Any serious effort to deal with behavior problems will be “racist”.
The American Education system, like many other Liberal run institutions, is not about educating students. It’s first and foremost about employing teachers and feeding the Unions. The second objective is the money. “Education” is a cash cow and low hanging fruit for the government to collect more because it is always “for the children”.
Finally, they need to show some minor improvement (but not too much) so they can point to the affect of their efforts. They do this by constantly changing the way their efforts are scored and/or graded. There is no baseline so we measure against the world in some semi-objective comparison.
Notice that there is never any discussion about how important history is. It is the basis of our constitutional self governance and it doesn’t get “tested”.
Way more than 1/2 of American students are below average.....
This is a surprise? The shift in dollars away from education has been a steady straight line consistent with the raising of poverty entitlements. According to the Weekly Standard, New data compiled by the Senate Budget Committee shows that, last year, the United States spent over $60,000 to support welfare programs per each household that is in poverty. The calculations are based on data from the Census, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Congressional Research Services. The liberal side of the house, doesn’t see this as a problem trend because they see this as a way to aid in their continued efforts to keep control of government by dumbing down the capacity of the graduating(?) young adults and by teaching the use of entitlements thus increasing their dependence on the politicians and their dollar eating programs. What you’re seeing now is the accumulation of the effort starting in the 60’s with the invention of programs like AFDC, which finally peaked in the mid 70’s, and food stamps which were invented in 1964 with the food stamp act. So this isn’t a trend, it’s a planned out effort.
red
There’s a chronic problem in education for a couple of simple reasons:
Break up of the family and legitimate family values, and a failure to honor God.
Both Mon and Dad need to take responsibility to create a strong family unit and religious upbringing - all by example, of course.
We landed a man on the moon with chalkboards, textbooks, and slide rules. Money is not the problem, nor has it ever been.
He means that the "adequate funding" provided by Federal, state, and local taxpayers has vanished into political patronage jobs, political patronage contracting/sourcing, and outright theft at every level.
Most of them probably can't read Proust or Jane Austen, either. Many young persons graduating with degrees in the liberal arts (with or without debt) haven't spent their college years studying the great (or even pretty good) works of the Western literary tradition. They've been in leftist indoctrination programs.
This same subject comes up every two weeks or so on Free Republic.
The responses are also the same.
“They’re teaching worthless subjects and handing out worthless degrees! These kids need more math and science!”
OK. How are we going to get more of them to study math and science?
Are the problems we now face caused because of a lack of math and science education?
If we sat every student down at a desk with a gun at their head and made them study math and science for 18 years, would all of our problems be solved?
This is a conservative site, but it sure seems like all those math and science geniuses are liberal. How many research university department heads are posting here at Free Republic? How many of those whiz kids in the Silicon Valley come here? They know their math and science. But they can’t seem to be able to figure out how to help our nation.
Curriculum and textbook writers are dominated by liberal and even revolutionary thinkers. Read you kids history book, it will stun you.
Students are allowed to behave as they wish without limits. Combined with mainstreaming all students together regardless of capability, skills, aptitude, attitude and mental health has turned the classroom into a cattle pen of behavioral problems.
Parents will sue for any reason anytime. Administrators are scared to death of this. Special Ed IEPs use more educator time that preparing lessons. Every parent thinks their kid is incapable of being a brat.
Administrators are teachers promoted to their highest level of incompetency. Most principals don't have any experience in operating a large business or dealing with suppliers and contractors. Yet they are placed in near complete charge of financial and facility improvements in their school.
School districts are enamored with computer technology. Computers are the classroom babysitting equivalent of the TV or video game at home. Students that understand the technology are deluded into thinking they are educated because they can access files on a computer that provide answers rather than actually derive an answer from knowledge and analysis.
When given money school districts spend it on new buildings, supplemental technology and motivational seminars/lectures for teacher in service meetings. It rarely goes directly to something that benefits student performance. They never spend it on textbooks and teaching resources, supplies or classroom furnishings.
Way too many teachers are the kids who loved being in school and entered the profession so they could stay in a Peter Pan world.
Beware of any teacher that sponsors all the social clubs. They may not be predators but may be so socially underdeveloped that they identify more with the 15 year olds rather than the adults in their life.
I am a retired high school teacher. I taught vocational classes in electronics and I taught physics and intro to engineering. Before that I spent 9 years in the USAF and then 12 years as a quality assurance engineer in General Dynamics on the Tomahawk, M-1 and F-16 programs.
ping