Posted on 03/09/2014 7:14:13 AM PDT by Sioux-san
The nine main problems and a relevant link for each:
1) Bad Reading Methods. Whole word (also known as sight-words, Dolch words, and many other aliases) is an 85-year flop that never worked. Children are told to memorize words as graphic designs. For most children, that’s effectively the end of literacy. (Learn about phonics.)
2) Inane Math Instruction. New Math and Reform Math mix advanced concepts with elementary arithmetic, guaranteeing that children are confused and make little progress. Inefficient methods are taught. The rhetoric is that children are learning the meaning behind the numbers. For young children, this is an absurd notion. How many adults know the “meaning" behind 5+2 = 7? (Innumeracy by design.)
3) Contempt For Knowledge. Everywhere in the public schools, we hear this whine: “Why would children need to know THAT?” Many schools scorn the very notion that there is anything in particular the children need to know, even such basics as who was George Washington and how many ounces are in a pound. (Learning stuff is valuable. )
4) Inefficient Teaching Methods. Constructivism is the main handicap in the public schools. This method requires that teachers stop teaching; they must stand passively aside. Meanwhile children are supposed to figure out everything for themselves. This will be a slow and incoherent process. (How constructivism hurts minorities.)......
Here’s how you know that Common Core is up to no good. It does not try to fix any of these problems. Rather, Common Core embraces them all and recycles them into supposedly new standards.
Bruce Deitrick Price explains education theories and methods on his site Improve-Education.org.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Mediocrity is being kind. Way worse that that, methinks.
To fix public education, fix the families of students attending public schools.
I can narrow it down to one reason...Government Control!
Nine reasons?
NEA^9
Number 10: Teacher Unions. (Actually my number 1)
All this talk about "why public schools wallow in mediocrity" is misleading. Public schools wallow in mediocrity because they are mediocre by design.
What chance does the Second Amendment have once the products of this indoctrination machine are the low information voting majority?
How about the gubmint keep their fangs out of education? There is no “right” to education, just like there is no right to anything but life and liberty. It is your own responsibility to educate your progeny, not mine or anybody else’s. Besides, it is about competition — if your children are educated, then they will compete against mine in the future; so, why should I (be forced to) spend my money on yours and why should you on mine? It is insane. Besides, if only select few are truly educated, then the value of education will be high and things matter.
When every freak holds a degree, what is the point of having education?
There is only one - unions
Environmental Nazism, Socialism, Global Warming, Diversity and the list continues. Time for instruction that takes up huge hours throughout a child’s education, with one or more underlined in every class.
Only 1 reason is needed to be known: Schools are run by liberals.
Social ambivalence instead of standards. There is no right or wrong. Johnny has no daddy, two mommies twelve step siblings...”what difference does it make” so long as he has a village?
I can’t believe that the whole word reading method has not been discarded as ineffective decades ago. My older brother and sister (now in their 70s) were taught that way and according to my mother struggled with reading. I attended the same school, but was taught phonics. My children fortunately had a very good first grade teacher who watered down the whole word method again in vogue and taught them phonics. However the whole word method is still being used. Can’t someone in the education establishment finally acknowledge that phonics works best instead of continuing to cripple generations of people with poor reading skills?
Busing city trash out to all the suburban schools.
Whole word (also known as sight-words, Dolch words, and many other aliases) is an 85-year flop that never worked.
And yet...there it is, in the schools, STILL being used without causing the vast majority of people involved to wonder: WHY!!?
If you want to fix family values via demographics then accept immigrants only from Asia. Strong family values and strong appreciation for education and respect for teachers. Had a buddy of mine in Brooklyn NY. Worked in a poor school initially mixed black and white in the 1970’s. Most of the students had an attitude, no respect for discipline. All rebellious and parents were weak. Then in the late 1990’s demographic change, Asian immigrants were moving in. Koreans and Chinese. Most were poor and barely speak English, but most had parents that made their kids understand that education is important and good grades in school meant chance to go to college. It was like night and day. The school has one of the lowest spendings per student, but the Asians excel. The only threat to discipline was Asian youth gangs. Outside of that the kids were well behaved. Parents will kick their butts if the teacher complained about the kid. By the time these Asian kids left HS they can read English, do math and enroll in college. The only area they did not do well was verbal English.
Tony Brown a black journalist and talk show host once compared the failing grades blacks and whites shared compared to Asians, he joked about busing, “bus my kids to Chinatown”.
Parents who value education and discipline are an important factor. I have heard many a teacher, public or private, state “the nut doesn’t fall too far from the tree”. This applies to the social behaviour as well as the aptitude of the student. I could go on but I think you can see the connection.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.