Originally Posted by Cheshire_cat

I'm not saying just let them sit at home; bring back vocational schools and send them there; not to college prep schools. Why send them to a school that is preparing them for college when they are not going to college?

I love the idea of vocational schools. I think they are represented in my chart by the line that says "Professional", though that may be Doctors and Attorneys. The problem is, I don't consider High School preparation for college so much as preparation for life. The basic math training provides logic and problem solving skills which can be used in any job as well as fixing your own kitchen sink. The basic reading and writing levels required for any job you find yourself in. The basic history to help elect representatives who aren't idiots (Can you believe the Palestinians "Elected" Hamas?). Failure to get as close to 100% of our society through this very basic life training I see as damaging to our society on the whole. It's like mandatory training on how and where to take a cr*p, wipe your butt, and wash your hands afterwards.

I heard Newt Gingrich, a very bright guy, endorse the idea of using financial incentives to get kids through school(pay them). Maybe mandatory military enrollment for those who fail to graduate high school by a certain age, during such enrollment, they would also be forced through high school, as well as provided the other post military educational incentives we have. It all sounds a little too socialist for my blood, but I believe in the cause.

Up here we have a dedicated vocational school that is a huge success..

A plan I had thought of was similar to cbwm -

Go to High School -
Don't do well, or not that type of student - go to voc school
Don't do well, or are a punk - welcome to the army..

Yes, the poor will have a proportionally higher percentage going in to the military, but they are POOR, at least this way they will learn a trade, be housed and fed, and learn a purpose in life.. Better than porchin' thier life away..

Sorry guys - that's not the way it works. You can not force people into something like the military any more than you can force women on welfare to have a tubal ligation.

So far..

Seem to remember a time not all that long ago where you could be forced in to the military.. Look at countries like Israel, 2 years active duty in the service, for everyone..

it's not with the education system, it's with the student..now the role of school must make the students realize that education is for their future....

As a mom with a step-child in college and two in school, there are major problems with the education system. Part of the problem is also with parents. In order to fix the education system there needs to be changes on both sides.

Standardized testing would work to a certain extent - if there were better consequences when the results are below standards. Some of the NY school systems hold the teachers personally accountable for how their students score on the standardized tests. The scores effect the teacher's salary and continuing education requirements to maintain their teaching license. While this gives the teacher a powerful incentive to be more attentive to the students, it also can be unfair to the teacher. If there are 30 kids in a class, 5 of them might have a stable home environment where their parents are involved in their lives, take an active role in their education and discipline. 15-20 of them might have one or both parents working two or more jobs to support the family and are never home. As a result it is the student that is responsible for caring for younger siblings, maintaining grades, doing housework, etc. The remainder of kids in the class are probably middle or upper class whose parents may or may not care about their education. At best half of the student's parents might be involved. The probability is high that at least 1/3 of the class has some sort of learning disability or was labeled as learning disabled without a proper diagnosis.

Forcing military service on kids is not the answer. Neither is there a one sided, simple answer to fixing the education system.

Originally Posted by KML9870

Forcing military service on kids is not the answer. Neither is there a one sided, simple answer to fixing the education system.

I don't believe in the "magic bullet" theory either. I would present that the military resolves many of the problems you listed... stable home environment... food the stomach to power the brain for test taking and studying. Israel isn't the only country with mandatory military service, though it is the only one that I can think of that drafts both men and women. I've heard many a story, first and second hand, of how the military has helped to instill values, organization, and to provide structure which may have never been provided during a rocky upbringing.

That said, there will still be some portion who would not be accepted or, even after acceptance, would wash out and fail. It would still likely increase the percentage of our population with a basic education. It would also solve the problem of extended tours of duties in Iraq, and allow us to rattle a more threatening saber at Iran.

Originally Posted by Learning Newbie

We all remember the quote from almost 30 years ago, “If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.” An educated next generation is in everybody's best interest, except maybe the people running for public office.

That quote was from the Reagan-era National Commission on Excellence in Education, written in 1983, and ignored shortly after. There's a link to their report here. I'd pay close attention to the recommendations that they made, and see how many of them you think really were achieved. There's your biggest answer to what's wrong with our schools now.

Originally Posted by Learning Newbie

Here are the questions I'd like to ask:
1. What, specifically, is wrong with our education system?

A. Outcome-Based Education: What this has become is teaching children to take tests, not teaching them to learn and apply material. It the specific lack of the latter of these that OBE fails.

B. Social Promotion, Mainstreaming and "Self-Esteem": Self-esteem, so far as the schools should be concerned, should be something earned through being able to learn and apply the subjects being taught. You fail, you don't advance. Being able to advance a grade should be available for those who learn more quickly. Mainstreaming fails those who need additional help, those who are academically gifted, and those with specific disabilities. In the latter of these cases I'd argue that specific schools, such as those for deaf and blind, had far better resources to teach students with those disabilities, and reformatory schools can better deal with problem kids, especially since discipline has largely been removed from school systems.

C. Discipline: Should be brought back, including corporal punishment. Though I know some here disagree, when I was in school it was allowed, but the need to use it was rare, and was only applied by a principal as one of the last possible disciplinary resources. At least back then, pretty much anyone who got disciplined at school could expect that much or worse at home. It was viewed as a cooperative effort between schools and parents. It should be kept in mind, as well, that corporal punishment is NOT illegal in most states; its use has just been discarded by changes in school policy in most cases. By doing that we can return to a focus on excellence in the basics.

D. Whole Language and similar teaching methods: If Whole Language is such a "success", why is Hooked on Phonics still selling like hotcakes? Why are companies like Sylvan raking in the dough? Is it possibly because the old way of teaching wasn't "broke", and the "fix" has left our kids in the lurch? Surely all those kids don't really ALL have ADD?

Originally Posted by Learning Newbie

2. What can we do to fix it?

Doing away with OBE, mainstreaming, social promotion, and bringing back discipline would be a start, the first step to bringing back tried and true teaching methods.

Decentralizing the schools would be key in achieving that. Money is NOT the issue it's made out to be. Ten years ago we spent an average of $6,300 per student per year; the average now approaches $10,000, and our kids are dumber than ever. Most of that money spent goes into reporting to state and Federal authorities. Now, bear in mind this recommendation from that 1983 commission (ironically, the same one that, with a change of the guard, ignored it):

In addition, we believe the Federal Government's role includes several functions of national consequence that States and localities alone are unlikely to be able to meet: protecting constitutional and civil rights for students and school personnel; collecting data, statistics, and information about education generally; supporting curriculum improvement and research on teaching, learning, and the management of schools; supporting teacher training in areas of critical shortage or key national needs; and providing student financial assistance and research and graduate training. We believe the assistance of the Federal Government should be provided with a minimum of administrative burden and intrusiveness.

Originally Posted by Learning Newbie

3. Assuming it can be fixed (I think it can), do we want that to apply to everybody, or only students with rich parents? In other words, do we want an educated public, or a class of ivory tower elites?

It should apply to everyone, and unless we fix these problems the rift between haves and have nots will deepen, and the already shrinking middle class will disappear.

Keep in mind, too, that desegregation actually affected schools everywhere. Historically black schools, segregated by law or by fact, still didn't get a fair shake. But integration by busing happened everywhere, and those schools still didn't get the resources they needed. Then suddenly some of those schools became magnet schools, which got the funding but excluded most of the kids in those neighborhoods, another slap in the face. So if you're asking about fixing the "system" for everyone, I say yes, fix if for everyone, and stop leaving minorities holding the bag. Stop wasting money on busing and magnet schools and let's start distributing school resources equitably.

tim

Postscript: I'm currently reading the deliberate dumbing down of america, written by Charlotte Iserbyt, former Senior Policy Advisor in the US Department of Education. So far she's pretty much on the mark. The PDF version of her book is available free at http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/.

Something I forgot to add: Keep Social Services and the Health Department in their proper place. Two things most Americans don't know:

1. Many teachers these days try to teach kids that if they're spanked they can call on Social Services. Keep in mind that in most states corporal punishment is NOT illegal, and IS differentiated from real abuse. One of our kids tried to tell us that line and where it came from. The first thing we did is handed him the phone, told him to go ahead and call, and told him truthfully what would happen if he did when they arrived. Suddenly he decided discipline was better than being a permanent foster kid. Then we went to set the teacher, principal and superintendent straight.

2. School systems get additional funding for every kid they can identify as having a learning disability. So does the Health Department. Gee, I wonder if that's why there's so many kids being diagnosed with ADD? (Or autism, the new diagnosis of choice)
The schools recommended that our youngest child be evaluated by the Health Dept. They were incensed when my wife found a reputable child psychiatrist who refused to report to them.

What's the moral of the story? Schools are failing because they've tried to step out of the realm of teaching.

tim

The basics need re-examining. First, what does it take to be a "good citizen?" By the standards of public education today, being a good citizen means taking orders, becoming a zombie consumerist, never questioning authority, thinking of yourself first, and obtaining little or no critical thinking skills. In particular, the lack of this last category has the US heading in the direction of a fanatical regime. People don't know how to deconstruct or read "news" and this leads to a polarized, distracted, and impotent citizenry. Perhaps that's the point? I don't know. But the educational system needs a transparent reckoning of their intended function. Is it just to create economic powerhouses? Then we may as well make every school a trade school (like universities are becoming). Should schools produce "well-rounded" citizens? Apart from the obvious obesity puns, they seem to do a terrible job at that. "Improving the schools" begs the question of what the school's function is. Improving grades isn't really an answer, either, because what standard will the grades measure? A very complicated issue.

^^I just realized how much of a negligent or a bad citizen I am...

The best way to fix the "public" education system, is to do away with it.

Private, free market schooling would be much, much more beneficial.