Posted on 03/21/2005 11:12:45 AM PST by JZelle
Bill Gates has declared American high schools "obsolete." In a Feb. 26 speech to the National Education Summit on High Schools, he said "our high schools — even when they're working exactly as designed — cannot teach our kids what they need to know today." These criticisms are not new, but the fact that America's most successful businessman is concerned about how America will survive in a world that requires educated workers should cause people to take notice. Mr. Gates went on to say he was "terrified for our work force of tomorrow."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
I think some of your ideas make a lot of sense, and they raise some interesting points I had never considered (pay disparity for science vs. English teachers, for instance-- I had never considered it, but I agree with you on that point). The point where I paused, however, was your listing of "immoral" actions that should justify removal as a teacher, where you listed "gave birth to and kept" an illegitimate child or children. Surely you aren't saying that keeping the child is immoral, but aborting it is okay? Why do you believe raising the child is an immoral choice? It seems to me the lack of morality is the sexual intercourse outside marriage; if that is the issue, then whether the child is given for adoption or raised by a birth parent isn't the determining factor. Just because a would-be teacher relinquished his/her out of wedlock child for adoption doesn't make their conduct moral, does it? I'm curious as to why you made that particular distinction. I am guessing that you are thinking that it sets a bad example? I can't agree with the moral policing that you propose, though I do concur with many of your other points. Frankly, I'd just prefer that teachers keep their personal lives out of the classrooms entirely...
I agree with Bill Gates, and here's yet another example of why high school as we know it is a doomed institution. We have been discussing inexpensive ways to fast track kids through high school to avoid the liberal agenda and other idiocies such as this:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1315730/posts?page=84#84
Unfortunately my thread title was not well thought out, because some parents might instinctively skip over it due to attached stigma, whether real or imagined.
Ah, well. I can dream. :'P
Ah, well. I can dream. :'P
While I don't agree with all of your list, a lot of it makes sense. I'd add this one:
X) seperation by gender, K-12.
That's where the really smart kids will go. Anything that requires a hands on approach, and can't be outsourced to Third World labor at a Third World salary.
Same guy said this "640K ought to be enough for anybody."
and this
"Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There's a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning."
We're in SD County and Public Schooling is just NOT an option (unless I'm dead broke and destitute)...
Seems you send your kids to Public School only if you have no other choice...
Oh, yes it is!
Just not for a society we would like to live in.
21) Disallow calculator usage short of trigonometry or statistics classes (9th grade math at least).
Why? I passed trig and calculus without ability to use a calculator....and I was basically lousy at math, athough in the advanced classes at my single sex college prep high school.
There are only so many hours in a school day. If you bring experimental social programs into the curriculum, what are you going to take out? Math? American History? English? No wonder the schools are failing to teach. They're teaching all right, but nothing of value.
Many home schooled high school kids are taking classes at Comminity colleges. I think they are getting sufficient homework loads. Most parents of high schoolers have no problem assigning work to their kids. I'm on a Classical homeschoolers thread, and I guarantee you that those kids do twice the reading that kids in typical high schools do.
Folks have this notion that since most parents don't know ALL the subjects a student needs in high school, that they can't possibly give their kids the education they need. They don't understand that ALL the learning is not done at home and not taught by the parents. Classes are held in co-ops, kids attend college, and sometimes tutors are employed. In many cases, the kids can teach themselves the subjects. This is especially true in Languages Arts and the Humanities where the majority of learning is done by reading about the subject, or reading novels, plays, poetry, etc in Literature.
As a former Math teacher, I think of homework taking up to an hour each night per subject. I was remembering how sympathetic parents are when their kid brings home 14 pages of math to do by the next day. (As a teacher, simply checking off the work becomes a chore, so I can well imagine the parents sympathy.) But it takes work like this for a time to bring these subjects home.
I applaud a reading list of twice the typical high school and would expect it to be followed up with essay discussions of the read material.
My Spanish teacher asked for at least a half hour a night, and at that rate I was NOT really learning spanish. (A summer of 6 hours per day did nicely though.) All I am saying is that there is no substitute for hard work, and while I agree that public school is not carrying the load, I hope home schoolers are not easing up.
Your post is weighted toward the humanities, and while it is true that many kids "teach themselves" (this is sometimes the only way education happens in public schools) the sciences and math fields need support as well.
In other news: Water is wet. Ice is cold. Poison can kill you.
My wife is already teaching my 3.x year old how to write letters and numbers and her first comment was that she could see how inefficient the public schools are. She said he gets it right away and keeps on moving on.
We plan on homeschooling. Either way, there is no chance in hell that my kids attend public schools. If the schools focused on reading, writing, and math, then we wouldn't have these problems. Instead, they spend innumerable hours on "how to get along", "why one minority group's morals supercede the rest of the nation's", "how to 'gear up' for sexual immorality", on top of listening to all sorts of revisionist history that simply isn't true.
"Obsolete" is a good word to describe our public school systems. "Defunct" is another.
While you're at it, require any schoolteacher who is also a parent to enroll their child in the local public school system.
I agree with you on that, but take it a step further. The children of ALL public school employees, from the school board on down should be in the system, not just the children of the teachers.
There are no private schools (other than homeschoolers) in the county where I live and so the vast majority of the children of those employed by the district are in the district schools. It does make a difference.
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