Is the public school system in the United states fundamentally broken?

A good chunk of the population of this forum indicates that, yes, the United States' school system is fundamentally broken.

 

Instead of getting rid of bad teachers how about change how the course materials are delivered so that there are no more eachers.

Instead of getting rid of bad students how about engaging them so that they become a part of their own education experience do there was no more bad students.

Yes, it can be done, but it requires a few fundamental changes in how courses are prepared, delivered, and how students are engaged in being a part of their own education. It would take some time to "get it right" but the methodology isn't all that hard. There is one caveat. This can only work in the public school system because it could not vary by school.

 

Way too many students. Average class size is over 22 while optimal class size for learning is 8-12.

 

Maybe too many students are coming from crappy home lives and upbringings that no school can hope to overcome. Smaller classes can help since each student can get more personal attention, though I think that actually doesn't make as great a difference. I think, in all seriousness, it comes down rather to social and economic background of the students.

I recently saw a disturbing statistic - we have a greater percentage of people living below the poverty line than relatively poor Russia. That surprised me. For such a rich country, we're not taking good care of our own. Not when parents are working two jobs each to make ends meet. Really, I think this is more of a problem than the particulars of our school system.

 

Public schools are already decentralized.

And how much funding do you think the Feds supply?

 

Not with crap like bushes no child left behind or Obama pulling funding over stupid restrooms. Clearly the feds pay a lot into it or else Obama couldn't have threated to do jack to the funding when NC had HB-2.

At lest when I went to school the funding was about $6k per kid, $12k if classified as special needs. I can't say I know how much the feds supply of that money though.

 

Again, set aside ideology and look at the problem.

Eliminating "mainstreaming" and allowing schools to group classes based on ability is not ideologically driven, it is a correction to a failed policy.

Many will not like the idea but it must be realized that all students are entitled to the best education available but not all students will achieve at the same level.

'Mainstreaming" also impacts student behavior in the classroom. Students who are not challenged and those who cannot perform will act out in class. It is normal kid behavior.

 

Well see, that's an idea that I actually think is possible, if it's sold the right way. We should track students based on standardized testing and performance and put them in the appropriate classes that match their ability level. There is a cohort of parents who would really be in favor and a cohort that wouldn't care. Your problem is going to be coming up with a way to do that in which racial disparities are not glaringly obvious since that's likely to kill any such tracking program.

 

At least in the USA, education has become more and more about how kids feel and act than what they think and the tools they might need to be successful in their adult life. The purpose of an education should not be to achieve primarily a political goal. Everything went into the pits with the idea that all kids are equal means that all kids are the same. In order to TRY to make all kids more equal it seems that they wanted to lower the top down to the bottom rather than help the ones on the lower end of things rise up. I guess that was probably the cheaper option. It is slowly getting a little better than it was but now especially in the higher levels of education the information that our kids are taught and encouraged to learn is more political opinion based than fact based. That is why a degree in any stupid thing is about as good as anything because none of the BS/BA degrees actually prepare you to do much unless they are very specifically aimed.

How can you truly consider a kid educated and ready to go out and be a successful adult when they can't figure out what their gas millage is. They can't balance a check book. They can't even count change and are only vaguely aware of the true realities of the world like filling out a job application so that it doesn't get immediately thrown in the trash.

The school my daughter went to didn't teach spelling because according to them it inhibited their ability to express themselves freely. They didn't teach cursive writing because well that just wasn't important any more. They were not taught truly how to do arithmetic because they had calculators. The educational system is run by idiots that have never worked a day in their lives and so have no idea what tools kids really need to succeed.

The biggest failure though is that parents are no longer involved and just allow their kids to be passed along and not educated. What the schools didn't require or teach I demanded and taught myself. I took the calculator away until it wasn't needed to get the answer but only made it faster. A calculator is most/y useless if you don't know what buttons to push. Knowing that you have driven 317 miles and used 10 gallons of gas doesn't do you a bit of good if you don't know what to do with these numbers to get an answer. What is sad is that IF you know what to do in this case you really don't need a calculator do you? THAT is knowledge and that is what our kids aren't getting.

 

The number of people who are anti-higher-ed is astounding to me.

Not sure what "calculating gas mileage" has to do with being a successful adult. As for balancing a checkbook, if you mean "doesn't have the math skills", that's one thing. If you mean "nobody has ever showed them how to balance a checkbook", isn't that a parent's job? That said, most schools these days have some sort of required "life skills" class that teaches you how to balance a checkbook, among other things.

I don't think you have this right. It's not "don't teach spelling." There are schools where they first teach kids to express themselves, THEN focus down on things like spelling. Why? Because many kids find spelling drills dry and boring, and thus they learn to hate English class. And worrying about spelling things correctly was coming at the expense of self-expression -- which is, after all, the POINT of writing.

It all gets taught. It's just a question of what you emphasize at any given point in a student's education.

This much is true.

My kids attend an urban public school district that is racially diverse (the kind where no race is the majority) and also has a relatively high percentage of kids in poverty, or for whom English is a second language.

My oldest daughter is in two orchestras, has taken AP classes in U.S. history, World history, Chemistry, Physics and Biology and is using the College in the Schools program to take high school classes for college credit in Anatomy and Physiology and French. She scored a 32 on her ACT.

My youngest daughter is still in middle school, but she is in a Chinese immersion program, plays two instruments, skipped a year in both English and science, and is on the accelerated math track.

Both girls participated in a three-year independent-study class in middle school in which they had to design a research project each year, carry it out, and present the results both to the teacher and in a public forum.

So personally, I think my girls are getting an outstanding education from their public school. And not because we're a wealthy district.

 

It could be that your girls are outstanding and would shine anywhere.

 

It could be (actually is) that they have outstanding parents. Which, as you rightly put it, will mean their kids shine anywhere. That's why the children of Asian migrants - who often end up in some of the least desirable schools - still manage to ace it. It's not the quality of the school (and public schools are all very similar in quality anyway), it's the quality of the parents. As long as the school is doing the minimum required by law, determined people will make it work to their advantage.

 

Yep, true. Reading at home is the go also.

 

I don't agree with this, as an educational model. It shouldn't matter if spelling is 'boring', kids need to suck it up and build that foundation before they ever get anywhere near 'creative expression'. That's the luxury item - dessert, if you will. Strictly for afters, and only if resources can afford it.

This is the kind of modelling which turns out useless narcissists.

Edited to add: self-expression is not the point of literacy - for 99% of us. literacy is a pragmatic communication skill. it also underpins other learning, in that it develops synaptic pathways and the actual skill of learning. it merely brings with it a leisure time benefit in the way of creative expression and comprehension.

 

Well yeah. But what sort of parent doesn't read to their kids? I would wager that's a very rare beast.

 

Dunno crank, I think that it's becoming less so. Computers, iPads, iPhones and game consoles take up a lot of time .

 

You can't force kids to learn if the method you're using doesn't work for them.

Expression is the point of learning to write. What do you think "pragmatic communication" is? If you can't get your point across, it doesn't matter if every word is spelled correctly.

Put another way, what is more useful -- a poorly spelled but clear and concise message, or a perfectly spelled message that is so badly organized and incoherent that you're not sure what the writer is trying to say?

 

OTHER

No amount of blaming kids that they suck, and work harder and work longer will help.
Face it. The teacher suck. They suck as much as their wages.
They need to teach radically differently.

The highschool I had. Freaking hell. You could go to PE class 5 times a week.
Take 2 different band classes 5 times a week.
Yeah... that will get you somewhere in life.

 

Yes you can. Take at look at the Taiwanese model. It's entirely uniform, across the board. They don't cater for 'individual preferences', yet they consistently rank amongst the best education systems in the world. And again, there is no benefit - to the child - to teach him or her that their preferences will be catered to. They need to learn reasonable conformity at a young age, and not just learn it, but grasp that they will personally extract more benefit if they DO conform. They need to learn that going your own way will not ease your passage through life. There is ample leisure time for most modern first worlders - they can use this to indulge their idiosyncrasies and creative expression. School is supposed to provide us the tools for physical survival, nothing more.

 

Yet someone at your high school was Dux, and achieved considerable academic success. Please explain.

 

You didn't actually respond to what I wrote.

 

Coherence is not the same thing as 'creative expression'. Technical literacy does teach coherence. Reading teaches coherence. Reading teaches spelling. Look, I agree absolutely that we need to expose kids to the classics, and to teach the various forms of poetry etc, but this is technical. It's vocabulary, meter, literary device, etc etc. All pragmatic. Kids don't need to understand the creative drive (because that has nothing to do with literacy), so any focus on that side of it has no place in literacy courses.

 

My daughter was in the 10th grade when I fought the spelling issue. In college most professors will throw a paper right back at you if it is full of miss spelled words. I wanted my daughter to go on, not just do high school. Not teaching or demanding spelling would have handy capped her. If you can't figure your gas mileage then you probably can't figure out how much money you are suposed to make or how much you will bring home. I simply used that as a VERY simple example of understanding simple mathematics. In my experience this is a very common problem these days. A lot of young people can poke a calculator but don't actually understand math. I have friends with kids with minimum wage jobs that have to PAY to have their taxes done! A basic tax return is child's play. but if you are mathematically challenged an adverse to any level of serious thought it is a problem.

Kids need to be prepared to DO the things that they WILL do in their adult life. I am 64 years old and have never found an occasion where my ability to quote William Shakespeare was helpful. Knowing how to correctly format a letter to a foreign dignitary was equally useless as in my ability to do math in base 6 or 12 or extract a square root with a pencil and paper... BUT being able to do most basic math in my head and figure percentages without a calculator has been very helpful. Most of what they teach in schools is useless except in its purpose. The early years are there to teach you how to read, write and do basic arithmetic. These are basic tools. Then they should teach you to use these tools to help you learn HOW to learn. Since learning takes practice there is nothing wrong with letting them practice on things that might give them a better perspective of the world that they live in like history, geography and literature. But the aim need to be on teaching kids how to learn, absorb and retain things.

Somewhere this got lost. When I was in school we learned how to spell. We also were forced to memorize all sorts of stupid things. The reason for this was simple. Your MEMORY is going to be a very large part of how successful you are going to be in the future. Let me tell you, after you have told a kid 5 or 6 times what to do and they are still not doing it you usually fire send them down the road and try again on another one. I learned my multiplication tables, I memorized poetry and famous speeches, All of this sort of thing made it so that when I went out in the real world I could rapidly gather and retain information relating to work. I could THINK and didn't just have to be micro-managed to get me to work. I could remember a customers name and what they wanted from me. I could be taught how to do something and then do it and come back tomorrow and STILL know how to do it.

The current educational system is not turning out people that are ready to take on life and succeed. They come out with great self esteem and can make their phones do amazing things but when you try to get them to settle in and learn a job they just don't seem to have the tools. I'm not anti education, both my Daughters have degrees and are very successful in professions that in years past were mostly male operated jobs. Their educations have served them well. I wonder how it would have been if they had tried to go straight in to a university thinking that their, there and they're were all interchangeable? They do well because I an my wife are parents and made sure that they had what they needed to be successful. That was our job and a lot of parents just are not doing it.

 

I never said "creative expression."

There is nothing wrong, educationally speaking, with teaching how to communicate first, and how to spell second. There is more than one way to skin a cat, so to speak.

Increasingly, we are learning that people have different modes of learning, and there is nothing wrong with trying to teach people in the manner that works best for THEM. Rather than choosing a single method, and calling the people who respond to that method "smart" and the people who don't "burnouts."

That isn't "catering to preference." That is "teaching effectively."

 

Yet it fails to teach effectively.

The best education systems on planet earth are very conformist. Kids within those systems are taught young that to extract value out of any situation, you need to work WITHIN that situation, not against it. If everyone is working at cross purposes, nothing is getting done.