Posted on 10/31/2005 9:04:55 AM PST by SouthernBoyupNorth
Teaching to the lowest common denominator has been going on LONG before NCLB. The problem is not No Child Left Behind, but state laws mandating "inclusion".
What conservatives should remember about NCLB is that 80% of the people in prison can't read!! If you force 3rd and 8th graders to read at grad level it is possible to reduce the prison population. Ask Chuck Colson how many reading programs are needed. Is the price of education the reduction of crime a worthy goal? Colleges are full of more kids that ever, that is not a sign of a poor education system.
The USA still exports more high tech and manufactured goods than any country in the world - that means that some of these high school kids are still doing the job.
A comment made to me about this which has frosted my husband to no end it that the bighter ones become an incentive to the underachievers, they can help them. My husband's attitude to that is "Fine, where's her paycheck if she is expected to teach the others"
Whole language, whole math, group learning, guessing, Earth worship, social justice, etc. etc etc. have been crammed into kids heads for thirty years and NOW the best and brightest are being hurt? Bah.
The reality is that the problem schools will continue to be problem schools. Schools fed with families that don't care about education will continue to fail no matter how many staff changes are made. The problem identified here is that when school district priorities are to "pass the test" then smart kids suffer. Smart kids don't need tests that they could already pass, they need curricula that challenges them and lets them meet their potential.
Test results are needed to show schools what they need to work on, not be the sole input driving the curricula. My personal soapbox on this issue is that the people writing elementary curricula have spent way too much time trying to make it fun and not enough time teaching the basics. Once that opportunity to learn the basics is lost you end up with students in high school that understand the subjects being taught, but lack the basic skills to solve the problem, or communicate the answer. Timed mathematics tests, flash cards, etc. may seem tedious but it worked for me.
Amen. That is exactly what they had been doing in my daughter's school, and she had several teachers such as you describe your son having. Unfotunately, and this makes no sense whatsoever, but the district put the kabosh on the moving around of the brighter kids to meet their needs.
I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I truly believe that the continued increase of this particular school's SOLs because of this policy is why the district killed it - they need a school at the bottom of the barrel and they've picked the one my daughter attends.
No doubt that the United States educational system turns out some of the best and the brightest students in the world.
But to continue to do so, teachers must be held accountable and to high educational standards.
Too many teachers in todays schools are busy telling children what to think about sexual identity,politics,save the whales..how to apply rubbers (and not the kind for feet!)..and pandering to the dullest students that our best and brightest are being held back.
If no child is to be "left behind" special, segregated classes (I'm not talking race, here..but talent)must return to the schools and teachers PROVE their ability to teach (ie accountability).
My personal soapbox on this issue is that the people writing elementary curricula have spent way too much time trying to make it fun and not enough time teaching the basics.
is indisputable, IMO.
I have a nephew suffering through whole math. My Lord, how infuriating. Estimating because they refuse to force memorization of single digit operations, using calculators in third grade. Kids taught that way will never be able to move on to higher levels.
"getting the slower learners into trade schools"
As A guy that finished 69th in a class of 356 and spent his life working with tools I take offense to that remark.
I ask you to think about what you just said the next time you are in a hospital or office building. Look above your head at the drop ceiling tiles and think for a minute what hangs above your head. Duct the size of a couch and in many cases the size of a car, wires that weigh alot more than you, sprinkler pipes as far as the eye can see, and plumbing that would squash you flat.
I ask you to think about the walls that surround you now.
How about reading prints and understanding how, and where all this stuff is installed to protect you from being squashed.
Think about your car and as you drive down a lonely deserted highway in wintertime during the middle of the night with your family inside.
Think about the plane you fly on and then think about the people you say should be sent to trade schools. The 'dumb' ones right? The "slow learners" right? The ones that are putting all this stuff above your head, the ones that maintain your car and your airplane. The ones that build your house.
Today is not your daddy's shop class homeboy!
Slow learners will not make it in todays trade schools anymore than they do in regular schools.
To show you that point I ask you to lay out for me a 13 inch x 13 inch square to round (8 inches) offset 12 inches 3 feet long.
Yeah, that is the place for slow learners huh?
Oh and please do not forget to add in your measurements for pittsburghs (male and female) and your drive connections on the square end.
Now obviously, I do not expect you to post measurements for this duct fitting. It is ficticious in nature on purpose. The point of it is to show you that sending "slow learners" to trade school is a foolish statement and does not bare any resemblance to the reality of 'shop class" today.
It was a bad thing when I was in grade school in California in the mid-70's. In Iowa in the early 70's, I seem to remember that overachieving was rewarded - by the time I got to California, it was punished. Now the whole country has adopted the punishment ideal. ;)
I'm now in favor of "unschooling" for gifted children.
My son is four and the thought of sending him to school scares the bejeebers out of me.
Whatever happened to the multiplication table on the cover of the black and white composition notebooks?
I got so frustratied looking for them that I just went ahead and made one myself. Calculators are rarely used in our house and so our daughter is used to seeing us using paper and pen when balancing the check book or other every day uses of math.......and that's how she is learning.
"But to continue to do so, teachers must be held accountable and to high educational standards."
I agree teachers need to be held to account for teaching standards.
Would you agree that students need to be be held to a standard of learning as well? What about a student prooving their ability and willingness to learn?
NCLB is a success here. My kids school got a blue ribbon award last year for accomplishments by its students. Teachers accountability is one factor but another is represented as well. The other is the level of parental involvment and interaction with the teachers and the children and the school itself. I think this part is often dismissed in many cases where teachers get all the blame.
2 words....
HOME SCHOOL!!!
I think part of the problem with public schools is that they are much like the NEA or AFT, they are designed to protect the mediocre.
You have protected mediocracy promoting more mediocracy.
There is no place to for high expectations or making children rise above the expectation of "average"
I totally agree with you. Parental involvement has much bearing on achievement of the children, the teachers and the school itself. In our school is is openly encouraged by the teachers and the principal - it's the district higher-ups that seem to be discouraging it.
With six of our eight children currently attending school, we are EXPERIENCED in public education. Our oldest two were "privileged" enough to attend a school for the gifted. I cannot describe adequately how much better off the kids are who are admitted to the "gifted" school. However, from the moment of acceptance to the time they move on to middle school, the children at the "gifted" school are told over and over again how special, superior, marvelous, wonderful, exceptional, blah, blah, blah they are. It is quite nauseating. That did not stop us from letting our oldest girls attend the school. It did stop us from wanting our third daughter to attend. I do not think our regular elementary school is prepared to meet her needs because the focus is solely on passing SOLs. I know that the teachers would love to do more with the brightest students, but there is only so much time in the school day. My objective this year is to push TPTB to acknowledge that their system for teaching "gifted" children is inadequate and that they must do more to meet the needs of the students who do not attend their segregated school.
Get involved and informed before you take the doom and gloom of some of the posters on here to heart.
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