As always, there is a plan to reform the educational system in the US…there always a plan….and as of yet there has been limited success…..it all looks good on paper but the students are the ones the suffer later in life…..I know, how can that be?
If Obama and the so called experts are right then education is the key to a better life for Americans….and is the answer to stopping the slide of our industrial base…..that is if they are correct….but how will they guarantee a better educational system?
President Barack Obama pledged early on to make improving America’s schools a priority, and changes he is proposing this week signal a much-needed overhaul of the nearly decade-old No Child Left Behind Act. Rather than doling out federal education aid based on the poverty level in a school district, as has been the practice for years, the Obama administration intends to distribute aid based on school systems’ willingness to reform.
Nick Anderson of the WaPo writes;
As legions of schools nationwide fall short of academic targets, the Obama administration proposed Monday to toss out the pass-fail measure that for 15 years has been the bedrock of the school accountability system and replace it with an index that would reward educators who prepare students for college and careers.
The shift, if approved by Congress, would force a wholesale rethinking of school testing standards eight years after enactment of the No Child Left Behind law put a spotlight on disparities in achievement among groups of students.
The changes would reach far into the classroom, potentially affecting how teachers prepare for annual state tests, which students get extra help and what subjects are taught.
Mr. Obama wants to preserve the overall goals of the Bush-era No Child Left Behind law, especially the idea that all students, regardless of their race or background or where they go to school, should be expected to succeed. But he also recognizes that the way some elements of the law have been implemented – such as the requirement to make “adequate yearly progress” – has diverted education policy toward a numbers game that is overly reliant on test scores, which may or may not provide an accurate measure of how well students are learning.
Under the current system, bad schools can escape with few sanctions, while those that are forced to reconstitute themselves often get very little support to do so. And the lack of nuance in the testing system can make a chronically failing school appear nearly indistinguishable from a high-achieving school that simply is having a bad year.
Okay with all that said I want to voice a concern of mine…….for years of lecturing and talking with students I have seen an amazing thing happening…..what, Professor?……students as a whole are dumber than a rotten turnip……recently students did not know who the first prez of the US was….or just where Afghanistan was located on a map…….or the Law of Diminishing returns…..or even how the US budget process was approached….my point is something is sadly missing in the education of American kids….
The problem as I see it….the kids retain info longer enough to take a test and then it is forgotten……we have a comprehension problem….students do not comprehend the subjects they are taught….they retain it to take tests and make the grade so school can get its pat on the back and its Fed funds…..sorry that is NOT teaching kids….that is programming them!
As always, they will blame the teachers for any problems that reforms face……it is always the teachers fault…..that is because there are so many “bad” teachers (this is sarcasm)……..it is more like another attempt to break the hold of teacher’s unions….the kids suffer from really poor education just to break a union……
The whole test score thing is just bullsh*t……a way to educate kids needs to be found….they have had enough programming……absurdity has long been the reaction to education……all plans as they are now have been a failure at educating the kids….but they keep using the same failed process over and over…it is like they do not want the kids to have adequate knowledge
Yeah, well – good post! It’s actually a chicken and egg situation, isn’t it? Which came first… bad government with bad society, or bad education with bad people? A vicious circle indeed…
I believe the problems faced by schools are far more fundamental than a bit of tinkering. I should say I don’t know a HUGE amount about the American education system, but from what I’ve seen, read and heard, it’s not dissimilar from the UK and suffers from many of the same problems.
Society is, in many ways (and just like government and the economic situation for ordinary people), going down the tubes. As a result, children and young people are more disaffected than ever. We are told we should respect them (the young) regardless of the fact that they don’t respect us (the adults) – just like politicians and people.
Given the desire to educate kids properly, the minute big government with all its bureaucracy becomes involved in something (anything) like that, it becomes more about numbers, targets – statistics in fact – than people and, utterly predictably, those involved spend far more time “playing the game” than actually doing anything useful.
If you want to improve things, you have to scrap political correctness, scrap all involvement by schools in targets and statistics and begin to select teachers who can actually TEACH (which is NOT a given just because they are qualified). Above all, though, you have to tell the kids they’d better turn up, behave properly, obey the rules and teachers’ interpretation of them and at least endeavour to learn, or you’re going to knock seven kinds of shit out of them… and, very occasionaly and in the worse cases, you have to make good on that threat in order to prove you mean it.
Excluding or suspending students and similar punishments from school as a major (only?) final sanction is purely a bureaucratic device! Except in very rare circumstances, it does NOTHING at all to help the situation and may actually make it worse! That’s for the very simple reason that the children themselves can (and do) figure out, but the jerks in power apparently can’t – only the basically GOOD kids give a shit about it, whilst it is EXACTLY what the minority of disproportionately disruptive assholes want!
We are LOSING the young and it’s OUR fault for allowing it to happen!
I agree….here in the US we have lost the kids to the point that there are special ed companies that help the kid learn reading, math, etc….I was under the impression that was what schools were suppose to do….maybe I was mistaken….
I agree: good post, Lobotero.
Blaming the teachers for any problems that reforms face, might not be that far off: the teacher is the key to successful change in education.
“The change outcome is explained almost completely by commitment of the teacher,” David P. Crandall said already in 1982 (see: http://bit.ly/9MtMvq)
So, Quin, the beginning is indeed selecting teachers who can actually TEACH, that are willing to cooperate, to accept outside support & expertise and ready to roll up their sleeves.
Bert
http://bertmaes.wordpress.com
About the future of manufacturing education
Welcome Bert and thanx for the comment….it is sad that we need corporations like Sylvan to teach our children……
I agree, as I said, and i stand by it. But, when that assessment was made in 1982, there were still students who would and could study. Since then, excellence has gone to the wall in favour of good stats that mean damn all and a politically correct attitude that has seen crime and horrific behaviour by a significant minority of highly disrruptive young people soar both in school and outside.
The worst thing though is probably the loss of support for teachers by many parents. That in my view is largely because we are now teaching (or trying to) the children of the children who grew up believing the world owed them a living.
Good education is a three way partnership between teachers, parents and the students themselves – if you don’t have that, you have nothing.
Excellence means nothing any more to many, as does decency, personal responsibility, good manners and integrity. But then, when the example set by leades such as politicians is what we have today, what else should we expect?
I will agree about the three way street—I think that the fact that most families have to have two incomes to survive is another problem…that gives less time for the parent involvement–sad to say that society is NO longer decent, responsible, lacks manners and there is NO integrity….and you are right the kids klearn this from an early age……but is there an adequate answer?
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