, social, and recreational activities.</p>
<p>This is the pitiful timeline for most people in this crappy society found around the world…</p>
<p>Youth: Work hard at school, dodge drugs, sex, and violence
Adulthood: Work hard in a cubicle, experience gray hair, worry about taxes, etc.
Retirement: Yay, no work! But oh no, death is around the corner!</p>
<p>Please don’t tell me that “School is fun!” That is the media’s way of brainwashing the youth. School and work is not the first priority in life. If it is, then you need to get a life!</p>
<p>Perhaps “money, status, and expertise are, for good or ill, the measures of value in our market-driven society” but one of the key forces that prevent this value from being ascribed to teachers is the teacher’s unions which do everything possible to prevent their members from being viewed as “professionals” . They fight to define the precise number of minutes that are spent in a classroom, to define the exact payscale of a teacher based on seniority and to prevent mediocre/poor teachers from being fired, and to lock families into a no-choice environment. These are all antithetical to any other profession, so it is no wonder that the social status of teachers is not what it could be. I think that pouring more money into teacher salaries when they are still locked into a unionized, non-professional environment will just be a costlier version of what we have right now.</p>
<p>I wish that all we had to do to make schools better was to attach the $$ to the kid. Unfortunately, the data on vouchers and charter schools are at best mixed. Schools run by the private sector also have mixed results. The solution is going to be much more radical than anyone left or right wants to admit. It won’t be fixed with money and freeing teachers to be creative professionals, and it won’t be fixed by vouchers, and we will only see modest gains with accountability standards or encouraging greater parent involvement. All of these things have been tried and have not produced the dramatic system wide improvement we need.</p>
<p>It will take three things: 1). a recognition that the entry skills of students in K are often woefully inadequate (see the book Meaningful Difference in America’s Children) and a massive and intensive pre-K effort targeting academic language and vocabulary, 2) a commitment to take data and use it in academic decision making on an ongoing basis not at the end of the year, both at the classroom and student level, and 3) a system informed by the behavioral, cognitive, and learning sciences where standards are high for all students and the practices used are adjusted until all kids are meeting them.</p>
<p>I doubt if it matters if it is private or public sector driven, the more of these elements are in place, the more likely student success.</p>
<p>One other interesting aspect of the low status of teachers is gender. Teaching at the secondary level as long been a profession dominated by women and, consequently, has been underpaid and devalued. A teacher’s salary has tacitly been considered a salary either for a single female or spouse’s salary. It has never been intended to support an entire middle class family. Teacher’s unions did not prevent teacher’s from being viewed as professionals, the gender of teachers prevented this.</p>
<p>I think our families need reforming more than our schools, and I think that it is impossible to understand the educational issues just by looking at the educators and the schools. Has anyone read “Random Families”? Or watched the PBS documentary “Country Boys”? or the Frontline documentary “Raising Cain”? Or read Ruby Payne’s “A Framework for Understanding Poverty”? Do so, and then let’s talk about what it takes to make some kids succeed. I teach in an elementary school with very low SES kids - and our teaching staff works incredibly hard (including tutoring before and after school, and Saturday school) to bring our kids up to meet state standards. You might look at our test scores and see failure, (and say, “I’m pulling my child out of this school! The test results are awful. Obviously the teachers are incompetent!”) But the kids are challenged and coaxed and prodded and loved and fed and doctored and everything we can do to help them become productive and educated. So why aren’t they scoring better on the tests? (And I’d like to note that our kids do better than similar populations at other schools!) Well, not to belabor the point overly, but many of them come from very dysfunctional families. They are raised by parents who don’t know how to parent well; who haven’t a clue how to provide order and structure and discipline and guidance and enrichment to their kids. The kids live in uncertain conditions, with cousins, then step-uncles, foster parents, grandparent’s sister, then Mom’s new boyfriend, in families separated and put back together. They have parents that are deported by the INS, or living in jail, or they have single parents - 23-year-old with 3 children under the age of 8 living with a stepsister and a grandmother. They have numerous medical conditions including rotten teeth (I have 6 in my class with “silver” baby teeth replacements), undiagnosed ADD and ADHD, emotional disorders, immature behaviors. They live with anxieties and fears that would knock most of us down. They have rats and roaches, they have had the lights turned off, the car repossessed and the phone disconnected, and the police came and arrested the man they call '“daddy.” They come to class NEVER having had a book read to them before. They’ve been to the grocery store, Wal-Mart, the local traveling carnival, Chuckee Cheese’s pizza place, McDonalds, and relative’s and neighbor’s houses. That’s it. They have 350 word vocabularies, aren’t quite sure what their last name is, and have never had an adult sit down with them for a conversation involving an exchange of ideas. They have heard millions less words in their life than the middle-class child has heard, and the range of words that they have heard involve mostly commands, “sit down, eat your supper, be quiet, stop hitting your sister, go to bed” Okay? Just as the kids can’t choose the schools in our system, the schools can’t choose the kids. They are sending us the best kids they have, and we are doing our best to educate them all. We don’t get to say, “No, your child is hostile and angry, not interested in learning, and would not be an asset to our school.” We take them all. It’s ludicrous to compare our schools with European schools with such dissimilar populations, and who “weed out” the non-adacemic children at a young age. We need to reform our parenting education and parenting support, and deal with the culture of poverty. We need to improve our family structures more than our schools.
(sorry for the rambling. Just gets me all worked up when I hear that vochures are the solution. Research results show that charter schools actually perform worse on average than public schools.)</p>
<p>“warfrat-
How’d your colleage handle the request from the judge to explain away the bad AP lit grade?”</p>
<p>My colleague was outraged by the request and refused. Fortunately, at the time we had a principal who was extremely supportive of his staff as long as what we did was defensible. I have worked for other principals in my career where I am not so confident they wouldn’t have told the teacher to write the letter.</p>
<p>I can tell you that I personally would have resigned before I would have written a letter like that.</p>
<p>First, it is amazing how quickly we dismiss a report as biased when it fails to endorse the common held views that education works in the US. Yes, let’s turn to a wonderful person such as Randi Weingarten to hear unbiased news. The sad part is that reports such as Stossel tend to infuriate the great and dedicated teachers who rightfully find the conclusions offensive. On the other hand, the numerous prot</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>As a public middle school teacher, I totally agree with every one of those four points. The higher entry salary would attract more people to the job, the masters requirement (not an education degree masters, which is a complete joke in CA!!!) would seriously weed out the incompetents and would benefit the students through more advanced understanding of the subject. The merit pay would give teachers incentive, and the elimination of tenure would keep them responsive to change rather than intractable. And the smaller schools would help students and teachers create more meaningful relationships rather than exist day to day in a factory setting.</p>
<p>I’ve been just casually reading this thread, as I didn’t have the opportunity to view the program, but I feel impelled to answer to this. I like school very much, I always have. Perhaps I’m the odd one out.</p>
<p>I do not think anyone is arguing that the US is providing a solid education to everyone. We are all aware of the high dropout rate. I, for one, am dismayed by reports that vocational education is not available in many parts of the country when it could be the best means of reaching students who are more hands-on learners than others and would equip them to earn a good living.
My own points are two: we need to compare similar cohorts of students. In the US, the practice of social promotion has resulted in many students graduating from high school with a minimal education. In France, among other countries, the high degree of retention (willful in the case of my niece’s private school, induced in the case of students who fail the 9th, 11th or 12th grade tests) has produced a 12th grade cohort that is, on average, probably better educated than an average 12th grade cohort in the US. </p>
<p>The second point has to do with the middle school curriculum (although I hear laments about it from French friends, too). At the very time when foreign students are pushed to work harder, American students are expected to do little more than review previously learned concepts. This is beyond the control of individual teachers are even school districts. It seems a widely acceptable philosophy. When I complained about what I considered the unchallenging 6th grade curriculum at my son’s school, I was told by some anonymous parent “to go back to your own country.”</p>
<p>There are many other problems plaguing American education including a far more mobile population than in any other country. Coupled with a lack of national curriculum, it makes educating transient students so much more difficult. None of this negates the fact that there are some bad teachers out there, as well as terrific ones; that some school districts are way too large and the red tape can kill local and individual initiative; that some union leaders have espoused wrong policies, and so forth. But the US is a far larger country than most of those to which it is compared, and its problems are also on a larger scale.</p>
<p>sickoffla-
Your tongue-in-cheek response really does you a bit of a disservice. You are clearly a very strong and highly motivated student, applying to top, Ivy league schools and combined BA/MD programs. I for one would love to hear, especially if you are truly as disappointed with the education you have thus far received, what you would liked to have done differently in your K-12 educational career? This is a serious question. I think some positive suggestions from a student would be most helpful in this discussion.</p>
<p>I’ll have to disagree with you and agree with a previous poster. A masters is overkill for too many subjects, and such requirement would weed out people who have talent for teaching but less for research level studies (especially in sciences and mathematics). </p>
<p>Already at the undergrad level, many aspiring math teachers struggle with the more abstract courses like real analysis and basic algebra (baby group and ring theory, not whatever pre-calc symbolic manipulation class non-math people call algebra). Though they are the most basic subjects required for grad studies in math, a deep understanding of them is far from necessary to teach the middle or high school level math. Masters level mathematics is completely superfluous for that as well. In certain ways, some subjects can become harder to teach when you know the more advanced levels. A lot of math grads I know have a hard time teaching pre-calculus courses, because calculus is so basic, anything below is prehistoric (to quote a(n incredibly smart) classmate of mine).</p>
<p>If we were to compare who can run a 5k faster, win in a halo match, computer program better, make more money trading equities in the stock market, or run a company. I’d give that to me.</p>
<p>If we were to compare who is strong in academics and who makes better Belgian waffles, I give it to them.</p>
<p>Very, very strongly agreed. As a student born outside of the United States with a heritage from a different country, I have heard all too well how American public schools, and in fact American culture, is horribly focused on materialism with little respect for education. I was always taught that education is the most important thing in the world. People can cheat or steal your money, house, or possessions, but no one can EVER steal your education. Education can liberate even the poorest of the poor. This is well known to Americans, but why don’t we do anything about it?</p>
<p>Why don’t we keep our high expectations for academic excellence AND make our kids responsible and mature enough to take a bad grade and to learn from poor choices. Letting your kids get away with laziness/irresponsibility is reflective of your parenting, not just the school’s teachers. I know countless teachers who really want a student to do well in school and see his/her potential, but cannot force the parents into nurturing that potential or instilling some universally accepted values like responsibility, honesty, kindness, etc. </p>
<p>Throwing money is not the solution as so many here have said. Vouchers won’t help much. The only way to change kids’ education is to change the culture we live in. The country I was born in prides itself on education. While here kids who are good at sports are praised and the smart ones “the nerds” scorned. Where I’m from (India) students who are the SMARTEST are pushed to the top. Sure, there are sports, but those are mainly for relaxing/recreation. </p>
<p>It’s considered cool to be smart there! Who woulda thunk it? </p>
<p>So my own beliefs about changing the American educational system:</p>
<p>1) Make education a higher priority than sports. Keep them as exercise activities, but don’t let them take higher precedence.
2) Teach your kids good values which are universally accepted: responsibility, kindness, honesty, etc. This may be difficult in a household where both parents work and don’t have time to spend with their kids, but somehow you must MAKE time for them.
3) Get rid of this culture of “get rich quick” and “money is the most important goal in life”.
4) Keep teachers accountable, but make sure the issue is not something you could have handled yourself or is an issue where the student is trying to get out of something he/she could have done.
5) Teach your kids that education is the only way to success.
6) Merit-based pay for teachers is always good. </p>
<p>If you can think of other suggestions, please mention them.</p>
<p>Marite, as usual, I find no faults in your judgment on this issue. I also know that you are in a much better position to evaluate the differences between the education systems in the US and in Europe. </p>
<p>I understand that this issue is a very complex one and that it deserves a lot more than tidbits of opinions. I remain, however, dismayed by the faulty perspective that the reports of the downsliding quality of the US education must be rigged. For instance, the comment -may have been tongue-in-cheek- that the tests given to the NJ and Belgian students must have been a Jay Leno production. Despite not having a positive confirmation, I would think that Jon Stossel used a variation of the OECD tests. Details of the contents of the test are available on the OECD website. FWIW, I am not surprised that the US does not perform that well on the test, because many questions are requiring both knowledge and … reasoning. </p>
<p>Further, the apparent question about the “quality of the students” would probably yield a surprising answer. As stated in the report, the chosen US school was a competitive school in New Jersey. On the other hand, it may come as a surprise that the Belgian school is NOT an conveniently selected -and selective- high school. Actually, the school is a basic Atheneum which offers a palette of choices including the typical high school choices, but also a vocational, a technical, and a “sports” school. </p>
<p>As you may remember, I wrote in the past about a few attributes of the schools in Belgium that I visited. While they looked nice, the schools were no-frills. The workload seemed intense and the school day was divided in 8 periods with academic subjects requiring 32 to 36 hours of classes per week. I have little doubt that both students and teachers DO work a lot harder, or at least have a lot fewer distractions. On a subjective and personal note, I also believe that the curriculum distribution represents a better system than the semester/year per subject system we use in the US. </p>
<p>Lastly, as far as the slipping occuring after elementary school, my theory is that this results from the erosion of the earlier advantages provided by the involvement of families. After entering middle schools, fewer families can support and complement the education received during the day. In this regard, it seems a lot easier for teachers to teach how to read and write to a bunch of kids who KNEW how before starting first grade. The challenge to make sure everyone does this at a reasonable level seems to be more daunting.</p>
<p>My niece’s private lycee is similarly no frills. Not even a cafeteria! The students used to eat their lunch in class, on the stairs, or, if the weather was nice, on a bench in the Jardin du Luxembourg. Classes seldom were below 40. And it was definitely sink or swim.<br>
But, for all its defects, the curriculum was well understood by all, teachers, students and parents alike. There was no pedagogical fad which periodically lead to a complete overhaul of the teaching techniques and a whole new set of expensive textbooks (in fact, I learned history more or less from the same textbook my father learned nearly 40 years earlier). Nor, as you note, was there any distraction.
My own lycee had three academic tracks (no separate honors tracks) plus a vocational one. I am glad that at age 11, I was directed to Classics rather than the vocational track that would have prepared me for a lifelong career as a secretary or stenographer!</p>