Posted on 04/21/2004 3:02:46 PM PDT by BurkesLaw
"All men by nature desire to know," said Aristotle. Either Aristotle was wrong, or public education is failing to awaken the academic desires of American students.
According to a new Manhattan Institute for Policy Research study funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, only 32 percent of recent high school graduates were qualified to attend a four-year college. In addition, the report showed that the high school graduation rate remains depressingly low at only 70 percent.
For years, American education experts have been alarmed at the growing inability of public school students and graduates to compete academically with peers in other industrialized democratic countries. As Charles Sykes wrote in his revolutionary 1990s book, Dumbing Down our Kids: Why America's Children Feel Good about Themselves but Can't Read, Write, or Add , "When the very best American students -- the top one percent -- are measured against the best students of other countries, America's best and brightest finished at the bottom."
While Sykes may have exaggerated the problem, it is true that America's students are average at best.
According to the most recent academic comparison study by the Program for International Student Assessment, of students in 32 developed countries, 14 countries score higher than the U.S. in reading, 13 have better results in science, and 17 score above America in mathematics.
It isn't as though American students aren't scoring first places any more. A survey by the Princeton Testing Service shows that American students rank highest amongst industrialized democracies for amount of time spent watching videos in class. And William Moloney, chairman of the Washington, D.C. based Education Leaders Council -- a coalition of reform minded political and educational leaders -- writes that American students feel better about their math skills that any other country in the free world, while Korean students (who feel worst about their math skills) outscore everyone else in math.
The characteristics of self-esteem-obsessed, video-watching schools are manifested in the frustrations of America's higher education system. According to the Evergreen Freedom Foundation in Olympia, more than 40 percent of recent Washington State high school graduates attending community college enrolled in remedial courses to prepare them for college-level work. But a public-school system that transfers responsibility for learning basic knowledge to higher education isn't giving taxpayers and parents a return for their money. More damaging, the failure of elementary schools to prepare students for their future hurts America economically, socially, and intellectually.
Over the past century, public education has devolved from the classical approach of character plus basics (reading, writing, arithmetic, respect, and responsibility), to skills, to psychological-social engineering....
(Excerpt) Read more at iconoclast.ca ...
Slightly off topic, but does you state provide in state or reduced tuition for illegal aliens? And what is the effect on your education system of the number of illegal aliens, particularly non English speaking, in your school systems?
Actually, it looks like the teacher did a pretty good job. You did score a 198 out of 200 on a test you would have probably flunked if the teacher's statement hadn't motivated you to study.
LOL?
The tuition isn't free. It's just that someone else is paying it for you.
Aristotle was right. And government schools are a success, because schools were never intended to "awaken the academic desires of American students."
BTTT
And the greatest ed stat of all. Public school teachers send their children to private schools at twice the rate of the general population: 20% vs. 10%.
Missouri is "poor" right now because our state tax rate is already one of the lowest in the country (that's a *good* thing.) We also can't raise taxes unless the populace affected by the tax votes it in (also a good thing.) Finally, our state income got smashed in the dot-bomb, because so many people paid so much less state income tax. We fund higher education out of state income taxes (and some federal funding)as well as tuitions (which have doubled in the past 8 years.)
As far as illegal aliens go, I don't think we've had them long enough for college to be an issue, although I think it will soon enough. The biggest effect has been on local rural school districts, where illegals come in to work in the chicken and hog processing plants. Their children *flood* these rural MO schools, which simply aren't equipped to deal with either the numbers or the language barrier.
I don't think there are that many illegals in the St. Louis inner city schools, but I haven't checked recently. I know that Bosnians make up about 80% of the English as a Second Language classes there, but they're legal.
We're not a terribly liberal state, though, so I don't think mau-mauing the state legislature about in-state tuition for illegals would go very far, even if it did come to that. Hope that helps.
You are correct. But what message does society send to parents when people with guns take children away from them at age five to be schooled?
On the other hand, a voucher system respects parents' fundamental right to be the primary educators of their children. Our system of compulsory schooling is appropriate for a totalitarian regime, not a free society.
I'm sure they could have. If someone can pass that test at 8th grade, they shouldn't *have* to go to high school at all.
But there really is a difference between a GED and a tough college-prep program. That's what the "failing public schools" mantra doesn't address - that we really do have a three-tier system, one for the "remediates," a middle-of-the-road college prep, and a high-intensity college prep track taken by about 10% of the students.
That's a matter of what the *colleges* wish to do to admit someone, and I don't think that should be the engine that pulls the high school train. If an engineering school requires high school calculus for admission, and the GED barely covers geometry, it still makes no sense to expect "every child" to do the Lake Wobegon thing and take calculus. Let those who can barely master geometry take an exit exam equivalent to the GED and *leave.*
That's my eight-year-old. She gets up at six, takes out the lesson plan (from Seton), does her work by herself, and is usually done by 9 AM. Mom checks her work when she's done, or helps her with anything that she's having trouble with.
My daughter's one year ahead of her age group in all subjects, and two years ahead in English/Reading.
But most importantly, her religion is integrated with all her coursework. She knows an astonishing amount of factual information regarding her faith. Dad helps to reinforce that. 8-)
I hear you. I think that what you're describing is just least-common-denominator *good parenting,* where the parents are involved with and responsive to their kids.
I've been reading for years about this so-called "Japanese miracle" in education, trying to sort through the hype and the truth. One thing Japanese mothers do with their infants and toddlers is raise them *very* intensively. I had just read about this till one of our children took Japanese in a Saturday school here. There I got to observe many Japanese mothers with their young children.
They are always *aware* of their kids - always talking to them, directing them with very gentle physical movements, always paying attention to what they say. There's a mother-child closeness there that's quite different than many Americans show. From what I know (admittedly limited), preschool isn't a big thing in Japan, either. Mom is not only home with her child but really focused on him. Also, most Japanese mothers start teaching their children to read katakana / hiragana (the non-Chinese phonetic syllabary script) at age 3 or so: they can do this because there are *no* spelling rules; it's all purely phonetic.
Then it all comes crashing to a halt when the child enters school at age 6 or so, and he has to fit into this rigid academic culture, where bullying is largely ignored, there are 40 kids in a class, and it's feet on the floor - eyes forward all the time, and the memorization of thousands of kanji (Chinese characters) begins.
I think however that intensive early childhood focus probably does help many Japanese kids to learn very effectively once they get to school, and it's all because of the "kyoiku mama" - the mother who devotes herself 100% to her child's school success.
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