My fear is Public Education is a lost cause. Proper learning requires discipline at a young age. Very difficult in such a litigious society.
DeVos set to begin shuffling chairs on Titanic tomorrow
- Thread starter gardentiger
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It's pretty simple actually. People work hard and care when they are incentivized.
Government entities do not incentivize, except in the form of pensions which actually encourages their employees to work longer in a job they have no personal investment in.
So now apply this logic to teaching. Unfortunately the teachers who actually care about the students are highly outnumbered by these individuals above. Those same individuals who spend more time at union meetings discussing contract negotiations then they do on the well being of their students.
Mix in a lack of parenting across the board, and you get a broken system that is measured based on standardized testing and whether or not you go to college.
Government entities do not incentivize, except in the form of pensions which actually encourages their employees to work longer in a job they have no personal investment in.
So now apply this logic to teaching. Unfortunately the teachers who actually care about the students are highly outnumbered by these individuals above. Those same individuals who spend more time at union meetings discussing contract negotiations then they do on the well being of their students.
Mix in a lack of parenting across the board, and you get a broken system that is measured based on standardized testing and whether or not you go to college.
Teacher unions (ones that have power) exist in only about 17 states.
FWIW.
FWIW.
This link provides some very useful facts on education, in particular spending. The federal government only provides a small portion of money spent, to the tune of 8.9%. The vast majority of funds come from the state and local level.
https://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/10facts/index.html?exp
Thanks for the link. Don't even know what the F you're talking about. Oh, wait, it's a Clemson athletic (mostly football) message board.
Not sure what litigation has to do with it, but two things that are empirically proven to help kids learn are 1) Engagement by parents at home (reading to a child, working through their homework with them), and 2) After-school programs for young (5th grade and younger) children.
Public school isn't a failure. You can still get a damn good education. It just lacks the extra mile of resources that you can get in a private school. There are a lot of things that the State of SC could do and won't because of politics and optics.
Public school isn't a failure. You can still get a damn good education. It just lacks the extra mile of resources that you can get in a private school. There are a lot of things that the State of SC could do and won't because of politics and optics.
The biggest problem is that the only objective is high test scores. Students are only being taught the portions of a subject/idea/lesson that are in the "standards" for that year - which is what will likely be on the standardized test that year. They are not being taught what they need to know. They are not taught complete concepts, only seemingly random portions of larger ideas/concepts.
Evidently reading comprehension scores were low in our district last year because they are having to do reading comprehension exercises in science, social studies, etc this year.
Many teachers (particularly newer ones) just blindly teach whatever the standards are. They use ready made tests that have ridiculous questions that they would never use if they knew the subject or made up their own test. I remember one of the questions my got wrong on a test last year in social studies was "Who was the founder of Christianity?" I am not really sure how I would answer that question myself, but the "correct" answer was(both) Jesus and Abraham. I'm not sure how two people who lived at different times can both be the founders of anything. There have been multiple stupid questions like this, I just don't remember most of them. We have gone from trying to educate students and teach them critical thinking skills, to trying to maximize their test scores on a standardized test. That is why we are becoming dumber as a nation. It is a huge problem that many seemingly don't care about.
I hope we abolish the federal DOE. The more localized control there is, the easier it is to hold people accountable and effect change.
Evidently reading comprehension scores were low in our district last year because they are having to do reading comprehension exercises in science, social studies, etc this year.
Many teachers (particularly newer ones) just blindly teach whatever the standards are. They use ready made tests that have ridiculous questions that they would never use if they knew the subject or made up their own test. I remember one of the questions my got wrong on a test last year in social studies was "Who was the founder of Christianity?" I am not really sure how I would answer that question myself, but the "correct" answer was(both) Jesus and Abraham. I'm not sure how two people who lived at different times can both be the founders of anything. There have been multiple stupid questions like this, I just don't remember most of them. We have gone from trying to educate students and teach them critical thinking skills, to trying to maximize their test scores on a standardized test. That is why we are becoming dumber as a nation. It is a huge problem that many seemingly don't care about.
I hope we abolish the federal DOE. The more localized control there is, the easier it is to hold people accountable and effect change.
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This
And this
Coming from someone who spent 12 years at the middle and high school levels watching all the shit go down, and now watching my daughter go through school.
