Education Reform

[Colleen Thomas]

Colly,

Wanted to address something you said a couple pages back...

I don't think it's teachers who see there job as "socializers" but the administrators who see socialization as more important that the classroom. This may come from the encouragment of some parents who know that their liddos are not graded on Homecoming week.

Teachers, as a rule, have a certain amount of ground to cover in a given class and find it nearly impossible to get it done with the administrators dragging the kids out for "social" events.

If the government, which requires students to be in school for 180 days a year, were to investigate the amount of time that was spent "outside" the classroom, maybe a lot of this crap would stop.

I'm talking teams that have to travel getting out two, three hours early to go to a game as well. Stuff like that is hard to make right even if the teacher can make the time to make it up.

The socialization of the classroom is sacrificed for the socialization of everything else.

But I really don't think it's the teachers to blame.

I have a cousin who married a school teacher. When their kids reched school age, she quit her job and is homeschooling them.

According to her, they aren't even trying any more. Kids cannot fail or be held back. teachers have absolutely no means of enforcing even a modicum of discipline. Classesa re arranged to meet standards of ehtnic diversity, but in doing so ignore the different levels of proficency the kids in them have demonstrated. rather than holding all students to a higher standard, the cirriculum is dumbed down more every year to accomodate those who haven't already achieved what they should have in previous grades but were socially promoted.

It could well be, that she was just the victim of a bad school or a bad school system, but the impression I got from her was that this is endemic and not just an abberation.

 

[eric shawn listo]

I have a cousin who married a school teacher. When their kids reched school age, she quit her job and is homeschooling them.

According to her, they aren't even trying any more. Kids cannot fail or be held back. teachers have absolutely no means of enforcing even a modicum of discipline. Classesa re arranged to meet standards of ehtnic diversity, but in doing so ignore the different levels of proficency the kids in them have demonstrated. rather than holding all students to a higher standard, the cirriculum is dumbed down more every year to accomodate those who haven't already achieved what they should have in previous grades but were socially promoted.

It could well be, that she was just the victim of a bad school or a bad school system, but the impression I got from her was that this is endemic and not just an abberation.

I don't doubt that goes on. And does in my wife's district. The middle school does nothing to prepare them for High School. We hope a new principal this year will help that.

Disipline is a huge problem. NCLB requires that if a student is suspended, the teachers must gather their work and send it home to the student on a daily basis. Hence more work for the teacher and the offending student gets exactly what they want--to stay home and have their lives delivered to them. Suspension no longer has any bad vibe about it: it's a vacation. Plus, in many cases, parents get free babysitting for a week or two.

Parents also take their kids out of school at whim with no regard being given to the 180 days they must spend in school.

If you miss 10 days of a given course, even with excuses, you must flunk that course. This is rarely enforced.

It is so easy for our kids today to get a high school diploma and know nothing that it's a crime.

But once out the administrators can wipe their hands and go on to the next bunch.

I've rarely seen a teacher who didn't want to teach even the most reprehensible student something. That can be more rewarding that teaching the A student.

 

[Sex and Death]

Good Christ.

Amicus 2.


My apologies, please SD. I did find your previous post to be amazingly pretentious. Glaringly so, and rather than becoming offended and posting in anger I resorted to humor. That is quite typical of me, as I tend to use Literotica and the Author's Hangout as an escape from the stresses of my collegiate studies and family life.

But when someone actually uses the term "histrionics" when discussing the behavior of women (and endorses the use of ellipses) I realize that ami has finally located a soulmate, a confidante.

The AH may never be the same.

Sarahh,

No apologies necessary. I'm sure you'll be reprimanded by the appropriate authority if you are in need.

Frued's first book was essentially a joke book...describing how we humans use humour and sarcasm to cover our particular sensitivities. I am not a Freudian, so I hop emy mention of his name will not invite the usual criticisms of his work and life due to my association. And, while Freud is present, it is becuas eof him that w ehave the term "histrionic," which essentially means "wandering womb," and is the word form which we get "hysteria."

My post was pretty damn pretentious, yes. I cover my own anger with elitest pretention sometimes, even glaring pretention. I have found this site to be really clique-ish and full of many self-absorbed folks, and it has partly been my initial experience that when I offer a kick in the butt it is acknowledged, while if I approach with less gusto I am given the cold shoulder.

That said, I offered my story and I'm stickin' to it. I'm deeply passionate about true education (having found my own true education path despite public and private schooling). My wife and I homeschool our children, and I am grateful to be able to give them an opportunity I wish I would have had as a child.

Actually, I'm generally deeply passionate, clear about my psoition(s) and inorinately stubborn...so it seems I fit in around here pretty well, from what I can tell.

I appreciate the extra effort you made in providing the yielding and opening that you did for me to come down to earth a bit.

SD

 

[oggbashan]

Is compulsory education a problem?

My parents were educated under the 1870 Education Act in the UK. That was the first to provide universal education. They, and their siblings, were well aware that they were receiving education that their parents could not have afforded and were determined to make the most of the opportunity despite the systems of rote learning and large classes.

Most parents at that time saw education as a means of self-improvement that might mean that their children would have more opportunities than their parents had. Although some parents didn't know how to support their children's education, there seemed to have been a concensus that education was a good thing to have. Compulsory education ceased at age 14.

My parents went on to study at Workmen's Institutes and through the Worker's Education Association, gaining knowledge and specific qualifications that benefitted them directly in terms of promotion and increased pay.

My father, an international telegraphist, found that his pay would be increased by sixpence a week for each language he could use at work beyond English. He managed, by study at evening classes, to qualify for the maximum of five languages and an extra two shillings and sixpence a week. Those qualifications altered the direction of his career significantly (a long story) but he was pleased to say that his pension was two thousand and five hundred pounds a year more than it might have been just because of the cumulative effect of those half-a-crowns a week.

The point is that there was a direct and visible link between education and earnings. That was a considerable incentive to study.

One of my uncles earned his siblings' disapproval because he refused to undertake additional studies for his career, instead using the time to learn musical instruments and how to dance. He was seen as the grasshopper who didn't prepare for winter. However, despite his much more limited earnings, he enjoyed life to the full as an amateur musician (and expert womaniser until he married his dancing partner). He was the exception who didn't value education except to develop his music.

Now UK pupils are encouraged to attain qualifications that they know employers do not value. Even if they go to university, attracting considerable debt in the process, they have no assurance that their degree will get them better employment or a future career than if they had not gone. The financial incentive to study has been removed. It is no longer possible for children from poor families to expect that education will improve their status significantly.

When a school class has a significant proportion of pupils who know that all they face at the end of their compulsory education is either permanent unemployment or a succession of menial jobs on the minimum wage, the teacher struggles to inspire any love of learning in the face of pupils' indifference and parental apathy.

If the parents value education and encourage learning then even less able children are likely to learn. If the parents know that nothing they do will get their children a better deal than they have - is it surprising that the pupils give up?

Og

 

[Selena_Kitt]

If the government, which requires students to be in school for 180 days a year, were to investigate the amount of time that was spent "outside" the classroom, maybe a lot of this crap would stop.

Public schools actually waste a huge amount of time... student/teacher ratio has a lot to do with that... block scheduling helps (kids who don't change classes so often, and it provides better continuity)... and of course, the teacher is dealing with 25-40 students, all at different levels, with different abilities... makes a teacher's job nearly impossible, if you ask me... I don't blame the teacher at all... most teachers go into the field with good intentions... they are working in a system that makes it impossible for them to really do a good job for all of their students... it must suck

edited to add: That said... I've known several people (myself included, at one time) who spent time in education courses... being taught how to teach, surrounded by other future teachers... and time after time, these student-teachers and their instructors were more concerned with "what was going to be on the exam" and what was "the most efficient way to complete lesson plans in only one period" than how a child's natural and inherent love of learning is cultivated and encouraged. To a person, these student-teachers stated "job security in the field, decent pay, and summers off" as their motivation for pursuing careers in teaching. I've heard people say teachers are 'experts' in their fields, those who are passionate about their subjects... but what teachers are actually teaching the subjects they're interested in? What teachers are "allowed" to teach fully those subjects that passionately interest them? What teachers are NOT bound by the school's "curriculum," which is chosen not by educators, not by parents, and certainly not by children, but by big business-- by a corporate world whose objective is to create and sell the slickest and most expensive textbooks that will reinforce compliance with that worker bee mentality they need to breed more consumers.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

My parents were educated under the 1870 Education Act in the UK. That was the first to provide universal education. They, and their siblings, were well aware that they were receiving education that their parents could not have afforded and were determined to make the most of the opportunity despite the systems of rote learning and large classes.

Most parents at that time saw education as a means of self-improvement that might mean that their children would have more opportunities than their parents had. Although some parents didn't know how to support their children's education, there seemed to have been a concensus that education was a good thing to have. Compulsory education ceased at age 14.

My parents went on to study at Workmen's Institutes and through the Worker's Education Association, gaining knowledge and specific qualifications that benefitted them directly in terms of promotion and increased pay.

My father, an international telegraphist, found that his pay would be increased by sixpence a week for each language he could use at work beyond English. He managed, by study at evening classes, to qualify for the maximum of five languages and an extra two shillings and sixpence a week. Those qualifications altered the direction of his career significantly (a long story) but he was pleased to say that his pension was two thousand and five hundred pounds a year more than it might have been just because of the cumulative effect of those half-a-crowns a week.

The point is that there was a direct and visible link between education and earnings. That was a considerable incentive to study.

One of my uncles earned his siblings' disapproval because he refused to undertake additional studies for his career, instead using the time to learn musical instruments and how to dance. He was seen as the grasshopper who didn't prepare for winter. However, despite his much more limited earnings, he enjoyed life to the full as an amateur musician (and expert womaniser until he married his dancing partner). He was the exception who didn't value education except to develop his music.

Now UK pupils are encouraged to attain qualifications that they know employers do not value. Even if they go to university, attracting considerable debt in the process, they have no assurance that their degree will get them better employment or a future career than if they had not gone. The financial incentive to study has been removed. It is no longer possible for children from poor families to expect that education will improve their status significantly.

When a school class has a significant proportion of pupils who know that all they face at the end of their compulsory education is either permanent unemployment or a succession of menial jobs on the minimum wage, the teacher struggles to inspire any love of learning in the face of pupils' indifference and parental apathy.

If the parents value education and encourage learning then even less able children are likely to learn. If the parents know that nothing they do will get their children a better deal than they have - is it surprising that the pupils give up?

Og

In my home state, they require at least a HS diploma and give preferential treatment to anyone with at least two years of higher education in the county dot. that job is basically ditch digger/flagman for the heavy equiptment.

If they give preferential treatment to those who attended college, even for purely manual jobs, it would seem an education is probably going to help you in any career.

Of course there are also thousands of McJobs. that only require you can ask "do you want fries with that?"

 

[sophia jane]

Check out this article

 

[cantdog]

Let me also add that many of the teachers and administrators of our "educational" institutions enter into their callings with passion and hope, but they are more often than not crushed under the same grindstone as the students in the system.

A lovely discussion of what's been wrong with public education, but it addresses something outside the scope of my point in the post you referred to.

I was arguing, in that post and in the one following it, that scrapping public education is the wrong response, whatever might be its difficulty of the moment. Rather, I was saying, we must fix it. Alternatives would likely be driven by each their own agenda, well-meaning or no. Private corporate-run schools are being tried, now, by doctrinaire privatizers, for example. You may certainly imagine what they would have for a product. Then there are hardshell Baptists, Pentecostals, and the Church of the Living God, Pillar and Ground of Truth. Not a substitute. There are also fine schools, none of which has a history as long as public education, and any of which might be gone next year. I taught in one. Folded. Money problems.

The mix of alternatives you see locally, at the moment, may actually be better than the public system has been. But the proper course is to fix the public system.

Corporate schools, religious schools, none of them has the access, at the policy level, that public ones do. Many kinds of bias are already excluded, in organs of the government, by the constitution. They may not be partisan, support a religion, discriminate racially, and so on. Private schools are gray areas in discrimination cases, religious content, and whatnot. You have some chance of influencing the public ones, though.

Public schools, as someone already said here on the thread, began to ensure an informed and educated citizenry. Sure, they aren't bothering with that now, but you do not therefore scrap the idea.

What's wrong with the schools didn't appear in the post, because I wasn't actually discussing the specific failures of them.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Check out this article

Frightening news. You can add to that the assessment of the ACT exam's administering company: that only 24% of students graduating high school had the skills necessary to succeed in college in the three measured core competencies (English, math, science). If that's shocking, try this for horrifying: 74% of them will be going on to either a two-year or four-year college - or attempting to.

 

[sophia jane]

Frightening news. You can add to that the assessment of the ACT exam's administering company: that only 24% of students graduating high school had the skills necessary to succeed in college in the three measured core competencies (English, math, science). If that's shocking, try this for horrifying: 74% of them will be going on to either a two-year or four-year college - or attempting to.

For a paper I'm writing, I had to look into the Census Bureau's data on educational attainment. Only 80% of Americans have a high school degree or GED. Less than 30% of Americans, in all age groups this is true, get their bachelor's degree.
Scary scary stuff, when you put all of it together.

 

[BlackShanglan]

For a paper I'm writing, I had to look into the Census Bureau's data on educational attainment. Only 80% of Americans have a high school degree or GED. Less than 30% of Americans, in all age groups this is true, get their bachelor's degree.
Scary scary stuff, when you put all of it together.

*nods* That's the last piece of the ACT stats - that 75% of the current graduating class would be attempting some form of higher education, but only about 25% were predicated to graduate with a 2-year degree within 4 years or with a 4-year degree within 6.

 

[sophia jane]

*nods* That's the last piece of the ACT stats - that 75% of the current graduating class would be attempting some form of higher education, but only about 25% were predicated to graduate with a 2-year degree within 4 years or with a 4-year degree within 6.

Yeah. This is especially true for women. The percentage of women getting their degree by age 25 is higher than the percentage of men, but after age 25 the numbers of women start dropping off and the numbers for men stay fairly steady.
edit- that was true in 2000; just rechecked my data and the 2004 showed good signs for women. 32 percent of women between 25-34 had a bachelor's degree, which is a nice lead over men of the same age group.

 

[cantdog]

*nods* That's the last piece of the ACT stats - that 75% of the current graduating class would be attempting some form of higher education, but only about 25% were predicated to graduate with a 2-year degree within 4 years or with a 4-year degree within 6.

They aren't required to, from the point if view of the colleges. Colleges need money, and they collect it even from failed students. This is not a new idea. I believe colleges lowered entrance requirements on purpose, for the money. I began college in 1970. Freshman dorms held four students per room. They knew they'd be down to two per room by the end of the year.

 

[Weird Harold]

For a paper I'm writing, I had to look into the Census Bureau's data on educational attainment. Only 80% of Americans have a high school degree or GED. Less than 30% of Americans, in all age groups this is true, get their bachelor's degree.
Scary scary stuff, when you put all of it together.

Why is that scary?

I think one of the major problems with "Education" today is the emphasis on obtaining degrees rather than obtaining knowledge. Both within the educational system and in the "job market" it supports.

Before we can effectively reform education, we need to decide just what an "education" is supposed to accomplish. We need to define what MINIMUM set of knowledge and/or skills consitute the definition of "literate" or "educated."

For example, "Peer Promotion" is more concerned about keeping students with their "peers" than with what they have learned -- concerned with awarding them the "degree" to advance them over whether the "degree" says anything about their level of knowledge or skill.

Public schools should be aimed at ensuring the MINIMUM standards are met without inhibiting the ability to go beyond the minimums for those so inclined.

The current philosphy seems to consider only increasing the percentage of "above average" achievement instead of increasing the percentage of "above minimums."

Standardized Testing is a necessary part of standardizing education -- IF the right tests are used in the right manner. Sadly, the politicians who are pushing the testing provisions of NCLB don't understand the difference between tests designed to determine who is best educated and tests designed to determine who has learned at least the minimum required. They should not be using SAT and ACT and similar tests to evaluae schools, they should be using a test more like a driver's license test.

A driver's license isn't awarded based on how much you know or on how you score relative to others; A driver's license is awarded because you can demonstrate 80-90% comprehension of the minimum knowledge and skill required to be considered a competent driver. It doesn't matter how much more knowledgeable or skilled you are, the testing is aimed only at sorting out the incompetent from the competent.

Public/Mandatory schooling should accomplish just two things:

1: Provide the knowledge and skills required to be a functional member of a literate, technological society.

2: Provide a common foundation for further education beyond the mandatory minimums for those inclined to pursue higher education.

 

[Sex and Death]

A lovely discussion of what's been wrong with public education, but it addresses something outside the scope of my point in the post you referred to.

I was arguing, in that post and in the one following it, that scrapping public education is the wrong response, whatever might be its difficulty of the moment. Rather, I was saying, we must fix it. Alternatives would likely be driven by each their own agenda, well-meaning or no. Private corporate-run schools are being tried, now, by doctrinaire privatizers, for example. You may certainly imagine what they would have for a product. Then there are hardshell Baptists, Pentecostals, and the Church of the Living God, Pillar and Ground of Truth. Not a substitute. There are also fine schools, none of which has a history as long as public education, and any of which might be gone next year. I taught in one. Folded. Money problems.

The mix of alternatives you see locally, at the moment, may actually be better than the public system has been. But the proper course is to fix the public system.

Corporate schools, religious schools, none of them has the access, at the policy level, that public ones do. Many kinds of bias are already excluded, in organs of the government, by the constitution. They may not be partisan, support a religion, discriminate racially, and so on. Private schools are gray areas in discrimination cases, religious content, and whatnot. You have some chance of influencing the public ones, though.

Public schools, as someone already said here on the thread, began to ensure an informed and educated citizenry. Sure, they aren't bothering with that now, but you do not therefore scrap the idea.

What's wrong with the schools didn't appear in the post, because I wasn't actually discussing the specific failures of them.

I believe you were defending public education as just what "we" all need in order to form the kind of republic that "we" all want. I believe your well-meaning patriotism and hopefulness is exacerbating the problem of our education system.

At the end of the day, it seems we simply disagree. I feel you are beating a dead horse by even attempting to fix our current education system and that the country and culture would be better served if the system died. Although, I admire your desire to do the best that can be done with what there is to work with.

 

[Sex and Death]

I think it important to remember what the current public education system was developed to replace. That is not the world of the private tutor and liberal arts college enjoyed by the wealthy elite of earlier days, but the apprenticeship system to which the rest of the world was consigned.

Our education system, for good or for bad, was never designed to "educate" in the sense of opening every door and encouraging individualism, artistic endeavor, and creativity. It was designed to prepare people for the workforce, and to do so with sufficient flexibility that they didn't end up following the example of the various skilled tradesmen dropped into instant poverty by the industrialization of their trades. Before we criticize it too harshly, I think we'd do well to recognize that it has to date been very successful at that goal. Given the astonishing rate of technological progress in the last hundred years, a system that has avoided creating whole masses of people who spent years learning trades that vanished overnight is actually an impressive accomplishment.

I love the arts. I love creativity. I love individualism and all of its strange, beautiful, and quixotic little fruits. However, I also recognize this -and I take it from the lips of no less than Oscar Wilde, the decadent of decadents: "Everything must be paid for." Whether we like the idea of being slaves to a wage for the rest of our lives or not, we will all need to eat. We will all need to have shelter. We will, most of us, need to work to gain those things. An educational system that fits us for those roles is not inherently a cruel imposition of oppressive power; it's something that allows us the freedom of not starving while we decide what we would like to do with our lives. All other freedoms come from the freedom to stay alive; an education that does not fit us out for that, fits us out for nothing. Even those who most ardently wish to change the economic system - and more power to them! - will first need to live within it.

Let me suggest this. Allow the schools to do what they can by nature do well. What they can do well is teach basic skills and prepare people for the pragmatic and material world. And what schools cannot do well - because they are poorly funded, or because they cannot create a different lesson for every student, or because no one can agree on what other elements they ought to teach - let us do in our homes, as people have done for centuries without the help of the government. Encourage free thought and debate. Introduce your children to the arts. Turn off the television and try learning the bodhran or the biwa. Supply the social graces that are important to you, and they will be important to your child.

I agree, the system has been very successful at its goal. The goal was faulty to begin with.

You also do quite an articulate job of trying to please all involved. You are a natural diplomat.

I believe that an apprenticeship model would far better serve our best goals and values as a country and culture.

 

[Pure]

question for sd

I feel you are beating a dead horse by even attempting to fix our current education system and that the country and culture would be better served if the system died.

i don't think it would at all be a good idea if free [tax supported] public education up to grade 12 'died.'

ADDED: there is nothing wrong with the goal of having, say 95% of American young people able to read at gr 9 level, i.e. a newspaper, or the directions for assembling a stereo system, or 'prompts' from Windows, and at bank machines.

there are many crucial aspects of the system that would have to 'die' for it to regain effectiveness. some are well known: the regular HS diploma should mean something by way of reading, writing, math, and computer skills. IF all are going to pass, let the non-literate receive a
'basic certificate for gr 12', which shows attendance, doing homework, and, let's say, 'literacy' to at least grade 6.

ADDED: I agree with sd that apprenticeship should be offered; its completion should be with a vocation-specific diploma,e.g., in carpentry, which also requires, say, at least gr 9 literacy.

a neighborhood school must NOT be funded simply by the neighborhood. that is killing many schools. state and federal funding (and planning) have to play a part.

the mindless 'taxcutters of social and educations programs' have done their deeds, and that, together with the structural funding problems has help make this mess.

the nations that seem to have 'successful' schooling, like Finland and Japan show certain clear patterns, including national prioritization of hs education.

 

[rgraham666]

Sigh.

"Let's bring the 12th Century back. It was wonderful. So much better than today."

That's what I'm hearing.

 

[oggbashan]

The nations that seem to have 'successful' schooling, like Finland and Japan show certain clear patterns, including national prioritization of hs education.

There is also a cultural prioritisation of education.

In inner-city schools in the UK, the culture and religion of the parents can significantly influence the pupils' achievements. If the parents value education then their children will succeed if everything else is equal, even in a poor school.

Og

PS. Yahoo UK is reporting that ONLY 75% of French people can understand English. If the survey had been of British or US citizens, what percentage would understand any foreign language?

 

[amicus]

It never ceases to amuse and amaze me. Were I to say to you: I will tax your property, all your property, even if you do not have children, even if you are too old to have children, even if you cannot produce a child, I will tax you anyway and not for a small amount either.

Further, should you be stupid enough to have children, then, at an age I choose, I will force you to send that child to a school of my choosing. I will pick the exact time the child must arrive and depart, I will determine where he sits, how he sit, what he eats and drinks and when. I will insist upon acceptable clothing and cleanliness and behaviour.

Then, I will teach him what I choose, in the manner I choose and determine his success or failure by my methods. You must have my permission to even visit the child while I am teaching him and special permission if the child is to be absent for even one hour in the schedule I have set for him.

You will have no control over the content of his education, you will have no control over those he goes to school with and no control over what habits I choose to instill in the child.

No matter what your complaint, I will teach your child to be tolerant of all racial and ethnic differences, I will teach your child sexual and gender equality and from a very early age, teach your child about his sexuality and health and sanitation of his body because you as a parent are too stupid to realize the importance of this education.

I will also teach your child the evils of the system he lives in, emphasizing personal sacrifice for the good of society over individual selfishness, and guide your child along successful lines of thinking so that he may become a productive citizen.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

For those of you who like to use the word 'mandatory', I wish you had a clue as to the meaning of the word.


Gads, next you will be advocating 'mandatory' public service to prune your prissy pristine wilderness and why not conscription in the slim chance there is another 'free' people out there somewhere that you wish to 'manditorily' bring under control.

Such an innocent thing, isn't it? Public education, who'dathunkit was so dangerous?

amicus...

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Frightening news. You can add to that the assessment of the ACT exam's administering company: that only 24% of students graduating high school had the skills necessary to succeed in college in the three measured core competencies (English, math, science). If that's shocking, try this for horrifying: 74% of them will be going on to either a two-year or four-year college - or attempting to.

If you really want to feel worried there is this. the ACT science/history section is over 50% pure reading comprehension. You read passages and answer them. only the last few questions in the section are gneral knowledge questions

 

[Selena_Kitt]

Such an innocent thing, isn't it? Public education, who'dathunkit was so dangerous?

see, Ami, told you I agree with you more often than not

 

[Sex and Death]

I feel you are beating a dead horse by even attempting to fix our current education system and that the country and culture would be better served if the system died.

i don't think it would at all be a good idea if free [tax supported] public education up to grade 12 'died.'

ADDED: there is nothing wrong with the goal of having, say 95% of American young people able to read at gr 9 level, i.e. a newspaper, or the directions for assembling a stereo system, or 'prompts' from Windows, and at bank machines.

there are many crucial aspects of the system that would have to 'die' for it to regain effectiveness. some are well known: the regular HS diploma should mean something by way of reading, writing, math, and computer skills. IF all are going to pass, let the non-literate receive a
'basic certificate for gr 12', which shows attendance, doing homework, and, let's say, 'literacy' to at least grade 6.

ADDED: I agree with sd that apprenticeship should be offered; its completion should be with a vocation-specific diploma,e.g., in carpentry, which also requires, say, at least gr 9 literacy.

a neighborhood school must NOT be funded simply by the neighborhood. that is killing many schools. state and federal funding (and planning) have to play a part.

the mindless 'taxcutters of social and educations programs' have done their deeds, and that, together with the structural funding problems has help make this mess.

the nations that seem to have 'successful' schooling, like Finland and Japan show certain clear patterns, including national prioritization of hs education.

Pure,

Why do you feel that reading, writing and 'rithmetic must be taught in a system such as we have now?

I do not cotton to your idea of what an apprenticeship system looks like.

State and federal funding are the means by which our education system has been designed to fail.

I am glad you used quotations for "successful" schools, like Finland and Japan. "Success" can be defined many different ways.

SD

 

[Sex and Death]

It never ceases to amuse and amaze me. Were I to say to you: I will tax your property, all your property, even if you do not have children, even if you are too old to have children, even if you cannot produce a child, I will tax you anyway and not for a small amount either.

Further, should you be stupid enough to have children, then, at an age I choose, I will force you to send that child to a school of my choosing. I will pick the exact time the child must arrive and depart, I will determine where he sits, how he sit, what he eats and drinks and when. I will insist upon acceptable clothing and cleanliness and behaviour.

Then, I will teach him what I choose, in the manner I choose and determine his success or failure by my methods. You must have my permission to even visit the child while I am teaching him and special permission if the child is to be absent for even one hour in the schedule I have set for him.

You will have no control over the content of his education, you will have no control over those he goes to school with and no control over what habits I choose to instill in the child.

No matter what your complaint, I will teach your child to be tolerant of all racial and ethnic differences, I will teach your child sexual and gender equality and from a very early age, teach your child about his sexuality and health and sanitation of his body because you as a parent are too stupid to realize the importance of this education.

I will also teach your child the evils of the system he lives in, emphasizing personal sacrifice for the good of society over individual selfishness, and guide your child along successful lines of thinking so that he may become a productive citizen.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

For those of you who like to use the word 'mandatory', I wish you had a clue as to the meaning of the word.


Gads, next you will be advocating 'mandatory' public service to prune your prissy pristine wilderness and why not conscription in the slim chance there is another 'free' people out there somewhere that you wish to 'manditorily' bring under control.

Such an innocent thing, isn't it? Public education, who'dathunkit was so dangerous?

amicus...

This post should be mandatory reading! <grin>

 

[Sex and Death]

Sigh.

"Let's bring the 12th Century back. It was wonderful. So much better than today."

That's what I'm hearing.

Sounds good to me...the 12th century carried the beginning of the neoplatonic rebirth that flowered in the Renaissance, an age of true education in the deepest sense of the word.