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:) Smiley
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USCA, Berkeley
Feb 2001
time: 21:36
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From my experience in a New Jersey public school system, the major causes are as follows:
1. Anti-learning culture "it's not cool to be smart", lack of government or private recognition of intellectuals. I took a business class in high school, and there were people in the class who thought that sports players made more money than corporate executives. Incidentally, "sports marketing" was part of the curriculum.
2. Dumbed down one size fits all standards, in large part caused by small size of school districts. My town had a single high school with just over 1,000 people. Only in the last few years did the county finally open a science high school. Since the local district sets curriculum, there's a limit to what a small staff can do.
3. Inverse relationship between intelligence and number of children a person has.
- - - - - - - -
At college, however, things get better, since the first two factors are negated.
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Sikander
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Boulder, Colorado, United Snakes of America
Jan 2000
time: 22:36
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quote:
Originally posted by Ted Striker
More blaming the people on the job.  |
Oh there's no doubt that the quality of teachers has gone down since the 1950s. They're more educated, but the value of that education has diminished greatly. Moreover they aren't as intelligent / simply not the best and brightest on the whole. Back when teaching was one of the few professions that women were allowed to pursue the women who today are doctors, professors, lawyers etc. were often teachers. If we want that quality again we're going to have to pay dearly, or re-enslave women.
quote:
Originally posted by Ted Striker
I disagree wholeheartedly. The expectation may be higher, but the incidents of broken homes are much higher than they used to be, parental involvement is in the crapper, and now alot of the kids are drugged up on something. |
Take a little bit longer view Ted. Everyone of my grandmother's siblings (all 9 of them) had to quit school during the depression in order to work. Otherwise they'd starve. Malnutrition was rife at that time, and not uncommon until rather recently. In the earlier part of the 20th century the immigration rates were staggering, which meant that there were huge numbers of kids who didn't speak english as their first language compared to today. The average level of education of the parents of schoolchildren was also quite low. And don't think that there weren't plenty of other social problems back then as well. Substance abuse, abandonment, incest etc. were all going on, but no one went to spill their guts to Montel about it.
quote:
Originally posted by Ted Striker
Standardized testing has always been used in the classroom.
However, the problem, now, is that it has become so huge that it has replaced actual teaching with teaching students to take tests.
Teachers are complaining that they no longer get time to actually teach. |
Which falls somewhere between hysterical teachers trying to get rid of "no child left behind" by overstating the impacts of the state testing (while others don't seem to be particularly impacted), and disingenuous Republicans trying to destroy teachers unions by making the penalties for failing schools arbitrary and unduly punative.
I mean really, how much time does it take to learn how to take a test? How complicated can it be? Of course if the test if a good one and actually tests exactly how much of the curriculum the student is familiar with, then one could teach that every minute of every day. In such a case, "teaching to the test" would also be teaching the curriculum, which is the point of the whole thing in the first place.
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Dr Strangelove
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I think you'll find that when educational surveys are done in the US a broader segment of the population is tested. The educational systems in many European countries segregate students whom perform better on tests from those who don't, shunting the poorer performers towards a less academic education. When those countries select students to take international educational surveys, they only test the students in the academic programs. In the US we don't segregate students, in fact even "intellectually disadvantaged" students are required by law to be educated in the same schools as the mainstream if at all possible. Hence when American students are selected a wider range is selected from.
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17-03-2005 13:22
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