Why is education so poor?

Note; education gets worse when the unions go away. In states without teacher unions, performance is even worse.

 

Not true. There are 5 states with no teachers union and 4 of those comprise the last 4 positions. However Virginia ranks 44th meaning there are two states WITH teachers unions that fall below them.

This destroys your theory that States without teachers Unions do worse.

 

I wouldn’t know. I went to a Catholic school where when you got out of line you where dealt with immediately. Not only that but my wife and I sent our kids to the same school. It just so happens to be that the school has a growing number of Mexican American students that are doing quite well learning and assimilating into the American culture. What does that say about public schools? But here is the thing I find interesting. A majority of the Mexican parents are democrats. Can you believe that? They tell me that the public schools are too dangerous here in the Windy City. But that’s a subject for another day.

 

No it doesn't.

 

That has nothing to do with my statement. I mean, what does that bit of racism have to do with public education? You're talking about a private tyranny.

They don't get to cheat by selecting only the best? They have to take whomever comes, and provide them an education, whereas the Catholics are free to discriminate.

Well, half the country are Democrats, so it's not that statistically improbable.

 

Sorry but it does. You claimed States without teachers unions do worse than States that have it and that simply isn't always the case.

You have to live with your incorrect statement.

 

Ok... 4/5 states with teacher unions are among the absolute very worst in the nation... and you don't consider that telling? That's a pretty (*)(*)(*)(*)ed clear relationship.

 

I'm not 100% clear on what you mean by "summative assesment", however I do disagree with you on the value of standardized testing. It's a great tool for making sure that all the things that need to be taught actually are. Teaching "to test" does help in some ways -- it makes sure that all important topics get covered and that students have a fair grasp of those subjects.

The problem with the tests that we use currently is that they are multiple choice objective tests (actually it's true of most testing in subjects other than mathematics) which is about the stupidest way to test knowledge. What kids learn is how to game the tests -- for example learning that more often than not the correct answer is one of the middle options rather than A or D. Or they learn to reject answers with certain keywords (always, never, sometimes, often, etc.) which often mark out answers that cannot be true. That's not a good test. I think to give a fair assessment of actual learning, the student should be required to explain concepts -- basicly an essay test -- which is unlikely to be gameable in the same way that a "multiple guess" type test is. The problem is that it would drasticly lower the scores as compared to the objective tests, which makes it a political no-go, and they take a fair amount of resources to correct.

I can't say that I disagree with you here. I think the Brits and most of Europe is right in tracking students to a given type of education for lots of reasons. Keeping everyone in the same track means not only dumbing down the single track to the level of the dumbest kid, but it assumes that those dumb kids belong in high tier university coursework, thus refusing to train them for jobs that they could do well in. A kid with an IQ of 78 is better off learning to fix cars than learning dumbed down versions of trigonometry in preparation for a college career and a job that he can't hope to succeed in.

 

That simply shows that the trend someone pointed out is not uniform. However, it is largely true. Most states with teachers unions have higher rankings.

 

Sorry Charlie but I don’t play Chase the Liberal.

This one is for you

Have a great day

SOP for Troll posting. I mean what else can be said about a post like that.


If embarrassing yourself is your mission then congratulations are in order!

Fact of the matter is you couldn't (evidenced by your posts) compose anything other than ad hominem attacks and character assassination temper tantrums and if history is a predictor of the future (no one will question it in your case) you will attempt to out do yourself the next time.

You are what is know as an Internet Troll trying to insight others to respond emotionally to you with venomously retorts because that's how you get off. The saddest of it all is, you can't even blame it on youth, you're middle aged and by the looks of it desperately clinging to the worse parts of your misguided youth.

You haven't matured, you're stuck in a rut and you'd humiliate yourself in front of this board if you ever deviated from your pattern! (correction, humiliate yourself more)

Trying to hide behind your emotional immaturities isn't working and in fact doing so causes the opposite effect. What you think is great humor is rather signs of a usually ignored individual searching for acceptance in a desperate attempt at notoriety even on a insignificant forum like this.

I point it out because we both know it's all true despite any denial you'd offer and if anyone else wasn't paying attention they now know too!

What a politic punk you've become! LOL

 

Then how do you account for the fact that the vast majority of states with the lowest rankings acedemically are Red ?......and are states with "Right to Work for Less" laws that all but eliminate the real power of Unions.

 

That's the problem--it doesn't.

The answer to that is so absurdly simple it's not funny. When the computer program arranges the test questions, have it shuffle the answers to a random letter. Multiple choice questions tend not to be a bad way to test knowledge when they're combined with other types of questions.

Also very easy to solve.
"Sometimes the ______ cycle leads to erosion."
"(y)(y^2) is always equal to _____ for whole positive integers?"
etc, etc

Both could be structured as multiple choice questions that force the student to wrestle with sometimes, always, etc.

Sure, badly written tests are bad. That doesn't mean that multiple choice questions in general are wrong. It's pretty easy to write bad fill-in-the-blank, short answer, or essay questions too.

No, it's gamable in different ways. It's also very easy to create poor essay questions.

Note; standardized tests often include essay components already.

There's so many fundamental problems here I don't even know where to start.

First, that kid's not going to be in the regular classes. 78 is functionally retarded. While IQ in general is a (*)(*)(*)(*) poor way of estimating academic performance or capability, the outliers certainly do have common traits that can indicate potentiality. Kids like that are not thrown in the regular math class and told to do trigonometry.

To the broader point about tracking students early... teenagers don't even have fully developed brains by the time they graduate, much less at the earlier stages where even a 6 month developmental difference can show huge differences in academic performance. Restricting a person's adult opportunities (and you have to admit that the opportunities would be diminished if we gear some people for university studies and others for being mechanics) because some evaluator when they were 13 thought they didn't play well with others and were kind of dim is beyond stupid.

Even aside from this natural biological issue, people change a lot as they gain experience. Pathetic students in high school might resolve some personal issues, or discover a passion for a field of study later, or even just gain some self-discipline and maturity that turns them into good students later. I mean, I was a horrible student in high school, so bad may parents tried homeschooling, and eventually just let me drop out to go do trade work. I found the self-discipline I was entirely lacking as a teenager through that experience, got a GED, then went back to college as a non-traditional student and graduated very near the top of my class. People change over time, especially as they transition from teenager to adult. If I were living in a society that tracked some people for college and others for trade work, I'd probably never have found that side of myself.

Why should the the smart folks be shoved into higher education? I'm very good with mathematics and statistics--should that condemn me to a life as a mathematician or statistician? It's kind of unfair to them to throw those expectations on their shoulders. Maybe they like working on cars, or welding, and want to do that for a living rather than become a lawyer or doctor or something. There's no reason they ought to be denied access to trade classes because their schedules are filled with calculus and physics courses they'll never take further.

When it comes to education--particularly higher education--dedication and desire matters a hell of a lot more than inherent talents. "Tracking" students early on, when they aren't even fully developed, just leads to people being stuck doing things they don't want to do for a living.

 

Lol, you responded to a mild and nonconfrontational post in such an odd way. So quick to throw out the personal attacks. I must have struck a nerve.

 

You should try picking up a history book. Because Madison and Jefferson were the ones that created the Republican party as opposition to the federalists of Hamilton.

From the Wikipedia:
Madison and Thomas Jefferson organized what they called the Republican Party

Yes that posteriorly was known as Democrat-Republican party because from this party born the two parties that today we know. But even in that excissions the Republican party was liberal and even there was socialists.

But yeah, try to change the history

 

Ok...should I amend my statement to read "because our Government is administering it"?

I am not familiar with the Australian curriculum. I'm sure there are reasons why Australia is "beating" the US in education.

 

You shouldn't be so dogmatic when you're so factually incorrect. The Democrat Republican Party became the Democratic Party.

 

Correct. Granted, Thomas Jefferson, the Democratic-Republican Party's founder has similar principles to Ron Paul, a Republican, as well as to Libertarians, but his ideology in relation to the two major parties is the closest to the Democratic Party.

Furthermore, Kilgram is completely ignoring that the Republican Party was created in the 1854 by anti-slavery activists. These people were largely free soirees and ex-Whigs.

 

I have a very wealthy friend who made his money out of educational consulting for various American States and the U.N.

His opinion, based on twenty+ years of exposure to your public system, is that it is manure - and it produces people with manure for brains - we sometimes see their attempts at posts on this website.

His basic criticisms are:

1. The system is designed and financed to produce cheap compliant factory fodder. There is no real "education", in terms of developing critical independent research and critical thinking capabilities.

2. The teachers are badly paid, badly motivated, badly trained and generally reviled.

3. The system of school funding allows massive inequalities in standards and facilities to flourish.

4. The course content is delivered by standardised programmed instructional texts featuring multiple choice questions as "assessment". The teachers merely read their teaching guides at their class and go through the motions of ticking the boxes. If they don't tick all the boxes they are fired. There is no real education going on at all.

5. The high schools are much too large for there to be much individual teacher student interaction. Maximum size needs to be cut to around 1000 maximum.

To put that all another way, when asked about the quality of American public education, Greg just shakes his head and says an expletive or Two.

 

No. The Democrat-Republican party became divided in two parties, and one became the Democrat and the other the Republican. At least according to the culture book that I used for American Studies it was like that.

And I trust the source.

And more considering that the Republican party were formed by the ex-whigs, party that was formed by liberals and socialists, too.

 

I am not ignoring that fact. I know that. And now I mentioned this answering to the same comment that you answered. But the Whigs come from a division of the Democrat-REpublican Party, like the Democrats. The whigs of Henry Clay in opposition to the Democrats of Jackson.

Maybe I am not American but I've studied enough about USA.

 

Education is NOT the key to the future. Government policy makers should get this ridiculous notion out of their heads. Education is mostly being used by individuals to compete for limited good jobs. If one persone gets a better job by having a university degree, it will just mean that someone else without the degree will not get the job.

There are already not enough jobs for engineers and scientists. So the iminent problem is not education.

 

Exactly, but this has gone on a lot longer than No Child Left Behind. Schools should only focus on students who are above average. The students who are below average don't want to be there and don't want to learn, and there is no way to force them to learn. Standardized testing has gotten ridiculous. It is useful once in a while, but it is used way too often. There needs to be a lot more learning by doing.

 

No, not at all.

 

????

Education is compulsory. A society need the people well educated. Well informed. With high knowledge of the things. Education always will be the future. If not we will go back to Dark Ages, the Mediaeval times where the religion and the superstition ruled the world. I don't want to go so backwards where the ignorance was in the order of the day.

 

Foreign language is a waste of time. Force every other country to use English, and our education could become more efficient. Is there any point to learning foreign language in high school? The vast majority of people don't know which foreign language they are going to need, if any, at that age. Why should I be forced to learn Spanish because they are coming over to our country illegally?